Elen Morgan’s voice is neutral, but Ffion has thirty years’ experience interpreting her mam’s stirring techniques, and the way she’s snatching at the wooden spoon right now doesn’t bode well.
Sixteen-year-old Seren bounces out of a pile of blankets on the big chair by the window. “They found a—”
“Let your sister have some breakfast before we get into that.” Mam’s sharp voice cuts across Seren.
Ffion looks at Seren. “They found a what?”
Seren looks at Mam’s back and rolls her eyes.
“I saw that.”
“God, you’re good, Mam.” Ffion lifts the kettle from the Aga, sloshing it to check how much water’s in it before moving it onto the hot plate. “Did you ever think of joining the Secret Service? I imagineeyes in the back of your headare right up there with jiujitsu and fluent Russian.” She plugs in her phone, dead since the previous evening. “How was the swim, anyway?”
“It wasn’t.” Seren shoots a defiant look at Mam. “I was only in up to my knees when they made us all get out.”
“How come?”
“Well, if you’d been there, you’d know,” Mam says tightly.
“I overslept.”
“At Mia’s?”
Ffion gives a noncommittalmmm. Seren—sharp as a tack—looks between Mam and Ffion, instantly alert to the possibility of drama.
“Because I’m told she was at the party till late.”
Mia Williams. Two years ahead of Ffion at school: the sort of age gap that gives you nothing in common in your teens and everything in common a decade later. They are friends by default rather than choice, Ffion always thinks; who else would they drink with if not each other?
“Mam, I’m a grown—”
“And Ceri left early and saw your car heading out of the village.”
Ceri Jones, the postwoman. Is it any wonder, Ffion thinks, that she prefers to do her socializing away from the town? You can’t fart in Cwm Coed without it making the front page.
“I had an errand to run.” The kettle whistles, harsh and insistent, as though challenging Ffion’s lie. She finds a clean mug and drops in a tea bag.
“On New Year’s Eve?”
“Mam, stop being—”
“I worry about you. Is that a crime?”
“I’m perfectly safe.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Elen turns to look at her grown-up daughter, voice low, expression loaded. “It can’t make you happy, Ffi.”
Ffion holds her gaze. “It does, actually.”
Mam settled down too young, that was the trouble. Elen was seventeen when she’d met Ffion’s dad, nineteen when they married. She’d never slept around, never even dated anyone else. How could she possibly understand how good no-strings sex could be? Howliberating?
“Anywaaay…” Ffion changes the subject with a single drawn-out word, turning to Seren for sibling solidarity. “Why weren’t you allowed to swim?”
“Because someone only bloody died!” The gossip bursts out of the girl like water from a dam.
Mam cracks the tea towel at Seren. “Watch your language.”
“Ow!”