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delight. His irreverence excited, seduced and appalled me; and being appalled by Mr Brecht was a thrill in itself.
    At those times, Ellen would hide away somewhere for as long as she could bear to be alone, but eventually she always turned up, sucking a strand of hair, scowling. Mr Brecht would pretend he hadn’t noticed her for a while then suddenly he’d leap over to where she was standing, pick her up and swing her round; he danced outrageously with her, she holding on for dear life as he galloped around the garden. My girl! Mr Brecht would sing, leaning forward so Ellen had to arch her back, and usually by this time she would be laughing, no matter how hard she tried not to: it was impossible to sulk when Mr Brecht was trying to make you happy. ‘ Dancing round with my girl! ’ he sang, waltzing around the pond swinging Ellen until she was flushed with dizziness and joy.
    Mr Brecht had employed a local man, Adam Tremlett, to work on the garden, and he and Mrs Brecht would laugh as they watched.
    ‘It’s so good to be back,’ Mrs Brecht would say, and she and Adam would exchange smiles.
    I used to spend hours wondering what I could do to make Mr Brecht so pleased with me that he’d dance with me like he did with Ellen. There had to be something that would make him look at me the way he looked at her, with such love, with such complete adoration.
    ‘I am the luckiest man in the world,’ he used to say. ‘I have the most beautiful wife and the loveliest daughter, and I will never, ever let anyone hurt them or take them away from me!’
    A few weeks after we first met, Ellen and I were playing upstairs, when she sent me to fetch some juice. In the passageway outside the kitchen, I overheard Mrs Brecht and Mrs Todd talking in suspiciously quiet voices. I crept to the door, put my ear to the crack and listened.
    ‘Hannah’s such a nice, uncomplicated child,’ Mrs Brechtsaid. ‘She’s a good influence.’ I felt a clutch of pleasure in my stomach. ‘Don’t you think Ellen seems calmer now, Mrs Todd?’
    ‘She has settled down,’ the other woman agreed. ‘But it’s not Ellen’s fault she’s precocious.’
    Mrs Brecht laughed. ‘You always defend her, but there’s a fine line, Mrs Todd, between being precocious and being an over-indulged little monster!’
    I went back upstairs without the juice, but I did not forget what Mrs Brecht had said about Ellen. I kept her words in my mind and turned them over and looked at them from different angles, and each time I came to the same conclusion. Ellen must have a great capacity for being bad, for her own, gentle mother to speak of her like that.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    JOHN TOOK ME to a small Turkish restaurant tucked away in the back streets of Easton. It was packed with people, its cave-like interior twinkling with red and gold fairy-lights that matched the decor. We were shown to a small table, beside the wall. A candle flickered inside a glass jar the colour of blood. The tablecloth was decorated with spangles that reminded me of a shawl Ellen had given me for my fourteenth birthday. I used to wear it wrapped around my waist when I went to the beach. I remembered the dazzle of sunlight on the glass diamonds sewn around the hem, and a picture came into my mind of Ellen tanned, lying on the sand, shading her eyes from the glare with one hand, leaning on her elbow, smiling at me, and the teenage Jago standing behind her, wet from the sea, watching, dripping, with a towel around his bony shoulders dotted with acne.
    I blinked the image away, slid into the seat, unfolded the paper napkin on my lap. John ordered wine. The waiter brought a bottle, opened it and filled our glasses then fetched a large plate of meze. I broke off a piece of warm pitta bread and dipped it in the hummus.
    ‘So how are you feeling now?’ John asked.
    ‘I’m OK. Just a bit tired.’
    John looked at me, but did not push it. I knew I could trust him, but I could not tell the truth about what had