Chapter One
A Stranger With a Cake
Enna had asked for a photograph of her family. The man in it was new.
He came through the covered passage just as the timer finished, holding a cake box at the level of his heart. Her mother was pointing at his shoes. Jem had shut both eyes. Enna, who had been hurrying back from the phone, appeared to be escaping them all.
For a moment nobody moved. Then the man looked from the phone to the three faces before him.
"Have I ruined something important?"
"Only my mother's belief that we can be trusted with a camera," Enna said.
"I had very little belief left," Siewen told him.
Jem opened one eye. "Is the cake for us?"
"Jem."
"It's a relevant question."
The man lowered the box. His smile began on one side, as if he were trying not to encourage them. "It was for your grandmother. But I hadn't realised there would be an admission charge."
Enna straightened. At thirty four she could still be made conscious of her knees by an attractive stranger. She brushed a piece of grit from her cream trousers and attempted to look like a person who had never crouched behind a planter giving instructions to her own relatives.
Her mother took the cake.
"This is Tavin. He has moved into the building opposite."
"And he was doing so well until now," Enna said.
