Homework by Margot Livesey Page A

couldn’t come,” said Joyce.
    He promptly pulled out the chair beside me and sat down.
    â€œYou’re making bread,” he said.

    â€œYes, but I only just started. It still has to rise. Did people like your loaf?” He nodded. Joyce turned towards me. “Everyone in Raven’s class had to make something and explain how it worked. Raven chose bread. He drew pictures of all the stages and took the loaf he’d made to school.” As she spoke, Joyce was opening and closing the refrigerator, slipping bread into the toaster, slicing some cheese. “Tomato or cucumber?” she asked.
    â€œTomato, please. Do you know how yeast works?”
    I shook my head, and Raven launched into an explanation. Yeast, it turned out, was a fungus. Joyce set a cheese sandwich in front of him, but he refrained from eating until he was sure that I understood the whole process; then he turned to his sandwich with equal seriousness. As soon as he had finished, Joyce asked him to carry a thermos of coffee out to Edward and Stephen. He thanked her for the sandwich and went to do her bidding.
    After the door had closed behind him, Joyce smiled at me. “So now you know everything about yeast.”
    â€œYes. What a nice boy.” I carried my coffee cup over to the sink. Something about Raven’s initial hesitation had made me think that he was relieved rather than otherwise to find Jenny absent. “Do he and Jenny get on well?” I asked.
    Joyce looked up from wiping the counter. “I think they do. Sometimes when he comes to the house Jenny is a bit standoffish. I suspect she doesn’t like the fact that Raven gets to see more of us than she does; she can be quite territorial, as maybe you’ve noticed. Now,” she said briskly, “what are we going to have for lunch?”

CHAPTER 7
    When we left, late on Sunday afternoon, Joyce and Edward walked out to the car with us. “Come again soon,” Joyce said. “We’re always here.” She put her arms around me, and briefly I was enveloped in the sweet odour of baking. She released me, and Edward stepped forward to shake my hand; he too urged me to return.
    Stephen hugged both his parents. “Thank you for everything. We’ll be in touch soon.” He climbed into the car beside me and started the engine. We turned onto the main road. “You see,” he said, “they like you. You’ll have to tell Suzie that it is possible.”
    I smiled. As we drove through the village, I looked at the houses on either side of the road, each in the middle of its tidy garden. The approval of Stephen’s parents, like the keystone of an arch, I thought, completed our union. I placed my hand lightly on his leg. “Joyce really misses Jenny,” I said.
    â€œI know. When do you think would be a good weekend to take her for a visit?”
    â€œMaybe in a fortnight?” We had passed beyond the village, and as Edward had told me, the road was bordered by muddy fields; in some, flocks of sheep were grazing among the turnips.
    â€œA fortnight is Valentine’s Day, and I want to be romantic with you, not go home to my parents.”
    I leaned my head on his shoulder. “But then it will be three weeks before we can go again, unless we go next Friday.”

    â€œThat’s too soon. Joyce would start to get on my nerves if I saw her two weekends in a row.”
    â€œWhy don’t we invite her to come to Edinburgh for the day?”
    â€œNow there’s a good idea. We could go on some sort of outing together, and no one would have time to be badly behaved. Good.” He squeezed my hand.
    I was still sitting with my head on his shoulder, gazing out of the window, when suddenly I saw an arrow of geese flying purposefully across the grey sky. “Look,” I said. Stephen stopped the car and we got out. The lonely cries of the geese filled the air, and as they flew low over the road, we could