River Deep by Rowan Coleman Page A

life, and the last thing she wanted was him getting the wrong idea. Although, to be fair, he was so wrapped up in this Stella you could probably twirl batons naked in front of him and he wouldn’t notice. ‘Yeah, maybe, that’d be nice,’ she said instead, as she escorted Becca outside.
    ‘Oh. My. God,’ Becca said, leaning against the wall of the café and fanning her face with both hands.
    Maggie smiled. ‘What about Justin?’ she asked as she pulled Becca off the wall and linked arms with her as they headed home.
    ‘Forget Justin.’ Becca glanced back at the café. ‘Pete is the dog’s bollocks!’
    ‘Don’t tell your mother I let you swear,’ Maggie said, shaking her head.
    ‘I won’t,’ Becca promised. ‘It’s just that I’ve never been properly in love before.’

Chapter Eleven
    ‘Wow, Mum, look at that intercity go! How fast is it going, do you think?’
    Sam held on to the sleeve of his mum’s jacket as the train rattled through the station at speed, and Maggie smiled as she watched Sarah offer up her best guess as an answer.
    Sam was an unusual seven-year-old, to say the least, with his somewhat eccentric insistence on wearing his hair in an unruly afro, his smooth mid-brown skin set off by his light grey eyes, and his unwavering passion for musicals. He had Sarah’s eyes, the only bit about him that was obviously her; the rest of him was a carbon copy of his father. He was still at that sweet stage, still into trains and JCVs (and
Cats
, the musical), still thought his mum knew everything and still, on the whole, obeyed her.
    The very fact that Becca took exactly the opposite position on all of these points had been causing a fair amount of tension recently. Maybe it was because Marcus, Sam’s dad, had insisted on being in his life and had tried for a long time to be in Sarah’s too, that Sam seemed so unflappable and grounded. Maybe it was because Marcus and Sarah had had a good relationship that had become a great friendship. Sam had never known life without his dad. He spent every Saturday and a large amount of holiday with his father, and sometimes his extended Afro-Caribbean family. He had a very strong sense of the two cultures he came from, and he seemed to feel perfectly at home in his own world, which Maggie knew was quite some achievement on the part of both of his parents.
    Becca, on the other hand, only knew life without her father, except for the bits of information she’d picked up or eavesdropped from her mother over the years out of which she had created a shadowy, dreamlike figure. A rich American who would one day come and beg her forgiveness and sweep her off to a better life, Maggie imagined. Maggie felt for Becca. She remembered her similar hopes for the civil servant from Kensington. But at least she’d had a dad to hold on to or to push against. Becca only had Sarah and, right now at least, she clearly didn’t think it was enough.
    ‘Here, Sam,’ Becca was telling her brother seriously. ‘If you stand in front of this yellow line, the next time the train comes through it will suck you under its wheels and you’ll get squashed to death.’ Sam giggled and Sarah rolled her eyes.
    ‘Get back from the edge, you two, our train is coming in.’ Sarah looked down the line to where the city-link train was lurching towards the platform. ‘I hope you’re grateful about all this,’ she told Maggie as she helped Sam on to the train. ‘I’m expecting about a hundred years of payback. And cash.’
    Maggie smiled, despite the total absence of humour in her friend’s voice.
    ‘I will be paying you back my whole life, I promise, in love and thanks and large vodkas and a free lunch today,’ she told Sarah, who looked at her as if she didn’t think that was nearly enough.
    ‘Ohhh Mum, look at that crane!’ Sam grabbed his mum by the arm and pointed out of the window.
    Maggie glanced at Becca, who had shut her eyes and was feigning sleep. The tension, the anticipation