Mum was Eddie’s older sister. By three years, but while Eddie looked nearly sixty now with his craggy face and bald head, Mum was permanently thirty in Tab’s mind. Pretty, artistic, impossibly young. No matter what, that was the memory of her that Tab clung to.
She’d wanted to be a painter. Once upon a time, she’d just been Sarah Barnes and had wanted to be a painter and see the world. But she’d gone all experimental and stuff in college, apparently. Hung out with the wrong types. Not like bad types. They weren’t bad. But they were all into drugs and weird philosophies and squatting and stuff. And it hadn’t been how Sarah and Eddie were brought up.
Mum—or rather, Mum now—was why Eddie hated any and all narcotics. He didn’t even let Tab have more than three pints in the flat. Because Mum
