Ryan’s mother telephones, early in the morning in late August, with the hazy sun just beginning to bounce off the granite tops of Nan’s kitchen counters, with his exam results.
“Isn’t that wonderful, dear?” she asks, her voice almost shrill. “Isn’t that great? You’ll be able to go anywhere you want with those results!”
“Yeah,” Ryan says. “Great.”
“So where do you want to go? You really should rethink Bristol, you know. And Southampton would be lovely, I think; by the coast again, just like when we lived in Weymouth. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
He doesn’t listen to much of the rest, fingers toying with the apple he was in the middle of eating when she called, and thinks—not of his results, but (as is the norm, these days) of Alex.
Has he received a letter, like the one Mum is telling him a
