The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness Page B

true.
    Mei looked at Rachel. ‘Was he?’
    ‘On your mum’s side?’ Rachel said, looking perplexed, in a way that was perplexing to Amanda.
    ‘No, my dad,’ she said. ‘My dad’s American.’
    ‘No, he isn’t,’ Rachel laughed. ‘Your dad’s British? I’ve met him? Like more than once? You’re such a little liar, Amanda. It isn’t clever? And it isn’t funny?’
    ‘Excuse me,’ Amanda said. ‘I think I know the nationality of my own father.’
    ‘Whatever you say,’ Rachel said, taking a sip of her coffee.
    ‘Maybe you’re thinking of your
step
father,’ Mei said, obviously worried they were being too unkind.
    ‘My stepfather is also American,’ Amanda frowned. ‘My mother clearly has a type.’ This wasn’t true either. Hank was American, yes, but he was big, strapping and black. He couldn’t have been more different from George if George had been a woman. ‘My mother is British, but my father is definitely American.’
    Rachel just raised her eyebrows and carried on looking at Mr Three O’Clock.
    ‘Ask his new girlfriend, if you don’t believe me,’ Amanda said, but quietly, because she’d given up.
    ‘New girlfriend?’ Rachel asked, surprisingly sharply.
    ‘He’s dating?’ Mei said, mouth open. ‘At his age?’
    ‘He’s forty-eight,’ Amanda said. ‘Hardly even out of range for either of you.’
    ‘Eew?’ Rachel said. ‘Don’t be gross?’ She flicked another olive out of her pasta. ‘So what’s she like then? Your new stepmother-to-be?’
    Amanda wondered that herself. George had been even more unfocused this week than usual. He’d first called her with a story she couldn’t quite follow about a bird landing in his back garden and then flying away, a story she’d eventually convinced him must have been a dream, before suddenly announcing this morning that he’d been seeing a new woman who’d wandered into his shop. He’d sounded so open and vulnerable that the worry about what would inevitably happen – this was George, after all – made her a little bit sick.
    ‘Hardly a new stepmum,’ Amanda said. ‘It’s only been a few dates, and I haven’t even met her. All I know is she’s called Kumiko and–’
    ‘Kumiko?’ Rachel said. ‘What kind of name is that?’
    ‘Japanese,’ Mei said, eyes laser-like. ‘Very common name.’
    ‘I’m not sure about that, but from what he says, she seems really nice.’
    ‘If she puts up with your allegedly American father, she must be?’ Rachel said, draining the last of her wine.
    ‘What’s
that
supposed to mean?’ Amanda asked, but only got to ‘What’s
that–’
when the football thumped her in the back of the head so hard she practically went face down into the picnic basket.
    ‘Sorry,’ said Mr Three O’Clock, leaning in dynamically to retrieve the ball.
    ‘What the
fuck
?’ Amanda said, hand on the back of her head, but she stopped when she saw Rachel laughing in her most attractive way, boobs pushed up like an offering.
    ‘Don’t worry about it?’ Rachel said. ‘She deserved it for telling porky pies?’
    Mr Three O’Clock laughed and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. ‘Is this picnic ladies-only or can any riffraff join?’
    ‘Riffraff would be an improvement?’ Rachel said. ‘Have some calamari? It’s Marks & Spencer’s?’
    ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said, sitting down roughly next to Amanda, knocking her Diet Coke into the grass. He didn’t apologise. Rachel was already dishing up a napkin of calamari for him.
    Amanda was still holding the back of her head. ‘Olive oil?’ she asked, her voice flat.
    ‘
Love
some,’ he said, not even looking her in the face.
    She carefully grabbed the bottle of oil and handed it to him, looking as innocent as she could manage. ‘Make sure you shake it first.’
    He did.
    ‘I don’t
believe
it,’ Mei said.

T o take his blade and cut into the pages of a book felt like such a taboo, such a transgression against everything he held dear,