'There's ... an advert from an estate agent.'

'Throw it away. Throw all the adverts away. Anything else?'

'A reminder about the phone bill.'

'Nice.'

'And ... a letter from my school.'

'What do they have to say?' Jackie asks.

Madeleine opens the envelope and reads out the letter, which has been sent to all parents. Someone has been writing rude words on the walls of the corridor and in the toilets. The headteacher asks parents and guardians to talk to their children about the matter, and tell them how much it costs to clean up, money which reduces the amount available for refurbishment of the playground.

'Do you know who's doing it?' her mother asks.

'No, but I've seen the graffiti. It's really stupid. Really childish.'

Her mother gets up and starts to take cherry tomatoes, crme fraiche and asparagus out of the fridge.

'I like Erik,' Madeleine says.

'Even though he called the keys "bits"?' her mum asks, filling a large saucepan with water for pasta.

'He said he played like a broken robot,' Madeleine giggles.

'Which is absolutely true ...'

Madeleine can't help smiling, and sees her mum smile as she switches the hotplate on.

'A handsome little robot,' Madeleine goes on. 'Can't I keep him? My very own little robot ... he could sleep in the doll's cot.'

'Is he really handsome?'

'I don't know,' she replies, thinking of his kind face. 'I think so, he looks a bit like one of those actors everyone keeps going on about.'

Her mother shakes her head, but looks happy as she adds some salt to the water.

34.

Erik feels pleased with himself that he can play all the way to the eighteenth bar with his right hand, even if his left hand can only manage six. Jackie smiles to herself for a few seconds, but decides not to give him any praise, and asks instead if he's been practising the way she told him to.

'As often as I've been able to,' he a.s.sures her.

'Can I hear?'

'I've been practising, but it doesn't sound right.'

'There's nothing bad about making mistakes,' Jackie points out.

'But you won't want me as a pupil if I play too badly.'

'Erik, there's no danger of-'

'And I really love being here,' he goes on.

'That's nice to hear ... But if you're going to learn how to play, you've got to ...'

Jackie tails off in the middle of the sentence and blushes, before raising her chin again.

'Are you flirting with me?' she asks with a sceptical smile.

'Am I?' he laughs.

'OK,' she says seriously.

'I'll try playing the piece I practised, if you promise not to laugh.'

'What will happen if I laugh?' she asks.

'That will just prove that you've got a sense of humour.'

She smiles broadly just as Madeleine comes in, dressed in her nightie and a pair of slippers.

'Goodnight, Erik,' she says.

He smiles. 'Goodnight, Madeleine.'

Jackie gets up and follows her daughter to her bedroom. Erik watches them go, and has just put his left hand on the keys when he sees that Madeleine has forgotten her stuffed hedgehog on the armchair.

He picks it up and goes after them, turning right into the corridor. The door of the girl's room is open and the light is on. He can see Madeleine's back, and Jackie turning back the covers.

'Maddy,' he says, opening the door. 'You forgot ...'

He gets no further before the door slams into his face and bounces back. Madeleine is screaming hysterically and slams the door again. Erik tumbles backwards into the wall of the corridor and puts his hand to his nose as the blood starts to flow.

Madeleine is still screaming in her room, and he hears something fall to the floor and break.

He goes into the bathroom, puts the hedgehog down, squeezes his nose and hears the girl calm down. After a while Jackie emerges into the hall and knocks softly on the bathroom door.

'Are you OK? I don't understand what-'

'Tell her I'm sorry,' Erik interrupts. 'I forgot the sign, I just wanted to give her hedgehog back.'

'She was asking where it was.'

'It's on the cabinet in here,' Erik says, opening the door. 'I didn't want to get blood on it.'

'Are you bleeding?'

'Not really, just a slight nosebleed.'

Jackie takes the hedgehog and goes back to her daughter while Erik rinses his face. He returns to the piano as Jackie comes out again.

'Sorry,' she says, holding her hands out. 'I don't understand what got into her.'

'She's wonderful,' Erik says.

Jackie nods. 'Yes, she really is.'

'My son is eighteen, and he's still never managed to switch the dishwasher on ... But now he's living with his mother, and she's a bit tougher than me ...'

They fall silent. Jackie is standing in the middle of the room, she can smell Erik, a smell of clean clothes and warm wood from his aftershave. Her face is sombre as she wraps her knitted cardigan more tightly round her, as if she were cold.

'Would you like a gla.s.s of wine?' she asks.

35.

Erik and Jackie are sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table. She's got out wine, gla.s.ses and bread.

'Do you always wear dark gla.s.ses?' he asks.

'My eyes are light-sensitive I can't see anything, but they can hurt a lot,' she says.

'It's almost completely dark in here,' he says. 'Only the little lamp behind the curtain is switched on.'

'Do you want to see my eyes?'

'Yes,' he confesses.

She takes a small bite of bread and chews slowly, as if she were thinking about it.

'Have you always been blind?' he asks.

'I had retinitis pigmentosa when I was born. I could see fairly well for the first few years, but I was completely blind by the time I was five.'

'You didn't get any treatment?'

'Just Vitamin A, but ...'

She falls silent, then takes off her dark gla.s.ses. Her eyes are the same sad, bright blue as her daughter's.

'You have beautiful eyes,' he says quietly.

It feels strange that they aren't staring at each other, even though he's looking into her eyes. She smiles and almost closes her eyes.

'Can you get scared of the dark if you're blind?' he asks.

'In the dark the blind man is king,' she says, as if she were reciting a quotation. 'But you get scared of hurting yourself, of getting lost ...'

'I can understand that.'

'And earlier today I got it into my head that someone was looking at me through my bedroom window,' she says with a short laugh.

'Really?'

'You know, windows are strange things for blind people ... a window is just like a wall, a cool, smooth wall ... I mean, I know you can see straight through a window like it wasn't there ... So I've learned to close the curtains, but at the same time you don't always know ...'

'I'm looking at you now, obviously, but I mean, does it feel uncomfortable to have someone watching you?'

'It's ... it's not without its challenges,' she says, with a brief smile.

'You don't live with Madeleine's father?'

'Maddy's father was ... It wasn't good.'

'In what way?' Erik asks.

'He was damaged ... I found out later that he'd tried to get psychiatric help, but was turned down.'

'That's a shame,' Erik says.

'It was for us ...'

She shakes her head and takes a sip of wine, wipes a drop from her lip and puts the gla.s.s back on the table.

'There are different ways of being blind,' she goes on. 'He was my professor at music college, and I didn't realise how unwell he was until I got pregnant. He started saying it wasn't his child, called me all sorts of horrible things, wanted to force me to have an abortion, said he fantasised about pushing me in front of an underground train ...'

'You should have reported him.'

'Yes, but I didn't dare to.'

'What happened?'