Flight of a Starling. Lisa Heathfield

it right, then Rita would be safe with us now.

      Ash looks up at Rob, lets his eyes follow his pacing. ‘The flatties don’t need so much danger when they come to see us.’

      ‘I think they do,’ Rob says.

      ‘So you’re still going to keep in the motorbikes?’ Ash asks. Rob looks so briefly at me that I doubt he sees me nod.

      ‘Yes,’ he says.

      Spider’s ma takes a thick cloth from a hook and reaches into the oven. She pulls out two trays settled in steam and a sweet smell clings to the room. No one says a word as she picks out her thin china plates from the cupboard. Her spoon sinks deep and steady through the bread pudding.

      ‘Spider,’ she says, without looking up. ‘Pass it round.’ And he gets up.

      I’ve never once seen him falter in his ma’s demands. Ernest and Helen wanted children enough to line the tent with, but were blessed only with Spider. Sometimes, I think their dreams for him are too heavy on his shoulders. Sometimes, I imagine lifting them off bit by bit and letting the real Spider roam free.

      He passes me a plate. I don’t want to have it, not without Rita here, and I know I won’t feel like it until she walks through the door. But I’ve been given the food and so I must eat, the sugar tasteless on my tongue.

      It’s gone ten o’clock when Ash and I see the lights of Da’s car swing into their place. We turn from looking through the window and run out of the door, jumping down the steps in one and getting to the car as it’s still ticking hot.

      Rita’s face looks tired through the window, but she’s smiling. I open the door, but it’s Ash she’s looking at and it makes everything feel uneven.

      ‘Are you OK?’ he asks her, reaching in to hold her hand.

      ‘I’m fine,’ she says. She has Da’s jacket perched big on her shoulders, a white fabric bandage winding thick up her arm.

      ‘Let’s get you into Terini,’ Ma says, leading us across the grass towards mine and Rita’s van, stopped next to theirs.

      ‘You could’ve at least broken it,’ I say to Rita, prodding her better arm.

      ‘I wish I had,’ she says. ‘Instead I’m going to have a scar like a wrinkled old prune.’

      ‘It’ll match your face nice, then,’ Ash smiles and he kisses her quick on the lips before she can protest. It’s the first time he’s kissed her like that where Ma and Da can see and it makes the dark air prickle awkward.

      ‘They’ll be turning in early tonight,’ Da tells Ash, as we get to the steps of Terini.

      ‘Oh, OK.’ Ash doesn’t take his eyes from our Rita. ‘You sure you’re all right?’ he asks her.

      ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘Good,’ he says earnestly. ‘I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.’

      ‘I can’t feel a thing,’ she laughs. ‘Not with all the painkillers.’

      ‘If you’re sure then,’ Ash says. ‘I’ll say goodnight.’

      ‘Goodnight,’ Rita says and Ma is already pushing her fast through the door.

      ‘Night, Ash.’ I hug him tight and feel the last of his worry dissolve, before I climb the van’s steps and shut our door to the world.

      Inside, Ma is pulling back the duvet on Rita’s top bunk. ‘Lo, promise me you’ll come and get me from our van if Rita needs me,’ she says.

      ‘I will. I promise.’

      ‘I’m not happy about leaving you for the night,’ Ma says.

      ‘I’m fine, Ma,’ Rita tells her. ‘I’m just going to sleep.’

      ‘You’re only next door, Ma,’ I remind her.

      ‘Don’t keep her chatting all night, Lo. She needs to rest.’ Even at her most stern, Ma’s face is still beautiful.

      ‘I’ll be quiet as a mouse,’ I laugh.

      ‘OK,’ she says, tucking Rita’s curl gentle behind her ear. ‘You sure?’

      ‘Night, Ma,’ Rita says, hugging her and pushing her out of the door, closing it so that it’s only us.

      ‘Ash was worried,’ I tell Rita, as she pulls her bandaged arm through the sleeve of her top.

      ‘Was he?’

      ‘Of course he was. He’s good through and through, your Ash,’ I say.

      ‘My Ash?’

      ‘You know he is, Rita.’

      And she replies with only a smile.

RITA

      We moved on yesterday, so my arm has had a day to recover, but Ma still brought my breakfast to Terini this morning. I don’t go to Mada until lunchtime and now they flit around me, making me sit at the table and not letting me help at all.

      ‘My arm’s not that bad,’ I say. ‘I’d like to do something at least.’ It doesn’t feel right sat here watching Ma and Lo do all the work.

      ‘Make the most of it,’ Ma smiles at me, as she puts a plate of Russian cutlets in front of me.

      ‘It makes a nice change to see you sitting down,’ Grands says. He’s in his armchair as he likes, his tray of scran balanced on his lap. It’s only been a year since Rita and I moved into our own van, to make space for Grands in here, but now I can’t imagine him anywhere else.

      ‘It’s a strange town, this one,’ I say.

      ‘Why?’ Ma asks, as she pours gravy from the pan into the jug.

      ‘It’s just got a funny feel to it,’ I say. Lo puts her plate next to Da and he moves up to make room.

      ‘We’ve only been here a day,’ Ma says. ‘You’ve hardly seen it.’ She wipes at the edge of her mouth with the napkin. A bit of her lipstick sticks to the material.

      ‘It’s just strange,’ I say. ‘And there’s not much of a view, either.’ Sometimes we’re next to fields and hills, but now the window by the sink looks on to the wall at the edge of the park.

      ‘Not like the pitch near Haworth,’ Da says. ‘Do you remember those sunsets across the moors, Liz?’

      Ma screws up her face. ‘With those wild horses that stuck their noses through our windows?’ She’s already done her hair, even though it’s early, some dark curls trapped in a knot, the rest falling by her neck.

      ‘We should’ve kept one,’ I say.

      ‘They’re meant to be free,’ Lo says. She balances a pea on the side of her plate and flicks it at me. But I’m too quick and catch it in my fingers.

      ‘Too slow, Bozo,’ I laugh. She picks up two more, but Da clamps his hand over hers.

      ‘Don’t waste food, Lo.’

      ‘It’s only two peas, Da.’ But she’s laughing as she throws them into her mouth, smiling widely so that I can see them held squashed between her teeth.

      ‘Nice,’ I say.

      ‘Like your mangled arm,’ she says.

      ‘Lo.’ Ma’s not smiling any more.

      ‘It’s not mangled,’ I say. ‘Look, it moves and everything.’ I bend it crooked at the elbow, then stretch it out to wiggle my fingers.

      ‘I think that Rob is pushing you too far,’ Grands says, laying his knife and fork neatly on his plate.

      ‘He