A Storm of Paper Starlings

13. A Secret Spilled

It's half six, and Glenda's already in the kitchen kneading dough while she watches an ancient American cop show on the telly set up on the worktop.

"Morning," I say brightly, grateful for the bed socks when I step onto the cold stone floor.

"You're up early." She frowns over her shoulder. "Couldn't sleep?"

"I slept okay," I say. "Getting up early is the only way to guarantee a free bathroom."

She turns and smiles at me. "What do you fancy for breakfast?"

I sit at the kitchen island. "Jam on toast?" What do people who live in fancy houses eat for breakfast, anyway?

Glenda drapes a tea towel over her dough and heads to the sink, turning the tap on with her elbow. When she's washed her hands, she slices bread and pops it under the grill.

"Archer and I made the jam," she says. "We've got raspberry, plum, or cherry."

"I've never had cherry before."

"Cherry it is, then." She flips the kettle switch and lays out teacups and a teapot. "Tea?"

"Please."

The kitchen is long with cream walls and soft green cupboards, and the oven is three ovens wide. There are two closed doors at one end of the room, the space between filled with a wooden sideboard and tin signs with vintage adverts on. A wall-to-wall dresser stands at the other end.

Glenda pulls out the grill pan and flips the bread.

"Is anyone else up?" I ask.

"Only Magnus. He's an early riser like you." She measures tea into the pot. I've never had tea that doesn't come in a bag either. "And Magnum." She nods at the telly with a laugh. "He's my favourite way to wake up."

The man on the telly is eighty percent moustache, and I'm not touching it. Instead, I say, "Eden says you've been here for thirty years."

Glenda stares at the grill while she thinks about it. "Thirty-five," she finally says, rescuing the toast. "Adam insisted I stay when my father died. They were such good friends. I took over the running of the house when Adam's wife left, and they've been stuck with me ever since."

"Yeah, Eden said her mother left."

"Told you about that, did she?" Glenda scrapes butter across the toast violently. "Lilith was a nasty piece of work. Got her hooks into Adam when he was young and..." She shakes her head. "I never understood what he saw in her... face that could eat an apple through a letterbox."

Even without knowing what it means, it doesn't sound like a compliment.

She spoons a dollop of jam on each slice of toast and smears it about, then loads a plate and puts it in front of me. Four slices.

"Thanks." I dig in gratefully, and the jam's amazing, just the right amount of sweetness. "So good," I mumble between mouthfuls.

She laughs under her breath. "I'm glad to see you've got a healthy appetite. Good lord, when Eden was a teenager, it was a struggle to get her to eat, and then after her troubles, she wouldn't eat a thing. Poor Adam was beside himself."

"Her troubles? You mean her p—" I can't finish my sentence because jam glues itself to the roof of my mouth.

Glenda finishes it with something completely different. "Her pregnancy, aye."

I thought troubles was an old lady euphemism for periods, but pregnancy? It hadn't even cross my mind, and I'm sure Eden wouldn't want me knowing this, but Glenda's on a roll, and I don't know how to stop her.