Free Aphrodite's Hat by Salley Vickers Page A

too good, and was too tired to keep up a protest she had in any case no belief in, she said, ‘All right then, pet, hop in, but don’t tell your mum or we’ll both be in trouble.’
    In the morning she said, ‘Look, Kit. As far as I’m concerned you can sleep where ever under God’s heaven you like, but I have to do what your mum says.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I just have to, love.’
    â€˜I think she’s silly.’
    â€˜No, she’s your mum. We – that’s you and I – have to do as she says.’
    â€˜I don’t like her when she says things like that,’ Kitty said.
    By the time Kitty was eight years old, her open shyness had fallen away and her stand-offs with her mother were more frequent and sometimes nasty. One evening she shouted, ‘I don’t want to live with you any more, I want to live with Nan.’
    â€˜Well, you can’t, you have to do as I say, young lady.’ Susannah, who loved her daughter dearly, was wounded and retorted more sharply than she intended.
    â€˜I can, so.’
    â€˜No, you can’t. While you’re a child you have to do as I say.’
    â€˜It’s not fair. I hate you,’ Kitty yelled, rushing to her room and slamming the door. ‘I only love Nan.’
    Susannah was crying when Geoff came in from his studio. She told him what Kitty had said.
    â€˜Oh, Suzie, that’s just kid’s talk. Kit adores you.’
    â€˜No more than she adores Nan.’
    â€˜Nan’s been kind to her. We’ve been glad enough when it suited us. Don’t pick a fight, please.’
    But next half-term Susannah arranged for her daughter to spend it with a friend.
    Kitty went down the road to tell Nan. ‘Mummy says I’m going for a sleepover with Flora.’
    â€˜That’s nice,’ Nan said. She had made a hazelnut cake, Kitty’s favourite.
    â€˜She says I’m not coming here.’
    â€˜Never mind,’ Nan said, comfortingly. ‘There’ll be other times.’ When she understood that she was not going to see Kitty at all that half-term, she gave the tickets for the new Walt Disney film to the Garrod children over the road.
    And somehow there were no ‘other’ times. With some difficulty, Susannah managed to organise different houses that her daughter could visit after school or over half-term, where she also spent nights when it was convenient. When Nan and Kitty met in the street they still hugged but no further occasion arose for Kitty to pass a night in the field-mouse bed.
    One day, Kitty’s teacher, Mrs Allen, asked if she could ‘have a word’.
    â€˜Kitty’s been a little off colour lately. Is everything all right at home?’
    â€˜I think so,’ said Susannah, trying to pretend to herself that she had not been wondering about this too. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ She had noticed that Kitty seemed strained and tired.
    â€˜She’s not eating her school meals. And she’s getting into a few fights. Maybe it’s just a bad patch. Children go through them, same as we do. I dare say it will pass.’
    But a few weeks later Mrs Allen said, ‘Mrs Giles, if you don’t mind my asking, who is Nan?’
    â€˜A neighbour,’ Susannah said. She didn’t quite like to hear Nan’s name.
    â€˜Kitty mentions her a lot. And she has written some stories. I just wondered quite what the relationship …’
    â€˜She used to fetch Kitty from school,’ Susannah said.
    â€˜Did Kitty ever spend the night with her?’
    â€˜She used to,’ Susannah said. She perhaps could not have explained why her tone had become defensive. ‘But we’ve rather gone off the arrangement.’
    â€˜You know, I think that might be wise.’
    Mrs Allen raised her pencilled eyebrows questioningly and Susannah, who had been feeling guilty about Nan, said in an effort to be fair, ‘I