Right Now

20. Her mum calls me love

"Do help yourself to more carrots, Harry," said my mum, pushing the bowl of carrots across the table towards him.

In our house, the veges were usually served up in the saucepan they were cooked in, to save on dishes. Tonight, because Harry was here, they'd been dished up in one of the Jamie Oliver bowls that only came out on special occasions.

"Thanks," he said, piling some on his plate.

"Do take plenty," added Mum, putting on the voice she used when she was trying to sound posh. God knows why, she'd already said "fuck" to him twice. "We've got lots. For some reason, Emma chopped enough carrots to feed the population of a small African nation."

Harry turned to me and smirked. I felt my face starting to burn as I remembered him standing behind me as I chopped the carrots, and then kissing my neck.

To hide the fact that I was blushing, I turned towards Phoebe, who was going on about horses, her favourite subject (Frozen was a close second) and how, when she was old enough, she was going to get an after-school job to pay for riding lessons.

"Have you ridden much?" Harry asked her. I was so impressed with the way he was talking to her, paying careful attention to her and asking questions as if chatting to a nine-year-old about her obsession with ponies was the most interesting thing in the world.

"About 10 times," she said. "My friend Aimee has an aunt who used to have a pony, and I had a go at riding that a few times but she sold it because it was too expensive to look after."

"That's a shame," said Harry. "Is there somewhere else you could go for lessons?"

"Yeah, but it costs too much money," said Phoebe. "I have got some money in my savings account, but Mum won't let me use that for riding lessons because it's from the Sperm Donor."

"The what?" said Harry, looking confused.

"Her father," chipped in Mum. "We get a pittance each month in child support - well, Phoebe and the boys get £10 a month, Emma gets nothing - but I am making them save it to put towards their education. He should be contributing towards that at least."

"OK," nodded Harry. "But why doesn't Emma get any money?" He looked at me, his brow creased with concern.

"Because his contributions stopped when I turned 18," I explained. "I got money before that."

"Yeah, but only a few years' worth," said Mum. "It took me three years of fighting through the courts to get any money out of him, and you were 15 by the time I finally got him to cough up a ridiculously tiny amount, and it wasn't backdated. You've got such a small sum saved up it wouldn't even pay for text books."

"It's not fair," said Phoebe. "I'm going to end up with lots more money from the Sperm Donor because I'm a lot younger. I'm sorry about that Ems, I can share some with you."

There were times when my little sister was the most adorable person on the planet. That moment was one of them.

"Thanks so much for the offer Phoebs but I'm OK. Anyway, I got to have a lot more time with Dad whereas you didn't because he left when you were a baby. That time is something money can't buy."

And on that note, we needed to change the topic of conversation because Harry didn't come to my house to listen to my family harp on about my dickhead dad.

"Hey, Phoebs, why don't you tell Harry your elephant joke?" I said. "He's always on the lookout for good jokes to tell at concerts."

"Yeah, I am," said Harry. "What's the elephant joke?"