That Certain Age

Chapter Two:

Siena

I must have fallen asleep, for I found myself watching a dream television documentary about Bill and Lola’s orchard. It had been transformed into an industrial factory field, patrolled by machine dragons. I was busy writing out headings in my notebook. Under ‘Birdsong’, I entered ‘None’. Under ‘Butterflies’, ‘None’. I added: ‘No scutter of life in the grasses.’ When I looked up at the trees they were hung with tidy, obedient, brightly coloured same-sized apples.

Confused, I woke up, rolled across to Charlie and slid my arm, oh, so gently, round his waist. Instantly I knew he was awake. ‘I think I was having a nightmare about GM apples,’ I said. ‘They all looked the same.’

Silence.

‘ America ’s my big chance,’ I said quietly. ‘I might never get another. It will only be a one-off.’

‘If it works,’ Charlie murmured, ‘it will not be a one-off.’

A girl may dream. First series, third series ... tenth series. Club and first class, weekends in the Hamptons, interesting people, interesting ideas, a new look at a different set-up ... So many possibilities were scrambling to take up residence in my head. ‘It’s difficult to turn down such an offer.’

‘Yup,’ he agreed, with the same controlled articulation, but he was not agreeing.

‘You wouldn’t pass it up.’

‘OK, Siena ,’ he said quietly. ‘How do we resolve this?’

More silence.

Charlie has learnt the art of holding silence in court, silences filled with more meaning than any words, but I was not so good at them.

‘When do we have children, Siena , when do you think?’

‘Charlie, as soon as there’s a gap in my schedule, then we can have a try. I’m so sorry but a book, an idea, a programme, a project, has come up ... The magazine wants a weekly column, not a monthly ... I must concentrate on that.’

‘ Siena , time is ticking past...’

‘I promise to think about it.’

Did he believe me? Probably not, for I had ducked and woven so often through the aforementioned thickets.

Charlie sat up in bed and switched on the light. He cupped my cheek in his hand. ‘Do you mind me pointing out that you will be thirty-six next birthday?’

‘Ouch.’

He reached for the glass by the bed and took a sip. I imagined the water trickling down his throat to a stomach churned by our late-night conversation.

‘Charlie, I don’t want to lose all the ground I’ve made.’

‘But you’ll gain,’ he said, and stroked my cheek. ‘You’ll be a beautiful, wonderful mother.’

A flicker of impatience shocked me. That kind of thing was so easy to say – and took no account of my instinctive cowardice. I drew a deep breath. ‘I’m frightened, Charlie.’

‘But I’m here.’ He put down the glass and sent me a grin: so wry, it was almost bitter, definitely mocking and ... boyish. Like the son he craved. All I wanted was to make Charlie happy, which seemed simple enough. Except that it wasn’t.

He bent over me, trying for the hundredth time to find out what held me back, trying to understand. ‘Do you know what I think, Siena ?’

‘You’re going to tell me.’

‘I think men are the new women. It’s one of the by-products and ironies of feminism.’

Joke.

My hand trembled a little as I turned off the light. The bedroom was plunged into darkness. Charlie touched my thigh. ‘Consider...’ (Whenever Charlie said, ‘Consider,’ I had a mental picture of him in his gown and wig, leaning on the court lectern with his bundle of documents, each significant step in the argument marked with a different-coloured Post-it.) ‘...you want to be at the top of your profession. I want a happy marriage and two point four children sitting at a table eating bowls of cereal, a drawer stuffed with drying-up cloths and a cat sleeping on the boiler. So I must be a new woman.’

Jay, my first husband, had been a great one for not putting things off. He did not put off marrying me – ‘Why wait, honey?’ – neither did he put off divorcing me – ‘Why wait, Siena ?’ He had a point: he lived by the principle that all of us could go under a bus within the hour. He did not take note of the cool transition before dawn, or the ambiguous dusk in the evening. With Jay, it was either night or day. Charlie was so much cleverer, more subtle, infinitely more embracing of the nuances of mind and spirit.

I was too upset by our conversation to sleep, which had happened a lot lately. The result was dark circles under the eyes and a wholesale application of Touche Éclat (NB: no girl should be without it).

The dark was not the soft velvet Guinness black as it sometimes was, but jet ink. Experience had taught me that I would have to wait patiently, with burning eyes, until dawn diluted it to grey.

‘Time is running out.’ Charlie’s voice, by my ear, startled me. ‘It is...’ He was placing his lawyer’s finger on my ‘thirty-five (but nearly thirty-six) which is twenty-five, these days, really’ condition.

‘I know.’

‘Our children would be beautiful ... perfect.’

‘They’re not accessories,’ I flashed at him.

‘Probably better if they were,’ he came back, just as fast. ‘You put a lot of energy and care into accessories.’

Calfskin or crocodile? Plastic or canvas?

‘Not worthy, Charlie.’

‘You’re right. Sorry.’ Abruptly, he sat up in bed, switched on the light. ‘ Siena . Open those big blue eyes of yours and take a look. You must think.’ He looked down into them, searching for the Siena he wanted. ‘Please, please, let’s be sure we don’t make a mistake.’

The trouble with seeing was that it meant you had to do something about it.

I reached up and brushed his hair off his forehead. ‘Can we go to sleep, Charlie, please?’

Without another word, he switched off the light, lay down and turned his back.

Charlie was right, but all I could see were the wardrobes of Lucy Thwaite and her trapped sisters waiting to imprison me in their sad smells and capacious misery.

Soon Charlie’s even breaths indicated that he was asleep, and I was glad – he needed it. I matched my breaths to his, a silly habit but it made me feel close to him, running parallel in a way that was impossible during the day.

There we were, then, breathing in tandem, the heads of a household of two.

Thank God, I slept.

When Charlie woke as the alarm clock performed its morning aerobics, I was ready with a cup of tea for him.

He struggled upright, groaned, and dropped his head into his hands. ‘Were you a hospital matron in a previous life? Time?’

‘Get-up time.’ I sat on the bed and waited for him to surface properly. ‘Hope today goes well.’

He blew on his tea. ‘So do I.’

I watched him assemble himself for the day: clearing his head, straightening his limbs. Today the death of a baby would have to be accounted for. The case was going to be a long haul and the shadows cast by it were long and full of sorrow. I knew that Charlie would suffer if (a) his client was found guilty, (b) she had done it. The two points were not necessarily linked, and vice versa.

I hated to think of Charlie suffering, so I switched subjects. ‘I’ll be talking to India .’

‘I expected you would.’

In the background, the phone rang in my office. I tensed, as if poised for flight. It would be the first of many calls and might be important, perhaps something I should sort out now, this minute.

Charlie read my thoughts. ‘It can wait, Siena .’

‘But maybe not.’

For answer he took my hand and teased each finger straight. ‘Sometimes I think we’re addicted to work.’

The answer-phone clicked on.

Charlie swung out of bed – long, strong, masculine legs, feet planted squarely on the floor – and padded into the bathroom. The radio was switched on, water ran, and I noticed that rain was lashing the window. I had forgotten to put on my slippers and my feet were icy. I inspected them. The nails were painted a pale pink, but it was time for a pedicure – the varnish had chipped. The palm-top diary was on the bedside table, and I ‘leafed’ through it. Maybe I could snatch one between lunch and the weekly visit to Fashion, This Week?

Again the phone in my office rang. Click went the answer-phone. With an effort, I stopped myself running into the office and closing the door against the unanswered questions.

A naked Charlie came back into the room, and dressed with his back to me. ‘Are you going to stay there all day?’

The Cellophane crackled as he unpacked his laundered shirt.

‘No.’ I took my turn in the bathroom, which was steamy; the air-conditioner whined like an old dingbat. I got into the shower and ran it as hot as I could take, then cold. Good for cellulite, circulation and complexion.

A fully dressed Charlie appeared at the doorway. ‘‘Bye, darling.’ He shot his shirt cuffs. He looked washed, brushed, clever and wily – the Charlie who appeared in court.

The other Charlie, the softie, the loving one, who told me he was mine, lived here.

I couldn’t bear to part with our differences still churning between us. I grabbed a towel and I kissed him and my damp hair dripped on to his suit.

He grasped me tight and kissed me back. ‘I’ll be late.’

The front door slammed.

I loved being alone in the flat. The solitude felt safe. Here, I could stretch and settle like a cat. I enjoyed travelling – who didn’t? – but after a while, in Rome , Sydney or India , the call of where I belonged sounded in my ear. Lost in the Wild Wood, Mole in The Wind in the Willows lifted his face and sniffed the air: ‘Home...’ And so did I.

Embankment Court was a block of riverside flats, with a gym and a swimming-pool, necessities in our lifestyle. Our apartment had two bedrooms. ‘One for the non-speaking nights,’ I said, when Charlie and I originally inspected it.

‘On non-speaking nights, you’ll be with me in our bed because if we have a disagreement we’ll talk about it,’ Charlie retorted, and ran his finger down my spine (which held up the practical discussions). The kitchen was small, which was not good, but the sitting room was huge, light and airy – a statement – and my office overlooked the river.

It was, of course, far too expensive and Charlie had last-minute doubts about it being too opulent, but I persuaded him that we could afford it. ‘We’ll manage,’ I promised. ‘I’ve got good money coming in.’

‘We don’t need such a smart flat.’

‘You’re allowed to live in a nice place,’ I told him. ‘Read my lips.’

He uttered a shout of laughter. ‘I’d rather kiss ‘em.’

That was all right, then.

Crypto-ascetic as Charlie might be, I could not help noticing he enjoyed living in the flat – almost more than I did.

The river provided daily theatre. Sometimes its water was sullen and crushed. At others it reflected dazzling starbursts of light and movement. Adjectives clicked along my descriptive abacus: captivating, changeable, unreliable, dangerous, spoilt. Today it was calm, nondescript and benign.

My first call was to India . ‘Just going to bell you,’ she said. ‘Got your diary?’

I loved India , we were friends, but there was no question of my confiding to her any problems with Charlie. I reached for the palm-top. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Deep breath, Siena ...’

Together we roughed out the schedules for Fashion, This Week, a couple of appearances on afternoon television programmes and the trip to New York . The year was blocked out with frightening speed.

‘Now,’ said India , ‘I think it’s about time you did a book.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘No bleating,’ said India , severely. ‘Many girls would give their eye-teeth to be in your position. So wise up and let me put out some flyers.’

I wised up. Afterwards I worked through a pile of magazines that were delivered each week. It was my business to know what was going on in my neck of the woods and the magazines were the voices – soft-focus but ruthless, pretty but pretty tough – that issued invitations to step into a Never-never Land of perfect food, perfect surroundings and perfect clothes. I glanced over at the letter I had pinned to the noticeboard and managed to reread: ‘...our outer covering is of little significance compared to what is within.’ Perhaps as we, the magazine readers, plodded towards an aspirational heaven of distressed houses and gardens and fragrant, purposeful wardrobes, the writer of that letter had spotted a flaw in the blueprint.

I leafed through one magazine that used cheaper paper and did not concern itself with the cutting edge or frills but concentrated on traditional fare – recipes for quick cheese meals, advice on how to lose weight without dieting, a hundred and one uses for Tupperware – and my attention was caught by an interview with a woman who had gone in search of her mother, who had given her up for adoption over four decades ago: ‘My name is Kathleen but I didn’t know who I was...’

Kathleen had found her mother who, it turned out, unmarried and disgraced, had been made to part with her baby. The photographs accompanying the piece showed the birth-mother as a teenager, in the tightly cinched skirt, buttoned blouse and hat of the fifties. The clothes far better suited to an older woman than to the girl who wore them badly. They imposed certain inflexible requirements on their wearer: a rigour of suspender belts, whalebone and modesty.

I touched the young, frightened, bewildered face with a fingertip. I had so many choices, and she had been permitted so few.

I checked my watch.

Running late.

The offices of Fashion, This Week hummed. A fleet of messengers whisked in and out of Reception and girls manoeuvred racks of clothes in and out of the lifts. Journalists in serious black talked into their mobile phones. The fashion brigade looked icy in cut-off trousers, and photographers wore uniform leather. The girl who was employed to maintain the plants in the atrium was cleaning the leaves of the ficus one by one.

On the third floor, I picked my way over piles of clothes, dodged racks and discovered Jenni ranting into the phone. ‘Why the hell do we have to use freelancers?’ she was saying. ‘They cause more trouble, more work, and we’re perfectly capable of doing it ourselves, much better, actually.’ She glanced up, saw me and reddened. ‘Speak later,’ she muttered, and terminated the conversation.

To say that Jenni disapproved of the freelancer was an under-estimation. Freelancers were a threat, a nuisance and a slur on the internal team’s creativity.

‘Hi,’ I said, amused.

Jenni recovered her composure. ‘Lucy Thwaite rang. She wants to duck out.’

‘Hell. Why?’

Jenni examined a cuticle. ‘You’re the one who’ll know. What do you want to do about the photographer? And who do you want to use as back-up? This is an arse, Siena .’

She was right.

Of course, Lucy’s defection might have been my fault, which was what Jenni was implying. Her anxiety was infectious (and easily caught): she was worried that a glitch like this would reflect badly on her and it didn’t take too many mistakes at Fashion, This Week before an outsider was transformed into an unemployed outsider.

‘Let me phone her.’ I dialled the number. ‘Is that Lucy? Hallo, this is Siena Grant.’ In the background, I heard a couple of the children screaming at each other.

‘Excuse me,’ said Lucy, and pitched her voice a professional decibel over the children’s. ‘Stop it, you lot.’ She returned to the phone. ‘Look, I don’t think this is going to do me any good, or you.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Lucy, if you’re going back to work, it will help if you get some advice on looking your best. It does help, I promise you, and I’ve got some good ideas that I think will be perfect.’ Jenni listened as I cajoled and persuaded. After a couple of minutes, I sensed a thaw at the other end of the line and when I hung up Lucy had agreed to honour the appointment at the photographer’s studio the following day.

‘OK,’ I reported to Jenni. ‘She’s up for it.’

‘Well done,’ she said, trapped between the desire to avoid a crisis and her disappointment at being defrauded of a little Schadenfreude.

We returned to the problem of Lucy Thwaite and spent the next hour or so working out how to edge past the barriers that, as a put-upon mother of three, she had erected, and to clothe her so that her lovely skin and neckline showed to advantage while her stomach and hips were camouflaged. Once this was achieved, who knew where Lucy Thwaite would go next?

After that Jenni and I checked photographs of next week’s victim on the light box, marked them up and gave the all-clear to Production.

I told Jenni she looked fabulous in her black trousers and wraparound jersey top and she actually gave me a smile when I left.

I know that I have good taste but I cannot claim any credit for it since it was handed down to me by my parents. They came from families who, over the generations, had had time and money to develop and indulge it; the family houses and their contents were famous until recently when everything vanished: paintings, tapestries, trust funds and land.

My mother never talks about her family but my brother Richard and I were brought up in a small cottage close to our father’s ancestral home, a beautiful Queen Anne mansion, which he had sold to a princeling from somewhere or other.

My mother derived huge amusement from the comic aspects of the situation and fired regular postcard bulletins to me in her overlarge handwriting. ‘The orange trees died in the last frost, darling. No one took them in.’ Or ‘Mrs Fleet tells me the loo-roll holders are pure gold.’ Or ‘Guess what, Siena ! A Porsche has been abandoned on the lawn.’

My father ignored the comedy. The wound of losing his family home never healed. From early on, I noticed that he took pains to avoid the big house: on his daily walks he made an extra loop to keep it out of sight. When I taxed him on this, he was genuinely surprised. ‘Do I do that, Siena ? I don’t mean to.’

It is intriguing to analyse what we mean and don’t mean to do, and my father’s unconscious response to his loss made me wonder if we had any say over ourselves at all.

Consider (Charlie’s word). I love Charlie. I want to spend my life with him and do whatever it takes to make this possible. These are my conscious aims and desires. But what are the fears – of oblivion and obliteration? – the wayward desires, the goblins of selfishness and ego that prowl through my subconscious to prevent me doing this?

‘I used to search for my baby,’ said Kathleen’s mother, in that magazine article. ‘Everywhere. I looked into prams, I looked at babies on the bus. Sometimes, I stood outside the local school playground, and thought: That could be my daughter. Everywhere I went, there was her shadow. They told me to forget I had ever had a baby, but that’s impossible. Impossible.’

Barbara

I liked it.

It was only ten thirty when I reached the high street but it was already crowded.

Recently, and to great excitement, a boutique had opened opposite Holy Trinity Church, which sold gramophone records in brown paper sleeves, and a larger one beside it, which specialized in electric lamps. Bunty and I inspected the window minutely.

‘I’m going to have to buy one,’ she announced.

‘But you don’t need a lamp.’

‘I know, darling, but it’s so exciting to have a choice.’

During the war there had been nothing much, apart from whisky and cigarettes. We made do and mended furiously, patriotically, and did not allow ourselves to think about colour, variety, the pleasure of making up one’s mind. The appetite for those returned afterwards, in the dull, deprived, dun-coloured peace when there had been nothing to look at and nothing to buy. Now it was different.

As always, there was a queue in Sainsbury’s and I amused myself by mentally replacing the brown packets of tea on the shelf with the blue sugar bags. Two cartwheels of Cheddar and a mound of butter were being cut up by muslin-turbaned women. Yellow, satiny, rich, lush ... painters had used those cheese and butter colours – the French painters who wanted to convey a new impression of what they saw. Throughout the war, my mother had worn a headscarf of that precise buttery shade because European Jews had been made to wear yellow stars, and she argued that solidarity had to begin somewhere. Busy with my children and focused on getting through the rationing and the bombs while Ryder was away on flying operations, I washed my hair in yellow camomile rinse to make it more golden and shiny. Surviving was all I could manage. ‘That’s fine, dear,’ my mother said. ‘Having principles is only possible when you’re older.’

Next door at the counter of Fuller’s tea-shop, there was a choice between a medium or a large walnut cake. Oh, the luxury of dithering, of weighing up the pros and cons. I hoped I’d never get used to it.

The shop assistant made a fuss of wrapping and boxing the cake (large), and I anticipated the texture of the thin, sweet icing and, underneath, the crumbling light-as-air sponge. A little impatient, a little too hot in my tightly belted coat, I glanced in the direction of the tables. The tea-room was full. Knives clinked on plates, conversation hummed and a queue waited for tables to empty. Then I saw him.

Alexander Liberty was sitting close to the window, talking hard to a companion, a dark-haired boy of his own age. They were dressed in tweed jackets, ties and Fair Isle pullovers, and a half-empty plate of cakes lay between them.

‘Madam.’ The sales assistant gave me the cake box.

As I handed over the money, Alexander spotted me. He got to his feet instantly. ‘Barbara.’ He held out his hand. ‘I was hoping I’d see you again. Was I rude to you at Mrs Andrews’s party? Or, worse, did I bore you to death? If I did, I ask forgiveness.’

‘No, no,’ I protested, ‘not at all. You gave me food for thought.’

‘Good.’

He looked at me intently, piercingly, to see if I’d meant what I said, and – God help me – it was as if the shapes, objects and people of this familiar setting shifted and resettled, like the earth after a quake.

‘Amy tells me you walked her home from the cinema the other night. Thank you.’ I fussed with the cake box; its scent of spun sugar and walnuts sent saliva rushing into my mouth. ‘Walnut cake,’ I balanced it on my hands. ‘We’re fond of it – I eat too much, and I shouldn’t.’

‘Why shouldn’t you?’

‘No reason,’ I said. ‘Frugal habits from the war, I suppose.’

‘Of course,’ he said politely, and I wished I hadn’t mentioned the war. It was so weary a subject, and it made me feel old. ‘Would you join us?’ he asked. He indicated his companion at the table. ‘My colleague, Harry, would be delighted to meet you, particularly...’

‘Particularly?’

‘Particularly as I think you’d be interested in some of the ideas we’re discussing.’

I would be interested. How delightful, and novel, it was to be included in such a conversation. Intrigued, I glanced down at the wretched cake box, and struggled with my conscience – there were chores to do at home. ‘Don’t be too long,’ Ryder had said. I noted the intricate seaming of my brown leather gloves, but also my surge of excitement, and that I no longer felt a bit old.

‘Thank you,’ I replied, ‘but no, I don’t have time. I must get home.’

He seemed disappointed but not surprised. ‘Harry and I were discussing Freud’s theory of the memory slip, and we could have used you as a guinea pig. You could give us valuable data.’

I could not resist it. ‘Such as?’

‘The theory tries to explain why we forget the names or intentions of people and events that are quite important to us.’

‘Excuse me.’ A woman edged round us.

Alexander glanced back at Harry. ‘It takes a little while to explain.’

‘Then why don’t you come and have Sunday lunch with us? Amy’s coming down from London, and I – I mean I’m sure she would like to see you again.’

I found a woman’s washbag once, on the beach at Teignmouth. It was years ago when the children were still small. We holidayed there every summer and, as often as not, we scooped up Sophie, Ryder’s niece, and took her with us. She was the daughter of his brother, an only child, and her parents, Ian and Antonia, were unhappy with each other. ‘I think it would be good for her if she spent time with us.’ Ryder never alluded directly to the state of his brother’s marriage, but I understood well enough.

A sweet, bold child, she was fearless, but accident prone. ‘Sophie’s cut herself’; ‘Sophie’s fallen down’; ‘Sophie’s fallen in’ were daily cries, and I became expert in patching up her wounds.

‘Aunt Babs,’ she was weeping tears of pain after cutting herself rock-pooling, ‘Aunt Babs, when I grow up I want to be just like you.’

The disinfectant I dabbed on her knees hurt her more than the cut, and I leant over and held her close. ‘That’s the nicest thing anybody could possibly say to me.’

Roy, Amy and Sophie were now adults, but Ryder and I still holidayed in Teignmouth each year. Sometimes they came too, but not as often as I would have liked. Ryder was fond of the town, and it suited his needs. He travelled so much, he said, that he couldn’t bear the extra fuss of elaborate journeys. He just wanted peace and quiet.

We had discovered Blatchford’s, a clifftop hotel, on our first visit and we engaged the same room year after year. It overlooked the beach, which had a wide sweep and plenty of safe sand, and a serenade of waves and seagulls sent us to sleep and woke us. Most mornings, we climbed down the steps cut into the red rock of the cliff, checked there was no train in sight, crossed the railway and dug in for the duration.

I was an expert, too, at managing the duration. In the early days, I learnt to wrap up sandwiches tightly in greaseproof paper so the sand couldn’t get in. I knew that Roy would demand the green bucket and Amy would have to make do with the grey one. In the basket, I packed Elastoplasts for knees and toes, a packet of Spangles for bribes, and I made sure there were extra socks, clothes and towels for wet little bodies, and a library book for Ryder.

I had to be good at managing. It was my job. But, over the years, I had grown wary of using that word. Men, I noticed, were a little tricky on the subject of women and jobs. Being good at my ‘job’, though, bought me a little time and space, which I needed. If Ryder was busy with his book, and the children with their sandcastles, I was free to think – like the Japanese who, it was said, had so little space in their crowded country that their only source of true privacy was inside their heads.

That morning I felt restless. A couple of days ago there had been a storm and the sea was still angry. I checked the three children, who were busy with their sandcastles, buttoned my cardigan over my swimming costume and announced, ‘I’m going for a stroll. Can you watch the children?’

Ryder barely looked up from his book. ‘Don’t be too long.’

I placed a finger against his cheek. ‘What if I never come back?’

‘Don’t say that. Even as a joke.’

Skirting the high-water mark, solitary and deliciously unfettered, I struck out along the beach. The weather was improving and there was even a suggestion of sun on my back. Sand, damp velvet beneath my toes ... seaweed draped over rocks, salt-encrusted driftwood. Then my foot struck a hard object and I looked down to see a plain white china cup and saucer and, beside them, a man’s sock. Further along, resting above the tidemark, there was a small suitcase: brown attaché, well worn, and water-stained.

The boning in my swimming costume bit into my flesh as I knelt down and prised open the case. Inside there was a washbag in pink sprigged material, a small torch and a pair of scissors. I hesitated. Had someone died? I inserted finger and thumb into the sodden washbag, and drew out a box. I sensed that someone, a woman, was dead. I knew what that box – domed and rigid – contained. I had one too.

‘Barbara!’ Ryder’s shout echoed down the beach. I looked up. He was on his feet, waving and pointing to Roy, who was hopping up and down, evidently crying. Quickly, I scooped up handfuls of sand and buried the box, a decent burial for a private thing, and hurried back to the children.

Roy had trodden on a weaver-fish. ‘What do I do?’ Ryder was trying to calm the frantic child. ‘Is there anything we can do?’

I dived into the picnic basket, wrenched open the Thermos, and poured as much as I dared over Roy’s wound – the warm tea would draw out the poison. Within minutes the pain had gone. ‘That’s what you do for a weaver-fish bite,’ I informed Ryder.

That evening I inquired of Mr Ellis, the hotel proprietor, if there had been an accident. ‘A yacht did go down,’ he confirmed, ‘ten miles up the coast, in the storm. Took with it the skipper, his mate and a woman.’

Had she been blonde or brunette? Married or with her lover? Did she feel that her life had been worthwhile as she fought in the cold water to stay alive, for she would have fought? Whatever she might or might not have been, how ironic, sad, inevitable was it that of all the things to survive her death it had been evidence of her fertility. Her femaleness.

Unexpectedly, Roy had driven down from London with Amy on Friday evening. ‘Hope I’m not putting you out, Mother,’ he had said, as he kissed me. ‘I’ve asked Victoria over for lunch on Sunday.’

I had stood back to look at him. Already Roy had become the man he would be for the rest of his life. Rather grave, serious and nice, the sort of person who did not want to take risks but would drive a steady course down the middle. Was this a kind appraisal? Guilty, I kissed him twice and held him tight.

‘All right, Mother!’ He stepped away. ‘You only saw me last week.’

Ryder had surprised me by reproving him for not giving me more warning. ‘Phone your mother next time,’ he said. ‘She cannot be expected to conjure extra food out of thin air.’ Roy looked discomforted.

Later on, he cornered me. ‘Do I take advantage of you, Mother?’ he wanted to know. ‘You must say.’

I was up early on Sunday morning, riddled the Rayburn and fed the hens. Outside, the weather was melting into a warmer mood, with a teasing hint of spring in the whipped-cream clouds and softer air.

I dusted the sitting room. Big and gracious, it overlooked the front drive, and had a large fireplace and a bay window, for which I had chosen powder-blue curtains, the colour of an early-summer sky.

The ormolu clock on the mantelpiece struck eight o’clock, a lovely ripple of sound that slid over the seconds, the minutes and the hours. It was an Austrian clock and I was passionately attached to it, not only for its elegance but because it had belonged to my parents.

Two bronze cherubs flanked its face, leaning carelessly and happily against the casing. With a fingertip, I touched the one who was pointing at the dial. You don’t care about time, I told it silently. Not really. The date on the clock face was 1781, the year Mozart had been in Vienna, and on the back was engraved ‘Ich spüre nur die Zeit’, which meant, according to Major Blunt, who had translated it for me, ‘I feel only time’. (Major Blunt spoke German, for he had worked in intelligence in Berlin after the war, so I reckoned he would have got it right.)

The clock always lifted my spirit: it breathed of the cultivation of the mind, of luxurious elegance, of fantasy and soaring imagination, and of a world where time mattered – of course – but not too much.

‘Morning, Mother.’ A dressing-gowned Amy put her head round the door.

Duster in hand, I swivelled round. ‘Morning, darling.’ Her hair was tousled, her skin shiny with cold cream, and she looked drained from a long week in the ministry typing-pool. ‘Darling, would Mrs Trant allow you downstairs in a dressing-gown?’

Mrs Trant was Amy’s landlady. After much anxious discussion between Ryder and me as to the amount of freedom Amy should be permitted, we had given in when she pointed out angrily, ‘When I’m twenty-one I can do as I please.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Ryder had reassured me later, ‘she’ll knuckle down when she marries.’

Amy advanced into the sitting room. ‘What’s Mrs Trant got to do with it? When’s everyone arriving?’

I brushed the snarled hair off her face. ‘Usual time. Hurry up and get dressed – I need help.’

‘Why can’t Roy help you?’ Amy’s eyes were bright and hard with suppressed feeling.

‘Is everything all right, Amy?’

‘You haven’t answered my question, Mother.’ She sounded cool enough, but she was angry. ‘Why don’t you wake Roy?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

She shook her head. ‘Not silly. Roy is as capable of helping you as I am.’

She left the room and went back upstairs. I gave the clock a final flick of the duster. A new, and baffling, obduracy had settled over my daughter. Gone was the giggling girl who had come home from school to confide, with innocence and a kind of earnest joy, the events of her day. Gone were the times when I had listened, enraptured, to the battles and voyages of the schoolgirl – replaced by the young woman who had put up a shutter and invited no questions.

Later, having served the family breakfast and prepared the lunch, I went upstairs. Ryder had opened the bedroom window, and the stuffiness of night had been swept away. I closed it. There was a whiff of mothballs from the open wardrobe, a hint of vinegar where Mrs Storr had cleaned the window, the residue of frying from my sweater on the chair, which I wore when I was cooking. I folded it away: for so much of the day my energies went into keeping at bay the sweat, and smells, the evidence of living.

I sat down at the dressing-table and redid my hair. I dabbed scent on my neck – its sweet, warm essence a reminder that there were alternatives to scum on dishwater, the creep of mould in the cellar, the miasma of human bodies. Music, speculation, adventure and ... knowledge. On an impulse, I dabbed scent on my wrists, just at the point where the pulse beat.

Although she had elected to wear her office skirt and blouse rather than the dress I had bought her, Amy had made an effort with her hair, which she had brushed back from her forehead. It suited her better than the fringe she preferred. Even so, beside Bunty’s daughters Amy appeared an awkward, solid figure; my anxiety for her grew and deepened.

At the lunch table, Alexander sat between her and Mary, and every so often the trio burst into laughter. Victoria, who had arrived earlier and presented me with a bunch of carnations and a box of Black Magic, was opposite Roy, who was well scrubbed and smartly dressed in a three-piece suit. Every so often Victoria sent him a melting look. Her hair was very short and tightly permed, and she was encased in a pink print – a pretty doll whom Roy evidently admired.

Bunty’s husband, Peter, was placed, of course, next to me. ‘Dreadful about the accident on the bypass.’ He put another forkful of beef into his mouth and chewed importantly. ‘What have I always said about that bypass?’

I fixed my eyes on Peter, of whom I was fond, and heard nothing. Get on with it, I wanted to say. Can’t we talk about something important?

I overheard Alexander: ‘...and then I forced myself to climb back into college and impaled my foot on a spike.’

‘Peter, what accident?’

‘The racing driver on the A3. Going too fast.’

But I longed to know what had happened to Alexander’s foot – in fact, it seemed vital to discover whether the smooth, golden skin and sappy bones underneath were now less perfect.

Peter pressed on with the uphill business of holding my attention. ‘Would Ryder like a round of golf?’

I tried my best to focus on him. ‘I’m sure he would. Let me see. He’s flying all next week. What about the week after?’

Pink-centred, rimmed with brown, the slices of beef still lay on my plate. I could not eat it.

Peter extracted his diary from an inner pocket and checked it. ‘Fine.’

‘Tell me more!’ Amy’s voice rose, loud and amused. She had virtually turned her back on Roy, who was on her right. He was discussing central-heating with Bunty, who had the rabbit-in-the-headlights expression on her face.

‘Amy.’ I got to my feet, which was a signal for her to do likewise.

She contrived to ignore me, and it was Victoria who leapt up with a glad cry: ‘Let me, Mrs Beeching...’

Victoria was neat and efficient, and I was grateful for her help. ‘Apple pie, how lovely.’ She darted round the kitchen, scraping and stacking plates. She emitted energy in waves, energy that was directed at making sure I liked her. ‘You must give me the recipe,’ she said. ‘I so love collecting them for jams, chutneys, pies...’

I handed Victoria the dessert plates. ‘Could you take these in for me, please?’

‘Barbara,’ she was examining the pie and said, with irritating helpfulness, ‘some of the crust is burnt.’ She bustled out of the kitchen and I heard her announce, ‘Won’t be a moment. A bit of an emergency.’

Knife in hand, I gritted my teeth and surveyed the kitchen. The wreckage was everywhere: dirty china stacked high, a tray of cooled fat on the sideboard, the table dusted with flour and bits of meat. The sink had acquired a frieze of cabbage. Hours of work would be required to restore it to order.

I shaved the offending scorchmark off the pie, and carried it triumphantly into the dining room. At my entrance, Alexander glanced up, and the brilliance and mystery of his smile sent a shudder through every bone in my spine.

‘When the weather’s warmer,’ Roy clapped an arm round Alexander’s shoulders, ‘you must come over and play tennis.’

Leaving Bunty, Peter and Ryder to cook by the fire, the rest of the party had adjourned to the garden for some fresh air.

‘I’d like to very much.’ Alexander mimed a swingeing forehand shot.

Roy imitated him. ‘Let’s do it.’

The party wandered down towards the hen-house, and the girls embarked on an egg hunt, shrieking and exclaiming.

‘What’s in there?’ asked Alexander, pointing to the apple-house just visible behind the trees.

I explained what it was and we went towards it.

‘Ah, the apple pie,’ he said.

‘The burnt apple pie.’

Alexander was amused. ‘Not so very burnt.’

‘But tell the truth, Bunty’s apple pies are better than mine.’

He struggled a little with that one, and I could not stop myself laughing, which made him blush. ‘Apple pie symbolizes the virtues we think are good about the family.’

‘And are they good? Those virtues?’

‘Well, that’s it,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure they are for everyone. We’re all so different.’

I shivered.

The apple-house was not beautiful. It was windowless and built of a cheaper red brick than the house but, inside, it was still fitted up with the original wooden slatted trays stacked up to the roof. It smelt of must and quite a few of the higher trays were damaged.

I pulled one out and displayed the rows of Bramleys and russets. ‘It takes hours to rack them,’ I picked one up, balanced it on my palm and held it out, ‘but it’s pleasant enough work. Try.’

Alexander took the apple and bit into it. ‘Nice.’

I checked the tray, took out a couple of decaying fruits, and dropped them into the pail left outside the door for that purpose. Later I would empty the sweet-sour rot on to the compost heap.

I pointed to the damaged racks. ‘I feel guilty that I let the children use it as a den, but they loved it.’

Alexander ran a hand up the slats. ‘Grown-ups keep out. Not allowed.’ He turned and grinned at me. ‘Can’t you remember what it felt like to rule a kingdom with no adults around? I can.’

I looked away. ‘I don’t think so.’ I bent over and retrieved another rotting apple. ‘But does one feel any more powerful as an adult?’

He dropped his core into the pail, and wiped his mouth. ‘Depends who you are, and if you feel your life is going well.’

‘Is yours?’ The question flew from me, before I’d had time to consider it. ‘Going well?’

‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘And from what I see, husband, children, house, yours must be too.’

I smiled up at him. ‘Women aren’t powerful. They have to make do with little snippets here and there.’

‘Oh, but they are,’ Alexander contradicted, ‘much, much more so than they think. They exert a terrible power.’

‘Do they?’ I considered the statement, its pleasing, teasing implications.

I turned and made to push the apple tray back into position. Alexander had the same thought. Our hands collided. His lay on mine.

Beneath his touch, my thoughts fractured into incoherence. ‘Alexander...’

‘Barbara?’ With a little sigh, he snatched up my hand and kissed it.

What sort of courage had been required to do that I could not gauge, for I had never made such a gesture, or had it done to me before. But it was funny, and wonderful. ‘How ridiculous.’ Again, laughter trembled at the back of my throat. ‘I could be your mother.’

He looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry. No, I’m not sorry ... but I owe you an apology.’

‘No, no. It was a compliment.’

Together we stepped out into the garden. The whole episode must have taken four minutes, possibly five, but no more.