The Consolation Prize

In the summer, she went to live by the sea.

‘Do come,’ Penny urged her. ‘Jean wants to go to Vancouver and she needs someone to water the cat and feed the plants. I could do it but I’d have to drive there every day. It won’t cost you anything and you can let your flat and make a fortune.’

Annie felt she was being manipulated. The idea of a summer spent away from London, away from Daniel, threw her into a panic, and yet at the same time it was perversely attractive. It would serve him right. He was always away for most of August anyway, down in Cornwall with his family, and they only met three or four times a month for a few hours each time, so if she did go away for the summer she was probably only missing about twenty-four hours of Daniel.

It was sad arithmetic. It evoked a day and a night of unbroken time, which of course they had never spent together, and it made her angry that she was managing on so little.

‘Besides,’ Penny added unfairly, ‘now I’m pregnant I need you more than ever. Just imagine, a whole summer only five minutes apart. It’d be almost as good as sharing a flat again.’

Annie still wasn’t used to the idea of Penny being pregnant. The bump wasn’t very obvious yet but she found herself staring at Penny’s stomach every time they met and thinking with a certain amount of apprehension about the miracle that was taking place. Would it come between them mentally as it already did physically when they hugged? Would Penny be too tired, too preoccupied, too maternal to sit up late and hear about Daniel and care about people who didn’t have children? Pregnancy was something they had discussed so often, inevitable but remote, like the end of the world, and here was Penny already doing it. Was summer by the sea a last chance to make the most of Penny in case she was submerged when the baby came?

They went to look at the flat together. It was small, like Annie’s place in London, two rooms, kitchen and bathroom, but it had a balcony overlooking the sea. Annie stood there for a long time watching the windsurfers with their gaudy butterfly sails. Sometimes they capsized ignominiously; sometimes they were swept along fast in a straight line. The sun on the water dazzled her and the sea and the sky merged, making the horizon a distant blur. She was conscious of Jean waiting for a decision, the tiny diamond glinting on her left hand. She was younger than Annie but she had the confident air of one who knows she has got her life in order. She would be much too sensible to get involved with a married man. ‘I just need someone to look after the flat,’ she said, ‘while I visit my fiancé.’ She had an open honest face with no make-up, and she was decidedly overweight, but Annie still couldn’t like her. The word ‘fiancé’ took her straight back to her teens when your parents paid for the reception and your father gave you away and your first marriage was also your last.

‘It’s a lovely view,’ she said, as the cat twined itself round her legs. She thought of Daniel and how surprised he would be if she went away.

‘So we’re going to be neighbours,’ Steve said that evening when she joined them for supper.

‘Well, I haven’t really decided yet. I said I’d ring her next week.’

‘She wants to talk it over with Daniel first,’ said Penny.

Annie was grateful for the way she always made it sound as though Daniel were part of her life, instead of belonging to someone else. Penny understood even though she couldn’t approve. Annie didn’t blame her for not approving; after all, she didn’t really approve herself.

‘How is Danny boy?’ Steve enquired.

‘Fine,’ said Annie, ‘but d’you have to call him that?’

‘Sorry, sorry.’ Then he whistled a few bars of the ‘Londonderry Air’.

‘Lay off, Steve,’ said Penny. ‘Not everyone appreciates your warped sense of humour.’

Annie couldn’t understand why Penny had married Steve. Apart from the fact that he looked rather like Warren Beatty, he didn’t seem to have much to recommend him. But perhaps that was enough. Perhaps he was wonderful in bed. Perhaps he was also very kind and had a lovely nature hidden away under his silly jokes. Perhaps they had proper conversations when they were alone. Sometimes when she visited them she felt like Blanche in Streetcar staying with Stella and Stanley Kowalski, and very much hoped it wouldn’t end the same way, with her getting raped and going off her head and being carted away by men in white coats, dependent on the kindness of strangers. The whole situation with Daniel made her feel a little crazy at times, as if she was living two half lives, or as if she were a puppet kept in a toy cupboard, not an adult woman in charge of her own fate. Perhaps that was why Penny had married Steve, so as not to feel like that.

‘Just think,’ said Steve, perhaps trying to make amends, ‘if you were only down the road, how much work you and Pen could do on Lydia Snake.’

This was their pet project. In a rare idle moment in the staffroom long ago they had come up with the idea of a series of children’s books, written by Annie and illustrated by Penny, about Lydia Snake, a charming reticulated python who lived in an airing cupboard and had various adventures when she was off duty from busking with her owner. She was in love with Peregrine Python, but he was a bit of a snob and preferred Anna Adder, so Lydia Snake spent a lot of time pouring out her troubles to her best friend Cindy Cat. They had great fun planning the series and how to spend the vast royalties, but so far Penny had done one rather tentative charcoal drawing of their heroine coiled up on a striped bath towel, and Annie had written half a paragraph beginning, ‘Lydia Snake really wished people weren’t so prejudiced against pythons.’

‘After all,’ Steve added, spoiling it all, ‘you’ll have to find something to do with those endless holidays you teachers get.’

‘Absolutely right,’ said Annie, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘And now I’m teaching adults, my holidays are even longer.’ She knew from experience that the best way to deal with Steve was to smile and agree with him, but she didn’t always remember in time. ‘I shall think of you, Steve, when you’re out driving your minicab and I’m sitting on my balcony looking at the sea and writing a bestseller.’

Steve grinned, acknowledging defeat, Penny giggled and poured some more wine, and the evening ended more amiably than it had begun.

When she got home Annie rang Jeremy for advice. He seemed delighted to be asked and insisted on taking her out to dinner next day to discuss it. She protested feebly; she always felt guilty about letting him spend money on her, but he would never let her pay her share, no matter how often she suggested it. ‘There are other reasons than sex,’ he would say solemnly, ‘for a man to buy a woman dinner. Her nut-brown hair. Her cheekbones. Her sense of humour.’

‘I don’t think I have much sense of humour,’ said Annie, who couldn’t deny the hair and the cheekbones but felt bad about the number of times she had cried on Jeremy’s shoulder.

‘You laugh at my jokes, don’t you?’ said Jeremy. ‘What more proof do you need?’ And she hadn’t the heart to tell him that he didn’t make very many jokes.

Proposals, now, that was a different matter. She had lost count of how many times Jeremy had proposed to her. She had learnt to take him seriously, although she had to keep saying no. Now he had stopped asking her, and contented himself with telling her to let him know if she ever changed her mind. ‘I’m going to leave the offer on the table,’ he said. ‘Okay?’ She was ashamed to admit that she actually missed being asked. Now when they met he would simply say, ‘Still Daniel?’ and, when she nodded: ‘Lucky chap.’

Jeremy was thirty-eight and lived with his mother who said plaintively at intervals, ‘Annie, my dear, I do wish you’d marry Jay and take him off my hands. He’s such a responsibility and I want to grow old disgracefully.’ Jeremy said his mother needed protection from unsuitable men who were after her money rather than her body, but since knowing them both for five years Annie had reached the conclusion that they needed each other.

She had tried hard to fall in love with Jeremy. If anyone could have fallen in love by sheer willpower, she would have managed it. He was tall and thin, with sandy hair and anxious brown eyes behind thick glasses, but he had nice hands and a lovely voice and he was kind and intelligent and he cared about her. They had met when he sold her a flat after her divorce and for a couple of years the relationship stayed platonic while she described herself as the walking wounded.

Then one fatal New Year’s Eve they had tried to make love, perhaps feeling it was expected of them after such a long friendship, or that it was silly not to, with so much goodwill around. It was a dismal failure and left them both feeling embarrassed. Even their arms and legs didn’t seem to fit, quite apart from the more important bits. Jeremy was not well-endowed and she didn’t feel filled up at all; he didn’t seem to have heard of foreplay, or afterplay, come to that; and the whole performance, if she could call it that, was over almost as soon as it had begun. ‘Was that it?’ she felt like saying but didn’t because she had a kind heart and besides, like every other woman, she knew that the male ego was a delicate thing: since puberty she had been conditioned not to damage it.

‘It’ll be better next time,’ he promised her, breathing hard, and she longed to say, ‘If there is a next time.’

Even their mouths were ill-matched: their teeth clashed and their tongues were tentative. Jeremy didn’t smell of anything either: sweat or soap or skin. He was totally bland. If you shut your eyes, you could pretend he wasn’t there, which she did. They were obviously meant to be friends and that was that. They shouldn’t have pushed their luck. The best part had been when he put his arm round her and stroked her hair.

‘I’m afraid I’m not very good at this,’ he added disarmingly, ‘because I don’t get enough practice.’

‘I’m rather out of practice myself,’ she said, to comfort him. It was true but irrelevant. Making love was not something you forgot how to do, if you had ever known. She felt bitterly disappointed that the two miserable celibate years since her divorce should end in this undignified fumbling. Then she began to wonder if she was at fault, not sufficiently erotic or skilful to get the best out of Jeremy. Like most women, she had been trained to blame herself for men’s shortcomings.

‘I shouldn’t have drunk so much, trying to get up my courage,’ he said.

‘Neither should I,’ she said dutifully, although they had only had two gin and tonics, and a bottle of champagne with their dinner. She wondered how long it would be before they could both pretend the whole thing had never happened.

Then he had really surprised her. ‘Of course,’ he said, in the same casual, excuse-making tone, ‘if you were just anyone I’d be much better. I’ve really made a hash of it because I’m in love with you.’

She was so overwhelmed by this statement that she couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘Story of my life,’ he added.

‘Jeremy, you’re a lovely person and I’m very fond of you, but I’m sure we’re just meant to be friends. It feels a bit incestuous. The chemistry isn’t right. It’s nobody’s fault. Or maybe I haven’t got over Peter yet.’ Words poured out of her now, anything that came to mind that would make him feel better and make sure it never happened again.

‘I do wish you’d marry me,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I could improve a lot over the next fifty years.’

On the whole he seemed to get over the incident, as she thought of it, rather faster than she did. She went on feeling embarrassed on his behalf for quite some time, whereas once she’d made it clear to him that they were going to be platonic or nothing, and no hard feelings, he relaxed and seemed to recover all his old zest for taking her out for dinners and concerts and drives in the country. He held her hand in the street and kissed her goodnight in the hall, but he never again tried to get her into bed, and she thought she detected relief rather than disappointment. If he wasn’t allowed to try, then he could not fail. For herself, she enjoyed his company; she was also grateful to have someone to talk about when her ex-husband Peter rang up with news of his new wife and child.

And then she met Daniel. It still made her go cold when she thought how easily she might not have met him. Liz had invited her to the latest private view at the gallery as usual, but she was late home from school after rehearsing Saint Joan and due to meet Jeremy for dinner at eight. She was thoroughly exhausted and really wanted nothing more than a bath and an early night. Besides, the gallery seemed to be moving away from the splashy dramatic abstract paintings that she enjoyed towards huge heavy badly drawn nudes. Perhaps that was the new trend. It was probably just like skirt lengths and she was out of date as usual. Just as she was deciding that she liked modern art after all, they went and changed it.

But Liz had rung up at the last moment and said, ‘Don’t you dare cancel, I’m counting on you. Gian-Carlo’s bringing his wife, for God’s sake, you can’t let me down now, I need some moral support.’

So Annie had gone, half out of sisterly loyalty to Liz, and half out of curiosity to see the legendary Gian-Carlo, Liz’s Italian lover, at close range. She recognised him at once, although she had never seen him before, because he was supremely beautiful, like a film star, a god; she found herself wondering how Liz could possibly go to bed with him. It would be like sleeping with a work of art: too awe-inspiring to be fun. The wife was predictable too: plump and plain and confident, her status reinforced by many children. Annie felt comfortably above it all, divorced and celibate, and ready to be soothed by yet another peaceful dinner with Jeremy. Then she saw Daniel.

He was shorter than Jeremy and wider, so that he formed a rather delectable rectangle like some of the paintings, which were not all the ugly figures she had feared. He had dark hair turning grey and an air of weariness, as if he had seen it all before and found it wanting. There were exhausted shadows beneath his eyes, which were a murky green. But he had a smile that made you feel you were the only person in the room, and dark hair escaping from his collar and cuffs, suggesting it must be all over his body. She fell instantly in love, or was it lust? She didn’t care. Her knees sagged and she could feel herself salivating, as if, starving, she had pressed her nose against the window of a top-class restaurant serving rare steak.

‘Who is that?’ she said faintly to Liz.

‘Where?’ Then she followed Annie’s eyeline. ‘Oh, him. That’s Daniel Hurst, Gian-Carlo’s accountant. We call him the gorilla.’

Annie gulped. ‘I nearly poured my drink over him and he said, “Excuse me”.’

‘Oh, terrific,’ said Liz. ‘Sounds like an old Doris Day movie. That’s really sparkling dialogue.’

‘Introduce me, Liz, please. I’ll do anything you like. I’ll hem your curtains. I’ll walk the dog. I’ll even unblock your sink.’

‘Follow me,’ said Liz instantly. ‘He’s heavily married, of course. But you expected that, didn’t you? All the good ones are.’

They crossed the room together and she heard Liz say, ‘Oh Daniel, have you met Annie? She needs some advice about her income tax and I told her you were just the chap.’

‘We nearly collided just now,’ he said, smiling the irresistible smile. ‘Hullo again.’

Then Liz was suddenly gone and they were alone in the crowded room. Annie heard herself telling him about the Lydia Snake project as if it were a reality and he said something about Schedule D and spreading her (as yet non-existent) self-employed income over three years, but she didn’t really take it in because she was too busy looking at his mouth.

‘It sounds like great fun,’ he said. ‘I’m sure my children would love it.’

The word children gave her a pain in the heart, the sort she had not had since Peter announced he was leaving her for pregnant Linda Jones in the upper sixth. She wondered if they looked like him. That large squashed crooked nose of his would look odd on a child. She thought he looked rather Roman, like someone out of I Claudius or possibly The Godfather. Maybe he was in the Mafia. She remembered Liz saying that the gallery was meant to be a tax loss for Gian-Carlo, while the ceramics shop next door made all the real money. Perhaps Daniel was a crook.

She wondered if she were going mad. She had never been so instantly devastated by anyone. She heard herself talking as if she were perfectly in control of herself, and she must have said something amusing because he laughed.

‘Perhaps we could discuss it over dinner,’ he said. ‘My wife’s up in Scotland with her parents and I do hate eating alone.’

That of course was her cue to say no, thanks all the same, she didn’t go out with married men.

‘I’d love to,’ she said instantly. ‘I’ll just have to make one phone call.’

Off she went to the cloakroom, feeling above the ground, although she had only had one glass of wine, pitying all the other poor ordinary mortals who were not going to have dinner with Daniel. She rang Jeremy and said she had the curse and needed an early night. The lies poured out effortlessly, without hesitation or guilt; she could hear him being embarrassed and sympathetic and she was so convincing she almost convinced herself and started to look around for Tampax. Then she set about repairing her make-up. The face that looked back at her seemed utterly changed: young and hopeful and eager, not at all the face of a deserted wife or a celibate divorcee. She hardly recognised herself. Spraying herself with scent, she felt a sudden surge of confidence, as if anything were possible.

He took her to a very smart Indian restaurant where the waiters all seemed to know him and were very attentive. She caught herself wondering if he took his wife there too. Or was it just a safe place for other people? Over dinner he told her that he had been married twice and had two children from each marriage. It was worse than she thought. His first wife Deborah had gone back to Newcastle to be near her parents. Once a month he went up there to see the children and spend the weekend in an hotel. It was not an amicable arrangement. And once a month the children came to London to spend the weekend with him and his second wife Judy. This was not an amicable arrangement either. The two sets of children did not get on and Judy found being a stepmother more difficult than she had expected. ‘I think she’s beginning to realise she’s made a terrible mistake,’ he said with a wry smile. He did not tell any of this in a tone of self-pity, rather with a mixture of factual reporting and mild surprise, like a man who had been innocently walking down the garden path when a ton of cement fell on his head.

I should get up and run away now, she thought. I am a fool to be sitting here listening to this.

The dark hairs that escaped from his cuffs went all the way down his fingers and she found herself looking at them tenderly and wanting to kiss them.

‘Not a good track record, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘As a husband I’m a bit of a walking disaster. Let’s say as a husband I make a very good accountant.’

In return she told him about marrying Peter at nineteen, when they were both at college, against their parents’ better judgment, and agreeing not to have children until they had qualified and got jobs and saved up enough for a place of their own.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘The right time. It just never comes.’

‘Oh, but it did,’ she said. ‘Only when we tried nothing happened. So we went on trying, getting more and more worried and bad-tempered and pretending it didn’t matter, and then Peter started having affairs and then he got this student pregnant and that was the end.’

He looked at her steadily for a long moment, the muddy green of his eyes reminding her of the colour of avocados, somewhere between ripe and rotten. Again she thought that she ought to flee for her life.

‘Did you have affairs?’ he asked.

She hesitated. ‘Yes. But that gives the wrong impression. I didn’t really want to, it was just a way of getting my own back when I felt miserable.’

‘It can be very comforting,’ he said.

She tried to be honest. ‘Yes, I know. What I meant was, it didn’t happen easily. I’m not a casual sort of person.’

‘You’re very beautiful,’ he said. ‘And very young.’

‘I’m thirty,’ she said, thrilled and embarrassed by the simplicity of the compliment, trying to hide behind a joke. ‘The big one.’

‘I’m forty-five,’ he said. ‘That’s half way, even to an optimist. You’re a child, a mere beginner. I envy you. You’ve still got time to get it right.’ He smiled the smile that had been her undoing in the gallery and she felt a curious kind of knot in her stomach, as if he had locked into a private space that no one else had touched.

They had ice cream for pudding, needing the coolness after the delicious spicy food, and it came in a curious phallic shape that made them both laugh as if they were conspirators. They looked each other very straight in the eyes and didn’t say anything. It was hard for her to attack the ice cream with her spoon.

He paid for the meal with a gold American Express card. In the street on the way back to the car he touched her hair very lightly with his hand. It felt as intimate as sex and she was truly frightened, but nothing would have made her run away.

He drove her back to her flat and parked outside. They sat in silence for what seemed like a long time, the tension between them feeling almost palpable, a dark presence filling the space, like another person in the car.

Eventually she said, ‘Are you going to come in?’

‘If I’m invited.’ Still he didn’t touch her and her skin began to crawl and ache with longing, as if she had flu.

‘Then I’m inviting you.’ She resented his making her do all the work and yet she appreciated it too. At least it left her with a free choice; there was no pressure, except in the silence.

Inside the flat she made coffee while he prowled and looked at the pictures, making the odd appreciative comment that they were much better than the stuff in Gian-Carlo’s gallery. When the coffee was ready they sat on the sofa to drink it, still behaving like polite strangers. Her old cat of the marriage, the original Cindy Cat, was still alive then and came to sit on the back of the sofa between them; she always flirted outrageously with male visitors. Daniel began to stroke her and she responsed as usual.

‘What a loud purr,’ he said. ‘Do you have a loud purr?’ And his hand came to rest on Annie’s shoulder.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, turning her head to look at him, dizzy with relief that he had finally touched her.

They kissed then, and she sensed a tremendous hunger in him, as if he were starving and needed to devour her. The mug of hot coffee was still clutched in her hands and he paused to take it away and place it carefully on the table. Then they began to explore each other, undoing buttons and zips, kissing and stroking the skin they uncovered. Their clothes left a trail from living-room to bedroom until they finally fell on the bed and began to make love in real earnest. She found herself back in a world of sensation she had almost forgotten existed, or had never fully explored. She was in bed with a large warm furry animal and they were giving each other every sort of pleasure. Their bodies shifted easily from one position to another, like experienced dancers anticipating one another’s movements, and their faces acknowledged each other’s delight. It was so long since she had made love properly that at first she got stuck on the edge of a climax and feared it would never happen, that it was tantalisingly close yet beyond her reach, but he somehow made her understand that there was no hurry, no urgency, so suddenly it didn’t matter, she could relax and she was able to come, over and over again until she was exhausted and replete, and when he finally came she was triumphant that she could at last make him lose control.

They had a long cuddle and didn’t speak at all. She felt she had returned from a long journey, very tired and yet full of energy, as if she could have jumped up and gone to a party, but might have fallen asleep in the taxi. Out of the long silence he suddenly said, ‘Would you like to do this again with me?’

No one had ever asked her that before in bed; they had all gone off and rung or failed to ring. It was odd to be asked, odd and touching and sweet, and she felt quite overwhelmed by such unexpected courtesy. It was as if he didn’t take her for granted although he had seen the full extent of her need. Could it be that he too felt insecure? Then he would not exploit her, perhaps.

‘Yes,’ she said, and just managed to stop herself adding the word please. To her surprise he then started making love to her again. ‘I thought you meant another time,’ she said, delighted at this indulgent luxury.

‘I did,’ he said, ‘but why not now as well?’

‘What a good idea,’ she said.

This time it was very relaxed because they had nothing to prove: it was friendly, light-hearted and fun, and they laughed a lot. When it was over she lay there smiling, still revelling in all her warm wet sensations and the smell of his furry skin, so it was quite a shock to hear him say presently in an everyday-sounding voice, ‘Well, I suppose I’d better get dressed.’

She felt like Cinderella at the ball, the glass slipper falling off, the coach turning into a pumpkin. ‘Can’t you stay?’

‘Babysitter,’ he said simply and started pulling on his scattered clothes.

A great chill of disappointment settled on her and she curled up in resentful silence for a few minutes, watching him dress, the glow of the street lamp illuminating his fur before it disappeared back into his shirt and trousers and jacket. Then she got up and put on a dressing gown. They stood facing each other in the hall and she felt like an abandoned child. No more treats. Back to school. She could see herself in the mirror looking crumpled and dishevelled, make-up smudged or worn away, lips swollen, hair all over the place, whereas he looked almost the business man again, back in his suit.

‘I’ll ring you,’ he said, combing his hair.

She had heard that before.

‘That is,’ he added patiently, ‘if you give me your number.’

She was startled, as if he should have known it by telepathy. She wrote it down for him on a scrap of paper from the telephone pad and he handed her his business card, an obvious way, she thought, of telling her she wasn’t of course allowed to phone him at home. Then he kissed her goodbye and it felt all right again, while they were touching.

As soon as he had gone, it didn’t feel right at all.

‘The trick is not to fall in love with them,’ Liz said. After two years with Gian-Carlo she considered herself an expert on married men. ‘Then you don’t get hurt.’

It was two days later and Daniel still hadn’t phoned. Annie had gone through several years of agony while she waited, punishing herself with expressions like making yourself cheap, throwing yourself at him, having no self-respect and behaving like an unpaid tart, but Liz insisted it was their mother’s voice she was hearing.

‘If you don’t fall in love then what’s the point?’ Annie asked. ‘You might as well hold out for somebody single who can stay the night and give you his home number and take you out at weekends.’

‘But they don’t stop you meeting this person, if he exists,’ Liz pointed out. ‘They just make sure you get plenty of good sex and hot dinners while you’re waiting. It’s only like taking a temporary job until a permanent one comes along. You’ve already got that wimp Jeremy. Now you’ve got Daniel to balance things up. It’s ideal.’

‘If he rings,’ said Annie, trying not to stare at the phone.

‘Two days is nothing for an Englishman,’ said Liz comfortingly. Then she spoilt it all by adding, ‘Of course if he was foreign you’d have had flowers by now. Gian-Carlo sent me red roses every day for a week, the first time I went to bed with him.’

‘Perhaps he fell in love with you,’ Annie suggested.

Liz laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. He’s in love with himself. And he loves his wife and all the little bambini. I’m just something exciting and decorative like a ceramic tile or a Lamborghini that he feels he deserves. When men get to forty and they’re successful, they feel they’ve earned a mistress. I’m a status symbol, that’s all.’

Annie wondered if she meant all the cynical things she said. It was difficult to tell with Liz.

‘I should have played hard to get,’ she said, watching the phone.

‘Rubbish,’ said Liz. ‘He might have been run over by a bus and you’d have missed your night of bliss. Worse still, you might have been run over by a bus. At least this way you can die smiling.’

There was a long silence.

‘I should never have gone to bed with him so quickly,’ Annie said sadly.

‘If he’s shocked by that,’ said Liz, ‘then he’s not worth having. In fact it’s a good test of character. You didn’t do it all by yourself, did you? It’s like two people robbing a bank and then one says to the other, “I don’t want to speak to you, you’re a bank robber”.’

‘You see,’ Annie said, ‘you do think it’s a crime.’

‘God give me patience,’ said Liz.

Annie picked up the phone to check it was still working and quickly replaced it.

‘Of course,’ Liz said, ‘there is another solution to this. You can ring him.’

Annie shook her head.

‘I see. You can go to bed with him on the first night but you can’t ring him up. Terrific. Why do you think he gave you his number?’

Annie sighed. ‘His hair smelt of incense,’ she said, remembering.

‘That’s just a miracle shampoo for the over forties, to stop them going bald.’

‘And his sweat is like scent.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Liz. ‘Now that really sounds like love.’

And at that moment the phone rang. ‘Hullo,’ said Daniel sounding perfectly ordinary except that he had the most wonderful voice she had ever heard. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to meet for lunch next week? Or a drink after work?’

Gradually a pattern established itself. During term time they met between five and seven. In the holidays they met from twelve till three, or one till four. Some weeks he was too busy to meet at all. Some weeks he didn’t even phone. But if she rang him he always seemed to be delighted and usually made an arrangement to meet. Very rarely they managed to spend an evening together and go out to dinner. Never a weekend. Never overnight. Time was so short that they spent most of it in bed, though not always making love. Sometimes he fell asleep and she was torn between tenderness and rage. One day he fell asleep on the sofa with a coffee cup in his hand and she worried that he might fall asleep at the wheel of his car. He talked a lot but revealed very little and she had to work out for herself that supporting two families and travelling between them was an exhausting life. She suggested going with him on one of his trips to Newcastle but he said the children liked to visit his hotel room and he would be busy with them all the time. She lacked the courage to suggest going along just for the ride because she felt sure he would refuse; moreover she thought it would indicate that she was really mad.

Sometimes they quarrelled. It seemed to happen about every six months and became known as their bi-annual quarrel, so that in between they could joke about it. That was how long it took for all her resentments to build up, as if they had a fixed gestation period of their own. Too many phone calls missed, and meetings cancelled or postponed. Too many evenings alone in front of the television with a takeaway pizza. Too much sympathy from her friends on how neglected she was.

She would fantasise about giving him up and how shocked he would be, which was rather like fantasising about committing suicide to make your family feel guilty for not appreciating you: small comfort for you at your own funeral. She felt like a child muttering, ‘Then he’ll be sorry.’ She could fill her evenings if she chose to, seeing Liz or Jeremy, Penny and Steve, other friends and colleagues; she could be busy and it was all very pleasant. But she was too honest not to feel a hollow ache at the centre of all this activity. I deserve more than this, she thought.

She envied couples who were entitled to be together, who did not have to make love with one eye on the clock, who had time to talk, to make plans, to go out, to see films, to take holidays, to do ordinary things, like meeting each other’s friends, and even perhaps grow bored and take one another for granted, the ultimate luxury.

Quarrelling did not come naturally to her and she had to wind herself up to it, dwelling on her resentments like somebody biting on a sore tooth. She was afraid of anger, her own and other people’s, remembering arguments with Peter that had been ugly and explosive and achieved nothing except to hasten the end, although they were supposed to clear the air. But eventually she would lose her temper with Daniel and unleash all her grievances, shaking inside, scarcely hearing what she said, terrified that he would reject her.

He always listened in silence. He did not shout or sulk, as Peter had done, or (worst fear of all) walk out. ‘I’m sorry you feel like that,’ he would say mildly, a soft answer, she thought, to turn away her wrath. ‘I must try to do better in future.’ Then he would describe all he had to do in an average day or an average week, both at work and at home, and she would end up amazed that he could fit her in at all. She would feel washed clean and new by being so outspoken, so assertive; they would make love, and he would go back to the office late.

And afterwards everything would go on exactly the same as before.

One evening she drove to Blackheath to find the road where he lived. She told herself she just wanted to see his house; in truth she was terrified that she might also see his wife and children. She went after dark to minimise this risk, but even so her heart beat very fast as she approached the street. She felt like a trespasser but she was also very angry that she could never visit him, that he came always to her flat and went away, leaving her alone again, and that she was weak enough to tolerate this arrangement. Driving past his house seemed a way of expanding this boundary, even in secret.

And then she saw him, wearing a tracksuit, out walking the dog. Her heart turned over with shock at seeing him out of context, doing something so ordinary and domestic, a routine chore, part of his other life that she so much wanted to share; and she had time to notice that he looked somehow deglamorised, tired and sad and old; then her guilt at spying on him, as it now seemed she was doing, made her accelerate away before he could notice she was there. At least she hoped he didn’t notice. In all the panic and haste she didn’t even see what his house looked like and she dared not return another time. She never mentioned the incident and neither did he.

‘That’s nothing,’ Liz said, when Annie told her about the narrow escape. ‘When I was in love with my psychiatrist I used to go round to his flat and kiss his car. Can you imagine? God, women are fools. One day the bonnet was hot, he must have just come home, and I nearly burnt my lip.’

Annie laughed and laughed, and realised she wanted to cry.

‘Gian-Carlo would never behave like that,’ Liz added. ‘He’d be too busy at home slurping up the pasta or designing another memorable tile.’

‘Liz,’ Annie said seriously, ‘does Gian-Carlo say he loves you?’

‘All the time.’

‘Daniel never says it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Liz. ‘They don’t mean it, so it really doesn’t matter if they say it or not. The result’s the same. Here we are and here they aren’t.’

‘But I want to say it to Daniel.’

‘God, you’re a glutton for punishment,’ said Liz fondly.

When they were touching, she always felt all right. Whether they were making love or holding hands, skin contact and body warmth reassured her that all was well. Sometimes in bed he held her so tight she felt she might suffocate or drown, engulfed in sweat and pleasure and fur. Then it was like a bear hug. She couldn’t equate this person with the other in a grey pin-striped suit who kissed her goodbye on her forehead and made harsh jokes that kept her at arm’s length. She felt she was allowed to get close to him only in bed.

Sometimes he let slip tantalising details of his past life, like the time Judy was about to have their first child and one of his other children was seriously ill in hospital up in Newcastle. He had spent most of his time zooming up and down the motorway.

‘That must have been awful,’ she said. ‘You must have felt really torn in two.’

‘Just as well I had a fast car,’ he said.

She sensed that he dreaded pity more than anything and would always defend himself against it with flippancy.

‘You don’t like me to sympathise, do you?’ she said, greatly daring.

He looked amazed. ‘Why should you sympathise when all my troubles are of my own making?’

She wanted to discuss his two marriages, to find out why he had left Deborah for Judy, and what had gone wrong there too.

‘I’m just not a monogamous person,’ he said, ‘as you must have noticed by now.’ And he smiled to take the sting out of the words.

‘But what were they like?’ she persisted. ‘What are they like? Are they very different?’

‘I’m not sure I know the answer to that,’ he said. ‘They’re probably quite alike, I think I tend to go on making the same mistakes.’

‘So do I,’ she said bitterly.

‘Well, I can’t discuss you with them,’ he said, ‘so it hardly seems fair to discuss them with you.’

When she finally told him about the seaside plan, he looked surprised for a moment, then said quickly, ‘How nice, you’ll enjoy that.’

She took a deep breath. ‘Will you be able to come down?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘That sounds like no.’

He smiled again. ‘Don’t be so pessimistic.’

She wondered if he had noticed that for the first time it would be her leaving him, instead of the other way round, no longer waiting by the phone to be slotted into his life. If he wanted to see her this summer he would have to make the effort, travel, tell lies.

‘Come on,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

So now she sat with Penny on her new balcony, wearing dark glasses against the sparkling of the sun on the water, gazing at the shimmering sails of the boats and the windsurfers. Already London seemed remote. She felt she had stepped back into the past: the little seaside town was small and quiet, even when, as now, it was full of visitors. Life was conducted at a different pace here. People smiled at you in streets and cafés; shopkeepers let you exchange things without a receipt. You could sit outside eating fish and chips or a cream tea; you could watch children making sandcastles or playing with seaweed on the beach and dream of your own childhood. The shops were full of cheap sundresses and comfortable sandals; old ladies wandered about together window-shopping, or sat in deckchairs on the promenade wearing white cardigans and sensible shoes. It was the sort of place she might once have hated but now she found it restful and calm. She liked collecting seashells and coloured stones; she enjoyed the muddy sand between her toes and the crunch of the shingle underneath her feet; she revelled in pottering about the antique shops which contained not just furniture and mirrors but amazing collections of bric-à-brac. One day she found a snowstorm paperweight and it reminded her of the relationship with Daniel: no matter how much you shook it up, afterwards it was exactly the same.

Officially she and Penny were meant to be working on Lydia Snake, but so far instead of getting on with the story they had begun, they had amused themselves making a list of titles for other future stories. It was more fun. Lydia Snake at the Seaside. Lydia Snake joins the Circus. Lydia Snake at Boarding School. And – an X certificate version for parents only – Lydia Snake in Soho.

‘There’s a lot of mileage in this,’ Annie said. ‘It could go on for ever.’

‘That is if it ever gets started.’

‘Ah, you’ve just hit the hidden snag.’

Penny was more obviously pregnant now. It made Annie feel protective, just seeing her like that, with the unaccustomed curve that she herself had been unable to achieve. She had begun to warm to Steve, too, as she saw him more considerate of Penny in her touchingly vulnerable state. He would leap up now to fetch and carry for her in a way he had never done before. Perhaps she had been wrong about him and he was really a nice person after all. She spent a lot of time with them both, having lunches and drinks and dinners. Sometimes they invited single men specially to meet her but she thought of Daniel and failed to find them attractive. Steve took a keen interest in Lydia Snake and enjoyed coming up with ever more suggestive titles: Lydia Snake’s Skin Flick, or Lydia Snake Gets It Off.

One night he drove her home because her car was being serviced. She was feeling totally relaxed with him by now, so the shock was even greater when he put his hand on her knee as he parked outside her flat. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ he said, like the worst caricature of a leering escort.

‘No,’ she said inadequately, feeling that to ask him to remove his hand from her knee would turn her too into a caricature, only of offended virtue. Perhaps she could freeze it off by sheer willpower, make him feel so embarrassed that he would remove it of his own accord.

To her horror he took this passivity for encouragement, leaned across and tried to kiss her. Instantly they were locked in a dreadful old-fashioned battle, Annie feeling like an indignant teenager again as she fought not to unclench her teeth. The hand was still on her knee and the other hand seemed to possess a life of its own, darting about into all sorts of places uninvited. Annie stopped pretending to be grown up and tactful: she simply hit him and he reeled backwards with surprise, banging his head on the windscreen. He swore and Annie laughed. She had been right all along about A Streetcar Named Desire.

‘I’m sorry,’ Steve muttered, holding his head in both hands as if to make sure it had not come loose. ‘I must have had too much to drink.’

Annie found this a particularly insulting excuse. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said sharply. ‘I wouldn’t have let you drive me home if you had.’

‘No, that’s true. Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’ve always fancied you, okay?’

‘That’s better,’ Annie said. Simple lust was preferable to alcoholic frenzy any day, she thought. ‘Just don’t do it again, that’s all, it’s very embarrassing. And how can you be sure I won’t tell Penny? It would serve you right if I did.’

‘I assume you wouldn’t want to hurt her,’ he said simply. ‘Any more than I would.’

‘Then for God’s sake think before you jump on someone again. Penny’s friends may not all be as understanding as I am. I’m sorry if you’re getting frustrated while she’s pregnant, but it won’t last for ever.’

She thought she was trying to make allowances for him, to smooth it over, since she would have to go on seeing them both, but he said, sounding surprised, ‘Oh, it’s not that, she’s as randy as ever, bless her heart, it’s me, it turns me right off her being like that, I can’t think of her that way, know what I mean?’

Something Daniel had said came back to her then, something about children changing everything; and she had replied that not having them changed everything too.

‘Yes, I think so,’ she said, getting out of the car, ‘and I’m going to pretend this never happened.’

‘I thought you’d understand,’ Steve said through the window. ‘You knowing about married men and all that.’

When she got up to the flat she stood for a long time on the balcony, watching the moon making a sharp silver path on the water. She wanted Daniel desperately: to be here, to hug her, to listen, to make love. The worst part was, she did find Steve attractive, not as himself but as a Warren Beatty lookalike. If she had not been in love with Daniel … If Penny had not been her friend … Yes, she could imagine circumstances in which she might have gone to bed with Steve.

She tried to think about it honestly, without prejudice. Perhaps if you didn’t take a sternly moralistic view, there was something inherently difficult about watching your girlfriend turn into a wife and then into a mother, when the mother you knew best was your own. In another culture there would have been other wives and concubines lined up to share the strain. Perhaps fifty years of monogamy was too much to expect of anyone.

This is ridiculous, she thought. Here I am actually making excuses for my best friend’s nasty husband because he’s greedy and self-indulgent and wants a bit on the side. He thinks I’m cheap, fair game, an easy lay because I have a married lover. It’s as simple as that.

But it didn’t feel simple at all and she was making excuses for herself and Daniel as well as Steve. I can’t have it both ways, she told herself. I’ve been the deceived wife and now I’m the other woman. Who gets the better deal? Do you want quantity or quality? In another culture I might have been actually grateful to fertile Linda Jones for giving my husband a child when I couldn’t. I might have seen it as a blessing, letting me off the hook. And if I’m honest I must admit I enjoyed those affairs I had, particularly as I could blame Peter for provoking them.

She remembered that Judy had been Daniel’s mistress before she was his wife and wondered which role she preferred. She must know him well. There must be some level, even subconscious, on which she knew that someone else was playing her old part. It would probably always be so. Was that really such an enviable situation?

Oh well, I can’t solve it all tonight, she thought, as her mother used to say, only about different subjects, as she poured the cocoa. It was amazing that a casual pass from Steve had conjured up so much introspection. Except that everything made her think of Daniel because he was usually in her mind. She spent so little time actually with him that she had to make up the difference by thinking and talking about him.

She took a quick swig of whisky instead of cocoa and went to bed, soothed by the sound of the waves. But it was a long time before she slept.

In the morning she was busy getting ready for Liz and Jeremy. Usually she saw them separately, so that Jeremy could flirt with her and Liz could talk about Gian-Carlo, but as she hated cooking and they both wanted to see the flat, it seemed sensible to invite them together for once. Besides, she owed Jeremy a good meal for letting her place in London to some rich Americans. Liz had immediately said she’d save petrol and ask for a lift.

While she was waiting for them to arrive, the phone rang and it was Daniel, calling from the golf club. A weekend call was a rare treat and she was overcome by joy.

‘D’you want the bad news or the good news?’ he asked.

‘Both.’

‘The bad news is I can’t get down to see you this month. I just can’t take that much time off. The good news is I could manage a stopover in August when I’ve taken the children back to Newcastle.’

August. The holiday month. The family month. The desert. Suddenly there was an oasis with palm trees, sparkling fountains, sherbet. She felt an absurdly wide smile spreading across her face.

‘Stopover,’ she said. ‘That means when people actually stay the night. Get into bed and sleep. Have breakfast and conversation. That kind of thing.’

‘That’s right.’ He was smiling too; she could hear it in his voice.

‘Could you confirm that in writing?’ she said.

The prospect of such delight suffused the day, giving it a warm pink glow, lending new meaning to the words rose-tinted glasses. She found it hard to concentrate on Jeremy and Liz, who finally arrived a bit later than expected, but when she did manage to notice them she thought they seemed a trifle edgy. Perhaps they had found the two-hour journey a strain. Alone with her, Liz had always said Jeremy was nice but dull, and Jeremy had implied that Liz was amusing but rather tarty, so maybe it proved how wise she had been to keep them more or less apart all this time. And yet they looked good together, both tall and thin. Liz was looking particularly well, wearing a cream dress Annie had not seen before, her skin lightly tanned, her hair newly streaked. How lucky Gian-Carlo was, Annie thought.

‘Daniel’s coming to stay the night in August,’ she announced in triumph.

‘Big deal,’ Liz said. ‘It’s only taken him three years.’

‘It’s different for you,’ Annie said. ‘When Gian-Carlo comes to London he can always stay the night because his wife is back in Milan. You take it for granted. You’re spoilt.’

‘I don’t know about spoilt,’ Liz said. ‘He’s beginning to snore and get a paunch. I think Maria’s cooking is finally catching up with him.’

‘Isn’t Daniel coming down this month as well?’ Jeremy asked.

‘He can’t,’ Annie said defensively. ‘Two wives and four children take a lot of supporting, you know. Driving down here and back would mean taking a whole day off work. It’s hard enough for him when I’m in London, just taking a few hours off.’

‘He doesn’t deserve you,’ said Jeremy.

It was annoying having to defend Daniel when privately she agreed with what they said about him. But it was more annoying to have them criticise him. She was entitled to complain, but they were not supposed to attack, even though she knew they only did it out of concern for her. Nevertheless they had a nice lunch and a stroll on the beach until it came on to rain and they ended up back in the flat reading the Sunday papers and playing Scrabble. The cat seemed greatly taken with them both and kept sitting on them and purring and kneading them with her claws.

‘You should get another cat, Annie,’ Liz said.

‘I know,’ Annie said. ‘Maybe I will But it’s such a cliché, the spinster teacher with her cat.’ In her heart she longed for a cat and did not know how she had lived without all that comforting warm fur since Cindy died. ‘Anyway, I’m out a lot,’ she added, wishing it were true.

When they had gone she rang up Penny to gloat about Daniel, her joyfulness having completely wiped out the memory of Steve’s clumsy grope, until he answered the phone. Hearing his voice filled with sudden apprehension brought it all back, and she nearly laughed because he sounded so obviously terrified she was going to report him to Penny. Instead she told Penny about Daniel’s impending visit and heard Penny doing her best to sound delighted and not succeeding very well.

‘Well, I think it’s wonderful,’ Annie said sharply.

‘Yes, of course it is. I’m really pleased for you, you know I am. It’s just – oh, I just wish you could find someone who could really be with you. I’d like you to be as happy as I am.’

There was no answer to that. She didn’t feel like ringing anyone else with her news: obviously no one could appreciate it as she did. So she spent the evening vaguely watching television, feeling almost dizzy at the prospect of a night with Daniel. She wondered if she would be able to sleep at all. At times like this, or when she was waiting for him to arrive, her happiness was so overpowering that it made all the deprivation in between seem like nothing. It was a privilege to be allowed to feel so intensely.

She fell asleep in front of the television and was woken at midnight by the phone. It was Liz.

‘Annie, I’ve got to ask you something,’ she said, sounding nervous. ‘I can’t sleep till I do but I don’t think you’re going to like it. Would you – well, would you mind very much if I married Jeremy?’

Annie, half awake, felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach. ‘Jeremy?’ she echoed feebly. ‘You and Jeremy? But you’ve always said he’s a wimp.’

There was a long sigh from Liz. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but he is awfully nice.’

‘D’you think I hadn’t noticed?’ Annie was suddenly furious. ‘Why d’you think I’ve been going out with him all this time? Has he asked you then? When did all this happen?’ A whole plot seemed to be emerging from behind her back.

‘Well, I’ve always liked him,’ Liz said. ‘You know I have. I mean, we’ve liked each other. And you don’t want him, do you? You’ve had five years to make up your mind and you’ve always said no.’

Annie took deep breaths, trying to calm herself. ‘Is that what he says?’

‘No, but it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘But you don’t love him.’ She was still making an effort to understand. ‘Do you?’

Liz sighed again. ‘We get on well. And we’d both like to have children before it’s too late. I want to get married, Annie, I can’t help it. It’s all right for you, you’re divorced, but I’ve never been married and I don’t want to sit around here till Gian-Carlo trades me in for a newer model.’

‘Well, you don’t need my permission.’ She was amazed at the anger she felt. No more candle-lit dinners, no more proposals, no more moral support, no more sad eyes gazing at her with hopeless longing. No more Jeremy.

‘It needn’t make any difference to you,’ Liz said as if telepathic. ‘You’ve always said he was like a brother. Well, now he really will be.’

‘Why tonight?’ Annie demanded. ‘What happened tonight? He’s known you for five years too. Why should he suddenly ask you to marry him?’

‘Oh well,’ Liz said reluctantly, ‘we got chatting in the car and then I asked him in and, well, you know, one thing led to another.’

‘You went to bed with him.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘And?’

‘Well, he wasn’t nearly as bad as you made out. Maybe it’s because he’s not in love with me. Maybe he’s been practising on someone else. Anyway. It was all right.’

All right. This from someone who had always implied that Gian-Carlo was in the Olympic gold medal class.

‘Anyway,’ Liz added, ‘sex isn’t everything. I’m lonely, Annie. I want someone of my own, and he’s kind, he won’t treat me badly.’

‘I hope you’ll be very happy.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘No, I mean it. I really do. I’m just … surprised.’

Silence. Expensive telephone minutes ticking away.

‘What about Gian-Carlo?’ Annie asked suddenly.

‘Well, I said I’d give him up, of course.’

‘Will you?’

‘How do I know till I do it?’

Annie was still in shock, as if they had finally proved that the earth was flat and shown her the evidence.

‘I’m being honest with you,’ Liz said. ‘You can wreck the whole thing if you want to.’

‘No, I can’t,’ Annie said. ‘And I don’t want to.’

‘Please forgive me,’ Liz said. ‘Jeremy’s going to ring you tomorrow. He’s gone home to tell his mother.’

Next day there was a large bunch of flowers from Jeremy with no message. But he didn’t phone.

August was hot, with sudden bursts of rain. She sat on the balcony or lay on the beach, trying to get brown for Daniel. Once or twice she even swam in the icy water. One night there was an electric storm and she stood at her living-room window watching it, while the cat cowered under the sofa and she tried to persuade her that storms were fun. Great jagged forks of lightning crackled across the sky beyond the sea. It was an awesome sight, quite different from a storm in town. She felt she had dropped out of London life and was now a part of some elemental world. Would Daniel enjoy seeing her in this new environment? There was so much she didn’t know about him.

She and Penny abandoned all pretence of working on Lydia Snake. Penny was knitting. Various tiny garments in white and yellow, blue and pink, sprang from her needles. She was keeping her options open. Annie sat and watched her while she talked about how happy she was. It felt odd, seeing Penny so transformed. As the bump grew larger, the Penny she knew seemed to disappear behind it. When Steve joined them he was so polite and considerate that Annie hardly recognised him. She almost wanted to ask him to tease her, so as not to arouse suspicion. She found herself wondering if she would have been like Penny, had she ever got pregnant by Peter.

Jeremy wrote an embarrassed letter from which she gathered that he and Liz had been seeing each other ever since Annie left town. It made more sense, it made the decision less sudden, but she wondered why Liz had not told her, when she was bound to find out. He implied he was marrying Liz because she reminded him of Annie. It didn’t sound very complimentary to Liz but perhaps he was trying to be tactful. Annie was shaken because she had never thought that she and Liz were alike at all, except in the most superficial way. She wondered what sort of a marriage it would be, if Jeremy saw Liz as a substitute, a sort of consolation prize, and Liz was still secretly involved with Gian-Carlo. She felt shocked: it was against all her romantic principles. But perhaps she was wrong and they would be all the happier for having low expectations. After all, she and Daniel had both pursued grand passions and ended up getting divorced. Perhaps if the flames never burnt very high, they would never burn out either. Liz and Jeremy might be able to simmer away together into contented old age. It didn’t sound very exciting, but it might be cosy.

As the day of Daniel’s visit approached, she caught herself wishing that it could be forever postponed, like jam tomorrow, so that she might have the pleasure of looking forward to it indefinitely. She hated to think that the time would actually come and therefore pass. And yet she was also impatient to the point of desperation. She smiled to herself, thinking that her students would hardly recognise this crazy, obsessive person. They only saw her as someone cool and confident, efficient in her work, friendly and distant.

Daniel arrived about seven. He looked very tired, having driven from Cornwall to Newcastle with two children, stayed the night, had a row with Deborah, and driven from Newcastle to Sussex. When he got home he would probably have a row with Judy, if they both had the energy. The two sets of children had all continued to loathe each other and had spent the entire holiday fighting. He had also paid brief visits to widowed parents and in-laws, and dug gardens, painted walls, laid carpets. He told her all this in a casual, throw-away style, as if it was a joke, and she hugged him, knowing better than to sympathise. He seldom hugged her first, but always responded when she hugged him. He seemed to need her to make the first move. Now when she put her arms round him he looked down at her, smiling fondly; he smelt the same as ever, and felt just as solid. It was like hugging a tree or a bear. Sometimes she thought that if he were not furry and heavily built with a special smell, none of this would have happened. She undid his shirt buttons and kissed his fur, breathing in the scent, which did not remind her of anything but him. In the dark or blindfolded, she would have recognised him.

‘You feel good,’ she told him inadequately. ‘And you smell wonderful.’

‘So do you.’

They kissed. It was extraordinary to see him in this new space, in the flat overlooking the sea, doing ordinary things he had never done before with her, like unpacking his overnight bag. She looked tenderly at the items as they appeared: toothbrush, electric razor, a clean shirt, a bottle of champagne. They had a drink and went to bed, making love quickly because it had been so long since they were together. She was so moved at having him inside her again that she cried. Our longest separation yet, she thought, but did not say so, in case it sounded like a reproach. Afterwards, the cat came to join them, purring and sniffing the sheets.

She had prepared a feast, but he said they could have it for lunch: he wanted to take her out for dinner. Crossing the road, he held her back from the traffic and she said lightly yet with an undercurrent of bitterness, thinking of all the time she had spent without him, ‘Oh, you could always replace me.’

‘I don’t think I could,’ he said. ‘You’re unique.’

He so seldom paid her compliments that she was silent with surprise and did not dare ask him to elaborate in case he took refuge in jokes and told her that surely everyone was unique.

Over dinner she told him about Jeremy and Liz, Penny and Steve, presenting each story as a joke. She felt he needed light relief. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that this was her role in his life: to provide amusement, warmth, acceptance, just as his role in her life was to be a focus for all her intense feelings. It was a strange bargain and it made her feel rather sad, but she did not want to spoil their time together with any negative emotion. And yet this was a unique opportunity: at last they had time to talk.

‘Why don’t we do this more often?’ she ventured to say, as she ate the delicious food. ‘Or is that a silly question?’

‘Because it would make waves,’ he said. ‘I lost my children that way. I can’t go through all that again. Two weekends a month and a summer holiday aren’t the same thing at all. I spend all my time trying to mend fences.’

‘So I’ve just got to put up with it,’ she said.

‘Only if you want to.’

‘Obviously I do.’

‘I don’t take you for granted, if that’s what you mean.’

Well, there it was, she thought. You could ask a man to leave his wife, perhaps, but you couldn’t ask him to leave his children. She agreed with him really. Two sets of abandoned children would be unbearable. She would never survive the guilt, and neither would he.

‘But we never make plans,’ she said. ‘And I find you very hard to talk to.’

‘I just live from day to day,’ he said, ‘and I’ve never found talking helps. We’re talking now, aren’t we? But it doesn’t change anything.’

‘I only feel all right when we’re touching,’ she said.

‘Then let’s touch some more.’

‘But you never say anything reassuring or encouraging or …’ She gave up and simply held his hand under the table.

‘What’s the point when I’ve got nothing to offer you?’ he said.

Outside the restaurant the sea sucked at the pebbles, drew itself back, then sprang at them again.

He paid the bill and they went back to the flat, looked at the moon, finished the champagne and went to bed. He warned her to kick him if he snored and she promised she would, but he didn’t snore, just breathed heavily on his back, and then, turning with a sudden movement on to his side, slept so silently that he might have been dead. She curled round him, breathing in the smell of his skin, and feeling, much against her will, sorry for him as well as sorry for herself. It was hopeless. His burdens hung around him like the panniers on a donkey, preventing anyone from getting really close to him. There simply wasn’t enough time or energy for all he had to do. She remembered how once she had watched him walking down the road to her flat and he had looked like a man with all the troubles of the world on his shoulders; yet the moment she opened the door he had been flippant and bright as usual. I’ve either got to accept this the way it is, she told herself, or get out: there are no other options.

She fought against sleep, wanting to extend the luxury of spending the night with him, just as she had wanted to postpone his arrival, but eventually sleep overcame her. She woke in the night several times, though, feeling him move restlessly beside her. She was so unused to sleeping with anyone that at first in her semi-conscious state she thought she was back in the days of her marriage and panic engulfed her until she remembered that it was Daniel.

In the morning it felt strange, seeing each other tousled and bleary for the first time. They made love differently; already it seemed more domestic. She found she was exhausted from all the excitement, the disturbed night, and slightly hungover from the champagne: it was almost as though she had jet lag. Her body was out of sync and her mind was buzzing.

They had breakfast on the balcony and the sea soothed her as it always did. They compared suntans in the harsh daylight. They watched the bright sails skimming across the water and occasionally plunging in.

‘What time d’you have to leave?’ she asked.

‘After lunch.’

They went back to bed and made love as if they might never meet again. As usual it felt so right that while it lasted she did not care that they hardly talked and seldom met. They were in another world where they could communicate through their skin.

Around noon she got up and served the feast she had prepared the previous day. It was raining by now so they had to eat indoors. The lovely food stuck in her throat and he had to eat most of it. All she felt now was time passing like an express train, wrenching them apart. It was almost a relief when he said he had to go; she could not bear much more waiting.

When he kissed her goodbye he held her face in his hands as if he really cared about her.

‘See you soon,’ he said, as he always did, although it was seldom true.

‘Take care,’ she said as usual.

After he had gone she curled up in their scented sheets and slept and slept.

She lived on her memories far into September, replaying their time together like an old film. She felt curiously content. It occurred to her that Daniel was a consolation prize as much as Jeremy had been, that each represented half a relationship, that neither could change, that both were fixed like the scene in the snowstorm paperweight. She was safe. Involved and yet detached. She could not be hurt again as she had been with Peter. Perhaps in her heart she preferred it that way. Perhaps she wasn’t ready yet to take such enormous risks again. The realisation calmed her. It was reassuring to decide that she wasn’t the masochistic idiot her friends seemed to think, but a sensible grown-up woman in charge of her life, taking care of herself as best she could.

Time passed and Daniel didn’t ring, but she was unworried. He had never been good at telephoning. She read books and prepared lectures and walked on the beach. The week before she was due to go home she rang the office and they said he was sick. That alarmed her. One of her worst fantasies had always been that he would die in an accident and no one would tell her because they did not know she existed.

The call came the same night and she knew at once something was wrong. He had never before rung her so late.

‘Hullo,’ he said, sounding remote and self-contained. ‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch.’

‘Are you all right? I phoned the office and they told me you were ill.’

He managed to laugh. ‘Well, I’m not at my best. Judy’s left me.’

She was too shocked to speak. It was the one thing she had never expected.

‘Just took the kids and left me a note.’

She said slowly, ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Why are you surprised? I’m not. I told you three years ago she knew she’d made a mistake. She’s just been biding her time.’ But he sounded shell-shocked all the same.

Daniel alone. It was unthinkable. It changed everything. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘When are you coming back?’

‘Next week.’

‘Well, don’t be too surprised if you find me on your doorstep with a suitcase.’

She was silent, shocked to find that her strongest emotion was terror. Underneath the terror was a mixture of excitement and rage.

‘Don’t panic,’ he said, hearing her silence. ‘That was a joke.’

‘Maybe she’ll come back.’ It didn’t sound like a joke.

‘I rather doubt it,’ he said. ‘She’s got somebody else.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Why not? I told you I’m a walking disaster. She’s only doing to me what I did to Deborah. It’s almost funny, isn’t it?’

‘Not really,’ she said gently.

‘I’ve never lived alone,’ he said. ‘It’ll be an education, won’t it?’

Penny actually laughed when Annie broke the news. ‘You know the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for, because you may get it.” ’

‘But I’d just decided I like it the way it is,’ Annie said, aghast. ‘It’s all I can handle.’

‘The great editor in the sky must be working to rule,’ Penny said. ‘For three years you’ve been telling her you want more of Daniel. Obviously your new message hasn’t reached her yet.’

‘But we hardly know each other,’ Annie said. ‘Except in bed.’

‘Well, now’s your chance. I think it’s wonderful.’

‘But … two broken marriages … four children to visit … what’s he going to be like? Where does that leave me?’

‘It’s make or break time,’ said Penny. ‘Real life has caught up with you.’

Annie drove back to the flat in a daze. In less than three months at the seaside, everything had changed: Liz and Jeremy, Penny and Steve, and now herself and Daniel. It could be the end of something or it could be the start of a whole new life. But it could never be the same again.

Jean was due back in the morning. Annie fed the cat and watered the plants for the last time, then stood on the balcony watching the sea.

It was time to go back to the city.