Order was important to Graham Ashton. He’d succeeded in organizing every part of his existence to his entire satisfaction, and what had happened yesterday when he caught sight of Lydia sitting in a chair outlined against the light coming through the French windows was something he couldn’t begin to describe. A wave of emotion swept suddenly up and over and into his everyday concerns and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
His life. It was a bit like a filing-cabinet and he had a talent for keeping the various bits of it nicely separate and tidy: Maureen, their house, their friends and children in one drawer, his work and colleagues in another, and Lydia in a locked compartment all of her own, just above the one in which he kept everything to do with his poetry. He didn’t hide the fact that he wrote it, but he didn’t mention it either. Graham Ashton was a common name and he hadn’t published enough to alert anyone in the medical establishment. No one he knew in the hospital was into poetry, as far as he was aware. What he liked about it was the pleasure of finding the right words, and organizing them into sequences that could illuminate something: make the reader see better. He liked the limitations of poetry, too: the rules. He didn’t approve of those who blurted stuff out without even counting the syllables or worrying about the form. Lydia wasn’t one of those. One of the things he loved about her was the way she paid attention to every word she wrote, and managed to express deep feelings without a hint of soppiness, or veering into the hello clouds hello sky school of verse which he hated.
On his desk, within reach of his hand, was his secret phone. He picked it up and went downstairs. Only Lydia knew the number. It was a pay-as-you-go mobile: the twin of one he’d sent her for her birthday last year. Every call between them went from one silver handset to the other and he took care to delete not only any messages, but the entire call history, so that if anyone happened to come across it, there’d be no trace of her. Nothing would remain of the thousands of words of love and desire that flew between them.
Seeing Lydia there, after so long, looking so beautiful, so like the woman he’d dreamed about, turned him for a few moments into a kind of statue. He’d stood there and tried to take in that she was Zannah’s mother. Everything they’d said to one another, everything he’d been fantasizing about in the privacy of his mind night after night came back to him. Maureen had stared at him as though he were ill, and he was in a way. He’d pulled himself together eventually, and Lydia had left the party at once, which made things easier, but all through the evening, during a meal that seemed never to end, with Adrian and Maureen discussing what had happened, he’d sat there wanting to hit both of them.
He thought back to that first course at Fairford Hall. Although they’d done poetry workshops and cooked the communal meals together, he’d circled round her from some distance till the second evening, when they’d talked alone for the first time. The following day, they went for a walk through the wintry landscape. Later, it occurred to him that he should have said something at the beginning of the walk. It would have altered what they said to one another, how they were with each other. Gray cringed now to recall how shy he’d been. They’d discussed that morning’s poems, the tutors, a couple of course members who were more than usually annoying: trivial things. I didn’t care. I just wanted to listen to her voice. I would have gone on chatting like that for a long time. But then it had started to rain. They’d taken shelter in the porch of a small, grey, architecturally undistinguished church. There was no one around.
‘I knew I ought to have brought an umbrella,’ he said. ‘We’re stuck here for a bit, I’m afraid. It should clear up quite soon.’ He had no idea how soon it would or wouldn’t clear up.
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘At least there’s a bench. And maybe we can go in and have a look. Do they lock churches round here? It’s such a shame when they do.’
He tried the heavy wooden door and it opened. The interior of the church wasn’t memorable in any way, but there was the hush and the chill; the stained glass, the smell of winter greenery in the vases near the altar, and the unexpectedly fine carvings on the lectern. They spoke softly as they went round, and he took her hand. She didn’t pull it away. They walked down the nave together and sat in the front pew.
‘I never go to church,’ he told her. ‘Are you religious? Am I allowed to ask you that?’
Lydia shook her head. ‘Not religious at all, but I do love churches. I love the thickness of the silence. I like organ music, too.’
When they emerged, the rain had stopped.
‘We can go back now,’ he said.
If she’d said, Okay, let’s go, it was entirely possible that he wouldn’t have kissed her just at that moment. But she hesitated, peering out at the graveyard as though reluctant to go back, and turned to him. She started to say something and he stopped her. He simply leaned forward and took her face between his hands and kissed her. His first thought was how different it was from kissing his wife. Maureen smelled of make-up and tasted of lipstick. She often giggled when they kissed; wriggled herself up to him in a suggestive way, almost forcing him to respond. And he did, too. No one could accuse Maureen of not being sexy. Lydia wore lipstick too, but that first time, all he could taste was her, her skin, her mouth. The kiss went on for a long time, and she didn’t move, didn’t step forward. He had the feeling that she was a source of something he needed, like water, like breath. When she took a step back at last, he couldn’t think what to say. He was profoundly grateful for the thigh-length jacket that hid his erection. Was she aware of that? He was blushing again. What would happen now? He wasn’t used to such intensity of feeling and therefore said nothing. Neither did she. They began to walk in the direction of Fairford Hall, not speaking. What am I going to do if there are people around when we get there? he thought. I want to kiss her again.
No one was in the entrance hall when they reached the house.
‘Lydia?’ he said, not knowing how to ask, suddenly awkward.
She reached up to gather him into her arms. She pulled him down to her, her hands on his neck, in his hair. He could feel how much she wanted the kiss. If she hadn’t done that, hadn’t reached out to him, would he have stepped back? No, no way, but things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did, perhaps. I’ll never know, he thought, as he stared out at the road unrolling in front of the car and tried to ignore what Maureen was saying.
She obviously couldn’t leave the subject of Lydia alone. She’d chattered on till his teeth hurt. ‘Whatever d’you think was the matter with her? Menopause, I shouldn’t wonder. She’s quite nice, isn’t she? I wish I had the dressing of her, though. Somehow unfinished. And like Zannah, a little too thin. But very pretty, really. And I like her husband. And Adrian likes them.’
Sometimes he wondered why he’d married her, but now, back home, looking around the morning room, he recognized that her love of order matched his. Her gift for household management, her capacity for seeking out the very best, exactly the right thing for whatever they needed in the house or garden was something he admired and appreciated. And she’d been a knockout when he first met her. Naturally blonde in those days, and with breasts that she managed to display to their fullest advantage while at the same time being dressed as soberly and neatly as befitted a hospital receptionist, she’d made no secret of her attraction to him and he … well, as someone once said: she threw herself at him and he didn’t exactly step out of the way. She’d made him feel drunk with lust. He hadn’t even minded Adrian then. At the time, he was a toddler whose father had walked out. Gray was moved by the plight of the gallant single mother, struggling alone to keep up standards and get her life together, and her pretty son. He thought of himself as their rescuer and it felt good.
Maureen had been so lovely as a young woman. And she flirted with him in a way he liked. You had to hand it to her. As soon as she saw he was keen, she’d started inviting him round to her house. Adrian was only a little kid then, and Maureen made much of how good he was and how much he needed a father. They used to go to the cinema and snog their way through the films. No question of going back to her place, and his room in the hospital wasn’t much better.
‘It’s not exactly home from home,’ Maureen used to say.
He didn’t mind. They’d start taking their clothes off as soon as the door closed and he couldn’t have cared less where they were. Maureen was so enthusiastic, such fun, so full of laughter and so uninhibited that he wanted to make love to her all the time. He’d slept with a few women before he met Maureen, but no one who enjoyed it so much, and responded so quickly.
‘Oh,’ she’d say, and her eyes would roll back in her head, ‘oh my God, I can’t get enough of you, my darling. I wish I could gobble you all up!’
Afterwards, her talk often turned to her little boy. She started to drop hints about how ghastly it was living where, she did. And she began to paint pictures of what life could be like if they moved in together.
He’d soon fallen out of love with Adrian, but Maureen was a different matter. What he felt for her now was complicated, but some sort of love was still bound up in there somewhere, and denying it wasn’t going to help matters.
Their wedding had been very low-key. A couple of the nurses from the hospital as witnesses and that was it. Maureen had worn a blue suit with a wide-brimmed hat to the register office. He’d bought her some flowers. Nothing as grand as a bouquet, but a small bunch of yellow and white roses. There were a few photos of the occasion, taken by one of the witnesses on his very basic camera and that was it. Where were those photos now? He had no idea. Maureen would know but he had no desire to look at them again.
For the honeymoon, they’d sent Adrian to Maureen’s mother and gone to Paris for the weekend. Maureen found fault with the hotel in the short intervals between fucks. We’ll stay at the Ritz one day, darling, won’t we? she’d asked him. He’d agreed. He’d have agreed to fly to Mars, just to get her to stop talking. Just to see her waiting for him, opening herself, legs, mouth, arms, everything, wanting him and nothing else. Remembering those days, he felt uncomfortable. Guilt, regret … it was difficult to put a name to it. All he knew was, seeing Lydia again had stirred up all kinds of complicated emotions and he wasn’t sure he knew how to manage them. Maureen was sharp, too. The last thing he wanted was for her to discover the truth. But would it matter if she did? If she left him?
I’m a selfish bastard, he told himself. I had it all worked out. No one keeps house better than Maureen. She cooks as well as any chef. Wherever he looked, he saw a kind of beauty. The house was orderly, with not so much as a smudge on the wallpaper or a whisper of dust on the skirting-boards. She was a better gardener than any of that lot on TV. She was efficient. She kept track of his diary. She made sure his life ran like clockwork and that was something Graham needed. She knew he wrote poetry, but she left him well alone to do it, regarding it as a kind of indulgence, a silliness she forgave him. Maureen had, however, almost no claim on his heart. That had belonged to Lydia since the very first day he met her. Maureen didn’t even realize that his love had mostly been given to someone else. They still fucked often enough. More often, he thought, than other couples in their fifties, but she had no notion that behind his eyes, he was conjuring up Lydia’s pale face as it had been on that night, their one night together, when he’d actually considered how good it might be never to wake up and know what it was like not to be with her. His Lydia. The name he would always use, even though she was Jocelyn Gratrix. He went to the door. She’d be phoning him in half an hour. He had no idea what she’d say, but he had to see her. They needed to talk about this new situation. I’ll walk round the golf course, he told himself, me and my trusty adulterer’s phone. Maureen was at church. She wasn’t a bit religious but had a firm belief in the desirability of being the kind of person who was seen in a pew on Sunday and, what’s more, wearing better clothes than anyone else in the congregation.
*
‘Such a shame!’ said Edie Nordstrom, balancing a piece of tarte aux pommes on her fork before putting it into her mouth and munching it with her eyes closed to indicate pure pleasure, ‘ … that your guests never got a chance to taste this. Still, their loss is our gain. Your pastry’s divine, Charlotte. As usual.’
Edie was a small woman with sharp eyes and short grey hair, cut in a style she liked to think made her look like Judi Dench. The pinkish shade of her spectacle frames, together with a taste for the pastel in matters of dress, led people to think of her as a sweet old lady. Nothing, Charlotte knew, could have been further from the truth. Edie was stubborn, intelligent, kind and rather cynical. She trusted no one except her children, Charlotte, and Val. Even Nadia with whom they played cards and took tea, she regarded as slightly unreliable (because she was foreign by birth), even though she conceded she was ‘a good egg’. Charlotte had met her when she fell ill shortly after arriving in prison. Edie had been one of the youngest nurses in the sickbay, and did what she could to make the time her patients spent there both calm and pleasant. She thought of her charges not as criminals but as women who needed her help. Most of them were much older than she was, but even in those days she had a natural authority. She was, Charlotte thought, like Mary Kingsley, who in the nineteenth century had explored Africa and apparently used to subdue fierce animals with nothing more than a glance. She was also, in the modern phrase, non-judgemental. It wasn’t so much that she believed every single woman’s assertion that she was innocent. Many, she knew, were as guilty as hell but in Edie’s eyes that didn’t affect their humanity or their needs. She would have been happier if there were a category called something like, ‘Guilty but Justified,’ which described many of the women she had to deal with in prison. She’d done everything in her life with the minimum of fuss, marrying, having two sons and losing her husband in a slow, organized progress through the years. Nowadays, she spent much of her time fundraising for a local battered women’s refuge and it was she who made sure that jumble sales and whist drives were put on regularly to benefit it. She’d helped to found it in the early seventies and still took an active part in running the place, sitting on the steering committee and frequently ringing up the newspapers to give them opinions on many issues relating to violence in the family, whether they’d asked for them or not. She even appeared on the radio from time to time, and when she did, she always spoke clearly and with a precision that came as a surprise to those who had written her off as a sweet old thing.
‘Did you even get a chance to discuss things like the venue?’ Val Handley asked. ‘You have to start thinking about that months ahead, booking the church and so forth.’
She was sitting across the table from Edie and Charlotte, looking exactly like what she was: a middle-aged tomboy. At sixty-five, and because she was younger than her companions, Val refused to be categorized as ‘old’. She wore corduroy trousers in what Charlotte privately considered an unfortunate shade of beige, a brown and orange hand-knitted Fair Isle cardigan, and her dark hair (‘only about sixty per cent grey’ she maintained) was tied back in a girlish ponytail.
On Sundays, Edie went to church, Val spent the morning in the garden and Charlotte cooked lunch. Today there was enough food left over from the engagement party to feed all three women. Val was a romantic and almost as excited at the prospect of a wedding as Isis, in spite of her own experience of matrimony. She’d been married at a ridiculously early age to a domestic monster and only Charlotte and Edie knew how little she regretted his death, for which she’d served six years in prison. He’d been an optician in a small market town and had taken in everyone with his façade of respectability. Behind closed doors, though, he’d made Val’s life a constant torment. Everyone agreed on that, and she was very young, but the law was the law and this was in the days when desperately hitting out at an animal who repeatedly brutalized and beat you was not quite as sympathetically regarded. We’ve come a long way, Charlotte thought, looking at Val. She’d never have served a sentence like that nowadays. Mitigating circumstances. Today, someone like Val had people like Edie to help her and places like the refuge to run away to.
‘I think Mrs Ashton has some ideas,’ she said. ‘She mentioned wanting somewhere “suitable”. You can hire castles, she told me. She did strike me as the castle-hiring type. She’d want to make an impression.’
‘But the young couple, what do they want?’
‘Adrian will want what Zannah wants, unless his mother gets to him first. I don’t know them well enough to judge how much influence she has on him. Quite a lot, I suspect.’
‘I think,’ said Val, standing up, ‘that you ought to have a say, Charlotte. After all, you’ve been like a mother to Joss and a grandma to the girls. I know what I’d choose.’
‘It’s not your wedding, Val,’ Edie said quietly.
‘I know, I know. You should thank your lucky stars you didn’t see mine! Cold sausage rolls left over from the previous evening in the local pub and a family who looked like gargoyles in fancy dress. I should have known, shouldn’t I? That’s why I think – well, never mind.’
‘Oh go on, spit it out! You know you’ll tell us in the end.’
‘I think,’ Val said, ‘that we could put on a damn good show right here. In this house. The garden would look lovely. We could have a marquee.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘That’s occurred to me too, but young people nowadays have their own ideas, don’t they? I swore I’d never say that: young people nowadays, but I do. All the time.’
*
‘Don’t hang up, Lydia, okay?’ Gray said. He’d found a place where the reception was perfect and the silver phone had been pumping whatever ghastly radiation it possessed into his right ear for more than half an hour. Lydia, he knew, was on a landline, in the telephone kiosk she’d described to him in their emails. He also had a clear picture of her surroundings because she’d sent him photos of her kitchen, her study, her garden, the view from her windows. He’d offered to do the same but she’d refused. She wanted, she said, to think of him in an empty room in front of a blue screen. She wanted to know, to see, only his face, so he sent her pictures of himself which she deleted from her computer after, as she put it, learning them by heart.
‘Listen, just listen. I see why you’re cross.’ Wrong word. What could he call it? Hurt, wounded, devastated? ‘But listen. All the time I’ve known you, the worst thing, the very worst thing has been the thought of you and Bob together. And you have been, haven’t you? Go on. Tell me your married life hasn’t gone on exactly as normal. You can’t, can you?’
A silence hummed at the other end of the line. Gray continued, ‘There you are then. Now get this: all that time, I’ve had to live with images of him smiling at you, touching you, sharing jokes with you, brushing his teeth while you’re in the bath, eating breakfast with you, going to the movies with you, laughing with you, fighting with you and worst of all, in bed with you … nothing but torture. Constant torture. How would you have liked imagining me doing all those things? Which I’ve done, Lydia, make no mistake. All of them. I wanted to save you that, can’t you understand? I’m married to Maureen. We’re connected in ways that have to do with time and children: things you know about because they connect you to Bob. I wanted to be a single person in your mind. I just wanted to have a universe I could go into that had nothing but you in it. No one else. And I did. Whenever I thought of you, I knew you were thinking of me all by myself, just working and writing.’
‘I know.’ Her voice was not much louder than a whisper. ‘I realize you were protecting me, but now … I can’t bear the thought of you lying to me. Not trusting me to be grown-up enough to deal with the truth. Perhaps you’re right too. Now that I’ve met your wife, it’s hard to get certain pictures out of my mind. I know what you mean, Gray. But I can’t bear any of it any longer. All of it. And it’s worse now, because of Zannah and Adrian. I had no idea Adrian Whittaker was anything to do with you. Zannah didn’t mention that the surnames were different, though she did say his father was really a stepfather. I should have asked more questions, I suppose.’
‘He’s my stepson and I adopted him, but he chose his own father’s surname when he was a teenager.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve decided. We must stop everything. Now. At once.’
Gray nearly dropped the phone. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Exactly what I’m saying. Nothing between us any longer. No emails, no letters, no poems. Nothing.’
‘I can’t do that, Lydia. I’d … I wouldn’t be able to.’
‘It won’t be easy for me either, but I’ve promised. I told Bob that we’d only meet as Zannah and Adrian’s parents in future. I’m not going to break my word.’
Gray closed his eyes. He spoke as reasonably as he could, although he was on the point of tears. He didn’t cry often and when he did, he regarded it as a kind of failure. He said, ‘And the promises you made to me? Don’t they mean anything to you?’
The silence at the other end went on for so long that Gray checked the reception. It was fine. He said, ‘Lydia, are you still there?’
‘Please call me Joss. Lydia’s just a pseudonym.’
‘It’s not just a fucking pseudonym!’ He was shouting now. If he managed to hold back tears, this was what often happened: an explosion of frustration and rage. ‘It’s my name for you. You were Lydia when I met you and that’s what you’ve been ever since. God, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. It’s as if it all meant nothing. You’re ready to give everything up. Everything we have … ’
‘What do we have, Gray, when you come down to it? Nothing. Words on a screen or on a page. Nothing real.’
‘It is to me! It’s real to me!’ Even though he was shouting, the tears were now dangerously close. ‘And it used to be real to you. Don’t pretend it wasn’t. What’s your husband done to you? Has he threatened you? Tell me.’
‘No, Gray. Nothing like that. But I can’t leave him and I can’t jeopardize my daughter’s marriage to your son.’
‘Stepson.’
‘You know what I mean. I’m not going to say a word to the girls. I don’t see that it’s any of their business. I’ve got to return to normal and I can’t do that if you’re still part of my life. That’s it, Gray. I’ve made up my mind.’
‘Please, Lydia. Please meet me just once. I have to see you again. I won’t be responsible for what I do if you refuse me … ’
‘Are you saying you’ll tell Adrian about us? That’s not worthy of you, Gray. I can’t believe you’d do something like that.’
‘I’m sorry. But please … don’t you have to come to London for something? Please.’
‘I do have to see my editor, that’s true. I could arrange something.’
‘Thank God. Next week, Lydia. I hate feeling like this. Next week?’
‘Okay. Okay.’ He could hear her sighing. ‘I’ll tell Bob I have to see Mal and that I want to chat to Zannah about arrangements. We did rather cut that short yesterday. Yesterday … God, it feels like a lifetime ago.’
‘I don’t care about anything, now you’ve agreed to see me. Walking on air. Email me, Lydia. Let me know which day. I’ve got to square it with work. I can’t wait … I can’t wait to see you.’
‘I haven’t changed my mind, Gray. I’m not getting back into what we used to do. It’s over. You’ll get one email from me telling you when I’ll be in London and that’ll be it. D’you understand?’
‘I’ll see you again. That’s what I understand.’
‘I’m going to ring off now. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, my darling.’
Silence. More silence. Gray listened and heard nothing but the dialling tone. He turned to call history and deleted the call, which had used up most of the money on his phone. Never mind, only a few more days and then he’d see her. He’d be able to hold her. Kiss her. She’d relent when she saw him. She must. He could feel the blood moving more swiftly through his veins as he walked towards the car-park. Better get home before Maureen put lunch on the table.
*
‘So how did it go, then, the family get-together?’ Cal said.
‘Don’t ask. Really, don’t ask. I can’t go into it now.’ Zannah looked round and saw that they were alone. Emily was still in the shower and Isis was getting ready to go to Wimbledon Common with her father.
‘Bad as that, eh?’
Zannah did sometimes wonder at Cal’s tolerance. He was perfectly happy for her, it seemed, to go out with Adrian, to fall in love with him and now even to marry him. How come he didn’t loathe the very idea? How come he wasn’t even the least bit jealous? She could still bring back feelings of searing pain just thinking about Cal and his Russian lover and she wondered how long she’d have to be with Adrian before the pain disappeared completely. And however hard she tried, she found it impossible to dislike her ex-husband. Her college friends, her friends from home weren’t always available for confessions and discussions, so she relied on Claire and Louise, her fellow teachers. They’d become very close over the last couple of years. They sat in the staff-room at school and one of the things they often talked about was amicable divorce. The others didn’t believe in it, and maintained that the phrase was a contradiction in terms.
‘Wanting to strangle your ex goes with the territory,’ said Claire, who taught Year Four.
‘That’s my experience,’ Louise said firmly, and when Zannah objected that Claire was happily married and Louise far too young and still single so how could she possibly know what she was talking about, they shook their heads, tucked into their sandwiches and declared that it was a matter of observation. You only had to look around you and it was obvious to anyone who had more than two brain cells to rub together: when love died, that was it. You hated the person who’d let you down, and if you were the one who’d done the letting down it didn’t seem to make any difference.
‘I don’t hate Cal,’ Zannah told them. ‘Sorry. No one could hate Cal. Most people love him.’
They raised their eyebrows and muttered about ‘denial’. They were wrong. Cal Ford was lovable, and that was that. For two pins, Zannah thought, I’d pour out my heart to him right now and tell him about Ma and what happened yesterday and even pick his brains about wedding venues. He looked just the same as he always had: like a large, rather friendly dog. His brown hair was shaggy without actually covering his eyes. They were brown too, and looked out at the world in a trusting way. He didn’t care about grooming, and although he practically lived in the shower, his clothes were haphazard and he wore them to keep him warm and cover him up. Zannah never failed to be amazed that a journalist on a national newspaper could be so ignorant about matters of design and fashion. Cal claimed he never registered advertisements even when they were right there in front of him, and when Zannah had chided him for his ignorance, he would shrug and smile and say, ‘Who gives a shit about the difference between Armani and Versani? Not me.’
‘Versace,’ Zannah had said, knowing it was useless.
‘Whatever,’ Cal would answer, waving his cigarette around and scattering ash all over the place. He was a smoker when they were first married and only gave up when Isis was born. Recently, she’d seen him smoking from time to time, although as far as possible never in front of Isis, who scolded him whenever she suspected he’d been at the fags.
‘Daddy, I’m ready!’ Isis rushed into the kitchen, her pink rucksack already on her back. ‘Let’s go. Now.’
‘Hang on a mo, Icey, I’m having a word with your mum. We’ll go in a minute, okay … oh, hi Em. You coming on a picnic with us, then? Go on. We’re going to Wimbledon Common.’
Emily’s smile, Zannah noticed, lit up her whole face. She couldn’t hide it. She was thrilled to bits to be asked to join them. Zannah knew about Em’s crush on Cal, even though she herself hadn’t said a word. She hadn’t needed to. Zannah had started going out with Cal when her sister was only sixteen and from the first time she’d laid eyes on him, it was obvious that she was besotted. She’d done quite a good job of hiding her feelings but they shone out of her eyes for anyone to see who was looking properly and Zannah was good not only at looking but at understanding what she was seeing. She’d been so in love with Cal back then, and he with her, that Emily’s crush didn’t worry them. She’d never been difficult or unpleasant about it. She didn’t go into a decline. She didn’t let Cal and Zannah’s marriage cramp her style and their parents’ house was always crowded with her admirers, boyfriends, hangers-on and cronies. Em’s crush was exactly the same whether she was going out with someone or not. At the moment, she had a collection of boyfriends, but no one she could ever be committed to. Zannah wondered if it was worth asking Adrian whether he knew anyone eligible, and decided it probably wasn’t. Her sister had very definite views.
When Zannah and Cal had divorced, Emily wasn’t much more than twenty. When Zannah had suffered her kind-of-breakdown, it was Em who had tried hard to persuade her to go back to him. She couldn’t understand why one ‘lapse’, which was what she called it, should mean the end of a life together. Her face had been screwed up with pain.
‘What about Isis, Zannah? She needs a dad. You can’t do this to her,’ Emily had said, and Zannah answered, ‘I’d never stop him seeing his daughter. You know I wouldn’t. But I can’t trust him. I’ll just keep thinking of him with that woman. I won’t be able to relax. Images will come into my mind. You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t. I think you ought to forgive him. He’s asked you to, hasn’t he?’
‘I can’t,’ said Zannah. ‘I just can’t face him any more. He’s not the same Cal.’
‘But you still love him, don’t you?’ Emily asked.
Zannah didn’t answer. She could see that her sister didn’t understand how it might be possible for Cal’s adultery to have killed off most of the love she used to feel. It hadn’t stopped her hurting like hell, but the love … that was something else. It had mutated; changed beyond recognition.
More recently, just before she met Adrian, she’d begun to wonder if Em might have been right and whether she hadn’t been too hasty. Cal had been in Moscow when he’d slept with a fellow journalist. They’d been together for a couple of weeks. He broke up with her even before they arrived back in London. Zannah had only found out about it by accident, going into his email account to find an address she needed. He hadn’t even had the cunning to hide or delete the woman’s messages and when Zannah had confronted him, he’d told her all about it, vowed it was over and that it would never happen again. Too late. They were divorced a year later. Isis was only three. Zannah was in agony.
Divorcing Cal, living without him, was like being flayed. For a very long time, Zannah had felt as though she were missing a skin. She struggled at the whole business of being a single mother, too proud to stay in Altrincham with her parents and wanting more than anything to have her life back the way it was when she and Cal were everything to one another. Rage: a kind of blind, almost insane rage took hold of her at the most unexpected times, like when she was coming home from Isis’s nursery in the twilight heavy with the knowledge that in spite of Em’s company, in spite of the support of her family, she was alone. All the friends she and Cal had had in common seemed to melt away. For a while, there would be phone calls from one or another of them, but the invitations they offered seemed to Zannah half-hearted, as though part of them was still loyal to Cal. She didn’t see any reason, on the face of it, why this should happen when a couple split up, but everyone agreed that it did: friends you made as a couple sided with one person or the other when the break occurred. She’d had to admit that Cal had a gift for friendship and many of their shared friends had been his in the first place.
When Cal came round to see Isis, which he did as often as he could, Zannah used the time to go shopping for food and see to all the things that were difficult to manage with a child in tow. Even more than taking advantage of his presence was the desire not to see him. Not to have to be near him, talk to him. It was hard for her to keep the conversation civilized.
I wouldn’t have survived without Isis, Zannah thought. She saved me. Having to look after her, having to get her to nursery every day and fed and dressed took Zannah’s mind off her unhappiness. Even on the occasions … and there were plenty of them … when she was irritated with her daughter, when she felt she couldn’t go on any more because everything was just too much and she wanted to run away and never come back … simply leave everything and disappear, even then she’d known that Isis was the one thing anchoring her to real life. To the possibility of something other than pure misery. Because that was what it was without her husband, pure misery, and there were a thousand occasions when she almost, almost picked up the phone to summon Cal and say: I’m sorry. Come back. Let’s be married again. That mood never lasted long. Images would arrive unbidden in Zannah’s head: of Cal repeating with some other woman all he had done with her. Kissing. Caressing. Sharing jokes, meals, baths. She couldn’t go back to him, however lonely she sometimes felt.
When Isis turned four, Zannah took a job at St Botolph’s. She’d taken her PGCE after studying part time for what seemed like ages and after she started work, everything got better. Not that Em didn’t keep trying to reconcile her with Cal. Zannah was surprised to find how much she enjoyed teaching. Isis came to school with her, and loved the nursery class, which was very convenient, and as the months passed, the pain grew bearable. Then, a year and a half ago, she met Adrian and everything changed, almost overnight.
Zannah walked up the little staircase that led to the upper part of the flat, where Emily had her bedroom and she had what she called her studio, even though she knew it was a rather grand title for such a tiny room. It might not be big, Zannah thought, but it’s got a huge window and good light. She opened the door and sighed with pleasure as she sat down in the well-upholstered office chair at the table that served as a desk. What Emily called her ‘control freakery’ was evident everywhere. Her schoolwork was neatly filed away in huge portfolios leaning against one wall. The table had piles of papers laid neatly all over it, with proper paperweights on each. Her laptop, with its mouse mat neatly beside it, was pushed to the back. She’d painted the walls herself: a pretty, buttery yellow (not a whisper of lime, and nowhere near orange, just a few shades yellower than cream) which lifted her spirits whenever she came into the room. She would never have been able to explain to anyone what keen pleasure it gave her to find precisely the right colour for something.
Her first wedding dress had been short, turquoise chiffon: much more cocktail-dressish than bridal. She’d been fantasizing about a proper wedding dress from the time she was Isis’s age, but had considered it more seriously from the moment she’d agreed to marry Adrian. There was time enough to think about it carefully when they’d sorted out the venue, but she was already sure that it wouldn’t be dazzling white. That was too virginal and besides, it made her look washed out. She’d told no one, not even Emily, about what was in the bottom drawer of her filing-cabinet in an unprepossessing orange folder from the school stationery cupboard. Folded among the deliberate camouflage of report forms and printouts of boring documents was a drawing she had made of her perfect dress. From time to time, when she knew she was alone, she took it out to see if it was still as lovely as ever. She had sketched in the lace she wanted. It would have to be lined, possibly with crêpe de Chine. The waist, in true twenties style, was dropped and edged with scalloped lace, scattered with tiny pearls. The same lace bordered the square neck and the sleeves, which fell to just above the elbow. A scalloped edge to the skirt as well, and the length just above the ankle. This wasn’t a style for those with thick legs but Zannah knew she could carry it off. High-heeled, satin strap shoes with a lace-trimmed ‘v’ just below the instep, in the same shade as the lace.
She’d drawn a back view of the dress too, showing the row of small pearl buttons done up with loops. Perhaps a bandeau with a tiny veil attached for her hair, which of course would be worn swept up, or would a tiara be better? She hadn’t quite decided. There was time for that. She wondered how much she’d have to pay to have it made. She might find an off-the-peg equivalent, but doubted she’d be satisfied with that. I must, she thought, make enquiries about dressmakers. Really beautiful lace was expensive and there was also the bridesmaid’s dress to consider. She was thinking of watermarked taffeta and it would have to be silk. The colours of the synthetic equivalents were nothing like as good. Would she be able to get away with a thousand pounds? The sum made her feel a little dizzy when she thought of it, but even that was probably optimistic. She’d been saving for a long time, putting a little money every month into what she thought of as her dress fund. She’d not even told Em about that. Not showing this drawing to anyone was a superstition, somehow bound up with the tradition of a groom not seeing his bride’s dress until the wedding day. I’ll show it to Em and Ma soon, she told herself, but meanwhile it can remain hidden for a few weeks longer.
Zannah glanced up at the enormous corkboard that occupied most of the wall facing the window. She’d found it in a shop in Camden Town and hauled it all the way home on the Underground, scowling at men who looked as though they were on the point of asking if they could help her. Ever since Adrian had asked her to marry him, she’d pinned up everything she thought might come in useful: cuttings from magazines, postcards, swatches of fabric from the shops she pretended she was just passing, news items, and a small collection of old wedding photos.
‘What d’you think of my wedding board?’ she’d asked Emily on the day she put it up. They’d been standing at the sink, doing the washing-up.
‘Wedding bored. That’s what I am.’
‘Ha-ha, very witty.’ Zannah threw a tea-towel at her sister. She wondered whether her desire to have the perfect wedding was a wish for the future: a fervent and almost superstitious hope that if she did things properly, her marriage would be strong and last for ever. She knew this was nonsense, but liked the feeling that this time she was following traditions that went back centuries. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. She’d even made a note to herself so that those items weren’t forgotten.
Now she sat down at the table, picked up a pencil and began to doodle on the sheet of paper lying in front of her as she remembered her first meeting with Adrian.
She’d been at a party. Ever since she’d started going out with Cal, she’d gone off parties. The only point of them was to meet a fanciable man, and if you were already hooked up with someone, the crush, the bad wine and the too-loud music were hard to endure after you were about twenty. She’d come to this particular bash because Louise insisted she went with her. Louise had had her eye on the brother of the young woman into whose tall, thin house they were currently being squeezed, along with a crowd of noisy people on the edge of drunkenness. Zannah had had enough and was making for the daunting pile of overcoats near the front door when someone said: ‘Are you about to tunnel your way out?’
She’d turned and caught sight of Adrian, smiling at her as she flung various items of clothing about, searching for her jacket. He was so handsome that she actually stopped breathing for a second. He was also perfectly dressed, in a linen suit that managed to look fashionably rumpled and not slobbishly creased. His hair was dark and his eyes a pale, luminous blue that reminded her of icebergs. ‘I’ve just decided that parties aren’t my thing.’
‘Nor mine. Mind if I escape with you? Adrian Whittaker. Friend of John Larimer’s.’
That was the name of Louise’s prey. Fleetingly, Zannah wondered if she should plead her case with this Adrian: say something like My friend fancies your friend. She decided against it and said instead, ‘Okay. I’m going home, though.’
‘I’ll see you to your door.’
This struck her as so old-fashioned, so charming, that she burst out laughing.
‘I’m not some young girl, you know! I’m a mother. I’ve got a seven-year-old daughter.’
‘Are you here with your husband?’
‘I’m divorced.’
‘In that case, I think I ought to see you home.’
He took her gently by the arm and steered her out into the street. At her door, he asked for her phone number; asked for permission to call her. When she agreed, he took a notebook from an inside pocket of his jacket with a pen that Zannah recognized as a Mont Blanc even by the light of the street-lamp because she had wanted one for ages.
He rang her the very next day and asked her to meet him at Green Park station.
‘Is four o’clock on Saturday all right? Don’t wear jeans and trainers,’ he said. She liked his voice on the phone. He sounded as if he knew what he wanted and was going to get it, without being at all harsh or loud.
‘I somehow knew you didn’t. See you then.’
He’d taken her to tea at the Ritz. He’d obviously come straight from work and she smiled when she saw his briefcase, dark suit, collar and tie. They made him look like someone to be reckoned with, she thought, someone serious, probably earning serious money – which was only right if he worked on a Saturday. She’d always had a problem with what Cal wore to work. Journalists can wear whatever they like, he used to say, but she thought putting on the first thing he found when he woke up made him look like a student.
Adrian guided her to a table in a corner of the beautiful room and, with the tiered cakestand between them, and the cups and saucers like a still-life on a tablecloth as white as a ski-slope, she fell in love with him, all in one second, just like that. She bent her head over the Earl Grey. I wish I could tear his clothes off and kiss him all over, she thought and felt herself blush.
As the tea-things were taken away, Adrian leaned forward and said, ‘Suzannah, I want to see you again. Actually, it’s more than that. I want … well … I want us to be … Never mind. I’m sure it’s too soon to say such things. But please come out to dinner tomorrow. Say you will.’
Zannah stopped drawing and looked out of the window. She was so high up here that all she could see was the sky. Floating pictures from the cloud gallery: where had she heard it called that? She’d been so restrained. She’d waited a whole week before going to bed with him. They saw one another four times; they spoke for hours on the phone every night, and then, on their fifth date, they’d ended up in Adrian’s flat and spent the night together. A week later he’d taken her to the kind of jeweller’s she’d never have dared to enter by herself to choose the beautiful ruby that was now on her left hand. They were going to be married. There was going to be a wedding and it was going to be the kind of wedding she’d been dreaming about, sometimes rather guiltily, for most of her life. Sometimes she worried about the expense of such an occasion. Emily had got to her with gibes about weddings costing more than most people’s annual incomes, and Zannah knew that her family would be paying for most of it. Adrian, to whom she confided these doubts, kissed her when she’d finished speaking and said, ‘Don’t worry, my darling. There’s plenty of money for everything. We’ll sort it. No point being old-fashioned. I’ll help, promise. My family isn’t going to stand by and let your parents fork out for everything. It’ll be fine.’
She believed him. One of the best things about Adrian was the fact that he wanted the perfect day as much as she did. That they agreed about what such a day should be like proved that they were made for one another. Her mother, Charlotte and even Em were a little startled by the speed with which she moved from just seeing Adrian to being engaged to him but she reassured them. ‘I love him, Ma,’ she’d told Joss on a visit home just after the announcement. ‘It’s going to be like coming home. Really. And you’ll see. You’ll love him, too. He’s … he’s grown-up. Cal was, well, you know what he’s like. Just a kid in a way. It’s not a rebound thing. Don’t think that. I’ve been divorced for ages. And I’ve never before met anyone who’s so … so right. He’s right for me. He’ll look after me.’
‘What about Isis?’ Joss had asked her.
‘Adrian adores her,’ she’d answered.
‘Does she love him?’
‘No, but she likes him well enough. And what she’ll really love is being a bridesmaid.’
Her mother had smiled the enigmatic smile that meant I’m going to let you get on with your life and not say a word. But surely, now that she’d met Adrian, she’d have to admit how perfect he was. As soon as she’s feeling better, Zannah decided, I’ll ask her what she thinks of him. How could anyone not love him?
*
Some people had a gift for picnics. They managed to assemble food in fancy wicker baskets, and it wasn’t just cheese-and-pickle sarnies but devilled chicken legs or perfect little meatballs, ciabatta rolls, dainty salads drizzled with the kind of oil you had to drizzle, olives straight from the slopes of a Greek mountain and fruit that looked as though each piece had been individually hand-picked. The wine was cold. There were proper knives and forks. Even the wasps that hovered politely near such feasts seemed posher than your average insect. No one in our family, Emily thought, has such a gift. Zannah had no imagination when it came to sandwich fillings and therefore there were no pleasant surprises or exotic combinations to be found when she had prepared the food. Emily was equally useless, getting into a panic and packing too much of one thing and not enough of another and forgetting to put in napkins or something to drink.
Cal, though, was a dab hand at the Supermarket Picnic. They’d just been through M&S like three whirlwinds, scooping up a combination of innovative sandwiches, small tubs of Mediterranean-type salads, packets of biscuits and crisps (Healthy eating? said Cal. Naaah, you can get that at home any time) and a selection of fruit juices and smoothies in magical flavours like mango and strawberry and banana.
Now they were on Wimbledon Common hunting for a good place to sit and eat what they’d bought. Isis had run a little ahead and Cal turned to Emily. ‘What did go on yesterday, Em? Zannah was being a bit tight-lipped, or was I imagining it?’
‘Nothing much, actually. Or I don’t think it was anything. Ma went white and funny at one point and left in a bit of a hurry. She got Pa to drive her home. I don’t know what was wrong with her. She said it was a migraine and so did Charlotte but I think it might have been something else. Maybe something to do with the menopause. D’you think it could have been that?’
‘Menopause isn’t one of my fields of expertise, I’m afraid. I can tell you all about the rigging of elections in Zimbabwe, but that’s no help, is it?’
Emily laughed. Cal was so easy to talk to. Why couldn’t Zannah see what she’d lost? She said nothing for a moment, wondering whether she would have been able to forgive his infidelity. She was pondering this when Cal spoke. ‘What are his parents like?’ he asked.
‘You’re very curious all of a sudden. Why’s that? Not still pining after Zannah, are you?’
‘As if!’ He spoke with seeming sincerity and almost enthusiasm, but Emily was sure that some kind of hurt, some kind of resentment, was hidden away in him. It just wasn’t like Cal to complain about a situation when there was nothing to be done about it. He went on, ‘But there’s Isis to consider. Those people are going to be her new family, aren’t they? I want to know she’s going to be okay. I feel bad enough as it is … ’
‘What d’you mean?’
Cal stopped next to a tree and patted it briefly with one hand. ‘This’ll do, won’t it, for the picnic? Yes. I’ll go and get Isis.’
‘No, Cal, come on, you can’t stop there. What d’you feel bad about?’
He shrugged. ‘Not being around for Isis all the time. I wish I could be, really, but with the job and everything … ’
‘You’re a fantastic dad! Isis sees you every week when you’re here. She’s fine, honestly. You’d be able to tell if she was unhappy, and she isn’t, is she?’
‘No, she’s okay, I know that. And I also know I see a lot more of her than most divorced dads. Don’t worry. I’m not going to be putting on a Batman suit or anything. And, Em … ’
‘Yes?’
‘Will you keep an eye out for me? To make sure she’s okay? I think maybe Zannah’s a bit … well, taken up with her new man. She might not notice stuff.’
‘She’d notice it if it had to do with Isis. You know that.’
Cal sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose I do, but still. Not being there, you get to worrying. You hear awful things, don’t you? About step-parents and so forth. Cruelty.’
‘I’m sure Adrian’s not cruel,’ said Em, wondering how they’d got here, with her defending her sister’s fiancé.
‘I’m not suggesting he beats her or anything, just that … Well, I don’t know exactly, but I’ll feel better if I know you’re on the case.’
‘I’m on the case, Guv!’ said Em, saluting him. In the days just after he and Zannah had started going out together, Cal had started a running gag that continued to this day: they pretended they were in a TV police show. Possibly, shamingly, it had all started with The Bill, which she still watched sometimes. He called her Sarge and she called him Guv. Silly stuff.
‘That’s a weight off my mind, Sarge. I just miss her like mad when I’m not with her … know what I mean?’
He started to run towards his daughter, who was standing some distance away and waving energetically. Emily stared after him. She had no intention of adding to Cal’s worries by telling him that Isis missed him too, however okay she was. Let him think she was blissfully happy all the time.
*
Maureen Ashton admired Nigella Lawson, and thought of Delia Smith as very reliable but if she had a heroine, it was definitely Martha Stewart, the American lifestyle expert (a lifestyle guru, they called her these days) who had spent time in prison. Maureen had been deeply shocked to hear that her heroine had misbehaved so badly and wondered whether it would be possible ever to take her advice again. Prison was somehow so low and drab. It had to taint you in some indefinable way. Set you apart from decent society. For some time, she found herself condemning Martha, but after she had emerged into freedom again, Maureen decided to forgive her. In her heart of hearts, Maureen knew that if it had been anyone else at all, she’d have found it easier to shun them, but the fact was, she had missed Martha while she’d been out of action and longed to see what she would do when she returned to civilization.
It must have been strange for her fellow inmates to have such a person imprisoned alongside them. Maureen wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find that the cell Martha inhabited had ended up fit to be photographed for her lifestyle magazine. And now, according to her website, the empire continued as it always had. Maureen loved that word … empire … and in her more private moments daydreamed vaguely about magazines, websites, TV programmes and more with her name on them. She knew it would never happen and, if she was honest, it didn’t worry her. Her home was her empire, and she was proud of it.
The morning room, at the front of the house, was where Maureen went to do her thinking. She’d been at her desk since lunch, and her laptop computer was open in front of her, Martha Stewart’s face beaming out of the screen. Graham had gone upstairs to his study. He must have a poem brewing, she thought. He’d been rather silent as he ate, and didn’t seem to be in a mood to discuss the forthcoming wedding.
Never mind, Maureen thought. Plenty of time for that. She leaned forward and clicked on wedding suggestions. There were some rather good ideas here, she told herself. She’d pass them on to Zannah. Pausing for a moment to take a sip of coffee (ordered from Betty’s in Yorkshire, their special house blend which she enjoyed) she looked out of the window admiringly. Declan, her gardener, was good at keeping things trimmed and tidy, and her fuchsias and begonias were satisfyingly pretty: pinks and purples with touches of white here and there. The Clapham garden yesterday wasn’t bad, but it was a little straight up and down for her taste. Just a long expanse of grass at the back, with borders on each side, when all was said and done. The dips and slopes of this lawn as it went down to the high fence that kept the road out of sight were more … Maureen searched for the right word … landscaped. Also, there was definitely something imposing about a detached house standing at the top of a longish drive that sloped up to the front door. The round gravelled space in front of the porch, with its flowerbed full of rosebushes in the centre of the circle, had been specially designed to ensure that even the largest car wouldn’t have to reverse out of the gate.
Maureen liked looking at what she’d done to each room in the house and calculating how far she’d come. The girl she had been when she married Graham would have stood open-mouthed if she’d known that this was how she would end up. Still, she’d never had any intention of remaining in the rather genteel poverty of her childhood. Anyone who felt nostalgic for the fifties should have lived in Grandma Dora’s poky little house, with the coal fires that had to be lit in grates, which needed clearing out every day. I was, Maureen thought, just like Cinderella. Everywhere was freezing cold in winter. If you moved six inches away from the hearthrug, that was it: you were in the Arctic. There was a tiny little two-bar electric fire in the bedroom, which meant that most mornings Maureen got dressed under the bedclothes. Her mother and grandmother did nothing but moan and complain all day long, and as soon as Maureen left school, she enrolled at a secretarial college, determined to get a qualification and a job as soon as possible.
Well, that nearly got scuppered, she recalled now, admiring the Colefax and Fowler fabric of the morning-room curtains, with their pattern of vaguely Japanesey flowers in warm, autumnal colours. She’d been stupid, no two ways about it. She’d fallen in love with Mickey Whittaker (who was a spiv and a layabout, but fanciable with it), and discovered that she had a bit of a gift for sex.
When she became pregnant with Adrian, Mickey said he’d marry her, but even while she was totting up how to afford the dress she coveted, he’d disappeared from their town and from her life as though he’d never existed. All attempts to trace him had failed until two years or so ago, when his sister, who’d been a skinny little slag of fourteen when Maureen knew her, suddenly got in touch (so she’s kept her beady eye on me over the years, was what came into Maureen’s mind, even before she’d taken in the contents of the letter) to announce that her brother Michael had been killed in a car accident in Australia. Maureen thought: typical of him to run away as far as he possibly could without falling off the edge of the world. Then she thought: Adrian mustn’t find out. It probably hadn’t been the most sensible thing in the world to tell her young son, when he was about five, that his real father was dead, but it made life easier and she took a gamble on Mickey never coming anywhere near her. In his absence, she’d turned him into a kind of hero, telling Adrian tales of his wit, his looks, his charm and on and on. She hadn’t realized, while she was building Mickey up, that the little boy was making comparisons with Graham that of course made his stepfather look bad by comparison. Anyone would have seemed inadequate. But it’s not entirely my fault, Maureen consoled herself, that they don’t get on well. Adrian was jealous of Graham and, as far as she was concerned, that was natural in a boy who was devoted to his mother. He’d always regarded Graham as a rival.
When Mickey vanished, just before his son was born in 1971, Maureen took stock. Without a husband to support her, she needed a job, and found one quickly in the local hospital, as a receptionist in the outpatients department. After Adrian was born, she left the baby with Grandma Dora because her mother was worse than useless and, anyway, at work herself, and continued to sit behind the desk at the hospital, smiling nicely and being good at filing. Babies, she admitted to herself, were not her thing, even though she worshipped her son. She resolved to be a perfect mother later on, but meanwhile it was important for Adrian that she find a father for him. As soon as she caught sight of the young Graham Ashton, she knew that he was exactly what she’d been looking for.
She wasn’t disappointed. She’d been surprised by how quickly she had snaffled him. It was easy, she decided, to pull some wool over a man’s eyes, particularly if you could make him feel as though he was rescuing you from some dire fate. She learned very early on that Graham became genuinely distressed when he had to deal with a woman crying. The only thing he knew how to do was put a comforting arm round her, so she made sure that her underwear was pretty and the top button undone on her blouse, then let nature take its course. She loved him, of course she did, but had to admit that that came later, once they were safely married. The only thing she could have found to complain about was that he was a little distant, unless they were actually in bed together.
He’d always been generous, which was fortunate. I couldn’t have lived with someone mean, she thought. When they were younger, and he was less busy all the time, he used to come shopping for clothes with her. He’d sit for hours outside fitting rooms while she swanned in and out, showing off one article after another. Whenever she found it hard to choose, he’d wave a hand in the air and declare, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, have both. Why not?’ which was exactly what she wanted to hear.
He lived inside his head a lot and, given the choice, she’d have preferred a chattier spouse, but you couldn’t have everything. He was good in bed, which was important. Mind you, she thought, that’s down to me as well. He hadn’t had much experience when she first met him. Missionary position. Five minutes from start to finish. The first time they went to bed together she thought: that’s not how it’s going to be. Not on your nelly. She’d taken charge and taught him, well, everything he was now so good at. To be fair, he was a quick learner. ‘Five gold stars, sweetheart,’ she’d murmured breathlessly in his ear within days of their first encounter. ‘Top of the class.’
She’d developed a talent for sex with Mickey and was determined that it shouldn’t go to waste. She was relieved to find that her marriage was going to be okay as far as that was concerned. Also, Graham was independently wealthy and that was even more crucial. He’d earn a good salary as a doctor of course, but it was reassuring to know that in the background there was the kind of money that meant she would never have to worry about (hideous word!) economizing. And his parents had died when he was about eight, so she’d never had to deal with in-laws. That was a real blessing.
When Jonathan was born, two years after her marriage, things between her elder son and her husband went from bad to worse. Adrian had been such a sensitive little boy, Maureen recalled, and it must have been obvious to him that Graham really adored his own son and was, in some indefinable way, different towards Maureen’s. The tantrums and arguments; the slamming doors and shouted swear-words that had become such a feature of Adrian’s teenage years culminated in his adoption of Mickey’s name. After years of being Adrian Ashton, he became Adrian Whittaker, which hadn’t exactly endeared him to Graham. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that Jon seemed to go through life with no problems at all. He was a placid, kind, gentle child and managed to get on well even with his elder brother.
Of course, everything was more civilized now, at least on the surface, but a son can’t hide the truth from his mother, and Maureen knew that Adrian wasn’t Graham’s biggest fan. She also realized that the feeling was mutual, although her husband had more sense than to say anything. Jonathan had become a doctor, which of course made his father love him even more. But I love Jon too, Maureen told herself. Of course I do. He’s clever and sweet and doing wonderful work down there in South Africa, and I’m so proud of him. I adore both my sons, but facts are facts. Jon is Graham’s favourite and Adrian is mine even though I’ll go to my grave before I admit that to anyone. Adrian hadn’t lived at home for years, which was a plus, but whenever he visited, all sorts of unspoken tensions filled the air and meals were forever on the verge of becoming a kind of battleground. She was grateful that he was getting married now. Zannah was a pretty woman and seemed pleasant enough and her presence would make family get-togethers much easier from now on.
Maureen took a last sip from her coffee cup (lovely, delicate, white bone china) and turned her attention to the letters she was about to write. First, a thank-you to Mrs Parrish then a note to Zannah. She wanted to invite her to lunch so that they might talk about the matter of the venue, just the two of them. It was to have been discussed yesterday, but then Mrs Gratrix … Joss … had thrown her wobbly, or whatever it was and that had been the end of that. Maureen wondered whether the little scene she’d witnessed was an indication of some kind of instability in the family. She’d have to ask Adrian tactfully if there was any history of such behaviour. You couldn’t be too careful. Joss had been in a most peculiar state and Maureen thought the migraine story couldn’t be entirely true. Maybe it was a cover for some sort of menopausal hideousness. She herself was fifty-four, only a year older than Joss, and so far everything in that department had been plain sailing, but the changes went on for years, and every woman was different, she’d read. If I ever start acting strangely, she told herself, I’ll go on HRT at once.
Lunch with Zannah … there was a very good little restaurant she knew near Victoria that would be perfect. She opened her stationery drawer and took out a sheet of palest blue paper, engraved with her name and address, and began to write, pausing only to make a mental note that any wedding invitations that went out for her son’s wedding would definitely have to be engraved and not printed. There were standards to maintain and she had no intention of settling for second best in any area of her life.
*
‘I had a lovely time with Daddy,’ Isis said. She was lying under her duvet in white pyjamas with butterflies printed all over them. Zannah, sitting on the end of her daughter’s bed, wondered whether you could have too much of a good thing. She’d been the one to start Isis on her butterfly passion by painting a mural on one wall, a kind of collage of thousands of them in every colour she’d managed to get her hands on. Isis liked lots of other stuff, too, stars, rainbows, kittens and rabbits, for instance, but butterflies reigned supreme, possibly because they were quite easy to draw. All the books were kept on a shelf above the bed and there was a little desk under the window, but the room was tiny. I’ll make sure she has a bigger one when Adrian and I are married, Zannah thought, and sighed. She’d been so absorbed in thinking about her wedding day that where they would live afterwards hadn’t really crossed her mind in any serious way. I’ll miss this flat wherever we end up, she thought. Never mind, there’s plenty of time to worry about that when I’ve organized everything else. A small voice in Zannah’s head whispered to her: You’ll miss this place because it’s where you and Cal were together but she brushed it aside. It was going to be wonderful going round with Adrian, choosing where they were going to live.
‘We went to Wimbledon Common,’ Isis went on.
‘That’s good,’ Zannah said, turning her attention to her daughter again. ‘Did you find any Wombles?’
‘Don’t be silly, Mummy.’ Isis was scornful. ‘Wombles are from TV, and there’s books, but they’re not real.’
‘Well, you never know.’
‘We walked for ages. And the picnic was fantastic. Dad’s so great at choosing sandwiches. We’re going to the Science Museum on Thursday. Mummy?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘You’re frowning. It’s something serious, is it? Will I like it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Isis. ‘You might not.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘You know Gemma?’
Gemma was Claire’s daughter, and Isis’s best friend. They’d been like twins ever since Zannah took up her job at the school.
‘What about her?’
‘Can she be a bridesmaid, too?’
Zannah was silent for a second. Then she let out a long breath as though she’d been holding it for the last few seconds. ‘I don’t know, sweetie. I’d not thought of having anyone but you. Two bridesmaids. I’ll have to think about it.’
‘I’d really, really love it if she could. She’s going to get dead jealous if I’m one and she isn’t and I won’t be able to talk to her about it and then what’ll happen? Also,’ Isis was quick to continue, sensing Zannah’s hesitation, ‘it’ll mean I’ve got someone to talk to and play with at the wedding. And at the rehearsals. And we can go to our fittings together. For our dresses.’
‘I see you’ve got it all worked out.’ Zannah got up. ‘Well, I’ll think about it, okay? You lie down now and go to sleep. We’ll discuss it another time. I’ll have to consult Adrian, of course.’
‘Right. But don’t think for too long,’ said Isis and Zannah couldn’t help noticing that a frown appeared on her daughter’s face when Adrian was mentioned. It was natural, she supposed, to object in some way to another man in her mother’s life and Isis had been very good most of the time. Just occasionally, though, Zannah got the impression that Adrian was not her daughter’s favourite person. She’ll come round when we’re all living together, she told herself. She hardly knows him. Not properly.
‘Night night, pet,’ she said, and kissed Isis on the forehead. ‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the bugs bite.’
Zannah switched off the light as she left the room and the butterflies on the wall became a thousand black shapes against the pale background. Two bridesmaids! Would it work? Maybe it was a small price to pay for Isis to be happy.