KATE LAWSON

Mum’s the Word

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

A Paperback Original 2008

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Copyright © Kate Lawson 2008

Kate Lawson asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

Extract from Kate Lawson’s new novel © Kate Lawson 2008.

This is taken from uncorrected material and does not necessarily reflect the final book.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

Source ISBN: 9781847560520

Ebook edition © June 2008 ISBN: 9780007284092

Version: 2018-05-29

Dedication

To Phil, and my family and friends – you know who you are. Oh and my sister Angela, who keeps complaining that she never has anything dedicated to her. With love, K x

With special thanks to Maggie Phillips at Ed Victor, Max and the team at HC and Phil, who had no idea when we got together what sharing life with a writer would be like. He has now …

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Read On

Chapter One

Chapter Two

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

‘Candles, corkscrew, wine …’ Susie’s gaze moved slowly across the table, which was standing in the bay window of the sitting room, overlooking the garden. It was early summer and still warm, the long day just beginning to soften into evening. A breeze, gently strumming the leaves on next door’s laburnum, brought the heat down to a gentle purr.

Through the open windows, a string of fairy lights strung between the branches of the trees, bright as glow worms, twinkled and shimmered, picking out the shrubs and pots on the terrace, while the honeysuckle and glittering dark green climbers rambled nonchalantly up over the wicker trellis, perfuming the air – the whole thing set off by the golden glow of the sun sinking in the west.

‘Serving spoons, salt and pepper.’ Susie glanced up at the clock; another ten minutes and Robert ought to be arriving, always assuming he wasn’t late. Time, as Robert had once pointed out, wasn’t really his strong suit. Although actually it wasn’t time that was Robert’s problem, it was punctuality that gave him the slip. He seemed to think people had nothing better to do than wait for him, which was why Susie had cooked a casserole – although her instincts told her that tonight he would be on time. Tonight was special. Memorable. Important.

She smiled and tweaked the curtains straight. The sitting room looked wonderful, like something out of the Sunday supplements. Susie Reed entertains at home in her stylish Norfolk country cottage.

There was a vase of pink peonies in the centre of the table and acres of lighted candles arranged on various shelves and side tables close by, reflecting and glittering in the only two crystal glasses to have survived marriage, children, divorce and now singledom in the cottage on the edge of Sheldon Common. There were French-blue cotton napkins, casually folded and dropped onto the side plates – Susie didn’t want to look as if she was trying too hard; spotless matching cutlery – Robert had a whole thing about smears and the odd bit of broccoli welded on by the dishwasher; alongside a little dish of pitted olives and some bread-sticks.

In the oven the main course – chicken breasts, tiny button mushrooms, roast garlic, spring onions, ginger, cashew nuts and strips of red pepper – was doing interesting things in a clear stock.

While Susie patted and fluffed and tweaked, Milo, her mongrel, watched her from the rag rug in front of the hearth, wondering about chicken division vis-à-vis faithful hounds and long-standing lovers.

‘Susie, there is something I really need to talk to you about,’ Robert had said when he’d popped by on Tuesday evening on his way home from work. He had looked very earnest. ‘I think that we really need to talk about the future.’

The future. Susie smiled, and then huffed on a serving spoon before giving it a brisk once-over with a tea towel.

They had been going out for the best part of three years. Robert wasn’t exactly the kind of man she had ever imagined herself settling down and growing old with, but he was a nice guy. He could sometimes be a bit overbearing – pompous and snobby was how her sister had once described him, but then she was married to a man who thought anything you didn’t grow, catch or shoot yourself was fast food, so she was hardly in a position to talk about peculiar male habits.

Robert was bright and reliable, intelligent, and even though he didn’t do fun very often, he was presentable. Presentable, and tall, and well-dressed, and forty-six; he liked dogs and was a bit public school and, okay, yes, he was just a teensy-weensy bit on the bald side, but nothing that couldn’t be coped with – after all, we all have faults – and he was rather endearing, and she loved him.

Susie glanced up at her reflection, caught in the mirror above the fireplace. Candlelight was a good choice, she thought, screwing up her eyes to focus. She looked fabulous, or perhaps it was just that she wasn’t wearing her glasses.

‘There is something important that I want to discuss,’ he’d said. ‘To be honest I don’t feel I can leave it any longer.’

Something important that couldn’t wait any longer. She set the spoon back down on the table. Moving in together? Maybe marriage? Maybe both?

Would she change her name? Mrs Robert Harrison … Mrs Susie Reed, wife of Mr Robert Harrison … Or would they be hyphenated? Mr and Mrs Reed-Harrison; or did Harrison-Reed sound better? The Reed-Harrisons entertain at home in their stylish Norfolk country home.

Susie was wearing a long, elegant cream linen dress, with low-heeled brown leather sandals and some chunky wooden jewellery, although not too much because Robert wasn’t keen on frills and had a ‘strictly no fluff, feathers or sequins’ policy, since he’d been rushed to casualty with a bugle bead up his nose after a particularly raucous scout-gang show. Not that she had many of those kind of things in her wardrobe, but she might have a mad moment, a show-tune, corset, kitten-heeled mule and fishtail frock afternoon.

If pressed, Robert said that he preferred white cotton underwear from Marks and Sparks. Unlike her ex-husband, Robert had never bought Susie anything black and red with suspenders for Christmas that needed taking back. Obviously Robert just didn’t see her as that kind of woman, and Susie wasn’t sure if she should be pleased by that or not …

‘Dessert spoons,’ Susie murmured thoughtfully, touching them with her fingertips. She’d made this thing from the cookery page of the local paper for dessert, with summer fruits, double cream and Muscovado – it was currently chilling in the fridge. She planned to serve it with Florentines from Waitrose, after garnishing the top with a couple of fat raspberries and a mint leaf, all dusted down with a quick flick of icing sugar. It looked great in the photo.

Robert worked in the Environment Agency, doing something which mostly seemed to involve wearing a dark suit, sending memos, having meetings and getting really grumpy by Wednesday afternoon. They’d met at Sheldon Common’s annual midsummer’s dinner dance in the village tithe barn. He’d looked very good in black tie.

He’d said, ‘Are you the woman with the long-eared hairy mongrel who’s bought Isaac’s Cottage?’

Hardly a chat-up line to make a woman go weak at the knees, but she’d never seen herself as high maintenance and didn’t trust flash, so it wasn’t a bad opening. Apparently he had always loved the cottage, seen it every day for years as he drove home from work – and before she knew it Susie was inviting him round to take a look at what she’d done by way of renovations. He’d arrived the next day with a decent bottle of red – a good sign – she’d cooked a spag bol and they’d been seeing each other ever since.

Robert was a little more staid and sensible than she would prefer in a perfect world, but Susie was getting to the point of thinking that maybe staid and sensible might be a good thing. She’d done her share of unreliable, lying, two-timing bastards. She’d been married to one for the best part of fifteen years, and once really was enough. Maybe staid and reliable was the new rock and roll.

And besides, Robert was good with power tools and he’d got a pension plan and a good income and was always on about the future and financial security. It wasn’t that Susie couldn’t manage on her own – she could manage very well indeed and had done for years – it was just that she preferred life when there was someone to share it with, and when she considered it long and hard, Robert Harrison, if not exactly Mr Right, came out very high on the Mr Could-Do-a-Lot-Worse index.

In the kitchen the timer went ping, and while Susie wondered how she would say yes, she practised gliding effortlessly across the floor like a nun she had once seen in a film, and reconsidered the possibilities. Should she smile and say, ‘Oh Robert, of course,’ or should she make him wait, explain that she needed time to think. Or maybe she should just smile winsomely and nod, all bright-eyed and overcome by emotion.

She bobbed down to open the oven door, the heat hitting her like a slap before Susie carefully manoeuvred the cast-iron pot up onto the worktop, imagining she was Delia.

‘And here we are, piping hot and ready to serve – smells absolutely wonderful, doesn’t it? Let’s have a little look, shall we?’

Susie lifted the lid; the chicken casserole was done to a turn, perfect. There were tiny new potatoes, sugar-snap peas and baby carrots in the steamer to go with it. She dipped a spoon in the sauce – maybe it needed just a tiny bit more pepper. Susie had brought a handful of chives in from the garden to chop up and sprinkle on top just before serving, hoping Robert wouldn’t be late. ‘And now, having adjusted the seasoning, just a few chives on the top to garnish – if you haven’t got chives you can always use a little freshly chopped parsley.’

Susie had had to stop being Delia out loud since dating Robert; nor was he keen on her being the woman on Gardeners’ Question Time, or Linda Barker when she was decorating either. She’d made a conscious decision to spare him the full Nigella. He’d said very early on in their relationship that he found it unnerving to hear people talking to themselves.

She looked round at the cosy kitchen and let her mind wander. Would they sell up and buy somewhere together? And what happened if Robert wanted a bungalow and she fell in love with a place with blackened beams and an ingle nook? What if he had always hankered to live on that horrible little housing estate near his fat, miserable sister and Susie couldn’t resist the lure of a narrowboat? Maybe renting somewhere together first was a better idea. Would he go down on one knee? More to the point, would he be able to get back up again, given the state of his back?

Susie sighed. None of this was straightforward at all, and it hadn’t got any easier since she’d got older. Still the same questions, still the same hopes and fears – nothing any simpler just because you were over forty.

You wait three years for someone to pop the question and when the moment finally arrives, all your brain can do is come up with excuses, obstacles, shortcomings and an internal commentary that wouldn’t be out of place on a daytime TV phone-in. Bloody thing. Worse still, it had been doing it all week; she was exhausted from weighing and reweighing the possibilities, the pros and cons.

Susie opened the fridge door and peered inside. They were going to have a little roule of salmon pâté for starters, whizzed in the blender, rolled up in a smoked-salmon sleeve and then cut into slices and served with melba toast – all of which was busy chilling inside a mould at the moment. She had thought about doing big meaty prawns on mixed salad leaves, trickled with chilli dressing and served with wedges of lime, but realistically, who wanted to kiss a hand that had been peeling prawns all afternoon?

Would they get married at the local registry office? she wondered.

First time around she’d been nineteen and living with Andy in a bedsit in Cambridge. He’d rolled in at three o’clock in the morning, drunk as a skunk, and before she could ask him where the hell he’d been, he’d said, ‘I was thinking, babe, maybe we ought to get hitched – what d’ya reckon?’

But second marriages were different, they were about knowing what you wanted, and knowing that it was totally unreasonable to expect someone else to provide it for you. Second marriages were not about children or convention or being able to share a bed when you stayed at your parents’ house, they were about wanting to be together, about wanting to say that this is it. Second marriages were about who you are, not what you planned to be.

Maybe they’d jet off to somewhere hot and foreign? Get married under a palm tree, barefoot and suntanned on the white coral sands of a tropical beach. Mind you, Robert was careful with his money so that wasn’t likely, and besides he was prone to heat stroke and sweat rash, so maybe they should think about one of those new wedding venues: a quaint, out-of-the-way hotel in the Cotswolds, an old railway station in Gwent or a castle in the Scottish highlands. Much simpler when you just bought a white meringue of a dress and hotfooted it to the local church like she’d done the first time. God, marriage was a minefield – and then there would be the question of the frock, and who to invite …

Just then the doorbell rang. Smiling, Susie whipped off her apron, took one last glance in the mirror, added a deep breath and hurried down the hallway towards the front door.

She was considering the guest list as she reached the door; there was her dad, his parents, her brother and sister, his brother and sister, her kids, her friends, the guys from work …

‘I’ve told you before just to come straight in,’ Susie said, wiping her hands and pulling the door open. ‘It’s silly to ring the bell after all this ti—’

‘Hi Mum, thank god you’re in, I was going to ring only I haven’t got any credit on my phone. Have you got some money for the cab?’

‘Jack?’ Susie stared at her son. ‘What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Italy.’

Jack shuffled uncomfortably under her scrutiny, moving his weight from foot to foot. He was wearing long khaki shorts, battered army boots, a tour tee shirt that had, once upon a time in a universe far, far away, been black, and he smelt as if he needed a shower, badly.

‘I am. Well, technically I am. We got a call out of the blue, we’ve got some big presentation to do and the budget won’t run to flying the funders out there – they’re not the kind of guys who do bargain bucket and buses. It’s all gone a bit belly-up really.’ He grinned and leant in a little closer, kissing her on the cheek, a couple of days’ stubble catching her like a rasp. ‘I’ve only just got back; the flight was delayed. I went round to the flat –’ His voice cracked a little. ‘Ellie’s gone. I mean, I’m not surprised really, things have been a bit flaky over the last couple of months. Although I thought at least she would have waited till I got back home before buggering off.’

Susie stared at him. ‘Gone? Oh, I’m so sorry, Jack, I hadn’t realised things were that bad between you two – but I don’t understand, why didn’t you stay there?’

‘Apparently she’s sublet the bloody flat while I was away. I mean, how mean is that? They’re in there till September – two guys from the university. They did say I could crash on the floor if I wanted to, till I got myself sorted out, but it didn’t seem right. So I came here, I didn’t think you’d mind.’

Susie didn’t move. God, did you never get time off from being a mother? Given the circumstances, how could she tell him that she did mind, that in fact she minded quite a lot? That today, any minute now in fact, Mr Could-do-a-lot-Worse was popping round to change her life forever.

Jack lifted his nose like a hungry whippet and sniffed the air. ‘Something smells good. Nice frock, by the way. Going out somewhere, are you? Oh, and have you got that money, only I think the guy in the taxi’s still got his meter running?’

There was a little pause and then Susie picked up her bag from the hallstand, handed Jack two twenty-pound notes and watched him bound back down the path towards the waiting cab. She distinctly heard him say, ‘You’re all right, keep the change, mate – yeah, no sweat, thanks. Have a good un.’ And then he jogged back towards the door and moseyed on past her into the hallway, shimmying his rucksack off one shoulder as he went and dropping it at the bottom of the stairs where it landed with a damp thud.

‘Cottage looks really great, Mum. I’ll stick my stuff upstairs, shall I?’ He bent down and started to unfasten the straps on his bag.

‘What exactly are you doing?’ asked Susie.

‘Just getting a few bits out. Where do you want the washing? Down here or upstairs? I thought I’d stick a load in straight away – you know.’

The smell from the open rucksack would have blistered paint.

‘Whoa, Jack, can you just hang on a minute? You can’t just barge in here expecting –’ She stopped for a moment as he pulled that hurt, unloved puppy face he’d perfected as a toddler. ‘– expecting to be welcomed with open arms. First of all I haven’t finished doing up the spare room yet, it’s all flat packs, bare plaster and floorboards at the moment, and secondly I’m expecting a friend round for supper any minute now.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Jack cheerfully, scooping out his dirty washing onto the hall floor. ‘I don’t mind camping out, I’m not fussy, I’ve got my sleeping bag – and I’ll watch TV in the kitchen while your friend’s here. Don’t mind me, I’ll keep the noise down. God, I’m famished, is it all right if I whip myself up a sandwich? You’ve got it really nice in here. And I love what you’ve done with the garden.’

Susie stared at him. ‘Actually, Jack, I’m really sorry but at the moment I don’t think staying here is a ver—’ she began, just as Robert stepped in through the front door.

‘Susie,’ Robert said, taken by surprise. If anything he looked even more earnest than normal, not to mention a little balder, paler and very, very tense. For a few moments he didn’t appear to notice Jack squatting down beside the rucksack.

‘How are you?’ he said.

Susie looked up at him, trying to work out whether it was nerves or if he was sickening for something. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’ve been thinking over what I want to say to you for some time – the thing is, Susie –’ He paused, nose wrinkling. ‘Good god, what on earth is that terrible smell?’

Jack, who was sitting on the bottom of the stairs, looked up and grinned. ‘Hi there, Robert. How’s it going?’ He was holding a bundle of rancid socks which he dropped casually onto the floor before getting up and holding out a hand.

Susie saw Robert stiffen; Jack wiped his hands on his shorts and tried again. Robert ignored him and turned his attention back to Susie.

‘Look, I’m most terribly sorry but I really can’t stay,’ said Robert.

‘What do you mean, you can’t stay? I’ve cooked supper,’ Susie said, completely wrong-footed. ‘Salmon roule and summer chicken; it’s free-range. And I’ve done a pudding.’

Robert glanced back over his shoulder as if checking that he could still find the way out. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to go to any trouble. You know, not cook or anything.’

Susie stared at him. ‘What do you mean, not go to any trouble, Robert? I always cook when you come over. You know I do, I just thought tonight I’d do us something special …’

For the last three years they’d spent almost every weekend together, taking it in turns to stay at each other’s houses, cooking for one other. What was so different about tonight of all nights?

Robert glanced down at Jack and then said, ‘Look, is there any chance that your mother and I can have this conversation privately?’ He felt around for a name and when none came continued, ‘The thing is, I really need to get going.’ And before either Jack or Susie had time to react, he said, ‘Actually, there is no good time to tell you this; the thing is, I’ve been thinking a lot recently, Susie, and I want you to understand that I’ve not come to this decision lightly.’ The words all tumbled out on one long breath as if there was some chance he might run out of air or resolve.

‘Jack, will you please go?’ snapped Susie. Whatever Robert was going to say, the last thing she wanted was for it to be in front of her twenty-four-year-old son.

Jack pulled a face. ‘What?’

‘Please, Jack. Just go, will you?’

‘Sure,’ he said, looking hard done by. He started to get up. Slowly. Susie quelled a throwback impulse to smack his legs; couldn’t he see that he should make himself scarce? And quickly. Frustration and bewilderment bubbled up inside her. This wasn’t how she had anticipated this evening going at all.

‘And can you take all this with you?’ she said, waving at the heaving mass of washing.

‘I was going to put it in the machine,’ he protested.

‘Now, please, Jack,’ she growled.

Reluctantly and still at a glacial speed, Jack picked the backpack up. As she turned her attention back to Robert, he sloped off towards the kitchen grumbling to himself.

He’d barely closed the kitchen door when Robert said, ‘Look, I’m sorry, Susie, there’s really no easy way to say this. The thing is – I’ve been thinking about this for some time now. What I really want is a family.’

‘What?’ It felt like the floor had fallen away. She reran the words in her head, trying to grasp what they meant, while Robert pressed on.

‘I’ve been mulling the idea over for a long time now, thinking that these feelings, my needs, would go away, but they haven’t. If anything they’ve got more intense. To be honest, I’ve been so depressed over the last few months, Susie. When we’ve been together I keep thinking to myself: Is this all there is, is this all there is to look forward to – is this my life?’ he said glumly, lifting his hands to encompass him, her, her life, her home, her dog. ‘Susie, the truth is that what I really want is to settle down and have a family. I want to have a baby.’

She stared at him, struggling for breath, not sure whether to burst into tears or punch his lights out.

‘What do you mean “have a baby”?’ she said, finding her voice. ‘I’m forty-five, Robert, I’ve got a baby, I’ve got two grown-up babies.’ She waved towards the kitchen door where, by the sound of it, one of them was raiding the larder. ‘I’ve already done that, I’m too –’

And then the penny dropped. ‘You don’t mean with me, do you?’ she whispered. ‘You don’t want us to have a baby, do you?’

‘I have thought about it, but as you say, Susie, you’ve already done it. You don’t want to go back to that place – even if you could. And I mean, it isn’t that likely, is it? Not at your age – not that you’re that old but, you know, babies, all that falling fertility and everything.’

Susie stared at him, wondering if he had any idea what he was saying or how it made her feel.

Robert sighed. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this, Susie, really I didn’t – I thought it would go away.’

‘Robert, you’re nearly forty-seven.’

‘I know, that’s the whole point. I keep thinking that if I don’t have children soon I’m never going to have them. And I’d like more than one, probably two, possibly even three, and I’d really like to start having them before I’m fifty – I mean, after that I think you’re too old, don’t you?’

Please god he was being rhetorical, thought Susie, as she carried on staring, not certain what to say, all the words and thoughts and pain and anger and hurt and indignation and the downright ridiculousness of it all snarled like a motorway pile-up in the back of her throat.

And then, against all the odds, Susie started to laugh. It was a close-run thing as to who was more surprised, she or Robert, but as she laughed some more he stared at her in horror.

‘I don’t see why on earth you’re laughing, Susie. This isn’t funny, this is my future we’re talking about,’ he said indignantly.

She was laughing so hard now that she could barely breathe. ‘You’re right, Robert, this isn’t funny, it’s crazy. It’s madness. For a start you can’t just summon up a family, you need to find the right person,’ she said, struggling with a giggle.

‘I have to take the chance, Susie. This may be my last shot,’ he said, his colour rising rapidly.

Susie shook her head, not picking up on the cheap joke, the laughter not abating. If anything she was laughing harder, tears rolling down her face. ‘Oh, Robert,’ she said, opening the front door for him. ‘Best you go and have a baby then. Take care.’

Robert stood for a second or two, looking bemused. ‘Look, Susie – you have to understand. It’s just that we want different things.’

She stared at him. ‘How was I supposed to know that?’ she said.

As he moved she noticed the last of the sunlight glinting on his bald patch. He looked uncomfortable and pained. ‘I’m sorry, Susie. I didn’t want to hurt you,’ he said, as if that made it all right.

‘Too late,’ Susie said, guiding him back towards the door.

‘I’ll ring, maybe we could talk, maybe I could pop over later in the week?’

‘Please don’t bother on my account,’ she said, closing the door behind him. There was a fragile silence and then the tears that had come with the laughter turned into great, wailing, miserable sobs; sobs that consumed her whole; sobs so huge that she could barely breathe. Bastard. The bastard.

Jesus Christ, how could she have been so totally stupid, so totally blind? Susie sat down on the bottom of the stairs feeling so many things, some of which she hadn’t got a name for – and then, very slowly, the kitchen door opened.

‘Mum? You okay?’ asked Jack, peering round the door.

‘No, not really, but I will be, just give me a minute or two,’ she said, backhanding the tears away.

He sat down beside her and put his arm around her, gently. ‘You want to tell me about it?’ he said, handing her half a dozen squares of kitchen roll.

Susie shook her head, infinitely touched by his gentleness and concern. ‘This isn’t how it works, I’m the grown-up here. I’m supposed to look after you,’ she said, between sobs.

He leant closer. ‘In that case, is it all right if I have some of that casserole, only it smells wonderful? And the veggies are done. The pinger just went – I’ve switched them off. Do you want to come in here and Delia or shall I?’

Chapter 2

It was a horrible, long, long night. Susie slept fitfully, and when she slept she dreamt she had been jilted by a grumpy bald taxi driver who had driven over from Italy. He left the meter running. Delia was there. She’d brought along a large box of homemade biscuits and a twice-baked lemon soufflé; they ate it over coffee, sitting on the flat-pack boxes in the spare bedroom. The great secret for a successful soufflé, apparently, was to fold the ingredients into the egg whites, never beating them, and to use a spotlessly clean bowl. Susie had to pay the taxi driver with a cheque.

In the post the next morning was a catalogue full of really useful things for the more mature shopper, things to help pick your socks up off the floor with a clawed pincer on the end, an A4 plastic magnifying sheet for reading newspapers and one of those big single faux suede slippers, modelled by a blonde thirty-five-year-old in a bri-nylon floral housecoat. Jack was thumbing through it when Susie came downstairs to the kitchen, feeling like hell.

Outside in the back garden, the trellis, the terrace and most of the bay hedge was festooned with socks, tee shirts and underpants. It looked like the bunting for an orgy.

‘Someone’s been busy,’ said Susie, settling herself into a chair by the kitchen table. She felt tired and frail and headachy, as if she was sickening for something. Her eyes had puffed up like doughnuts from a combination of sleeplessness and crying. She made an effort to corral her thoughts, not letting them stray anywhere near the sore, turbulent wilderness that threatened to engulf her. ‘Had you not thought of using the washing line?’ she asked.

Jack looked up at her; he had a mouth full of breakfast cereal and was currently shovelling more out of a blue and white striped pudding basin. ‘Uh?’

‘The washing line? The rotary thing.’

‘I couldn’t fathom out how to work it.’ He jabbed with his spoon towards the catalogue. ‘You know, there is some really cool stuff in here, there are these things that hold bin bags open for garden rubbish, solar-powered rocks – and then there’s this springy stainless-steel nipper for opening jars, looks like some sort of weapon from Star Wars. Cool.’ He mimed frisbeeing the jar opener across the room with accompanying space noises before turning the page on to the insect-shaped boot scraper and shoe jack selection. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’

‘Probably best not to ask.’ Optimistically, Susie leant over and picked up the teapot from the table. It was cold and empty; across the kitchen Jack’s tea bag lay resplendent on the top of the cooker in a little venal bleed of tannin.

‘And I couldn’t find the pegs either.’

‘Your father would be so proud. Now, would you like to tell me what your plans are?’ she said, pointedly setting the little enamel bucket marked pegs onto the table alongside him.

‘I have to have plans?’ Jack asked, looking at her. ‘The love of my life has given me the old heave-ho, sublet my home and sent all my stuff to Oxfam; I’ve just walked out of a job I loved, I’ve got nowhere to live and I’m supposed to have plans?’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Susie, while refilling the kettle and prising open the biscuit tin. ‘Life’s a bitch, and anyway you told me you’d come home to do a presentation.’

‘Well, I have – walking out of my job was more of a metaphor for the general chaos and hopelessness in my life at the moment. Ellie’s always saying how much pressure it puts on our relationship, what with me travelling, never being there for her, and money is always an issue. Her dad was the same when she was a kid, and she keeps saying she doesn’t want to end up like her mum. I can see her point, although I haven’t got a woman in every port like Simon. I was thinking maybe I ought to jack it in – get a proper job, there’s plenty of work in Cambridge, maybe take up a career in telesales, or maybe I could stay around here for a while?’

Susie stared at him. ‘In which reality would that be?’

‘God, you’re a hard woman,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d understand – you’re my mother, you’re supposed to love me unconditionally, help me out in times of need and not be offended or hurt that I only ring you when I want something.’

Susie shook her head. ‘See, this is why I always tell people, read the small print,’ she said, handing him the biscuit tin. ‘And why on earth didn’t you go to your dad’s last night? He lives a lot closer to the university than coming all the way out here.’

There was a short, weighed pause as Jack sorted through the Rich Tea to find the last chocolate digestive. ‘He’s a hard man,’ said Jack.

‘He’s a complete pussycat; he just won’t take any crap. And he most certainly wouldn’t have paid for your sodding taxi,’ said Susie as she opened the fridge.

‘He’s on holiday,’ said Jack.

Susie lifted an eyebrow.

‘Well, I think he is – he didn’t answer the doorbell.’

There was no milk left – although, thoughtfully, Jack had put the empty carton back in the fridge door.

She glanced up. Jack opened his mouth, still half-full of chocolate digestive, but before he could speak, Susie said, ‘I suggest that if you know what’s good for you, you’ll abandon what remains of your cereal-a-thon, get your butt down to the post office and get me some milk. Or else.’

‘Right you are,’ Jack said, pushing himself to his feet. At the back door he hesitated and patted the pockets of his jeans, then turned to speak. ‘I don’t suppose –’ he began.

Susie growled, ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Fair enough. Oh, and by the way,’ said Jack as he stepped outside, ‘Alice rang, she said would you ring her back ASAP if not sooner.’

‘Your sister?’

‘Do you know anyone else called Alice who’s that bossy?’

‘Did she say what she wanted?’

‘What makes you think she wanted anything?’

‘I gave birth to her, why else would she ring?’

‘You’re really not a morning person, are you?’ said Jack, and then, grinning, he ran down the path to avoid the empty milk carton winging its way towards him.

When he was gone Susie sat down at the table and rested her head on her hands. In the silence all she could think about was Robert, even though she tried very hard not to.

Robert. Robert Harrison, Robert David I-want-a-baby Harrison.

The idea of having another baby had played on her mind all night long. Even if it were possible would she want to do it? Would she want to go back to the beginning and start over? And would she really want to do it with Robert? It would be like going back in time, and she had no desire at all to go back there, not to the sleepless nights, the constant tiredness, the worry, the total responsibility. She realised that she had fondly imagined growing old with Robert, but long before senility set in, being carefree, eating out, travelling, going on long holidays, swapping Christmas with the family for Christmas in a beachside cabin in the Caribbean. Having a great time together, not sitting up half the night with a hot, miserable toddler in her arms as she soothed away measles or a sore throat.

It had been fine when she was in her twenties – she’d had years of being sensible and responsible, and the energy to do it – and although Andy hadn’t been the greatest husband in the world he was a natural as a father. But she didn’t want to do it now, not now when there were other fish to fry. On the other hand, the trouble was that not wanting another family, not being broody for Robert’s children, made her feel old. The face in the mirror that looked back at her was full of laughter lines, rich with experience and life and wry knowing smiles – but no, it didn’t matter how much she wanted to be with Robert, she’d had her fill of labour pains, teething and toddlers.

But because of Robert, far from giving her the sense of peace that knowing all this had given her for the last few years, it gave her a sense of time passing. Up until now Susie had been happy getting older if not wiser, had looked forward to more freedom, new adventures, new experiences; but now, thanks to Robert, she was slammed hard up against the fact that whether she liked it or not, realistically pregnancy and motherhood were behind her, that chapter of her life over – and while on one hand that was a wonderful relief there was also a sense of poignancy and loss. As the tears started to fall all over again they were for the children that she and Robert had never had, and now never would have.

God, surely she should be able to handle it better than this? Surely as you get older things ought to hurt less? At seventeen a broken heart feels like it might kill you, a missed phone call the end of the world, but now? Susie sniffed. Surely you should know more, you should be able to rationalise and understand and realise that even though it hurt now it would get better – sometime, eventually. Trouble was the way she felt at the moment the voice of reason wasn’t helping one iota, instead she felt sick.

Amongst the raw, bleeding stumps of rejection and hurt, humiliation twinkled and crackled like lightning; and there she was thinking Robert was about to go down on one knee, that he was her happy ever after. Susie felt her face redden. How the hell could she have got it so wrong? How come she hadn’t seen it coming?

Why hadn’t Robert mentioned the baby thing before? She had listened to his opinions on everything else; on foreigners, the government, education, immigration, the economy, Botox, cheap wine and middle-aged women wearing leather trousers. When she had mentioned going on holiday together in the autumn, he’d picked up a whole pile of brochures from town. If he’d gone broody why hadn’t he said, ‘Actually I was thinking more Mothercare than Montenegro.’ Bastard.

Susie reran memories of the last three years, trying to come up with anything, any conversation or comment that had brought them anywhere close to fatherhood, but came up dry. Although there was the time he’d said that if he had his time over again there were things he would have done differently. Susie remembered topping up their glasses and saying she was certain everyone felt the same; there was always stuff that you would like to change if you had the chance.

And he’d nodded and gone on to moan about the state of bread in this country, before moving on to include food generally, gastropubs and vegetarians, and especially the man who ran the corner shop in the village who had had an out-of-date vegetarian lasagne in the freezer. Susie sighed; in three years she’d never caught Robert peering longingly into prams, or cooing over commercials for Pampers. Three bloody years wasted.

She really needed a cup of tea. The cure for everything. Susie glanced at her reflection in the toaster – surely this was the time she should be having a life, having missed out on one first time around because she was bringing up Jack and Alice. She wanted to travel now and do things, stay up late, see the world, buy a sports car, wear wonderful, sophisticated clothes and swan around looking impossibly elegant with nicely cut hair, not be negotiating buggies up kerbs and in and out of shops, with a bottle, baby wipes and spare nappies in her handbag.

She’d already been there, done that. Susie squared her shoulders. She’d had Jack when she was barely twenty and Alice when she was twenty-one, stayed home, tended a garden and a dog, a cat, goldfish, various hamsters and a rabbit and regretted none of it. But that didn’t mean she wanted to do it all over again, especially not now.

How would she have felt if, when they first met, Robert had said, ‘Susie, I think you’re lovely. I want to have a family with you.’ Truth be told, if Robert had said that she would have said ‘thanks but no thanks’, and run away as fast as she could, safe in the knowledge that he had picked the wrong woman. She certainly wouldn’t have wasted the last three years of her life listening to him whine on about the state of Britain today, global warming, young people, refugees, dole scroungers and education. The more Susie thought about it the angrier she got. Robert had totally misled her. She’d spent all this time thinking they had some kind of future together, while all along he’d been busy thinking about raising a family with someone else.

When they had first met, Robert had told her that he liked gardening, foreign travel, long nights in and good nights out … There was nothing at all about wanting to burp small incontinent people and scrape puddles of puréed carrot off the front of his nicely pressed Boden rugby shirt – not a hint, not a bloody clue.

At which point the phone rang. Susie hesitated, wondering if she could really face talking to the big wide world without having had a mug of tea, if it was Robert, and why she hadn’t signed up for caller display to take the guesswork out of whether to answer the damned thing or not. While still debating, she found herself picking up the handset.

‘Mum?’

‘Alice –’

‘Oh, you are there. I spoke to Jack earlier, what’s he doing home?’ Alice snapped. ‘And why weren’t you up when I rang? Are you ill? I told him to tell you to call me back.’

‘Alice, I –’

‘Did he tell you that I’d rung?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Did he tell you to ring back as soon as you got the message?’

‘Yes – but –’

‘Did he tell you that it was important?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘The thing is, Mum –’ and all at once the voice of the modern-day Spanish Inquisition softened and Alice giggled. ‘The thing is, Mum … I’m pregnant.’ Her voice rose to a full-throated chuckle at the end of the sentence. ‘You’re going to be a granny.’

Chapter 3

Susie stared at the phone, not quite able to catch her breath. Granny? Granny? Caller display really was the only option; from now on she’d just pick up crank calls, heavy breathers and people who wanted to sell her double-glazing. She’d ring and organise it as soon as she’d had a cup of tea.

‘Well, what do you think? Aren’t you going to say anything?’ said Alice, who still had an odd, whoopy, slightly hysterical tone to her voice.

What was there to say? ‘Well yes, of course – I’m – I’m –’ said Susie. What the hell was she? ‘I’m shocked.’

There was a little snarl at the far end of the line. Shocked was apparently not the right response.

‘I mean, I’m shocked and delighted, and very pleased too – obviously. Thrilled but surprised, I mean. I didn’t know that you and Adam were – well, I mean …’ What exactly did she mean? Granny, what sort of word was that to spring on anyone? ‘I knew you were, you know, but not …’ The pit Susie was digging for herself was steadily getting deeper and deeper. ‘You know,’ she said weakly.

‘I thought you would be pleased for me, Mum,’ said Alice, now sounding weepy and grumpy and hurt; it seemed as if the hormones had already kicked in.

‘I am, darling, I am, really. It’s just a bit of a surprise, that’s all,’ Susie said, not quite sure whether she was lying. ‘I’m delighted, absolutely thrilled,’ she continued, wondering if she was laying it on too thick. What was it she was supposed to ask?

‘When is it due? I mean, are you still going to work? How is work going and how is Adam? Is he pleased? Have you thought of any names yet?’

Did that cover everything?

‘January, and of course he’s pleased, Mum, why wouldn’t he be pleased? To be honest, we’re both a bit surprised but we both wanted a family at some point so … Obviously it wasn’t exactly planned, but these things happen, and we were thinking maybe next year anyway, so this just brings things forward a little bit. And once we’ve had the scan and we know what it is we’ll choose the baby’s name. Hardly seems an efficient use of my time to pick two sets of names.’

Well, obviously. ‘Right. I mean, congratulations, well done – it’s wonderful, wonderful news. I’m delighted for you. Really.’

‘Things are going to be a bit tight, obviously, for a while, but then again you and Dad managed. I was saying to Adam this morning that you didn’t work at all while we were little. I know things were different back then and you weren’t qualified for anything in those days so it wasn’t like you were losing a proper salary or anything –’

Back in the dark ages, thought Susie grimly. Maybe she would just give up answering the phone altogether.

‘I said to Adam that if you and Dad could manage it then I know we can.’ Alice made it sound like a done deal, her unborn child sorted out and organised from being an embryo up to and including university. After all, if back in the dark ages people like her feckless parents could manage it, without degrees and with an inability to understand the mysteries of predictive text, just how hard could it be?

None of which helped Susie work out what to say to Alice. For a start she hadn’t just bought a flat the size of a garden shed for more money than Susie could imagine without tranquillisers, nor had she ever assumed foreign holidays were a right not a privilege, and never in all her born days had she thought £199.99 was a reasonable price to pay for a pair of raffia wedges.

‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ was all Susie could come up with.

‘You know, I knew you’d say that,’ snapped Alice.

‘Mum, can I move now please? I’m getting cramp. My leg is absolutely killing me.’

Susie looked past the easel to where Jack was sitting. He was at her workbench surrounded by the weekend papers, a mug of coffee and half a packet of biscuits. Late-morning sunshine caught his fringe and the beginnings of a beard, so that he appeared to be surrounded by a great corona of golden light, although her gaze was slightly abstracted so it wasn’t exactly Jack she saw but the painting he might become – if only he would just sit still.

‘No.’

He groaned.

Susie had had nothing planned for the weekend – if you discounted the bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge, the fresh strawberries and the Belgian chocolates that she had bought in anticipation of a long, lingering celebration breakfast in bed with Robert – which was why she needed to keep her mind firmly occupied with work.

She closed her eyes, trying very hard to clear her head. Her throat was locked solid and a heavy pain hovered above her heart. Bloody man.

Susie let her eyes move slowly across the canvas. It was blank and creamy white, the surface very slightly raised and rough to the touch so that as she drew a stick of charcoal across it, it bit, giving a satisfying, almost mouth-watering, sensation.

‘Please, Mum? I’ll wash up the breakfast things,’ whined Jack.

‘I’ve got a dishwasher.’

The studio – once the washhouse adjoining Susie’s cottage – smelt of linseed oil, turps and oil paints, mixed today with the smell of hot wood, baked tin and stone where the sun burned in through the open French windows and drank up the spilt water from the profusion of herbs and geraniums in pots and window boxes. The cottage and the little studio formed an L shape, with a flagstone terrace set with tubs and planters, and cane furniture framed in the crook of the right angle.

Outside, Milo, the hairy hound, had found his spot in the sunshine and was snoring softly.

Susie taught art three days a week at the local college in Fenborough, and worked on her own projects in the time left over. Not that there had been that much time since she’d been going out with Robert; he found the whole art thing completely unfathomable.

The charcoal rasped softly under her fingertips. Susie had drawn and painted for as long as she could remember, long before she knew what art was, discovering very early in life that, somehow, laying her feelings and thoughts down on canvas or board or paper made more sense of them. When it was going well she felt as if she painted right from the core of herself, totally connected to the painting and yet at the same time almost an observer, as if the hands working across the canvas weren’t her own.

Not that she told many people that, having come from a family who were about as creative as tin tacks. Susie was altogether more pragmatic when she talked about her work, realising that people had enough preconceived notions about artists without being told that when it was going well she felt she was possessed by the spirit of Elvis. Worse still, Susie really did paint at the top of her game when she was unhappy. This morning the lines were flowing onto the blank canvas effortlessly, like melted chocolate.

‘I don’t mind unloading it. Or I could walk the dog – oh, how about I water the garden?’

‘For god’s sake, Jack, I’ve only just started. And you chose the pose: young man reads newspaper.’

Jack shifted his weight without breaking position. ‘I hate doing this. My leg’s gone numb now. I should have done young man sleeps peacefully in hammock.’

‘Bear in mind that you could have very easily been doing young man emulsions spare room. And besides, you didn’t used to hate it.’

‘Only because you bribed me and Alice with sweets and money and trips to the zoo.’

‘You could always go and stay with your father.’

Jack sniffed and flicked the page over. ‘Did I tell you you’re a cruel and heartless woman?’

‘I thought we’d already established that. Now, do you want me to put the radio on?’ Susie said, glancing back at the canvas and then back at Jack, her eyes darting quickly between the two, trying to catch him in the cross-hairs of her imagination.

‘Radio Four?’

‘Yup.’

‘Not really.’ There was a second’s pause and then he said, ‘So, are you going to ring what’s-his-face, try to kiss and make up?’

‘You know the rules, Jack,’ said Susie, without taking her mind’s eye off Jack’s silhouette. ‘At least ten minutes at a time without talking, now stay still. And no, I don’t think I’ll be ringing Robert, we’ve got nothing to say to each other as far as I can see. He wants a baby and, let’s be frank, I’m all babied out.’

She smudged the charcoal with her thumb and then paused to gauge the effect.

Jack sniffed. ‘Radio Four then?’

‘If you want, the afternoon play will be on soon. It’s always good on a Saturday.’

‘Says you. Are you feeling okay?’

Susie nodded. ‘Bit battered but I’ll be fine, now sit still.’ She had made a habit of never discussing her emotional life in depth with her children and she wasn’t going to start now. All the way through the death throes of her marriage, the hand-to-hand combat of divorce, and the new men, broken hearts and false starts since, she’d always kept the gory details to herself, never expecting her children to take sides or, worse still, dispense advice. Besides, she wasn’t the only one nursing a broken heart. It couldn’t have been easy for Jack to come home and find that Ellie had upped sticks and gone. Ironic really that they were in the same boat, and that while she kept encouraging Jack to talk about it, saying it could really help, she kept her own pain neatly tidied away.

Susie let the charcoal sweep down the page, catching the line of Jack’s back, working down over his shoulders, her eye and fingertips guiding the charcoal, trying to capture the subtle thing that was him, wondering as she always did if there was any way to truly capture the shadows and the texture and the vitality, so that someone would look at the finished work and see Jack as she did.

Jack had broad shoulders but was still rangy like a colt; he had his father’s jaw line and her long neck, blue-green eyes deep set under heavy brows, a good tan, and taut skin that reflected the light so he seemed to glow. She smiled; her baby had grown up to be a rugged outdoorsy man, with strong, gentle features.

She had painted and drawn Jack and Alice and their father hundreds of times, but never Robert. Robert had objected, saying it felt invasive, and that he didn’t like the way she looked at him. It felt, he said, one day when she got him to sit for half an hour, almost as if she could see right through him. Shame she hadn’t really, thought Susie miserably as she added another line, it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

‘He seemed like a bit of a no-hoper to me,’ said Jack, without moving.

‘Really? And how could you tell?’ said Susie, eyes working back and forth, back and forth. When Susie was certain she’d got the right line, she’d look less often, for reference, but at the moment Jack’s pose was the only thing she had to hold the image. At the moment there was no dense safety net of lines or shapes or shading, just an idea caught by the most fragile gossamer of charcoal marks.

‘I was being polite,’ he said. ‘If I’m honest, I don’t really know what you ever saw in Robert, Mum, he didn’t seem like he was your sort at all – came across like a real stuffed shirt. Selfish, a bit spoilt. How long did you say you’d been going out with him?’

‘Jack, instead of picking over my love life, why don’t you go and ring Ellie when we’ve done here and try to sort things out with her,’ she said. ‘You can use the house phone as you haven’t got any credit.’

There was silence. He looked away. And then Susie noticed that there was the merest vibration, a tiny shudder in Jack’s shoulder and then another, and as she watched a single tear rolled down his cheek and plopped silently onto the newspaper on the table in front of him.

‘Oh Jack,’ she said gently. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, honey.’

He sniffed, shoulders lifting. ‘You didn’t,’ he said. ‘And you’re right, I ought to ring her. The trouble is I don’t know what to say to make it come right – to make her come back.’

Susie laid the charcoal down and put her arms round him, and as she did the dam burst and he started to cry. It was all she could do not to cry with him.

‘Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry,’ she murmured as sobs racked him. ‘C’mon, talk to me. Tell me –’

He sniffed the tears away. ‘Christ, this is crazy. I love her, Mum, it seemed so simple. What the hell am I going to do? I don’t know what happened. I thought – shit – I thought everything was fine, just fine. I thought Ellie would be coming out to join us at the dig at the end of the month; that we’d spend the whole of the summer together in Italy. She loved it last year. I really thought she was happy – okay, so things hadn’t been that great recently, she said I was always away, and money’s been a bit tight, but those things happen to everyone – and we’d got the summer to look forward to. We could have worked it out, worked through it.’ He stopped, sniffing miserably. ‘I thought we were it, Mum, I thought we were forever. What am I going to do?’

‘Oh baby,’ she whispered, stroking the hair back off his face, her own voice ragged. Still holding him close, Susie pulled a crush of tissue out of her pocket. ‘Here, honey.’

They never mentioned anything about tending broken hearts at antenatal clinic, not a whisper in any of the childcare books about how to deal with shattered dreams, or girls who ran off with your baby’s future in their hands. Or, come to that, men who ran off with dreams of future babies in theirs.

‘Don’t tell me,’ he snuffled. ‘A big blow for Mummy?’

Susie smiled sadly. ‘You could say that.’

On Monday morning during one of her classes Robert rang and left a message on her mobile.

‘Damn, of course,’ he muttered on the voicemail. ‘It’s Monday, isn’t it? I’d forgotten, you’re at work.’ Three years and he still couldn’t remember her schedule. ‘I just rang to see how you were. I was going to ring over the weekend, but I didn’t want to upset you again. Best to leave well alone, eh? I realise that it must have come as a little bit of a shock.’ The man was all heart.

‘The thing is –’ he hesitated. Susie could imagine his rather pained expression even on voicemail. ‘The thing is … sorry – maybe I’ll ring later, you know how much I hate these damned machines. I’ll be at home if you’d like to ring me when you get in, maybe that’s a better idea.’ He immediately sounded much brighter. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you give me a ring when you’ve got a minute? When it’s convenient, obviously.’

So, not much in the way of comfort there.

‘So?’ said Nina, carrying her coffee over as Susie deleted the message and dropped her phone back into her handbag. The art rooms were rarely empty but there was always a lunchtime lull, despite the end of term looming.

‘Come on then, tell me all about it. How did it go?’

Susie had deliberately arrived late to avoid any pre-class interrogation; leaving Jack at home in bed, or rather in his sleeping bag on the floor of the spare room. He had been snoring when she’d shut the back door. He hadn’t rung Ellie either. It had been a long, dark and painful weekend for both of them.

Come lunchtime Susie had scurried into town with the excuse that she needed to pay her council tax – but apparently nothing was going to put Nina off the scent, despite there only being ten minutes before afternoon classes started. And she couldn’t avoid Nina forever.

‘I’ve been thinking about you since Friday. I want to know all the details. What happened? What did he say? What did he do?’ Nina pressed, breaking out the custard creams.

Nina was Fenborough College Art Department’s senior technician, in her late forties, with hennaed hair, dreads, big glasses, a slightly wacky wardrobe, and probably – Susie often thought – more talent than the rest of the art department put together, herself included.

Nina had worked at the college since before dirt. She exhibited regularly, her work – huge abstracts painted in primal reds, ochres and blues with rich metallic threads twisted through them – sold like hotcakes. Over the years she’d been hailed as the next big thing, reviewed, featured and raved about in the broadsheets and had pieces in half a dozen famous galleries, and still she turned up every Monday morning bright and early to set up the studio for the next influx of students.

She and Susie were also good friends; they’d shared success and failure, suppers, sandwiches, bottles of wine, exhibition space, gossip, moans, groans and broken hearts for the best part of ten years.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t ring me. I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to interrupt anything, you know …’ Nina said with a sly grin, tapping the side of her nose as she settled herself down in a big purple armchair that one of last year’s upholstery class had left behind. Susie had taken the moss-green one, the one with the deep-buttoned back and the slightly wonky leg.

‘So, come on, how did it go then? Did he do the whole down-on-one-knee, a-dozen-red-roses thing? God, I hope so; I’ve found this fantastic suit in that second-hand shop in the High Street. They’ve got some really nice stuff in there. Anyway –’ Nina got up to demonstrate. ‘It’s cream, gold and plum silk, fitted, v-neck, bias cut, and I found this fabulous hat in Bows and Belles – you know, the one with the woman who looks as if she just smelt something rancid in her handbag? It’s like a cartoon top hat, with a feather –’ the mime continued. ‘Although actually I’m not sure now if it’s a feather or some kind of silk quill, it’s something curved, but it needs good weather so I was hoping you’d plump for maybe spring or summer next year.’ She paused, eyes wide. ‘So?’

‘So, he finished with me,’ said Susie, taking a sip of her coffee. It was cold and bitter although she refused to draw any parallels, and besides, Friday evening felt like a lifetime away and the woman who had been eagerly getting supper ready, all puffed and buffed and full of anticipation, waiting to be proposed to, a total and rather naïve stranger.

Nina stared at her, and her mouth dropped open. ‘You are joking.’

Susie shook her head. ‘Unfortunately not.’

‘Oh my god, but I thought –’ There was a little pause. ‘You thought –’

‘I know what I thought, Neen, but I was wrong, really, really wrong. Wrong about everything,’ said Susie, bizarrely feeling guilty for having deprived Nina of her fabulous hat-and-plum-silk-suit day.

‘Oh god. I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry,’ said Nina, jiffling around with pure discomfort. ‘I feel awful now.’

Susie smiled, trying hard not to let her voice crack or break. ‘If it’s any consolation I probably feel worse.’

‘Oh, Susie.’

Susie held up a hand. ‘Please, Neen, whatever you do, don’t be nice to me – no sympathy, no hugs or I’ll cry.’

‘God, what a complete bastard,’ snapped Nina. ‘I mean, I could never really see what it was you saw in him myself, but – you know.’

Susie sniffed and nodded. ‘I know.’

Good friends might disapprove of your choice in shoes, handbags or men but they would defend to the death your right to have them.

Nina shook her head. ‘And just when it was going so well. Is it too soon for details or would you like to get it off your chest, bearing in mind we’ve got a life class in ten minutes and Electric Mickey will be arriving any minute now?’

‘He wants a baby.’

Nina’s expression crumpled like damp origami. ‘What? Who wants a baby?’

‘Electric Mickey; who the hell do you think I mean?’

‘Not Robert? Oh please, please tell me you’re joking,’ she hissed, eyes so wide now that she looked as if she had been electrocuted.

‘Yes, of course Robert.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Nina paused, features folding and refolding as she considered the prospect. ‘A baby. Jesus. Really? Who would have thought it? Bloody hell. Broody. With those ears.’

Ears? Susie stared at her. How come she had never noticed Robert’s ears? ‘Presumably you got them to put the suit and the hat on lay away?’ asked Susie.

Nina nodded. ‘Uh-huh. Till the end of the week. I mean it could have been an autumn wedding – or the Caribbean. That hat would never have travelled.’

‘There you go then,’ said Susie with forced good humour. ‘Problem solved. Oh, and by the way, Alice is having a baby apparently. I’m going to be a granny in January.’

‘Sweet Jesus, it’s been one hell of a weekend,’ said Nina, slumping back into the armchair, exhausted by all the facial contortions.

At which point Electric Mickey ambled in through the double doors carrying a basket of organic carrots, the tab end of what looked and smelt suspiciously like a joint clenched between his last remaining teeth.

‘Yo,’ he said, setting the basket down between them. ‘Y’okay?’

No changing room or false modesty about Electric Mickey: the second that the basket was down on the bench he started getting his kit off, which, despite appearances, although well worn was also well washed.

Naked as a jaybird, save for his sandals – broad-fitting with a therapeutic footbed – Mickey neatly folded everything – faded cotton dungarees and a spotless white tee shirt, not being a man who had embraced layering or underwear as a concept – in beside the carrots and said, ‘So where do you want me today then, ladies?’ without a trace of salaciousness.

Susie smiled up at him, wishing as always that she had stood up as soon as he came in: the view from the armchair was not one that she would have cared to share with many.

‘Well, we were thinking classic Roman today,’ said Nina, getting to her feet. ‘I’ve got you a nice pillar and a plinth set up over here by the gas heater.’

Electric Mickey was in his late fifties, former sailor, reformed alcoholic and ex-electrician with an exquisitely broken nose, skin the colour of good coffee, and with one of the most beautifully defined bone structure and musculatures that Susie had ever seen. His whole body was lean, wonderfully proportioned, with great definition and muscles as taut as knotted string from working dawn to dusk in the little market garden that he shared with his wife, Jolie. He was a mature masterpiece of the human form, which was why Susie booked him over and over again to pose for her classes to prove that you didn’t have to be eighteen to be beautiful.

His broad chest was covered with a sprinkling of white wiry hair, which travelled down in a fine line over his solar plexus and belly to regions further south, thickening as it did to a dense pelt framing his wedding tackle in a ruff as lush as the coat of a well-fed polar bear.

By contrast, the top of Mickey’s skull was completely bald and shiny, despite him having a thick beard and a great curtain of white hair sprouting from below the bulge of his not inconsiderable cranium, cut pudding-basin style, by Jolie, to shoulder length. Occasionally there were a couple of fine plaits in it, once in a while a bright twisted thread or piece of ribbon, which he seemed totally oblivious to – but today there was only hair. Electric Mickey was a great natural landscape of textures, surfaces, colours and shades for the students, and a joy to draw.

‘Fancy a coffee, do you?’ asked Nina, indicating her mug.

‘Not for me, thank you, Neen, don’t want to be dashing off to the loo every five minutes. Carrots if you want them,’ he said, nodding towards the basket. ‘Should be some Swiss chard next week. Now, what are we today? Toga on? Toga off?’

Susie smiled. ‘Off would be great. You’re a bit early though. The students won’t be back till two. Do you want to slip a robe on so’s you don’t get cold?’

‘Don’t mind if I do. I’ve just dropped my granddaughter off at nursery,’ he said, by way of explanation, taking the blue towelling bathrobe Nina offered him. ‘She wanted to get there early today; they’ve got their teddy bears’ picnic this afternoon. She’s got a new dress and we had to fill the van up with all her bears and then me and Jolie did little sandwiches and carrot cake.’ He smiled fondly. ‘She’s so excited.’

Susie sighed. Mickey, with his Father Christmas good looks, was the stuff of which proper grandparents were made.

Her own mum and dad had been perfect for the job too. Had they ever doubted they were ready? Susie’s mum had always seemed to know the right thing to do or say, although she had died when Alice and Jack were little, and Susie’s dad was forever patiently heading off to the shed to mend Jack’s punctures or his pedal car, chivvied on by Susie’s mum – they were made to be grandparents. Susie looked up and caught her reflection in a window and for a split second saw her mum’s features in her own. Surely Susie wasn’t quite there yet? Surely there had to have been some kind of mistake?

‘We were thinking Classic Roman – one of the senate staring out helplessly as the Carthaginians sack Rome,’ Nina was saying. ‘I had one of the girls in floristry whip you up a set of laurels.’ She rummaged around in one of the cupboards. ‘Here we are,’ she said, handing him a leafy crown which he cheerfully plonked on his head. As he took to the dais the first of the students started to trickle back in and set up their easels around him.

‘Actually, I think you’ll find it was the other way round, the Romans sacked Carthage,’ said Mickey, settling himself into position to get the feel of the pose. ‘It was the Barbarians who sacked Rome – the Vandals and the Visigoths and the Gauls, I think.’ He lifted one arm towards the pillar, eyes fixed into the middle distance; a vision in his faded Marks and Sparks dressing gown and matching laurels.

‘So, how did your weekend go?’ he asked Susie, getting himself comfy. ‘Neen was telling me all about it on Friday. Did he go down on one knee? Jolie’s been looking for a reason to get all dolled-up; she’s seen this really great frock in a shop in town – it’s cream and blue with all these tiny little pearl buttons down the front.’

Susie didn’t look but she guessed he was miming. Hopefully Jolie had got hers on lay away as well.

It was late afternoon when Susie finally arrived home. She banged the back door open with her hip and dropped a pile of shopping bags onto the kitchen table. From his basket by the Aga, Milo opened one rheumy eye, decided that on balance she was probably not a burglar, and settled back down to sleep.

‘Hi honey, I’m home,’ Susie called out in her best soap-opera Americana, before plugging in the kettle. ‘How’s it going, Jack? I’ve bought all your favourite comfort food.’

‘Mashed potato with onion gravy, a decent steak and a good bottle of Merlot?’

Susie swung round in surprise. Framed in the hall doorway was a tallish man with broad shoulders, short, dark greying hair, a deep tan and a broad grin. He most certainly wasn’t Jack. He was wearing an oversized black tee shirt with an abstract design across the front, faded jeans and trainers, and looked oddly at home in her house.

Susie stared at him. Maybe she’d missed something. ‘What the f—’ she began, as he stepped forward, hands up in a gesture of surrender.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, don’t panic – you must be Susie, Jack’s mum? I’m Matt, Matt Peters. I’ve been working with Jack. Actually, I’m still working with Jack.’ He laughed, waving a large suntanned hand across the front of the tee shirt before holding a hand out towards her. She realised with a start that the jazzy abstract on the front of his shirt was magnolia emulsion.

‘It’s all right, they’re clean, I just washed them,’ he said.

‘You’re painting my spare room,’ she replied, more statement than question.

His handshake was warm and firm and something inside her tingled as his fingers closed around hers.

‘Most certainly am, amongst other things, ma’am – me and your boy have been working our butts off all day. We’ve got quite a lot done actually. It’s looking good. And it’s a great room – I really enjoy DIY and I love those little casement dormers and the stripped doors and boards.’

‘And where exactly is Jack?’

‘We needed a few more bits and pieces – some screws, brush cleaner – so he’s nipped into town to pick them up.’

‘Nipped? How the hell did you manage that? In my experience, Jack is pathologically incapable of nipping.’

‘Comes from working on archaeological digs for so long. It’s been here for three thousand years, what difference is ten minutes going to make?’ He grinned. ‘He should be back any minute now. He’s taken my car; he knew where the shop was, and besides, I was up a ladder at the time. Seemed sensible.’ With that the man took two mugs off the draining board and set them down on the worktop alongside Susie. ‘So how did your day go? Jack said you teach at Fenborough. You look completely knackered.’

She peered at him. ‘Well, thanks for that.’

‘Not a problem.’ He opened the fridge. ‘Milk? Sugar?’

Susie still hadn’t quite got a handle on this. ‘Whoa there, cowboy. Hang on a minute, I’m confused. Can you explain what exactly you are doing here and what you were doing up a ladder in my spare room?’

The man smiled. ‘Emulsioning.’

Susie put her hands on her hips and waited.

‘Ceiling’s all done, we’re just putting a second coat on the walls. Do you mind if we talk over tea, only I’m totally parched? It’s really hot up there. The wood stain is all done on the skirting board and the doors. It’s looking good, although I think it would look better with another coat. Why don’t you come up and take a look for yourself? We thought we’d make a start on the floor tomorrow –’

Susie frowned at him. Tomorrow? Mind racing, she took the tea caddy down off the dresser. Meanwhile, Matt pulled out a chair and sat down, sitting well back from the table in his paint-stained tee shirt.

‘What I actually meant was what are you doing here in my house, besides giving my spare room a makeover?’

‘Ah well, I’m over here for the same get-together as Jack – funders, backers and all that baloney. Only for some bloody reason they’ve postponed the presentation until the end of the week – Friday – which is bloody annoying as our team have only got limited access to the site, but then again I have to keep telling myself that we’re none of us indispensable and everyone else is still hard at it, and this is just as important as anything we could be doing with a trowel. The stuff ’s been in the ground this long, another few days won’t matter … Great cottage by the way, I love what you’ve done with it. Anyway, I rang up to make sure Jack was okay – you know, the whole Ellie thing – and Jack said you needed a hand and I’m at a loose end. Et voilà.’

‘So you’re here till Friday?’

Matt nodded. ‘Well, if you don’t mind. I’m more than happy to earn my keep. I really enjoy decorating.’

Susie looked him up and down, appraising him without really meaning to. Realistically Matt Peters didn’t look like the kind of man who ought to be at a loose end. He was probably late thirties, with strong, even features, and big brown eyes framed by a network of fine lines that softened his expression as he met her gaze and smiled straight back.

‘Would you mind if I just nipped upstairs and took this tee shirt off while the tea’s brewing?’ he said. He had good hands. ‘Jack loaned it to me to work in, which was great, but I’m worried that I might be spreading wet emulsion all over the place.’

With that, he was up and away, leaving Susie with far more questions than she really needed after a long day at work.

While he was upstairs Susie started to unpack the shopping. She’d bought all the summer food Jack loved: French bread and hummus, tiny sweet cherry tomatoes, coleslaw, potato salad, ham, prawns, all kinds of delicious deli finger food, along with good cheese and chocolate éclairs and custard doughnuts, a bottle of wine, some beer and some soft drinks in case alcohol was not the answer. As if.

As she started packing the fridge Susie heard the gate open, then footsteps on the path, and without looking up said, ‘Hello, I’m glad you’ve finally shown up. I need a word with you.’

As she turned round she was amazed to see Robert standing on the doorstep looking horribly sheepish. He was clutching a bunch of forecourt flowers and a bottle of wine and looked and smelt as if he had just climbed out of the shower.

‘You didn’t ring,’ he said. ‘I was a bit worried about you, I thought I’d just pop round and –’

At which point Matt stepped into the kitchen, still busy pulling on his shirt, fastening buttons and tucking it into his trousers.

Chapter 4

‘God, that’s so much better,’ Matt said with an easy grin. ‘Is the tea brewed yet? If you want to carry on unpacking the shopping, I’ll pour the –’ At which point he looked up and spotted Robert.

For an instant there was complete silence. The two men looked at each other and then Robert reddened furiously.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ he snapped, his expression hard and set. ‘I came round to see if you were all right but you’ve obviously been making short work of recovery. How long has this been going on?’

‘What? Oh for god’s sake, Robert,’ said Susie, getting to her feet. ‘How long has what been going on?’

‘Don’t play games with me, Susie. Who exactly is this man? I’m not a complete fool, you know,’ he said.

Susie stared at him. It was a close call, though, she thought grimly. She was about to explain, about to say, ‘For goodness’ sake, Robert, grow up, this is a friend of Jack’s. They’re painting the spare room, I’m not sure exactly what the deal is but Matt was here when I got home from work –’ when something stopped her, and instead she pulled herself upright and, meeting his gaze, heard herself saying, ‘And what exactly has it got to do with you, Robert? After Friday’s little debacle I don’t think it’s really any business of yours what I’m doing or who I’m doing it with, do you?’

Apparently that wasn’t the reply Robert had been expecting. He spluttered, looking for all the world as if Susie had slapped him, his complexion deepening dramatically from red to a rather unattractive purple. He opened his mouth to say something and then, thinking better of it, snapped it shut. He looked at Matt and then at Susie, and finally said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I have to say that I’m shocked. I thought you and I had something special. I thought that you loved me.’

‘Really?’ Susie asked, as evenly as she could manage. The cheek of the man. ‘And I thought after the conversation we had on Friday that all bets were off.’

His mouth opened and closed like a freshly landed haddock.

‘I was coming round to see how you were, to comfort you – to talk. I thought that we were friends. I’ve always tried to treat you reasonably, Susie,’ Robert said.

The man was a real caution. She managed to avoid asking him when exactly that was and instead decided to put him out of his misery. ‘Robert. This is Matt,’ she said, indicating Matt, who was rooting through the drawers for teaspoons. ‘He works with Jack, he’s here helping to decorate the spare room.’

‘Really?’ said Robert, his expression and his tone suggesting he was not at all convinced. ‘That all sounds very cosy. When was this all arranged then?’

‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,’ said Matt.

‘I bet it was,’ growled Robert.

Matt, refusing to rise to the bait, grinned and held out his hand. ‘Hi, you must be Robert,’ he added warmly. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Susie stared at him.

Robert’s face was a picture. She could see that he was torn between finishing whatever he had come for and marching off in high dudgeon.

‘I was rather hoping that we might be able to talk,’ he said to Susie. He glanced at Matt. ‘In private, if you wouldn’t mind. Seems every time we need to talk there’s someone here.’ He tried out a smile, although if this was Robert’s idea of social grace and conviviality, she really was well out of it.

Meanwhile, Matt, apparently oblivious to the tension around him, was busy pouring the tea. ‘Do you want a cup, Bob?’ he said, proffering the pot. ‘We’ve only just made it. Sugar, milk?’ he continued conversationally, oblivious to the silence.

Robert stared at him. ‘No. No, thank you, not for me,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘How about a cold drink then?’ asked Matt, nodding towards the beers Susie had taken out of the shopping bag and arranged on the countertop.

Robert declined with a quick shake of the head. ‘No –’

‘Juice, then? You know we really ought to get the rest of this food packed away, Susie,’ said Matt. ‘Do you want me to make a start while you’re chatting?’

This time it was Susie who stared at him. He sounded so easy, so very familiar, as if they had known each other for years. It suddenly occurred to her that he was deliberately trying to wind Robert up, and it was working. As their eyes met Matt winked and Susie felt her temperature rising.

‘Why don’t you come outside, Robert; we can talk on the terrace?’ she said quickly, guiding him back out into the sunshine. Somewhat reluctantly, Robert followed. They left Matt whistling in the kitchen, busy ransacking the shopping bags and throwing open the cupboard doors.

‘Would you like me to bring your tea out there, babe?’ he asked as a parting shot. Susie glared at him.

As soon as they were outside, Robert rounded on her. ‘Who the hell is that?’

Susie held her hands up in front of her chest, palms towards him. ‘Calm down, Robert. It’s nothing. He’s nothing. He’s a friend of Jack’s.’

‘Nothing, nothing? It didn’t look like nothing to me. How long have you known him? What exactly is your relationship with that man?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Have you been seeing him behind my back?’

‘Oh Robert, for god’s sake, don’t be so melodramatic,’ Susie said, but even as she was trying to pacify him she could feel her own temper rising. How dare he be possessive?

‘Well, have you?’ he demanded.

‘No, of course I haven’t.’ She stared at him. He had no right to take that tone with her, no right at all. Or was it that accusing her of cheating made Robert feel better about behaving so badly, now that he had scrambled up onto what he seemed to think was some sort of moral high ground?

‘I haven’t been seeing anyone; Matt is a friend of Jack’s. When I came home from work today he was here decorating. I’ve never met him before.’ For some reason, said aloud it sounded like a lie.

‘He seems very chummy for a complete stranger,’ countered Robert. ‘He’d got his shirt off.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, I don’t see why I should have to explain myself to you, but if you must know it was because he’d got wet paint all over his tee shirt.’ Susie sighed. ‘Look, never mind about him, Robert, why did you come round?’

‘As I said, I was worried about you and I just wanted to say that I was – well, I am very sorry,’ he said, shoulders slumping, his expression softening as he tried out his whipped-puppy face on her. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I didn’t know how else to tell you. Please try and understand – it’s not you, it’s me.’ He smiled at her, all big eyes and bald patch, and against all the odds Susie felt herself mellowing.

‘And I wanted to talk; I wanted to let you know that our friendship is really very important to me, that I value you very much – and that I still love you even if we can’t be together. And I want you, I need you in my life.’ His voice cracked a little. ‘I wanted – I wanted to give you a big hug, Susie, I wanted –’ He paused, and with a concerted effort to look both contrite and cute, dark eyes twinkling, held the bunch of cellophane-wrapped, wilted and late-in-the-day flowers out towards her, taking a step forward as he did so, all kissy lips and lust.

And then the penny dropped. ‘You wanted a leg-over?’ Susie suggested, half-joking.

The horrified expression on Robert’s face suggested she had got him bang to rights. His mouth opened but no words came out.

‘Fancy a Pimms, anyone?’ called Matt from the kitchen doorway.

Susie slapped Robert’s flowers back across his chest. It was all she could do not to beat him around the head with them.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ she said, and headed back inside.

‘Susie? Susie, wait, come back,’ Robert said, hastily recovering his composure. ‘Please. We need to talk …’

Chapter 5

‘Next time you’re going to invite strangers into my house, Jack, I would really appreciate a little bit of warning if you don’t mind. You’re lucky I didn’t panic and call the police. Here –’ Susie said, thrusting a bowl of salad and a dish of prawns at him. ‘Frightened the bloody life out of me.’

‘Oh come on, Mum, Matt’s not a stranger. I work with him. He’s my boss.’

‘One man’s boss is another woman’s armed intruder,’ she snapped. ‘Now can you put those on the table, and then get the cutlery out of the drawer.’

‘For god’s sake, chill out, Mum, you said yourself when I got here that the spare room was a work in progress. Well it’ll just be progressing a lot faster now. The way we’re going, it will be all done and dusted by the end of the week, if not before. We’re doing a great job up there. And besides, let’s face it, Matt’s in the same boat as me. As us, really.’

Susie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Which is what exactly?’

‘The SS Nowhere to go and no one to love us. He’s just split up with his partner – actually, to be fair it was a few months ago now, but it’s not going well. They’re still wrangling over property and money and custody of the cat from what I can gather. All very messy, apparently. Anyway, the college have let him have a flat on campus, but it’s really grim. Circa 1963, lots of concrete and metal-framed windows and some very nasty carpets.’

Susie tipped her head to pick up the sounds of Matt padding around upstairs after his shower. ‘Really?’ she said conversationally, dropping wedges of French bread into a basket. ‘I’m surprised; he seems like a nice guy.’

‘He is a nice guy, Mum, but nice guys can still end up all alone with dodgy carpets for company,’ Jack said. ‘Or sleeping on their mother’s spare-room floor, come to that.’

She nodded distractedly, thinking about Matt. He’d been funny and kind about Robert after Robert had left. Lovely eyes.

Susie reddened. Lousy timing.

Jack stood back to admire the newly laid table. ‘There yer go, fit for a king. Matt is great company – they reckon that Alex, his partner, was a complete and utter pig to him. Everyone says the same thing about those two, chalk and cheese. Matt’s a really sound guy, Alex was pure poison – broke his heart, took him for a fortune and then buggered off with someone else.’

Susie paused. ‘Alex?’

‘Yeah, Alex Dawson – Matt’s partner – something significant in civil engineering or something. We didn’t ever meet but he opens up a bit about Alex when he’s had a few. Matt was really cut up. Alex was a bit, well – you know – liked to play the field. Matt comes home early from a conference one weekend and there is Alex in bed with another guy. Not what you want –’

‘No, not what you want at all.’ Susie shook her head.

She thought about Matt standing in the hallway door with his good tan, nice hands, great hair, immaculate clothes and being worried about getting emulsion on her table.

Mind you, maybe it was for the best after all. Shame, though – Matt Peters was really easy on the eye.

‘He said I can stay there with him if I like. Till I get myself sorted out. I thought maybe we could go cruising together.’ Jack laughed. ‘I mean, why not – we’re both footloose and fancy free.’

Susie opened her mouth to say something when, right on cue, Matt jogged down the stairs, wearing well-worn khaki chinos, another clean shirt, his thick grey hair still damp from the shower and pushed back off his face.

‘Come on, Mum, I mean you’ve got to admit Matt’s not bad looking for an old bloke,’ said Jack.

‘I heard that,’ said Matt. He stretched. ‘God, I needed that shower. It feels so much better – and that looks great,’ he said appreciatively, surveying the spread Susie and Jack had set out on the kitchen table. ‘I could eat a horse – country air and hard work is an amazing combination.’

‘Sorry, no horse, no steak and no onion gravy either,’ she said, indicating that he should sit down, wondering whether she ought to have a quiet word with Jack. ‘But please feel free to help yourself to everything else. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to stave off the hunger pangs.’

Susie handed him the wine. ‘Do you want to open this while I get the potatoes?’

He looked over the label and nodded appreciatively. ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’

‘Last time I heard,’ said Jack, offering him the corkscrew.

As Matt undid the bottle, Susie watched his long, strong fingers and sighed. The nails were clean, trimmed short and looked manicured. No straight guy ever took that much trouble over his cuticles.

She pushed her glass across the table towards him. Matt looked up at her quizzically. ‘Been a long day; make mine a large one,’ she said as he filled it up. As he poured Matt started to whistle something that sounded suspiciously like something from Oklahoma.

The following morning Susie took Milo out for his early-morning walk. Today Susie walked slowly, letting Milo linger over new smells by the stile while she sniffed back tears of pain and self-pity, hoping that no one would be out this early to see her.

And so maybe this was it – game over, hunkering down to a life of singledom and solitude, with Jack moving into the spare room and his gay friend popping over from time to time to help with the decorating. She rubbed her eyes and sniffed again. Life could be such a pig sometimes, especially when you were feeling sorry for yourself.

It was just before seven, the morning still misty and slightly damp, sunlight glittering in the dewy, diamond-strung cobwebs. Over on the far side of the common other early-bird dog walkers were out beating the bounds around the well-worn paths. Today Susie made a point of avoiding them.

The common was surrounded by a single-track road on three sides. One end of the rough grassland was framed by cottages, with a bench and a seat and the village sign overlooking the village pond, while the other petered out into rolling scrub, farmland and woods, crisscrossed with rights of way and tracks, all eventually leading down to the river. If you picked your route you could walk for hours and barely see a soul. The road out led onto the bypass, the A10, and beyond that, a couple of miles north, Denham Market.

One well-worn path led right past Robert’s front door – it was the way Susie had walked most mornings for the last three years, and from where she was standing now she could see the roof of his house and the chimneys, the pantiles and the dark red ridge caught on the skyline between the trees. In the past, two or three times a week she’d drop in and they’d have a cup of tea together first thing, or hot chocolate in the winter. Sometimes he’d ring to see when she was leaving for her walk, then catch up with her and accompany her round part of the way before he left for work. There had been lots of mornings when she hadn’t needed to go into work so they had sneaked back to bed, leaving Milo dozing by the Aga, and there had been the odd, glorious, over-the-kitchen-table mornings. But not this morning, not any morning, not ever again.

The trouble was that whatever happened next with Robert, it was going to happen right under her nose. How was she going to feel when she met Robert walking hand in hand across the common with some other woman? Worse still, how would it feel when she met them bumping a buggy over the grass?

Susie could see them now, all tousled and Sunday Times beautiful, dressed in matching Aran sweaters. Robert with a toddler on his shoulders, the child amusing himself by giggling at his reflection in Robert’s bald spot, while whatever-her-name-was – who, in Susie’s imagination, had become a leggy blonde from one of the shampoo ads, and not a day over twenty-five – pushed a designer buggy with a plump blonde baby in it, the family Labrador trotting placidly alongside them.

Susie sniffed. Knowing Robert he’d probably invite her to the christening as a consolation prize, ask her to be little Tarquin Oliver’s godmother, so she’d end up having to go round at Christmas, and turn up on sports day to cheer him on, and have him for the weekend while Blondie and Robert caught a West End show for their anniversary.

Susie sighed. Some days, having a vivid imagination could be a real pain in the arse.

‘Susie? Wait –’

Oh no. She closed her eyes and braced herself for whatever was to follow. Maybe Robert had been laying in wait for her; maybe he’d been loitering over by the bushes, anxious not to look too desperate. Maybe he was planning to introduce her to Blondie right this minute? Or maybe he missed her –

What was she going to say to him? What was there to say that hadn’t already been said? Susie tacked on a smile and swung round, only to discover Matt jogging up the track towards her.

‘Hi,’ he said breathlessly, leaning forward, hands on knees to catch his breath. ‘God, I’m so out of shape. Fancy a bit of company? I’m not sure how much longer I can pretend that Jack’s snoring isn’t keeping me awake. On site I have to keep waking him up and telling him to turn over – I mean, my god, how did Ellie cope?’ Straightening up and not waiting for an answer he fell into step alongside her. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘Yes, fine thanks. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Well, for a start you look like shit; and Jack was telling me all about you and Robert last night.’

‘How very kind of him.’

‘He did mention you two had split up while we were working on the spare room yesterday, but I had no idea it was so recently.’

Susie said nothing, wondering exactly why Matt was so interested in her love life.

‘We opened up another bottle after you went to bed last night and he told me all about it. Friday? He said you were planning to get married or something. Sounds like the baby thing was a real bolt out of the blue.’

Susie tucked her chin down and carried on down towards the pond. She wasn’t sure how she felt about having her love life used as after-dinner conversation.

‘You must feel awful,’ he said.

‘I never actually said we were getting married, okay? Look, do you mind if we talk about something else? I need to walk Milo and then go home and get ready for work.’

‘Sure, sorry – and I understand, but it’s good to talk. At least I had some warning, some sense that things were going wrong,’ Matt continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘Jack’s really worried about you, you know. He said you were bottling it up. It does you good to talk these things through, to let them out. That’s what I keep saying to him – just stop trying to be such a hero – life sucks.’

Susie stared at Matt, trying to work out if he was being serious. From the expression on his face, apparently he was.

‘And what I think is that Jack’s focusing on my problems rather than looking at what’s going on in his own life, don’t you?’ said Susie briskly. ‘Did he tell you about what’s going on with Ellie?’

Matt nodded. ‘Of course he did, but he’s still worried about you.’

‘Matt, I’m not sure what business it is of yours but it’s never been my habit to discuss my love life with my children.’

‘Fair enough, but you ought to talk to someone. Things had been going bad between me and Alex for a couple of years before we split – lots of non-communication, lots of not quite getting to the bottom of things. Alex wouldn’t open up about what was going wrong, but could make a row last a month and the recriminations and back-biting last three. Scottish, redhead, fiery as hell.’ He shook his head. ‘Mind you, I’m no angel either, I’ve got to take at least fifty per cent of the blame – and I certainly gave as good as I got. But what we never did was talk, not really talk. We just used to rerun old arguments. And it was hard for Alex – my parents didn’t see it as any of their business when we moved in together, but not Alex’s, they’re Christians, really strait-laced – anyway, that caused all kinds of stress.’

He fell silent. Jack was right, Matt was evidently still cut-up about it. They ambled on a bit further down past the willow trees and the pond and the ducks, and Susie waited for him to continue, but instead he waved the words away and said, ‘Sorry. Old news. Tell me about you and Robert.’

‘I didn’t think men were meant to talk about all this stuff.’

He laughed. ‘As a rule I don’t. It’s a completely new thing for me really. Alex and I were supposed to go along for counselling when things started to go wrong, but after the first couple of sessions Alex pulled out, despite having been the one who suggested it in the first place, so I went on my own and, despite all my doubts and mickey-taking, it’s really helped. You know, to work out how I feel and –’

‘Except that now you talk too much?’ Gay and in therapy, what more could a girl want?

‘Yeah, more than likely.’ He paused and then said with a grin, ‘It helped me to get in touch with my feminine side. Alex told me it would.’

Susie swung round, grimacing. ‘Oh please, pass me a bucket.’

He laughed. ‘Prefer your men strong and silent?’

Susie laughed. ‘Uh-huh, I most certainly do. Strong, silent and stinking rich.’

‘So – was that what attracted you to Robert?’

Susie slipped Milo off the lead and watched as he ambled across the rough grass towards the trees, totally engrossed in dog business, and then she stuck her hands into her pockets and sighed. ‘His money? Hardly. I’m not sure what it was … Have you ever been with someone and known that it isn’t quite right but not wrong enough to do anything about? With Robert there were no rows, no great ups and downs, and I suppose if I’m honest, no great passion either, but it was nice to have someone to share things with. And it hurts because I do love him, but I’m not in love with him. It was okay; it was convenient. For both of us.’

‘Okay?’ Matt said. ‘And is okay and convenient what you wanted?’

Susie reddened self-consciously, feeling the return of tears and self-pity. ‘No, no, of course not, but it was what we ended up with and it was all right – and let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger.’ It sounded so lame and so very pathetic said out loud. ‘It wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined my life turning out but it was – okay.’

Matt snorted. ‘For god’s sake. None of us are getting any younger, but that’s no excuse for settling for okay.’

‘I know,’ she snapped, suddenly angry, ‘and you know what, Matt, it’s none of your bloody business. I can live without the pop psychology. I’m not even sure why I’m so upset really, it’s ridiculous. Hurt pride probably. Robert wasn’t right for me at all, and I knew that, but I suppose I’d got to the point where I was prepared to settle for him.’ She paused, rapidly running out of steam. ‘It’s not a great reason, is it?’

Matt shook his head.

‘And then all of a sudden there was all this bloody business about him wanting a baby; it blew me clean out of the water. And that’s the bit that really hurts. When I was young I’d been all grown up and responsible before I really had time to think about it, looking after Jack and Alice. Their dad, Andy, was – well, we were both too young to be parents really but we muddled through. I’ve been happy about getting older, having more freedom, less responsibility, travelling, having more money and more time for myself – the kids are gone now – and then this came along and just slammed me up against all my insecurities.’ She paused, dipping deeper into her pocket to find a tissue. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I asked, remember?’

Susie laughed. ‘More fool you. You know, that whole feminine-side thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Instead of crying I’ve been thinking it would feel so much better to storm over there, kick the door open and punch his lights out. And anyway, I’m too old to have a baby.’

They fell into step, Milo pottering up ahead of them between the trees. After a little pause Matt said, ‘I’m sure it’d be possible if you’d got the money. I mean, you’re not that old. I’ve seen the stories in the paper, one woman was sixty, wasn’t she? Maybe you should ring Robert, talk to him, and tell him you’re ready to give it a shot. The thing is, do you want a baby?’

Susie swung round to glare at him. ‘For god’s sake, of course I don’t want a baby. When I say I’m too old it isn’t just about the physical thing. I’ve thought a lot about it since Robert sprung it on me, about whether I’d really want to go through all that again if I had the chance, but the bottom line is that I don’t. It’s not just having a baby, is it? Although at my age even that’s not going to be a doddle. It’s bringing it up, all those sleepless nights, teething, crying, never having a minute to yourself – nursery school, babysitters, the worry. When I did it first time round it wasn’t any easier but I loved it, it felt the right thing to be doing at the right time. But not now. God, no.’

And it was true, and saying it out loud made her feel better.

‘And most certainly not with him. Good god, I don’t think I’d want to have a baby with Robert, however old I was. The man is such a stiff. Pompous, arrogant, always right. He’d drive me crazy.’

‘As the father of your baby?’

‘As anything.’ She stopped, looked at Matt and then laughed. ‘You know, you’re right, settling for okay and convenient should never be an option.’

Matt smiled broadly as if all this was a personal triumph. ‘See,’ he said. ‘You’re doing the right thing, you’re just hurt at the moment.’

‘Trust me, Matt, just hurt doesn’t anywhere near cover it, but this is the right thing. Robert wanting a family is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, but not with me. Oh, and on top of all that it looks like I’m going to be a granny,’ she said. ‘A granny – can you believe it?’ And to her horror, Susie heard her voice crack and then break.

‘Really? A granny? Wow. Congratulations,’ Matt said with a grin, looking across just as she started to cry. ‘That’s amazing. Oh no, don’t,’ he said, reaching out towards her. ‘Don’t cry, I think it’s wonderful.’

Milo started to fret too; he hated women crying.

‘Easy for you to say,’ Susie snorted, brushing the tears away, stooping down to clip Milo’s lead on. ‘It’s not you it’s happening to. I’m really pleased for Alice but it makes me feel so – so –’

‘Old?’ suggested Matt helpfully.

Susie glared at him furiously, struggling with the temptation to punch him as well as Robert. ‘No, not old,’ she snapped. ‘It feels kind of responsible. Granny sounds like a really big thing to be, and I’m not sure I’m ready. I’m really pleased about it for Alice’s sake, but the word doesn’t fit me, it doesn’t go with how I see myself at all. I can’t be a granny. I’m just getting my own life together,’ she said, blowing her nose. ‘I’m not grown-up enough to be a granny.’

Matt looked at her, his expression softening. ‘Granny, eh? I really loved my granny, she used to knit me woolly hats and buy me jelly babies – how are you with Fair Isle?’

Susie slapped his arm. ‘It’s not funny,’ she snorted. ‘And I’m not going to be that sort of granny.’

‘Shame,’ Matt said with a grin. ‘I really miss her.’

Despite the early-morning confessional and having to deal with puffy eyes and heavy-duty bags, Susie got to college on time, not really wanting to share any more girly heart-to-heart time with Matt, despite his offer to make her tea and fix her a full English breakfast. He was officially perfect, and at that time of the morning a bit bloody irritating.

‘How’re you feeling?’ asked Nina, her expression all concern and empathy, as Susie bowled in through the door to the main studio. The aroma of fresh coffee and turpentine greeted her like an old friend.

‘Why is everyone obsessed with how I feel?’ she growled, taking the mug Nina had in her hand.

‘Eyeliner and lippy first thing?’ said Nina. ‘Trust me, it speaks volumes.’

‘Okay. Truth? I’m in bits, with a pain in my chest the size of a London bus, but I’ll be fine. Just fine. Eventually. I just need to occupy my mind till then.’

‘How long do you think that’ll be?’

‘Six months, a year, who knows.’ Susie took a long pull on the coffee before handing it back. ‘God, that’s good. Any more in the pot? And besides, Robert was a shit.’

Nina nodded. ‘Well, yes, we all knew that, but he was your shit. And yes, there’s more coffee. Have you forgotten? Tuesday morning meeting? Posh coffee and good biscuits. We’ve got a budget for it.’

Susie laughed. That’s what real friends were for – to support you when you made stupid choices and then help pick up the pieces when it all went horribly wrong. ‘So, where are we with the master plan?’

‘Follow me,’ said Nina, beckoning her closer with a hooked finger.

Tuesday morning and the regular staff meeting – they were meant to be discussing progress for the arrangements for the departmental end-of-year exhibition, which was less than a month away. Truth was, as always, it fell squarely on the shoulders of those that did, the ones that talked a good game having long since vanished over the horizon – and that meant it always seemed to be the same faces gathered around the big art-room table.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ asked Susie, sliding her bag under the desk.

‘Traffic, bus strike, leaves on the line, dog ate their homework,’ said Nina, counting the excuses off on paint-stained fingers. ‘God only knows. I’m only on time because I walked here.’ She glanced down at her watch. ‘You should know by now. They’re all artists, darling; time is not what they do best.’

‘Robert used to say that, and he works for the Environment Agency.’

Nina pulled a face.

‘So, how’s it going then?’ asked Susie.

Nina pulled a sheet of A1 paper out of a folder and slid it across the workbench towards Susie. On it were drawn a series of cubicles, bays, display boards and plinths, with numbered stickers on each one. Nina took a notebook out of the desk drawer and opened it up to the first page.

‘It’s filling up nicely,’ she said, pointing to bay number one. ‘Ceramics, mostly blue dishes and those great big garden pots. Bay two we’ve got slumped glassware and some lizards.’

Susie sipped her coffee. ‘What I meant was, instead of talking about me, how’s it going generally, you know, as in life?’

‘Oh, that? Generally? Fine. Specifically? Not bad at all, just finished grouting the bathroom, cat had kittens, and as for how the end-of-year show looks, it will make everyone look fucking marvellous. Again. What else do you want to know?’

Susie decided to give up on the social niceties and get on with the job in hand. She pulled the sheet of paper nearer and cast a world-weary eye over the floor plan. ‘Once we’ve put in god knows how many hours overtime, chased up the work, hung it, lit it, manned the bloody thing and resisted the temptation to strangle the sideline whiners, you mean?’

Nina grinned. ‘Exactly. By the way, have you heard from Hill’s Nurseries yet? You know, flowers, plants, ambiance, style?’

‘Bugger me, I’d forgotten all about them. Good news is I have done a skeleton press release, though, we just need to add the names in. I’ll chase the nursery up. I’m really hoping that they’ll stump up some sort of floral display outside the main foyer. I mean, it’s great advertising for them and we send enough slave labour their way from the floristry department.’

‘The college prefer to call it work placement,’ said a male voice from the back of the art room.

Susie looked up and grinned at Austin, their head of department, who was heading in through the glass doorway. He was a man who had made his way up through the ranks. An artist first and foremost, Austin wore his administrator’s hat at as jaunty an angle as was possible to achieve while keeping the machinery oiled. He had the look of a rugged, earthier Melvyn Bragg and was not only a devoted Christian but seriously married, which made him a bit of a rarity in higher education.

‘Maybe you should get the boss to ring?’ said Nina with a grin.

‘You mean grub around for sponsors and support – not really his style, is it?’

‘I heard that. Taking my name in vain again, are we?’ Austin said. ‘Coffee smells good. Who do you want me to ring and where the heck is everybody else?’ he asked, glancing around as he settled down at the table with the two of them.

Susie shrugged. Nina shrugged. He opened his briefcase and slid a piece of paper Nina’s way. ‘There we are. One of my minions managed to persuade Pettifers to sponsor the wine, and Browns have said they’ll cover the cost of the catering again.’

The two women nodded appreciatively as the double doors swung open, and Colin, the ceramics studio technician, ambled in, pulling off his beanie hat. He was followed by a small plump woman from textiles called Eleanor, who always spent a lot of her time at meetings saying, ‘I’m not sure I should be here, after all I’m only part time, and to be honest I feel I’m out of my depth. I mean, I don’t really know how relevant my input is.’

‘I thought we’d got all the sponsorship sorted out?’ said Colin, sliding onto a stool alongside Nina.

Nina consulted her notebook. ‘Basically we have now, thanks to Austin, although this year apparently we are supposed to refer to it as contributory partnership, not raffle snafflers or soft touches. So that’s catering, wine.’ She ticked things off on her list. ‘We’ve got some great fabric for banners, printing costs are all covered – just the sourcing of the busy lizzies to go now.’

‘Which is down to me,’ said Susie, holding her hand up. ‘I’m really hoping we can get the place brightened up a little more dramatically than last year. Robert –’ saying his name made her feel as if she was crunching across glass shards in bare feet ‘– suggested that we try a company he’s had dealings with to supply tubs and hanging baskets and stuff for the area around the main entrance. Hill’s Nurseries? The college already have links with them in terms of work placement. Apparently they’ve just started doing a lot of corporate work and he thought they might be keen to get involved with something like this. I’ve got a name –’ Susie pulled a notebook out of her bag. ‘Usual stuff, from their point of view we’d give them publicity for their new venture, lots of people would see it, mention it in the press, etc., etc. And I thought we could maybe beef up their bit in the catalogue as they’ve also provided twice as many placements in their business this year as last.’

Austin nodded. ‘Good plan. Front foyer and that grey bit outside, with the sliding glass doors and the prevailing sense of doom, always reminds me of an abattoir. Who’s your contact there? I’ll give them a ring if you like, no point in having a fancy title if you don’t get to flaunt it once in a while.’

‘Do you mind?’

Austin shook his head. ‘Not at all.’

Susie flicked through the pages of her notebook till she got to one with a slim, winding, detailed doodle of a rambling rose that made its way up the side of the page, winding its way through a shopping list and a dental appointment till it got to, ‘Saskia Hill, events and conference coordinator, Hill’s Nurseries.’

Colin nodded appreciatively. ‘Boss’s daughter?’

‘Or his wife, or maybe it’s even, incredibly, her business,’ Susie said coolly.

‘And the number?’ asked Austin.

Susie slid the pad over. ‘There are two there.’

‘Okay, well, I’ll try and sort it out. Now – in terms of content, how are we doing?’

‘Well,’ said Nina, glancing down at her list. ‘We’ve got some great paintings of Electric Mickey’s arse.’

The rest of the meeting was done and dusted inside half an hour. Susie’s first class rolled in at ten; she and Nina got down to working with the second-year child-care students, finishing off their project on printing. After lunch it was collage and calligraphy with some special-needs kids, and at three there was a life class with a group of mature students on the Arts Access course. In between times, students wandered in to pick things up, ask advice, work on their own projects or sit at the back, gossip and drink coffee. One thing about working in college was that life was never dull.

And the good thing for Susie about being so caught up in what she was doing was that it pushed Robert out to the margins of her mind.

Just as she was leaving for the day, Austin appeared. ‘Susie?’

She swung round.

‘I managed to speak to the nursery this afternoon and Saskia Hill suggested you pop in to discuss what you have in mind. She sounds very up for getting involved with the college. Lots of noises about wanting to develop partnerships with education and local industry – anyway, I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could pop in on your way home, is there? She said she’d be there till around six thirty.’

‘Okay.’

‘Great.’ He grinned and then added, ‘So how are things?’

Susie pasted on a big cheery smile. ‘Things? Things are not bad. How about you?’

Austin’s expression softened. ‘I’ve known you a lot of years, Susie, and you’re a lousy liar. Neen said there was trouble at t’mill.’

‘How very kind of her. Is there anyone who doesn’t know about me and Robert splitting up?’ Susie said crossly, and then paused and waved the words away. ‘Sorry, that was horribly rude, Austin. Thanks for asking, but I’m okay and it’s nothing I can’t work my way through.’

‘Well, if you need anything –’ He left the sentence and the sentiment open.

‘A bigger studio?’ Susie picked up her bag and headed for the door. ‘A pay rise?’

He pulled a face.

‘World peace –’

‘Get out of here,’ he said. ‘Are you in tomorrow?’

‘Certainly am. We’ll be going through stuff for the exhibition and then mounting work tomorrow afternoon. I’ll give Ms Hill a quick ring on my mobile and try to catch her on the way home tonight.’

Austin grinned. ‘You’re a star.’

Hill’s Nurseries was on the edge of town on the coast road, ten minutes’ drive from the college and around thirty-five minutes from Susie’s cottage. Easing into the long, slow stream of people making their way home, Susie crept along the road to the bypass, radio on, windows open, enjoying the sunshine, Radio Four, and the promise of summer.

As a business Hill’s Nurseries had fared really well in terms of position. Tucked just off the main drag, once upon a time it had been surrounded by open farmland, but over the last ten years or so an executive housing estate had slowly sneaked up to surround it, and on the other side of the road, sheltered from the hoi polloi by mature trees and thick hedges, stood a hamlet of elegant detached family houses, bought by the affluent and the upwardly mobile since they’d been built at the turn of the twentieth century, an elegant suburb of the busy market town with its fisher fleet and port.

It was a perfect place for the business to be. The family nursery had blossomed and embraced the trend towards more stylish, flamboyant, sexier gardening. On the kerbside, beside the immaculate, weed-free gravelled driveway, signage announced it had been on local and national TV, won national recognition and acclaim for its plants and had an award-winning garden designer on the staff. Even at six on a weekday evening the beautifully coiffured car park was well over half-full with an assortment of Discoverys, SUVs and smart little town cars. Framed on three sides by neat glass houses and bays of plants fenced off by trellis and low, stylish fencing the whole place could have stepped fully fledged out of a Sunday Times colour supplement. Susie imagined it was heaving at the weekends with the Barbour army filling up on olive trees and pots of wild rocket and organic coriander.

She pulled in behind a big shiny black 4x4, locked up, and headed across towards the main shop, where the man behind the counter rang through to Saskia’s office. A few minutes later a tall blonde girl in her early twenties came over to meet her.

It had to be said that Saskia Hill didn’t look like your average horticulturalist; she certainly didn’t look as if she’d be much use humping bags of compost around or slapping down a patio. She was immaculately made up, wore tailored black trousers with high-heeled black boots, a matching collarless edge-to-edge jacket and a jade-green shirt, all of which owed far more to a designer label than any trade catalogue. As she walked, Saskia flashed perfect dentition – although the smile appeared to be more of a professional tool than revealing any genuine warmth – before holding out a slim, cool hand in greeting. ‘You must be Susie, how nice to meet you, why don’t you come through to my office.’

‘Thanks for seeing me at such short notice.’

The girl waved the words away. ‘Not at all. I’ve got another appointment this evening. No rest for the wicked.’

She exuded a cool confidence that Susie found disconcerting; it had to be business school and the effects of lots of cold hard cash.

Saskia directed Susie into a small office overlooking a paved area set with shrubs and a little pool, the perfect example of how to style a small town garden. ‘Now, how can we help you?’ she said as she slipped behind her desk and indicated a seat.

‘It must be wonderful working with plants,’ Susie said, looking out at the display. ‘The terrace out there is very nice.’

Saskia smiled again, although Susie noticed it still didn’t quite make it to her eyes. ‘Thank you. We regularly remodel all the exhibition gardens on a rota basis. Some people prefer to buy a complete look – we can provide the whole thing as a kit. Plans, plants, hard landscaping. It’s the kind of service busy people appreciate; it was one of my ideas to improve turnover, bring the family firm up-to-date – take the guesswork out of gardening.’

It wasn’t quite the answer Susie had expected so she turned the conversation back to the exhibition. ‘I’m not sure exactly what Austin told you, but what we’re hoping for is a display in the main entrance of the college for our end-of-year art exhibition – something eye-catching.’

Saskia made a noise; it could almost have been a laugh. ‘Something to cover the concrete?’

‘You know Fenborough?’

Saskia coloured very slightly; the first time she had shown any genuine reaction. ‘I did my first business qualifications there. So, concrete covering is a main requirement?’

Susie nodded. ‘That would be wonderful.’

‘Well, you may be in luck. We’ve got a range of planting that we hire out to dress shops, events, various shows –’

‘We haven’t got a budget for this,’ Susie said uncomfortably.

‘Austin did explain that, and it’s fine.’

Susie smiled. ‘In that case it sounds perfect.’

‘We obviously have promotional material that we’d like on display – and …’

The next half hour was spent working out a site visit, and what Saskia might be prepared to offer, and what Susie had to offer in return. By six thirty Susie was on her way back to the car. She slipped in behind the wheel feeling like it was a job well done. Austin and Nina would be delighted, and for the first time in days she felt happy.

When Susie arrived back at the cottage, Milo was basking in the sunshine on the terrace, on his back, paws in the air, looking for all the world as if he was topping up his tan. He opened one eye to acknowledge her arrival and did a wag or two just to let her know that despite appearances he really was pleased to see her, and that he was absolutely on the ball, no one would get by unnoticed on his watch.

As she headed down the path, Susie noticed a peculiar smell in the air. The smell of cooking. She pushed open the back door to find Matt, with a tea towel tucked into the waistband of his jeans, busy doing something extraordinary with a paella pan and a whole mess of seafood.

The table was set, and Jack was opening a bottle of wine. There was a salad and fresh bread and what looked suspiciously like dessert spoons on a clean tablecloth. Susie looked at the two of them. ‘So what did you break?’ she asked, dropping her bag onto the chair.

‘Mum,’ said Jack. ‘As if –’

‘Did you set fire to something?’

‘Hi,’ said Matt, looking up from the cooker. ‘How’s your day been? Jack was just telling me about Deliaing. I was thinking more Rick Stein.’ He swept his hand across the top of the pan with all the finesse of a magician’s assistant. ‘Here we have classic paella – really simple, local ingredients – great served up with a classic green salad and lots of warm, new, crisp bread to sop up all those delectable juices, garnished with lemon wedges and just a sprinkling of chopped parsley.’

‘Fantastic,’ said Susie, unable to keep the merest hint of suspicion out of her voice.

‘You hungry?’

She nodded.

‘Good, should be ready in about five minutes.’

Susie slipped off her jacket and accepted the glass of wine Jack handed her.

‘So?’ she asked.

‘What?’ said Jack.

‘Did you spill varnish on the landing carpet? Break a window?’

‘None of the above. We’re waiting for the floor and until that’s ready –’

‘Nada, niente,’ concluded Matt. ‘We’ve just got to sit it out. So, you want to come join us watch paint dry?’

Who could possibly resist an offer like that?

Chapter 6

After supper, while Matt helped clear away and Jack filled the dishwasher, Susie picked up Milo’s lead. Milo and Susie went back a long way. He predated Robert and the cottage and had outlasted by several years the boyfriend who’d bought him as a present for Susie because he thought Milo was cute and Susie was cuter. It seemed a lifetime ago now, but Milo had been there for her through thick and thin, a gentle, amiable, non-judgemental companion who loved her exactly the way she was. He knew the score and without a word padded over to her, eager for an amble round the common. Tail wagging, he sat down at her feet ready for the off.

Matt too, although obviously not the sitting or the wagging bit.

‘Fancy some company?’ he asked, sliding the last of the dirty dishes onto the countertop. ‘It’s a lovely evening for a walk.’

‘Perfect if you’re into sniffing and weeing up trees,’ added Susie on Milo’s behalf.

‘Whatever floats your boat,’ said Matt, scratching the mongrel behind the ears. Milo wagged appreciatively. The dog was such a tart.

‘I thought you were going to get on with the floor?’

‘Mañana.’

Susie laughed. ‘I thought you were working in Italy not Spain.’

‘I think you’ll find the mañana principle is pretty much universal.’

On the other side of the kitchen, Jack groaned. ‘Oh that’s right, bloody typical, the three of you bugger off and leave me with all the clearing up.’

Susie smiled and slipped on her walking shoes. ‘See, there is a god. I knew that one day all those years of running around after you would pay off and there would be a break-even point. You should have cleaned your room up, come home on time and not bitten your sister. It’s karma.’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Matt, rolling down his shirtsleeves.

She turned her attention to him. ‘You can only come with me if you promise not to give me a lecture on the nature of relationships, ask how I am or try to counsel me. Oh, or mention getting in touch with your inner woman.’

Matt mimed pain. ‘Owwwww.’

‘I’m serious. The paella was wonderful; I really appreciate your cooking. I’ve had an excellent day after a difficult start and if at all possible I’d like to keep it that way.’

Matt mimed lip-zipping.

It was tempting fate.

Susie had barely snapped Milo’s lead on when the phone rang. She decided to ignore it and continued on her way outside, Milo dancing behind her, Matt meandering.

‘Phone,’ called Jack, as if she might have missed it.

‘It’s okay – the machine will get it, and if it’s important they’ll ring back,’ said Susie, over one shoulder. And if it was Robert she didn’t want him to think she was sitting at home pining, waiting for him to call.

Jack didn’t listen. When she was halfway down the garden path, he appeared, hurrying after her, phone clutched tight against his chest. ‘Mum?’

‘Take a message, I’ll ring them later.’

‘It’s Alice.’

‘I’ll be half an hour.’

‘She said it was urgent.’

‘Is it ever anything else?’ said Susie, turning on her heel and grabbing the phone out of his hand. ‘Alice,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know what it is you want, darling, but I’m just going out, I won’t be long. I’ll ring you back in half an hour. All right?’

‘No, no, it’s not all right,’ snuffled Alice. And then there was a split second’s pause, followed by a great wailing sob. Susie winced. Trust Alice to turn the tables on her. The one time in her life that she was being as assertive and as grumpy as her only daughter and Alice had to trump her ace.

Jack was right, it had to be something serious. Since she’d been a little girl Alice had hardly ever cried unless there was a furry animal involved. As a teenager she’d been banned from watching Animal Hospital in order to save Scandinavian pine forests from being pulped into tissue, not to mention going to school the next day with eyes so swollen that the school nurse had suggested she might be suffering from some sort of nasty allergy.

At the far end of the line the wailing was slowly easing down to a snotty miserable sob.

‘Oh Alice – is it the baby?’

‘No, no –’ sobbed Alice. ‘The baby’s fine.’

‘It’s not Mr Tiddles, is it?’ asked Susie gently.

Matt peered at her; Susie covered the receiver. ‘Next door’s cat,’ she mouthed.

At the far end of the line the wail rose by an octave.

‘Oh honey, I’m so very sorry, I know how much you loved him,’ said Susie, ‘but you said yourself he was old and frail and a bit smelly.’

‘That’s Harry.’

‘Harry?’

‘Mr Tiddles’ owner, and besides it’s not the cat, Mum, and anyway I’m not letting him in the flat now that I’m pregnant. I’m feeding him on the landing wearing Marigolds.’

‘Are we talking about Mr Tiddles or Harry?’

‘It’s not funny. They carry something nasty.’

‘In Mr Tiddles’ case he’s carrying about a stone and a half of tinned pilchards and way too much full-cream milk. I’ve told you before it’s not good for him.’

‘I don’t mean fat, Mother, I mean toxoplasmosis. It can be dangerous for pregnant women. It’s just not worth taking the risk. You never take anything I say seriously, do you?’ Alice growled.

‘Alice, of course I do. Now please tell me, what’s the matter?’ she asked gently. ‘It’s not like you to get upset.’

At which point Alice started to sob again.

‘Oh come on, darling, please,’ murmured Susie. ‘What is it? It’s all right, you can tell me.’

Alice sniffed. ‘It’s Adam.’

Susie felt her heart lurch. ‘Adam? Oh no, oh, Alice, why didn’t you say so to begin with – what happened? Is he all right?’

‘No,’ Alice sobbed. ‘No, he’s not all right, not all right at all. Oh Mum, it’s awful. What on earth am I going to do?’

‘Oh my god, has there been an accident?’ Susie asked anxiously, while her imagination ran amuck with chainsaws, knitting needles, sharp scissors, elderly cats, stairwells, motorways and uncovered manholes in a graphic collage of carnage. ‘What’s the matter with him, Alice?’

‘He’s a moron, Mum, a complete moron and an insensitive, stupid pig and I hate him.’

Susie stopped mid-panic, her imagination scuttering to a halt clutching a badly wired plug and a huge screwdriver. ‘What?’

‘Adam. He’s a complete bastard.’

‘He’s not had an accident?’

‘No,’ said Alice derisively, ‘of course he hasn’t had an accident. What on earth made you think that? No, but the thing is, since I’ve been pregnant he’s just being so unreasonable. I never realised what a totally insensitive person he is.’

Milo sighed, lay down on the flagstones and closed his eyes. Matt took the hint and made his way back towards the house. Susie sat down on the garden bench and repositioned the phone to get herself comfortable. ‘As long as he’s all right, that’s the main thing.’

‘It’s not the main thing at all – I knew you’d take his side,’ growled Alice. ‘He’s driving me mad, Mum.’

‘I’m not taking his side, Alice. The thing is, a lot of men feel threatened when their partner gets pregnant. It’s a well-known phenomenon; it’s a big thing to take responsibility for someone so tiny, for the two of you –’

‘I’m not asking him to take responsibility, I can do that myself.’

Susie sighed and waded back into the fray. ‘The thing is, Alice, some men get terribly worried about how having a family is going to change their lives, they are worried that they’ll get left out – they –’

‘Please, Mum,’ Alice said testily, ‘I have read the books.’

‘Well, then you should understand how he’s feeling, try and reassure him – try –’

‘Mum, this is not about Adam’s ego or him feeling left out, all right?’

‘Then what is it about, Alice? I can’t remember you being this upset since Rolf said they’d have to put Honey the three-legged golden Labrador to sleep.’

‘Sunny View Nursery.’

‘What?’

‘Sunny View Nursery. The thing is, it’s the place to go and we’re right on the edge of the catchment area here, and all I said to Adam the other morning was that we really ought to get the baby’s name down now. I mean. it’s only sensible, and once we’ve got a place they automatically take siblings, even if we moved. It’s just perfect, I could walk if I wanted to, not that I would of course, but I could – I want to be certain of getting the baby in there as soon as possible. It’s a feeder nursery for the best primary school in this area. I’ve been looking at the league tables. Surely you of all people can understand the value of a good education?’

Susie wasn’t sure exactly what to say, but apparently Alice wasn’t expecting a reply.

‘And then he insisted on having Brie when we went out to supper – insisted! What does that say about the man? I said have you got any idea about the dangers of listeria? A few crumbs, a microbe carried home on that peculiar sweater he likes that his mum gave him for Christmas. Designer my arse. I mean, what does it take to make him understand? This is our child’s life we’re talking about, for god’s sake. And then he brought me over a glass of red wine, said it would do me good, help me relax. He said I was getting myself in a bit of a tizz. A tizz? How patronising is that? Well, honestly, Mum, I can tell you now I was livid. Anyway, when we got home I went straight upstairs and Googled the latest reports about foetal alcoholic abuse for him to take a look at, and he said I was overreacting, that they meant binge-drinking not one glass, and I said it was a slippery slope. And then this morning I was just saying that I thought two years was a nice gap and maybe he should think about giving up his guitar lessons – I mean, Adam’s never going to be an Arctic Monkey. And maybe the money would be better used elsewhere – I mean, I was just saying. In conversation.’

There was a short pause, presumably while Alice took on more oxygen, and then she said, ‘So what do you think?’

‘What do I think about what, Alice?’ Susie asked cautiously.

‘Do you think he’s being unreasonable?’

‘Well –’ Susie began.

‘You see, as far as Adam is concerned it’s all me, all my fault apparently. He can’t see that he’s done anything wrong. He said just before he went off to his guitar lesson – he said – he said –’ Alice paused, struggling to spit it out.

‘What did he say, love?’

‘He said that I was being silly and irrational and completely self-obsessed and he was sure it was probably just the hormones and that he loved me very much.’ Alice sniffed back the tears. ‘And then he hugged me and kissed me on the top of the head. The patronising son of a bitch. I want to come home, Mum.’

‘What?’

‘Just for a few days. I can’t stand it here with him.’

‘But what about work?’ spluttered Susie. ‘I mean, you’ve got a mortgage to pay, and sandals to buy, and Mr Tiddles to keep in pilchards and Jersey gold top.’

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