Acclaim for Margaret Ler oy

“Margaret Leroy writes with candour and intelligence,

capturing the menace of suddenly finding that the world

may not be at all as you’ve thought it”

Helen Dunmore

“Leroy handles…domestic life with the same graceful,

precise, rueful style as [Richard Yates], the late novelist did,

though with a warmer, more hopeful intelligence” Washington Post

“Engrossing and affecting”

Eve

“[The Drowning Girl] is a really special book. Sylvie’s vulnerability is so powerfully drawn, so flesh-and-blood real, that you want to reach into the pages and protect her yourself ” Louise Candlish

“Powerful and haunting” Daily Mirror

“What a storyteller Leroy is, and what an eye she

has for contemporary life”

Fay Weldon

“[Leroy’s] quiet, self-assured narrative voice

delivers tremendous psychological depth

and emotional resonance” Kirkus Reviews

“Margaret Leroy writes like a dream”

Tony Parsons

Margaret Leroy studied music at Oxford. She has written four previous novels, one of which was televised by Granada and reached an audience of eight million. Margaret has appeared on numerous radio and TV programmes, and her articles and short stories have been published in the Observer, the Sunday Express and the Mail on Sunday. Her books have been translated into ten languages. Margaret is married, has two daughters and lives in Surrey.

The Drowning Girl

MARGARET LEROY

www.mirabooks.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks are due to the following people: Catherine Burke, for her dynamism, warmth and wonderful commitment to the book; the brilliant team at MIRA; my UK agent, Laura Longrigg, who has supported me in so many ways, both intellectual and emotional; and, in the US, Sarah Crichton, my inspirational editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Kathleen Anderson, my marvellous agent, for all her hard work on behalf of my writing. I am deeply grateful to all of you.

Thank you also to Vicki Tippet and Madeleine Fullerton, for sharing stories and book recommendations, and to Lucy Floyd, for her wise comments on an early draft of the book.

Finally, thanks to Mick, Becky and Izzie, for all their love and encouragement, and because they loved Connemara as much as I did.

PROLOGUE

Sometimes I picture it. I know I shouldn’t, but sometimes I can’t stop myself. I find myself imagining what she went through. The astonishing colour that bloomed in the water all around her, the bright, bright red of arterial blood, as she drifted in and out of consciousness, the world still briefly present for her, then slipping and spinning away. How she moved down through the water, feeling its heavy, deadly pull, the drag of it on all her limbs, because nothing had been left to chance, her pockets were weighted with stones. How she held her breath and held her breath, then couldn’t hold it any more. They say it’s pain you’d feel then, don’t they? A searing pain in your lungs, as the water surges into you. That drowning may be the most painful death. I think of that sometimes: to open your mouth and breathe in pain, feel death come rushing in.

CHAPTER 1

It’s pleasant here in Karen’s kitchen, talking about our children, sipping Chardonnay, with before us on the wide oak table the wreck of the children’s tea. I glance around the circle. You can tell that everyone’s dressed up in honour of the party—Fiona has glittery earrings, Michaela is wearing a clingy wrap top that frames her lavish cleavage. But only Karen has a proper costume: she always feels that as hostess she has licence, and today she’s a rather glamorous witch, in a black chiffon frock with a raggedy hem and with lots of Rouge Noir on her nails. Behind her on the windowsill there are lighted pumpkin faces, and the candle flames shiver and falter in the draught that sneaks in round the frame.

The children yell. We turn towards the open door of the living room, watching as the magician pulls some spiders out of his sleeve. Leo, Karen’s husband, who’s in there keeping order, applauds with great enthusiasm. The magician is exceptional, everyone keeps saying so—Karen was brilliant to find him. He looked quite ordinary, arriving in his Transit van, prosaically dressed in jeans and a Coldplay T-shirt. But now, in his cloak of indigo silk with a silver pattern of planets, he has a presence, a mystery.

‘I do like clever hands,’ says Michaela. ‘Can I take him home with me?’

He flings two scarves up into the air, that come down tied together. The children watch wide-eyed. All their own outfits look a little random now—masks hanging off, cloaks slipping from shoulders. Josh, Karen’s son, is at the front, with stick-on scars from Sainsbury’s on his arms, and Lennie, her little girl, is sitting next to Sylvie, dressed as a witch’s black cat. Sylvie has bunched up the skirts of her snowflake dress and is absently sucking the white ribbon hem. She really wanted to be a cat like Lennie, but the black cat costume in Clinton Cards was one of the most expensive, and I took the cheaper snowflake outfit from its peg and held it against her, hoping to persuade her without her getting upset. She looked at herself in the mirror. The dress was white and frothy, of some muslin-like material with trailing ribbons. She has hair like lint, no colour, the slightest smudge of freckles on her nose. Pale things suit her. For myself, I like colour, I’d love to dress her in the rainbow—but too much brightness seems to overwhelm her. She smiled at her reflection, pale and perfect against the whiteness of the dress, and to my relief she was easily persuaded. Though I hate these moments, always, the everyday abrasions, the things I so long to buy for her that I’m sure would make her happy, at least for a little while. None of the other mothers round the table, I suspect, would understand this, nor would they know the panic I feel when Sylvie grows out of her shoes, or at the arrival of a birthday invitation, requiring a present I haven’t budgeted for.

The women are exchanging the numbers of party entertainers. I let their voices float past me. Through the window behind Michaela I can see into Karen’s garden, where the brown light of evening is draining down into the wet, heavy earth. The shape of the tree house where Lennie and Sylvie play in summer is sharp as though cut with a blade against the luminous sky. It’s so still today—not a breath of wind, not a sigh. When we came here, Sylvie and I, when we parked and got out of the car, the stillness fell over us, a stillness like a garment, unbroken and entire. Even the wind chimes hanging from someone’s apple tree were silent, no sound at all in the wide parked-up street but the clear sweet pipe of a bird. There was a rich smell of October, of earth and rot and wet leaves. Sylvie ran on ahead of me. I’d put her in her white summer sandals to match the snowflake outfit, and they have hard soles that made a clear click click in the stillness. I called after her: ‘Be careful, Sylvie, don’t get too far ahead.’ She turned to face me, standing on tiptoe, reaching her arms out to either side, her face intent with concentration, as though she were balancing in a tricky, difficult place. As though she could fall off.

‘I can hear my feet, Grace. I can hear them.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I’ve got noisy noisy feet. I could be a dancer. Listen, Grace. I’m a dancer, aren’t I, Grace?’

‘Yes, you’re a dancer,’ I said.

She did a neat pirouette, pleased, self-aware in her elaborate dress, then ran on again, white as a wisp of smoke or mist against the grey of the pavement, at once so pale and so vivid, as if she were the only living thing in the whole still darkening street.

A few doors up from Karen’s house, someone came out with a pumpkin and put it on their windowsill and lit the candle inside. We stopped to admire the pumpkin. The face was carved with panache: it had a toothy, rakish grin.

‘He’s smiling, Grace, isn’t he? He’s smiling at us.’

‘Yes, he’s smiling,’ I said.

She was happy for a moment, trusting, feeling the world to be benign. I wrapped my hand around hers. Her skin was cold, but she nestled her hand quite firmly into mine. I love it when she’s happy like that.

The magician is building to his grand finale. He wants a volunteer. All the children have raised their hands, urgent and eager, frantic to be chosen. Sylvie too has put up her hand, though not so keenly as the other children. There’s often a little reserve about her, something held back. I will him: Please don’t choose her, please please don’t choose Sylvie. But he does, of course, drawn perhaps by her reticence. He beckons to her, and we watch, all the mothers, as she walks out to the front and he seats her on his chair.

Karen glances towards me, with a quick reassuring smile.

‘She’s doing great,’ she murmurs.

And she’s right: for the moment Sylvie seems quite poised and controlled, clasping her hands together neatly in her lap. Her lips are pursed with concentration; the expression is precisely Dominic’s.

The magician kneels beside her.

‘No worries, OK, sweetheart? I promise not to turn you into a tadpole or anything.’

She gives him a slight smile that says this is naive of him, that of course she knows how the world works.

He scribbles in the air with his wand, mutters something in Latin. A flourish of his cloak entirely covers her for an instant. When he flings back the silk with a slight air of triumph, a real live rabbit is sitting in Sylvie’s lap. The children applaud. Sylvie hugs the rabbit.

Fiona turns towards me.

‘That’s your little girl, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘That’s Sylvie?’

‘Yes,’ I tell her.

Sylvie is stroking the rabbit with cautious, gentle gestures. She seems oblivious of the other children. She looks entirely happy.

‘I’m not surprised he chose her,’ she says. ‘That white-blonde hair, and those eyes.’

‘She was sitting right at the front, I guess,’ I say.

‘She’s just so cute,’ says Fiona. ‘And I’m always fascinated by the way she calls you by your Christian name… Of course, in our family we’re rather more traditional.’

‘That didn’t come from me,’ I say.

But she isn’t really listening.

‘Was it something you felt very strongly about?’ she says.

Her crystal earrings send out spiky shards of light.

‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘It was Sylvie’s choice. It came from her. She never called me Mum.’

The woman’s eyes are on me, taking in my short denim skirt, my jacket patterned with sequins, my strappy scarlet shoes. She’s older than me, and so much more solid and certain. Her expression is opaque.

‘Just never said Mama? What, even when she was just beginning to talk?’

‘No. Never.’ I feel accused. I swallow down the urge to apologise.

‘Goodness.’ She has a troubled look. ‘So what about her dad? What does she call him?’

‘She doesn’t see him,’ I tell her. ‘I’m a single parent. It’s just us—just me and Sylvie.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she says. As though embarrassed that she has called out this admission from me. ‘That must be quite a struggle for you,’ she goes on. ‘I honestly just don’t know how I’d cope without Dan.’

There’s a surge of noise from the living room, where the children are tidying, under the watchful eye of the magician. The rabbit is in a basket now.

‘He’s doing the games, as well,’ says Karen. ‘Isn’t that fabulous?’

Leo comes to refill his glass. He’s wearing a polo shirt that doesn’t really suit him: he’s one of those substantial men who look best in formal clothes. He greets us with the exaggerated bonhomie that men always seem to adopt on joining a group of mothers. He comes from Scotland and has a mellifluous Gaelic accent. He puts his arm round Karen, caressing her shoulder through the chiffony fabric of her frock. I can tell he likes the witch outfit. Much later, perhaps, when the party is over and the clearing up is all done, he will ask her to put it on again.

Michaela leans across the table towards me. She wants to talk about nurseries. Am I happy with Little Acorns, where Sylvie goes? She’s heard that Mrs Pace-Barden, who runs it, is really very dynamic. She has her doubts about nannies. Well, you never get to see what they’re actually up to, do you? She heard about this nanny who fed the kids on a different flavour of Angel Delight every lunchtime, because the mother said to be sure to give them plenty of fruit. I turn with relief from Fiona. In the living room, the magician is setting up a game of apple-bobbing. The girls make an orderly queue, though Josh and some of the other boys are racing around at the edges of the room.

The wine eases into my veins. I have my back to the living room now; I let my vigilance relax, enjoying this conversation. I love to talk about Sylvie’s nursery—it’s my one big luxury; I was thrilled when they gave her a place. The candles glimmer and tremble on the windowsill, and behind them, in Karen’s garden, darkness clots and thickens in the hollows under the hedge.

Out of nowhere, some instinct makes me turn. It’s Sylvie’s go at apple-bobbing; she’s kneeling by the bowl. I don’t see exactly what happens. A commotion, a scrabble of boys near the bowl; and then water everywhere—all over the stripped pine floor, and on Sylvie’s hair and her clothes. I see her face, but I can’t get there in time, can’t undo it. I’m too late, I’m always too late. She’s kneeling there, taut as a wire, the other children already backing away from her: tense, white, the held breath, then the scream.

The children part to let me through. I kneel beside her and hold her. Her body is rigid, she’s fighting against me; her screams are thin, high, edged with fear. When I put my arms around her, she pushes against my chest with her fists, as though I am her enemy. Everyone’s eyes are on us: the other children, fascinated, a little superior, the women, at once sympathetic and disapproving. I glimpse the magician’s look of startled concern as he gathers the other children together for the next game. I try to sweep her up in my arms, but she’s fighting me, I can’t do it. I half carry, half drag her into the hall. Karen comes after us, closes the living-room door.

‘Grace, I’m so sorry,’ she mouths at me through Sylvie’s screams. ‘I forgot Sylvie’s thing about water. It’s my fault, Grace, I should have told him… Look, don’t forget her party bag, there are pumpkin biscuits…’ She thrusts a coloured plastic bag in my direction, but I can’t take it, my hands are full with Sylvie. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep it for her. Hell, Grace…’

I kneel there clasping Sylvie on the pale expensive carpet in Karen’s immaculate hall. Sometimes when Sylvie works herself up like this she’s sick. I know I have to get her out.

‘It was a lovely party,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll ring you.’ Sylvie’s screams drown out my words.

Karen holds open the door for us.

I manoeuvre Sylvie down the path and along the darkening pavement. Her crying is shockingly loud, ripping apart the stillness of the street.

When I get to the car I hold her tight against me and scrabble in my bag for the keys and manage to open the door. I sit in the driving seat, holding her close on my lap. We sit there for a long time. Gradually she quietens, the tension leaving her; she sinks into me, crying more gently. Her face and the front of her dress are wet, from the water that splashed on her, and her tears; her eyelashes are clumped together, as though with cheap mascara.

I dry her face and smooth her hair.

‘Shall we go home now?’

She nods. She climbs into the back and fastens her belt.

My hands on the steering wheel are shaking, and I’m cautious at junctions, I know that I’m not driving well. My car smells as always of pollen, from the flowers I deliver; I flick a broken frond of fern from the dashboard onto the floor. I glance at Sylvie in the rear-view mirror. Her face is absolutely white, like someone coming round from shock. There’s a dull weight of dread in my stomach, the feeling I always try to overlook or push away: the sense I have that there’s something about Sylvie that is utterly beyond me. There’s too much sadness in her crying, too much fear.

* * *

My flat is in Highfields, in a street of Victorian terraces. Long ago, this was an imposing address, now it’s the red-light district. In the street near my door, there are smells of petrol and urine, and the thick unwholesome perfume of rotting melons from the market. The sky is the colour of ink, and absolutely cloudless; later, once it’s fully dark, there will be lots of stars. A couple of prostitutes are huddled on the corner, next to Somerfield, bare-legged and quietly talking, a blue vague haze of cigarette smoke around them.

There’s a nervousness I feel always, coming back to our home. The flat is on the ground floor, with an alleyway beside it, and I worry about intruders—about the rootless, drifting people I often see in the street. Sometimes I think I should have chosen somewhere different, more rational. And it’s draughty, high-ceilinged, hard to heat, with a temperamental boiler in the bathroom. My elderly landlady, who smells of eucalyptus and wears a moth-eaten leopardskin coat, explained about the boiler when we moved here, but I’ve never got the hang of it. And it all has a rather empty feel—the flimsy wicker furniture that was all I could afford is really too insubstantial for these high-ceilinged rooms. But it has French windows and a scrap of garden—a patchy lawn, a wall of yellow London brick, a mulberry tree that’s trained against the wall. To be honest, I probably chose it because of the mulberry. It was fruiting when we first came here, and, urged on by the landlady, I picked a mulberry each for Sylvie and for me. Sylvie held her hand out; I put the mulberry onto her palm.

‘Hold it lightly,’ I told her. ‘Careful you don’t crush it.’

Her eyes were round and very bright. She kept her hand flat, lowering her mouth to her hand—with a kind of reverence, almost, as though the fruit were some precious thing. I thought she might not like it—that the taste would be too complex, too subtle, the winey sharp-sweetness of it—but she loved it, ate it slowly, ceremoniously. Her hand and her mouth were stained with vivid juice.

I open up, turn the light on. Everything is as it should be. My living room greets me, orderly and tranquil, the calico curtains, the apples in a bowl. Some sunflowers I brought back from the shop—not fit to sell, but still with a day or two’s life in them—are glowing on my table.

Sylvie is exhausted now. When I sit on the sofa and pull her down beside me, her body is heavy, her head droops into my chest. I breathe in the scent of her hair. As I watch, her eyelids flicker wildly; between one breath and the next, she sinks deeply into sleep. I lay her down on the sofa, carefully, scarcely breathing, as though she could easily break. I cover her with the duvet from her bedroom, tuck in Big Ted beside her. When she wakes she’ll be fine, as though none of this had happened.

I sit there for a while, relishing the silence and the sound of her peaceful breath. I think of the women at the party, sitting around Karen’s table, their orderly lives and platinum wedding rings and confident opinions. I wonder what they have said about me, about Sylvie. I imagine their conversations. ‘Poor Grace, what a pain for her…’ ‘Of course kids have tantrums, but not like that, not when she’s nearly four…’ ‘It’s so important to let them know where you stand. You have to be consistent…’ ‘Well, of course, Grace is on her own. That can’t help when it comes to discipline…’

And Karen—what will she be thinking? Will she be joining in? Solicitous, concerned, perhaps a little disapproving? Karen matters so much to me. I’m grateful for her friendship, yet always uneasy because it feels so unequal. I could never ask her and Lennie to visit us here; I know just what she’d think about the syringes in the street. We always meet at her place, where there’s a family room that’s full of books and toys and sunlight, and the whole wide garden to play in with its tree house and velvet lawns.

I met Karen on the maternity ward, after giving birth to Sylvie. It was a strange time. You’re opened up, your body breached, all your defences down. I scarcely slept at all, the ward was so noisy at night. Instead I’d lie and stare at Sylvie through the transparent walls of her cot, just stare and stare; I couldn’t believe that such a perfect creature existed. Or in the day I’d hold her for hours, feeding her or just rocking her in my arms. Thinking, She is mine. My daughter. And when she startled when a door banged, and I felt the fear go through her, I thought, She only has me. She only has me to keep her safe. I knew that I would do anything to protect her, that I’d die for her if I had to; I wouldn’t have to choose, I’d just do it. There’s a kind of exultant freedom in that knowledge—to love someone more than you love yourself. Not by any effort of will, but just because you do.

Sometimes I thought of Dominic, imagined that maybe he’d come. It was just a little bright flicker of hope that wouldn’t be extinguished—like those novelty birthday-cake candles that keep relighting however often you blow on them, that simply won’t be put out. In my half-hallucinatory state after the nights of insomnia, I’d think I could hear his voice, which is rather loud and authoritative when he isn’t being intimate, or his firm step coming down the ward. I’d picture it all, too vividly: how he’d come to my bedside and scoop Sylvie up in his arms and hold her against him; staring at her as I did, loving her as I did. I couldn’t stop thinking these things. Though the rational part of me knew it was just a crazy fantasy—it was spring half-term, he was probably skiing at Val d’Isère with his family.

I was aware of a woman watching me from the opposite side of the ward: dark hair trimly pulled back, a serious, sensible look. She had an older boy and a constant stream of visitors. I knew that her baby was called Lennie: that she’d been born a little early, and had lots of bright black hair that would fall out in a day or two. This woman noticed things, I could tell that. I knew she’d have seen I hardly had any visitors. Just Lavinia, my boss, who came dripping beads and bracelets, with a worn, exquisite silk scarf that she’d found in a Delhi market looped around her head, and bearing greetings and gifts. Some woolly things she’d knitted and some Greenham Common wire that she’d kept since the seventies, when she’d gone on an Embrace the Base demonstration with thousands of other women and had cut off a bit of the boundary fence with wire-cutters; and a tape of whale sounds that she promised would help Sylvie sleep. Flowers, too, of course, a lavish bunch of them, the yellow day-lilies I love. My life was far from perfect, but at least I knew my flowers were the loveliest on the ward.

She peered down at Sylvie.

‘She’s so beautiful,’ she said. ‘Little bud.’ Touching her with one finger, on her brow, like a blessing. ‘Little perfect thing.’ And then, hugging me close, ‘You’re so clever, Gracie!’

I was happy with Lavinia there; it was almost like having my mother back. But after she’d gone I cried, I couldn’t stop crying, holding Sylvie to me, pushing the tears away so they wouldn’t fall on her face.

Karen came over then, Lennie in one hand, box of Milk Tray in the other. She sat beside me and put the chocolates down on my bed.

‘It can all feel a bit much, can’t it?’ she said. ‘Last night I had to sit in the bath for hours before I could pee. And that bloody woman who came round this morning to talk about contraception. I told her that intercourse wasn’t exactly top of my To-Do list at the moment…’ She pushed the chocolates towards me. ‘Come on, get scoffing. You need to keep your strength up.’

Watching me, her clear steady gaze. She knew it wasn’t the pains of birth that made me cry. But we bonded over these things, the scars and injuries of labour. She lent me a rubber ring to sit on, which helped with the pain from the stitches; she was a great advocate of salt baths; she fed me on her chocolates. And I told her about Dominic, and she listened quietly. Knowing her as I do now, I can see how generous she was to me. Karen is a traditional wife: there’s a deep conservatism in her. She reads newspapers that are full of adultery stories, and photos of once-glamorous women who dress too tartily for their age. She buys whole books about how to bake cakes. She might well have judged me: that would have been her instinct. Yet she was so accepting: she welcomed me into her life. And I’ve always been grateful for that, the way she reached out to me then.

‘Look at our two,’ she’d say. ‘Astrological twins. We must meet up when we’re home. They could grow up together…’

I go to the kitchen to ring.

‘Karen. I’m so sorry. It was such a great party. Your Hallowe’en parties are always so brilliant,’ I say. ‘She loved it. Really. The magician and everything…’

I can hear Mozart playing in her living room.

‘I shouldn’t have forgotten about the water thing.’ Her voice has an anxious edge. ‘It’s not like you hadn’t told me. I was stupid, I should have warned him.’

‘No, it’s my fault,’ I tell her. ‘I should have kept an eye on her. I hope we didn’t spoil anything.’

‘For God’s sake,’ says Karen. ‘It’s just a shame you had to leave…’

‘Yes,’ I say.

There’s a little silence between us. The music spools out, the balanced phrases, perfect, poised. I don’t want to hear what I know she is going to say.

‘Grace, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this.’ There’s caution in her voice, she’s choosing her words with care. ‘But we think you really need to get help.’

I feel a kind of shame.

‘All kids have tantrums, don’t they?’ I say. ‘I just try not to get too worked up about it.’

‘Of course all kids freak out sometimes,’ she says. ‘But not like this, Grace. Not like Sylvie… She just sounds so—well—desperate…’ And, when I don’t say anything, ‘Basically, Grace, we think you need to see someone. A psychologist. Someone professional.’

I hate the ‘we’. I hate to think of them sitting there in Karen’s opulent kitchen, discussing me and Sylvie.

CHAPTER 2

When I get to Jonah and the Whale on Monday morning, Lavinia is already busy. She’s taken down the pumpkins from the Hallowe’en display, and she’s potting up autumn gentians on a table of curled wrought iron; the table is rusting but elegant, one of her flea-market finds. She has lots of bracelets on her wrists, and she’s fixed back her hair with a sweep of magenta muslin, a tie-dyed scarf from Gujerat, which has a long silky fringe and a gold thread woven through. The thick, sweet smells of the flower shop wrap themselves around me—wet earth and mingled pollens.

Lavinia is a widow, her husband was an orthopaedic surgeon and I always feel he was a difficult man—though she only ever speaks of him with affection. He died ten years ago, of cirrhosis of the liver. She’d been a physiotherapist and opened the flower shop after his death with the insurance money, wanting to make a fresh start. ‘Why “Jonah and the Whale”?’ I asked once, expecting something deep about loss and new beginnings, but she smiled in that way she has—enigmatic, a little self-mocking—and said that she just liked the way it sounds. She lives alone, but she never seems lonely, she knows so many people—Buddhists, artists, performance poets, from her hippy days. On Sunday, she tells me, she had three rather decrepit musicians round for paella, and they played Cole Porter in her living room.

I tell her about the party, about what happened with Sylvie. She turns to me and listens till I’ve finished, her quiet eyes taking me in.

‘Poor kid,’ she says then. ‘Poor you.’

Her eyes linger on me. There’s a little crease pencilled between her brows. She never gives me advice, and I’m grateful for that.

I put flowers out on the pavement at the front of the shop—buckets of lilies with reddish pollen that stains your skin like turmeric; hydrangeas of the richest, densest blue. I’ve planted the hydrangeas into azure metal pots, choosing the containers with care. I love the way the clashing colours seem to shimmer and sing. There’s a winter rawness in the air, the cold scrapes at my skin. My hands are always chapped, working here. I own numerous pairs of fingerless gloves that I dry out on the hotwater pipes in the back room near the boiler, and I change them during the day and yet, whatever I do, in winter I’m never quite warm.

It’s a slow morning, as Mondays usually are, and Lavinia sends me off in my car to do the deliveries. First a big traditional bouquet, roses and carnations, for a silver wedding. The woman who answers the doorbell has stiff, curled hair and a ready smile, and behind her an orderly house that smells of lavender polish and detergent. This fascinates me always, the glimpses of people’s houses, these slivers of other lives. Next, there’s a planted arrangement, some winter cyclamen, for a nervous young woman whose hair falls over her face. The cyclamen seem so right for her—these fragile, pale, self-deprecating flowers. She stands on her doorstep and looks at me with an uncertain, surprised air—as though this is all a mistake, as though she feels she’s not the kind of woman people would buy flowers for. As she talks she keeps touching the side of her face, in a little self-comforting gesture. I drive away, feeling a loneliness that might be hers or mine.

The last call is to one of those modern estates where the numbering doesn’t make sense. I need number 43, but 37 seems to lead straight to 51. I stop the car and get out, walk down the road and peer into all the alleyways, trying to find the right house.

It’s how I met Dominic, delivering flowers. I was eighteen. I’d only just begun working for Lavinia. I was thrilled with the job after temping in tedious offices ever since I’d left school.

It was a planted arrangement—the most expensive we do—in a wicker basket. I’d written out the card myself; I’d been the one to take the call. An older woman, a privileged voice, with cool, immaculate vowels. Happy Birthday, dearest Claudia, with all my love, Mama. A spiky bit of wicker from the basket had worked loose, and as I took the flowers out of the car I snagged my finger. The cut was surprisingly deep. I wrapped a tissue round it. The blood soaked rapidly through, but I only noticed after I’d rung the bell.

He was a big man, forty-something, and wearing a linen shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He looked at me as though I amused him. I was wearing my usual kind of outfit: a little cord skirt and stripy tights and boots with high, spindly heels—too high to drive in, really. I was suddenly very aware how short my skirt was.

‘Flowers for Claudia Runcie,’ I said.

He was looking at me; he didn’t look at the flowers. He still had that pleased, amused air.

‘Well,’ he said.

He took the basket from me and noticed my hand.

‘Whatever happened?’ he said.

‘I cut it,’ I said.

‘OK. Stupid question,’ he said. ‘You’d better come in. You’re dripping on my doorstep.’

He thrust a huge handkerchief at me. I wrapped it round my hand.

It was a large airy kitchen, with that pale, distressed kitchen furniture that looks as though it’s been sourced from some Provençal street market. I thought, If I had a proper kitchen, this is exactly how I’d like it to look. There were photos on the mantelpiece, of a boy and a girl, black and white, in silver frames. The photos were rather beautiful, soft focus, cleverly lit. There were masses of birthday cards and a silver helium balloon, for Claudia presumably.

‘I’m Dominic,’ he said.

I told him my name.

He hunted in the drawers of the cabinets for an Elastoplast.

‘Where the hell does she keep them?’ he said.

I had an immediate sense of his wife, of Claudia, as the centre of things, the heart of the home, the one who held it together: who knew the best photographers and where to find exquisite kitchen units and whose Elastoplasts had their allotted place in her drawer. I sensed his absolute dependency on her. What I didn’t know then, but was soon to learn, was that they never made love: it was a comfortable, prosperous marriage but with no sex or closeness. At least, that’s how he told it.

He found the packet of plasters. I put out my hand, but he’d taken one out and was peeling off the backing.

‘Give me your finger,’ he told me.

Right from the beginning, I did just what he said.

He stuck the plaster in place with rather excessive thoroughness, but I wasn’t going to move away. He had a faint scent of leather and cigars, a very male scent. His closeness felt extraordinary, thrilling with a shiver of sex, yet somehow safe too, as though he were familiar to me, as though I knew him already. I felt how much bigger he was than me. I liked that.

‘Better now?’ he said.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

He stood back a pace and smiled at me. A sudden smile of startling candour, with on one side of his mouth a little crease. It’s weird thinking about this now. It’s Sylvie’s smile exactly. Where his hair was starting to recede, the skin had a vulnerable look—I wanted to reach up and touch it. The thought sent a clear bright line of sensation through me.

‘So. Grace. I think you should have a coffee. After losing all that blood.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘You do drink coffee, don’t you?’

I nodded.

‘That’s a relief. Claudia’s into this foul herbal stuff. Camomile. It’s like hay. Why would anyone drink hay?’

I felt he was telling me too much, giving too much away—that he shouldn’t be criticising her like this to me, a stranger, even about such a very trivial thing.

While the kettle was boiling, he found a place for the flowers on the mantelpiece.

‘Good flowers. Did you do them?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re rather lovely,’ he said. ‘Well, you look the arty type. I can tell from the stripes.’ He gave my legs an appraising look.

We drank our coffee. Somehow he learnt a lot about me.

When I left he asked would I be OK to drive, and I said I was fine, I didn’t feel faint in the least—though that wasn’t true exactly. Two days later, he rang the shop and asked me out to the Alouette for a meal, where he effortlessly seduced me.

Eventually I find number 43, down an alleyway. The man who opens the door is unshaven and in his pyjamas. Hot air from a sick room brushes against me, with a smell of camphor and stale sheets. He’s embarrassed, seeing me there. It must all have been going on for a while: the house is rearranged to accommodate his illness. I can see the living room behind him, with the sofa made up as a bed. There’s opera on the stereo, a vigorous soprano, her voice pulsating with passion. The contrast is saddening—the music with its fabulous energy and emotion, and his wasted, restricted life.

For lunch I buy baguettes from Just-A-Crust. On the way back, as always, I linger outside the patisserie on the corner. They sell the most wonderful cakes there, all decorated with jewelled marzipan fruit, and with names that sound like the names of beautiful women. We eat our baguettes in turn in the back room.

The afternoon passes slowly. At three Lavinia goes out for a walk and a smoke.

Just after she’s gone I see a woman approaching the shop. She’s in her seventies perhaps. She’s wearing a crisply cut jacket, her hair is a lacquered grey helmet, her eyebrows are plucked and thinly pencilled in. Everything about her is polished and exact. Seeing her, it enters my mind that this grooming has a defensive purpose for her—as though this slick, varnished surface will somehow keep her safe. I watch as she draws nearer, tapping along the pavement on her pointy shiny shoes. At the door she hesitates, just for a heartbeat, then clears her throat, walks determinedly in. I know what she’s come for. I feel a brief apprehension. I wish Lavinia were here.

The flowers are for her husband, she says.

‘The funeral director said he’d take care of it all, but I wanted to choose them myself. It seemed important somehow.’

Her hands are clasped tight in front of her. I can feel the tension in her, her fear that she might come undone.

I bring her a chair and show her our catalogue. But she can’t choose. The decision has too much importance: it’s as though she believes that if only she can choose with absolute precision, everything will be mended and she’ll somehow bring him back. I understand: I’ve felt that.

I turn a page of the catalogue. A photo catches her eye.

‘Maybe something with cornflowers,’ she says. ‘They were his favourites. He always loved that blue.’

She looks away then, her eyes fill up, the tears spill down her face. The massive grief washes through her; there’s nothing she can do. She’s embarrassed but can’t stop it happening. Tears make glossy streaks in her thick cake make-up. I’m relieved for her that the shop is empty. She’s a private person; I know how she hates this extravagant public display.

‘I’m going to bring you a drink,’ I tell her. ‘You just sit there till you’re ready. We’ve got all the time in the world.’

I go to the back room and make her a coffee. Her grief has got inside me; my hand shakes, holding the spoonful of coffee, the soft brown powder sifts down.

She’s grateful. She wraps both her hands around the mug, as though needing something to cling to, as though the world seems insubstantial to her. She tells me about her husband. He was diabetic, he’d been taken into this nursing home—it was just for a week, she’d felt she needed a rest—how could she have been so selfish? They didn’t do his blood sugars properly, not as she’d have done. It’s all her fault he died…

I listen, not saying much, not comforting her, or telling her that everything’s OK: I know that wouldn’t help. And when we’ve chosen the wreath, I take her to the back room so she can tidy her face, because I can feel that matters to her.

‘Bless you,’ she says when she goes.

Her grief hangs around in the shop for a while, pressing down, a heaviness. I think of my mother’s death, of sitting in the crematorium chapel, feeling that empty swing of sickness through me, thinking about her life and all its limitations—the bitterness that had never left her after my father walked out: and that now it would never get better, now she was out of time. The bleakness of that.

We close at five-thirty. We mop and tidy up, and I peel off my soggy gloves and hang them by the boiler.

‘You get yourself an early night,’ says Lavinia as we leave.

‘I’m all right,’ I tell her.

Her eyes rest on me a moment, but she doesn’t say anything more.

CHAPTER 3

There are several different routes to Sylvie’s nursery. I take the one that goes down Newgate Road. I know I shouldn’t do this. The decision is made somewhere deep inside me, almost without conscious thought.

I park a few yards from the house. The darkness is thickening; no one will see. I’m invisible here, a faceless person, a shadow in the street. I wind my window down an inch; there’s a cold scent of autumn, a tang of smoke and rotten leaves, and the high, sharp bark of a fox. I tell myself I’ll only stay a moment.

The blinds are still up in the drawing room that faces onto the street, and tawny lamplight spills across the paving in the garden. Tonight I’m lucky: Dominic’s car is here; he must be at home. In the room, you can see all the things that Claudia has chosen—the subtle grey shades of the walls, the sketches in thin metal frames, on the mantelpiece a single orchid, of a cool watery green. The room seems so enticing in the mellowness of the light. I suddenly feel how cold I am, sitting here, still chilled from the day. I wrap my arms tight around myself to try and stop myself shivering. I feel a deep, dangerous loneliness.

As I watch the drawing room, Charlie, their son, saunters in. He’s still in his school uniform, but rumpled, his shirt hanging out. He’s tall now, visibly taller every time I see him, coltish, his hands and feet too big for him, a pale thatch of hair on his head. He looks around vaguely for something, then ambles out of the room.

I feel the quick fever of excitement that always comes over me here. I wonder if I will see Dominic.

But it’s Claudia who comes in. She walks right up to the window, which is a little open, and leans out, her arms on the sill. If she looked really hard she might see me now, but I’m sitting quite still in the shadow—and anyway, would she even know who I am? Does she know about me and Sylvie? Dominic never told me, there’s so much he never said. She lingers there for a moment. Maybe like me she’s just breathing in the scent of rot and bonfires, the smell of approaching cold that paradoxically seems so full of promise. Then she closes the window and reaches up to pull on the cord of the blind. Her head is back, and briefly the lamplight catches on the arch of her throat and the bright blonde fall of her hair. She’s thin; she has a figure that speaks of Pilates classes and always being a little hungry: her arm looks angular, stretching up, the amber brightness gleaming on the bony curve of her wrist. Then the blind slides down.

I watch for a moment longer. There’s another shape in the room now, a shadow choreography behind the blinds. But the shapes are vague, indeterminate—it’s Charlie again, perhaps, or Maud, their daughter: I can’t tell whether Dominic is there. I think of this life of his that I am excluded from—that I was always excluded from, even when we were closest. The everydayness of him that I know nothing about. What he’s like at family mealtimes, or at dinner parties with friends, or kicking a football around with Charlie in the garden. I never knew him doing any of these things. I knew him only as a lover: tender, passionate, curious, in those lavish afternoons we’d spend together in my bed, when I’d feel a complete, exact pleasure in his insistent fingers, his easy, deep slide into me, the sweet assiduous movement of his mouth. Or cool, closed-off, rejecting, in that terrible moment at the Alouette, the moment we couldn’t get back from. I’d been taking antibiotics for cystitis, but I hadn’t known that antibiotics could interfere with the pill. I told him I was pregnant, saw the instant retreat in his eyes. Cold crept through me. His look told me everything: his narrowed eyes, the way he stared at me as though I were his enemy. I knew the whole thing was fractured before he started to speak—explaining in his measured voice that of course I’d want to get it done privately, that he knew a good gynaecologist, that naturally he’d pay.

A familiar nausea rises in me. I sicken myself. I cannot live like this—parking near his house, ringing him just to hear him on his voicemail. Looking in on another life that isn’t mine, that can never be mine. This is wrong, I know that. I’m bitterly ashamed of it. I’d never admit to anyone—Karen, Lavinia—that I do this. I try to move on but nothing seems to work for me—the introduction bureau, the speed-dating evening at Crystals nightclub—none of it gets me anywhere: no other man seems quite real. They’re too young, too insubstantial, they don’t overwhelm me as he did. I have to make myself like them, check off their good points. Like with a man I met at Crystals, who seemed to have an interest in me, I spelt it all out in my head—his perfectly ironed white shirt, his floppy Hugh Grant hair, his smell of soap and cologne. Trying to convince myself.

I resolve that this is the last time. I promise myself I will never do this again—never, never. I drive off rapidly, but the nausea doesn’t leave me.

At the nursery it’s Beth who lets me in. She’s arranging the children’s artwork on a table ready for home time. She’s Sylvie’s favourite assistant: she has curly hair haphazardly pinned up, and warm brown eyes.

She smiles at me.

‘Sylvie’s in the story corner,’ she says. ‘Oh—and I think Mrs PB wanted a word—she told me to tell you.’

There’s a scurry of anxiety at the edges of my mind.

‘Has Sylvie been OK?’

Beth makes a little rocking movement with her hand.

‘So-so,’ she says. ‘You know—most of the time.’

I know she’s trying to smooth something over.

I go into the Garden Room. There are alphabet posters, and trays of toys in gorgeous fruit-gum colours, and the warmth is welcome after the chill of the streets. I always love to come to Little Acorns. Our life may not be perfect, but in sending Sylvie here I know I have done my best for her.

The children who haven’t yet been picked up are on cushions in the story corner: one of the assistants is reading them Where the Wild Things Are. It’s a favourite book of Sylvie’s, with its fabulous monsters at once predatory and amiable, but she isn’t paying attention. She’s hoping for me; she keeps looking towards the door. As I go in, she comes running across the floor towards me. But she doesn’t fling herself on me, the way another child might. She stops just in front of me and I kneel and she reaches her hands to my face. She gives a theatrical shiver.

‘You’re cold, Grace.’

I wrap her in my arms. She smells so good, of lemon, gingernuts, warm wool. I breathe her in and for a moment I am completely happy. I tell myself, This is where I should be living—in the present, with Sylvie—not always looking behind me and longing for what I can’t have.

‘Ah. Ms Reynolds. Just who I wanted to see.’

Mrs Pace-Barden is at her office door. She has cropped, greying hair and dark conservative clothes. There’s something wholesome and vigorous about her; I always imagine her as a hockey teacher, urging recalcitrant young women to keep their minds on the game.

She bends to Sylvie.

‘Now, Sylvie, I need to have a word with your mum. Would you go and get your coat, please?’

Sylvie’s fingers are wrapped like bandages around my hand. I sense her reluctance to let go, after a whole day without me. I don’t know what will happen—whether she’ll do as she’s told, or instead just stand here, mute and clinging, with her opaque, closed face and her fingers clenched around mine. Karen once said to me—explaining why she likes to stay at home with her children: ‘The thing is, you know your own children inside out, like nobody else does—you know just what their triggers are. I mean, Lennie hates having her food mixed up and is horrible after chocolate—and Josh used to have this thing about heads apart from bodies… You always know how they’re going to react…’ Saying it with the certainty that I’d nod and say I agreed. And I thought, But I don’t, I don’t know, not with Sylvie.

But this time it’s OK, she holds on just for a moment, then heads off to the cloakroom. She must have been using pastels; her fingers have left a staining like ash on my hands.

‘Now, why I wanted to see you,’ says Mrs Pace-Barden. ‘I’m afraid we had a bit of a scene with Sylvie again today.’ She’s lowered her voice, as though anxious to save me from embarrassment. ‘It was when the water-play came out. Unfortunately Sylvie can be rather aggressive when she gets upset…’

I feel a hot little surge of anger. I’ve told them over and over.

‘You know she’s scared of water-play,’ I say.

‘Of course we do,’ says Mrs Pace-Barden. ‘And we took that into account, we were careful to see she was on the other side of the room. But, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, we can’t stop the other children from enjoying a full range of activities—not just for one child. I’m sure you can see that, Ms Reynolds.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Shame moves through me.

‘To be honest, I just can’t figure her out. I’m not often defeated by children, but this…’ Some unreadable emotion flickers across her face. ‘We need to talk about it. Wouldn’t you agree?’

It isn’t a question.

‘Yes, of course,’ I tell her.

‘I’d like to make an appointment for you to come in,’ she says.

‘But I’m not in a hurry. We could talk about it now.’

‘I’d really rather have a proper discussion,’ she says. ‘I think we owe that to Sylvie.’

Her seriousness unnerves me.

‘Perhaps a fortnight today?’ she says.

I know this isn’t negotiable.

We fix the time. She goes off to her room.

Sylvie comes back with her coat and slips her hand into mine, and we go out into the foyer.

‘Now don’t go forgetting your picture, Sylvie,’ says Beth. She turns towards us, holding out the drawing. ‘It’s one of her houses,’ she tells me.

I glance at it—a house in pastel crayons, precisely placed in the middle of the page. Just the same as every day. She’s been drawing houses for several months, and she draws them over and over. They’re neat, exactly symmetrical—four windows, a chimney, a door—and they’re always bare and unadorned. Never any people—though she knows how to draw stick people now, with triangle skirts for the women and clumpy big boots for the men—and never any flowers in the garden. Sometimes she draws blue around the house, not just for the sky, but all around, a whole bright border of blue, so the house looks like it’s floating. I said to her once, ‘It’s such a nice house in your picture. Does anybody live there?’ But she had her closed look, she didn’t tell me anything.

I hold the picture by its corner: pastel smudges so easily. We say goodbye to Beth and go out into the night.

In the middle of the night I wake, hearing the click of my bedroom door. I’m afraid. Just for an instant, a heartbeat, taking in the shadow in my doorway, dark against the crack of yellow light from the hall, I think that someone has broken in, that someone is looking in at me—a stranger. I can’t make out her face, she’s just a silhouette against the hall-light—but I can see the shaking of her shoulders as she sobs.

I’m drenched with sleep; I can’t get up for a moment.

‘Oh, sweetheart—come here.’

She doesn’t come.

I put on my bedside light and drag myself out of bed. My body feels heavy, lumbering. I go to her, put my arms all around her. Her skin is chilly; she doesn’t feel like a child who’s just tumbled out of a warm bed. Sometimes in the night she’ll kick off all her covers, however securely I tuck her duvet in around her, as though her dreams are a struggle.

She lets me hold her, but she doesn’t move in to me. She’s clutching Big Ted to her. Her face is desolate; she has a look like grief.

‘What did you dream about, sweetheart?’

She won’t tell me.

She moves away from me, makes to get into my bed. I slip in beside her, wrap her in my arms.

‘It’s all over,’ I tell her. ‘The nightmare’s over. You’re here with me now. Everything’s OK.’

But she’s still shuddering.

‘It’s not real, Sylvie,’ I tell her. ‘Whatever you saw, whatever happened in your dream… It didn’t really happen, it was only a dream.’

Her eyes are on me, the pupils hugely dilated by the dark. In the dim light of my bedside lamp, they’re a deeper colour than usual, the elusive blue-grey of shaded water. The terror is still on her. When she looks at me, it’s as though she isn’t seeing me. Nothing I say makes sense to her.

I try again, needing to say something, anything; hoping my voice will soothe her.

‘That’s what a dream is,’ I tell her. ‘It’s something your mind makes up—like a picture-show in your head. Sometimes a horrible one. But it’s gone now, it’s over. It doesn’t mean anything.’

The front of her pyjama jacket is damp from all the crying. I feel I ought to change it, but she’s starting to quiet; I don’t want to rouse her again. I stroke her hair.

‘This is the real world, sweetheart. You and me and Big Ted and our home and everything…’

Quite suddenly the tension leaves her. Her hand that’s clasping the teddy bear eases open, her fingers are lax and fluid; her eyelids flutter and close. I want to say, Why do you do this, Sylvie? Why are you so unhappy? But she’s asleep already.

CHAPTER 4

On Saturday something cheering happens. Even the timing is perfect—because Sylvie and I are about to set off for Karen’s: if he’d rung a moment later, we’d have been gone. This timing is a good omen.

‘Now, am I speaking to Grace Reynolds?’

A man’s voice—light, pleasant, with a smile in it.

‘Yes,’ I tell him, a fragile hopefulness flaring up in me.

‘Grace, it’s Matt. We met at that weird evening at Crystals, remember?’

‘Of course I remember.’

‘Grace, to get to the point—I’d love to take you out to dinner. If you’d like that.’

‘I’d like it a lot,’ I tell him.

‘Great.’ He sounds relieved, as though it matters.

We fix the time, the place—next Thursday, and we will go to Welford Place. It’s a restaurant by the river I’ve sometimes driven past; it used to be a gentlemen’s club. Quite different from the Alouette, I guess: no red-checked cloths or accordian music or menus scrawled on a board. I imagine silkily ingratiating waiters, and a silver trolley that’s heaped with indulgent desserts.

I can’t recall if I told him about Sylvie; it’s probably best to make sure.

‘I’ll have to fix a babysitter. For my little girl,’ I tell him.

‘Of course, Grace. Look, just ring if there’s a problem.’

I put down the phone and stand there for a moment. I remind myself of his white linen shirt and the hair falling into his eyes; I remind myself I liked him. I have a distinct, thrilled sense of newness. This is all so easy, so straightforward—both of us unattached, and I told him about Sylvie and he didn’t seem to mind.

It’s a gorgeous afternoon, honeyed sunlight mellowing everything. I decide we will walk to Karen’s; it isn’t that far. Sylvie brings her Shaun the Sheep rucksack, with some of her Barbies inside. We talk about the things we pass: a glove that someone has dropped in the road, that looks from a distance like a small dead animal; a caterpillar that Sylvie spots on the pavement, no longer than her thumbnail and the fresh, bright green of limes.

‘We must be very careful when we come back,’ says Sylvie. ‘We mustn’t tread on the caterpillar.’

In the tree-lined road where Karen lives, there’s a cat that sits in a circle of sun.

‘The cat has yellow eyes,’ says Sylvie. ‘Look, Grace.’

She strokes the cat with a gentle, scrupulous touch, and it rubs against her, purring hugely.

‘He likes me, Grace,’ she says.

I watch her as she pets the cat. Just like a normal child.

At Karen’s, the girls go up to Lennie’s room. They’ll probably play their favourite hospital game with Lennie’s Barbies—this always seems to involve a lot of amputation and bandaging. We sit in the kitchen, where there’s a scent of baking and citrus, and Karen’s Aga gives out a welcome warmth. Leo and Josh have gone sailing today, as they usually do on Saturdays. You can hear the liquid sound of chatter and laughter from Lennie’s room—Karen has left the kitchen door open. I notice this, and briefly wonder whether she leaves the door ajar when other, more predictable children come to play.

Karen complains about homework. Josh has been given an alarming Maths project to finish by Monday morning.

‘It’s the poor old parents who have to do it as usual,’ she says. ‘Why can’t they just give us a break for once?’

She puts the coffee pot to perk on the hob.

During the half-term holiday, she tells me, Josh’s homework project was to make a model castle. Karen found cereal packets and paint, and he put together something with a vaguely medieval look, though the turrets kept collapsing. But when she dropped him off at school at the end of the holiday, there were far more fathers than usual accompanying their children, and all of them carrying the most complicated constructions, one complete with a miniature cannon that fired.

‘All Josh’s mates laughed at him and said his castle was crap,’ she says. ‘What’s the point? It’s nothing to do with kids actually learning stuff, it’s just competitive parenting…’

Karen’s coffee has a kick to it. I drink gratefully. She takes muffins out of the Aga and puts them to cool on a rack.

‘Let’s have one now,’ she says, ‘before the little vultures get at them.’

The cakes are still hot to the touch, and taste of butter and orange, with a glittery crust of vanilla sugar on top.

I tell her about my phone call, and her eyes are bright and excited. I’m touched she’s so pleased for me.

‘And you’ve been out with exactly how many guys since being ditched by the Rat?’ It’s her usual name for Dominic.

‘Nobody else. Not properly,’ I tell her.

She has a satisfied smile.

‘You’re ready, you see. It’s like I always said. You’re ready to move on now. Guys can pick up on that.’

Karen is one of those people who live in an ordered universe: her world is like a tidy house where everything matches and fits—where you meet the right man once you’ve achieved some special state of preparedness. Which I always feel leaves out that whole scary, unnerving randomness of who you meet when: of what happens. But just for now, I like the theory. It makes me feel it’s all meant to be.

‘I’ll babysit,’ she tells me.

I hug her.

‘You’re an angel. Thank you.’

‘Well—it’s important,’ she says. ‘A fresh start. Someone completely new. Just what the doctor ordered. And he’s taking you where?’

‘To Welford Place.’

‘Oh.’ She fixes me with a rather analytical gaze. ‘It’s classy, Grace, you need to look the part.’

‘Karen, what are you trying to tell me exactly?’

Her eyes move across me. Today I’m wearing jade fishnets, a little black skirt, cowboy boots from Oxfam and a cardigan I knitted from some wool I found in the corner shop, which I loved because it’s the exact sooty blue of ripe bilberries.

‘You always look lovely,’ she says placatingly. ‘It’s just that it’s all a bit kooky. He does what, your Matt?’

‘I can’t remember exactly. Something financial.’

‘Well, then. I think you ought to come with me.’

I follow her upstairs. As we pass Lennie’s room, we glance in through the door. It all seems happy. They’re busy with Lennie’s toy cooker: they seem to be cooking a naked Barbie in a saucepan, and Lennie has a plastic knife in her hand. Both girls are smiling gleefully.

Karen’s bedroom has a scent of rose geranium, and a sleigh bed covered in white with crocheted flowers. On the dressing table are silver hairbrushes, handed down from her mother, and family photographs in leather frames. It all speaks of continuity, of her sense of where she belongs. I envy her this sense of connection: it looks so solid, so comforting.

She opens her wardrobe and rifles through her clothes. Karen likes classic things—trench coats, silk shirts, cashmere. She pulls out something pale blue, with a sheen—a satiny blouse, with long full sleeves and buttons made of pearl. She holds it against my face to see if the colour will suit me. I feel it’s all wrong for me—too cool, too grown-up—but the feel of it is wonderful, the fabric smooth and fluid against my skin.

‘Well, go on,’ she says. ‘Try it.’

I pull off my cardigan and put it on. It’s low in front, in spite of the demureness of the sleeves, and cut to pull your breasts together: I’m surprised to see I have a proper cleavage. Karen puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me towards the mirror. We look at my reflection.

‘Mmm,’ she says. ‘I like it. And you could put your hair up.’

‘I always wear it down.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I don’t know—because I always have done probably.’

She gives me a sceptical look. I feel my face go hot.

‘OK. I confess. It’s because it’s how Dominic likes it.’

‘Liked it. He’s in the past, Grace.’ She wags her finger, with mock severity. ‘Remember: no more father figures,’ she says.

I told Karen once about my father. Just the outline—well, there isn’t much to tell. I told her how I remembered him—how big he seemed, and his warm smell, and the thrill I’d felt when he’d carry me round the streets on his shoulders, and I couldn’t imagine what it was like always to view the world from such a height. And my mother just saying, one day, when I was three, ‘Your father’s gone’—and not knowing what she meant by that, thinking she meant he’d gone but would come back again; so for years when I heard a taxi stopping in the street I’d rush to the window, a little bud of hopefulness opening up inside me. Karen was fascinated. ‘Well, there you are, then,’ she said—convinced that my passion for Dominic is all tied up with this loss, that it’s all about recovering my lost father. She’s probably right, but knowing doesn’t help much; I can’t untie it.

She sweeps up my hair in a twist at the back of my neck, fixes it with a sparkly clip from her dressing table. I look somehow more definite—as though I’m more clearly drawn in.

‘Fab,’ says Karen. ‘Kind of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And maybe some earrings—just little ones…’

I grin at my reflection, the cleavage, the new hair. It’s fun, this dressing-up. I half notice and then dismiss the sudden silence from Lennie’s room. I feel a light fizzy excitement.

She opens up her jewel box. A ruby glows with a dull rich light. I watch her careful fingers move the jewels aside.

‘I’ve got some sweet pearl earrings somewhere…’

There’s a sudden scream from the playroom, a rush of steps on the landing, a bang as the door is thrown back. Lennie erupts into the room, flings herself on her mother. Her face is blotched with furious red. She’s sobbing, outraged, she’s crying too passionately to speak. I think, Oh God, what’s happened? What did Sylvie do?

I can see across the landing through the open door. Sylvie is still in Lennie’s room, wrapping a Barbie in a blanket. She has her back to us. She seems quite unconcerned.

Karen kneels by Lennie, holds her.

‘Was it something that happened, sweetheart? Did you hurt yourself?’

Lennie’s breath comes in shaky gasps.

‘She says I’m not Lennie.’ The words tumble out through her tears. ‘But I am, Mum, I am.’

Karen strokes Lennie’s hair away from her wet, bright face. She’s frowning.

‘Of course you’re Lennie,’ she says.

‘She says I’m not,’ says Lennie again.

‘Sylvie said that?’

Lennie nods.

‘Sylvie does say funny things sometimes,’ says Karen. ‘You know that…’

I go across to the playroom.

‘Sylvie, what happened? What did you say?’

She isn’t looking at me. She’s preoccupied with the doll, extravagantly solicitous, wrapping the blanket close around it with fastidious care. Her face is a mask. She’s humming very quietly.

‘You’ve got to tell me,’ I say.

I reach out, hold her face between my hands, so she can’t escape me, so she has to look at me. Her skin is surprisingly cool for a child who’s been playing indoors.

‘What did you say to Lennie? Did you tell her that isn’t her name?’

She shrugs.

‘She’s not,’ she says. ‘Not really. She’s not my Lennie.’

She jerks her head, slips from my hands.

‘Lennie’s really upset, can’t you see that?’ I say. ‘I want you to tell her you’re sorry.’

Sylvie says nothing. Her back is turned to me now. She’s busy with the Barbie, running her finger round its face in a detailed little enactment of maternal tenderness.

‘Sylvie, will you say sorry?’

‘She’s not my Lennie,’ she says again.

I feel a pulse of anger. Just for an instant I could hit her—for her detachment, her coolness, the way she eludes me, the way she slides from my grasp.

‘All right. We’re going home then,’ I say.

She puts down the doll that she was tending with such deliberate care—just dumps it on the floor at her feet, as though she has no interest in it. This was meant to be her punishment, to show my disapproval, but it’s as if she’s glad to leave. Without being asked, she heads downstairs to find her coat and shoes.

I go back to Karen’s bedroom.

‘Karen, I’m so so sorry. I think we’d better go now.’

Karen’s face is tightly closed, holding everything in.

‘Really, you don’t have to,’ she says.

‘I think we should,’ I say.

I’m still wearing the blue silk blouse. I can’t take it off with Lennie there.

‘We’ll be downstairs,’ says Karen. ‘Remember to take the clip too.’

I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I’m not so sure now that Karen’s clothes suit me: the paleness of the fabric makes my face looks hard and tired. The gloss has gone from the day.

When I go downstairs, Sylvie is ready and waiting to leave, she has her shoes and coat on. She has her back to Karen and Lennie, her face quite still, no feeling in it, her eyes fixed on the door. Lennie has stopped crying now, but she’s pressed into her mother, frowning at Sylvie’s back, with Karen’s skirt clenched fiercely in her fist. It’s happening again: I’m leaving Karen’s house embarrassed and ashamed.

CHAPTER 5

Outside it’s dark and cold now. We can see the smoke of our breath as we pass beneath the street lamps. Sylvie slips her hand in mine. I feel her small, cool touch: my anger seeps away.

She walks slowly, as though her shoes weigh her down.

‘I’m tired, Grace. I don’t want to walk. My feet hurt.’

We could catch the bus, but I’d rather save the fare.

‘Will you walk if we go past Tiger Tiger?’ I ask her.

‘And see my house?’

‘Yes. The shop will be closed now, but we can look in the window.’

She nods.

‘I want to see my house,’ she says.

It’s only a slight detour. Tiger Tiger is in a row of expensive shops two streets down from Karen’s, next to the organic deli. It specialises in dolls’ houses and handmade wooden toys. The shops are all shut up now, but at Tiger Tiger the lights are on in the window. We stop there, looking in.

Some of their most impressive things are in the window display—a rocking horse with mane and tail made from real horsehair, some jointed German teddy bears, all the dolls’ houses. There’s a castle with exuberant crenellations; a Gothic mansion with ivy painted all over the walls; a splendid Georgian town house that has the front pulled back, so you can see the family of beribboned mice that live there, the wallpaper with cabbage roses, the tiny button-back chairs. As a child I’d have adored it, this enclosed, enchanted world. But Sylvie gives it only the briefest of glances.

Behind the lit part the rest of the shop is in shadow. The marionettes that hang from the ceiling catch briefly in the headlights from the road. There’s a vampire with clotted bloody fangs, a pale anorexic princess in a wisp of silk, a witch. The witch has hair like cobwebs and gappy teeth and white and vacant eyes. The marionettes look a little sinister, hanging there in the quick thin shafts of light that pass across them, their hair and the fringes on their outfits shivering very slightly in the movement of air from some secret vent or opening: the air in the shop must never be quite still. When I was a child they’d have frightened me, but Sylvie isn’t frightened. She often seems so afraid, yet the things that usually terrify children—gaping mouths with teeth, or zombies, or heads apart from bodies—never seem to worry her.

‘There’s my house,’ she says, with a slight sigh of satisfaction. ‘There it is, Grace.’

The one that she loves is the smallest one—really only a cottage, with slate-grey tiles and roughcast whitewashed walls. This always surprises me. I’d have thought she’d have gone for the mansion or the Georgian town house. I feel again how I don’t know her, can’t predict her. The house is squat, symmetrical, like the houses she draws. Maybe that’s why she likes it. It has shutters at the windows and moss is painted on the tiles.

Lights from the shop-window shine in Sylvie’s eyes; her whole face is luminous, looking at it. She presses up to the glass, her face flattened against it, her hands on either side of her face, the fingers splayed.

‘That’s my house, isn’t it, Grace?’ she says again.

I bend to her.

‘Yes. That’s the one you like the best.’

She’s pushing against the glass as though she could push through. I worry that she’ll set off an alarm, that perhaps the window is wired.

‘Who lives there?’ I ask her.

When she turns her head towards me, you can see the perfect oval, blurring at the edges, where the glass has misted with the warmth of her breath. She has a puzzled look, a little frown stitched to her forehead: as though there’s something obvious I haven’t understood.

‘Me, Grace,’ she says. ‘That’s my house. I told you.’

‘It’s like the ones you draw,’ I say.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stands there looking in.

‘I want it, Grace.’

‘Sweetheart, I know you do.’

When I crouch beside her, I see the marionettes reflecting in her eyes in tiny immaculate images.

‘I really really want it. Will you buy it for me, Grace?’

‘Perhaps one day,’ I tell her.

I’m always vague when she asks, in case my plan goes wrong. I never know when something will happen to throw out my calculations—a rise in fees at the nursery, or Sylvie growing out of her dungarees or her shoes. I have a special account, and each week I save just a bit, just as much as I can manage. By February—when it’s her birthday—if nothing goes wrong, I hope I’ll have enough. This gives me a warm, full feeling—that I can buy this doll’s house for her. I see her in my mind’s eye, playing with it, intent, with a quiet, composed face, the look she has when she’s concentrating; singing to herself in a breathy, tuneless hum. I brush my lips against her cool cheek, feeling a rush of love for her.

Because we are happy together for the moment, I try to talk to her about the afternoon.

‘Sylvie, what happened at Karen’s?’

She doesn’t say anything.

‘Why did you say that to Lennie?’ I ask.

Her face is blank, giving nothing away. She shrugs. It’s almost as though she’s forgotten.

‘She’s Lennie, and she’s your friend,’ I tell her. ‘She got upset when you said that. Friends are precious. You don’t want to upset your friend.’

She turns from me. I wish I hadn’t said it.

‘I want to go home now, Grace,’ she says, in a flat, expressionless voice.

We walk home mostly in silence. She says her feet hurt.

CHAPTER 6

Welford Place has an old-fashioned, country-house glamour, all burgundy and gold, with chandeliers. Matt greets the head waiter, and we are led to our table. I feel so different from usual, my hair heaped up, and wearing these pale, grown-up clothes. I’m aware of men’s glances brushing against me.

Our table is by the window, looking out over the river, and the curtains are looped back, to frame the view. The night outside is festive: in the trees on the opposite bank there are strings of lights like coloured beads, their jewel colours reflecting in the dark river water.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I say.

We sit, and smile at one another, sharing a slight sense of triumph in achieving this, in coming here.

‘You look fantastic with your hair like that,’ he tells me.

I make a mental note to thank Karen.

It’s good to be here—not being a mother for once, just being me. I’m always so preoccupied with Sylvie, alert to every nuance of her mood—perhaps it isn’t good for us. The room smells of roasting meat and the perfume some woman is wearing, sultry like gardenia, and there are starched linen cloths on the tables, and ornate silver cutlery weighing heavy in your hand. The wine, a Bordeaux, is like velvet. I think of my usual evening routine—scrubbing down the kitchen, slobbing around in a baggy T-shirt, eating Sylvie’s leftovers. It’s somehow a surprise that this other world still exists—a world of glamour and very expensive claret, and feeling men’s gazes on you, warm as a breath on your skin. I feel a light expectant happiness. Maybe, as Karen said, it’s a new beginning, the opening of a door.

We order guinea fowl with polenta, and talk about ourselves—inconsequential things to start with, music we like, places we’ve been. Matt seems to have travelled everywhere: India, Peru: Namibia—where he hiked down the Fish River Canyon. I have to confess that I’ve only been to Paris, on a school trip. But maybe he enjoys this discrepancy, the way it makes him seem a man of the world.

I note the things I like about him, ticking off the boxes—his clean smell of cologne and ironed linen, the fringe that falls over his face. I briefly remember when Dominic first took me to the Alouette: how he held my gaze, and I knew he could see it all in my face, so nakedly, and I knew we were there already. I push the thought away. I tell myself it doesn’t have to be an instant thing.

Matt refills my glass. I feel drunk already, high on the shiny hopefulness of the evening. The guinea fowl is delicious, with a rich, dark, subtle gravy. We eat appreciatively. A little silence falls.

‘Your daughter,’ he says then, tentatively. ‘Is the guy—I mean, is he still on the scene?’

‘I had an affair with someone,’ I tell him. Trying to sound casual. ‘A much older man. He was married.’

‘And now?’ he says delicately.

‘He’s in the past,’ I tell him. Very deliberate, definite. Tonight I mean it, I’m certain. ‘I was terribly young when I met him.’

‘Yes,’ he says. Perhaps a little too readily for my liking, as though he can easily imagine me being terribly young. ‘And anyone since then?’

I don’t know if I should pretend. Is four years a very long time to go without a man? Will he think me strange?

‘No, nobody since,’ I tell him.

‘You must be very strong,’ he says. ‘Bringing up your daughter on your own.’

‘I don’t feel strong,’ I tell him.

‘I guess it’s lonely sometimes,’ he says.

‘We manage—but, yes, it can be lonely,’ I tell him.

And I see in that moment—that, yes, I’m lonely, but maybe I don’t have to be alone. That it isn’t for ever, this sense of restriction I have, of walls that press in whichever way I turn. That it could all be different.

‘I can feel that in you, that you’ve been hurt,’ he says.

He puts his hand on mine. It feels pleasant, reassuring.

‘And you?’ I say. Deliberately vague.

‘I lived with a woman for a while,’ he tells me.

He takes his hand away from me. He moves things around on the table—the salt cellar, the bottle of wine—as if he’s playing a game on an invisible board.

‘What happened?’ I ask him.

He slides one finger around the rim of his glass.

‘I travel a lot on business,’ he says. ‘And there was this weird thing. That when I was away from her, I used to long to be with her—just yearn to be back home with her. I’d get obsessed, I couldn’t think of anything else.’

‘I can understand that,’ I tell him warmly. Knowing about obsession.

‘But when I got back I used to find she wasn’t how I’d thought. It would happen so quickly. We’d row again, and everything would annoy me. There were things she did that would get right under my skin. Stupid things. Like, she used to eat lots of apples and leave the cores on the floor…’

I make empathic noises. Resolving that from now on I will always bin my apple cores immediately.

He looks down for a moment, flicking some lint from his sleeve.

‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘Like you can only love the person when you’re miles away from them. Like it’s just a dream you have…’

We move on to easier things—our families, where we come from. He leans across the table towards me, his gaze caressing my face. Over the white chocolate pannacotta, I feel a little shimmer of arousal.

We go out to his car. It’s a frosty evening, with spiky bright stars in an indigo sky. Our breath is white. He’s parked by the river, where swans move pale and silent against the crinkled dark of the water, and there are dinghies tied up: you can hear the gentle jostling of the water against their hulls.

‘Thank you. That was a wonderful evening,’ I tell him.

‘Yes, it was,’ he says.

At his car he doesn’t immediately take out his key. He turns towards me, putting one hand quite lightly on my shoulder.

‘Grace. I’d like to kiss you.’

‘Yes,’ I say.

He presses his hands to the sides of my face and moves my face towards him. He kisses my forehead, my eyelids, moving his lips on me very slowly, smoothing his fingers over my hair. I love his slowness; I feel a surge of excitement, the thin flame moving over my skin. I have my eyes closed; I can hear the sound of the water, and his hungry, rapid breath. When his lips meet mine I am so ready for him. He tastes of claret, he has a searching tongue. We kiss for a long time. He pulls me close: I feel his erection pressing against me.

Eventually, we move apart and get into the car. He turns on a CD—Nina Simone: the music is perfect, her voice smoky, confiding. He drives back towards my flat and neither of us says anything. Most of the time he rests one hand on my thigh. I feel fluid, open.

He turns into my road in Highfields and pulls in at the kerb.

‘You could come in,’ I tell him.

‘I’d like that very much,’ he says.

He wraps his arm around my waist as we walk towards my doorway, then slips his hand up under the blouse, sliding his fingers between the silk and my skin. I think of him moving his hands all over me, easing his fingers inside me.

I unlock the outer door. And then the sound assaults us, the moment the door swings open—a thin, shrill wailing. Matt moves a little away from me. I curse myself for inviting him in, but now it’s too late to turn back.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell him.

I push at the door to the living room. The crying slams into us, suddenly louder as the door swings wide. I sense Matt flinching. Well, of course he would.

Sylvie is on Karen’s lap, shuddering, gasping for breath, her face stricken. She turns her head as I go in, but she doesn’t stop sobbing. Karen has a tight, harassed look. The glittery glamour of Welford Place seems a world away now.

‘This is Matt—this is Karen. And Sylvie,’ I say, above the wailing.

Matt and Karen nod at one another. They have an uneasy complicity, like strangers thrown together at a crime scene. Nobody smiles.

‘She had a nightmare,’ says Karen. ‘I couldn’t settle her.’

Sylvie stretches her arms towards me. I kneel on the carpet and hold her on my lap. Her body feels brittle. She’s still crying, but quietly now. Karen stands and smoothes down her clothes, with an evident air of relief.

‘Can I make anyone a coffee?’ she says.

‘Please,’ I say for both of us.

Matt says nothing. He sits on the arm of the sofa, in a noncommittal way, so it’s not quite taking his weight.

Karen goes to the kitchen. Sylvie’s crying stops, as though it’s abruptly switched off. She clutches me, her body convulses; she vomits soundlessly all over the blue silk blouse.

‘Shit,’ says Matt, quietly.

He moves rapidly to the window, keeping his back to us. Karen comes, takes Sylvie’s shoulders, steers her to the bathroom.

‘I’ll clean her up.’ She’s definite, brisk. ‘You change.’

I feel a profound gratitude towards her.

I rush to the bedroom, unbutton the blouse, grab the first T-shirt I find.

Matt is standing in the hallway; he has his car keys ready in his hand.

‘I guess I’d better go, let you get on with it,’ he says.

‘You don’t have to leave,’ I tell him. ‘Really, you don’t have to.’

I glance down at the T-shirt I put on without thinking; it has a picture of a baby bird and says ‘Chicks Rule’.

‘No, really, I think I should,’ he tells me. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.’

His face is a shut door.

‘Thanks for the evening, it was lovely,’ I say lamely.

He reaches out and touches my upper arm through the cloth of my T-shirt—tentatively, as though he’s afraid of what might come off on his hand.

‘It was great,’ he says heartily. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Grace. Look, I’ll be in touch.’

But we both know he won’t be.

I stand there, hearing him leave—the percussive sound of his feet on the pavement, the car door slamming, the hum of the engine as his car moves away. There’s such finality to all this, each sound like the end of a sentence. He drives off, out of my life. I guess that for him I am just another illusion: that like so much else in his life, I am not what he hoped for, not what he thought. Disappointment is a charred taste in my mouth. In the hallway I can still smell his cologne. It fills me with nostalgia already.

Karen has cleaned Sylvie up and found her a new pyjama top.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell her. It’s what I so often say to her. ‘I’ll get the blouse back to you just as soon as I’ve washed it.’

‘It’s handwash only.’ There’s a hard edge to her voice. ‘You might want to put some bicarb with it, to get rid of the smell.’

‘Yes. It’ll be good as new, I promise.’

I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look all wrong in this jokey T-shirt with my hair up—as though I’m a teenager pretending to be a grown woman. I wrench the clip out of my hair.

CHAPTER 7

‘Ms Reynolds. Please come in.’

Her window looks over the garden. There was frost in the night; today there’s a thin yellow sunlight and the dazzle and shimmer of melting ice, and the grass is striped with the sharp straight shadows of trees. Children bundled in scarves and hats are playing on the climbing frame; you can hear their shouting and laughter.

I sit in front of her desk. There’s a pain in my jaw that I woke up with this morning, some kind of neuralgia probably. It nags at me; I wish I’d taken some Nurofen. The secretary brings the coffee tray. Mrs Pace-Barden pours coffee into a little gold-rimmed cup, and slides it across the desk towards me. My hands feel big and clumsy clasped around the tiny cup. She pours some for herself, but doesn’t drink it.

‘I’ve brought you in today,’ she says, ‘to have a little talk about Sylvie.’

She’s solemn, unsmiling, her forehead creased in a frown, but I tell myself this is good, that she’s taking Sylvie so seriously.

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘I have to tell you, we do find Sylvie’s behaviour very worrying.’

She has rather pale eyes, that are fixed on my face.

‘Yes, I know,’ I tell her.

I sip my coffee. It’s weak and bland but scalding hot because the milk was heated; it hurts my throat as I swallow it.

‘These tantrums she has—well, lots of children have tantrums, of course, we’re used to that… But not like Sylvie,’ she says.

She leaves a pause that’s weighted with significance. I don’t say anything.

‘My staff do find it very difficult,’ she says then. There’s a note of reproach in her voice. ‘When Sylvie has one of her tantrums, it takes the assistant’s total attention to settle her. Sometimes it takes an hour. And this is happening several times a week, Ms Reynolds.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry,’ I tell her.

‘And this phobia of water. D’you have any idea what started it?’

‘She’s always had it, really,’ I tell her. ‘It’s a fear of water touching her face. I mean, children are just frightened of things, aren’t they, sometimes? For no apparent reason?’

‘Of course. But Sylvie’s reaction is really very extreme. You see, Ms Reynolds, water-play is very much a part of the environment here. Most children love it. They find it relaxing.’

‘But couldn’t she be in another room or something?’

Her face hardens. Perhaps I sounded accusing.

‘We’re always careful that Sylvie is as far away as possible. But even that isn’t enough for her. And obviously we can’t ban it entirely—not just for one child.’

‘No, of course not,’ I tell her.

Her eyes are on me, her pale unreadable gaze.

‘And if anything it all seems to be getting worse now. Wouldn’t you say so?’

‘It certainly isn’t getting any better,’ I say, in a small voice.

‘I was wondering—have there been any changes in your circumstances? You know, anyone new on the scene?’

I think of Matt with a tug of regret.

‘Nothing like that,’ I tell her. ‘We have quite an uneventful life.’

She picks up her cup, takes a pensive sip.

‘And this house she draws over and over. The house with the blue border, and the doors and windows always just the same… We do encourage her to draw other things. Beth tried to get her to draw some people—you know, just very gently. “Can you draw a little girl for me?” But she wouldn’t. She’s a good little artist, I’ll grant her that, but I worry that there’s something rather obsessive about it…’

I remember girls at school who’d mastered horses or brides, who always did the same doodle in the margins of their books.

‘I think she was just so pleased she’d learned to draw houses,’ I say.

She ignores this. She leans towards me across the desk, her fingertips steepled together.

‘Ms Reynolds.’ Her voice is low, intimate. ‘I hope you don’t mind me raising this, but you’re quite sure that this isn’t a place where something happened to her?’

There are patches of burgundy in her cheeks. I hate this. I know she’s asking if Sylvie might have been abused.

‘I’m absolutely sure,’ I tell her.

‘You see, it can be a way that children cope with trauma—this kind of obsession. Reliving the trauma over and over, trying to make sense of it. Beth did try to find out—she asked her who lived in the house. But Sylvie wouldn’t say.’

‘Maybe she doesn’t think about who lives there.’

‘Well, maybe not,’ says Mrs Pace-Barden, not persuaded. ‘Let’s hope I’m wrong. I can see that this is all rather painful for you. But for Sylvie’s sake these things have got to be addressed.’

‘If there was anything, I would know,’ I tell her. ‘She’s always with me, or here at nursery, or playing with Lennie, her friend. There’s nothing I don’t know about.’

‘As parents, we like to think that,’ she says. ‘We think we know all there is to know about our children. I understand that—I’ve got children of my own. But sometimes we can delude ourselves. Sometimes we don’t know everything…’

She takes the coffee pot, refills my cup although it’s still half full. It’s a moment of punctuation. I feel a flicker of hopefulness: that she will come up with some help for Sylvie, some kind of programme or plan.

I see her throat move as she swallows. She isn’t quite looking at me.

‘I hope you don’t mind me raising these things. But we need to get this sorted. Because, to be frank, Ms Reynolds—unless the situation improves, I’m really not sure that we can keep your daughter here.’

I put my cup down. Slowly, concentrating hard, so the coffee won’t slop in the saucer. Suddenly everything has to be done with such elaborate care.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I can see this is a shock for you. But the truth is we just don’t have the resources to cope with a child with problems on this scale. She’s a one-to-one a lot of the time and that’s not what we’re about here—not with the three-and four-year-olds. It’s intended to be a pre-school class—they’re learning independence. We really can’t cater for children as needy as Sylvie seems to be…’

I fix my gaze on the garden through her window. Everything seems to recede from me—the fretted shadows across the bright grass, the wet black branches of trees—and the children’s voices sound hollow, remote, like voices heard over water.

‘But surely there must be someone who could help us?’ I hear how shrill my voice is.

‘Well,’ she says slowly, ‘there is a child psychiatrist I know. We’ve used him before, with children here. Dr Strickland. He works at the Arbours Clinic. It’s possible he could take Sylvie on for some play therapy.’

‘All right. We’ll see him,’ I say.

‘Good,’ she says. Her smile is switched back on again, her hockey-mistress buoyancy restored. ‘I think that’s an excellent decision. I’ll write to him, then,’ she tells me.

Outside, there’s the drip and seep of the thaw, and the sky is blue and luminous. I walk rapidly along the road, through the moist, chill air and the dazzling yellow sunlight. I feel fragile—cardboard-cutout thin, my vision blurred with tears.

CHAPTER 8

I hunt around in my kitchen. I’m out of chicken nuggets, which are Sylvie’s favourite dinner, but there’s cheese, and plenty of vegetables. Tonight I will make something different and healthy, a vegetarian crumble. I fry tomatoes and onions, stir in chickpeas, make a crunchy topping of breadcrumbs and grated cheese.

Sylvie is in the living room, playing with her Noah’s Ark. She has lots of plastic animals, and she’s putting them in long straight lines, so they radiate out from the ark like the beams from a picture-book sun. She sings a whispery, shapeless song. She’s wearing her favourite dungarees that have a pattern of daisies. When she bends low over her animals, her silk hair swings over her face.

While the crumble cooks, I clean and tidy everywhere, so the flat is gleaming and orderly. There’s a rich smell from the oven, a luxurious scent of tomatoes and herbs, like a Mediterranean bistro. My jaw still aches, with a blunt, heavy pain: perhaps this is something more serious than neuralgia. I work out the date of my last dental check-up. Four years ago, when I was pregnant, when you get treated free.

I bring the crumble to the table, serve up Sylvie’s portion.

‘We’re having something a little bit different today,’ I tell her.

I start to eat. I’m pleased. It tastes good.

Sylvie moves a chickpea around on her plate with her fork.

‘I don’t like it,’ she says.

‘Just try it, please, sweetheart. It’s all there is to eat today. We’re out of chicken nuggets.’

‘I don’t want it,’ she says. ‘It’s yucky. It tastes of turnips.’

‘You don’t know that. You can’t know what it tastes of. You haven’t even tried it. Anyway, when have you had turnips to eat exactly?’

‘I do know, Grace.’ She pokes a chickpea with her fork and raises it to her face and smells it with a noisy, melodramatic sniff. ‘Turnips,’ she says.

I hear Karen’s voice in my head, brisk and assured and sensible, knowing just what she’d say. You can’t let her have her own way, just because she doesn’t like vegetables. Children need boundaries, Grace. You can’t always let her get away with everything. She’ll run rings around you…

‘Sylvie, look, I want you to eat it. Just some of it, just a bit. If you don’t at least try it, there won’t be any pudding.’

She puts her fork on the table, precisely aligned with her plate, with a sharp little sound like the breaking of a bone.

‘I don’t want it.’ Her face is hard, set.

‘Sylvie, just eat it, OK?’

My chest tightens. I feel something edging nearer, feel its cool breath on my skin. But I try to tell myself this is just an everyday argument—a child refusing to eat, a parent getting annoyed. I tell myself this is nothing.

Her eyes are on me. Her gaze is narrow, constricted, the pinpricks of her pupils like the tiniest black beads. She looks at me as though she doesn’t recognise me, or doesn’t like what she sees.

‘I don’t like it here,’ she tells me. Her voice is small and clear. ‘I don’t like it here with you, Grace.’

The look in her eyes chills me.

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say.

‘I don’t like it here,’ she says again.

I stare at her, sitting there at our table in her daisy dungarees, with her wispy pale hair, her heart-shaped face, this coldness in her gaze.

Rage grabs me by the throat. I want to shake her, to slap her, anything to make that cold look go away.

She pushes the plate to the other side of the table, moving it carefully, not in a rush of anger, but very controlled and deliberate. She turns her back to me.

‘Stop it. Just stop it.’ I’m shouting at her. I can’t help myself. My voice is too loud for the room, loud enough to shatter something. ‘Jesus, Sylvie. I’ve had enough. Just stop it, for God’s sake, will you?’

She sits quite still at the table, with her back to me. She presses her hands to her ears.

If I stay, I’ll hit her.

I go to the bathroom, slam and lock the door. I sit on the edge of the bath, rigid, my fists clenched, my nails driving into my palms. I can feel the pounding of every pulse in my body. I sit there for a long time, making myself take great big breaths, sucking the air deep into my lungs like somebody pulled from the sea. Gradually, my heart slows and the anger seeps away.

I’m aware of the pain again. It’s worse now, drilling into my jaw. I find two Nurofen at the back of the bathroom cabinet. But my throat is tight, they’re hard to swallow, I’ve sucked off all the coating before I get them down. They leave a bitter taste.

In the living room, Sylvie is on the floor again, busy with her Noah’s Ark, humming softly to herself, as though none of this had happened.

‘I’ll make you some toast,’ I tell her.

She doesn’t look up.

‘With Marmite?’ she says.

‘Of course. If that’s what you’d like.’

I make her the toast, put milk in her cup. I eat a few mouthfuls of crumble, though my appetite has gone. I clear the table.

‘Shall we watch television?’

She nods. We sit together on the sofa, and she curls in close to me, taking neat bites of her toast. If she drops a crumb she licks her finger and dabs at the crumb and sucks it from her fingertip. It’s a wildlife programme, about otters in a stream in the Scottish Highlands. She loves the otters, laughs at their quick, lithe bodies, the way they slide across the rocks as sleek and easy as water. As we sit there close together, it feels happy again between us, the bad scene just a memory, faint as the slight bitter taste in my mouth.

‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry I shouted at you,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t feel well. My tooth hurts.’

She’s nestled in the crook of my arm. She looks up at me.

‘Which one, Grace?’ she says.

‘It’s here.’ I point to the sore place. ‘I’ll have to go to the dentist—he’ll probably take it out.’

She reaches across and rests her hand against the side of my face.

‘There,’ she says.

The tenderness in the gesture melts me. I hug her to me, bury my face in her hair, in her smell of lemons and warm wool. She lets herself be held.

CHAPTER 9

The receptionist greets me: she’s married to one of the dentists who work here. She has a faded prettiness and bleached, dishevelled hair.

‘Toothache?’ she says.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Oh, dear.’ She shakes her head, a little disapproving. ‘You shouldn’t have left it so long.’

The waiting room has a fish tank and comfortable chairs. I sit and watch the fish. They have a transparent, unnatural look, like embryos, and their slow, threaded dance is hypnotic. There’s the faintest antiseptic smell, like that green astringent liquid the dentist gives you to rinse with. It’s very warm, and quiet with double glazing at the windows, so all you hear is the softest hum of traffic from the street. It’s pleasant sitting doing nothing, the warmth easing into my limbs.

There are papers and magazines on the table beside me. I look casually through the magazines, hoping for something glamorous, for opulent taffeta frocks and fetishy shoes; but they’re all just property journals.

A woman comes in and speaks to the receptionist. She’s dressed discreetly, in business black with sensible court shoes, but I can’t help staring at her: her face is a mess, the skin around one eye all bruised and broken. Someone must have attacked her; perhaps she lives with a violent man. She sits beside the fish tank, very straight and still, as though moving too much could hurt her.

The dentist’s wife puts down her pen.

‘So how’s your little one doing, Ms Reynolds?’

She knows Sylvie well: I may put off my own visits, but I never miss Sylvie’s check-ups.

‘Sylvie’s fine,’ I tell her.

‘She’s how old now?’

‘She’s three.’

‘They’re so lovely at three.’ Briefly, her face softens. She has a hazy, nostalgic look. ‘They grow up so quickly,’ she says.

‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘My two are at university now. It seems to happen so suddenly. But I’ll tell you one thing—you never ever stop worrying. Whatever you do, you always feel you might have got it wrong.’

‘Yes. I can imagine that.’

Her husband calls her in to help with the patient before me: she doubles as his dental nurse.

I glance across at the woman with the bruising. I wonder about her life, and the little steps, each seeming perhaps so innocuous, that have brought her to what looks like a very bad place. How easily this can happen—sleepwalking into trouble. Maybe she senses my gaze on her; she glances up, catches my eye. I feel myself flush and turn back to the magazines, pulling out a local paper, the Twickenham Times.

I keep my eyes down, looking at the paper, pretending to be interested. There are pictures of school prize-givings. I read my horoscope. There’s a recipe for grapefruit and poppyseed cake, which sounds delicious and which I attempt to memorise. I wonder if poppyseeds are expensive, and whether they stock them at Somerfield.

Something catches my eye then, a double-page spread in the centre of the paper. ‘The Real Ghost-Busters: Cynthia Johnson Reports.’ Intrigued, I start to read. It’s all written in that bland, gossipy style you find in small local newspapers.

Things that go bump in the night are all in a day’s work for Dr Adam Winters, of the Psychic Institute at Hampton University. Adam talked to me in the disappointingly prosaic setting of his office in the Department of Psychology. A soft-spoken man, whose gentle voice belies his evident energy and fascination with his subject, he has investigated ghosts, poltergeists and cases of telepathy. Sounds like an exciting job? ‘Mostly it’s quite routine,’ says Adam. ‘For instance, if someone claims to have telepathic powers, we might set up an experiment where they have to make predictions, and we analyse the results to see if their guesses are better than chance. Basically we’re applying scientific methods of inquiry to the things that happen to people that they can’t explain…’

There’s a photo of Adam Winters with the article. It’s a grainy photo; you can’t really see him clearly. He’s lean and dark, and his chin is shadowed with stubble, and he has a startled air, as if someone has just called his name. I contemplate the photo for a moment. I decide he’s the kind of man who’d corner you at a party and stand too close and talk at length about some obsession of his: someone who’d undoubtedly think that I was rather frivolous. Then I smile at myself, for conjuring up this entire persona for him.

I can hear the edgy, mosquito whine of a drill from one of the surgeries. I don’t want to think about it. I focus on the article, which has lots of stories of local ghosts. There’s a gallery at Hampton Court that’s haunted by the ghost of Kathryn Howard, whom Henry VIII beheaded: dogs won’t go over the threshold. Adam Winters and his colleagues visit the sites of the hauntings, and measure fluctuations in electromagnetic fields.

I ask him if he believes in ghosts, but he’s guarded and non-committal. He tells me, ‘A scientist should never say that anything is impossible…’

I look up as the woman in the black business suit is called in. I notice how stiffly she moves, her body fragile as eggshell. Then the door bangs shut behind her, and I’m alone in the room.

I turn back to the paper. I skim through the rest of the article, and am about to turn the page when the last few lines spring out at me as though they are illuminated.

But Adam doesn’t confine his researches to ghostly apparitions. One of the cases he’s currently investigating is that of four-year-old Kevin Smith (not his real name). Kevin wakes sobbing every night and says he wants to go home, and sometimes he talks about a place where he says he used to live. His mother wonders if Kevin is remembering a previous life…

The room tilts. I can feel my heart, its rapid, jittery beat.

I put it to Adam that many children live in a fantasy world. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘And that’s why we have to look at these cases very carefully. In fact, accounts of children apparently remembering past lives are actually quite common, though most of them come from cultures which have a belief in reincarnation, like the Druse of Lebanon.’ And he tells me there are psychiatrists who claim to use past life regression to heal physical symptoms and phobias…

I ask him what he thinks of all this. ‘I’ve never investigated a past life case that I found completely convincing,’ he tells me. ‘But there’s a US psychiatrist, Dr Ian Stevenson, who devoted his life to exploring this phenomenon—and some of his cases are really very persuasive.’

I jump as my dentist’s door swings back. An elderly man in a drab grey coat comes out; he’s touching his face with his fingers, as though to check that it’s still there. The dentist’s wife takes his credit card. I read hungrily on, my heart juddering.

So what does Adam make of Kevin? He’s diplomatic: he gives me a guarded smile. ‘As a scientist, I never say never,’ he tells me.

Have you had an experience that you can’t explain? Adam Winters would love to hear from you. You can contact him at this e-mail address…

I grab my bag and scrabble around for a pen.

‘Ms Reynolds, could you come in now?’

The dentist is standing at the door of his surgery. I fold up the paper and tuck it under the magazines.

I get in the chair, and the dentist pokes around in my mouth. He’s a bony, lugubrious, kindly man. He allows himself a melodramatic sigh.

‘And when did you last come to see me?’ he says.

‘I can’t remember exactly. I’m afraid it’s quite a while.’

He shakes his head, as though wearily resigned to human weakness.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he says mournfully. ‘But in the end we’ll probably have to extract it.’

He drills my tooth, puts in a filling, prescribes some antibiotics.

‘To be honest, I really don’t know if this is going to work,’ he says. ‘You should make an appointment for eight weeks’ time. But any trouble, you come back sooner, OK? Any twinges.’

I promise that I will.

I go back into the waiting room. The dentist’s wife follows. If she weren’t here, I might steal the Twickenham Times. The work will cost a lot: I arrange to pay in instalments. She fixes my next appointment.

Outside, I’m amazed that everything is just the same as it always was: the lumbering buses, the crowd of pedestrians jostling at the traffic lights—all solid, vivid, predictable, just as they were before.

CHAPTER 10

It’s a cold, dreary December: dark days, with a raw, searching wind that often has flakes of snow in it, and sometimes a rain that looks like water but feels like ice on your skin. In our garden, the mulberry branches are bare, and the lawn is muddy and sodden, and leaves from the trees in the Somerfield car park drift up against the wall, their extravagant russets and yellows darkened and dulled by the wet. It’s a struggle to keep the flat warm, with the ceilings so high and the heating so elderly and erratic; the wind sneaks in through every little crack. At night I pile my coats on top of Sylvie’s duvet.

At the flower shop, we’re stocking up for Christmas, with poinsettias, and amaryllis bulbs, and mistletoe that I love for the remote, pearly glow of its berries, like something seen through clear water. And Lavinia buys in willow wands and patchwork scraps of fabric, and when the shop is quiet we sit in the room at the back and make up Christmas garlands—some of them very simple, woven from twisted twigs, and more formal, traditional ones with ribbon and berries and greenery; and sometimes I like to use colours and fabrics that nobody else would think of—bows of brown paper, or shimmery Indian ribbon. When I get home, my hands still smell of juniper.

A letter comes, with the Arbours Clinic slogan on the envelope: Helping Families Help Themselves, and a rainbow drawn by a child. I feel a rush of hopefulness. Now someone will come to our rescue, someone will understand. I rip the envelope open. We have an appointment with Dr Strickland at the start of January. I’m pleased—it doesn’t seem too long to wait. I worry that Sylvie’s trainers are scruffy—I don’t want them to think that I am a neglectful parent—and I take her to buy some new shoes for the appointment—pink suede boots with laces that I can’t really afford.

I yearn for Dominic. I ring the house in Newgate Road, hoping to hear him on the voicemail, so hungry for something of him, just for a moment to have his voice vibrating inside me. I choose a time when Claudia should be meeting their children from school, but to my horror it’s Claudia who answers. I put the phone down rapidly, ashamed.

And all the time I wonder about the article I read. Sometimes—most of the time—I tell myself it was nonsense, a deluded, New-Agey fantasy. I remind myself that people need something to cling to—anything to protect ourselves from knowing, really knowing, that we are mortal beings. Sometimes the mind won’t let that knowledge in.

I remember the night my mother died. I’d spent several hours that afternoon at her bedside in the hospital; she’d been doing so well with all her rehabilitation, she was starting to walk again, two months after her stroke. She’d been sitting up in bed, alert and vivid, wearing the bright new bedjacket I’d brought her, and with some lipstick on; and talking about what she’d do when they discharged her—the pelargoniums she was longing to plant. She was worried she’d missed the start of the growing season. The ward sister rang at eleven that night to say she’d died. I just said, ‘No, she hasn’t.’ My voice quite calm and unconcerned. ‘Really. Don’t worry, she’s fine, I was with her this afternoon…’ I simply didn’t believe it. When the nurse persisted, I thought it was a practical joke. I actually said that. ‘This is a joke, isn’t it? You’re having me on…’ She wasn’t thrown. It can’t have been the first time this had happened to her. She kept on talking, her manner gently insistent. ‘Miss Reynolds, I’m really sorry, but you need to listen to me. I’m ringing from Stanton Ward. Your mother had another stroke. This time it was a massive one. It was very sudden. She wouldn’t have felt any pain…’ But I couldn’t take it in. Just couldn’t. As if there were a door in my mind, shut fast—that couldn’t be prised open, wouldn’t let this knowledge through. And mostly I think that’s what all these beliefs are, really: doors in the mind, keeping the dark out.

Yet sometimes I find myself thinking: Perhaps it’s true—perhaps the soul goes on. Perhaps some of us have a memory trace—some imprint of a previous life—or a psychic link with the past… And always, just wondering that—just touching on it so lightly, even for a second or two—there’s a sense of something shifting—the present, certain, obvious world dissolving all around me, as everything I thought I knew begins to fall away.

Sometimes I wonder about Adam Winters, and kick myself that I didn’t manage to note down his e-mail address. At least I’d have a choice then. But I can’t imagine how it would be if I met him, or what on earth he’d make of Sylvie and me. I simply can’t envisage it. I think of him in his university department—his glamorous career, his adulatory students—and me in my flat in Highfields, cooking chicken nuggets, reading old copies of Heat. And what might it do to Sylvie—to give so much weight and attention to all the strange things that she says? Everything might get worse then. There are lots of good reasons to forget all about him. I tell myself it’s as well that I don’t know how to reach him: at least it stops me from doing anything rash.

‘Lavinia,’ I say one morning. We’re working at the back of the shop. It’s a bitter day, with a light sleet thrown on the wind. ‘Lavinia—there was this thing I read. About the paranormal—ghosts and so on. This guy who researches into it. D’you believe in all that?’

She’s wearing a fisherman’s sweater: long cuffs of heavy oiled wool hang over her hands. She pushes her sleeves up, folding them over and over; her gestures are so graceful. She has many silver rings, and a cinnamon staining of nicotine on the insides of her fingers.

Her thoughtful grey eyes rest on me. There’s a question in them.

‘It depends which bit you mean,’ she says then. ‘I do believe in the spirit world—that there’s a spiritual dimension.’ She gives a little self-deprecating shrug. ‘For God’s sake, Gracie, you know me.’

I smile, and think of the house where she lives—the Tarot cards, the crystals in her windows, and in her hall a low black table with beeswax candles on; and when she throws one of her parties, she sticks a notice to it: ‘Buddhist altar: please do not put your glasses here.’

‘Sometimes…’ she says slowly. ‘Sometimes I think—What if we just don’t get it? What if our dying isn’t at all as we’ve always believed it to be?’

She comes across to me, rests her hand for a moment on my shoulder. I’m making tree decorations—diminutive pipe-cleaner angels, with frocks of blackberry silk.

‘Hey—those are yummy. You clever girl…’ She turns from me, spoons coffee into our cups, pours water from the kettle. ‘Why are you asking anyway?’

‘It’s just this thing I read.’

She waits for a while, but I don’t say anything more.

‘Mind you,’ she says then, ‘you have to be a bit careful. People are gullible. It’s easy to start believing all kinds of crazy stuff…’

Out of the window, the sleet is starting to thicken; big feathery flakes of snow sift gently down. I can tell she’s musing on something. I wait for her.

She stirs sugar into her coffee. As her hand moves around her intricate rings give off glints and sparkles of light.

‘When I was a physio student,’ she says, ‘I had a skeleton to study. I kept it under my bed. And I had no end of bad luck—my boyfriend had dumped me and everything seemed to go wrong.’

The warmth of the coffee spreads through me. I drink gratefully. Outside, snow stitches its pattern.

‘And Teresa, my friend—she’s Irish and superstitious as hell, and she said it was the skeleton that was making all this happen. And she marched me off to Brompton Oratory to get the skeleton blessed. We took it in a Top Shop bag.’ She shakes her head slowly. ‘I mean, can you imagine? And we met this priest, he was absolutely ancient, he had this kind of pleased air. I guess he couldn’t believe his luck. Two girls in very short skirts with a carrier bag full of bones…’

She’s staring out of the window, where the snowflakes turn and turn as they fall, and fur the sills with white. Her expression is gentle with nostalgia.

But I’m impatient.

‘And what did he say? Did he give it a blessing? Did better things start happening?’

There are cut-off fronds of juniper on the table; she trails her finger through them, so they release their aromatic resins. Her bracelets make a faint metallic sound.

‘He stood there looking at us,’ she says. ‘He had these very blue eyes—startlingly blue, like a child’s eyes. And he said—I’ve never forgotten—“It’s not the dead we should be afraid of, but the living…”’ Her appalling Irish accent makes me smile. ‘“My daughters, always remember: it’s the living we should fear.”’

CHAPTER 11

The Arbours was once a private house. It’s a solid, whitewashed building, imposing amid its cedar trees and lawns.

The receptionist has nail extensions—navy blue, with stick-on gems. We sit in the waiting room, which smells of damp and beeswax. Thank-you cards from children have been pinned up on the walls, and there’s a heap of ancient children’s books. I read Frog and Toad to Sylvie, self-conscious about my mothering, wondering if we’re already being analysed, if the receptionist with the long jewelled nails is marking my parenting out of ten.

Dr Strickland comes to greet us. He’s a scented, immaculate man, white-haired, with a neat goatee beard. He shakes my hand; his skin is cool and smooth, like fabric.

‘I ask everyone who comes here to spend some time in the playroom,’ he tells us. ‘It helps me to understand you. I’ll be watching you through a one-way screen, but you’ll soon forget I’m there. So just enjoy yourselves.’

The playroom is all in primary colours, with lots of inviting toys—a cooker, bricks and Lego, a heap of dressing-up. Sylvie goes straight to the cooker and makes me a Play-Doh meal, which she cooks in the red plastic saucepans. I watch her as she plays—her decorous gestures, her silky colourless hair. She’s so poised, so self-possessed today. It’s the only time I’ve ever wished that she would be really difficult.

We’re joined by a woman with parrot earrings and a wide white smile. She says she is Katy the play therapist, and she will play with Sylvie, while I talk to Dr Strickland. She directs me to his office, which looks out over the lawns. It’s a blowy day, wind wrenches at the branches of the cedars, but his room is hushed and silent. He gestures me to a chair. To the side of us there’s one-way glass looking into the playroom.

‘Right, Ms Reynolds.’ He picks up a fat silver pen, pulls a notepad towards him. His cologne is too sweet for a man. ‘So when did you first begin to believe that Sylvie has problems?’ he says.

I don’t like the way he says ‘believe’. But I talk about her tantrums and her waking in the night, and he writes it all down with the fat silver pen.

‘And she has a phobia of water,’ I tell him. ‘Especially water touching her face.’

‘Yes, Mrs Pace-Barden told me. Was there any traumatic event that might have triggered her fear?’

‘No, there was nothing,’ I say. ‘I’ve thought about that a lot.’

‘So when did you first begin to notice the problem?’ he says.

‘She always hated bath time right from a tiny baby,’ I tell him. ‘We manage. I put in two inches of water, and she just does a quick in and out with absolutely no splashing. When I wash her hair I use one of those face shield things from Mothercare…’

‘You need to help her play with water in a relaxed situation,’ he says. ‘Help her learn to feel safe with water.’

‘Yes. I’ve tried that,’ I tell him.

I think of all the things I’ve tried to make her less afraid—playing at hair salons with her Barbies, buying a special watering can for watering the flowers. I think of her shuttered face when I’ve suggested these things. No, Grace. I don’t want to.

He frowns at the notes in front of him.

‘Now, the other things—the screaming and the waking in the night. Do they go back a long way too?’

‘Yes. But they seem to be getting worse. It’s almost every night now.’

‘Is there anything else that concerns you?’

‘Mrs Pace-Barden was worried because she always draws the same picture,’ I tell him.

‘What’s in this picture?’ he asks me.

‘It’s just a house,’ I tell him.

I think he will ask, like Mrs Pace-Barden—Did something happen to her there? But instead he smiles a brief ironic smile.

‘I have the greatest respect for Mrs Pace-Barden,’ he tells me, ‘but if we took on every child who repeatedly draws a house, the NHS would be in an even more perilous state than it is… Now, let’s go back a bit,’ he says.

He asks about Sylvie’s birth, how well she fed, her developmental milestones. This all seems quite straightforward.

Then he leans a little towards me.

‘Now, I think you’re in the unfortunate position of being a single parent?’ he says.

I nod. It’s the part of the consultation I’ve been dreading.

‘So what about her father? Does she see him?’ he says.

‘No,’ I say. Afraid he will think that this is an explanation for everything.

‘When relationships break down, it’s natural to feel a certain amount of anger.’ He has a sibilant, unctuous voice. ‘Absolutely natural. And I’m wondering if you felt that?’

I tell him yes: I’ve planned what I will say.

‘I’d have liked him to be there for her—to be a father to her.’

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘That’s absolutely normal. And Sylvie herself, of course, will yearn for a father figure, and for those things you can’t provide, that only a father can give…’

I hate him putting it like that. I don’t say anything.

‘Now, when you look at Sylvie,’ he says, ‘do you perhaps sometimes see her father in her?’

I shake my head.

‘I can see they’re alike, of course, but Sylvie’s very much herself,’ I say.

‘All right. Thank you, Ms Reynolds.’

He moves his notepad between his palms, aligning it precisely with the edge of his desk.

‘Now, I’ll take you through the possible diagnoses,’ he says.

I feel a quick warm surge of hope. I tell myself that he is the expert, this scented, immaculate man, and that now he is going to help us—to diagnose Sylvie and heal her.

‘As you know, I’ve been watching Sylvie play, and it’s really been very instructive. Given the history, one possible diagnosis would be Autistic Spectrum Disorder. And Sylvie does have some rigidity of behaviour and thought. But, against that, she has good eye contact and good communicative intent, which autistic children never have, and her fantasy play is excellent. Autistic children don’t play like Sylvie, they can’t create these rich symbolic worlds. Post-traumatic stress disorder would also be a possibility—but there’s no evidence in what you told me of any traumatic event. Though obviously something may have happened that you’re not aware of. Sometimes we don’t know our children quite as well as we think we do.’

‘I’m sure nothing happened,’ I say.

He ignores this.

‘Now, I’ve also been looking for signs of ADHD—but Sylvie’s attentional skills are really very good. She has absolutely no difficulty concentrating. Rather the reverse, in fact. I’d say her ability to focus is perhaps a little exceptional.’

Perhaps I should be pleased he sees these good qualities in her. But I feel my heart sink. I glance into the playroom, where she’s showing Katy her new pink boots and smiling. She’s being a perfect little girl—in that way she sometimes has, that seems too perfect, as though she’s acting the part. I’m willing her to get upset, so that he will see.

‘So my diagnosis would be a phobic disorder, possibly caused by a constitutional vulnerability in Sylvie, and triggered by some unknown environmental event. And though she quite clearly doesn’t fulfil the diagnostic criteria for Autistic Spectrum Disorder, she does have a mild impairment of social and interpersonal functioning. Perhaps made worse by the fact that there are certain issues around your parenting of her.’

I wonder what he is going to say about me. I feel a dull, heavy ache in my chest.

He leans towards me, his fingertips pressed together in mock prayer.

‘There was something that concerned me, when I saw the two of you play.’ His voice is intimate, confiding. ‘I noticed that she doesn’t call you Mum or Mummy. And I wondered why you’d objected to that?’

‘It was Sylvie’s decision,’ I tell him.

A picture slides into my mind. Sylvie is two, and we’re in the garden by the mulberry tree. I kneel in front of her, cradling her face in my hands. Sweetheart, I want you to call me Mum. That’s what children do, that’s what Lennie calls her mother… She turns away from me, her silk hair shading her face. No, Grace.

‘She’s never called me Mum,’ I say.

Doubt flickers over his face. I know he doesn’t believe this.

‘You see, what concerns me here is your rather weak boundary-setting. That there isn’t a clear enough boundary between yourself and your child. That’s so important for successful parenting. Sylvie needs to know you’re the adult, that you’re the one in charge. It’s not so healthy for children to feel their parent is their best friend.’

‘I don’t think she sees me like that,’ I say.

But I know he isn’t listening: I know he’s sure he has found the key to decoding our relationship.

‘Over-involvement can be a danger for single mothers,’ he says. ‘Perhaps especially with a daughter, and when you have only one child. Sometimes the mother will see the child almost as part of herself, and that’s terribly unhealthy for the child. You need to maintain that boundary. It’s crucial for Sylvie’s mental health. I’d really like to see her calling you Mum.’

I don’t say anything.

His glance flicks down to his wristwatch. I know the consultation is coming to an end. Despair drags at me. If he can’t help me, who will?

‘Now, unless there’s anything else you need to ask…’ he says.

In the playroom, Sylvie is trying on dressing-up hats and laughing. I feel a stupid anger with her, for behaving so perfectly. I’m willing her to scream, to do something unnerving or strange; but she pulls on a hat with a feather and grins at her reflection in the mirror. Two minutes and it’ll be over, and my chance to get help will be gone.

I clear my throat, but I’m not looking at him.

‘I read something in a newspaper—about children with problems like Sylvie’s…’ My mouth feels thick and dry. I hadn’t planned to say this, but I don’t know what else I can do. ‘It said that some psychiatrists will do regression to try and help the child—you know, hypnotise them… Take them back…’ My voice fades.

His face tenses, sharpens a little. I feel it’s the first time I’ve really got his attention. I don’t know if this is a good thing.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ he says, ‘but I think you must be referring to the past-life lobby.’

‘Well. Kind of.’

My voice is thin and high.

He screws up his mouth, as though he has a bitter taste.

‘I’m afraid it’s true, there are such people,’ he says. ‘Sadly even the medical profession does have its lunatic fringe.’

‘I thought I’d just mention it…’

I look out into the gardens, at the lawns, at the great swaying cedars. I would like to be out there, to feel the cool air on my skin.

‘Ms Reynolds.’ He picks up his silver pen, leans forward; he’s brisker suddenly, more formal, an edge of concern in his voice. ‘Do you have a particular interest in these kinds of things, would you say?’

‘Not really. It was just that the little boy in the article sounded so like Sylvie…’

He coughs slightly.

‘What I’m trying to get at, Ms Reynolds—could you tell me, have you ever experienced anything that would incline you to believe in the paranormal?’ His words are measured, careful.

I don’t see why he’s asking this.

‘What kind of thing?’ I ask him.

‘Sometimes people can hear things—voices in their heads that sound like other people. Is that something you’ve ever experienced?’

Shit.

‘No. Nothing like that,’ I tell him.

‘Any hallucinations at all? Seeing things that aren’t there?’

‘No. Never.’

‘And in your family? Mother, father, grandparents—any problems with mental illness or anything like that?’

‘No. My mother wasn’t a very happy person—but no, nothing like that.’

‘And her father’s family? What about them?’

‘I don’t really know,’ I tell him. ‘It wasn’t that kind of relationship. To be honest, I don’t know anything about them…’

My voice fades. I feel a brief hot shame.

He nods, as though this is what he expected.

‘I also have to ask you this—for Sylvie’s sake, you understand. Are you—or have you ever been—a user of illicit substances? Cannabis? Amphetamines?’

I shake my head. Though I did once eat some hash brownies at a party at Lavinia’s—she grows cannabis plants in her window boxes; we had a riotous evening but afterwards I was sick.

‘Right, then.’ He permits himself a little quiet sigh. ‘Look, I really don’t think we need to invoke the paranormal to understand your daughter. The truth is, sometimes it’s easier to embrace some extravagant theory, than to examine our own behaviour,’ he says.

‘I just thought I’d mention it,’ I tell him. I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.

He leans back in his chair again.

‘So there you have it, Ms Reynolds. Sylvie has a phobic disorder and some slight impairment of social functioning, probably exacerbated by rather weak boundary-setting. I can see, of course, that you find her behaviours difficult. But I really don’t feel she falls within our remit.’

I swallow hard.

‘So you can’t help us,’ I say.

He frowns. Perhaps I put it too baldly.

‘I didn’t say that exactly, Ms Reynolds. But sometimes the best way in isn’t via the presenting problem. Sometimes we need to intervene in a different part of the family system. And I do feel that there are issues here about boundaries and over-involvement, and also some unresolved anger about Sylvie’s father and how he treated you. And what I think we should do here is to focus on you, rather than Sylvie. To assist you with boundary-setting, and to help you handle Sylvie’s behaviours,’ he says.

There’s a weight like lead in my stomach.

‘I have an excellent colleague, Dr Jenny Martin,’ he says, ‘who I’m sure would be able to help. She’s really very approachable. If you’re happy with that, then I’ll fax her my notes, and you can ring for an appointment.’

He gives me Dr Martin’s number, and takes me through to find Sylvie. She says goodbye to Katy and slips her hand in mine. She looks up at me with a little pleased smile, perhaps expecting praise for her immaculate behaviour.

We walk slowly out through the grounds of the clinic. The boughs of the cedars creak as they move with a strange high sound like a human voice.

‘It was nice there,’ says Sylvie. ‘I liked the cooker, Grace. The cooker was nice, wasn’t it?’

I feel despair. All that effort—the time off, the planning what to say, Sylvie’s boots I could barely afford—and all for nothing.

‘I knew you’d like the cooker. It’s just the same as the one in Lennie’s bedroom,’ I say.

‘She isn’t Lennie,’ says Sylvie.

I don’t say anything.

CHAPTER 12

One Saturday, when Leo and Josh have gone sailing, we take the girls to the zoo. It’s a beautiful afternoon—pellucid sunlight, razor-sharp shadows, a keen chill out of the sun. We buy ice creams, though really it’s too cold for them. The girls run on ahead of us.

‘Sylvie seems great today,’ says Karen.

‘Yes. I hope so.’

I tell her about Dr Strickland, about being referred for counselling myself: Karen listens intently.

‘Don’t just dismiss it, Grace,’ she tells me, when I’ve finished. ‘Maybe it would be good for you to see someone on your own. You’ve been under such a lot of stress. You never know, it might be useful.’

‘But it isn’t my problem, it’s Sylvie’s.’

‘I know that’s how it must seem. But problems aren’t always all that clear-cut, in families,’ she tells me.

The girls have finished their ices and come to drop their cones in the bin. Sylvie gives me a quick, light hug. I bend to her and she kisses me with sticky scented lips. I bury my face in her hair; the sun has brought out its musk.

‘You smell of the sun,’ I tell her.

‘Really, Grace. How can I smell of the sun?’ she says. ‘Really.’

It’s her sensible voice, showing she knows how the world works. She rushes off, laughing, with Lennie.

We pass the gibbon enclosure, where the fence throws a crisp black patterning over the grass, an immaculate shadowy stencilling. The girls make monkey faces and pretend to hunt for fleas in one another’s clothes. We’re walking straight into the sun, which is sinking already, red as flame and dazzling; it hurts our eyes to look at it. We pass the tigers, two great animals sprawled in a pool of florid light, their bright coats rippling with their lazy, sleepy breath. We come to the llamas and camels.

‘I really love camels,’ says Karen. ‘They’re funny. I love their snooty expressions. You look at all these animals, and you’ve got to think God really had some very odd ideas.’

On impulse, I turn to her.

‘Karen, d’you believe in reincarnation?’

She grins. ‘Coming back as a monkey and all that?’

There’s a red glaze on my vision, the after-image of the sun.

‘Well, yes. Or as another person…’

‘Tell you what,’ she says. ‘I’ve always thought I’d like to come back as a cat. Ideally an indolent pedigree cat with a truly besotted owner. Lots of smoked salmon and lying around by the fire…’ She turns to smile at me; then stares, eyes widening, suddenly appalled. ‘Grace, my God, you’re serious, aren’t you? You mean it.’

‘I read this article,’ I tell her, ‘about kids with problems like Sylvie’s. And someone had this theory that they were remembering a past life.’

There’s a moment of heavy quiet between us. Her lipsticked mouth is a thin, red gash in her face. She shakes her head a little.

‘Grace. This life is the one we’ve got, the only one we’ll get.’ She makes an expansive gesture, her arms opening outward as though to take everything in—the animals and grass and trees, our laughing children, the wide bright arch of the sky. ‘This is it, Grace. This is it, this is all we’ll get, and we just have to make the best of it.’

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