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  ‘Shut up,’ she told him. ‘Just shut up.’

  The Filippino maid who came in once a day had left everything as per Violet’s instructions, except for the Beatrix Potter cot bumper which, for some reason, she always tied on upside down. A protest? Perhaps Peter Rabbit made more sense that way. Violet untied and retied it correctly.

  The baby settled into the cot without too much fuss. Violet checked his position, stuffed a nappy under his back, rewound the tape of Womb Concerto and clicked it on.

  Unspeakable noises filled the room and she backed out.

  How long? An hour? An hour and a half? Two hours? How long before it all started again?

  Goodbye, New York. Goodbye, joggers, muggers, impeccably dressed women walking to work in trainers, designer salads, designer sex, designer divorce. Goodbye, Canal Street, SoHo and the best pasta bar in the world on 5th.

  Goodbye, where I made myself.

  Violet craned out of the plane window to suck in the last traces of land. Below, the gigantic spawn of the city heaved with life and death. Once again, New York girded itself for another night.

  Goodbye, sweet, sweet New York.

  Jamie smiled at his wife across the BA flying cradle into which Edward had been lowered. I understand, said the smile. No, you don’t, thought Violet, because you have got your own way. Then she repented and returned the smile before settling back in her seat. Night flights were hell.

  They flew on into the dawn, and it was so cold in the stratosphere that the rising sun failed to melt the ice crystals on the aircraft’s wings. The light turned from bruise purple to mauve, to lilac and then rose pink. After that, came opal and turquoise and tender pink-grey. Violet caught her breath, for up here the world was beautiful and unstained.

  ‘We’ll look for a house with a reasonable garden,’ murmured Jamie, who was not sleeping either. ‘Near a common or something.’

  ‘Not too far out.’ Violet’s instinct for the city did not desert her. A new thought imposed itself. ‘And near a good school.’

  ‘Near a good school,’ confirmed Jamie.

  ‘With an extra room downstairs so we don’t have baby things cluttering up our room.’

  ‘Anything you wish, Violet.’

  Jamie was happy. After eighteen months of marriage, Violet knew him well enough to gauge a mood. She sneaked a look at him as he peered into the cradle and talked to a wakeful Edward. There were such huge areas in Jamie’s life of which Violet knew nothing, and Lara was one of them. Not that Violet wished to explore the past — she was not a Titanic survivor who went back to look at the iceberg. No, it was better to sail on.

  At that point, Edward decided to be thoroughly traumatized by the unfamilar surroundings, the strange cot and the popping in his ears. An hour later, Violet thrust a still-crying baby into Jamie’s arms.

  ‘‘You take him,’ she whispered, spitting vitriol, and scrambled out of the seat.

  She reached the lavatory and slammed shut the folding door. Inside, she examined her reflection in the mirror: The Woman Who Could Not Keep Her Baby Quiet, the object of every eye on board. She dabbed with a tissue at a stain on her blouse. That was mistake number two, dressing up to fly home with a manic baby. For a second, the humour of the situation struck Violet, which was not usual, and she flashed a grin at herself. Then it disappeared, and did not return.

  When she got back to the seat, she found Jamie holding a peacefully sleeping Edward in his arms. The baby’s features were slack with sleep and his skin had acquired its usual translucence.

  ‘Nothing to it,’ said Jamie, and it was all Violet could do not to whack her handbag down on the complacent head of her husband.

  Her father never changed much. Huge, grey-haired, a little shambling, given to corduroy trousers and green sweaters and to taking off and putting on his bifocal spectacles, Max was a reserved man except when it came to his daughters. When he saw Violet, he stepped forward and swept her into one of his bear-hugs, which came close to inflicting injury.

  ‘Darling,’ he said, with the brand of awkward tenderness that always made Violet’s throat tighten, ‘I had to come.’

  It was a minute or two before Violet worked out what Max was talking about, until her jet-lagged mind took in that it was Friday. Max had taken a day off work because, he told Prue, he could not miss the homecoming, and added as an afterthought that she might need help with the driving.

  Although neither of them had made it to the wedding - so quickly decided on, so romantic - Max had been over to the States to meet Jamie and pronounced that he was a good choice. But he had not met Edward and as soon as he released Violet he turned to examine his grandson, who was almost obscured by his wrappings. Virtually ignoring the other two, father and daughter bent over the pushchair, which also did duty as a pram.

  ‘He’s a fine little chap,’ said Max. ‘Handsome, too.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Violet. ‘But I’m glad you like him.’

  ‘Hallo,’ said Jamie, standing by the heap of hand luggage. ‘You can only be Prue.’

  Prue transferred her attention from the family vignette to Jamie. For a second her eyebrows were pulled together in a frown, as if she was trying to sort out a problem, then her eyes widened a fraction. Violet’s husband reminded her of someone. Who?

  He turned to see to the luggage, and then she realized that Jamie was a younger version of Max. He was very tall and brown-haired, with a similarly shaped face and large but elegant hands. He wore better clothes than Max, and an expensive aftershave, which would never darken the bathroom shelves at Hallet’s Gate. But, like Max, there were humour and curiosity in Violet’s husband’s face and the suggestion of deep feelings that the photographs had ignored. The photographs had, she concluded in that second’s assessment, conveyed only two dimensions and missed the third.

  ‘Hallo, Jamie.’ Prue held out her hand.

  The Basingstoke stretch of the M3 was even uglier than she remembered, Violet announced in the car after surveying, admittedly, some of the worst excesses that had mushroomed during the last four years. If that was possible. Violet tended to have A Subject tucked up her sleeve which she aired at parties and dinners. It was a useful defence. Having reasoned that motorway architecture was a conversation in which she could adopt the politically correct stance, she embarked on a trial run on the way back to Dainton. Max joined in and while they batted the topic back and forth, Violet searched assiduously, and unobtrusively, for signs of age in her stepmother.

  It had taken her years to realize it but Prue’s were the sort of looks that responded to scrutiny. At first sight, the verdict on her was good-looking, attractive, pleasing. On second and third sight, a curve of her eyebrow, the set of her eyelids, the well-shaped breasts, suggestive mouth, thin wrists prodded the onlooker into thinking: There is more.

  Search as she might, Violet could not isolate much on the debit side. An extra pound on the hips and stomach, perhaps. A line under the eye, which Violet hoped she had not seen before, but nothing else. Otherwise Prue’s dark brown hair, swept behind her ears, and clear skin were as she remembered. Nor did the breasts show any sign of sag. Somehow, Violet reflected bitterly, her stepmother always managed not to look her age.

  From early on, Prue had been fair game and Violet had reached the stage where she no longer endeavoured to censor her reflections. Occasionally she wondered if Prue knew how much she disliked her, and, if so, did it hurt? Prue never gave anything much away - that was what made her so infuriating, and such a difficult enemy. To the angry, grieving child, Prue’s soft implacableness had been . . . terrible.

  Motorway architecture having had its airing, Violet moved on to discuss the job that was possibly on offer in the publishing house she most favoured. Underneath the Armani trouser suit, the child that she had been wept at yet another change.

  ‘Can I help?’ Prue stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom at Hallet’s Gate. ‘You must be dead tired.’

  The men had gone off for
a walk to work off the bottle of wine that both, unwisely, had tackled over lunch. Edward was asleep and Violet was unpacking.

  ‘I can’t believe it was yesterday I put this lot in.’

  Prue knew that Violet had not wished to leave New York and felt some sympathy. She picked up a pin-striped skirt and shook it out. ‘Liz Claiborne,’ she read on the label. ‘How chic.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Violet handed Prue a tartan-padded coat-hanger from a stack. ‘Hang it up for me,’ She paused. ‘Please.’

  Prue shoved the wire coat-hangers she had saved from the dry-cleaners to one end of the cupboard and did as she was asked. The wire hangers rattled in their exile as she arranged dresses, suits and skirts on their padded rivals, and inserted them in special wardrobe bags. ‘I never do this,’ she said.

  Violet threw her a look, and Prue declined to interpret it. ‘Do you have any rough clothes?’ she asked. ‘You’ll need them here.’

  ‘Jesus H. Christ, Prue, I’ve only lived here for twenty years.’ Longer than you, Prue, she wanted to add, although that wasn’t true any longer. But I was in the house long, long before you. All those years ago, when Helen, beautiful, drunken Helen, had abandoned her little daughter and sent shock waves through the village equivalent to the death of Grace Archer. Prue had not arrived until three years later, an interloper from London. ‘I know the mud-flats as well as my face. And yes, I have plenty of sweaters and leggings.’ Violet pronounced ‘sweaters’ with an American twang.

  Violet flung her hairbrush on to the dressing-table, and Prue winced for the glass top. ‘I think I’ll get some sleep now.’

  Prue did her bit. She fetched and carried hot-water bottles, a cup of tea, an extra rug and Violet, who did look grey with exhaustion, settled down gratefully.

  She got half an hour’s rest before Edward let everyone in the house know that he, too, had taken up residence. Furthermore, he demonstrated it throughout the small hours of Saturday and Sunday night, but spent the days in exhausted slumber. Thus, it was a frayed group that convened for Monday morning breakfast.

  ‘I thought you said, Mum, that you can sleep through other babies’ cries,’ said Jane, who had been kept back from school for a dental appointment. She spooned up cornflakes in a dazed fashion. ‘I would like to remind you I have a Latin test this afternoon.’

  Violet was washing Edward’s bottle at the sink. She swirled round. ‘Think yourself lucky it isn’t every night - which I have to put up with.’

  Jane’s spoon descended to the bowl and she observed her half-sister without affection. ‘I was giving fair warning as to why I will do badly in the test,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

  Prue broke an egg into the frying-pan for Max’s breakfast. Anyone who caught the 7.33 day in day out deserved padding, even if it was pure cholesterol.

  ‘Would you mind if I use a ring?’ Violet brushed up against Prue.

  Prue tried to make herself as small as possible. ‘Of course not.’

  Violet produced a bag of organic, cold-pressed porridge oats, labelled ‘Del Monico’s New York, Your Organically Sound Delicatessen’ and measured a cupful into a saucepan. ‘Part of the strategy to keep Jamie healthy,’ she said. ‘All those business lunches.’

  Prue assessed the porridge, which certainly had ‘organic’ written all over it, and transferred her attention to achieving, within the limited space available, the perfect fried egg, sunny side up.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Jamie arriving in the kitchen smelling of soap and Vetiver. ‘That bacon and eggs looks good. Can I have some?’

  Violet placed the organically OK, ecologically sound breakfast in front of her husband. ‘No, Jamie,’ she said. ‘I’ve done this for you.’

  Chapter Three

  Expensive, lacy, wispy, Violet’s knickers accosted Prue from the pile of clean laundry in the basket. Prue entertained a vision of the slender torso and entirely cellulite-free thighs to which they belonged, and sighed. Once Violet had been a skinny, burning-eyed little girl, all bones and angles, who proceeded, in the course of only one year, to surprise onlookers by developing beauty.

  I hate you, Prue.

  Beside the fantasies in the basket lay Prue’s own knickers, safe and sensible Marks and Spencer. She bent down and picked up one of Violet’s black numbers. Comfort versus style. The old sofa versus the love seat. Knickers were a clever way of deploying and maintaining an ingrained male fantasy, and Violet would know just how it was done. If pressed, most women would admit that keeping their kidneys covered was a great deal more comfortable than wearing minuscule bits of lace but, like Violet, endured the chill and unsightly lines. As it happened, Prue was misjudging her stepdaughter - something to which well-intentioned Prue was prone. Violet wore her underwear entirely to please herself.

  Prue did not doubt that Jamie loved his wife and, because she herself was loved and therefore understood its language, read the signs, but she wondered if he was smug at the trophy he had captured to put on his mantelpiece. It did not occur to her that the idea might apply the other way round.

  ‘Day-dreaming, Prue?’

  Jamie entered the kitchen with the evening paper under his arm. It was seven o’clock on a Wednesday evening and he had changed into corduroys. Prue’s answering smile was particularly sleepy.

  ‘Thinking about laundry, actually.’ She kicked the basket under the table because the notion of Jamie making the same knicker comparison and arriving at the same conclusion did not please her somehow.

  ‘Can I help with the supper?’

  The request stopped her mid-track. ‘Is that a serious question?’

  ‘Surely.’

  She indicated the potato peeler and Jamie dumped the newspaper, ran cold water into the sink and set to. Taking pleasure as always in the routine, Prue chopped an onion and fried it and watched while the slices softened and turned translucent.

  ‘Did you ever see that play when they fried an onion on the stage? The audience was in agony from hunger.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Jamie replenished the water in the sink, adding, ‘I don’t go to the theatre much.’

  Prue added mince to the frying pan and the slightly rank smell of meat joined the other smells in the kitchen.

  ‘We must be a lot of extra work,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Yes and no. Max always has a cooked meal in the evening.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  Max had phoned to say he would be late, she told him. Although he would never breathe a word of criticism against Violet, Max, Prue suspected, was finding the full house as trying as she was. Extra noise. Night activity. Stuff everywhere. A borrowed pram blocking the hall. Baby clothes overflowing in the laundry basket. A half-emptied suitcase on the landing. Every room had an occupant and the house had shrunk.

  Where are the spaces in my tranquil, drowsy house? she cried silently.

  ‘Still,’ Jamie persisted, ‘it’s extra work for you and we’re grateful.’

  Prue nudged back a lock of hair with her wrist. Provisioning and providing were her business, but it was nice to have it acknowledged. ‘Any luck with a house?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Jamie launched into a description of one they had seen in Wandsworth and for which they had offered, explaining that it was expensive but he could get a cheap mortgage.

  ‘Ah,’ said Prue.

  There had been a report in Max’s Economist which demonstrated that the richest 1 per cent of the population owned 18 per cent of the marketable wealth - a member of which category was helping her to make shepherd’s pie in her kitchen. This was in contrast to the poorest 50 per cent who owned only 6 per cent of the marketable wealth.

  Of course Jamie Beckett would be able to secure a cheap mortgage, he was that sort of person. The sort who knew people and who had a network thrumming discreetly to his wishes.

  The knowledge did not enrage Prue for, she reasoned, it did not mean that Jamie was not lacking in either morality or feeling and, although she worried about the disadvantag
ed and was happy to make cakes and sell raffle tickets for the homeless, the refugees etc., etc., she had never burned with passionate involvement in their fate. How, then, could she cast a stone?

  ‘How are you doing with the potatoes?’

  Jamie pushed a full saucepan towards her. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Could you lay the table? But are you sure?’

  ‘It’s my duty day,’ he said. ‘Or rather night. I share the nights with Violet.’

  Gosh, thought Prue, silenced.

  Jamie’s night duty did not run smoothly. Violet had decided to get Edward completely off the breast within a week and he hated the bottle he was offered at one-thirty a.m., and the bottle he was offered at two-thirty. He cried and cried, emitting the angry, despairing wails of an air-raid siren. The members of the household not involved in the drama cowered beneath their bedclothes, including the baby’s mother who informed his father that Edward had got to learn.

  At three o’clock, Jamie took Edward downstairs and, in desperation, walked him through the hall, around the dining room, up and down the drawing room and round and round the kitchen table. In the dark, he whispered to his son to shut up and, in the dark, he remembered his own childhood nightmares and terrors.

  ‘Please be quiet,’ he begged Edward.

  The baby’s down-dusted skull pulsed angrily under Jamie’s chin, and the little body was rigid. Back Jamie paced through the hall, and a shape emerged on the stairs.

  ‘Is he ill?’ asked Prue in a normal voice. Under the circumstances, it seemed pointless to whisper.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jamie. ‘He won’t take the bottle and I’m not sure if it’s obstinacy or stomach-ache.’ Jamie was beginning to feel exhausted and, not unreasonably, panicked.

  Prue led the way into the kitchen and turned out the light. ‘Shall I have a try?’

  Jamie handed over the baby thankfully. Prue took him and, in an automatic gesture, drew him into her breast. Conscious then of his gaze, she said without looking up, ‘I wanted more after Jane but it didn’t happen.’