Darling Mum. This is the biggest surprise.

Rashly, it crossed my mind that our nagging had paid off and Poppy had done well in her finals.

We are on Koi Sumui. It is the best. I have never been anywhere so lovely. It’s so unspoilt. You would love it. I love the East. So cool, so into different things. But, hold your breath. Richard and I have got married. On the beach, and it was beautiful. It was quite wild and I am so happy. Please tell Dad. I will ring you. I love you. Poppy. PS I got a 2:2.

I picked up my bag and ran out to the car.

‘My dad,’ Poppy was also overheard confiding to her friend Emily at the ninth birthday party, ‘loves me the best.’

On more than one occasion, I explained to Poppy that this was not the case. Both of us loved both her and Sam equally. But Poppy, who was never in the least bit interested in the level playing-field, merely giggled naughtily and held up her arms to be cuddled. Clever, instinctive Poppy knew that the conspiracy to present life as fair and equal was just that.

Outside Minty’s flat, I held my finger on the bell. The door jerked open to reveal Minty, with a half made-up face, wearing a satin teddy underneath a white towelling dressing-gown. ‘What on earth -?’ She frowned. ‘Rose, have you gone mad?’

‘I’d like to speak to Nathan.’

She hesitated. ‘I’ll see if he’s free.’

‘Just get him. On second thoughts.’ I elbowed Minty aside and stepped into a diminutive hall, made even less negotiable by two large suitcases, which I recognized as Nathan’s, propped against the wall. ‘Nathan?’

There was the sound of running water from the bathroom, which stopped, and Nathan emerged, also wearing a snowy white towelling dressing-gown. Its unfamiliarity brought me up short.

‘Rose, what’s the matter?’ He looked alarmed. ‘Is it Ianthe?’

‘No, not life and death but a bit of a shock. Nathan, Poppy has just e-mailed to say she and Richard have got married.’ I paused. ‘She sounded happy.’

‘You’re joking,’ Nathan said quietly.

‘Good grief,’ said Minty.

He led the way into a tiny sitting room, cluttered with newspapers, books and unwashed coffee mugs. An over-large sofa and one chair made it even more cramped. Nathan dropped down on the sofa and put his head in hands. He was shaking. ‘I don’t know what to say except that I’ll kill him.’

I sat down beside him. ‘She’s only a baby, whatever she thinks.’

‘So were you,’ Minty pointed out.

‘But that was different.’ Nathan addressed me, not Minty.

‘No, it isn’t.’ Minty regarded the pair of us sourly. ‘For God’s sake, Poppy’s twenty-two.’

We ignored her. Nathan sought my hand. ‘Did you have any idea? Did we miss something?’

‘How could we possibly have known? Poppy never gave a hint.’

Nathan grasped at a straw. ‘Wait a minute. It might have been one of those potty ceremonies that aren’t legal.’

Minty tied the belt of her dressing-gown tight around her slender waist and looked superior. ‘Nathan, Poppy is an adult, and free to make her own choices. The fact that she did not involve you is sad, but not the end of the world.’ She had succeeded in capturing his attention. ‘Does it occur to you that Poppy went off precisely because she did not wish you to interfere?’

‘I bet that man pushed her into it.’ Nathan shaded his eyes with his hand.

Minty raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Don’t be so Victorian. Poppy wasn’t pushed into it, she made the choice for herself. You can’t start huffing and puffing and indulging in conspiracy theories because you don’t happen to like what’s she’s done.’

In one sense Minty was correct. But in another she was quite wrong and she did not – could not – understand. ‘You don’t have children,’ I told her.

There was silence in the slightly frowsty room.

Nathan and Minty exchanged a look. Minty stacked a couple of the books that littered the low glass coffee-table on top of one another. ‘Having children doesn’t make you Mastermind, Rose. I am closer in age to Poppy’ She slapped another book on to the pile. ‘Having children doesn’t put you into a superior category of the human race. You don’t have a monopoly on experience and judgement. We lesser mortals have one or two things to say that matter too.’

‘Minty,’ Nathan said warningly, ‘I think -’

‘It’s fine, Nathan.’ Minty had reminded me of what I had – those long, interesting, love-filled years that nothing and no one would ever take away.

Minty scuffed the carpet with her foot. ‘Sorry’

Nathan blew his nose. ‘I don’t even know Richard’s surname.’

‘You do. It’s Lockhead,’ I said.

Nathan stood up and went over to the ungenerous window that overlooked the terrace opposite, which had been built in depressing red brick. He seemed far too big for the room’s meagre proportions. ‘What do we do?’

Minty said impatiently, ‘For a start, I’ll finish dressing -and so should you, Nathan. Otherwise we’ll be late.’

The bedroom door banged and Nathan turned to me. ‘Don’t go quite yet.’

When Minty reappeared in a leather skirt and a stretch purple top, beneath which her nipples were outlined, we were still deep in discussion. Nathan was all for flying out to Thailand and dragging Poppy home. He had also been honest enough to say, ‘How could she have done this to us?’

Hand on hip, Minty listened. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this rubbish. Could I point out that Poppy is now a married woman? You’d make yourself look ridiculous by scurrying out there.’

I sneaked a look at Nathan. His reaction had been more subdued than I had envisaged, and that was worrying. He was hurt, bitterly so, at Poppy’s cruelty in leaving us out of such a momentous event.

Minty ploughed on. (She did not know of the filing cabinet in Nathan’s study that contained notional budgets for the wedding he had planned to give Poppy.) ‘Shouldn’t you be relieved that Poppy’s safe, well, happy? She hasn’t developed leprosy or anything.’ She pursed her lips. ‘After all, Nathan, you sprang your surprises, why shouldn’t Poppy? She probably felt she was paying you back.’

This angered Nathan sufficiently to snap him out of his distress. Icily cold, he said, ‘OK. You’ve made your point.’

I jumped up and grabbed my bag. ‘I’m going. If you want to discuss Poppy you know where to find me.’

‘Rose, let’s talk this over tomorrow when I’ll have thought it over.’ Nathan swung his attention back to me. Funnily enough, he was much more in control when he was angry than when he was sad, which, I think, was why he allowed himself to be angry over quite a few things, and, if you did not know him, subtracted from his sweetness at other times. It was a fascinating, wayward combination and I was used to it. Minty was not. She turned on her heel and left the room. The bathroom door banged.

I sat in the car for five or ten minutes, endeavouring to pull my thoughts together. How very like Poppy it would be to pay back Nathan and me in our own coin. Or had she been so shaken by our break-up that she had fled elsewhere for security? Oh, God, without realizing what she was doing.

I inserted the key in the ignition and the door to Minty’s flat opened. Nathan and Minty walked rapidly towards his car, talking hard. Minty was clutching a short magenta jacket over her leather skirt, and she was scowling. In a dark suit and blue silk tie, Nathan looked thunderous. He got into the driver’s seat, slammed the door and did not wait for Minty to get in before he started the engine.

Frantic e-mails went to and from Thailand. ‘Why the fuss?’ wrote Poppy. ‘Why aren’t you happy for me? What’s Dad playing at? We’re going to honeymoon up-country and plan to come back at the end of July. Out of touch till then.’

With that, we had to be content.

Ianthe’s stay in hospital had involved waiting in virtually every department but, as a grand mistress of the art, she coped with her usual grace. When I went to fetch her, she was ensconced in a sitting area at the end of the ward, watching the fish in the tank, which had been chosen for their ability to look dispirited. On the table were piled ancient, dismembered magazines. Nurses squeaked over the linoleum in rubber-soled shoes and a telephone rang incessantly in the background.

‘There you are, Rose.’

I sat down beside her and we discussed how she was feeling. Then I said, ‘Mum, I’d better tell you. We’ve heard from Poppy.’

‘Dear little thing. How is she?’

‘The dear little thing has gone and got married on a Thai beach. To Richard Lockhead.’

‘Oh.’ Ianthe fiddled with the pearl button on her cuff. ‘How disappointing. None of us was there.’ She fiddled some more. ‘Does this mean… she’s pregnant?’

‘Not as far as I know. Anyway, I don’t think Poppy’s generation get married because they’re pregnant.’ I picked up Ianthe’s suitcase. ‘It’s been a bit of a shock,’ I said fiercely, ‘but I’m determined to look on it as exciting. We’ll have to give a party for them when they come home. When has the doctor asked to see you again?’

‘In a couple of weeks when the final tests come through. Let’s not think about that.’

She seemed so determined not to talk about it that I did not question her further. We drove back to Pankhurst Parade through a city that was emptying of traffic for the summer. From time to time, I glanced at her. Her colour seemed good and the lipstick was as bright as ever, and I felt nothing but pride for my brave mother who had taught herself to grapple with loneliness and little money.

Poppy’s news stirred up Ianthe’s memories. ‘When your father proposed he took me up the beck to the trout pool. The daffodils and catkins were out and it was so pretty and peaceful, but all I could think about was that my hair was frizzing in the damp. It was drizzling a bit. I hadn’t had time to change my blouse and I was worried that I smelt… well… sweaty because I’d had to run for the bus.’ She smiled. ‘He looked so sweet and earnest in his tweed jacket and there I was in a state because I didn’t think I looked my best, and I wanted the moment to be perfect.’