‘Don’t you mean “wife and mother”?’

She shook her head, and I saw the suggestion of new flesh settling under her chin. ‘Sort of surplus, don’t you think?’

‘Paige, what’s going on?’ In my book, Paige and Martin were a happy couple. They represented all that was stalwart in the battle to preserve family values. All of a sudden, I experienced a disconcerting flash that I had been looking at the wrong picture.

‘Nothing, sweetie. Nothing at all. Husbands are tiring.’ There was a pause. ‘Hey, did I tell you about Lara? I’ve got her into Partington’s, the ballet school. She’s been aching to go and the list was this long…’ Paige sketched a gesture that fishermen frequently employ when discussing a catch. ‘Anyway, I collared Mary Streatham at the book club. She’s a governor, and we understand each other, and she said she’d see what she could do. No favours, mind. Martin isn’t so pleased with his bit… Apparently a donation to the new studio fund would not go unnoticed – and no favours, mind.’

I snorted. ‘I smell a similarity to Nathan taking paper suppliers to Paris for a long weekend of cultural adventure.’

‘Whatever you say.’ You could have cut Paige’s smugness with a knife.

Back in Paige’s kitchen – complete with a pink Aga and a copper batterie de cuisine - I unpacked and hid various items while Paige instructed me from a chair into which she had lowered herself with a groan. The table had already been laid for supper by Linda, the au pair, with a full complement of china, glasses and napkins. One of Paige’s nostrums, one of the many to which I had helped myself, was that children should be made to eat properly at table with adults.

‘Does Martin get home in time?’ I asked.

Paige sighed. ‘What do you think?

Jackson, a big blond child, bounded into the kitchen. ‘Mum, where have you been?’

Paige jerked out of her torpor, as if an electric switch had been tripped. ‘Darling. How was your day? Say hello to Mrs Lloyd.’

Jackson was full of his news. ‘Guess, Mummy!’ But he couldn’t wait for Paige to run through the options. ‘I came second in the spelling test.’

Even I knew my duty. ‘That’s wonderful, Jackson.’

Paige cupped her son’s chin in her hand. ‘Only second, darling?’ So gentle she sounded, yet so inexorable. ‘What went wrong?’


*

I drove home from Paige’s, parked and let myself into the house. All over the country parents were hurrying home to scoop up their offspring. Parents who, laden with briefcases and last-minute shopping, kicked open the front door and cried, ‘I’m home.’ That species of parent sank gratefully into a welter of warmth and children’s muddle, ambition laid aside in embraces.

According to the list in the kitchen, the twins were at Millie Rowe’s for tea. I checked the post, which included a volume of poems by the feminist poet Ellen Black, whom I had schmoozed at a party. It was entitled Origin of a New Species.

One of Lucas’s red socks lay on the stairs. I picked it up and smoothed it absently. It was very small with the suggestion of a hole in the toe. Soon I would have to think about supper and endless more meals. Then there was the twins’ Christmas party. I had made a list: sausages, pizzas, crisps, jelly in the shape of a cat, pirate hats. I knew that for days afterwards I would be picking up bits of sausage and crisps that had been trodden into the floors and carpets.

The front door opened and the boys did their windmill act – arms outstretched and flailing towards me. ‘Here’s Mummy!’ Lucas’s cry rang with a note of pure joy. His shirt was hanging out of his trousers and encrusted with Bourbon biscuits. Felix had a green paint splodge on one cheek. Laden with their stuff, Eve brought up the rear.

Felix tugged at my hand. ‘You are my real mummy, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am.’

He looked important. ‘Lucas says Eve’s our real mummy.’

‘Lucas!’ I shot a glance at Eve, who shook her head. Lucas seemed shifty. ‘Millie says her nanny’s her real mummy…’

Millie was a recently acquired friend, the only child of divorced parents, and spent her life shuttling between two tight-lipped adults. She had the bewilderment – and malice – of a child at sea. The boys needed reassurance, and I thought rapidly, inventively. ‘Why don’t we invite Millie to tea, and she can see who the real mummy is?’

Nathan arrived home, pale and shivering, and I ordered him to bed. Later I took him a tray of scrambled egg, smoked salmon and cranberry juice. ‘You’ve been overdoing the parties.’ I pummelled his pillows, patted the duvet straight and checked that the bedroom was in apple-pie order.

‘There’s a bad flu going round.’ He placed a finger on his pulse, and squinted up at me with a grin. ‘It’s galloping.’

I grinned back. ‘Probably terminal.’

I sat down at the end of the bed and studied him. True, Nathan was not in the pink, but his hair was thick, in good condition and attractively grey-streaked. Thank goodness, he wasn’t coarse, lumpy or hairy. He hadn’t run to fat either, and the veins in his hands were still decently buried beneath his skin. Thank goodness, too, he was not the sort of man who smelt, a roaring masculine presence whose limbs and noise invaded every space. Instead there was delicacy and proportion about his appearance. ‘Should you have a check-up?’

He ate some egg. ‘I might.’

‘I insist.’

‘Bully,’ he said, without rancour. ‘I’d prefer a holiday in Cornwall. How about it, Minty?’ The old spark flickered in his eyes. ‘It would be fun. The boys would love it. It would do us all good – it’d be like old times.’

Outside, a car door slammed and rain spattered the window, but in the bedroom it was warm and peaceful.

I sidestepped Cornwall. ‘Talking of the boys… About the Nativity play’

‘What about it?’

‘Mrs Jenkins promised that Lucas could be a Wise Man.’ Nathan raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘I’m afraid, she said Felix could be a sheep.’

‘What?’ Nathan pulled himself upright. ‘And you didn’t do anything?’

‘There was nothing I could do.’ I rescued the tray and set it down on the chest-of-drawers. ‘There’s no need for drama, I’m sure that next year Felix will be a Wise Man.’ I cast around wildly. ‘Joseph, even.’

‘Minty, come here.’ I obeyed and he caught my hand in a grip so fierce that I cried out. ‘Don’t you understand anything about your sons? Can’t you remember anything of what it’s like to be a child? Don’t you see how Felix will mind? How that fragile little bit of confidence, which is all he has, will be shot to pieces? God knows, we have to learn about suffering and exclusion and mistakes, but not yet for our two. Not yet – if I have anything to do with it.’

I stared down at the figure in the bed. The warm, peaceful atmosphere had dissipated. ‘You’re hurting me, Nathan.’ He released my hand. ‘Don’t you think Felix should learn that the world isn’t fair?’

‘At five, Minty. Are you totally without mercy?’

‘Almost six,’ I heard myself say.

Felix was the younger by ten minutes. It was nothing and everything. Ten minutes had given Lucas the greater percentage of confidence and attention.

‘So, what do you want to do, Nathan? Tell Lucas he can’t be a Wise Man?’

‘If I ever see that woman, I’ll wring her neck.’

‘Why? She’s only doing her job.’

There was a long silence, and Nathan whistled under his breath. ‘Well, the boys can count on their mother.’

That hurt. ‘I see things differently, Nathan.’ I picked up the tray and prepared to leave the room. ‘While we’re on the subject of loyalty and support, are you coming to see them in the play?’

Nathan rubbed his earlobe, and I glimpsed a bone-deep weariness that frightened me a little. He was only fifty-five. As it happens the fifth is a bad day – big meeting scheduled – but I’ll talk to Roger.’

I had a lightning change of heart. ‘Actually, Nathan, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Don’t mention it to Roger. Trust me. Just don’t!

‘Do you know something?’ he asked sharply.

‘No, just instinct’

‘Hum,’ he said. ‘Your instincts are usually sound.’ He moved restlessly and the once neat bed was a muddle. ‘You think I’m not up to it any more?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But you think it.’

The question went through my mind: how would Rose have handled this? Nathan’s flash of neediness left me cold and unsympathetic – and I knew I was failing to grapple with the uncertainties and strains of his life. Instead I asked, ‘Nathan, do you want some coffee or tea?’

‘Can’t drink coffee in the evening any more.’ He pushed the tray aside. ‘Come back, Minty.’

Something of the old, decisive Nathan made me melt, and I knelt beside the bed, and laid my head on his chest. He stroked my hair. In our story, there had been no time or room for gradual wooing. No leisurely drinks or dinners. No trips to the zoo or meanders in the park. I had sent the message ‘I would like you’ Nathan had received it, turned up at my flat and come straight to the point. ‘I want to sleep with you.’ He was trembling, and I was struck by the gap between the man I observed at his work and the manner of this request. It touched me, and filled me with exhilaration.

Sleeping with Nathan had been the easy part. It was the rest that had been difficult.

‘How do we manage to misunderstand each other?’ he asked.

His fingers moved to my face, stroking my neck and cheek. Between us there was a cessation of darkness and hostility. Instead, there was warmth, communion and peace.

I willed those precious moments to expand, cradle and buoy us up for the hours, days and years ahead.

The Nativity play had come and gone, and by the time Christmas arrived, I had overdosed on lists. There was one for presents, another for food and menus, yet another for events.