My mind clicked into overdrive. One scenario in particular sounded a reveille to the black feelings.

‘Sorry,’ Barry would say, when I rang in to tell him I couldn’t make the meeting on Monday. ‘I’m not sure this arrangement is working.’ I pictured him spreading his hands, the wristbands rippling. ‘We need someone we can rely on, Minty. It doesn’t look like you at the moment.’

The mark of a civilized man – the civilized woman not being included – is to be able to hold contrary propositions in the head at the same time. Nathan… was dead. His children lived.

An idea took shape. Listen, it insisted, as I dismissed it. I spread my hand and studied the fingers. Think about it.

The decibels ascended to a dangerous level and I set about prising the boys apart. Felix rolled over and bit my hand hard. I snatched it back. ‘Don’t do that.’ He stiffened and rolled away. I crouched beside him. ‘Felix, you never, never bite people. Have you listened to Mummy? I’m trying to teach you something important.’

There are many ways in which to tackle survival. ‘We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence,’ Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species.

Once, after we had been married for a little while, in the middle of making frantic love, Nathan halted. ‘I have never desired anyone like I desire you, Minty,’ he confessed, in a thrillingly passionate way. He did not say, ‘I have never loved anyone like I love you,’ as he had once before. I had noted the omission but concluded that desire would do fine.

It had and it hadn’t. Desire was good and it got us through some bumpy times. The absence of mutual love was another matter – and I chose to ignore it.

Again, I picked up the phone and, with a tearful Felix clinging to my legs, dialled the innocent configuration of numbers. It was answered quickly.

‘Is that Rose?’

‘Minty.’

‘I know I’m disturbing you…’ The pause confirmed this diagnosis. ‘I want to ask… I have to ask you a favour.’ Rose wasn’t going to help me and another long pause ensued. ‘Please…’ The word hurt, and I felt a flush creep up my cheeks.

‘I’m not sure, Minty. What is it?’

‘You have no reason to help me. Except for the boys. There’s a problem.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because Nathan thought you should be involved. I’m doing what he… suggested.’

‘The boys,’ she cut in. ‘Are they OK? Are they ill?’

Confession of my predicament punctured the angry boil. I found myself sobbing hysterically down the phone. ‘I need someone to look after them tomorrow. I can’t miss work, and Eve’s ill in hospital. After tomorrow I can arrange cover.’

Sam delivered Rose to the doorstep of number seven at eight o’clock precisely. ‘He was staying with me, and gave me a lift,’ she said.

Sam hovered on the doorstep. ‘Hello, Minty. I can’t stop.’

‘Congratulations again on the job,’ I had the presence of mind to say.

He frowned. ‘Bit of a poisoned chalice,’ he said. ‘I’m up here to sort out the final details.’

‘Has Jilly decided to go with you?’

‘I’m working on it.’

I remembered Poppy’s request. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Actually, no. We’ll sort something out.’ He smiled to take away the sting. ‘Nice of you to offer.’

The ranks had been closed and I took the hint. I didn’t feel I could do or say any more – which constituted a tick for Failure and a cross for Endeavour. Sam said goodbye and I led Rose into the house.

She followed me into the kitchen, placed her handbag on the table. She was dressed in jeans, a skinny T-shirt and a black cardigan that made her arms appear even more slender than they were. ‘I’m not sure what to say, Minty. I’m not sure why I’m here.’ She had her back to me. ‘But I think I’m doing this for Nathan.’

The boys were summoned from their bedroom, which they were in the process of dismantling. Lucas was wearing his green trousers, and Felix his blue socks. ‘Boys. You remember Mrs Lloyd.’

‘Rose.’ She held out a hand. ‘Hello, Lucas? Good, I guessed right this time. Hello, Felix.’

A burst of wind rattled the cat-flap. Clunk. It was, as always, an eerie sound. A shadow passed over Rose’s face.

‘That’s the cat’s door,’ said Felix.

‘Do you have a cat?’ asked Rose.

‘Mummy says no.’

The twins maintained their distance and confined themselves to scrutinizing her. They conveyed boredom, rejection and more than a little weariness. ‘This is Sam and Poppy’s mummy,’ I explained. ‘She’s going to look after you today. You remember she knew Daddy’

Felix hunched his shoulders. ‘Why can’t you look after us, Mummy?’

‘Because I have to work. Otherwise the office will not be pleased with me.’

‘He sounds just like Sam,’ said Rose.

Again, the rattle of the cat-flap. It reminded me of the ordinariness of life, the inexorability of each day with its small routines. Rose had declared how wonderful and diverse she had discovered the world to be. For me it was different. The click-clack of the redundant cat-flap only anchored me to the shifting, echoing landscape of loss, calamity and grief through which I was journeying.

Rose busied herself with her bag. ‘I imagine I was the last resort?’

‘If I’m absolutely truthful, yes.’

That made her smile, and the atmosphere lightened. ‘You must have hated ringing me.’

Yes. And if you’re truthful, you hated coming here.’

‘Well, that’s clear, then.’ She produced a packet of coloured marker pens and two pads of paper from her bag. ‘Felix and Lucas, shall we see who can draw the best cat? Then I’ll take you to school.’

Felix had been busy working things out. ‘You’re Poppy’s mummy? Like Mummy is our mummy?’

Rose nodded. ‘Exactly the same.’

Lucas seized a pad and a green pen. Felix held back. ‘These are my blue socks,’ he informed Rose, and stuck out a leg. ‘Daddy liked them.’

Rose looked steadily at the sock, and the small foot inside it, and tears spilt down her cheeks.

I turned away.

Before I left the house, I glanced into the kitchen. Rose was leaning against the table, one leg swinging, and the twins were drawing. Rose was saying, ‘Did you know that your daddy loved swimming? Once he swam so far out to sea that we had to go and get the boat to rescue him.’

In a manner of speaking, I was gazing into the heart of my darkness, however brightly lit it was.

‘Goodbye, boys,’ I hitched my bag on to my shoulders. ‘Be good.’

They barely glanced up. ‘’Bye, Mummy.’

At six o’clock on the dot I let myself noiselessly into the house. Rose was ensconced with a boy at each side on the sofa in the sitting room. She had her arms round them. ‘Then your daddy got hold of the fishing-line and pulled. He pulled and pulled…’

So intent were all three that they did not hear me come in. Rose lifted a hand and absently stroked Felix’s hair. He snuggled further into her.

‘Do you know what was on that fishing-line?’

‘The biggest fish.’ Lucas held up his hands. ‘As big as this?’

‘No.’

‘A dead man?’ Felix’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘No.’

‘A whale?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Rose. ‘It was a suitcase with “R. Pearson” painted on it. Inside it there were tins and tins of peas.’

I scuffed a foot on the carpet and Rose turned. Our eyes locked and her arms tightened round the twins. ‘Look who’s here!’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s your mummy.’


*

Rose stood in the hall with her bag over her shoulder. ‘Goodbye, boys. See you soon.’ She handed over the front-door key. ‘They were no trouble.’

One thing was absolutely settled with regard to the situation between Rose and me. I was in the wrong, the black-hearted villain of the piece, and Rose was the person to whom wrong had been done, which left me – if one accepted the determinist argument – free to continue to err. ‘Nathan loved you,’ I said. ‘He always did.’

Suddenly Rose laughed. ‘Oh, my God, the tables have turned.’ She choked a little. ‘Don’t you see how funny it is?’ She held out a hand, a wooing gesture. ‘Don’t you?’

I could not bring myself to take her hand. ‘I’ll work on it.’

Rose sobered up, and her face now registered sadness and regret. ‘I think Nathan did love me, despite everything.’

‘But you,’ I pushed it further, ‘did you…’

Rose moved towards the door. ‘I’ve done you a favour today, Minty. Let’s leave it at that.’ She placed a hand on the catch. ‘For the record Nathan, having done it once, would never have left the twins. And he would never have regretted having them. Ever.’

‘That wasn’t my question.’

‘But it’s my answer,’ she said gently. She tugged at the door latch.

‘Here, let me,’ I pulled the handle. ‘The lock’s tricky.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ said Rose. ‘It always was.’

21

Before twenty-four hours had elapsed Poppy was on the phone. ‘Minty, I don’t think it’s a good idea to use my mother as a fall-back nanny.’

As it happened, I agreed with her. ‘Did Rose put it that way?’

‘Not exactly, but she told me you rang up at the last minute and begged her to step in.’ She added, ‘I object.’

‘I had to find someone to look after the boys.’

‘You’re their mother. Don’t you understand how it would have upset her?’

I reminded myself that Poppy had no children so she didn’t have the faintest idea. Poppy had not lain naked and trussed and given birth amid what resembled a cocktail party. She did not lie awake at night entertaining that special brand of parental imagining: Lucas might run out into the road when a lorry just happens to be coming down it at full speed. She didn’t understand that adaptation was survival. Furthermore, Poppy had no idea how a pair of fair, tousled heads had a way of sneaking past every defence. ‘Your mother could have said no.’