Trio

Part Three: Growing Up

Joan Lilian

Pamela

Pamela

‘Goal! What a goal!’ Her dad leapt up and Pamela bounced off the sofa and back on again, her arms raised and cheering with him.

Geoff Hurst. Geoff Hurst had made it four-two and there was no way Germany could beat that in the remaining seconds.

‘We won the cup, we won the cup, eee-aye-adio, we won the cup!’

Her mum stuck her head through the serving hatch. ‘Have we won?’

‘Four-two! And it was two-all at the end of full time. Two goals in extra time! Fantastic. Hurst was unbelievable.’

They watched the squad go up to receive their medals and the cup and hoist Bobby Moore on their shoulders. The Charlton brothers were playing, Pamela liked them best. Dad liked Alan Ball.

The beginning of the summer holidays and Pamela had plans. Mum and Dad had been saving all their cigarette coupons and they’d enough now to get a pogo stick. She’d helped count last night after tea. They said she could get one before Christmas, when, as she had pointed out, it would be too cold for it. Then they’d been to see The Sound Of Music the night before. It was absolutely brilliant. Pamela wanted her mum to get the LP so she could learn all the songs. The Nazis had been awful. She was glad she hadn’t been a Jew then. Dad said there were still things like that going on, it wasn’t always Jews. Like black children in America and South Africa who weren’t allowed at school with white children. There were only two black children at Pamela’s school but you had to be Catholic or pay lots of fees to go there. School was OK. The worst was when a gang came up, especially the big girls, and said, ‘Are you a mod or a rocker?’

Pamela wasn't anything but you couldn’t say that, they made you pick one. Sometimes if you got it wrong they pulled faces or pushed you. Sometimes they said, ‘Who do you like best, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?’ She loved the Beatles, they were miles better, and her favourite was Paul because he was the most good-looking. Elizabeth, her friend at school, liked John because he was funny. But he wore glasses. Ringo was sweet but he had a big nose. She didn’t know anyone who liked George best. George Best, hah!

In the middle of the holidays they’d go to Criccieth. They would set off really early in the morning and not even have breakfast and sing songs all the way. ‘Summer Holiday’ and pop songs like ‘Pretty Flamingo’ and ‘Every Turn’ by Candy and Dusty’s new one, ‘You Don’t Have to Say Forever’. She knew all the words to that one and could sing it really loud and Dad would be the instruments, the trombone and the drums.

There was a caravan at Criccieth and it was so good. If she was an orphan and she had to live somewhere by herself she’d go there and live in a caravan. And get a dog. A golden Labrador that would walk to heel and fetch the paper. Auntie Sally had one called Queenie.

‘Fancy a kick about?’ Dad said and she leapt up.

‘I’ll get changed.’

She swapped her shift dress, the one with purple and green swirls on, for her shorts and PE top. And ran to get the ball. This was going to be the best summer ever.

Lilian

‘Peter?’ His breathing sounded strange. Lilian felt fear douse her veins with ice. ‘Peter?’

She switched the bedside lamp on, put on her glasses and looked at him. He lay face down but even in the dim light she could see his skin was a horrible grey colour and when she put her hand out to touch him his pyjama top was soaked with sweat. She shook his shoulder. ‘Peter.’ There was no response, only the awful sound of his breath sucking in and out.

She ran downstairs, her heart thumping, stitch pains in her chest. She telephoned for an ambulance, watching the dial creep slowly back after each nine. Why nine-nine-nine, she thought, why not one-one-one? It would be so much quicker.

‘It’s my husband,’ she said to the operator, ‘I think it’s a heart attack.’ She hadn’t named it till then, hadn’t known she’d thought that till she said the words. She wondered what led her to that conclusion. ‘Please hurry.’ She gave her name and address and the woman reassured her that the ambulance would be there very soon. She ran back upstairs then, got on the bed beside him. ‘There’s an ambulance coming, it won’t be long now. Peter?’

He was quiet. The rasping sounds had stopped. She tried to hear whether he was breathing but the blood was thundering in her ears. She put a hand on his back between his shoulder blades, looked for movements, but all she could see was her own hand trembling. He was dead.

Moaning to herself, she struggled to turn him over. He was heavy, always a solid man, not flabby but hard muscles, thick bones. His face was slack, dark blue eyes opened and vague. Don’t think. She put her lips over his and blew into his mouth. There was a bubbling noise, that startled her. She moved away and a gush of liquid came from his mouth. She began to weep. No, Peter, no. I don’t know what to do. She took another breath and bent and blew into his mouth again, and again. Nothing changed except his face became wet with her tears and the liquid that kept dribbling from his mouth.

The doorbell chimed and there was banging too. She left him, almost falling on the stairs as she clattered down them.

‘He’s upstairs,’ she said to the ambulance men, ‘he’s not breathing.’

‘We’ll follow you,’ the man said calmly, as though there was nothing to get het-up about.

‘In here,’ she said stupidly, then stood aside as they moved to examine him. One struggled out of his jacket, climbed astride Peter and began to pump his chest with his hands, stopping every so often to tilt his chin and breathe into him. After several minutes he sat back, exhaled and exchanged a look with his colleague. ‘We’re best taking him to the hospital,’ he said to her. ‘There’s nothing more we can do for him here.’

She nodded, her mouth crammed with questions but too fearful to ask them.

The other man disappeared and returned with a stretcher.

They strapped Peter to it. She watched his eyes, praying for a blink, a wink, a glimpse of life. Praying endlessly, incoherent appeals running through her mind. They took him on the stretcher, negotiating the narrow stairs with difficulty, raising the stretcher to turn the landing, bumping it against the newel post. She winced as though he might be hurt. He can’t feel anything, she told herself, and was dismayed at her lack of hope.

‘We can take you with…?’

‘I’ve a little girl. Get a taxi. I don’t drive. Peter…’ She couldn’t talk properly, missing connections.

They nodded.

She hurried back into the house to wake Pamela. Should she leave her with the neighbours? They had a seven-year-old too. She dressed herself then woke Pamela. She explained Daddy was ill, that she had to go to the hospital. Pamela begged to come too, promised to be good. Lilian was unsure. Children were usually shielded from such experiences. But she knew Pamela disliked Shona, the little girl next door. Lilian suspected her of being a bully.

‘Please, Mummy, please? You’ve got to let me.’

‘All right, put some clothes on quickly.’ She rang a taxi that advertised an all night-service in the phone book. It was three thirty a.m.

At the hospital Lilian enquired at the Accident and Emergency Department and was told to take a seat. The place was quiet. The staff’s voices echoed round when they spoke to each other. Lilian looked at posters about the smallpox outbreak and one about burns and scalds. Pamela sat beside her, knees together, toes meeting. She could tell her mother was upset and sensed it would not help to be asking lots of questions.

When the doctor came out to see them he asked Pamela to wait while he spoke to her mother.

Lilian walked silently alongside him into the small room. She was clenching her teeth tight, her hands called into fists, her tongue pressing hard against the roof of her mouth. Holding on.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Gough, there wasn't anything we could do for your husband. We weren’t able to revive him.’

She nodded. Words, just words. Flying past like paper birds.

‘It appears to be a heart attack but we’ll be more sure of that once we’ve carried out a post-mortem. That’s routine in a sudden death like this.’

Death. A feathery word, some owl lurching towards her.

The doctor looked at her. He must have said something. She’d no idea what it had been. She shook her head a fraction.

‘Mrs Gough, had he been ill recently?’

‘No.’ Her voice sounded rusty.

‘Any complaints?’

Only that he’s dead.

‘No,’ she managed, horrified at the mess inside her head.

The doctor talked about forms and hours and releasing the body. He stood up then and she caught on that he had finished.

‘Have you any family in Manchester?’

‘Yes.’ Her sister, Sally. She would ring her as soon as it got light.

Pamela

Pamela watched her mother walk towards her, eyes cast down and her steps a little unsteady. She paused by the bench and held out her hand. Pamela stood up and took it. Mummy’s hand was cold and she held Pamela too tight.

She didn’t say anything until they were back home. Mummy made her a cup of Ovaltine and sat opposite her at the kitchen table. She took her glasses off. It was just getting light. Like when they went on holiday and drove all night and watched the sun rise and the mist come off the fields.

‘Daddy’s not going to get better.’ Mummy’s voice sounded far away even though she was sitting right next to her. ‘He’s… he’s gone to heaven, Pamela.’

It was a lie. He wouldn’t go and leave her. She wanted to be brave but she began to cry. She couldn’t help it. She loved Daddy, she was his best girl and he’d gone away and left her behind. It wasn’t fair. It was stinking awful. She didn’t want God to have him in heaven, she wanted him for herself. Mummy pulled her close and she breathed in the face-powder smell of her. Mummy stroked her hair, saying nothing.

‘Why?’ Pamela cried out. ‘Why?’ She felt her mother shake her head.

There was a horrid feeling in her tummy, a wrong feeling; everything dirty and mean and bad. Why couldn’t it be Grandpa who died? He was old and cranky. Or Granny. Or Mummy. No! She didn’t mean that, really, God she didn’t. But Mummy got tired and bossed her about and Daddy loved Pamela best and now… She’d been bad, the bad thoughts she had sometimes, the times when she was unkind or told a fib. She’d been bad and now Daddy was dead. She should have been good, all the time, like a saint, always good and kind and nice to everybody and then it would never have happened.

Lilian

Lilian rocked Pamela in her arms. Thank God she was here. Thank God.

‘Why?’ Her daughter’s cry echoed her own thoughts, brought a twist of anguish to her guts. Why?

She’d been too greedy. After the miscarriages she should have let it be but she’d pushed. Maybe God didn’t intend for her to be a mother. But she’d gone on and on about it, talked Peter round. Not just about the adoption, either. She’d been the one tempting him to disobey the Church’s ruling on the sanctity of married life.

She looked at the clock. Nearly seven. He’d be getting up now… The room swam. She pressed her face into Pamela’s tangled hair, her tears falling quietly. Would they take Pamela away? Fear coursed through her like acid. They couldn’t. For the love of God after seven years. No. Don’t be silly.

She looked up, her face wet and itchy, Pamela still cradled in her arms, one arm going numb. She stared out of the window. Saw the sky turning pearl-grey, heard the rattle of the milk float and the chatter of a magpie. She watched nextdoor’s cat parade across the garden fence and felt her cheeks grow cold.

She hugged Pamela and brushed her dark hair back from her face and told her to fetch a hanky. When the clock struck eight she rang her sister and had her first practise at saying the words. ‘It’s bad news. Peter’s had a heart attack. He died last night.’

She had expected them to offer something, even though they hadn’t seen much of them in the last few years. Peter had been their son, after all. Pamela was their grand-daughter. So she’d expected a call or perhaps a note in the days after the funeral, discretely volunteering assistance. They knew she had nothing. The house would have to be sold and she’d have to find some sort of job, but these things took time.

The funeral had been miserable, how could it have been anything else? She had got through it like a robot. She’d taken the tranquilizers that the doctor proscribed and they’d made her feel sleepy and disconnected. She was determined to be dignified for Pamela, like Jackie Kennedy had at Jack’s funeral. Composed. Sally had helped her with all the arrangements. Thank God Sally had been there. Practical and efficient, she was the one person Lilian could confide in. She could talk to her about how terrible losing Peter really was. She told her about hearing his voice and smelling his pillow and the strange things she felt compelled to do. The bizarre aspects of grieving.

Sally took Pamela too, on the worst days when Lilian simply needed to weep and thrash about, when she needed to let herself wallow in the pain, dragging up memories to lash herself with, reciting litanies of all they would never share, getting stupid with self-pity. All the things that Lilian hid from her daughter. Sally had Ian, a four-year-old, who Pamela loved to entertain, so it was a good arrangement all round.

Alicia and Bernard Gough had attended their son’s funeral and gone back to the house afterwards. They had accepted commiserations from people and Alicia had been moved to tears several times. Pamela had been wary of them and they had made no special effort to talk to their grand-daughter as far as Lilian could see. She herself hadn’t had the strength to try and find common ground in their suffering, not that day, though she would try later when she was up to it.

The days rolled into weeks and there was no word from them. Then it was Peter’s birthday. She sat in the lounge that afternoon while Pamela was at school and sorted through photographs, careful not to wet them with her tears. She chose three that she wanted to frame for herself and Pamela: a lovely shot of Peter with Pamela at the park, the pair of them sitting on the roundabout, caught laughing at something; and a solo shot of Peter in his tuxedo at a dinner dance, handsome, his black hair gleaming with Brylcreme slapped on to try and tame it. Sally had joked about him having girl’s eyes, because of his long curling lashes. He was smiling and there was a cigarette in one hand. He was beautiful. She also selected a rare shot of the three of them. Pamela had been about five and a half, she’d lost her first teeth, two at the bottom, and her hair was tied up in bunches. They were at the front at Blackpool, Peter with a picnic basket in his hand and each of them with a cornet. She remembered the day, sunny with a stiff breeze. They’d gone back to the boarding house and Pamela had fallen asleep exhausted from a long day playing on the sands. She and Peter had made love in the cramped room, sand and suntan lotion on their skin and the taste of ice cream on their lips.

She sorted more pictures out for Alicia and Bernard. It would be nice for them to have some. She posted them first-class with a short note saying how she was missing him and how they must be too. She heard nothing.

She put the house on the market but interest was slow. A lot of people wanted something more modern – split level or at least with the living room and dining room knocked through. Then she got an offer. She began to look for places that they could afford. She hoped they could stay in the area and Pamela could continue at St John’s, but it might not be possible. Then the buyer pulled out and it was back to square one. There was nothing in the bank and the Family Allowance went nowhere. Pamela needed new shoes. She began to feel panicky. She had to manage. She had to. There was no one else now.

She dressed as neatly as she could, aware of the aura of disapproval that always seemed to emanate from Peter’s parents. She walked there. It was half an hour or so and it was a fine day, wind fluttering the first autumn leaves and the smell of wood smoke in the air. She was thirsty by the time she arrived and too warm from the walk.

She rang the front doorbell and after a moment saw the curtains in the bay window twitch. Then the door opened.

‘Lilian.’ Alicia had a tiny puzzled frown. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to have a word with you, if…’ She was tongue-tied. She had practised what she would say so often but it all ran away from her now.

‘Oh.’ Alicia stepped back and let her in. They went into the sitting room.

Alicia sat down, her feet together side by side. Lilian glanced down at her own feet, shoes dusty from the walk.

‘Things have been difficult since Peter died. Financially…’ It sounded too blunt, too direct. ‘I’m trying to sell the house, of course, but there have been holdups. I’ve come to ask whether you and Bernard might be able to help us out.’

Alicia blinked, colour flushed her neck and she patted nervously at her lip with the knuckle of one forefinger. There was an appalling silence. Lilian could smell her own body odour. She cleared her throat.

‘I’ll have to speak to Bernard,’ Alicia said.

‘Yes, thank you. I’m sorry, if there’d been any other way… It’s just these next few weeks till I sell the house and then…’ she trailed off. ‘Thank you.’

Alicia stood up and Lilian copied her. She had an urge to grab the woman, to get hold of her and shake her, shout at her. Did she mourn her son, did she cry for him in the night, did he walk through her dreams and call her name? Could she bear the thought of him in the cold ground, knowing she’d never hear his voice, watch him eat or smile?

‘Did you get the photographs?’

‘Yes,’ Alicia said, betraying nothing. And turned to show her out.0

She walked home feeling hot and humiliated. What, what had she done to deserve such… She struggled for words. She felt sick and parched. She stopped at a corner shop and bought a bottle of Coca-Cola. She drank it as she walked, trying to burp discretely when the bubbles repeated on her. It’s for Pamela, she told herself, you had to do it.

Two days later a postal order for twenty pounds arrived and a note.

Dear Lilian,

We do hope this will assist you at this difficult time.

Yours sincerely,

Alicia Gough

It would buy groceries for a few weeks and new shoes for Pamela. It was the last time she ever heard from either of them.

Joan

Lena’s version of ‘Walk My Way’ had been a monumental flop. Roger blamed everyone but himself. The discs were late being pressed, the distributors messed him about, it was the wrong time of year, the trend was for Americans or for male singers. Everyone wanted more Elvis Presley and Cliff. He ignored the fact that Helen Shapiro and Petula Clarke had each topped the charts. The fact that Roger had cut corners on studio time and session musicians and then had been late in liaising with all the other people involved and even had a design commissioned with the wrong title – ‘Walk This Way’ – might have had more than a little to do with it. Joan was bitterly disappointed but she didn’t bother trying to tackle him about it.

Not long after that Roger shut down the company and Joan was out of work. He wanted to move into fashion, he said. More opportunities. Lena caught flu and was very ill. Joan nursed her. Joan worked for a temping agency, typing. Late in 1962 she sent ‘Walk My Way’ and everything else she had written since round to all the record companies. A week later, on her day off, she visited six of them. Two refused to let her past the receptionist. One told her they had a stable of writers and didn’t take unsolicited work.

‘You might want to add me to your stable,’ she tried with a bravado she didn’t feel inside.

‘No room. Sorry.’

At the next place she met George Boyd – half-drunk and ill-tempered, wearing a ridiculous porkpie hat and a disreputable suit. He claimed not to have received her work.

‘It’s there,’ she told him, ‘that one.’ She could see it on his desk.

‘Let’s hear it then,’ he slung back at her.

‘I don’t…’ She hated her voice but she couldn’t miss the chance. Emulating Lena she launched into it.

At the end he shrugged. ‘Not bad. Anyone ever tell you you could sing, they were lying.’

She felt her face flush at the jibe. ‘Will you take it?’

‘I could show it to Candy.’

Candy! This burke dealt with Candy? Yes, oh, yes! She swallowed. ‘Yes. I’d want royalties, though, not just a flat fee.’

‘Don’t want much, do you?’

‘Nothing wrong with a little ambition.’

He grimaced. Maybe it was meant to be a smile.

‘Leave it with me. ‘

Not fully trusting him she had rung every week until he confirmed that Candy liked it and would record it for her next-but-one single. It would be released in July, the day after Lena flew home.

Joan saw her off at the airport.

‘I wish you’d come,’ Lena repeated, ‘we’d be so happy.’

Joan shook her head, smiling. They’d been over this so many times. She loved Lena – her exuberance and her daring – and she owed her so much for showing Joan how women could love, but in her heart she knew she didn’t love Lena enough to give up everything else. Things were just starting to happen for her and she adored life in London.

‘You’ll be happy,’ Joan told her. ‘You will.’

And she had been.

Lilian

‘They say Friday at noon.’ She handed the letter to Sally.

‘But once you sell this place…’

‘They won’t wait. If the bill’s not settled the bailiff’s will take the furniture, anything of any value.’

‘What’s bailiffs?’ Pamela came in from the hall.

‘Never you mind,’ Lilian said. ‘Where’s Ian?’

‘Out here.’

‘Well, watch him or he’ll be after the china ornaments. Take him in the garden.’

‘She’s not daft,’ Sally pointed out as Pamela left.

‘I know, but she doesn’t need chapter and verse.’

‘I’ll talk to Ed. I’m sure we can sort something.’

‘Oh, would you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And we’d another couple looking round yesterday, agent thought they were very keen.’

‘I’m not worried about being paid back,’ Sally said. ‘I know you’re not going to pull a fast one.’

In the forty-eight hours that followed the phone was red hot with calls from Sally detailing the various conversations Ed had had with the bank manager and the accountant and everyone else. He would collect the money on Friday morning.

‘Don’t open the door. Don’t let them in,’ Sally told her. ‘And make sure they don’t try anything early. We'll be there by twelve.’

At half past eleven a white van drew up outside the house. Lilian watched from the upstairs window as two well-built men got out, both dressed in overalls. They made no attempt to approach the house but leant against the van smoking.

‘Where was Sally?’ She’d tried ringing the house twice but there was no answer. If they took the furniture it would be that much harder to get settled somewhere new. And there were a few pieces that meant the world to her. Her mother’s dresser, which had come from Wales when her mother married her father, the writing bureau that Peter had bought second-hand and restored. Somewhere for his engineer’s drawings and books. Later when he worked away more it had become a place for all the family to use. The drawers held maps and stationery, photograph albums, certificates, a set of watercolours, dominoes and a chess game.

And the bed. The bed they’d shared, the bed where Peter had died. She’d heard rumours that the bailiffs couldn’t take all the beds in a house, they had to leave you something to sleep on.

She went down and tried the phone again, praying for a reply. She listened to the ring, counting seven, ten, fifteen times before putting the receiver back.

She watched from the lounge as another car drew up. Ed? But he drove a Ford Popular. This was a Wolsey. A bald man in a suit and tie stepped out. He spoke to the men by the van. It must be the bailiff. She looked across the road to the houses opposite. They were all watching. Some behind the curtains other quite blatantly. Please, Sally. She went into the kitchen and lit a cigarette, sucked the sulphur of the match in her haste.

Knocking at the door startled her. It was only ten to twelve. More knocking. ‘Mrs Gough.’

She went along the hall. She could see the man’s head through the stained-glass panel at the top of the door.

‘Someone’s coming,’ she said, feeling faintly ridiculous at shouting through the door. ‘They’re bringing the money.’

‘They’ll have to look sharp. We have a noon deadline.’

‘They’ll be here.’

‘I have to advise you that we have legal powers to enter at midday and to remove items as we see fit.’

‘I know.’ Her voice trembled.

In-between smoking she bit at her nails, a habit she hated but found impossible to stop. She used to try every so often, when Peter was alive. She would put false nails on to fool herself and enjoy how sophisticated it made her look but she never managed to break the habit. It didn’t matter much now, her nails would be broken anyway from all the extra jobs she was doing to keep the house shipshape.

I’m selling the house, she wanted to tell him, I can pay back the money then, more if it helps. But she had already had those conversations and they were like banging her head against a brick wall.

The phone rang and she raced to it.

‘Mrs Gough, we’ve a Mr and Mrs Jarvis who’d like to view this tea-time if that’s convenient.’

‘Fine,’ might be looking a bit empty by then, she thought.

Banging on the door. ‘Mrs Gough, we need to come in now.’

She swallowed. Heard the clock in the dining room start to chime.

How could they let her down like this? Something must have happened. She ran upstairs and looked out, praying for a sign of Ed’s Ford rolling down the street but there was nothing.

More hammering. She didn’t want them to break the door down. She undid the latch, stepped back, her face set with dislike.

The three men ignored her. The bald man led the way and she listened from the hallway, her face stony, as he made comments about the items in the lounge, telling the others which to take. She heard them go out and into the dining room, more discussion, a burst of laughter at which she stiffened. They trailed past her and up the stairs. She went and hid in the kitchen. Lit another cigarette. The man in charge came and sought her out. He had a list. He offered it to her but she could not bear to take it. She looked away. He read it out. ‘Matching armchairs and two-seater sofa, glass display cabinet, television…’

Even the television. And what would she tell Pamela when she came in and wanted to watch The Monkees or Mr Ed?

‘… Welsh dresser, dining table and four chairs, writing bureau, vanity unit with mirror, Turkish rug, washing machine. We’ll start moving it now. I need you to sign here.’

She sat there frozen but not unfeeling. Fury singing beneath her skin like sherbet. She heard them opening the drawers of the bureau. ‘Where do you want us to put the contents?’

She sighed. The thought of the precious things, of Pamela’s Holy Communion certificate, her baby bracelet, the photograph albums and letters from Peter when he had to stay the week in Sheffield or Leeds. She pulled herself up and went to fetch an old suitcase from under the bed. She began to empty the bureau drawers into it, trying to ignore the men, their patent impatience. When it was empty they lifted it up and carried it out. She would not cry, she bit her tongue, wiped her eyes, rubbed at the itching on her face.

‘Lilian, Lilian.’

Sally and Ed, anxious, breathless.

She went to them. ‘What-’

‘It’s all here!’ Ed held out an envelope. Had a ruddy flat coming up Wilbraham Road! Sorry.’

She took it from him and went out to the man in the suit.

‘It’s all here,’ she said, ‘the money.’

He sighed and cocked his head on one side, looked at her as though she was a tiresome child. Please take it, she thought. Please.

‘Cutting it a bit fine.’

She didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘’Ang on!’ he called to the lads. He pushed himself away from the side of the van and went to his car. He returned with a receipt, which she had to sign.

He spoke to the man and then drove off in his Wolsey.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Sally said. ‘Look at that lot gawking, nothing better to do. Come on, Lilian.’

The men began to unload the van.

The tea was hot and strong and Sally put a splash of brandy in everyone’s to steady their nerves.

There was no noise from the bailiff’s men and Lilian thought they were probably taking the chance of a break themselves now the boss had gone.

When she finished the tea she went out to look.

The van had gone. They’d pulled out her stuff and left it there, higgledy-piggledy on the pavement. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Pamela

She’d done her maths. They were doing algebra and she liked it. Once you knew the rules you could work it out. English was trickier. They had to write an essay on My Ambition.

She had some ideas. One was to be a brilliant gymnast like Olga Korbut, who had just won three medals at the Olympic Games, or maybe a swimmer like Mark Spitz. Swimming was more realistic, because Pamela was in the swimming team but she couldn’t do gym for toffee. Or maybe chess? She loved chess. She went to chess club after school and Mr Stenner said she had great promise. She got up to turn the LP over. Electric Warrior. T Rex. She moved the arm across, judging where the track started, and moved the little lever to lower it. Mum had bought her it for her birthday and she played it every day but there was only one scratch on it, because she was really careful. She didn’t have many records. She wanted Rod Stewart next. As the opening chords began and Marc Bolan’s voice sang out she returned to her work.

Her essay didn’t have to be realistic, you could pick anything. One thing that would be good would be to bring peace. Stop wars like Vietnam and the trouble in Ireland and save all those lives. And Ban the Bomb and stop Apartheid. All the things that were unjust. Like the Coca-Cola song said – teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Her mum turned the telly off now when stuff about Vietnam came on. She got so upset. Pamela chewed the end of her biro and considered. She could be the first woman to walk on the moon. Hardly anyone got to do that. She liked the idea of floating, zero gravity. Mum had woken her to watch the moon landing. She said it was too fantastic to miss. So she’d got up at three in the morning and they’d watched Neil Armstrong climb down from the Eagle. You couldn’t see his face in the big, bubble helmet but he sounded so happy and proud. Imagine going all that way seeing the earth and then when you came back looking at the moon and knowing you had stood on it. But it was only Americans and Russians went and you had to wee in tubes and eat pills or suck stuff from packets for food. It would be awful not to have real food. Outside, it was raining steadily. Mum was watching telly in the front room. Monty Python was on later. Her mum thought it was silly, which was the whole point. Usually she left Pamela to watch it by herself, which was less embarrassing all round, especially with some of the freaky cartoons.

She bent down to write. My ambition is to be a world-famous chess player. A grand master, because no woman has done that yet.

Joan

‘Mind you, the Kinks have a huge following, and ‘Hard Day’s Night’ is still selling well.’

‘Bugger off, George,’ said Joan.

He grinned, poured more pale ale into his glass and tilted back in his leather chair. The room was stifling, the windows painted shut years ago. A small, cream fan made a whining noise but barely shifted the smoky air.

‘He will ring?’ Joan slouched on the sofa. She was drinking Pernod and water, smoking Gauloise. Her Francophile phase. The taste of the drink reminded her of aniseed balls, of the weekly trip to the sweet shop with her threepenny bit. Choosing between flying saucers and sherbet fountains, Spanish and Kay-lie, gumdrops and sour apples.

There was a racket from outside. She went and peered down. Ban the Bombers. She couldn’t open the window to shout her support but she raised her glass and blew a kiss to a guy dressed up like a clown. Most of them looked so ordinary she thought. She watched them pass. The atmosphere was good-natured. Strains of singing drifted up and the twanging sound of a skiffle band playing ‘When When The Saints Go Marching In’.

She slumped back on the sofa, adjusted her mini skirt. George had wandering eyes. He liked to look but he never tried anything else.

He peered across at her, narrowing his eyes against the smoke from his cigar.

‘What?’

‘You knew it was a winner…’

‘We don’t know yet.’

He used one hand to wave away her protest. ‘Any other virgin, if you get my meaning, wouldn’t have had all that stuff about royalties in their contract. But you knew.’

‘Hoped, George. Not knew.’

He blew smoke rings. ‘You’ll need an agent.’ He took a draught of beer, foam rimmed his upper lip. He wiped it with the back of his hand.

‘You reckon?’

‘You’ve copyright to watch, cover versions. Rights for this, that and the other. S’pose Sacha wants to release a French version, different tax laws and all that. What if the television wants it for a theme tune? You don’t want to be bothering with all that. You need to keep churning them out.’

She balked at his description of her writing, pulled a face.

‘You need someone to take care of the business side.’

‘You?!’ She beamed at him.

‘Could do worse.’ He cleared his throat.

‘I’ll think about it.’

The phone shrilled. Joan sat bolt upright, slopping some of the drink on her bare arm.

George winked. She’d never seen him move quickly for anything. He had all the ponderous calm of an old camel and a similar face.

He picked up the receiver and grunted his name. He listened intently, nodding, his mouth pursed in concentration. ‘Tara, Bill.’ He replaced the receiver.

‘George?’ It was bad news, she could see. Maybe they hadn’t even broken into the top twenty never mind the top three. It had all looked so promising. Candy had sung it on Thank Your Lucky Stars. There’d been a rash of features about Candy too, all over the papers, linking her to a guitarist from Gerry and the Pacemakers. Every time she turned the radio on she heard it.

‘Sorry, Joan.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘I was going to take you out for a drink, bit of grub, but I don’t know if I’m fit company…’

She felt sick.

‘… not with you being the writer of this week’s number one top of the pops.’

Number one! She screamed and leapt to her feet. ‘You bugger, George! You rotten old pig! I thought we’d lost it. Number one. Oh, George!’

He raised his can. ‘“Walk My Way” by Candy, music and lyrics by Joan Hawes.’

She clinked her glass against his.

‘Endless success,’ he said.

‘Endless success.’

‘You, my dear, are going to make us both rich.’

She put her glass down. Hugged herself. Feeling childish but unable to contain herself.

‘So what do you reckon? Bite to eat? Bottle of bubbly?’

‘Definitely.’

He patted his pockets. ‘You any money?’

‘George!’

‘Only joking. You can pay me back.’

‘When hell freezes over.’

She wanted to run from excitement, turn cartwheels down the King’s Road and shout her news from the rooftops. But she couldn’t run in her heels and she’d never turned a cartwheel in her life. She contented herself with swinging her handbag and humming loudly as they went through the streets, her arms linked with George’s. What a strange sight they must make. George with his rumpled, shiny suit, his porkpie hat and rolling gait and she with her thick, black hair cut short like Rita Tushingham in A Taste Of Honey and latest make-up, red beret and knee-high boots. Dolly bird and sugar Daddy? If only they knew, she laughed, and swung her bag higher.

Pamela

They got the ferry at Hull. The coach drove on and then Mrs Whetton told them all to bring their coats and any valuables with them. The crossing would take three hours. Thirteen, and Pamela had never been abroad before. Everything fascinated her: the great metal structures in the boat, the excitement of setting off, watching the harbour side and all the men scurrying about with ropes. Then the launch. And the ship slowly turning, blasting its fog horn before they headed out to sea. She watched for a while. The buildings shrank and then disappeared from view and soon there was only the seagulls following in their wake and swooping down into the petrol-blue water.

‘I feel sick already,’ Eleanor told her. ‘I’m always sick.’

Pamela grimaced. ‘I hope I’m not.’

‘Let’s go in.’ Eleanor led the way to the lounge. ‘It’s best to sit in the middle, where it doesn't tip so much.’ She flopped into a spare seat. Pamela looked around. The place was almost full and there was a mugginess to the atmosphere which she didn’t like. She didn’t want to spend the whole journey sat in here, she’d feel better in the fresh air.

‘Eleanor, I think I’d rather be outside.’

‘It’s cold though. I think I need to be near the toilet.’

Pamela felt the ship roll to the side and saw Eleanor’s face slacken. She looked grey.

‘Pam, can you get a me a pill from the Purser?’

‘The what?’

‘There’s a place, through the doors there, near the bureau de change. The Purser’s office, they have the tablets.’

‘Fine. Hang on.’

She queued up, feeling responsible, and got a tablet for her friend. When the boat pitched more strongly she felt slightly queasy but it made her feel hungry rather than sick.

Eleanor had disappeared when she returned to the lounge but she came back soon after, looking deathly.

She didn’t want anything else. She swallowed the pill then lay across two seats. ‘I’m going to try and sleep,’ she said. She curled up and closed her eyes.

‘I’ll be back later,’ Pamela said.

She made her way to the cafe and queued up for a sandwich and a lemonade. She was horrified at the prices but she really had to eat something.

A family came in with two boys. The tallest glanced over at her a few times. She pretended not to notice but he was very good-looking. Thank God they hadn’t been made to wear their uniforms for the journey. They were to save them for the performances. Just think, half of them would have been covered in sick. Not a nice picture for the Manchester Girls’ Choir.

The family sat at a nearby table, the boy facing Pamela. She ate her sandwich slowly, aware of his eyes and enjoying the attention. She didn't move when she had finished but waited, fiddling with the packets of sugar on the table.

When the family got ready to move, Pamela got up and went to the top deck, where a few people lingered, some with binoculars, looking for seals or birds, she supposed.

She had almost given up hope when she saw him coming up the steps. The metal clanging as he climbed.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘A strong wind.’

‘Yes.’ She caught at her hair and held the unruly clump round her neck so she could see him.

‘Are you German?’

He nodded. ‘Erik.’ He smiled. ‘And you?’

What an awful name, she thought, for such a dishy boy. ‘Pamela. I’m going to Berlin to sing at the choral festival.’

‘You sing?’ Amusement in his eyes. Did he think that was funny? Light eyes, almost yellow. It made her think of a cat, a lion or something. Yellow eyes, golden hair.

‘What about you?’

‘I never sing.’ He crossed his eyes at her. Like Clarence, the cross-eyed lion on telly.

‘No,’ she laughed. ‘Where’ve you been? Or going?’

‘Ah! Family visit. My uncle lives in London. He was getting married.’

She nodded. Some hair escaped and slapped against her face.

‘Shall we find some shelter?’

‘Where?’

He winked. ‘Follow me.’

There was a small recess on the deck below, a sunken rectangle big enough for the two of them, that offered some protection from the worst of the wind. Erik was easy to talk to. He was sixteen and told her he was going to be an engineer.

‘My father was an engineer.’

‘Yes? What sort of engineering?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t remember much about his work. He died when I was seven.’

‘That’s bad.’

She shrugged.

‘What will you be? A singer?’

‘I don’t know. I’d like to make lots of money and travel all over the world.’

‘Where will you go first?’

‘America – no, Australia. Somewhere really different.’

‘America is good.’

‘Have you been? Whereabouts?’

He talked and she listened. She was aware of her shoulder and hip touching his. She watched his hands as he talked. He wore an identity bracelet with his name on, a heavy gold chain. His skin was the colour of honey and there were fine hairs on the back of his hands. She could feel the vibration of the ship’s engines in her tummy and excitement too at being here with him.

‘Pamela, can I kiss you?’ He said suddenly.

She turned to face him, looking at his eyes, which were serious now, the tawny colour ringed with black. His lips, fuller than hers, the shadow of darker hairs along his top lip.

‘Yes.’ She raised her face and he bent to meet her. His lips were cool and dry. She wondered for a moment whether she was doing it properly but then she let the sensation take over, eyes closed, feeling dizzy. She felt his hands on her. One at the nape of her neck, wreathed with her hair, the other stroking her back. It felt so good. She couldn’t wait to tell Eleanor. This was going to be just the best week of her life.

Lilian

Six years she’d been working. She started eight months after Peter’s death and couldn’t imagine her life without the job now. The first few weeks had been hell. She’d go to bed with her stomach clenched and nauseous at the prospect of the coming day. But she had stuck it out, she had to. It was the only job she could find that was near home and where she could do part-time and be able to pick Pamela up from school. Plus she didn’t need any qualifications. And it had to get better, or maybe she had to get used to it. There were only two other women in the main sorting room and they seemed to be completely at home among the blue language and the practical jokes and the endless banter. She knew within a week that she had acquired a nickname: the moody widow. She tried not to be standoffish but some of the antics she found genuinely shocking and it was hard to pretend otherwise.

Finding a dead bird in one of her sorting cubicles had made her scream and another day the big joke had been letting off a stink bomb which made the back of her throat burn and her eyes water. There were dirty pictures from under-the-counter magazines sellotaped to the walls. She felt humiliated, hating the thought that the men might talk about her looks and speculate about what she was like under her clothes. Each day when she arrived she was greeted by a deafening barrage of wolf-whistles. She kept make-up to a minimum, her hair was cut short and practical and of course she had her glasses. She wore nothing that could be considered immodest but it made no difference. Even the older men acted like schoolboys and there was an astonishing amount of skiving went on.

She would end her shift with a headache from the noise and the tension, her teeth grinding together as she worked, ears alert for any mischief directed her way. Walking down to pick Pamela up she would try and free herself from all that. When she watched the news on television, barricades on the streets in France, students and workers, thousands of them ready for change, and people proclaiming a new beginning in the Czech republic, it seemed like the whole world was in turmoil. People talking about revolution and all she could do was fret about the pressure at work. By bedtime each day the dread began again.

After three weeks she was told to see the supervisor. She waited, biting her nails, until he called her into his office. There was a short-term vacancy in Lost and Missing, would she take it on until Norma came back?

She agreed readily. A tiny office down a corridor off the main sorting hall. Lost and Missing would be her refuge. She was taken in to Monica, who explained in heavily accented but precise English how they went about delivering the items with inadequate or absent addresses, or how they tried to trace items reported as lost.

Lilian was saved. Monica was a delight to work with after the others and soon confided in Lilian that she too was appalled by the general standards of behaviour. ‘It is as if the teacher is out and they are seeing who can win the medal for the naughtiest boy. What I do is I smile, like this…’ She beamed at Lilian, even white teeth framed by scarlet lips, ‘and in here -’ she pressed a finger to her forehead – ‘I think, You poor, pathetic creatures, you are a bunch of monkeys. Yeah? Apes, I think.’

Lilian smiled. They were like monkeys with their chattering and leaping about and their endless obsession with sex. She remembered being embarrassed at Southport Zoo when they’d seen a monkey fiddling with itself, the children squealing with laughter and pointing. She tried not to blush again as she had at the time.

‘You’re widowed?’ Monica asked, once they’d got over the preliminaries about work.

Lilian was a bit taken aback at the direct approach but perhaps it was better to get it out in the open. ‘Yes. What about you, are you married?’ she looked at Monica’s hand, no ring.

‘Single. Waiting for Mr Right to come along.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Spain. But my father was English. I came here after school and I seem to have got stuck.’

‘Would you like to go back?’

‘No.’ She smiled again and pulled a face. ‘Where I am from it is just farming, nothing to do. And Spain is a very poor country. There are better opportunities here, I think. I’d like to go to London maybe, that must be something. Have you ever been?’

‘Once,’ Lilian replied. ‘For our honeymoon. It was lovely, so much to see.’

‘Well, now we better get going. What you still need to see are the forms. There are a lot of forms in this office.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Millions of forms.’

Norma never returned to work and Lilian became friends with Monica and two other women who worked in wages. The four of them sat together in the canteen. Lilian no longer felt like a belisha beacon shining to attract the attention of the pranksters. Monica invited the other three to celebrate her birthday with a meal out at an Italian restaurant in Albert Square. Lilian asked Sally to baby-sit and they agreed it would make sense for Pamela to sleep over at her auntie’s.

Lilian hadn’t been out since Peter’s death and she had a rush of anxiety, worrying about what clothes to wear, how much money to take and what sort of gift to buy Monica.

Nevertheless she enjoyed the evening, caught herself laughing. Caught herself forgetting about Peter for a little while. It was peculiar coming back to the small terraced house that they’d moved into in Fallowfield and letting herself in and hearing the silence. Knowing she was alone, that Pamela wasn’t there.

After that the foursome went out every month or so – to the pictures or for a meal. Lilian no longer dreaded work and she took some pride in being able to provide for herself and Pamela.

Pamela

She’d locked the bathroom door and taken everything off. She started at the top and worked down. Nice hair, black and wavy. Eyes a bit small but a nice deep-blue colour. Nose awful, much too long and it looked swollen at the end instead of smooth and neat. Ghastly complexion, blackheads and a million spots on her forehead and two on her chin. Eleanor had a facial steamer. She was going to borrow that. She’d tried Anne French and Clearasil and nothing worked. Nice ears, OK neck. Boobs too big and she was sure the left one was bigger. Big and lopsided. Flat stomach, good. Horrendous legs, big thighs and too thick at the ankles. Feet OK. She turned around and looked over her shoulder at the mirror. Bottom just awful.

She turned back. Maybe her boobs were even bigger because of her periods starting. Maybe they’d settle down and shrink a bit. Some people did swell up like that, didn’t they? She pouted at herself and blew a kiss, touched the tip of one finger to her nipple. Watched the small, pink cone swell and darken.

‘Pamela!’

She jumped. ‘OK!’ she yelled.

She dressed and flushed the toilet.

Downstairs she waited until they’d eaten before confiding in her mother.

‘I’ve got my period.’

‘Oh, Pamela.’ Her mother smiled, a soppy look on her face. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, it doesn’t hurt, not yet anyway.’

‘Some people get more cramps than others.’

‘But I feel a bit bigger.’ She tapped her chest, blushing. ‘Did yours do that?’

Her mother hesitated. She was always a bit awkward talking about intimate things, secretive even. When Pamela had first seen tampons in plain sight in a friend’s bathroom she’d been shocked. ‘Not really. They were tender sometimes.’

‘When did your periods start?’

‘I was fourteen like you.’

‘But they stopped really early?’

Her mother cleared her throat. Pamela began to feel embarrassed. She should never have asked.

‘I had a problem with them.’ Her mother shrugged. ‘I had to have an operation and that was the end of all that.’

‘So you wouldn’t be able to have any more children,’ Pamela said slowly.

‘Yes,’ her mother said quickly. She jumped to her feet and began clearing the table. Pamela didn’t try asking any more. If the trouble was something that ran in families then her mother would have told her all about it, she was sure, if it was something important that would affect whether Pamela could have children.

Joan

‘Scarborough?’ George had said incredulously when she had told him about the house. ‘You can’t bleedin’ well live in Scarborough!’

‘’Course I can. I can post you things, get the train now and again. I’ve had enough of London, George.’

‘How can anyone have had enough of London, I ask you? This is where it’s all happening, girl.’

‘I’ve made my mind up.’

She had to get out. Seven years it had been, since she got that number one. Seven years of parties and clubs and the endless frenetic activity. Too many flings with too many strangers. It had been wonderful at first. And when ‘Swing Me’ followed ‘Walk My Way’ up to the top of the charts she had basked in the glory. Two number ones. There were nights at the Palais and others at all-night clubs. Times when Ray Davies from the Kinks or John Lennon and David Hockney, the artist, and Twiggy fresh from the cover of Vogue, and David Bailey, celebrity photographer, would be there. All the beautiful people. As the months went by it got harder to keep up. She was using uppers to stay awake and Mogadon to knock her out at bedtime. Speed and cocaine and god knows what for parties. Her hands shook now, in the mornings, and she had begun to feel edgy. She’d lost weight and with it her energy. Some weeks ago she had woken up in bed with a strange woman and been unable to recall anything of the night before. Worst of all she hadn’t written a decent song in months. Oh, she’d still been working, and George had sold most of them but they weren’t a patch on her best, on what she knew she could do. When Jimi Hendrix died, Joan felt a stab of fear. A month later Janis Joplin died too. That could be me, she thought. If I don’t get my head straight. Or she could just mess up, become more mediocre until she was a has-been. There were lots of them in the clubs and bars, talking about their heydays to anyone with half a mind to listen. She didn’t want that. Leaving London was about survival.

‘If you want me to, I can find a new agent.’

There was the merest whisper of alarm in George’s face. Joan winked.

‘Bugger off, Joan.’ He pulled out a bottle of pale ale, removed the cap with his teeth. ‘Where the bloody hell is Scarborough, anyway? Do they have running water and electricity up there?’

Pamela

Malcolm. He was very nice. But nice was the best she could come up with and it wasn’t good enough. She’d met him at work, he was based at Stockport but the bank had brought him in when the flu epidemic affected staff at her branch in Northenden. It had been easy to say yes to a date. She’d even been excited about him for a while but now…

The hairdresser moved her over from the basin to the vacant chair. She’d fancied a pageboy cut but it was impossible with wavy hair like hers so she just kept it long and had the split ends trimmed every so often. Least it was a good colour, a glossy black. She didn’t have to mess about colouring it with Harmony or Inecto to get an effect.

She had sensed Malcolm edging towards a proposal, imagining her ensconced in some nice, new semi in Heaton Mersey, just round the corner from his parents. Mrs Suburbia. Like Thelma from The Likely Lads on television. Ironing his shirts and having babies and making love twice a week laying flat on the bed with the lights out. He was so dull, so unimaginative. He thought prawn cocktails and a bunch of flowers were the height of romantic courtship. Or maybe that was the problem: he wanted romance – safe, dull, predictable – and she wanted passion. She wanted sex to be daring, challenging, naughty. It was so unsexy with Mal. Always the same routine, like brushing teeth or something. She fantasised constantly and she wanted to try out some of the milder ones but she couldn’t see Malcolm taking her up against the wall or making her kneel on the floor and entering her from behind or chasing her and catching her.

She groaned. And she certainly couldn’t imagine him letting her tie him up and tease him or shagging her in the shower. Crikey, even saying shag to Malcolm would be a challenge.

She glanced up at the mirror and wondered whether to try blue mascara to bring out the blue in her eyes.

The last time she had tried to vary the routine, waiting till he was as excited as he ever got then whispering that she wanted to get on top, she had felt his body stiffen and his penis soften. She’d tried to salvage things by staying where she was and saying yes, more, yes, Malcolm lots of times until he got back into his stride. Then Friday night they’d been back at The Steak House facing the same old evening and she’d had to stop it. She had watched him walk back from the gents, straightening his tie. She had waited until they were in the car before she told him.

‘Malcolm, I’m sorry, I don’t want to carry on seeing you.’

There was a clumsy silence and she heard him exhale loudly.

‘Is there any particular reason?’ He retreated into formal tones.

‘Not really.’ She could not be ruthlessly honest and hurt him. Why be so unkind?

‘I just don’t think we’re right for each other.’

‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘Is there someone else?’

‘No.’ Not yet.

‘I’ll drive you back.’

He didn’t speak again. He drove her home and sat staring out at the road while she thanked him and got out. She felt lousy. She watched him drive off and stood on the pavement for a moment. She breathed in and smelt freedom. She had escaped.

And tonight she would celebrate. With good friends and probably too much to drink and some new outfit from the shop where she was headed as soon as her hair was done.

Two years later Pamela was on a training course at a conference centre near Rhyll. On the Friday night she spent much of the evening chatting to a trainee from Somerset, a man called Will. On the Saturday evening she slept with him and again on the Sunday morning. That afternoon they said good-bye. She went home exhausted and exhilarated. It seemed like the perfect arrangement – excitement, physical attraction, the mystery of strangers, the delicious opportunity to present herself however she wished. No boredom, no commitment, no complications.

Lilian

‘Mum, Mum?’ Pamela Gough raced through the house, dropped her keys and bag on the table. ‘Where are you?’

‘Out here.’ The voice came from the back of the house.

Pamela hurried through the kitchen and into the tiny stone-flagged back yard, ducking to avoid banging her head on the low door. Her mother was sitting on the old director’s chair reading the Manchester Evening News. The headlines were all about the riots at Orgreave Colliery, there’d been a pitched battle between the police and the miners and their supporters. Lilian’s father had been a miner and she was glad he wasn’t alive to see what was going on now.

She turned to her daughter, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

‘I got it, Mum, I got it!’ She beamed with delight and thrust the piece of paper forward. ‘I can’t believe it!’

‘Oh, wonderful! Oh, Pam, well done!’ Lilian read the letter, speaking the final sentences aloud. ‘And have great pleasure in confirming your appointment as Manager at our Bradford Westgate Branch. I will be sending you details of our relocation package in the near future. Oh, Pam.’ She smiled up at her daughter, narrowing her eyes against the brightness of the sky.

‘Bank manager,’ Pamela said, catching her lip between her teeth and widening her eyes in an exaggerated fashion.

‘Not before time,’ Lilian pointed out. It was Pamela’s fourth shot at a branch of her own. Each time the disappointment of rejection had dealt a severe blow to her confidence. She couldn’t do it. She was a woman and women never got the jobs. She wasn’t good enough. She kept a bright functional front up at the bank but was unable to sustain it at home and Lilian was witness to the silences, the weary defeat in her posture, the lack of appetite and the inability to sleep.

Lilian suspected that losing Peter had hurt the child irreparably; she had adored Peter. She remembered the pair of them building castles from wooden bricks, sprawled on the floor, conferring, two heads of black hair. And racing along the sands at Criccieth, Lilian at the finishing line or judging the long jump. How on earth had he learnt to be a father like that when his own had been so remote?

Lilian also worried that her own deep unhappiness had been transmitted to Pamela. No matter how hard she had tried to continue to provide a warm, happy home for the two of them, in the quiet times of the night, in the privacy of her prayers and in the stock-taking of birthdays and New Years, she acknowledged that life had dealt her a cruel hand and that she was not happy. The best she could summon was contentment; that she was well, that Pamela and she were so close.

Endlessly she wondered how different it would have been if Peter had lived. A silly game. They would have stayed in the old house instead of moving to this little terraced house in Fallowfield, though it was a godsend for Lilian’s work, only a stone’s throw from the postal sorting office. There might have been more children, a brother or sister for Pamela… She shouldn’t think like this, always wanting too much. That’d been her trouble all along. Not that she had wanted frivolous things; just a husband, a family, a nice home, close friends. But what was normal for others obviously wasn’t in God’s plan for Lilian. So she had lost one baby, then another, and a third. Then Peter. Pamela remained the light of her life, she could literally feel her heart grow warm each time she saw her, but even that love couldn’t erase the sadness she carried within her.

‘You aren’t sure, are you, Mum? I could talk to them about commuting.’

‘Don’t be silly. You must go. It’s what you’ve been waiting for, working for. There’s a regular coach, or the train. You can come back for the weekend whenever you like. I’m so proud of you, Pamela.’

‘I said I’d meet up with the girls later. Make a night of it.’

She nodded. ‘Put the water heater on, you’ll want to wash your hair, won’t you? Do you want tea?’

‘We’ll be getting fish and chips later. But I’ll get a butty now. Do you want one?’

‘I’ll do it.’ She folded the paper up. She would save it for later, when she was alone. There’d be a lot more of that now Pamela was moving. Time she got used to it. She would not be maudlin, she admonished herself. Not like those parents who clung to their children and wouldn’t let them go. Peter’s mother had been a bit like that. Stiff with her when they were courting and downright cold about her grand-daughter; anyone getting close to Peter was seen as a threat and earned her disapproval. Times past, she thought.

She busied herself with slicing bread and warming the teapot. Determined to deny the fearful flurry of questions about the future beating inside her, the panicky refrain, Now what will become of me?

Pamela

Learning to sail had been like coming home. The bank had sent management on a team-building weekend to the outward bound centre in Snowdonia. Pamela was the only woman and there had been plenty of innuendo among her friends about how much fun she might have with a dozen footloose men.

But it was sailing she fell in love with. There was something about the challenge of using the wind to travel the water and the undeniable kick she got from discovering she had real aptitude that reinforced the simple elation that she felt with the water flowing beneath her, the breeze in her hair and the smell of brine.

Towards the end of the course she’d asked Felix, the instructor, about any other opportunities. ‘You’ve got the bug!’ He grinned.

She nodded.

There are sessions here but you can’t compare it to the open sea. That’s real sailing.’

‘And how do you do that?’

‘Well, the wife, Marge, and I, we have a sloop, thirty-five footer, six berth, moored over in Holyhead. You could crew with us sometime.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure. We aim to be going out Whit week. There’s always room for a friend or two. This’ll be our tenth summer.’

‘What will I need?’

He laughed and promised to help her with a list. She spent her next day off acquiring a sleeping bag and a good-quality waterproof jacket as well as woollen socks and leggings, hat and gloves and a small rucksack. She drove down to Holyhead straight from a strategy meeting in Manchester. It took an hour longer than she had anticipated, the route congested with lorries heading for the ferry to Dublin.

Marge was a small energetic woman with wrinkled, tanned skin, small black eyes like currants and a ripe Welsh accent. She cursed in Welsh and teased Felix mercilessly as a lazy bastard. A friend of theirs, Tom, a reserved man, made up the foursome. Pamela was never so happy. The daylight hours were full of work, handling the boat in the fine salt-spray, learning to tack and jib, to gauge the changes in the conditions and to navigate the seas. The constant song of the ocean in her ears and the ever-changing light filling her vision. The evenings, when they put into some small town or harbour, consisted of huge amounts of food, numerous bottles of wine and rowdy card games interspersed with rambling conversations and stories of other trips.

Well before midnight, Pamela would roll into her narrow bunk and fall asleep, lulled by the gentle rocking of the craft and the water lapping at her dreams.

The boat became her second home, apart from the winter months when the weather was too fierce. Marge and Felix became her firm friends. The following summer she crewed part-way for a tour of the Greek Islands. There were plenty of opportunities for casual encounters and though the boat was too small for secrets Marge and Felix were easy-going and, beyond the odd wink, didn’t tease her about her conquests – at least not until the man in question had gone.

She loved the travelling too, and hungered for new sights, for foreign landscapes and food and climate. Those places that they couldn’t reach by boat she visited in the winter – holidayed in Bali and Nepal, California and Zimbabwe. She worked hard and played harder. She and Lilian would take a short break every year, usually somewhere in Europe. Lilian joked that unlike her daughter she certainly hadn’t got her sea legs as she spent all but the very calmest of crossings hanging over the toilet.

Joan

They met at the theatre. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead. But you could say it was the house that brought them together. When Joan had first bought the place, investing her money from her run of songwriting success, she had acted sensibly. She had a vigorous and costly survey done which revealed a staggering list of essential repairs. On the basis of that she had beaten the sellers down and been able to pay for the work to be done. The house had been re-roofed, fully insulated and rewired. She had a new central heating system put in and an efficient boiler. The mortgage had been a huge responsibility but she had rented rooms out to actors appearing at the Stephen Joseph Theatre for the season. She soon acquired a reputation for offering upmarket digs, albeit at proportionally higher rates, and as soon as the season’s entertainments were confirmed those actors with the leading parts and the higher incomes who didn't have allegiances to landladies elsewhere would ring and book their stay.

Joan regularly got comps from her lodgers. Penny had been at the theatre with two colleagues from school. In the course of interval chit-chat Penny had talked about looking for a house and the rising prices – she’d been married but was getting a divorce. Joan had a spare room. One of her actors had given back word after a more attractive offer from television. Joan had offered her the room to rent while she looked for a place. Penny came round the next day to look at the place and to explain a bit more about her situation. She had a child, a nine-year-old daughter. She was a teacher and was due to take up her first headship in Pickering after the summer. Previously her husband Henry had been able to take Rachel to school and bring her home. He was a self-employed accountant and could choose his hours. Now Henry had met someone else and they were going to get married as soon as the divorce became absolute. Rachel had been adamant that she wanted to stay with her father. Penny was still reeling from that. They had agreed that she would have Rachel to visit every weekend.

A child wasn’t something Joan had bargained for but she didn’t object, it was only going to be a temporary arrangement.

Joan hadn’t imagined that anything else would develop. Penny and her dog moved in. Over the summer holidays Joan and Penny got to know each other. The theatre was dark, the actors gone for now. Penny would walk the dog each morning right along the bay. Early, before the holiday-makers hit the sands with their flasks and picnic rugs, rowdy children, knotted hankies and transistor radios. Joan asked if she might join her one day and the walk became a habit.

When Rachel came to stay Joan found that apart from her size she wasn’t so very different from some of her more tempestuous guests.

Penny and Joan grew closer almost imperceptibly. They began to share meals and to accompany each other to social events.

Joan found herself watching Penny as she moved about the kitchen or while she prepared papers for school. She was drawn to her: she had a broad face, hair the colour of corn which she wore long, a generous body, more rounded than Joan’s, and she had a bright mind; Joan relished hearing her talk, the intelligence and authority with which she considered ideas, encouraged her charges, commented on affairs was stimulating.

Joan began to feel awkward. She was falling in love. They had never discussed sexuality but a few choice, arch comments from one of the more camp lodgers had made it plain to all and sundry where Joan’s inclinations lay.

But it was Penny who made the first move.

Joan had built a fire one night. The house was quiet. The next cast were coming the following Monday. Penny had finished work for the week. They sat watching the flames and drinking whisky, listening to classical guitar: John Williams.

She was laughing at Penny, who was lambasting Margaret Thatcher, describing how this woman had done her level best to shatter British society, wreck the Welfare State, close the pits, encourage individual greed, suck up to the Yanks, and then had the brass-necked cheek when re-elected to quote St Francis of Assisi: Where there is discord, may we bring harmony… where there is despair, may we bring hope. ‘And what has she done since?’ Penny demanded. ‘Unemployment sky high, more privatisation…’

Joan was still giggling when she sensed a shift in the atmosphere. She glanced at Penny, who looked back at her steadily.

‘Joan.’

Joan felt time slow, felt her blood thicken and warm at the tone. She opened her mouth a little. ‘I…’ Suddenly lost for words. She who crafted them, who selected and shaped words and rhythms and sounds to sway emotions to make hearts ache or soar or hips shake and feet tap. She had no words.

Penny moved from the big armchair still holding her gaze. Moved to sit beside her on the old, brocade couch. And kissed her.

A kiss, a stroke, her hands on Penny’s neck and then slowly, cautiously running down her sides, hesitating. Another kiss and Penny’s hands on her breasts, squeezing gently, Joan answering with a murmur, undoing the buttons on her cuffs. Silently they undressed. Joan was trembling with desire, shivering lightly. They lay side by side and she kissed Penny again. Her lips, her neck, her nipples. Moved down to kiss her belly, the inside of her thighs, her vagina. Feeling her own breath growing harsh, her sex clench and flush with heat. Penny calling softly. ‘Yes, oh, yes!’

Afterwards they lay sprawled on the rug, drinking more whisky. Joan lit a cigarette and took a drag, narrowed her eyes and shook her head, a tiny smile on her lips.

‘What?’ Penny said, her fingers still tracing circles and figure eights on Joan’s belly.

‘Nothing. Just glad. I’d been falling for you. I didn't know what to do about it.’

‘Me being an ex-married lady and all,’ Penny teased.

‘I didn’t know if you… if it was just me. I wanted to be sure, I suppose. I never thought you’d get there first.’

‘If we’d waited for you we’d have been old and grey. Bit scary though. You're sure?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She lifted Penny’s hand and kissed her palm. ‘Positive.’

Lilian

Pamela came home for a weekend every six weeks or so. In-between times Lilian ached with loneliness but was careful never to let on. She was determined not to cramp her daughter’s style. Pamela was crazy about her sailing; she worked hard and played hard. No sign of settling down though she was twenty-eight already.

The evenings were the worst. She was still working days at the sorting office and dreaded the thought of retiring in two years time when she reached sixty. She seemed to watch the television all the time, couldn’t be bothered with her sewing any more. Even cooking for one was a joyless task. Often as not she’d open a tin and have a bit of toast with it. She still saw Monica and the others for an evening out and she’d friends through Church, where she helped out with jumble sales and fairs. She tried to keep busy.

The phone rang late one night. It was November, the weather was foul – cold, with gusts of wind and rain battering at the house. She had gone around and put newspaper down to soak up the rain leaking in through the kitchen window and checked the curtains in the other rooms to try and keep the heat in.

When she heard the ringing she assumed it would be Pamela or Sally or Monica. But none of them generally rang so late. Her heart kicked in her chest. Bad news?

‘Hello?’

‘Is that Marion?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Marion. Is Marion there?’

The woman’s voice was slurred. The skin on Lilian’s back tightened. Marion. Pamela had been Marion. This couldn’t… A cold fear shot through her bones.

‘I think you’ve got the wrong number.’ She put the phone down quickly. And waited to see if it would ring again, chewing at her nails compulsively.

Her mind skittered round the prospect that she dreaded. But they couldn’t do that, could they? They weren’t allowed to. It was just a coincidence, that’s all. She was holding her throat, her knees felt weak. She went and sat down. They wouldn’t have this number, anyway, or this address. The phone was quiet. She finally went upstairs.

Lilian filled a hot-water bottle and put it at the foot of her bed. The sheets were clammy when she got in, there was a lot of damp in the bedroom in the winter. She warmed her feet then pulled the hot water bottle up and curled round it. But even when the chill had gone she still couldn’t sleep. Her back was tense and stiff, her stomach ached, stitched with fear.

She tried to imagine telling Pamela about the adoption but the prospect appalled her. It wasn’t a good time. She’d such a lot on at work. And Lilian was sure the revelation would upset Pamela, it would be hurtful, and she was happy now, settled. She couldn’t bear to spoil all that. If she did drag up the past what good would come of it? Pamela had had enough to cope with losing her father. Lilian was her mother, the only mother she needed. Plain and simple. That was that. But no matter how she argued to herself there was the grip of guilt dragging at her… she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was just protecting her daughter. When she finally slept it was fitfully. She dreamt of Monica giving her a parcel for Pamela with the wrong name on it and when Lilian opened it there was a baby inside. And then she realised with horror that she’d left the baby in the parcel and she was going to be caught and punished. The doctor came in and told her the baby hadn’t survived and she tried to run away but her legs wouldn’t move.

Pamela

Bradford had made Pamela’s career. Ten years later she had reached the highest echelons of senior management and been relocated to Head Office in Liverpool. Conditions were good. She earned enough to pay the mortgage and bills on the eighteenth-century stone cottage she had bought outside Chester and to finance her passion for travel. Money was not an issue. Lilian accompanied her on the nearer trips – a week in Venice, a cruise on the Norwegian fjords – but Pamela travelled further afield on her own.

She sat on the hotel balcony looking out over the fountains and the tropical gardens to the wild forest beyond. The Pavillion was an old colonial building dating from the times when Portuguese aristocrats holidayed here. The place was rich with marble, stupendous floor tiles, pillars and archways and gilt chandeliers. There was little wood, it rotted too quickly with the humidity.

It was her first trip to Brazil, though she had been to Mexico a few years before. It would be dark soon, and suddenly, no gradual dusk like at home, but that sudden dramatic plunge from blazing light to rich indigo night with a brazen sunset in-between. She sipped her lemonade and picked up the book she was reading. Once the sun had set she would shower and change. The anticipation of the evening to come made her smile. John, the Canadian guest, had wined and dined her for two nights. Third time lucky. Her experiences had taught her to take things at a moderate pace, at first anyway. She wanted a man who was prepared to get to know her a bit, to make intelligent conversation with a woman and enjoy her company as well as want to take her to bed. She didn’t always meet someone on her holidays and she still enjoyed the pleasure of new sights and sounds and food and music. Being somewhere totally foreign. But a liaison made the trip something special. Back home the whole area of relationships was like a minefield. She had enjoyed a few brief flings but nothing that had ever gelled. Her status got in the way all too often. She was good at her job, good at the finances and good with people. Management skills had come easily to her and she was being selected more and more often for sensitive negotiations.

As the other women in the bank settled down and made full use of attractive maternity and parenthood packages or began to try dating agencies in their desire to find Mr Right, Pamela found herself reasonably content with a solo life. There were times when she felt lonely but many more when she was alone and at ease with it. She had good friends too, easily enough to fill a dinner table with when she chose to entertain. And she had her sailing.

She knew Lilian fretted about her. She didn’t say much but Pamela knew she longed for grandchildren. Pamela couldn’t think of a worse reason for having children than to please someone else.

She finished her drink and watched the purple and orange daubs of the sunset slide behind the tree canopy. For now this suited her. Freedom and the security of a good career. And the opportunity to be whoever the hell she liked with the men she met on her holidays.

It was time to get ready for John. She felt excitement ripple through her belly and into her breasts and her thighs. She had four nights left and she knew John was booked in for another week. If it all went as she hoped the remainder of her holiday would pass in a blur of sexual indulgence. Nights spent in the shuttered heat of the room and days spent in anticipation, with trips to the market, the mountains and the beach acting as interruptions to one long, shameless fuck.

The lights in the garden came on, coloured bulbs like Fiesta time. The noise of the crickets grew louder and shriller. She would wear the cream silk to set off her tan. All so much simpler than at home. No need to worry about the future, no questions about ‘the relationship’. If all went well the future would be a handful of sexy memories and nothing else. She picked up her book and opened the screen door. Not long now.

Joan

Joan was working. Her desk was in front of the big bay window on the first floor. What most people would have called the master bedroom.

‘But I have no master,’ she had joked to Penny when she first showed her round. Only mistresses.

From her vantage point she could watch the tide come in and the boats inch their way across the bay. In the summer the tourists would come but this was her favourite season, with the winter sun like a ball of mercury, silvering the grey waves, and the clouds racing each other across the sky.

The room was spacious but warm. As well as her desk, it held a piano, a guitar, a bank of musical recording equipment and, either side of the open fireplace, shelves full of books. Many of these were collections of photographs. They were a source of ideas for her. ‘Every Turn (Twists A Little Deeper)’ had come to her one day while she was still down in London, flicking through a book. The photographs were black and white – street scenes, portraits and close-ups of natural elements, pebbles, the bark of a tree, reflections on water. She could never have explained the process by which these images became words, themes or tunes. It just happened. And ‘Every Turn’ had sprung almost fully formed, a morning’s work.

That song had reached number three for three weeks and then been snapped up for a car commercial. Serious money. Today though she was making slower progress. She had the germ of an idea but she could see it as an image more clearly at this stage than she could hear it – footsteps in the snow, stillness, a parting. Not a dance number then, she thought wryly. She wanted a cigarette. If she had a smoke she would concentrate better. But Penny would never forgive her.

She saw the postman appear round the bend at the foot of the hill. Watched him wheel the bike up the steep slope, stop next door to deliver something and then disappear from view as he approached her front door. She heard the snap of the letterbox and the slap as the letters hit the floor.

A diversion. Time for coffee anyway. There were two letters – the contracts she was expecting from her agent and a gas bill. A postcard too. Berlin, Lena.

She read it while the kettle boiled, fussing over Kelly, the border collie that had moved in with Penny. A puppy then, but grey around the muzzle now. A grand old lady of ten. Seventy in dog years.

Darling Joan,

We’re coming to London in February (must be crazy). M has an exhibition at the Tate. Will you come? We are still doing great with the gallery. How are you both? Any news about your Berlin trip?

Kiss kiss,

L

Joan laughed to herself. She’d been promising to visit her old friend ever since Lena returned to Germany the spring after they met.

She took her coffee back upstairs, settled at her desk. She could see a tanker out on the horizon and nearer a trawler with a cloud of gulls trailing it. The sky was darkening the waves a steely pewter now.

She looked at the mishmash of words on the paper. Nothing caught at her, nothing tugged further ideas. It was like fishing, she thought, trying to trap the words that swam inside her, haul them out into the light of day.

The phone interrupted her.

‘Joan? It's Rachel. Can you ask Mum to ring me when she gets in?’

‘Fine. How’s things?’

‘Oh -’ Rachel sounded disconcerted to be asked – ‘so-so.’

‘Anything I can help with?’

‘No. Nothing.’

‘I’ll tell her to ring.’

‘Thanks.’

‘She wants me to go over there,’ Penny said.

‘Why?’

‘She wouldn’t say why. Probably more problems with that pig of a landlord. I’ll go now. Do you mind eating later?’ She sounded relaxed about it but Joan knew that her demeanor concealed anxiety at the unusual summons from her daughter.

It was late, very late, when Penny returned. Joan had eaten an omelette and toast earlier, then returned to work. Preferring that to the dross on television. When she finally saw Penny’s car creeping up the hill she went downstairs and switched the kettle on.

Penny looked exhausted, the grey pallor almost matching the grey that streaked her hair.

We’re all getting so old, Joan thought. Me, Penny, the dog.

Penny sat at the table and rested her chin on her hands. ‘She’s pregnant.’

‘Oh, no!’

‘After all I taught her, drummed into her…’ Her voice rose in frustration. ‘A one-night stand. No protection. She could have HIV as well, for all we know.’

‘What does she want to do?’ She leant against the counter, waiting for the kettle.

‘She’s all over the place, Joan. Talking about whether to keep it or have an abortion. She’s nineteen. She can barely look after herself let alone a baby. What was she thinking of?’

I was nineteen, Joan thought.

‘Oh, Joan, I’m sorry,’ Penny exclaimed.

Joan wondered whether she had spoken aloud.

‘But there’s the pill nowadays and you can get Durex all over the place. How can I help her?’

Joan grimaced, turned for cups. Put them down. ‘Stand by her, whatever she decides. That’s all anyone can do.’ She took a big breath, held it in. Christ, she thought, I’d kill for a cigarette.

Pamela

Summer 1990 Pamela spent crewing on the boat with Marge and Felix. They went from Wales to Southern Spain and into North Africa. After three exhilarating, exhausting weeks she was on the last leg of her journey home. She’d left her car at home to save bother parking and got the train to London from Portsmouth and then the London to Chester service. It was one of the old models. Shabby inside and out. There was little to see through the dusty windows. It was unreasonably hot and a peculiar stale, spicy smell filled the air as if someone had spilt curry on one of the heaters a long time ago.

She had the carriage to herself now. The couple who’d got on with her at Euston had left at Rugby. Not long to go. Taxi out to the cottage, a bath, some proper tea. Strange how it never tasted the same elsewhere, even with the same brand tea bags. It’s the water, Lilian would say, but even that didn’t seem plausible. How could all the water in every major city worldwide, and in all the other places she’d been to, be so different from home. Surely by the law of averages there’d be something similar in mineral composition or whatever in one of them.

Work tomorrow: back into drawing up plans for their strategy in Germany now that reunification was imminent, and there’d be all sorts of fallout linked to the Guinness scandal; they’d need to ensure their own house was in order so they weren’t open to fraud on such a scale. Enough. She would not think about that now. Still on leave. She would think about Carlos instead. She could still feel where he had been, remember what a tease he had been, kissing her dizzy, till she was begging him to do more, to touch her.

Her mobile trilled. It was handy in her bag.

‘Hello?’ She shook her hair clear of the set to hear better.

‘Is that Miss Gough? Pamela Gough?’

‘Yes.’ Her first thought was that someone from the office had got her days mixed up, ringing to fix an appointment for her boss. She’d switch off after this.

‘You’re related to Mrs Lilian Gough?’

Panic dried her mouth. ‘I’m her daughter.’ She felt the train sashay to the side, stared at the wooden window frame where someone had scratched T-e-r. She stared at the meaningless letters. Her heart went cold.

‘This is Manchester Royal Infirmary. I’m ringing about your mother. She was admitted here a short while ago. She wasn’t conscious. I’m very sorry to give you such bad news but your mother passed away a few minutes after she was admitted. I’m sorry.’

Pamela watched the letters spin and stretch and pool. She watched her own foot jerking with a will of its own. She felt a pull, increasing pressure as though she was being sucked underwater.

‘Will you be coming to the hospital?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ask for Main Reception, they’ll page me, June Kennedy.’

Pamela replied, the words saying themselves, as though there were two of her in the carriage. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m on the train from London, the Chester train. It might take me a while.’

‘No problem.’

‘What was it?’

‘Most likely a heart attack. It’s still to be confirmed.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll see you later, and please accept my condolences. It must be a terrible shock.’

‘Yes.’

She felt blank then, as though someone had slapped all feeling from her. T-e-r. Terrible. Terrified. Terminal. Mum’s dead, my mother’s dead. If she could only pull the communication cord. Stop the train, stop time. Back up a bit. To before she knew. Turn off her mobile and go home to her cottage and have that bath and a gourmet frozen dinner and then ring Mum. ‘I’m back. It was wonderful.’

Whenever she had imagined this it had been so different. A long, slow decline, an illness, sitting at her bedside. The dilemma of care homes and sheltered housing. Visiting, nursing. In all her fantasies there had always been time to say goodbye.

It was horrible seeing her but she had to do it. She had never seen Peter and what he might have looked like had haunted her as a child. She had imagined his skeleton showing through or a scary look on his face. She had to view Lilian now to make it real and so she’d not plague herself with fancy notions of how she looked. They went into the room. Lilian was laid out on a trolley, a sheet up to her shoulders. She looked false. As though someone had made a poor copy of her. Her face was slumped, her mouth pulled down, she looked sulky or grumpy. Nothing like her usual expression. Her eyes were closed, no hint remained of their cat-like quality, the beautiful green colour. No glasses on now. Her hands looked more real – the familiar way her nails were bitten down. The wedding ring and engagement ring still there. Grief broke over her and with it came a whirl of bitterness, a flood of rage and fear.

How dare you, she thought, how dare you leave me. She wanted to shake her, wake her up, force her to put those arms about her, give her solace. Come back. A sequence of nevers flowed through her, surging like waves against the shore: never smile at me, never ring me up, never say my name, never share a menu, never.

How dare you go and die. She put her hand over the cold one and let tears burn and drip down her face. When she got tired she pulled the chair up and sat right next to the bed, lay her head against her mother’s shoulder.

They had shared a bed after Dad had died. For months she had the comfort of her mother’s soft warm body to save her from loneliness and fears. When had Lilian cried? Not in front of Pamela.

She could smell her mother’s hairspray mixed in with the hospital smells and a trace of the floral perfume she liked, Lily of the Valley. Time passed. She let her mind float, bobbing from one memory to another. Time passed. She grew cold and nauseous. She felt filthy from the journey. There were things to do, an avalanche of things, but she didn’t know how to leave.

It was dark outside when there was a knock on the door. Her aunt and uncle. The spell was broken. When it came to it, it was easier to walk out with them, off to be consumed by the practicalities of death. Leaving her mother lying there alone.

Megan Marjorie

Nina

Megan

He roared his head off when Father baptised him. Megan grinned. ‘Sign of good luck,’ she whispered to Brendan. Francine, in Brendan’s arms, looked solemnly on, an anxious eighteen-month-old. He gave her a little tickle in the ribs and she wriggled and smiled.

‘Aidan Stephen Conroy,’ the priest said. They’d argued for hours over the middle name though they both liked Aidan. They’d had it in mind for Francine but then she turned out to be a girl. Brendan quite liked the idea of calling him Aidan Brendan but Megan pointed out that would be ABC in initials. Well, Brendan had retorted, it’ll be ASC if you call him Stephen. That’s OK, she’d replied with a logic that escaped him.

They went through to the church hall for the christening party. They’d done the buffet themselves with plenty of help from Maggie Driscoll and Kate Conroy. Proud grandparents. And the band were happy to play for a free slate at the bar. Michael, one of Megan’s brothers, was doing the disco. She hoped he’d stay upright long enough to see them through to the end.

Megan told Brendan to get her a rum and Coke and settled down with Aidan and Francine at the centre table. From this vantage point she could see the whole of the room: the sweep of tables and chairs arranged around the wooden dance floor, the bar to her right, the stage at the left and ahead the entrance. Anyone coming in and she could see them. Aidan began to fuss again and she rooted in her bag for his bottle and the little jar of baby food.

She moved the highchair round and got him strapped in. His eager face was alight, burbling with anticipation.

Brendan set the drinks down and took Francine off. Two of Megan’s sisters plus kids and both sets of grandparents sat down with her. She put Aidan in his seat, tied his bib on and started feeding him. The band struck up with a jig and like a flash the older crowd were up, twisting and whirling and giving it all they’d got. Showing the youngsters how it was done. Megan leaned over and took the ciggie her mammy had abandoned in her haste.

She looked over at her father, Anthony, whirling Mammy about. His face was the colour of beetroot these days but his hair was still black. He’d a belly like he was about to pop. Mammy looks old, Megan thought, the skin on her arms hung loose, her lips were thinner, eyes hooded as her face had succumbed to gravity. Maggie still sported ginger hair but it came from a bottle and in-between treatments it faded to the colour of pale rust.

Aidan had finished and was squirming in his chair. She lifted him up and sniffed at his bum, well-padded beneath the christening gown. ‘Jesus, Aidan,’ she complained, ‘been saving that one up, haven’t yer?’

When she returned from changing him she handed him over to Brendan, who was chatting with Billy from work. The disco was starting up and she took to the floor, which filled up to the strains of Herman’s Hermits, ‘Something tells Me I’m Into Something Good’, a Manchester band and they’d got to number one. It had them all joining in, not that they needed much encouragement. She went up and got him to put on Candy’s new one, ‘Walk My Way’ and ‘Doo Wah Diddy Diddy’ after that. She danced until she was out of breath. Francine toddled over and danced beside her when they all got into a line for ‘The Locomotion’.

There was another drink waiting for her, she took a gulp and lit up. Billy stood up to leave them. ‘’S all we can do,’ he said, ‘wait and see.’

Brendan sighed.

‘What’s that then?’ She sat in the seat Billy had left.

‘There’s talk of a takeover and there’s more talk about modernisation.’

‘Good or bad?’

‘Bad, probably. Either could mean lay-offs.’

She saw his mouth tighten. Knew he was worried.

He recognised her concern. ‘There’s been rumours before,’ he shrugged. ‘Prospects might be better, now Labour’s in. Harold Wilson, more in touch with the likes of us than the rest of ’em.’ He bent forward, kissed her.

‘What’s that for?’

‘The most beautiful woman in the world.’

‘Oh, yeah. And you the biggest liar?’

Chubby Chekker came on, ‘Let’s Dance’.

‘Shall we?’ Brendan cocked his elbow at her.

She ground out her cigarette, took another gulp of her drink. He was right. Could be owt or nowt. No point in fretting. Life was hard enough anyway with kids to feed and clothe and nothing getting any cheaper. But today was for Aidan and for them. This was a party and whatever troubles lay ahead they could still have a bloody good knees-up.

Brendan passed Aidan over to Granny Kate and the pair of them went over and into the circle that the dancers formed for them. Brendan winked at her, caught her hand and they launched into the jive that they’d first learnt as teenagers.

Marjorie

‘Sit down!’ Marjorie Underwood screeched at Nina.

‘No!’ The four-year-old glared back defiantly, then leant forward and shoved her plate of food into the centre of the table. It knocked over a glass of Ribena, which bled across the cloth.

‘Now look what you’ve done! You stupid child!’ She lashed out with her hand. Nina ducked but her mother still managed to clip her across the head. ‘Get upstairs.’ Her voice was tight with anger. ‘Now.’

Stephen stared dismally at his plate.

Marjorie pulled the edge of the tablecloth up to stem the flow of juice. Time and again the child pushed her to breaking point. Of course there was nothing wrong with a smack to instill discipline when the child was deliberately naughty like this but Nina’s behaviour never seemed to improve. And when Marjorie smacked her she was often helpless with rage herself. The child made her see red, literally, a flood of orange in her eyes, a mist of bloody fury. Red hair. Red rag to a bull.

And at the end of these awful scenes she always had the sense that she had lost, that the girl had bested her in some obscure way. She would not cry and say sorry and have a cuddle. No matter how harsh the words that Marjorie used or how hard the slap, the girl would blink and swallow and look at her in defiance, vivid blue eyes bright and hard, her small mouth tightly pursed. Where did we go wrong? she thought for the umpteenth time. They had treated the two children exactly the same but Stephen had been so happy, so easy and biddable. Unlike Nina. Everything was a battle. Even as a tiny baby she had cried with a ferocity that had frightened Marjorie and had refused to be mollified. Her small face contorted with rage and her legs kicking as Marjorie paced the room almost demented with fatigue.

That evening when Robert came in she told him about the confrontation at tea-time. He loosened his tie and put his slippers on.

‘She’s definitely living up to the redheads’ reputation. Vile temper.’ He turned to find Marjorie in tears.

‘I can’t go on like this,’ she gasped. ‘I feel awful. There are times when I just want her gone.’

A shocked silence followed. She hid her face, appalled at what she had said.

‘Marjorie…’

‘I don’t really mean it. It’s just all too much sometimes. Like the day’s one long battle with her. And I’m so tired. I can’t sleep with worrying about it.’ She ran her hands back through her silky blonde hair.

He came and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘She’ll be starting school in the autumn,’ he pointed out. ‘She’ll have to buck her ideas up then. And it’ll be a break for you. Do you want me to have a word with her?’

‘She’s asleep now. I do love her, Robert.’

‘Of course you do.’

But I don’t think I like her very much. The thought drenched her with guilt. She took a deep breath, wiped her face and went to dish up their tea.

Nina

It was sunny in the room even though most of the walls were covered in wood and all shiny. There were lines of sun coming in the windows and dust fairies floating in them, millions of them. They were practising for their first confession. You had to close your eyes and think very hard of all the things you’d done that were sins. And you even had to say bad things that you thought about, even if you hadn’t done them and just thought of them. Nina had lots but she couldn’t remember every single one. Then there was a list in the prayer book that you had to look at.

If God was so strong and powerful then why couldn’t he make everyone be good all the time and then there wouldn’t be any sins? No wars or robbers or lies or anything.

‘Oh, my God,’ Father Leary began, ‘because thou art so good…’

They all joined in. You had to know it off by heart. And once you’d done confession then you could make your First Holy Communion. Nina had her dress already. There were tiny pearl buttons and lace round the sleeves. The lace was dead itchy. She wasn’t allowed to try it on any more in case it got dirty. She had white gloves too and a headband, a tiara like something a Princess would wear but no diamonds, just white. And white shoes and socks.

Father Leary was nice. He smiled a lot. Not like Daddy, who only smiled at Stephen and mainly had a shut look on his face like you couldn’t come in. When he got cross his mouth made a mean line. But he didn’t smack her. Mummy did the smacking. She usually smacked her legs.

Father Leary had a nice laugh too. It made you want to laugh.

It was hard to be good all the time. The priest said the confession was to say you’re sorry to God and that you had to try hard to be good after your confession. Yesterday she’d ambushed Stephen. She’d got the metal colander for her head and the sink plunger for her death ray and she’d waited behind the door on the landing and when she heard him coming upstairs she jumped out. ‘Exterminate! Exterminate! I am a Dalek, I will exterminate you!’ He’d jumped and screamed and she had laughed so much it hurt. He was bigger than her after all. He scowled at her and went off and she thought he might tell tales but Mummy didn’t come. It couldn’t be a sin that, being a Dalek, but maybe it was a bit mean. And teasing him about his books. He was always reading. Not fun stuff, like she got Bunty and there was good stories and pictures and always a free gift, like last week there was a hair slide on the front and it came through the door with the paper and it was great. But Stephen picked Look and Learn, which was more like school-y. And he read books without pictures in. She hated that sort. The pictures were always the best bit. But even when Nina was nice to Stephen and did kind things she would still think bad thoughts, they came into her head without her wanting them to, sneaked in so quick she didn’t see how you could stop them.

She knew she would have to go to confession a lot. If she died in-between she’d be sent to purgatory and be tortured until they decided she could go to heaven. She didn’t know what they used to torture you but it hurt a lot. In Hell they had fire but maybe purgatory was different – bamboo shoots under your nails or that one where they put a rat on your tummy and then a cage over it and when the rat got hungry it ate a tunnel through you to escape.

‘Nina.’

Startled, she looked up.

‘Make your act of contrition.’

‘Yes, Father. Oh, my God, because thou art so good…’

Megan

‘All right, Megan?’ Joe was on earlies, one in three weeks. She knew them all now, the regular drivers, but Joe was the most talkative.

‘So-so,’ she replied and put her fare on the metal dish. He rang her off a ticket and shoved the bus back into gear.

He waited till she was sat on the first seat before moving off.

‘They’ve forecast snow,’ he called over his shoulder. The bus was practically empty, sometimes she wondered if they ran it just for her. Now and then you’d get a student with a hulking great backpack off to India or Amsterdam on the Magic Bus from town but no one in their right mind would be on a bus at five in the morning if they could be tucked up warm in bed. Megan had no choice.

‘My mammy’d say it was too cold to snow,’ Megan called back. She lit up. They were bringing in rules about smoking, you had to go upstairs, but Joe didn’t mind and there was no one else to bother. He’d a fag in his mouth like a permanent fixture, even got a little yellow-brown stain there above his lip.

‘Never quite got it myself,’ she continued. ‘I mean, it snows at the North Pole, doesn’t it, and up Everest an’ all? Can’t get much colder than that.’

‘It’s not the same in town, is it, the snow? All mucky by the end of the day.’

‘That salt they chuck everywhere, the gritters and that, you should see what that does to the carpets. Burns ’em. It’s corrosive, that’s what it is. Ruins ’em if you let it build up.’

Joe swung the bus on to Rochdale Road leading down into town. ‘Your Brendan had any luck?’

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘Anything that comes up there’s half of Harpurhey after it. And they take the youngsters. Pay ’em less.’

‘Bloody crime,’ Joe put in. ‘When I started out you could always find something.’

‘Like the buses?’

He laughed. ‘Aye. Well they had conductors too in them days. Or the railways, markets, factories. Everywhere’s hit now. Rolls Royce gone bust, did you see that? Dockers and engineers on strike, even the post office.’

She knew only too well. After she’d been off having Chris they’d cut back at her old place. When she went to see about going back to work they couldn’t give her anything. Not even part-time. Orders were down and overheads were up. People blamed cheap imports and they were tightening their belts.

‘Something might turn up,’ he said. ‘You live in hope.’

‘Aye, you live in hope and you die in despair.’

‘Keep doing the pools, lass.’

She watched the streets rattle past. Houses in darkness, streetlights still casting everything in an orange wash. It was perishing. They hadn’t had the heating on all winter. Just using the gas fire in the lounge. They were living on beans and toast. She still tried to keep the kids looking nice but it was hard. Aidan only had to look at a pair of shoes and they started dropping to bits and Francine growing so fast they couldn’t keep up. She’d even got them some stuff from the Oxfam shop in town. That was a real no-no. You were meant to give your kids the best, only the best, all new. Never cast-offs or if you absolutely had to then only in the family. She pretended they’d come from Woollies, they all had ladybird labels in and you couldn’t tell they’d been worn.

Brendan had taken her to task for it, thinking she’d been spending what they hadn’t got, so she’d had to tell him the whole lot had only cost a couple of bob. She’d seen the fleeting look of shame cross his features and fought against the same feelings in herself.

‘It doesn’t matter, Brendan,’ she said gently, ‘it’s just another way of keeping our heads above water.’

With no joy at the factory she now had four cleaning jobs and still they were spending more than they brought home. If she earned any more they’d dock his social. Two of the jobs were cash-in-hand as it was. Some fool somewhere had decided how much a family of five needed to live on. They must have forgotten to add a nought on the end because the amount barely fed them never mind all the rest – cleaning stuff, soap, plasters, tampons, school things, repairs, birthday cards.

Brendan had helped out on the Driscoll’s stall for a couple of months but they all knew it didn’t add up. People were holding on to their money and takings were rock bottom. Now and again he’d get a day or two labouring, on the motorway. Digging and lifting. He’d come back shattered, the sun or the wind peeled his nose and his shoulders and he’d have cuts on his hands and arms and sometimes was half-deaf from the drills but he’d have a note or two in his pocket. Enough for a bit of shopping or towards the gas or the electric. It didn't happen often. Too many after the same chance and besides it was wise not to push it, too many snoopers eager to catch them out and stop all their benefits.

Her stop next. She finished her cigarette and trod on the tab. Her day stretched ahead like an endurance test. Two and a half hours at the office block in town; five floors they covered, just the three of them. And that included everything from emptying paper bins and hoovering to cleaning toilets and polishing the big entrance hall with the industrial machines.

Then on to the nightclub, where it was clearing up tab ends and broken glass, wiping last night’s beer from the bar and often as not someone's vomit from the floor. The carpet was past saving. Years of spills creating the dark, tacky residue that made your soles stick as you walked on it. Made her skin crawl, that carpet. Third job was a private house in Prestwich where she did a different floor each weekday and always the kitchen and bathroom. A consultant lived there, working at the hospital. She’d never met him, only his wife, who acted like minor royalty. She was often out, going off to coffee mornings and exhibitions and trips to Stratford or up to London, which was where they were from originally. How could you go up to London, Megan thought? The place was 300 miles south. It wasn’t so much a direction thing, she’d said to Brendan, she reckoned it was more like a snob thing: London was better than everywhere else so London was up and everywhere else was down.

Once she’d done the big house she had to get two buses back home, squeeze in her own housework and fetch the kids. Sometimes Brendan went for them and she had half an hour with her feet up. Then it was three hours of bedlam while they were fed and did their homework and little Chris was got ready for bed. At seven she set out again to the comprehensive school. If she really pushed it she could do her section in an hour and a half but most nights she hadn’t the energy to tear about. By the time she got back the kids would be asleep, Francine and her Dad watching telly. She’d join them for a cup of tea and a final fag before turning in, the alarm set for four-thirty.

Nina

‘Nina, Nina, there’s no one meaner! Nina, Nina, there’s no one meaner!’

The four girls surrounded her, their faces curled in snarls as they chanted their latest taunts, careful to have their backs to the staff supervising the playground. She could feel herself getting hot and the red bubbles growing inside. Wanting to smash their faces and pull the hair from their heads.

‘Shut up, pigs!’ she retorted.

‘Takes one to know one!’ Sophie Broom, the leader of the gang threw back.

‘I know you are, I said you are, but what am I?’ Veronica said. Veronica was the coward. Nina knew last time she had lashed out Veronica had run calling for teacher, leaving her three friends to cope with Nina’s furious reaction, kicking feet and slashing arms. Veronica never came near Nina when she was on her own.

‘If I had freckles like you, I’d get my name down for a skin-graft.’ Rosie glanced at Sophie for her approval. ‘There’s millions of them.’

‘Yeah. Looks like you’re going rusty.’ Sophie said.

Nina hated them. She felt her chest tighten, her hands go damp with sweat. She set her mouth, turned to walk away. One of them shoved her in the back between the shoulder blades. She couldn’t stop herself then. She lunged and caught a fistful of shiny blonde hair, pulled it hard down, forcing Sophie’s head towards the tarmac.

Someone grabbed her from behind. Other hands joined in.

‘Get off!’ The ringing tones of a teacher split the girls apart. Nina brushed the hair from her face, pulled her sweater round where it had twisted. She took some comfort from Sophie’s flushed face and the way her hair was all messed up.

Mrs Day, the head, went bonkers. She would have to write to Nina’s parents. If Nina couldn't control her temper then there would be no place for her in the school. It was unladylike and unacceptable. Mrs Day didn’t bother trying to establish what had led up to the brawl and Nina didn't bother trying to tell her. Sophie was a clever pupil. Her father gave the school a lot of money. She didn’t pick on anyone else, only Nina, so they all thought Nina was the troublemaker.

When she went back to her class she saw people’s eyes flicking at her to see if she’d been crying. Well, she hadn't, so bully for them. She saw Veronica nudge Rosie.

‘Sit down, Nina,’ Mrs Sinclair said. ‘And get out your Egyptian topic.’

Brilliant. She’d nearly finished her cover. She’d copied a mummy from a library book and she’d used bits of real gold paper from Dad’s cigarette packets to do the stripes on the sarcophagus with. She’d filled in-between with a lovely blue ink from the Fred Aldous shop in town. She’d done a border of proper hieroglyphics down the sides, and across the top and bottom she was doing a row of pyramids with a Sphinx in each corner. All she needed to do now was to colour in the pyramids and it would be finished.

She knew Miss Sinclair would put it on display, she’d held it up to show everyone last time.

Nina sat down and opened her desk. The bottle of blue ink lay on its side, the top open and a thick pool of it all over her folder. Her work was ruined. She could smell the metallic fumes of the ink. She wanted to cry, her eyes burned like coals and her nose prickled but she wouldn’t. She had left the ink at the other side, next to her pencil case. She knew she had. She looked across at her enemies. Saw the sly smile that Sophie shot Rosie and the prim curl on Veronica’s lips, the way her shoulders jerked a bit with a mocking, silent laugh.

She plunged her hands into the pool of ink, spreading it over the whole of the cover, and then crumpled the paper up. Rotten stinking pigs.

‘Miss!’ She held up her hands and heard the communal gasp.

‘Oh, Nina!’ Miss Sinclair’s voice was thick with frustration. ‘After all that work. You’d done so well. See – a moment’s clumsiness and it’s all spoilt. How many times do I have to tell you girls to put the tops back on properly. Go wash your hands.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘And try not to get into any more trouble on the way. I think we’ve had enough drama for one day, don't you?’

Marjorie

She was in the middle of spring cleaning. A house like this was easier to keep up with than something larger but even so you’d be amazed at how much grime accumulated from one year to the next. They couldn’t afford to be repainting and changing carpets whenever things got grubby but with plenty of elbow grease the place looked fresh and clean again.

She was methodical in her approach. A floor at a time, starting upstairs. First tidy and clear away the items that had a place to go. Put aside anything for jumble or good-as-new. Strip the beds. Remove and wash the curtains. That was a job and a half in itself. Filthy and tiring. Up the stepladder undoing all the curtain hooks, supporting the weight of the fabric on one arm. Curtains in to wash, or to the dry-cleaners. Wipe down the pelmet and the curtain rails. Clean the windows. Shift all the furniture and vacuum underneath, more swathes of grey fluff and hair and lost things. Return furniture. Dust lamps and picture rails. Vacuum again. Wipe down the paintwork with a bucket of hot water and Stardrops. Polish the mirrors. When she was damp with exertion and groaning from the effort she would stop for coffee and a cigarette.

Doing the downstairs, she put on records to jolly her along: Tony Bennett or Burt Bacharach, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald. Downstairs was worse. The kitchen worst of all. Grease in every crevice. She had to dismantle and soak the Expel-Air, watch the water turn brown with the muck coming off it, till it was ivory-coloured again like it should be. All the crockery had to come out so she could clean the cupboards and put fresh lining paper in. The food in the larder and all the baking stuff had to be moved so she could clean the shelves. The drawers in the cabinets sorted out and tidied. The nets had to be soaked in Glo-White. The kitchen took at least a full day to do properly. Top to toe.

She had done their room and next was Nina’s but she’d have a break first.

It was a system. She had learnt from her mother. It was different back then. A girl knew looking after a home and a family was the most important skill she could learn. It was expected that daughters helped out. Not now. When was the last time Nina had ever done anything with her? The pain of them rubbing along together hurt her still. It was a familiar pain. Like a tender tooth, deep and perplexing. She had dreamt of the joys a daughter would bring: shared interests, like going shopping together; up Market Street or down Deansgate to Kendals for a new coat, arm in arm. You saw people like that. She felt a prickle of sadness in her nose. Daft. She could never work out whether it was her or Nina that had set the limits, or the pair of them together, but whatever it was they just weren’t close.

In her darkest moments she would admit to herself that she despaired of the girl. Nina’s bad temper and ill grace had left her disappointed and worn down. God knows she had tried to breach the gap, countless times, knowing as she did that Nina would lash out with clever words or pull back physically and wound her anew.

I’ve tried, I’ve done my best. That was her refrain. She had fed and clothed her daughter. She had bitten back the fresh remarks and sharp retorts that sprang to mind when Nina was behaving badly. Thoughts she never shared, not even with Robert.

Thank God for Stephen. Her lovely boy. Without him… well, she couldn’t imagine. She’d have been a bad mother, wouldn’t she? Unable to bear them, incapable of rearing them. Lacking the maternal instinct. But Stephen was her rock, her touchstone. And when she felt miserable about relations with her daughter she would think of him and her heart would lighten.

She stirred sugar into her coffee, lit a cigarette. She examined her hands. Red and chafed from the work, her nail polish chipped. She laid her cigarette in the ashtray and reached for the Nulon bottle. She poured a pool into her hands. Rubbed it in. The music changed. Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather… Beautiful voice, Billie Holliday – sang like an angel and died penniless.

She picked up the cigarette, took a puff, felt the familiar melancholy ripple through her. Funny, she thought, all the torch songs that she adored, they never made her think of Robert or any old boyfriends or even film-stars. No, it was Nina. Nina who broke her heart. Nina who was her great unrequited love.

Megan

‘We’d have to get a loan.’

‘Who’d give us a loan?’

Brendan shrugged. ‘They seem to be throwing it at people.’

‘But we’ve no assets. This place is rented.’ She saw uncertainty replace the eager expression that he’d had when he had told her about his uncle’s carpet shop. She didn’t want to spoil it for him but the prospect of further debts made her feel physically sick. ‘You might be able to get one of those schemes,’ she said, ‘job creation or whatever they call it. Has Ronnie been making a profit?’

‘Oh, aye. The trick is to get in while the stock’s still there and the reputation. Any gap and we'll lose custom.’

‘And he’s sure he wants to sell up?’

‘Definite. Belle would cuff him to the bed rather than let him work again. He knows his number’s up. The doctor made it plain too. Nice and easy, no strain. They’ll put him in for a by-pass.’

‘You’re sure about this, doing this?’

He nodded. ‘It’s not just selling the shop, there’s fitting and all, they do the lot.’

‘We’d need to talk to Ronnie. And the bank, we couldn’t do it without a loan, could we?’

He shook his head. ‘But Ronnie might accept half now and half over the next year. He knows how tight things are. I’d need to find someone to do the paperwork, the accounts, all that side of things.’

‘Who did it before?’

‘Ronnie.’

‘Can’t be that hard.’

‘You know me and forms.’

‘And figures!’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I could have a go. If Ronnie showed me the ropes.’

He smiled quickly.

‘Ring him now,’ she said. ‘See if it’s all right for us to call round for a chat.’

‘You don’t want a bit longer to think about it?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘we’re not committing ourselves to owt, just going to see him.’

Besides, she thought to herself, if they didn’t go straight away then she’d get panicky about the whole thing and come up with a million worries about it.

‘Strike while the iron’s hot,’ she said. She looked in the mirror, pulled the elasticated band from her hair and shook out her curls. It needed a trim. Looked like a haystack, one on fire.

And what was the alternative to taking on the carpet business? Another twenty years getting poorer by the week, slogging her guts out and still having to watch the furniture fall apart and the cooker pack up and Brendan get more and more morose?

He slid his arms round her waist.

‘You always were a fast worker.’

‘I never heard you complaining.’ She pushed his hands away. ‘Go on, try him now.’

She watched him dial.

‘Won’t even have to change the sign, will we? Conroy’s Carpets.’

Nina

Nina was sick of school, sick of her stupid, boring, useless parents and sick of being fifteen. She wanted to be nineteen. Able to do whatever she wanted. Get married or go round the world or have a brilliant job and loads of money but not be so old that she was just a boring old square with nothing worth living for. God, she thought, I hope I die before I’m thirty. Be dead famous, then die. Paint brilliant pictures or be a fashion designer and dress the stars.

She looked again at her revision plan, gazed back out of the window, where Dad was putting the new rotary washing line up for Mum. Event of the year. How exciting. Tears pricked her eyes at the bloody awful boredom of it all. She needed a ciggie. There were two in her secret bag in her wardrobe but she knew for a fact that Dad had a packet of ten Benson and Hedges in his coat. He only smoked five or six a day and now and then she would help herself to one if the packet was more than half full. He didn't keep count.

If she did another half-hour then he’d be settled in the lounge and she could take the dog out.

The dog’s the best person in this family, she thought, then giggled at the notion. Causes of the First World War. As You Like It. Alluvial Plains. She let her eyes wander over the headings and the blocks of time she’d allocated. What was the point? She didn’t want to stay on at school a minute longer than was absolutely necessary. She wanted to get out, out of this house, away from this family, far away from this dump of a city.

She caught sight of her brother. Oh, brilliant. Now Stephen’s helping too. Perfect Stephen. Expected to do so-o-o-o well in his A levels. University material. Not like his sister. She was a cuckoo. She didn’t belong here with this lot, rotting in the suburbs. She felt permanently scratchy as though someone had supplied her with prickles instead of pores. There was this big myth that redheads had bad tempers and she did but it wasn’t just a temper like losing it every so often it was like the steam was always building up and when she shouted or flew off the handle it was only a relief for a short while and then she was feeling cross all over again.

Stephen, O perfect one, brains and good looks, he wasn’t ever mean to her no matter what she said. And she said some awful things. He never tried to get her into trouble. A blooming saint. That made it worse. Anatomy of The Earthworm. Respiration. Electromagnetism. Why couldn’t she just have done GCEs?

Now the rotary dryer was fully erected and her mother was smiling like an idiot and Nina loathed how happy they were. They ought to get the priest to come and bless the damn thing. She ripped her plan in half. Began to draw pictures on the back, eyes and teardrops, shadowy people. Like an LP cover. She drew a sea of question marks and in the middle like it was floating she drew ‘Nina’ in bubble writing.

Maybe her real mother was scratchy too. Maybe that’s where she got it from. If she found her at least she’d know whether it was in her blood. She scribbled out her name and turned the question marks into keyholes. Nina has artistic flair, a good eye, strong technique, and applies herself diligently. Best part of her report. For art. As low in the scheme of things as cookery, which she was rubbish at, and woodwork, which might have been good but most of the class were boys and they just messed about.

What could you do with art? Be an artist and starve? She liked it but she couldn’t see it going anywhere. Be cool to do album covers or posters, like for films and stuff, but how did you do that? They never had those sort of vacancies in the paper. You’d probably have to go to art school, and for that you had to stay on and do A levels and there was no way she was staying on.

She was dying for a fag.

She listened and worked out that Mum and Dad were in the lounge. Stephen wherever.

She went down and poked her head round the lounge door. Dad reading, Mum watching Upstairs Downstairs.

‘I’ll take Joey out.’

They grunted.

She went to the small shelf by the front door, where Dad left his keys and loose change and cigarettes. Five left. Do-able. She took one and got her Zippo from her schoolbag. She whistled for Joey and attached his lead.

Once they’d reached the banks of the river she let him off to mooch about a bit while she sat on a bench and smoked. The river was ugly, steep-sided banks shaped in stiff angular lines. Something to do with flood control. The river a grey-brown sludge between the towering banks, the banks covered in rough grass and clods of earth. Nothing like the rivers in stories. The rivers you imagined when you said the word river. A real river would have shallow banks, clear, burbling water; you could see the pebbles and the shadows of the fish. There would be stepping stones draped in moss and willow trees overhanging the edges, maybe a stretch of waterfalls making the water silver as it tumbled down.

She took a deep drag, held it and blew out.

This river went all the way to the sea. Somewhere near Liverpool. The Mersey. ‘Ferry Cross The Mersey’. Good song, they’d re-released it. Bit sad but she liked that. Sad things were more… real… they meant more. Like Chloe, her best friend, cut-throat Chloe they nicknamed her because she was so down and talked about killing herself and how pointless everything was. Her loony way of looking at things meant she knew exactly what Nina was on about when she talked about being a cuckoo and her dumb, happy family and all that.

She whistled for Joey. The dog returned, delighted to be summoned, his tail beating, ears perked up. He licked her knee. She rubbed his head. She finished her cigarette and flicked the tab into the river. It could go all the way to the ocean.

She walked home quickly. The light was starting to fade and she was ready to go to bed. Not much revision accomplished but another day done. Another day closer to freedom. Another step nearer to the journey she was intent on making.

She had only asked once, that she could remember, when she was nine. She had learnt somehow that her adoption and Stephen’s were not talked about. Close family knew, like Auntie Min and both the grannies and Dad’s brother John. Other people must have known surely. Mum turning up to Church with a babe in arms, no former sign of pregnancy? Presumably people just took their cue from the Underwood’s reticence. So she had learnt, not that it was shameful, but that it was private. Nobody else’s business. Not quite a secret but as good as.

She’d been driven to ask after having a nightmare. So bad it had sent her to Marjorie’s room. That was unusual, for she was a child who resented rather than sought out physical affection. She had always wriggled out of Marjorie’s embrace, preferring to be unfettered. In the dream she had chopped Marjorie’s head off. Robert had shouted at her and then she had pointed to her mother and said no harm was done. Her mother’s head was back on but the face was that of a stranger.

She had reared up gasping and switched the light on. It was autumn and a moth batted against the shade, which gave her another shock, making her heart race and her breath hurt. With shadows biting at her heels she went to her parent’s room. She let her mother hug her and delayed her return to bed by asking for a glass of milk. Her mother tucked her back in and kissed her on the forehead. She put the landing light on and left Nina’s lamp off so the moth would leave her room.

The following day she waited until she could be sure no one would interrupt them and then asked her mother, ‘When you adopted me did you meet my mother that had me?’

Marjorie froze, blinked fast, put the iron down and let her hands rest lightly on the edge of the board. Nina watched her.

‘No.’

‘What was she called?’

‘I can’t remember, erm… Driscoll, I think. Yes.’

‘What was her first name?’

‘I don’t know, Nina. I don’t think they ever told us.’

Her mum looked calm but Nina could tell she was really upset. She was squashing her hands together and her lips were tight. But Nina couldn’t stop.

‘What did she call me?’

‘Claire.’

It was a shock. She hadn’t expected an answer. Claire. Claire Driscoll.

‘Did she have red hair?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did she have me adopted?’

‘Because she wasn’t married. She wanted you to have a good home, a proper family. And that’s all we know.’ An edge in her voice. Putting an end to it. The lid on it.

Nina had gone out into the back garden, walked up the rockery to her perch by the birdbath. She felt hot and mean for asking all those questions. Horrible, but there was a bit inside burning bright because of the red hair. Red hair like Nina. She didn’t even know her first name. But red hair, ginger. She knew that now. And Nina had been baptised Claire – Claire Driscoll not Nina Underwood.

She had never spoken to her parents about it since. She couldn’t. They couldn’t. So as she planned to find out more she knew it would have to be done in secret. She had learnt that from them. The way of secrets.

Maybe she would tell them, once she’d done it. But not before. Their hurt and disapproval would make her words come out all sullen and rebellious and this wasn’t about that. About her life with them. It wasn’t about them at all. This was about her – just her.

Marjorie

They were about to eat when the slam of the front door signalled that Nina was home.

‘It’s on the table,’ Marjorie called out, and returned to cutting up the quiche.

Stephen noticed first. Made a little strangled sound and then glanced anxiously at Robert and Marjorie.

Oh, dear Lord. She’d shaved her head. Her lovely glossy red curls all gone, just stubble, like something from a concentration camp. ‘Oh, Nina.’

Her daughter smiled and had the grace to colour a little.

Robert swivelled in his chair and dropped his cutlery. ‘What in God’s name…? What on earth have you done?’

‘It’s the fashion. Suedehead, everybody’s doing it.’

‘Don’t be so stupid. Have you any idea what a sight you look? What will people think?’

He was saying all the wrong things. Marjorie could see Nina recoiling then her chin rising, the defiance stealing into her piercing blue eyes.

‘I don't care what people think.’

‘That’s ruddy well obvious. Well, you needn’t think you’re coming to Church looking like that. Like a ghoul.’

‘Robert!’ Marjorie tried to intervene. Yes, she looked a sight but teenagers were like that, well, some of them. It really wasn’t the end of the world.

‘I’m not going to Church any more anyway so you needn’t bother. It’s all a load of rubbish.’

A stunned silence greeted that little bombshell.

‘It’ll grow back,’ Marjorie said.

‘I’m not growing it, I like it.’

‘Look in the mirror,’ he said, ‘you look ridiculous.’

Nina flinched. Marjorie felt her own pulse speed up as Robert’s voice rose. ‘Do you deliberately set out to hurt your mother and I? Do you get some perverted sense of satisfaction from causing upset? Eh? Are they going to let you go to school like that? You’ll have to wear a scarf or something.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ her face was set, nostrils flaring.

‘Oh, yes, I can, young lady. I’m your father and until you’re…’

‘You’re not my real father.’

‘Nina!’ Marjorie felt as if a bomb had burst in her chest. ‘Nina, stop.’

‘He’s not, and you’re not my real mother and I wish you’d never adopted me.’ She ran from the room banging the door shut behind her.

She could see Stephen’s mouth working hard to contain his emotion. It was so hard on him. He was so settled, so grounded.

‘It’s all right, love.’ She touched his hand. He shook his head.

‘I’ve no appetite.’ Robert pushed his plate away.

Please, she thought, looking at him. His eyes were lined now, the sandy hair sparse on top. Please don’t go. She didn’t say anything. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

He pushed his chair back. ‘I’ll pop up to the club.’

The blessed golf club.

‘See if anyone’s up for a game. Stephen?’

Stephen shook his head.

What about me? she thought. She ran her hands through her blonde hair, pressing her fingers on her scalp. He walks away and leaves me with the mess. He’s always shouting about how Nina has upset me but he never does a thing, not a damn thing, to make me feel better. Couldn’t he just for once stay, give me a hug or just sit and hold my hand? Talk about it. Instead of running away.

‘I’ll be back in time for Mass.’

Marjorie could still feel the burning in her chest. You’re not my real mother. She blinked to clear her eyes, hoping Stephen wouldn’t notice. She wanted to ask Robert to stay but she couldn’t, because then she would see that look in his eyes like a trapped animal and he’d pace about the house, his temper simmering, reproaching her, and she would feel she had made unreasonable demands. So she said nothing.

After he had gone she sat until Stephen had finished eating and then she cleared the table and began washing the pots.

She felt the misery settle on the house, soaking into the floors and the walls, seeping round the rooms like gas.

She listened for sounds from upstairs, for a movement that might mean Nina was coming down. Because this time Marjorie was not going to be the one bearing the olive branch. She wanted an apology. Nina’s words had cut her to the bone. I’m the only mother she’s got, real or not, she told herself. She had made allowances for her and given her the benefit of the doubt until she was fed up to the back teeth with it. She pressed her lips together and took a sharp breath. She rinsed the sink. Dried her hands on the tea towel. She looked with resentment at the pile of ironing: white shirts for Robert and Stephen, Nina’s uniform, bed-linen, tablecloths, her own skirts and blouses. With a sigh she went to fetch the iron.

Megan

She always did the monthly accounts sitting at the table in the front room. She could watch the street from there, see the world go by in-between filling in the columns and sorting the subtotals out. She had two months to do tonight and she wouldn’t put it off any longer. But she was distracted. There had been a programme on the telly last night about adopted people tracing their parents. She wouldn’t have had it on if anyone else had been in but Brendan had gone down the local, Francine was at her mates, Aidan God knows where and Chris tucked up in bed, so she was on her own. Brendan wouldn’t have liked it.

‘We have to put it behind us, Megan,’ he’d said just before their wedding. ‘It doesn’t do any good this dragging it all out, look at the state of you.’

He was right. She upset them both when she started on about it all. It didn’t help really.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘OK.’

So they didn’t talk about it anymore. When Francine came along they acted like she was the very first. They thought of Frances at first but Megan liked the French ending, made it a bit different. ‘Besides, people might think Frances is a boy, you can only tell when its written down.’ She was a real peach. A little doll with creamy skin and golden freckles and red curls like Shirley Temple. She won the May Queen when she was six and when she took her First Holy Communion she really was the best one there. Like an angel from an old oil painting. She turned out nice-natured too, no backbiting or whining. They got plenty of that from Aidan and Chris. Aidan was hell on legs, intent on a showdown with anything that drew breath, and Chris could whine for England, but she loved them all. Francine though, thank God she was the eldest. Lulled them into a false sense of parenthood, she did. Slept well, ate well, barely cried. She was out there now, hanging round the gate with her mates. Twelve years old and at high school.

She was already talking about doing nursery nursing. Loved the little ones. Megan didn’t care what she did as long as she stayed happy and didn’t get caught or end up on drugs. She didn’t want her having a baby before she was grown herself. Not like Megan. Too young.

Course things were different nowadays, and a good thing too. At least you could choose what you did about it. Half of Manchester were single parents, no one batted an eyelid at teenagers pushing buggies. Some girls did it instead of getting a job, something to make them feel worthwhile. That was sad. But what else could they do. They watched telly and it was like the world was an Aladdin’s cave of stuff you could have, places to go, but that wasn’t the real world. Not if you lived round here.

She drew her thoughts back to the ledger and totted up the outstanding debtors column. Thank God for calculators.

While she had watched the telly programme she’d been on edge the whole time, holding the remote control in case someone came in. She watched these women talk about having babies adopted, things she had never told anyone except Brendan. Some of it rang bells, whole bloody sleigh-fulls, and she had to get the Kleenex before they got to the first ad break.

There was a helpline number at the end and she started to memorise it and then thought what the hell for? She’d never use it. And if she did she’d be on for hours talking her whole bloody life away and she’d promised it was behind them, hadn’t she? Best left, like they agreed.

She’d three great kids, even Aidan had his moments and maybe he’d settle as he grew up. They’d a roof over their heads and now they’d enough money to manage, so why stir it all up?

Two of the women in the film had met the children they’d given up, grown-ups by then. She couldn’t imagine that. When she thought of hers, she saw a baby or the little one in the picture she kept. What would she be like now? Three years older than Francine. Be nice to know if she’d turned out all right. To tell her that you’d done it for the best. That if they’d let you, you’d have kept her and got married soon as you could. One of the women had hired a detective to find her son. That wasn’t right. It turned out OK in the film but you hadn’t a right really, had you? You signed that away when you signed the papers. Imagine the upset if she tried that. Not just her and the girl but the younger children. What would they think? They hadn’t got a clue. Laughter from outside made her look. Francine was pushing playfully at her friend Stacey. Then the pair of them doubled up with laughter again. Megan smiled. They were happy, weren’t they? Only a fool would risk spoiling all that.

Nina

The music was very loud – 10cc blaring out and all the lights were off. Nina could see the tip of the joint glowing across the other side of the room and the glow lit up Chloe’s face when she took a drag.

Nina had already had some, she felt giggly and sleepy and desperate for something to drink. She couldn’t snog Gary until she’d had a drink. He was kissing her neck. She nudged him and told him.

‘What?’

‘A drink,’ she said into his ear.

He stood up and was back in a few minutes with a bottle of cider. She drank from the bottle. It was very fizzy and cold and she had to stop every so often to let the bubbles go down. They shared the bottle for a while then Gary told her to come on.

He dragged her over the prone bodies and out into the hall. There was a red bulb so it looked like a film or something.

‘Gary?’

‘Come on.’ He moved towards the stairs.

‘What?’

‘Nina.’

He was gorgeous-looking – soft, clear skin, wide cheekbones, a dimple in his chin. His hair was shiny and brown and fell to his shoulders. Hers was growing out and she looked like she had a red afro. They’d been going together for four weeks. It was her record. He lived near Chloe and was a friend of her brother.

‘What if they…?’

‘Nina,’ he said again. Not bossy but with a longing sound like he couldn’t wait and it made her feel randy.

Upstairs there was a bedroom where all the coats had been put. Gary moved them on to the floor. She lay down on the bed and he turned out the light.

She let his hands roam up and over her breasts, squeezing them. She had a mini jumper on. She shifted position and pulled it over her head, let him fiddle and undo her bra strap. She could smell fresh smoke in his hair as it fell over her face, and the scent of the new Matsumi perfume she’d used. His breathing quickened. She moved her hand down and stroked the bulge of his crotch. He kissed her, his tongue warm and soft and tasting of cider. The last time they’d been together she’d made him come, rubbing his willy up and down. He had told her when to go slow or harder and he’d been really nice afterwards. He’d given her a finger-fuck till she was dizzy and gasping and wet, but she was too embarrassed to tell him what else she needed to make her come.

She undid his zip and touched him through his underpants. His erection stretched the cloth and she felt a ripple of excitement herself. She wanted him to touch her again. She slid her own tongue into his mouth, in and out, hoping he’d cotton on. He wasn’t very bright, not school-wise. She wasn’t exactly Einstein but she managed. His writing, she’d been shocked, it was like a little kids’ and he couldn’t spell for toffee. He wasn’t clever with words, they didn’t talk much, but he wasn’t thick when it came to turning her on. He slipped his hand between her legs and pressed against the seam of her jeans. She moved against his hand, still fondling him with her own. He ended the kiss.

‘Take your jeans off,’ he said hoarsely.

She did, feeling the cool air of the room on her thighs. He removed his clothes and they lay side by side on the narrow bed. He rubbed her breasts again and when he rolled her nipple between his fingers she gave a mew of pleasure which made him swear softly. She touched his willy again, began to slide her hand up and down. He pushed a finger inside her, then another. She rocked her hips, straining. Wanting more. Flames danced along her arms and the back of her legs and she began to repeat his name to the rhythm he was using.

‘Nina,’ he said thickly, ‘I want to do it with you.’

She felt a fresh flare of desire. ‘Don’t come… you know.’

‘I’ll pull out.’ He kissed her and she opened her legs as he climbed over her. He withdrew his fingers and she felt him nudge against her. He pushed and slid in. She had expected more pain but it felt good. He braced himself on his arms and moved in and out. She wanted him to go faster, she gripped his buttocks. ‘Yes, Gary, Yes!’

He pulled away, gasped.

‘No!’ she cried.

He flopped on the bed beside her. ‘Oh, Nina, oh wow! That was great.’

She had a stitch in her side. She felt goosebumps break across her skin and the sour disappointment washed through her. So that was it. Big deal. She ached with frustration, tempted to move her hand and show Gary what would make her feel great.

The door flew open and the light snapped on. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms about herself.

‘Bloody hell!’ Chloe’s voice. ‘Sorry, but my Dad’s here and if you want a lift home you’re going to have to come now.’

Megan

There were two couples browsing and a single woman. She always let them take their time, none of that rushing to make a sale. The longer they stayed the more likely they were to buy, and once they got around to asking her about a particular roll or for a quote she could do her sales pitch then.

Brendan was off on a big job. They’d swung a contract with the university, fitting heavy-duty carpets and wear-resistant cord in the new halls of residence. It was just the boost they needed. They’d be able to complete on the loan and give Ronnie the bit they still owed him. It was a bloody marvellous feeling, to be getting level and knowing that everything else they made they could spend on themselves, on the kids and the house. Another big contract and there’d be the chance of a holiday, a proper holiday, Costa del Sol or somewhere. Mind you, it was so hot this summer you didn’t need to go abroad. An official drought, hose pipe bans and of course business in the shop had slowed down – most people couldn’t imagine wanting snug wall-to-wall when it was blazing out there.

One of the couples asked for a quote. The woman reminded her of Mia Farrow, big eyes and that elfin look to her. Megan established the size of the house and whether they wanted underlay – which really was recommended if they wanted maximum life from the carpets and better insulation – and fitting. She gave them two estimates based on the roll they’d chosen and a similar but slightly more expensive version which she explained had a greater mix of wool and would wear better.

She let them hum and haw a bit but she knew they’d go for the better buy, you could tell money wasn’t the main thing with them: they both had good leather coats on and his watch wasn’t off Longsight market. She took the order and arranged a time for Brendan to measure up. They’d three lads doing the fitting but he tended to do the initial measuring. You only needed to be a few inches out and you could really cock it up. And that would eat into any profit you made.

She’d just finished with the customers when the phone rang. It was her sister Kitty. Megan was surprised. She never rang her at work.

‘What is it?’

‘Megan. It’s Daddy. There’s been an accident.’

‘Oh, God!’

‘He got knocked down. He’s dead.’ She broke down.

‘Where’s Mammy?’

‘At home now, I’m with her here. We’ve just got back from the hospital.’

‘I’ll be over right away.’

Mammy had insisted on a traditional Irish wake with them up all hours eating and drinking and talking about Anthony. Open house for the whole parish.

He’d been a popular figure in the market and at the pub, though Megan wasn’t quite sure why. He’d been addled with drink a lot of the time, he’d never been a particularly generous man, not even with his affections, though he got sentimental sometimes when he’d had a few. But he’d never been violent, he’d never belted them like so many she knew. Mammy had never had to cover bruises or lie about walking into doors. He’d been rough with his tongue, now and then and that was bad enough.

Megan passed around open rolls with thick slices of ham and beef on and a dish of pickles. Someone kicked off ‘My Wild Irish Rose’ and they all joined in, even her three sat by their Nana, though Chris’s eyes were wide and fixed, the poor lamb was shattered. She’d never really forgiven her father for not letting her and Brendan get married back then. It had seemed such a cruel refusal. As the years had gone by she saw just as much of him but she felt distant from him. She’d lost the passion he’d inspired in her as a little girl when she had run to show him, tell him… Her kids had liked him well enough but he wasn’t always there when they went round. Once the stall was shut Anthony preferred to relax with his mates rather than at home and his routine never varied. If it was within opening hours and not a meal time he’d be at the bar no matter who was coming to visit.

The kids were close to their Nana. Francine and Chris took after her in looks, redheads the pair of them. But Aidan was like Anthony, wild black hair and a rangy frame. Though where he’d got his contrariness from she didn’t know. Brendan reckoned Aidan got his temper from the Conroy side. Like Brendan’s father he was always ready to lash out before engaging his brain. Too handy with his fists by far. Only twelve and fetched home from school countless times for scrapping. He was sly too, which worried her more. He was trouble waiting to happen was Aidan and she hadn’t got a clue what she could do about it.

Caroline Kay

Theresa

Kay

‘Happy Birthday to you!’ The song reached its crescendo and Theresa blew out all the candles in one long blow.

Kay smiled and called the cluster of children to go into the lounge for pass the parcel. The party had taken days to organise and meanwhile Dominic’s croup had kept her up in the night just as the twins had started sleeping through. Four babies in five years. People in the parish thought it was a fairy story. If they hadn’t all been adopted there might have been less interest, though families did seem to be getting smaller these days.

She watched Theresa pass the parcel round and got ready to lift the arm off the record player. Theresa was a lovely looking child, thick shiny dark-brown hair, creamy skin that turned caramel in the summer sun and brown eyes like dark chocolate. Kay wondered sometimes whether there was any Spanish or Italian ancestry. She looked darker than her brothers, who all had blue eyes, but of them all it was only the twins who had a clear likeness to each other. They weren’t identical but very similar.

But people saw what they wanted to see. Strangers often remarked on the resemblance between Kay and Theresa – ‘She’s just like you isn’t she?’ Kay found it bizarre – they both had shoulder-length brown hair, cut with a fringe, but that was it really. There was little alike in their faces – Kay had chubby cheeks and a generous mouth, grey eyes, a motherly look to her, while Theresa was more delicate, like a little fawn with those big, brown eyes and long eyelashes and a small nose. Even more amusing were the comments the whole family would get on holiday, which veered from ‘like peas in a pod’ to ‘they’re all quite different, aren’t they?’ The Farrells’ standard response was to smile and agree with either observation.

Kay stopped the music and waited while Jimmy’s mother helped him take away a wrapper. She lowered the needle and ‘Nellie The Elephant’ rang out again. Four children meant a busy life but she had a cleaner every day now. She couldn’t have managed otherwise. Adam’s estate agency business had expanded and he’d opened a second shop in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. More people than ever were wanting to buy their own home and new Barratt’s and Wimpy estates were being built everywhere. Modern homes with all the mod-cons and easy to look after. Adam would enthuse about the more stylish developments but Kay loved the character of their old Edwardian semi in Sale even though it was a magnet for dust and hard to keep warm. But he was talking about central heating before next winter. That would make so much difference.

She stopped the music and Andrew undid the parcel. Theresa looked across at Kay, eyes shining, a jelly stain on the neck of her party dress and crumbs round her mouth. She raised her shoulders and grinned, a little gesture of happiness that made Kay wink back. Nearly done, she was dying for a cup of tea and to sit down for a few minutes. Before then there was cake to parcel up and balloons to give out. Some of the other mothers would help. Not a man in sight though. Funny they never came to the parties, it just wasn’t done. Never did much of anything in the house either. She wasn’t complaining but just now or then it would be lovely to have a meal cooked for her or find a room tidied or the ironing done. The image of Adam hunched over an ironing board made her giggle.

She was happy. Of course, there were days when she snapped at the children or the hours before bedtime seemed to yawn ahead with nothing but demands on her. On the rare occasion that she left the house without a pram, a toddler on reins or a small hand in hers, she felt anxious, as though she had lost something precious and would get into trouble. The unease persisted, albeit at a low level, until she was back home, so she never really enjoyed the rare trips to the sales or a get-together with an old friend. Her social life revolved around the children and the network of women nearby who were at home with theirs. She was closest to Joanna. She didn’t agree with everything Joanna said but she was honest and she was funny and you knew she wouldn’t sit in judgment on you like some of the others.

Damien, Joanna’s five-year-old, opened the next layer and grabbed the twist of floral gums that fell out. Two more layers, if she remembered correctly. She’d try and get Karen next, a whining child that she found hard to like, who looked close to tears at not having had a go. How different would life have been if she and Adam had been able to have their own family. She might have ended up with one like Karen. She’d no regrets. Not now. Though she did wonder what pregnancy would have been like, all that side of things. And breast feeding. Not many people did it, with bottles being so convenient, but she thought that would have been something special. She’d talked to Joanna about it once.

‘Ghastly business. Tried it for a week. I’d bosoms like a cow, it hurt like crazy and the poor mite nearly starved to death. Ken hated it too.’

The odd thing about their birthdays was that she’d not been there when they were born. There were no anecdotes about the day like other people had. They didn’t even know what time Theresa had been born or how the labour had gone. That was another woman’s story. She always thought of her and said a prayer for her, hoping that everything had turned out all right, as well as a prayer of thanks for what they had been given.

Karen got her turn and then the final parcel made the rounds. The bat and ball in the middle went to Janey from nextdoor.

‘Home time!’ Kay called out. ‘Get your coats.’ She handed each child or their mother a balloon and a piece of birthday cake. She saw people out and when they were all gone except for Faith she heard the woman’s voice, etched with tension, ‘For Christ’s sake just put the bloody car down. Now!’

A caterwaul rose and Kay hurried in. Faith was gripping Andrew’s arm and the child was obviously in pain. Theresa watched, her lower lip trembling. Faith’s older son Oliver stood unblinking to one side.

‘Faith?’

Her friend wasn’t usually harsh. But with two youngsters and another on the way there were bound to be difficult days.

Faith let go immediately. ‘I’m sorry.’ She bent to put an arm round her son. ‘I’m sorry, Andy. Mummy’s very tired.’ She rubbed his hair and straightened up, turning so Kay caught sight of her face crumpling. ‘It’s just…’

‘Come in the kitchen,’ Kay said. ‘Theresa, you take Andrew and Oliver and Dominic out to the sandpit. Go on and I’ll bring you all an ice-lolly in a minute.’

Kay sat Faith down, put the kettle on and offered her a cigarette. Faith took it, mouth working, wiping at her tears with the heel of her hand. ‘It’s Mick,’ she said. ‘He’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Left us. Walked out.’

‘Oh, Faith. Why… what?’

‘We’ve been rowing -’ she gave a short laugh – ‘endlessly. He didn’t want another baby. He says I can’t control the children. He expects them to be little angels, all the time.’ She picked up Kay’s lighter and lit her cigarette, her hand shaking. ‘He was coming home later and later.’

‘Do you think he was… involved with someone?’

‘No. I just think he was avoiding the children. It can be frantic at tea time, you know what it’s like. Oliver is always teasing Andrew. Anyway, Mick’s been drinking, more than he should…’ She frowned deeply, pressed the back of her hand to her nose.

Kay got up and made the coffee. Put the mugs down, lit her own cigarette. Ate a slice of cake. Waited.

‘Kay, please promise you won’t tell anyone but… he… Sometimes he hits me.’

‘Oh, God!’

‘He always says sorry and things seem better for a while but… it’s worse when I’m pregnant.’

‘He hits you when you’re pregnant?’

‘Please don’t tell anyone?’

‘I won’t. I promise.’

She could be trusted. She thought of Joanna – Kay had never betrayed her confidences about Ken’s affair and one day Joanna had made some dry remark about Bev that revealed the whole thing was over.

‘He hates me like this.’ Faith lowered her eyes. ‘I was so worried about the baby. I’m almost glad he’s gone but I don't know how I’m going to manage.’

Kay was appalled. She’d no idea. But she wanted to know more: where did he hit her, how, when; did he shout, did they make love afterwards? A prurient curiosity that made her feel ashamed.

‘You can sue him for maintenance, at least for the children. It’s cruelty – you could divorce him.’

‘I don’t want to. I still love him. You probably think I’m mad. Maybe things will change, once the children are older, easier…’ She faltered.

Kay bit her tongue. ‘If I can help, if there’s anything, take Andy and Oliver for an afternoon. Just ask.’

Faith nodded. ‘Thanks.’

‘And when the baby comes.’

‘He’ll probably be back before then. Wanting his marital rights. Did you and Adam, this late on…’ She realised her mistake. ‘Oh, God, Kay, I forget. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘Well, it’s blooming uncomfortable, I can tell you, and you’d think he wouldn’t want me, looking like a barrage balloon.’

Kay smoked her cigarette and took a drink. ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

‘His mother’s. She thinks the sun shines out of his you-know-what. She likes having him home again. She’s on her own now,’ she amended.

‘When did he go?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘Have you spoken since?’

‘Nope.’ She crushed her cigarette in the ashtray. ‘They never tell you about this part, do they? All the films and the books, they always stop at the altar. I keep thinking, How did we end up like this?’ She sighed heavily. ‘Sorry to put a damper on the party.’

‘Don’t be daft. And if I can do anything…’

‘I know. Why can’t they be more like us, Kay? They say women are the weaker sex but I don’t see much sign of it. They waltz off but we have to keep going no matter what, we get stuck with the children. We just have to get on with it, don’t we?’

Theresa

Theresa had made a whole row of sandcastles. She loved the little paper flags that Mummy had bought her to stick on top. There was a white cross on blue paper, a lovely red dragon, a Union Jack and a stripey one.

She needed seaweed now to make a pattern round them all, and some shells. At the water’s edge she squatted down, selecting slippery strands of bladderwrack, with its leathery skin and bulbous pods, and fronds of the other slimy, bright-green weed.

Another girl came up close. She had a fishing net. Theresa watched the girl’s toes disappear into the soft sand.

‘There’s a crab over there,’ the girl said. ‘In the big rock pool.’

‘Can you see it?’

‘I’ll show you. What’s your name?’

‘Theresa.’ She got up, leaving the seaweed.

‘How old are you?’

‘Six.’

‘What’s wrong with your ear?’

Theresa blinked. The question stung her, she felt a bit sick.

‘Nothing.’ She pulled her hair over it, hiding it. ‘It didn't grow right.’

‘Does it hurt?’ The girl had a mean mouth. Theresa wanted her to shut up and go away.

‘It looks horrible. Are you a bit deaf?’

Theresa grabbed her bucket and ran up the beach. When she reached the shingle she slipped, skinning her toes against the pebbles. She began to cry. She couldn’t see the place where Mummy and Daddy and Dominic and the babies were.

She walked on. Stupid, horrid girl. She hated her ear. Mummy said it was nothing to worry about but she didn’t know, she didn’t have a lump like a slug on her head, did she?

She sobbed some more, her tummy hurt. She was lost. Then she saw her castles, the flags tiny specks in the distance and nearby Daddy rolling the big beach ball to Dominic. She squeezed her face to make more tears come and then ran to them. Mummy was reading, lying on her front on the blanket. The twins were asleep on the picnic rug. Theresa wailed so Mummy would hear her.

‘Theresa, what’s happened?’

She cried some more first, really loud to show how bad it was and then she told her about the horrid girl and hurting her toes. She saw Daddy look at Mummy and felt Mummy squeeze her tighter. ‘It’s not horrible, Theresa. Little girls like that say silly things.’

‘I wish I was dead,’ she said.

‘Sshhh! Don’t say that. We love you. What would we have done without you? When we fetched you home it was the happiest day of my life.’

Theresa swallowed, sniffed up her tears. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘It was a lovely June day. We’d already been to see you once…’ Her mother began the familiar story and Theresa relaxed back into her embrace. Mummy was big and soft. Theresa’s skin was damp and sticky with salt and sand but warm where she touched her mother. She listened, waiting for the comforting words to work their magic and make her feel better.

Caroline

Things had unravelled after Davey’s birth. As she nursed him and changed him her eyes kept blurring. Stupid unbidden tears. She kept telling herself that it would be all right, that no one would take this child from her, but the fear grew in her like a tumour until every situation became a tangle of threats.

The midwives told Paul she was overwrought, that she needed help, but when he offered to hold Davey while she bathed or rested she shrank away from him. He found her tearing the newspapers into tiny pieces. Talking of demons. The news was horrific, they’d charged Ian Brady and Myra Hindley with the Moors murders. He cursed himself for leaving the thing around.

After another week of sleepless nights and frantic panics Paul was at the end of his tether. He spoke to his mother on the telephone. She arranged to travel down from Yorkshire in two days time. Reassured that help was on the way Paul went to find Caroline upstairs.

She had closed the curtains and lay on the bed. The air smelt stale. When he put the light on he noticed afresh how messy the room was. Nappies and baby clothes strewn about, a pile of ironing on the chair. Dirty glasses and cups on the bedside table.

Caroline winced at the light, looked at him with suspicion.

‘I'm going to clear up a bit,’ he said. ‘All this mess isn't helping. Why don’t you sit downstairs? I’ll call you if Davey wakes up.’

She sighed and got up sluggishly. Her chestnut hair had lost its gloss and hung in lank strands, her complexion was sallow.

‘Or would you like a bath?’

‘Have you put the water heater on?’ She spoke sullenly.

He sighed. No, he ruddy well hadn’t. He didn’t know how to do all this. The house was her province. ‘No, but I can.’

‘Don't bother,’ she said coldly.

‘My mother’s coming to help us out.’ He tried to sound matter of fact. He propped his stick against the wall, started picking up the baby clothes from the dressing tables and putting them on the bed.

‘No!’ she cried as though he had hurt her.

‘Just for a few days, till we’re on top of things.’

She stood there, her face crumbling, shoulders shaking.

‘Oh, Caro,’ he said gently. He moved towards her.

‘No!’ she yelled and swung away from him, stumbling and knocking into the bedside table, knocking the lamp over and a glass. There was a crash followed by a beat of silence then the stringy wail from Davey in his cot in the next room.

Paul moved but she was quicker, sobbing loudly. He followed her, feeling frightened but not sure why.

He watched her lift Davey up, hold him close, humming a tune broken by her irregular sobs. He wanted to join them, to comfort both wife and child but he knew there would be another rebuttal if he tried.

‘I’ll get on then,’ he said. ‘Call me if you need anything.’

He returned to their bedroom, his chest tight and a pulse hammering in his head. Glass on the floor. He went downstairs to get the dustpan and brush.

His mother’s arrival seemed to make Caroline worse. From being moody and prone to tears she had started raving. A stream of accusations directed at him and his mother, dark mutterings about them plotting behind her back. His mother had cleared up the kitchen, prepared the baby’s bottle and made a simple meal. Caroline refused to come down. She refused to eat. When he went up to see her she spoke more gibberish and acted as though she was scared of him, as though he intended some harm.

‘Call the doctor,’ his mother said.

He hesitated. ‘Do you think so?’

‘She needs help, Paul. He can give her something to calm her down.’ She smiled at him. ‘It’s probably depression, getting a bit out of control. Call the doctor.’

By the time the doctor arrived Caroline had barricaded herself and Davey in her room. Davey was hungry – Caroline had not given him the bottle her mother-in-law had made up – and crying incessantly. Paul had begged her to open the door, reminded her that Davey needed his bottle, but she refused.

‘Caroline, let us in now, the doctor’s here, he wants to have a look at you,’ he said. There was no response. He felt his temper rising at the stupidity of it all. ‘Caroline,’ he threatened, ‘if you don’t open the door I’ll break the bloody thing down.’ And how would he do that? With his poor balance it would be hard to put much force against it. ‘I’ll get the fire brigade,’ he added.

He wasn’t sure if she could hear him over the screaming baby but after a minute there was the bumping of furniture being moved. When he tried the door it opened.

Once inside, Paul took Davey from the bed and passed him to his mother. Caroline, perched on the bed, panting from her exertions but outwardly calm, watched them like a hawk.

‘You remember me, Mrs Wainwright?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she nodded. ‘You’re the Devil. You eat the babies.’

An hour later Caroline was admitted to the psychiatric hospital. The doctors assured Paul that a short stay, the use of tranquilizers and possibly a session or two of electro-convulsive therapy would relieve her of her distress.

‘Some women react like this after childbirth,’ the psychiatrist told him. ‘This is your first child?’

‘Yes.’

He nodded. ‘Most women get a bit weepy a few days after they’ve had the baby but this is something more serious, a form of depression. We still don’t understand exactly why it happens and/or why some women are more susceptible than others, but it is treatable and I’m sure your wife will be back home, enjoying family life very soon.’

Kay

The lemon was rotten. It looked fine on the outside but when she halved it the centre was brown and slimy. She couldn’t make a lemon cake without a lemon. Joanna might have one. Knowing Joanna, she probably had a plastic squeezy one to squirt into her gin. She certainly made a virtue of being a lazy cook and a fan of all the latest gimmicks.

Kay Farrell took her apron off and washed her hands. She checked on the twins, who had gone down for their nap half an hour ago. They were sound asleep, head to tail in the cot. They liked to share it for their daytime sleep. She went round the back at Joanna’s, the kitchen door was always open. The climbing rose around the back door was in full bloom. She inhaled the scent. They must do more with their garden, get some nice shrubs. All they had was the lawn and the apple tree. Bit dull.

She let herself in and called out. ‘Hello, it’s only me!’ She went through the hall into the dining-cum-living room. A blur of bodies on the sofa. Naked. Skin, limbs, hair. She froze. Joanna and Adam. Her Adam. The pair parting, scrabbling away from each other as she gawped. Her heart shattering, mind numb.

‘Hell!’ Adam stood, scooping up clothing to cover himself. Joanna remained seated, curling up, face averted, her pendulous breasts still moving slightly. Kay turned and ran. Her world crashing about her. Panic clutching at her throat. Betrayal flooding her stomach with acid, adrenalin furiously pumping her blood faster than she could breathe. The bastard, the bitch.

At home she steadied herself on the sink, tried to slow her breathing, drank water from the tap to wash down the bile in her gullet. Then she got out the brandy from the drinks cabinet, poured a tumblerful. She took a large mouthful, relishing the way it burnt her mouth and made her lips tingle. She stuck a cigarette in her mouth, flicked the lighter. Her hand shook. Everything shook.

‘Kay.’ He stood in the doorway.

She wouldn’t look at him.

‘Kay, I’m sorry.’ His voice was dry, like grass rustling.

‘That’s all right then, is it? That supposed to make me feel better?’ she said coldly.

‘Kay, I love you. This… it…’ He moved into the room, sat down. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘It means something to me,’ she shot back. ‘My husband committing adultery with my best friend. Means quite a lot, actually.’

‘Kay-’

‘Shut up!’ She drank again, a fiery mouthful, sucked angrily on her cigarette. There was so much anger. It was like a great cannonball inside, hot and heavy and rolling, rolling. How could you? she wanted to scream at him, How could you hurt me so, how could you risk all this, our marriage, our children? Why? Questions that had no answers.

‘Get out!’ she managed.

‘Kay.’

She flung her glass at him, the drink splashing on his shirt and his neck, the tumbler crashing to the floor.

He hesitated.

‘Fuck off!’ she screamed. Words she had never spoken before.

He went.

She found another glass, poured another drink, smoked more cigarettes. Looked out at a brisk, bright afternoon and felt her eyes swim. How could it all be there, looking just as it had before?

When the twins woke she got them up, went through the motions of feeding and changing, the drink making her move a little more slowly, more carefully. She put Martin and Michael out to play in the garden. All the while nursing her anger, chewing over the shock of her discovery, seeing again Adam’s darker leg against Joanna’s, his buttocks, her breasts swaying as she sat and turned away. She wallowed in it, soaking up the misery, feeling the bite of jealousy and the ache of grief settle in, the streams of emotion seep through her till it was all she was. Every hair, every cell sharing in the pain.

She let her imagination run riot, fantasising about the two of them, her friend and her husband, digging out a conspiracy that dated back months – assignations, plans and schemes, efforts to cheat on her. She was a fool, such an idiot. How she had sympathised with Joanna when she’d told her about Bev and Ken that time. She had felt so sorry for Joanna, so glad that she and Adam were different. Hah! They had played her for a fool and that knowledge scalded her with shame.

When Theresa and Dominic got back from school she made peanut butter sandwiches for them and mandarin oranges from a tin. She let them watch Crackerjack and then she got them all bathed and into bed earlier than usual. She couldn’t eat. She had a headache from the brandy but she didn’t care. A headache was nothing. She smoked more cigarettes, drank strong coffee. Poured herself the last of the brandy.

He came back when it was dark. She heard the door, then his walk along the hall. She was sitting in the lounge. She hadn’t put the light on.

‘Kay.’ He’d been drinking too. She could smell it on him as he came closer, a yeasty smell, beer, not the spirit she’d doused him with. He put his hand on her shoulder.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she spat at him.

‘I don’t know what you want me to do,’ he said in anguish.

‘It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it? I wanted you to honour our marriage vows. I wanted you to love and honour me, to forsake all others. To be true to me.’

‘Kay, I promise-’

‘You promise? You promise what?’ she began to shout. ‘You don’t know how to keep a promise, you bastard! You rotten, cheating, bloody bastard! I hate you, Adam, I hate you for this.’

There was a silence. She heard the blackbird outside trilling in the dark, the hoot of the train in the distance. Adam’s breath, harsh as though he’d been running. Then she heard him sit. The creak of the chair and a sigh.

‘What will you do?’

‘Well, I can’t divorce you.’

He made a sound. Had she shocked him? Good. She wanted to frighten him, though, make him feel an ounce of what she was feeling. ‘I don’t know about the rest. Separation, maybe.’ Had he any inkling how unlikely that was for her? ‘I’d need to get a solicitor, maintenance for the children. And we’d need to stay in the house.’ She wouldn’t do any of it, though, would she?

‘Kay, please. It was one mistake, a stupid, bloody mistake. I love you, and the children. You mean everything to me. There’s no need to-’

‘What? Take it to heart? Don’t tell me what I need or don’t need, Adam.’

‘I just meant-’

‘How long?’

‘What?’

‘How long have you been fucking Joanna?’ She swore to shock him.

‘Kay, really.’

‘The truth, Adam. How long?’

A pause.

‘A couple of months.’ He cleared his throat.

‘When did it start?’

‘Kay… I don’t…’ He fell quiet.

‘Don’t remember? Why not? Do you sleep with the neighbours often? When?’

‘Why?’ He said softly.

‘When?’

‘Easter.’ he cleared his throat again. Four months, not two. ‘The dinner dance.’

At the Tennis Club. Kay had left early so their babysitter could get home. ‘But Ken was there?’ The four of them had sat together.

Silence.

‘You didn’t take her home. Where then?’

‘In the gardens.’

She lit a cigarette, the flare from the lighter illuminating her face, the flame just catching a wisp of hair. She smelt the acrid stench as it shrivelled up, a tiny crackling sound.

‘Where else?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Did you do it here?’

‘No,’ he said quickly.

Liar. ‘Adam?’

‘No,’ he insisted.

‘Where else?’

‘Joanna’s.’

‘That weekend at Southport,’ she said flatly. ‘After the picnic? When we went horse riding?’

‘Kay, please, don’t.’

‘Tell me, Adam.’

‘Yes,’ he said and sighed.

She felt her past unravelling. The memories distorted now by the image of them having sex. Bitterness flooded her anew. Joanna had lent her a stole that weekend. They’d all got drunk in the chalet bar. She’d been wearing Joanna’s stole and Joanna had been borrowing her husband. How ironic.

‘Since then, how often?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Lost count.’

‘What’s the point,’ he yelled, ‘dragging it all out. It’s not doing you any good. I’m sorry. What more can I say?’

‘The point,’ her voice trembled with fury, ‘the point is that I have a right to know. To know the truth. To know exactly what you have been doing. In her arms and between her legs. Twice a week, more?’

‘No.’

‘Once a week?’

He said nothing.

‘And what do you like? When you get together? Fast or slow? Do you usually do it in the lounge or was today an exception? Do you satisfy each other?’

‘Kay, that’s enough!’ he shouted.

She knew it would never be enough. No matter how many details she had she would never believe that he’d told her the whole truth. But she kept on.

‘Who started it?’

‘It’s not that easy…’

‘Someone must have made the first move, that night at the Tennis Club. You went outside together. Who suggested that?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Oh, come on, Adam!’

‘I was drunk.’

‘That’s handy. Drunk but not incapable.’

‘She tripped, I helped her.’

‘How gallant!’

‘We didn’t plan it, Kay. It just happened.’

‘And today? Does Ken know?’

‘No.’

‘Because he’s been unfaithful too, you know. Did Joanna say? With Bev, last time I heard. Regular Peyton’s Place round here, isn’t it? Must be catching. Have to hope none of you has picked up anything nasty, won’t we? Spread like wildfire.’

Silence again. She drew on her cigarette, listened to the sizzle of tobacco. ‘Do you love her?’

‘No. It’s just a silly fling. It got out of hand. I never meant to hurt you. Neither of us did. I’ll make it up to you.’

What a stupid expression. How could he ever do that? He’d ruined it. Ruined everything. No matter how good things were in the future he had taken the one thing that you couldn’t repair and damaged it. Time might reduce the sting and erase the clarity of the details but she would never trust him again. He had broken her trust and broken her heart.

And as for Joanna, she couldn’t bear to think of that too. All those confidences, Joanna’s sardonic tone, sharing secrets. All a front, a con.

‘I’m going to bed,’ she said. ‘There’s blankets in the spare room.’

‘What are we going to do, Kay?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I really don’t know.’

Joanna had the barefaced cheek to turn up at Faith’s coffee morning two days later. When she arrived, Kay had two urges – she wanted her to slap her, she wanted to run and hide. Of course, she did neither, she ignored her completely and gave a tight smile when Joanna made one of her acerbic remarks that made the others laugh. It’s as though nothing has happened. Kay was incredulous. So blasé about it. She hated her, with her flip comments and her boutique clothes and her rotten deceit.

Kay left early, exhausted at the strain of maintaining a facade. She was halfway home when Joanna caught up with her.

‘Kay.’

‘Go away.’

‘Let me explain.’

‘Go away. I don’t know how you dare.’

‘Don’t be like this.’

‘How do you bloody well expect…!’ She broke off determined not to be drawn into talking about it.

‘Some of us make mistakes.’ Joanna put out her hand to touch Kay’s forearm, Kay wrenched her arm away.

‘We can’t all be saints,’ Joanna flared up.

Kay flinched. Was that how she saw her, how they saw her? Goody two shoes? ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again. Don’t come to my house and don’t even look at my husband or I’ll make sure everyone knows what a slut you are, including Ken.’

Joanna gave up – contempt and then resignation crossed her face. She turned away.

Kay continued home, trembling with outrage.

She buried their friendship: when she chanced upon Joanna at the shops or the park or in Church she treated her like a stranger: more than that, cut her dead. Inside, she seethed with bitterness. Over the weeks that followed, Kay gradually engineered it so that Faith and she spent time together and drifted apart from the larger group of women. She mentioned that Joanna was too flip and implied that she had been bitching about people behind their backs. She told Faith that there was never a chance to have a proper chat in a big crowd.

She found managing the children and running the house increasingly hard, she felt tired and irritable but had trouble sleeping too. She made an appointment at the doctor’s. He prescribed tablets, they would take the edge off things, he said, calm her nerves.

Slowly, begrudgingly, she resumed her relationship with Adam. As time went on there were moments when she forgot the damage that had been done, but she was aware that her love for him was tainted. And any affection and forgiveness was tempered by an abiding lack of trust and a current of suspicion that played through her all the time.

Caroline

He hated the visits. The first time he went, Caroline refused to speak to him, face blank, eyes heavy. He made an effort to talk but his words soon petered out. He sat and held her hand and tried to cut out the sights and sounds and smells around them.

After a week he asked the nurse if he could see the doctor but was told he’d need a separate appointment for that. He made one. Aware it would mean even more time away from the business.

The doctor said much the same as the first psychiatrist had. It was a question of time, she was responding well. He thought of Caroline’s comatose state and wondered. Quieter than the creature who had shrunk from him, but better? The doctor couldn’t tell how long she’d need. It can be weeks or months. You may need to make arrangements at home. Paul nodded.

When he got back, his mother had tea ready – fish in parsley sauce, mash and peas. He explained the situation to her, he knew she couldn’t stay indefinitely. She offered to take Davey back with her until Caroline was well.

He hated the idea of of being parted from the baby as well as his wife. He shook his head, in despair rather than defiance.

‘Paul, it’s either that or get someone to live in.’

‘Which we can’t afford,’ he replied. ‘We’re already behind on orders. If I hire anyone it’ll have to be for the nursery. Caroline worked so hard. Maybe we were too ambitious, got too big too fast. If we sold now-’

‘You’ll do no such thing!’ His mother put her knife and fork down to talk. ‘You were only saying at Christmas how promising things looked. You might not be able to do anything for Caroline at the moment, that’s down to the doctors, but what you can do is make damn sure that when she does come home she’s coming back to a thriving concern. Sell up!’ she snorted.

‘Point taken,’ he replied.

‘Self-pity never built prosperity.’ She returned to her meal.

‘I said, point taken,’ he repeated.

Via one of the greenhouse suppliers Paul found a nurseryman who’d recently retired. Arthur was delighted to come and work on a temporary basis. Retirement had been the biggest shock of his life. And his wife’s. Eileen Wainwright took Davey back to the Dales and Paul worked long hours catching up with the business and doing what he could in the sheds.

Caroline’s manner during his visits began to vary. Often she was dull and withdrawn, looking at him with the same indifference that she had to her appearance. Her eyes were frequently narrowed – apparently the drugs affected them, making them less light-tolerant – and her hair unkempt. Her clothes appeared to be thrown on and were sometimes stained. Her only interest seemed to be in the cigarettes he brought her. Her fingers were stained yellow and even though he smoked himself he could smell the stale nicotine on her. He took her flowers and sweets too but the cigarettes were what she had most need of. Sometimes she would be excitable, her face flushed, her pupils shrunken, eyes glittering. She would talk breathlessly about inconsequential things, giggling inappropriately. He realised the medicines were responsible. She rarely mentioned Davey or asked about the business.

After a second month he asked to see the psychiatrist again. It was a different man. He was filling in for Mr Jeffreys, who had been taken ill himself.

‘Mrs Wainwright.’ He looked at the bundle of notes then at Paul. ‘How have you found her?’

Paul told him. ‘And I still don't understand why she… got like this.’

‘Ah, if we knew that…’ The doctor smiled ruefully. ‘We don’t really understand what is at the root of this sort of disturbance. Even in the medical profession you’ve different theories doing the rounds. Some argue there’s a physical imbalance, a chemical reaction in the brain, and that might be passed on from one generation to another.’ With a chill, Paul thought of Davey. ‘But other people argue that social circumstances are more important, that events happen to an individual and pressure builds up and this is the explosion, if you like. Anything might tip the balance. Of course, relinquishing a child can’t be easily borne, that must take its toll.’

‘Pardon?’ Paul frowned.

‘Giving the baby up for adoption.’

‘We haven’t given him up. He’s at my mother’s.’

‘Not this-’ He stopped short, closed his eyes and balanced his head momentarily on his fingertips.

Paul stared at him. ‘Caroline had a baby adopted.’

‘I’m terribly sorry Mr Wainwright, I assumed you knew – the notes…’

‘Oh, my God!’ He rubbed at his chin with his hand, got halfway out of his chair, knocking his stick down in his haste. He sat back down.

‘When?’

‘I can’t say any more. I’ve said more than I should have. I’ve spoken out of turn. Please accept my apologies. I’m sure your wife only wanted to spare you. She was probably ashamed of…’

Dear God. Caroline. Why had she never… Making out that Davey was the first. That he was her first. Dear God. Why couldn’t she have just told him?

‘Dear God.’ He said softly and stood up again.

‘Mr Wainwright.’

‘Please, doctor, can you pass me my stick?’

He hurried to help.

‘Mr Wainwright, I do hope…’

But Paul couldn’t wait, not even to observe the social niceties. He left the room and made his way out of the hospital to the bus stop, his brain full of clamouring voices, his heart hammering in his chest and a great weight across his back as though his coat was laden with stones.

Theresa

She’d made a tent out of the big clothes horse and an old sheet. Martin and Michael were using it for their den. They were the Indians. Dominic had been playing too but he’d gone round to Jim’s. Theresa was bored. She went inside and got her little transistor radio. Mungo Jerry were singing ‘In The Summertime’, which was just right because it was really hot. ‘Spirit In the Sky’ was her favourite, though. Mungo Jerry had been the poster in Jackie this week and she had put it up with the others on her bedroom wall.

She went out to the front and sat on the wall, the tranny beside her. The hopscotch she’d drawn had faded, so she got some chalk and did it again. The flagstones by her gate had the lines in all the right places for hopscotch. She searched by the drive for a stone, a flat one that wouldn’t roll.

Belinda from down the road came out and Susie and they played for a bit but it was hot so they changed to Jacks. Belinda always beat her at Jacks. Her fingers must have been longer, because she could scoop up ‘tennies’ even when they were scattered far apart and still catch the ball.

Dominic came back but he wouldn’t play Jacks. He said he’d play picture cards. Everyone got theirs. Theresa had forty-five. Nearly all from Typhoo. Some she’d won at school.

They propped a card up against the garage door and took turns trying to knock it down with theirs. Dominic won twice and gathered all the cards from the floor.

‘Ask your Mum if we can have the paddling pool,’ Belinda said.

‘Yeah!’ Susie hated cards.

Theresa went in. Mummy looked tired just at the thought of it but Theresa promised to do all the blowing-up and the filling it and she said all right but get changed. Theresa had her loon pants on, bright-red, and a calico smock. Belinda had hot pants but she said she was allowed to get them wet.

The twins went bonkers once it was all ready, until Mum came out and shouted at them. They gave each other showers later, using the watering can, and Theresa sang ‘Raindrops Are Falling On My Head’, and then they played Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, coming out of the tent like it was the building and all the Mexicans firing at them.

‘Let’s play Dying,’ said Theresa.

‘I’m not,’ said Dominic.

‘You can be first on.’

‘It’s best at the bank,’ Susie said.

‘Get dressed, be there in five minutes,’ said Theresa.

The bank was at the top of the avenue, a big slope of green, quite steep. Dominic stood at the bottom and the others lined up at the top.

‘Martin!’ Dominic called out.

‘Deadly snake,’ Martin chose.

Dominic pretended to throw a deadly snake at his brother who squawked and fell down and rolled to the bottom of the hill.

‘Michael.’

‘Deadly snake.’

‘Pick something else,’ Theresa yelled. They were so dumb sometimes.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Have a gun.’

‘A gun.’

Dominic levelled his arm, forefinger pointing, and shot Michael. Michael clutched at his stomach and rolled down the hill.

‘Belinda.’

‘Machine gun.’

Dominic rat-tat-tatted and Belinda jerked loads and tumbled her way down.

‘Susie.’

‘Electric shock.’

Dominic pointed and she twitched and jumped and rolled down the hill.

‘Theresa.’

‘Drinking acid.’

She mimed the drink, then gasped and staggered, began to claw at her chest and stomach, pulled herself down the slope and died at the bottom.

‘Martin 4 points, Michael 7, Belinda 6, Susie 6, Theresa 6. Michael wins.’

‘You can’t pick him, he was rubbish!’ Theresa rounded on him.

‘I can.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘I’m not playing,’ Dominic said.

‘Don’t then, see if I care.’

He stalked off.

‘You’re on,’ she said to Martin.

‘Yippee!’ he said.

‘You’ve got to pick the best. The best acting.’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded.

They climbed the hill.

‘Michael!’ Martin pointed to his twin and grinned.

‘Dunno.’

Theresa sighed and looked across at Susie and Belinda. ‘Shall we go down the Tarzan swing instead?’

Caroline

Paul never found the right time to ask her about it. When she first came home he knew that the most important thing was making her feel safe and happy, helping her to feel confident about looking after Davey while he held the business together.

The months passed. Caroline gave up smoking and put on weight. She was happier, though he always had the sense that he didn’t really know her, not all of her, because of the secret she had kept from him and her natural reserve. He loved her quiet intensity. He watched her now as she examined the new mother plants with the nurseryman. She didn’t say much but everything counted: a gentle joke and a fleeting smile that made her eyes shine nut-brown, a shrewd word about delivery dates. When Davey toddled up she simply put her hand down and he took hers and accompanied her while she worked. If he fussed she’d pass him stones or leaves to examine, a trowel to play among the furrows with, or she’d point out a butterfly or show him how to make a Snapdragon snap.

Deep, she was. She kept things to herself. He knew she needed her time away, she’d go off on one of her walks and come back more settled. He was fearful that if he dared to mention about the baby she’d had, he’d precipitate another depression; see her withdraw again back into the land of the demons. So he said nothing.

He surveyed the nursery grounds. They’d rented extra land for an arboretum and taken on another worker. It was touch and go, but you couldn’t run a business without taking risks. He’d plans for an indoor-plants section. It was becoming fashionable for offices and banks to brighten their foyers with a splash of greenery. Bit like Victorian times, when an aspidistra or some parlour ferns were common in the shopping arcades and hotels and clubs. And if things went the American way, with purpose built shopping malls, then with his ideas and her green fingers…

‘Paul!’ She waved to him from the stock beds. ‘Tell Joe we need more pallets.’

He gave her the thumbs-up and moved slowly off back to the yard. The weather was fair. Their first winter had been bitter, ’63, when the country froze to a halt. The ground had been unworkable for weeks. There’d been heavy blizzards. Here in Somerset they’d escaped the smogs that choked the cities. Hundreds of people were ill, some died unable to breathe the poisonous air.

There had been days that winter when he’d felt like giving up. Chucking in the towel before they got enmeshed any deeper. But Caroline was tenacious. And convinced it was the right move. She never doubted and she never ceased working. She was strong, she’d big bones and a broad back and lifting and carrying and shifting were no problem for her. If the ground was too hard to dig she’d make cold frames or saw stakes, mend fences or prune the hedges. She’d never once complained. Shovelling snow for days on end. Coming in only when it got dark, her cheeks and nose red with cold, fingers numb. When he praised her she looked amused. Shrugged and told him that hard work was good for the soul.

He wondered sometimes who had fathered her child? If she had been willing? And would there ever come a point when she would confide in him?

Kay

The shaking started when she was on the bus home. She’d been fine in town: she’d not become confused or lost her purse or suddenly heard voices in her head mocking her.

But on the bus, out of nowhere, it all started. She began to sweat, she could feel her thighs and her arms burning, her armpits damp and her mouth dry. She looked out of the window, tried to distract herself with the view as they crossed the river into Northenden and the parade of shops, but she couldn’t focus properly and that made her more panicky. She’d tried so hard. Four days now. Doctor Planer had told her it would be easier every day and also said if she felt really unwell she should start taking the pills again. No point in rushing these things.

She was scared to stop and scared to carry on. The tablets slowed her down. She put on even more weight, she felt dim and slow-witted. The children seemed to be an endless series of chores with little pleasure. She barely had the energy to play with them these days.

She was going to be sick. She stood abruptly, stumbled to the front of the bus. ‘Let me off, please, I missed my stop.’

The driver slowed to stop at the roadside and opened the automatic doors. She walked back a little and leant over the gutter, dry-retching. Her mouth filled with saliva, she spat it out, deeply embarrassed at being a public spectacle.

She walked home in the rain, her only thought the salvation contained in the small brown bottle in the medicine cabinet.

It had been a silly time to try, she told herself. Too much going on. Theresa and Dominic were both settled in school but she still had the twins at home and Adam had had his best year yet, which meant more business dinners where Kay was expected to entertain and look lovely and relaxed. She simply couldn’t manage it all without the pills. Not yet.

When she got in she reached for the bottle before anything else, shook the bright pink-and-yellow capsules into her hand and swallowed them. She’d try again when the time was right. Doctor Planer was right, some people needed something to calm their nerves and it was silly to get worried about taking them. After all, the doctor wouldn’t prescribe them if they weren’t safe.

Theresa

‘I’ve always known,’ Theresa replied to her friend Letty. ‘As long as I can remember. Like a bed-time story.’

The four girls were huddled in the school toilet, it wasn’t too poky. Theresa had claimed the radiator, Ruth sat on the toilet and Letty and Rita sat on the floor, backs against the wall, legs in woollen tights and thick crêpe-soled shoes stretched out before them. Each girl had a freshly lit Embassy Regal cigarette from the packet of ten they had clubbed together to buy.

‘Do you know anything about your real mother?’ Rita asked.

‘Not much. She wasn’t married, she couldn’t keep me. I think she was quite young.’

‘Would you like to meet her?’

‘No. It wouldn’t mean anything. It’s never bothered me.’

‘I’d be dying to know,’ said Ruth.

‘What if it was someone famous?’ Rita asked.

Theresa smiled and shook her head.

‘What about your real father?’ Letty took a drag on her cigarette and held it in while she spoke. ‘He might be looking for you now to inherit his stately home.’

Theresa laughed and shook her head again. ‘They’re not allowed. They have to promise when they give you up.’

‘Well, how come you hear about these people finding their real parents then?’ Letty said.

‘I’d be allowed to but not them. Some people don’t even know they’re adopted. Imagine the shock if someone turned up on your doorstep and said you were theirs.’

‘What about your brothers? Are they all from different families?’ Rita asked.

‘There’s twins, thicko!’ Letty shoved her.

‘Apart from them.’

‘They’re the only ones that are related.’

‘Why were they adopted?’

‘Same thing. Their mothers weren’t married. Well, Dominic’s was but they weren’t allowed to keep him. They’d had other children that had been neglected. The rescue society took him at the hospital.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Ruth.

‘It must be awful,’ Letty said, ‘having a baby and giving it up.’

‘What else can you do?’ said Rita.

Theresa winced. It was only a week since SPUC had brought their gruesome slide show into school and the Third Form had been forced to look at pictures of embryos and foetuses and babies and basins of blood accompanied by a savage commentary. Afterwards Father McEvoy had made an impassioned plea to the girls to stand up for Jesus and fight the wholesale slaughter of the innocents. There would be a LIFE rally in London, they were all enjoined to come and save the babies.

‘If I got pregnant I’d keep it,’ Ruth said.

‘It’s easier nowadays,’ Rita said.

‘I don’t think abortion’s always wrong,’ said Letty.

‘God!’ Ruth shuddered. ‘How can you say that?’

‘It’s got to be up to the person who’s having it.’

‘That’s like saying murder’s up to the person doing it,’ Theresa said.

‘It isn’t.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘Keep your legs crossed,’ said Rita. ‘Just don’t let them go all the way.’

‘You can get the Pill from the doctor,’ Theresa said.

‘Clinic’s better, that Brook place. Our Lucy goes there. They don’t know your Mum and Dad like the doctor does,’ said Letty.

Theresa finished her fag. Ground it out on the side of the wastepaper bin.

‘If you had a baby though, it’s your whole life gone, isn’t it?’ Letty said.

The bell for the end of break rang and the girls got to their feet.

‘I’d never have an abortion,’ Ruth repeated, bending over to stub her cigarette out. ‘No way.’

‘I’d never have a baby adopted,’ Theresa said vehemently, her chocolate eyes flashing. And the declaration astonished her even more than her friends. Adoption had been fine for her, and her brothers. Why had she said that? She felt unsettled for the rest of the day.

Kay

The glaze is beautiful,’ Faith said.

‘You were right to use the deeper blue,’ the pottery teacher told Kay. ‘It’s perfect for the red clay.’

Kay placed the large bowl on the work bench at the side of the kiln. It would look lovely filled with fruit and would give her something to talk about the next time she had to make conversation with more of Adam’s business wives. The agency were involved in a takeover bid; if it was successful they’d be selling property throughout most of Lancashire. The expansion would mean more functions, more dinners. Thinking of Adam brought the familiar twist of anxiety to her stomach. Was she imagining it all again? It wasn’t as if she’d caught him out. She shuddered at the memory. The sight of Joanna and Adam naked together was frozen in her mind, etched indelibly even after seven years.

But this time there was no evidence. No lipstick on his collar or perfume on his skin. No unexplained bills. Nothing except an air of distraction and the fact that he had been attentive. He brought her flowers, told her he loved her after they made love. He never did that, not usually.

She wrapped the bowl in newspaper to protect it on the way home. It was the final class of the year. She’d come back again in the autumn. She had the knack. Faith wasn’t so sure. ‘I might try French. I could still give you a lift, it’s on Wednesdays as well.’ Kay didn’t drive, had never learnt, but Faith did. Faith was working now, teaching, and her mother looked after the children on a Wednesday night. Mick never saw them. The divorce had been acrimonious and costly.

Kay held the bowl on her lap in the car. When Faith drew up outside the house, Kay turned to thank her.

‘I think Adam’s having an affair.’ The words came out in a rush.

Faith looked shocked. She turned the engine off. ‘Oh, Kay!’

‘It’s just a feeling, I’ve no proof. I don’t know whether to say anything to him or not.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

Faith looked at her, considering. ‘If you’re not sure… I mean, Adam’s never done anything like this before, has he?

‘Once,’ Kay said. ‘A few years ago.’ She didn’t elaborate.

‘You never said anything.’

There was an awkward pause. Kay imagined Faith feeling hurt that Kay hadn’t told her about it.

‘I didn’t tell anyone. It was a long time ago.’ Implying it was before they met.

‘What if you’re wrong?’

‘You think I should wait and see?’

‘There are places aren’t there, private investigators.’

‘Oh, God! I couldn’t do that.’ She saw some seedy type in an old coat trailing after Adam, spying on him, taking horrid photos. ‘You’re probably right, I’d look a real idiot if I was wrong. It would be awful.’

But the feeling of unease wouldn’t leave her, and suspicion made everything between herself and Adam seem shallow and false. She kept up the act for a further two weeks but the gnawing in her stomach grew stronger and she had vivid dreams where she came upon Adam with someone in their own bed and he laughed and pointed at the door and then he resumed having sex, his buttocks moving furiously, the woman beneath him obscured from view.

On the Saturday night they went to dinner with Adam’s partner and his wife and another couple from the chamber of commerce. It was a pleasant enough evening but she couldn’t relax. She thought about the tablets. She hadn’t had them for eighteen months but at times like these she missed their numbing effects and began to feel edgy and anxious. It had been hell coming off them and staying off them and she’d no wish to go through it again. There were cases in the papers all the time, women who were addicted. Kay ate little of the meal and drank too much. She was able to disguise her inebriation because she was aware of it. She thought before speaking and was careful not to slur her words or knock her glass over.

When they got home Adam asked her if she wanted a nightcap. She accepted and watched him pour a Drambuie for her, a brandy for himself. He seemed at ease and when she spoke she watched him avidly for any sign of guilt or embarrassment.

‘Are you having an affair, Adam?’

What she saw was shock, his face jerked as through he’d been slapped, his pale-blue eyes widened and then he looked wounded. ‘No! Christ, Kay, why do you think that?’

‘You’ve been preoccupied. And the flowers. You never buy flowers.’

He looked at her open-mouthed. ‘I buy you flowers and you accuse me of having an affair?’ he said incredulously.

‘I didn’t accuse you. I asked you. Maybe I need reassurance. After all, it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility, is it? Look at last time.’

She saw his cheek twitch. They never referred to his fling with Joanna. He hated the reminder. He walked over to her and took her hand. ‘I’m not having an affair.’ He held her eyes with his, his pupils large, swamping the blue. ‘Everything I want, everything I need, is here under this roof. I learnt my lesson, Kay.’

‘I had to ask.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I’ve been going up the wall. I’m sorry.’

He shook his head and pulled her to him. Held her by the nape of the neck. Kissed her. She let him. Catching hold of the relief that his denial brought and trying to quieten the whispering doubts that still clung to her.

Caroline

She marked each birthday. A little ritual that no one knew about. That in itself hadn’t been easy with a business to run and a young family, but she had no qualms about inventing a trip to town, a meeting with a potential supplier or even, one year, a hospital appointment to account for her absence. She would find a quiet place, somewhere tranquil, usually where there was water and stones and trees. The first years after her marriage it had been the gorge where the Avon flowed and when they moved again she had found this place on one of her walks. Farsands Cove. Tiny, virtually inaccessible apart from a steep scramble down red-mud cliffs and through a stand of conifers. But once reached it had been her sanctuary.

She found herself a spot among the rocks. The tide was well out and the fresh wind had dried the beach. She sat down, rubbed her palms in the sand, picked up handfuls and let it trickle from her knuckles.

The ritual was simple. She would recall her time at St Ann’s. She would try to remember as much as she could: the imposing building with its towers and gargoyles, doing the laundry, the perishing-cold bedroom she shared, the garden and the hours she spent bundled up on a bench. The other girls: Megan, who had been so lively and generous; Joan, who had been older but still in the same terrible situation. Did they ever think back? Remember her? She recalled the corner of the garden where she sat. The shawl she had brought. What else? Grandma dying and not being there for the funeral. Megan knitting. Porridge for breakfast. Her labour. The details still more clear to her than those of the boys’. And then it had changed.

The baby had become the centre of her life. Changing and feeding her. Holding her. Falling in love with her.

‘A very good family,’ Sister Monica had said. Caroline had nodded. Thinking, And I am not. Not good. Not family. What am I then? Nothing.

The worst part to remember was the night she had tried to rescue Theresa. She couldn’t just give her up like all the others: it was wrong to let her go. She loved her so. Caroline would talk to her and she would listen, really listen, her tiny face running through all these different expressions. She was so beautiful. A shock of dark hair, eyes like pools in the night. She loved the smell of her, she would sit breathing in the scent from her skin, feeling the weight of her in her arms. My lovely, lovely girl.

They hadn’t told Caroline what day the baby would be taken but her cot was next to the door in the nursery now. She would be next. Caroline had lain awake that night, her eyes hard and dry, her heart heavy and an awful pain in her stomach. It was wrong. She wouldn’t let them do it. She had slipped out of bed and opened the wardrobe. Wincing when it creaked. But no one woke. She pulled on a dress and coat, found her shoes and the bag she had ready with her few possessions.

She tiptoed across the hall to the nursery, where Sister Vincent and one of the girls were meant to be watching over the babies. She couldn’t see Sister Vincent but Deirdre was curled up on the truckle bed, out for the count. It was cool and Caroline was shivering but she could feel sweat sliding down the sides of her chest. Her heart was thumping in her throat. She went into the nursery and bent over the cot. She felt the familiar rush of affection, a dizzy sort of joy at seeing her little girl again. Quietly she pulled aside the blankets and lifted up the child, holding her against her left shoulder. She pulled the shawl from the bed and wrapped it around the baby’s back. She walked out and down the passage to the front door, thinking at the same time that it would be a long time till the first bus. The first bus to anywhere.

The door was locked and she couldn’t see the key. Her hands were shaking, she looked on the little table in the hall but there was nothing there. She could go out the back, then.

She turned and the snap of lights flooded the hallway, making her jump. Sister Vincent came towards her, her face hard. ‘Caroline.’

She felt her eyes flood with tears, her cheeks slither, the shaking spread to her ribs and her thighs. ‘Sister, I can’t! I can’t, I won’t!’ She buried her face in the baby’s neck. Soft skin, silky hair. The smell of milk and powder. She cupped her hand over the small skull, felt the pulse beating through the fontanels, used her thumb to stroke the small nub of Theresa’s left ear. ‘Please?’ she begged. ‘She’s my baby.’ She turned but her way was blocked again.

Then there were more footsteps and lights and orders whispered and they took her into Sister Monica’s office and she was shaking her head and begging them and they pulled the child from her arms.

She didn't see her again.

There was little to remember after that. A blur of pain and misery so she could barely swallow or talk. A stone inside her.

She thought about her baby every day. And once a year she came here to remember and to weep and to pray that one day the child would seek her out and she could begin to make amends. She would be fifteen years old today, practically grown up. Did she ever think of Caroline? Did she know she even existed?

She watched the sea suck and sigh through her salty eyes, blew her nose on one of the handkerchiefs she had brought. She prayed to the earth and the high, pewter sky and the wind to bring her daughter back. Then she walked the cove, searching for a small stone, a pebble or a shell. She would know the right one when she held it. This time she found a small, smooth, oval-shaped pebble, dark-grey with lines of white terraced through it. She held it and it fitted her palm. She would take it home and put it in her special box along with the fourteen others she had. Her only mementos.

Kay

‘Kay, Kay Farrell?’

A young woman stood on the doorstep: she was very slim, pretty, with long blonde hair and a lime-green crocheted dress. ‘I’m Julie.’

Kay frowned. She didn’t know the girl, was sure they’d never met. ‘I don’t think…’ she began.

‘I work with Adam.’

‘Adam’s not here,’ Kay said stupidly. Monday to Friday, eight thirty to six, even later if business was booming.

‘I know,’ the girl said. ‘Could I come in a minute?’ She seemed tense, her eyes looked a little startled and she blinked a lot.

Kay hesitated but it would have been impolite to refuse. Why was she here? Was Adam hurt?

The washing machine was making a din in the kitchen so Kay took her into the dining room. The girl sat down. Kay offered her a drink.

‘No, thanks. Adam hasn’t said anything about me?’ Half question, half statement.

Kay shook her head.

Julie sighed and closed her eyes momentarily.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, looking down at her hands in her lap. ‘I’m having Adam’s baby.’

For an awful moment Kay wanted to laugh, felt a cackle sitting in her chest. Pregnant? Preposterous. You can’t be. He can’t… He swore to me. She didn’t speak but swung her eyes away from the girl out to the garden, to where the climbing frame stood.

Julie continued. ‘He said he’d tell you but I think it was just another lie. I know he can’t divorce you, the religion and that, but that doesn’t mean he has to keep living with you.’

‘Why are you here?’ Kay spoke softly.

‘I thought you should know.’

His baby. She was carrying his baby inside, beneath the trendy dress. A little Adam or perhaps a girl.

Fresh, fertile, skinny, ten years younger.

What was she? Barren, fat, dried-up and bitter. Up to her ears in packed lunches and clean football kits and table decorations. ‘I’d like you to go.’

‘He has to choose,’ the girl said. She stood up.

Adam. Adam could have children. They had always said it was feasible. But not likely: his sperms had low motility.

‘He’s got to face up to his responsibilities.’

‘Please, go.’

Julie moved into the hall. Kay walked after her, her throat constricted, her heart beating in her neck, her ears. She shut the door after her and sat on the bottom stair, her head in her hands. Talking quietly, cursing him, over and over, letting the tears slide down her cheeks, banging her fists on her chest and pressing them against her cheeks.

She thought of slitting her wrists or pouring the contents of the medicine cabinet down her neck. Something to surprise him on his return. See, she would say in her death, see how you have hurt me. See. You have killed me. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave the children. While she could breathe she would carry on. For them. Whatever he had done. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell and back.

Caroline

It was twelve years after Davey’s birth when the depression returned in full spate, dragging her down into a tomb of defeat and dislike and black grief. She had been certain she would succumb earlier, with her second pregnancy when Davey was three and as her due date drew nearer she had become more worried about that than about the labour itself.

She had begged Paul to stay with her for the delivery and he agreed. The midwives wouldn’t promise anything, they said they’d have to wait and see how she got on. The birth was difficult. They kept examining her and every time Paul had to wait outside. One of the midwives tried to examine her during a contraction and only by screaming could Caroline get over how much it hurt.

After several hours she was still only five centimetres dilated and they gave her an injection to speed up the labour. The contractions that followed became unbearably strong, panicking her with their ferocity. They had a belt strapped round her to monitor the foetal heartbeat, that made it hard for Caroline to move. She wanted to kneel up but they wouldn’t let her. She knew she had done that before, not with Davey but before. It was hard to remember Davey’s birth, one of the things that had become cloudy and indistinct after the ECT. The midwives came in and looked at the screen and went away.

She began to howl and pleaded with them to give her something for the pain.

The doctor told the midwife to break her waters. They sent Paul out.

She had to lie still, tears leaked from her eyes and she thought she would pass out when they ruptured the sac.

‘Please -’ her voice was hoarse with pain – ‘please stop it.’

They began to talk about an episiotemy. Then the baby went into distress, according to the screen, and she was wheeled through for an emergency Caesarean section. Paul wasn’t allowed near her.

The baby had been fine, the spitting image of his brother. Caroline felt damaged. She wanted to go away from this place that had caused her such agony but she had to stay in ten days. She vowed not to have any more children.

The first weeks home she walked on eggshells. Any slump in her mood, any distressing thought, she seized on as proof that she was losing her mind again. But the weeks turned to months, she recovered from the operation, and Sean, bless him, was soon sleeping through the nights. In the intervening years she became accustomed to low-level unhappiness, the leaden feel of her life, and betrayed little of it to others. Everyone thought she was quiet, that she liked her own company. She could bear it. Anything was tolerable compared to madness.

But now Davey was twelve and Sean nine and out of the blue the terror began to suffocate her again. She fought it for a few weeks, immersing herself in work, but the lack of sleep and the endless tension built up, corroding away her control. She had violent, destructive dreams when she did sleep and when she was awake she would frighten herself with thoughts of suicide.

It was a relief to give up. She sat in the office, looking out at the yard and surveyed her desk. Suppliers to visit, a trip to Holland for the new range of bulbs, a meeting with the man who was importing the New Zealand plants. She barely had the energy to blink. Two of the lads were unloading compost, laughing. Probably laughing at her. She closed her eyes but the shadows came then, frightening her awake.

She had to go. They were watching her in this place. Hidden cameras. She took her boots off and her socks. It was better not to leave footprints. Harder for them to track you down. She walked out and along the road.

The cars roared past her, some bleating their horns and startling her. She fell in the ditch once, nettles bit at her arm and her bare feet. When she reached the roundabout she sat in the middle. The road was like a moat protecting her. She lay by the shrubs and watched the clouds. Even the grey hurt her eyes. Jesus was the Lamb of God but lambs were slaughtered. Doreen had been slaughtered. And her unborn child. Pulled inside out. Let me keep her, please… Sister, I can’t… Some of the cars were spying on her too. The indicators recording her. She rocked to and fro.

Paul came later, with one of the lads who had been laughing. They put her in the back seat. He asked her things but she didn’t know what his words meant. They were traps or jokes. Not to be trusted. She tried laughing but her mouth didn’t want to. There was something she had to tell him. She squeezed her eyes shut tight till there were stars bursting and a band of pain. She looked at him. ‘I’m going to the hospital,’ she said. She saw his neck tighten and his Adam’s apple bounce. He turned to the lad. Nodded. ‘Collin’s Hill,’ he told him.

One day she told the doctor about her baby. When the words came back. But the memories were still full of holes, like moths had been at the shawl. She told her about trying to keep her and how they’d caught her and pulled the baby away. There was a hole inside where her heart had been. She never knew what had happened. If she was still alive, even.

The doctor told her she could always write a letter for her.

Caroline was shocked. ‘No! I promised, at the court, they made me swear I’d never…’

The doctor nodded. Her big copper earrings wobbled. ‘Yes, but you could leave the letter with the Adoption Agency, and then if your daughter…’

My daughter. Caroline felt the room sway.

‘… ever wanted to find you she would have something from you.’

‘Not my address. Paul doesn’t, the children…’

‘Fine.’ The doctor held her hands out, trying to calm her. ‘Just a note perhaps? If you’d like to, telling her that you think about her.’

Caroline tried to smile but she felt her face dissolve again and the tears made her thoughts all blurry.

They didn’t give her ECT again and she was grateful. She had lost too many memories. She imagined her mind pockmarked with cigarette burns, precious moments from childhood and later scorched away.

It took her six months to write the letter to her daughter. Endless drafts in her head, then on paper, times snatched in private. In 1978, eighteen years after she had given birth, she posted the letter to the Catholic Children’s Rescue Society. They had just passed the new law which entitled adopted children to apply for their adoption records and made it much easier to get hold of them. If her daughter approached the agency Caroline’s letter would be waiting for her. In it she explained the circumstances back in 1960 and a little of her memories of the few weeks they had spent together.

I have thought about you every day and prayed that you have been happy and that you have a close and loving family. I am married now and have two sons but I haven’t told them about you, I hope you understand. I do hope one day you will write and tell me all about yourself.

She did not put her address on the letter itself, panicked at the thought of Theresa turning up on the doorstep unannounced, but she attached a note of it for the society to keep on file so they could forward any communications to her. When her letter reached Manchester the clerk opening the mail was interrupted by a phone call. When she returned to sorting the mail she failed to notice the slip of paper that had got separated from Caroline’s sealed envelope and was among the pile of discarded envelopes. She placed the letter in Caroline’s file in the big filing cabinets, threw away the envelopes and began to sort through her correspondence for the day.

For weeks afterwards Caroline scanned the mail for unexpected postmarks or anything from the society in Manchester, aware that she was desperate to hear and terribly fearful in equal measure. Summer turned to winter then spring and her anticipation faded.

When she went to mark the May birthday, at the beach, she wondered if she would ever hear. Will I die not knowing? Will she write in ten years, thirty, forty? The uncertainty was cruel, like a slow water torture, dripping away, hope calcifying into resignation. She watched the waves break against the rocks, the pattern of foam eddying in the gullies. Heard the shriek of a cormorant. I’ve been suspended in time, she thought. My whole life since I had her, it’s one long wait and the rest of it: Paul, the boys, everything, is like a dream and it’ll never be real, never be enough until I can wake up and find out the truth. Like Sleeping Beauty waiting for a prince, for a kiss, for release.

Kay

They had half-a-dozen visits to the marriage-guidance clinic. It was deadly. Bitterness and confusion dragged out of each of them until the state of their relationship was displayed in tatters in front of them. The counsellor hadn’t been at all judgmental but they had both made up for that. She came away from each session heavy with dismay, sickened by the depth of her anger. Worst of all was having to talk about the baby, Julie’s baby, his baby. How she hated him for that. More than anything. And she grieved for the baby she had never had and felt an awful disloyalty to Theresa and Dominic and the twins.

She could never bring herself to voice the awful thoughts that haunted her, how she had wished Adam’s love child dead, hoped that Julie would miscarry. Evil, unchristian. Adam wept his crocodile tears and said a million sorrys and talked of mistakes and being weak and a fool. He said she had withdrawn from him, been critical, grouchy, he talked about the tranquilisers and how sleepy they had made her. A hundred excuses.

The counsellor made them consider the future, what they wanted for themselves, from each other, what they could give. She asked them to consider separation as well as staying together. Kay panicked. She would not condemn the children to a broken marriage whatever the cost to her. She could not. But she could not forgive Adam either. It was a stalemate.

‘Picture yourselves in five years time.’ The counsellor had smiled lightly. ‘Think of three words to describe your marriage as it might be then.’

Adam huffed and puffed and eventually came up with stable, loving and safe. ‘Faithful,’ Kay said crisply, ‘settled, friendly.’ It was the best she could do and even those modest aims seemed completely unattainable to her.

Adam had promised her he would never stray again and begged her to believe him.

‘I can’t,’ she said simply. ‘I tried before and look where it got me. You want my trust. You can’t have it. There isn’t any.’

He sighed as though she was being obtuse or unreasonable.

The marriage became a convenient arrangement for raising the children. Julie had the baby, a girl, and Adam arranged to pay maintenance. He never saw his daughter. Theresa and the others knew nothing about their half-sister.

Once the twins started college Kay planned to take up training in information technology. Her independence was just around the corner. She was determined to build a new life for herself. And when she was sure of her footing she would leave Adam.

Theresa

‘You may turn over your papers now.’

The last exam. Her eyes skimmed the paper, snatching at the key words of the four questions to see if her revision had covered all the items. Yes, more or less. The world-trade one would be the hardest, she’d have to waffle a bit, but the rest were items she’d gone over and over till she was sick to death of them. Three hours and it would be done. Freedom.

She began to write, her mind working more quickly than her fingers could. She finished fifteen minutes ahead of time and tried to read over her work, but by then she was exhausted, concentration spent, unable to think straight anymore.

She capped her pen, closed her eyes and sat back in her chair. Summer beckoned. Two weeks family holiday on the Costa Brava and then university. If she got her grades. Surely she would. She had worked so hard. The teachers thought she’d sail through. She needed a B and two Cs for Exeter, the course in geology.

‘Couldn’t you have found somewhere further away?’ Her father had joked and her mother had gone all soppy and said, ‘I can’t imagine you not being here. Oh, I know it’ll be wonderful for you and everything, but I keep thinking how did you grow up so quickly?’

‘It’s only three years, Mum. I’ll probably be dying to get back to Manchester by the end of it.’

‘I doubt it,’ her mother snorted.

Theresa tried not to think too much about the actual move. It was exciting but a bit scary too. She was going into student halls of residence for her first year. After that she could move out to a place of her own, or get somewhere with friends. It would be brilliant. Her own place, own key. She’d had a silver key on her eighteenth-birthday cake. Key of the door. It used to be twenty-one but now you were grown up at eighteen. They still kept to twenty-one at the Bingo place. She’d been with her mum once. To the Mecca. A fundraiser for the Catholic Rescue Society. Most of the people knew all the lines and they’d shout them out with the caller, and when there was a saucy reference the whole place would make a big ‘w-h-o-o-o’ sound. Theresa and her mum nearly wet themselves at some of the quips, and the characters.

The night before her eighteenth birthday she’d been helping her mum make vol-au-vents and her mum had spoken in that halting tone that Theresa knew as her important voice.

‘Now, you’re eighteen, if you ever want to trace your family, we wouldn’t mind, Daddy and I. We’d understand.’

‘I don’t,’ Theresa said, faintly embarrassed. ‘I don’t see any point.’

‘It’s just that we wouldn’t want any of you to feel… well, that you couldn’t find your natural parents, that we’d be upset. If it mattered to you, if it does in the future, then we’d be behind you.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ she said gracelessly and changed the subject. She hadn’t wanted to before, why should she feel any different now?

‘Stop writing now,’ Mrs Evans called out. ‘Pens down. Please remain at your desks while papers are collected.’

Outside in the glaring sunshine, Theresa joined her friends, swapping anecdotes from the exam. They wandered to the sixth-form common room and made coffee to go with their cigarettes.

‘Voila!’ Letty produced a bottle of martini and plastic cups. ‘A little light refreshment.’

Oh, yes please! It was the last exam. It was all over. Theresa took a big swig. Someone put Stevie Wonder on full blast. ‘Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing.’ Theresa finished her cigarette, drained her martini and felt a bubble of elation rise inside her.

‘C’mon.’ She pulled Letty to her feet and began to dance. Life starts here.

Kay

She had known she’d cry. She had worn waterproof mascara and had two neatly pressed handkerchiefs in her handbag. She held it in as much as she could, clenching her stomach and pressing her lips tight. But when they had made their vows she had felt her eyes fill and had to dab and sniff and hold on tight.

She and Adam had been so happy those first few years and then bang! Like hitting a brick wall at sixty miles an hour. The years since had been little more than a sham, a foundation for the children. Please, God, let it be better for them.

She glanced across at Craig’s family. His parents seemed nice. They’d only met two days before. The Murrays had travelled down from Aberdeen and were staying at the Midland in town. Craig she knew better, he’d visited several times in the three years that he and Theresa had been going out. He had a dry sense of humour which caught her unawares many times. He wasn’t good-looking, not in the conventional sense, his chin too narrow, nose too big, hair a mass of wiry brown curls, but he had a lovely manner and he plainly adored Theresa. Anyone could see that.

The two had met as postgraduate students at St Andrew’s. He was in archaeology – tombs and bones, he declared in sonorous tones – and Theresa was a geology student. Craig had made various puns about rocks and hard places when he asked her out.

Kay watched as Theresa raised her veil and Craig leant forward to kiss his new bride, and she felt the swell of emotion playing havoc with her insides. Who had decided that joy should make us weep? Adam squeezed her hand and she turned to smile at him, blinking hard.

The organ struck up and people prepared to follow the couple out of the church. She gestured to Dominic and the twins to get ready. She felt drained. There would be photographs now, then the reception, then a dance going on late into the evening. Hours before she could slip her shoes off and her girdle and lie down, and already she could feel a headache starting. Just tension. It was supposed to be a happy day but she felt silly and emotional and off-kilter. To do with her little girl being all grown up and married she supposed. Mrs Craig Murray. Theresa Murray. Tess, Craig called her, a nickname of his own which Theresa accepted without any qualms. Even though Theresa had left home six years ago for university, marriage put the seal on it. And they’d be so far away. Exeter had been bad enough but Craig had taken a post in Boston. Only for three years, Theresa had reassured her, we’ll be back then. But Kay wondered. They were always saying it was hard to find posts in the UK. You read about the brain drain in the papers. She would miss her. And if they had children…

‘C’mon, Mum!’ Theresa yelled. She’d had her hair dressed long, always conscious of her ear, and found a broad lace hairband to frame her face and cover her ears. They had set her hair in ringlets and woven silk flowers through them to match her dress of ivory silk. Kay thought she looked like someone from a medieval painting.

The mother of the bride hurried to her place in the group. She had been going to weight-watchers for six months in anticipation of this day, she’d lost eight pounds, that was all, eight rotten pounds after weeks of Ryvita and cottage cheese. The outfit she had bought – a light, grey jersey sleeveless dress and jacket – was her usual size, but it was the best quality, cut well so it looked simple and elegant. She had dyed her hair a rich brown and covered up the sprinkling of grey hairs she had. You couldn’t see much of it beneath her large, grey hat, but she’d take that off once they had done the photographs.

‘Now, everyone, say Manchester!’ the photographer said. They all obliged.

‘What about Aberdeen?’ Craig called out.

‘Go on then,’ the photographer said, ‘after three.’

She would miss her. It was so hard letting them go.

Theresa

The university in Boston ensured that all staff had adequate healthcare plans and when Theresa became pregnant there was no problem in covering the costs of antenatal care.

Her mother had been practically delirious when she’d received the news. Had rung them and then written, burbling with excitement. A few days ago a parcel had arrived: new baby clothes. She’d sent babygrows, vests, mittens and bootees – yellow and white. There was a second parcel with a note attached: Theresa – these were what you had when you came to us, I’ve been keeping them for you, love Mum. She unwrapped it and found a shawl, silk-and-wool, with a delicate scalloped design, and a little hand-knitted coat in lemon. When you came to us. Someone had dressed her in these, got her ready for her new family. She wondered who. And who had provided the clothes? Had her real mother knitted the coat? She felt a little uneasy thinking about it. It didn’t matter really. The shawl was lovely and she would use it for her own baby.

‘She never had this,’ Theresa remarked to Craig one night as they lay in bed, his hand on her belly feeling the baby wriggling inside. The sheets pulled back so they could see the movements too.

‘She had you though. And Dominic and Martin and Michael.’

‘But it’s different.’

‘Yes?’ He waited.

‘It’s not a straight swap, is it? Having a child of your own or adopting one. They were probably encouraged to think of it like that when there were loads of us up for grabs.’

He looked at her, narrowed his eyes at the unexpected sting in her words.

‘But you don’t get your baby,’ she continued, ‘you don't go through all this feeling it grow and then having it and knowing it already, knowing it came from you. Ow!’ She gasped as the lump stretched the skin on the left of her belly. ‘It must still hurt. Being infertile. Even if you get a family through adoption. Mum’s never given birth, I can’t share all that with her.’

He drummed his fingers on the rounded lump still visible and it twisted away in response. She gave a little laugh. ‘What about your mum, did she ever tell you what her labours were like?’

‘Good God, woman -’ he flared his nostrils and raised his eyebrows – ‘are ye mad? Dates and times and birth weight and that was quite enough biological detail as far as my parents were concerned.’

‘They’re not that bad.’

‘They are. Not quite under the gooseberry bush maybe, but pretty damn near. D’you think the wee one can hear us?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I can sing it a wee lullaby, teach it a little of its sacred Scottish ancestry.’ He rubbed his hand over the dome, put his mouth just below her navel and sang: ‘Ally-bally, ally-bally bee, sitting on his Mammy’s knee, waiting for his wee bobbie, to buy some Coulter’s candy… ’

She giggled. ‘It tickles.’ She pushed his head. He grunted and kissed her belly. He continued to stroke at it in circles, making the sweeps a little wider each time.

She made a small sound in her throat. He knew exactly what it meant. He slid his hand down the slope of her belly, over the bush of pubic hair and slowly, slowly in amongst it. She arched her back slightly and twisted, offering him a nipple. He licked it and felt the reaction where his fingers lay.

As they made love she thought of the baby, conceived this way and soon to be born as a result. The whole thing seemed prosaic and precious and preposterous at the same time.

She felt sweaty and couldn’t stop trembling. She was relieved though. They hadn’t done a C-section on her. The rates in some of the hospitals were frightening. A testimony to the medicalisation of childbirth and to the triumph of technology over necessity. Plus there was the risk of people suing each other all the time. She’d heard things were more relaxed in parts of the UK. You could have home births and domino schemes where you just went in for the actual delivery and home as soon as you liked.

She had tentatively enquired about a home birth in Boston and the obstetrician had looked at her as though she had suggested stuffing and roasting her child at birth. So she had concentrated on stressing her desire for a normal delivery, even if that meant a long labour. Thank God the baby had been presenting in the right position and she had deliberately delayed going into the hospital until the contractions were well established. By the time she allowed Craig to get her into the car the pains were so intense that she was unable to sit down and had to travel in the back with her bum in the air.

Her waters broke in the corridor. A shocking sensation but one that amused her too. Nature triumphs again. She caught Craig’s eye, the glint in her own helping him relax.

‘They’ll add it to the bill,’ he hissed at her. ‘Cleaning charges.’

They wanted to wheel her to the maternity suite but she couldn’t sit in the chair and in the end they allowed her to walk, stopping every few yards to weather a contraction. Once there, she changed into a loose-fitting nightdress she had brought with her. Craig tried to help but his nervousness made him incapable of fixing the buttons.

A midwife checked her pulse, blood pressure, felt her stomach and said she needed to do an internal examination. She asked Craig to step outside.

‘I want him to stay,’ Theresa said. ‘He’s seen it all before.’

Craig raised his eyebrows. She wasn’t usually so blunt, but needs must.

The midwife didn’t press the matter.

‘Eight centimetres dilated,’ she announced. ‘That’s very good. If you just get comfy we’ll pop this round you so we can see how Baby’s doing.’

Theresa shook her head. She had read countless books on childbirth, attended classes, taken up yoga, and knew that if she put the monitor on her ability to move about would disappear. ‘I don’t want to lie down, not yet.’

‘This is just so we can make sure all is well with Baby, we can see on the screen at a glance if there’s any problem.’

Before she could argue, a contraction swept through her, robbing her of words. She pitched forward, leaning over the bed, and Craig hurried to hold her from behind.

‘We’d rather leave it for now,’ Craig said. ‘You have those listening devices, don’t you?’

The midwife nodded and went to get the sonic aid.

Theresa straightened up. ‘Oh, God, she doesn’t like it, does she?’

‘Dinna fash yerself. You thirsty?’

‘No.’

‘Hungry?’

‘No. Put that chair the other way round, I’ll try sitting on that.’

He moved it and Theresa straddled the chair. She tried to relax, to let her body rest before the next flood of pain.

Four hours later she began to push, on the bed now but not strapped up. Kneeling on one knee and holding tight to Craig and to one of the midwives. She was thinking maybe a Caesarean wasn’t such a bad idea.

‘I can see the head!’ Craig yelled. ‘Oh, Tess…’

The child slid out and Theresa was aware of the bustle of activity, and the shaking of her legs. She closed her eyes, momentarily drunk with relief. When she opened them again she looked down at the infant, red limbs performing a jerky dance, the small face mobile and alert, huge eyes. They helped her to sit back on to the bed and handed her the baby.

‘A wee girl,’ Craig said.

‘Is she all right?’ She was desperate now to know, her eyes checking ears and fingers for anything missing, anything not properly formed.

‘She’s perfect.’

‘Hello.’ She stared at the baby. ‘Craig.’ She turned to him, her face wet with tears, screwed tight with emotion. ‘Look at her.’

‘She’s beautiful.’ Craig cleared his throat.

‘No,’ she squeaked. She shook her head and tears coursed down her face.

‘What is it?’

She wept, trying to swallow enough to allow her to speak. ‘She looks like me.’ She took a shuddering breath.

‘Of course she does.’

‘No,’ she said again, her voice high and out of control. ‘You don’t understand. She looks like me. That’s never happened before. It’s the first time I’ve ever known anybody who looks like me.’ And she began to cry helplessly again.