struggled with the string of rug. Would they continue to be her stepsons, if she and Charles were to divorce? Would they become the stepsons of Henrietta? Of course they would. Rage possessed her and her mind zinged furiously, smelling of burning rubber. She did not worry about Sally and Stella: they were hers, her blood and body, for ever. But Jonathan, but Aaron, but Alan. Her boys, and not her boys. What was her claim to them now? What sudden right had Henrietta Latchett to her three boys? Calm down, calm down, she told herself, they are all grown up, they need neither of you, this has nothing to do with them, they will not even notice. But rage continued. The buzz of jealousy. So this was it. She had seen something of it professionally, and had thought herself exempt.
For her predecessor, Naomi, she had felt none. It had not been required. Naomi Headleand, who had been killed so tragically, so tragically young, when driving herself quietly and soberly home from Glyndebourne one night. Young, beautiful, innocent, rich, she had, it was claimed, been killed instantly when an oncoming overtaking car had lost control and collided, head-on, with hers. She had died instantly, of internal, invisible injuries. When the police arrived, ten minutes later, her car was still singing: from the radio swelled the fifth symphony of Sibelius, representing eternity. Where could jealousy enter here? A young, a beautiful, a fairy-story mother, dying with the greatest of grace, as immortality asserted itself and pledged its reassurance in the night air of her departure. A potent myth, but a friendly one. Liz had felt herself to be close to Naomi, as she nursed Naomi’s children, slept with Naomi’s husband, took tea or sherry with Naomi’s parents, helped to form the childish letters which her stepchildren wrote to Naomi’s parents thanking them for presents, for outings. She had never met Naomi in her life, but in death she grew to love her: she had taken her into herself, had learned her likings, had read her books and tried (although not herself musical) to listen to her music, she had spoken much of her to the children, had insisted upon treating her as an ally, as a friend beyond the grave, had reinvented her and kept her close to them – oh, not without awareness of the dangers, of the necessary distortions and consolations, but then all life is danger, and Liz had embarked willingly upon its full tide with those three small boys, with that ambitious, importunate widower and that friendly ghost. A great adventure, a fitting enterprise for one who had known herself from infancy to be set apart for some rare destiny, and one that she had thought herself to have pursued courageously, successfully, with a redeeming love that had rescued even the anguished, complex, hostile Aaron, and had saved him from his wilder flights. How magically her love for the boys had developed into, contrasted with, reinforced her different but equally powerful passion for her daughters: how strange but inevitable had appeared the five-pointed constellation of their heroic family.
Accomplished. Yes, well, perhaps that was the point. She collected glasses on a tray. She picked a dying leaf from a branchy green-pink flecked begonia. She answered the telephone, thanked the Martellis for thanking her for the party. She would look for their gloves, would ring back if she found them. She restacked the dishwasher. The whole house was still sleeping, although it was half past nine. She read the paper. She was not due at the Metropole until twelve. She would walk there. The morning gaped, endless. She switched on the radio and switched it off again. She heard Charles move across the landing to his own room and run a bath. Of course they should divorce. She had often thought of it herself, had once or twice in low or high moments suggested it. But was nevertheless outraged, outraged, that the suggestion should have come from Charles. Had he meant it? Yes, he had meant it, she had no doubt. It was up to her, quickly, to forge herself a manner that would give her an advantage in whatever negotiations were to come: and she had done so, by the time he came down for his breakfast. She greeted him with a pot of coffee and a brisk, slightly mocking, offhand smile. She would treat him as a delinquent, a time-waster, a bad child, whose offences could only be petty. She would refuse to allow that the matter was serious, or that its consequences could affect her profoundly. A minor irritation. Yes, that was the line.
But it did not, she found, come very naturally to her. Breakfast was not pleasant. They spoke of indifferent things, but her mind, resenting too tight a control, kept whining away with its own questions. What would happen to the house? Whose house was it, anyway? Legally, morally? What would the children think? What would Edgar think? What would the world think? What was it like, life in the 1980s for a woman on her own? How much would it devalue her? Whatever could a man like Charles see in Henrietta? What had been lacking in her that he had found in Henrietta? What had she done wrong? Should she feel guilt? Should she feel shame? What would her solicitor say? Was it true that she had neglected Charles, as he sometimes claimed? She had always thought he was joking. How could one neglect a man who was never there? Was he never there because she had neglected him?
And these questions pursued her, buzzing like mosquitoes, as she walked up Marylebone High Street with her briefcase, as she crossed the Edgware Road, as she joined the conference group for sherry in the Westminster Suite, as she discovered that Edgar had rightly warned her that conversing with Japanese was not easy, as she ate her indifferent luncheon of Maryland chicken, as she listened to Professor Yamamoto speak on Spenser’s reinterpretation of Freud’s interpretation of folie à deux in the classic case of Orphan Eva and her mother, as she delivered her own paper, as she attempted desperately to follow the ensuing discussion, of which she could grasp only one word in ten: all through this crazy jumble of non-language and misunderstanding, of erudition and impenetrable obscurity, of meaningless signs and uninterpretable eye contact, the mosquitoes buzzed and nipped and drew blood. By six, at the end of the session, she was exhausted, demoralized. She took a taxi home. She felt herself, beneath the pricks and stings, to be growing ill. Charles had made her ill. She needed comfort, reassurance. She would ring Alix. She would tell Alix. She knew that in speaking to Alix her voice would find its normal level, her mind would return to its normal tuning. She could rely on Alix. But when she got back and dialled Alix’s number, Alix was out. Liz replaced the receiver and tried to keep calm, but she could feel panic, fever, tears approaching. Charles had gone out. To see Henrietta, to his club? He had left no word. She sat in her study and stared at the telephone. If I were my patient, she asked herself, would I prescribe myself a tranquillizer? Is this what people feel like when they request tranquillizers? She rang Esther. Esther too was out. She went back into the drawing room and poured herself a whisky and soda. She switched on the television.
Alix Bowen was out because for her, too, New Year’s Day was a working day, of sorts. She had to go to the Garfield Centre, where she taught one day a week, to see the inmates perform their Christmas entertainment. She had promised to go. They would be angry with her if she did not go. But when she got into the car at five, ready for the fifteen-mile drive across London, it wouldn’t start. The battery felt flat. It clicked and died on her. No life in it at all. It hadn’t been such a cold night, what had happened? She did not understand cars. She sat there crossly. There was absolutely no way of getting from Wandsworth to Wanley except by car, or none that did not involve at least four methods of public transport. It was not easy even by car. In fact, it was a ridiculous journey, and one that annoyed her regularly once a week. The car had been behaving all right the night before, when Brian had driven them back from Liz’s. It always behaved for Brian. She switched it on again. A faint but more hopeful splutter, this time. She switched off, quickly. She would have to get Brian. Brian wouldn’t mind being got, but he would laugh. Her feet were cold. Perhaps she would put on another pair of socks. But it was always so hot, in the Centre.
Brian did laugh. He patted her on the shoulder, then he hugged her, and laughed.
‘You look so miserable,’ he said. ‘It’s wonderful. It’s only a car.’
‘I know it’s only a car,’ she said, peevishly, shifting from one foot to another on the damp pavement. ‘And it won’t bloody well start. What’s the point of a car that won’t start?’
It started at once, for Brian. They listened to it. It sounded perfectly well, for Brian.
‘There you go,’ he said, getting out, putting his arm round her.
‘I’m a fool,’ she said.
‘We’re all fools,’ said Brian. ‘It’s a foolish world.’
‘You’re not a fool,’ said Alix. ‘You’re a saint.’
‘No,