'Lucy?' I just about heard it.

I brought the receiver back tentatively. 'Oh Charlie, hi' 'Sound a bit faint, my love, you're whispering. Can't you talk?'

'No no, I can, the boys aren't here, it's just . . I shut my eyes. Put the palm of my hand over one of them. It seemed to be leaping out of its socket. 'Thumping headache, I'm afraid. Hurts like h.e.l.l.'

'Oh dear, poor you. Aspirin?'

I grimaced. 'Something a little stronger than that, but yes, I've resorted to it'

'Excellent. Now listen, my love,' he hastened on, 'I'll be brief, because she's only popped to the shops, but something rather marvellous has happened. My darling, it looks remarkably as if our cunning plan could bear fruit if you could possibly get away on Sat.u.r.day night. An old schoolfriend of Miranda's is coming to stay and I know she'd like me out of the way, so, under the guise of "working in London", I've taken you at your word and booked the most idyllic bide-awee retreat imaginable. It's in a tiny village somewhere near Bicester not too local, you understand complete with romantic four-poster bed, roaring log fire as stipulated in the brief not that we'll need it in this heat the requisite number of olde oake beams, horse bra.s.ses galore, and the most stunning view of the Cotswold hills imaginable. What do you say, my darling?'

Sat.u.r.day night. My heart pounded. My head too. Quite a cacophony going on, one way or another. My eyes were still tightly shut. I tried to think. Sat.u.r.day was only a few days away, and the subterfuge and machinations involved in getting away for the night made me feel quite sick.

'Lucy?'

'Yes, yes, I'm thinking, Charlie. It's just I've got to come up with some sort of excuse. The boys, you know.'

'Jess?'

'Sorry?'

'Your friend in London?'

'Oh, yes, Jess. Yes I could, I suppose . .

'Well Lucy, only if you want to.' He sounded peeved. 'I mean, it took quite a while to dig it out of the Michelin and everything, but if you don't wan-'

'No no, of course I want to' I sat up, realising I was hunched on the bed like a cowed little dwarf. G.o.d, b.l.o.o.d.y man. b.l.o.o.d.y Jack, spoiling it all for me, making my head split, making me think too hard, making me reconsider everything, but I would not let him ruin it. 'Of course I'm coming, Charlie,' I said firmly. 'And Jess is the perfect excuse. I haven't seen her baby for ages, and he is my G.o.dson.'

'Good.' He sounded relieved. 'For a moment there oh Lucy, I can't wait.'

'Neither can I,' I breathed, the infantry in my head, for one blissful moment retreating slightly, as a rush of love or perhaps Nurofen kicked in. 'Oh Charlie, I know this is right,' I said, holding the mouthpiece with two hands, 'don't you? No matter what anyone says!'

'Anyone?' he repeated, sharply. 'Who's anyone?'

'Oh no, just Jack. Ned's cousin. He's no one, really. It'sjust well, I was with him a moment ago and he was peddling some holier than thou twaddle. I've had a bit of a row with him actually.'

'About us?' He sounded nervous.

'No no, not directly,' I a.s.sured him. 'We weren't talking ostensibly about anyone in particular.' I crossed my fingers here. 'No names, he was just sounding off about people who have,' I faltered in the face of the word Affairs, 'our sort of relationship,' I finished lamely. I wanted to go now, actually. Wanted to put down the phone. We'd arranged our date, we were meeting on Sat.u.r.day, and all I wanted to do was draw the curtains and lie on my cool white bedcover nursing my head. No more pressure, please.

'He doesn't understand,' he said soberly. 'He has no idea. If he did, my G.o.d, he wouldn't be so quick to judge. This sort of love, the sort that we have, is blind to all obstacles.'

I sat up a bit, took my hand off my eye. Was it? 'Yes, you're right. You're right, Charlie. It is, isn't it?'

'Of course it is. My G.o.d, when I think of you, Lucy, well I just go off the scale. I long for you. I want to eat you.'

Eat me. Golly. I went a bit hot. Took my cardigan off. 'I long for you too, Charlie,' I a.s.sured him, feeling a bit more gung-ho, 'and I can't wait for Sat.u.r.day. Can't wait to walk into that pub, see you standing, smiling at the bar, take our drinks over to the cosy, inglenook fireplace-'

'Could do, or take them upstairs.'

'Then a meal in the restaurant-'

'Yes, or apparently they do room service'

'And then up the creaky stairs to that delicious, sumptuous feather bed.'

'Don't,' he groaned. 'Oh don't, Lucy. Now I shall have to have a cold shower! I oh!'

What?'

He paused. 'She's back,' he said in a low voice. 'I hear the car. Till Sat.u.r.day then, my darling. The Hare and Hounds, Little Burchester, seven o'clock. Don't fail me, will you, my angel?'

'Not for one moment,' I a.s.sured him.

The line went dead as he hurriedly put down the phone. I shut my eyes, and lay down carefully on my side, still with the purring receiver clamped to my chest. No, not for one moment.

Chapter Twenty-two.

Sat.u.r.day dawned bright and promising. Promising because, as I drew back my bedroom curtains and leaned out into the sweet, morning air, resting my arms on the honeysuckle-encrusted ledge, its heady scent mingling with the roses from the garden below, I realised, with relief, that my head had cleared. The pounding and sizzling which had kept up its relentless double act for two whole days (as I knew it would), had finally abated, and the dull, monotonous thump in the temples, interspersed with just to keep me on my toes a shooting, white-hot pain, like a guided missile behind the eyes, was no more.

I tentatively looked towards the sun, apprehensive, waiting to flinch, to cry out. But nothing. The demons had gone, and as I gazed into the hazy blue distance, it occurred to me, with some surprise, that effectively, I'd missed forty-eight hours. I noticed, for example, that the sweeping expanse of parkland that rose up to Netherby had scorched almost yellow in the heat, and looked like a tropical savannah, whereas the last time I'd looked, it had still been a cool green. The flowers, too, in my little picket-fenced garden below, all jostling for position in the beds, were wilting terribly now, and had clearly been gasping for a drink for some time.

Oh, I'd carried on of course, these past two days, hadn't taken to my bed or anything wet, but it had been in something of a blur. I'd even limped into work on the first day, pathetically grateful for the peace and quiet I'd previously derided, but spent much of the time with my head on the desk. The following day I'd trudged painfully and slowly around a jam-packed Sainsbury's in Oxford, feeling my way along the shelves and even, at one point, leaning against the loo rolls with my eyes shut, before collapsing in a darkened room on my return. The children, understandably, steered well clear and amused themselves elsewhere. It had, and I'm not looking for sympathy here, been an excruciatingly painful episode, but now, this morning, on this most momentous of mornings, and after ten hours of dreamy, paracetamol-induced sleep, I knew the worst was over. My eyes, wide and optimistic, marvelled, for instance, at the shiny yellow b.u.t.tercup heads in the meadow beyond, which yesterday had looked like an oppressive shield, a blazing carrion designed to make me cry out in pain, and the shimmering lake, which previously had had me swishing the curtain shut as it flashed menacingly in the sun, seemed now only tranquil and calm.

A broad grin spread uncontrollably across my face, and my tummy leapt with excitement as I hung out of the ledge in my pyjama top. Tonight then, was most surely the night, and considering the ease with which the potentially difficult logistics of the evening ahead had fallen into place, the omens were good. Trisha, last night, sniffing on the other end of the phone and blowing her nose loudly, had readily agreed to babysit, onthe basis that she certainly hadn't got anything better to do on a Sat.u.r.day night, had she, and anyway, she'd rather be down here, than up there. She didn't want to be in the same house as him.

I'd felt rather guilty about taking advantage of her misery, but golly, it pa.s.sed. All the same, I decided, narrowing my eyes thoughtfully to the windows of Netherby, glinting away in the sunlight, I'd better just nip up and confirm the arrangements with her. I didn't want anything scuppering my plans at the last minute.

I hurriedly threw off my top and grabbed some shorts and a T-shirt from a drawer. My plan was to take the boys out for the day, before delivering them back here to Trisha, where she could oversee pizza, crisps, ice cream, and all manner of tooth-rotting comestibles in front of a new video, all bought in Sainsbury's yesterday. I wasn't too proud to buy my way into my children's good humour, and anyway, I was keen to get into Ben's good books and silence any of that mutinous we see less of you now than when you worked in London malarkey. I, meanwhile, would whiz upstairs to begin my devotions, anointing my body with all the expensive lotions and potions I'd grabbed, eyes half shut, from the Body Beautiful shelves yesterday. I'd actually planned to then pour the body beautiful into something tight and s.e.xy snapped up in Oxford yesterday but, feeling about as s.e.xy as a stale sardine as I'd groped my way blindly down the High Street, I'd decided, on the threshold of Monsoon, that the combination of throbbing disco music, fiercely intent shoppers and the overwhelming heat, might just finish me off. It had also occurred to me, on the way home, that vamp dressing might not be quite the ticket for the Hare and Hounds, and so I was even now pulling out of my bottom drawer my black jeans and a cream, antique lace, camisole top, over which I planned to throw my favourite beaded cardigan, all the way from my darling sister in Italy. There. I laid it all on the bed and stepped back. Oh, and some black suede boots. I dragged them out from under the bed. Perfect.

The boys were still asleep, so I left a quick note to tell Ben where I was, and scuttled up to Netherby. As I bowled through the back door into the boot room, sailing through generations of riding boots, Wellingtons, bowler hats, brown felts and Panamas, I could feel excitement mounting. I skipped down the back corridor to the kitchen, and wondered if Charlie was feeling the same way. I couldn't actually imagine him hurtling into Oxford intent on being at the cutting edge of fashion for tonight's rendezvous, but all the same, I had a sneaky suspicion he might be glancing at the hands of the clock occasionally, urging them on as I was. I clattered through the kitchen door with a cheery 'Morning all!' expecting to find Joan and Trisha finishing their breakfast ch.o.r.es only to find Rose, alone, standing facing me behind the huge oak table, unrolling bundles of silver from grey felt cloth.

'Oh!' I stopped, startled. 'Rose, I-'

'Didn't expect to find me in this part of the house?' she finished smoothly. 'Oh, I do venture out here occasionally, if only to check everyone's doing their best which, judging by the terrible state of the silver,' she held a fork up to the light and peered critically at it, 'they're not. Can I help?'

'Oh, well, no, not really. I was just looking for Trisha. She's going to babysit for me tonight, and I wanted to check that she was still OK.'

Rose frowned at me through the fork p.r.o.ngs. 'Then it's just as well you came up, Lucy, because I'm afraid she is most definitely not "OK", as you put it. I have a luncheon party for twenty-two tomorrow, and both Joan and Trisha will be spending their evening polishing all this silver, ready for Sunday. Fancy putting it away like this. Just look at this fork, caked in old egg! Can you believe it?'

I gazed at her in horror, all my dreams turning to dust and ashes in the face of her frosty geniality.

'Is that a problem?' She raised her eyebrows. 'What were your plans for tonight?' She put down the fork and cast a thin smile in my direction. 'I hear, on the grapevine, that there might be a man on the horizon.'

I regarded her with even more horror. Christ, what did she know? 'N-no,' I stuttered, 'no man, as such, but well, I promised to go and spend a night with Jess in London. Her little boy hasn't been well.'

'Oh really? Not still the chicken-pox? Surely he's over that by now?'

'Yes no. I mean, he is but he developed complications.' I could feel a huge guilty blush unfolding from the soles of my feet. 'High temperatures, all night. That sort of thing.'

'How extraordinary chicken-pox is usually so straightforward' She eyed me steadily. 'But of course you must go, if she needs you. The boys can stay up here.'

A mixture of relief and uncertainty filled me. 'Or I might be able to get another babysitter,' I said quickly.

'What, at such short notice? And you don't know anyone, do you?'

No, I didn't know anyone. Except the Fellowes. Hadn't got a local pal to speak of, no one I could call up and say, 'Hi, listen, I'm in a bit of a corner, could I possibly borrow your nanny?'

'Well, Lavinia, perhaps.'

'But why on earth should Lavinia traipse down to your barn when she could be in her own home up here!' She widened her eyes incredulously. 'Don't be silly, Lucy.'

I gazed into her steady, confident blue eyes. She was right. Of course she was right. I was being silly. And hypersensitive, too.

'You're right,' I said timidly. 'I'm sure they'll be fine up here. I mean of course they will. They love it here. I'll go back to the barn and tell them.'

'Oh, I don't think you'll find them there,' she said, slotting spoons and forks back in felt pockets and rolling them up efficiently into a neat bundle. 'I saw them pottering around in the greenhouse with Archie a moment ago.'

I started. 'Really? But-'

'It's already nine o'clock, Lucy,' she said patiently. 'They quite often pop up and have breakfast here while you're having a lie-in, you know. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must get on. I must find Joan to sort out this ghastly silver situation. Joan!' She swept past me, and disappeared down the corridor.

I stared after her. The boys were already up here? But their bedroom doors had been shut, so I'd thought had a.s.sumed ... but I hadn't looked, had I? Hadn't opened them. I flushed. How awful. And they came up here for breakfast on a regular basis? I frowned. No. Well, yesterday, perhaps, and maybe the day before, too, when my head had been holding me prisoner, and OK, maybe a few other times, becauseactually, I'd noticed them scampering off early occasionally, but that had pleased me. I'd thought that was the fun of being in the country, the freedom to run out to play whenever you wanted. And I certainly hadn't been lying in bed, I thought angrily. I licked my lips. Well, except this morning, when admittedly I had overslept a bit.

I turned and walked slowly down the pa.s.sage I'd just bowled along so buoyantly, back through the rows of coats and hats, out across the stable yard, and down the little brick path towards the walled garden. Feeling crushed, I pulled the head off a dead poppy as I pa.s.sed. I knew I'd been cleverly insulted back there. I also knew that she had the ability, the arrogance of her cla.s.s, to suck the confidence out of me, like a leech. I breathed deeply and squared my shoulders, wondering at myself. Wondering at how quickly my moods could be transformed, how easily my emotional power to be happy was so often exhausted.

I stopped and shaded my eyes into the distance. Yes, sure enough, there they were, Ben and Max, in the long Victorian greenhouse that leaned against the huge, crumbling, kitchen-garden wall, picking tomatoes with Archie. Well, how lovely, I decided staunchly. Picking fruit with Grandpa. What could be nicer? Except that Rose, far from rushing off to find Joan, was also present. Why? What had she scampered down so quickly to say? I went on apprehensively, feeling like the outsider, peering in from behind the cuc.u.mber frames. Rose took a br.i.m.m.i.n.g colander from Ben as I approached, and without so much as a 'Oh look, here's Mummy!' declared, with her back to me, 'Splendid, Ben. A splendid bounty. I'll take this up to the kitchens right away. They can make a salad out of it for lunch.'

Rose always referred to 'the kitchens' as if it were some vast engine room with a fleet of chefs, instead of which, Joan, heavy and rheumatic, and with only part-time help, struggled to get by in what was, by today's standards, a totally unmodernised kitchen without even a microwave for help. It was inadequate for a house this size, particularly in view of the amount of entertaining Rose insisted on, and I wondered how strapped for cash they really were. Rose spent money like water - just look at my barn - but it couldn't be a bottomless pit, could it, with just the home farm for regular income. Money seemed to be on Rose's mind too.

'This greenhouse is a disgrace,' she was saying. 'I can't imagine what people will think when I open the gardens next month. Look at all the broken panes! And the frames just crumble to the touch.' She flicked an immaculate nail at the flaking paint. 'I've had a quote, Archie, and it's nearly two thousand pounds, but it must be done.'

'Buy an awful lot of tomatoes for two thousand pounds,' muttered Archie, crouched at the bottom of a vine.

'What?' she barked.

'Nothing, my love.' He straightened up. 'Quite right. We must get it fixed'

'And you can get that b.l.o.o.d.y dog "fixed" while you're at it,' she said angrily, brushing past me and stepping over Archie's faithful, smelly Labrador, lying in the doorway, its huge belly swollen. 'She's quite obviously in pup again - no doubt to one of the village dogs - and we shall have to cart all the puppies off to the RSPCA again. What will they think? Why you can't get her spayed, I don't know.'

'Certainly not,' he growled. 'Spayed b.i.t.c.hes get fat and aggressive. I should know.'

'What?'

'Nothing, darling. Quite right, I'll look into it.'

'Well, see that you do, Archie!'

And with that she turned and stalked off back up the brick path. We stared after her.

'Granny's in a bad mood,' muttered Ben.

'No doubt about that, old man,' agreed Archie. 'Can't think what's bitten her. Been like this for days now.' He gazed after her, thoughtfully.

It occurred to me though, as I watched her stalk off, that this was more like the Rose I knew, the Rose I remembered when I'd been married to Ned. This coldness was far more familiar; in fact I felt, with a gathering sense of dread, that she'd simply reverted to type, at least as far as her dealings with me were concerned. The show of geniality these past few weeks had been just that. A show.

'Anyway,' Archie turned back, 'come on boys, they're dripping off the vines here. Let's see if we can't pick another big bowlful, eh?'

'No Ted today?' I enquired, giving him a hand and dropping huge, overripe tomatoes into the bowl, thankful she'd gone.

'Not every day,' he admitted. 'Just three mornings a week now. Got a bit pricey, you know.'

'Ah.' So I was right. We worked on in silence. At length I stopped, straightened up.

'Listen, boys.' I turned to them brightly. 'If Grandpa can spare you from the greenhouse, I thought we might drive into Oxford today, take a boat down the river. Would you like that?'

'Oh, cool!' Max jumped into my arms and even Ben, who I noticed hadn't even acknowledged me this morning when I'd ruffled his hair, glanced round with a smile.

'Can we go for the whole day?' he asked suspiciously.

'Sure, why not? I need to be back at about five though. You know I'm going up to Jess's tonight, don't you?' I said anxiously.

'Yeah, you said,' he admitted grudgingly, but not too grumpily.

'Go on then, boys,' said Archie, pa.s.sing Ben the bowl. 'Take those up to Joan for me, then get out in the sunshine with your ma.'

'I'll make some egg sandwiches,' I promised, squeezing Ben's shoulder as we stepped out of the boiling hot gla.s.shouse into relatively cool air. We strolled back across the lawn to the terrace. 'And we can pack some peaches, and some biscuits.'

'And sweets?' added Max hopefully.

'And sweets,' I agreed, 'and put it all in a rucksack.'

'With gallons of ginger beer?' enquired Ben. 'Sounds to me like you're trying to be a bit of an Enid Blyton mother.' He eyed me craftily.

'Does rather, doesn't it?' I said evenly. 'So. Why don't you take those tomatoes round to Joan, and I'll see what Lavinia's getting all excited about.'

Up on the terrace, Lavinia was flapping and waving her arms at us like someone guiding in a 747. Behind her, by the open French windows, sat Jack, in a Panama hat, apparently reading the same paperback he'd been engrossed in yesterday. Call that a job, I thought wryly. All right for some.

'What is it, Lavinia?' I called, not wanting to get too closeto Jack after yesterday. The boys scampered off to the kitchen.

'Oh there you are, I've been looking for you everywhere!' She scampered down the steps all pink and breathless, and looking like something out of the Lower Fourth. 'You haven't forgotten, have you?' she said anxiously.