Come Friday, for the first time in two years she was genuinely relieved when Graham arrived to take him off her hands for forty-eight hours.

Ray headed out to play five-a-side football on Sat.u.r.day morning and she made the mistake of attempting to clean the house. She was manhandling the sofa to get at the fluff and slime and toy parts underneath when something tore in her lower back. Suddenly she was in a great deal of pain and walking like the butler in a vampire movie.

Ray microwaved some supper and they attempted an orthopedic, low-impact s.h.a.g but the ibuprofen seemed to have rendered her numb in all the unhelpful places.

On Sunday she gave in and retired to the sofa, keeping the c.r.a.p mother guilt at bay with Cary Grant videos.

At six Graham turned up with Jacob.

Ray was in the shower so she let them in herself and tottered back to the chair in the kitchen.

Graham asked what was wrong but Jacob was too busy telling her what a wonderful time they'd had at the Natural History Museum.

"And there were...there were skellingtons of elephants and rhinoceroses and...and...the dinosaurs were ghost dinosaurs."

"They were repainting one of the rooms," said Graham. "Everything was under dust sheets."

"And Daddy said I could stay up late. And we had...we had...we had eggy. And toast. And I helped. And I gotted a chocolate stegosaurus. From the museum. And there was a dead squirrel. In Daddy's...Daddy's garden. It had worms. In its eyes."

Katie held her arms out. "Are you going to give your mummy a big hug?"

But Jacob was in full flow. "And...and...and we went on a double-decker bus and I keeped the tickets."

Graham crouched down. "Hang on a tick, little man, I think your mummy's hurt herself." He put a finger to Jacob's lips and turned to Katie. "Are you OK?"

"Wrecked my back. Moving the sofa."

Graham gave Jacob a serious look. "You be good to your mummy, all right? Don't go giving her the runaround. Promise?"

Jacob looked at Katie. "Is your back not comfy?"

"Not very. But a hug from my monkey boy would make it feel a lot better."

Jacob didn't move.

Graham got to his feet. "Well, it's getting late."

Jacob began to wail, "I don't want Daddy to go."

Graham ruffled his hair. "Sorry, Buster. Can't be helped, I'm afraid."

"Come on, Jacob." Katie held her arms out again. "Let me give you a cuddle."

But Jacob was working himself up into a state of truly operatic despair, punching the air and kicking out at the nearest chair. "Not go. Not go."

Graham tried to hold him, if only to stop him hurting himself. "Hey, hey, hey..." Normally he would have left. They'd learnt the hard way. But normally she could have scooped Jacob into her arms and hung on to him while Graham beat a retreat.

Jacob stamped his feet. "n.o.body...n.o.body listens...I want...I hate..."

After three or four minutes Ray appeared in the doorway with a towel round his waist. She was past caring what he might say and how Graham might react. He walked over to Jacob, hoisted him over his shoulder and disappeared.

There wasn't time to react. They just stared at the empty door and listened to the screaming getting fainter as Ray and Jacob made their way upstairs.

Graham got to his feet. She thought for a moment that he was going to make some caustic comment and she wasn't sure she could handle that. But he said, "I'll make some tea," and it was the kindest thing he'd said to her in a long time.

"Thanks."

He put the kettle on. "You're giving me a weird look."

"The shirt. It's the one I bought you for Christmas."

"Yeh. s.h.i.t. Sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"No. I wasn't trying to..." She was crying.

"Are you all right?" He reached out to touch her but stopped himself.

"I'm fine. Sorry."

"Are things going OK?" asked Graham.

"We're getting married." She was crying properly now. "Oh c.r.a.p. I shouldn't be..."

He gave her a tissue. "That's great news."

"I know." She blew her nose messily. "And you? What about you?"

"Oh, nothing much."

"Tell me," said Katie.

"I was seeing someone from work." He took away her soggy tissue and gave her a fresh one. "It didn't work out. I mean, she was great, but...She wore this swimming cap in the bath to keep her hair dry."

He took out some Fig Rolls and they talked about the safe stuff. Ray putting his foot in it with Jamie. Graham's gran modeling for a knitwear catalog.

After ten minutes he made his excuses. She was sad. It surprised her and he paused just long enough to suggest that he felt the same. There was a brief moment during which one of them might have said something inappropriate. He cut it short.

"You look after yourself, OK?" He kissed her gently on the top of the head and left.

She sat quietly for a few more minutes. Jacob had stopped crying. She realized she hadn't felt the pain while she and Graham had been talking. It was back with a vengeance now. She swigged two more ibuprofen with a gla.s.s of water then shuffled upstairs. They were in Jacob's room. She stopped outside and glanced round the door.

Jacob was lying on the bed, facedown, looking at the wall. Ray was sitting next to him, patting his bottom and singing "Ten Green Bottles" very quietly and completely out of tune.

Katie was crying again. And she didn't want Jacob to see. Or Ray for that matter. So she turned and silently walked back down to the kitchen.

27.

Above all it seemed so profoundly unjust. seemed so profoundly unjust.

George was not naive. Bad things happened to good people. He knew that. And vice versa. But when the Benns were burgled by their daughter's boyfriend, or when Brian's first wife had to have her breast implants taken out, you couldn't help thinking that some kind of rudimentary justice was being done.

He knew men who had kept mistresses their entire married lives. He knew men who had gone bankrupt and registered the same company under a different name the following month. He knew a man who had broken his son's leg with a spade. Why were they not going through this?

He had spent thirty years making and installing playground equipment. Good playground equipment. Not as cheap as Wicksteed or Abbey Leisure, but better value.

He had made mistakes. He should have sacked Alex Bamford when he found him half conscious on the floor of the office washroom. And he should have asked for written evidence of Jane Fuller's back problems and not waited until she appeared in the local paper doing that fun run.

He had made seventeen people redundant, but they got a decent settlement and as good a reference as he could write without perjuring himself. It was not heart surgery, but neither was it weapons manufacture. In a modest way he had increased the happiness of a small part of the human population.

And now this had been dumped on his plate.

Still, there was no point in complaining. He had spent his life solving problems. Now he had to solve another one.

His mind was malfunctioning. He had to bring it under control. He had done it before. He had shared a house with his daughter for eighteen years without coming to blows, for starters. When his mother died he went back into the office the following morning to make sure the Glasgow deal did not fall through.

He needed a strategy, just as he would if Jean had booked a holiday for two in Australia.

He found himself a sheet of stiff, cream writing paper, drew up a list of rules, then hid it in the fireproof cash box at the back of the wardrobe with his birth certificate and the house deeds: 1. Keep busy.2. Take long walks.3. Sleep well.4. Shower and change in the dark.5. Drink red wine.6. Think of something else.7. Talk.

As for keeping busy, the wedding was a G.o.dsend. Last time round he had left the organization to Jean. Now that he had time to spare he could keep himself occupied and earn brownie points into the bargain.

Walking was a genuine delight. Especially the footpaths round Na.s.sington and Fotheringay. It kept him fit and helped him sleep. True, there were difficult moments. One afternoon on the dam at the eastern end of Rutland Water, he heard an industrial siren go off, and images of refinery disasters and nuclear attack made him feel suddenly very far from civilization. But he was able to stride back to the car singing loudly to himself, then crank up Ella Live at Montreux Ella Live at Montreux to cheer himself on the journey home. to cheer himself on the journey home.

Turning the lights off to shower and change was plain common sense. And with the exception of the evening when Jean had marched into the bathroom, flicked on the light and screamed when she found him toweling himself in the dark, it was easy enough to do.

The red wine doubtless ran contrary to all medical advice but two or three gla.s.ses of that Ridgemont Cabernet did wonders for his mental equilibrium.

Thinking of something else was the most difficult task on the list. He would be cutting his toenails, or oiling a pair of shears, and it would loom from the undertow like a dark silhouette in a shark movie. When he was in town it was possible to distract himself by glancing sideways at an attractive young lady and imagining her naked. But he encountered few attractive young ladies in the course of his average day. If he had been more brazen and lived alone he might have purchased p.o.r.nographic magazines. But he was not brazen and Jean was a scrupulous cleaner of nooks. So he settled for the crossword.

It was talking, however, which was the revelation. Little did he know that by sorting out the inside of his head he would add new life to his marriage. Not that it was dull or loveless. Far from it. They got on with one another a good deal better than many couples of their acquaintance who put up with a life of low-level sniping and bad-tempered silences simply because it was easier than separating. He and Jean bickered rarely, thanks largely to his own powers of self-restraint. But they did have silences.

So it was a pleasant surprise to find that he could say what was on his mind and have Jean respond with often interesting comments. Indeed there were evenings when this kind of conversation gave him such profound relief that he felt as if he were falling in love with her all over again.

A couple of weeks after embarking on his self-imposed regime George got a phone call from Brian.

"Gail's mother's here for a fortnight. So I thought I'd head down to the cottage. Make sure the builders have done their job. Wondered if you fancied joining me. It'll be a bit primitive. Camp beds, sleeping bags. But you're a hardy chap."

Ordinarily he would not have wanted to spend more than a couple of hours in his brother's company. But there was something boyish and excited in his voice. He sounded like a nine-year-old eager to show off his new tree house. And the thought of a long train journey, windy walks along the Helford and pints around the fire in the local pub was rather appealing.

He could take a sketchbook. And that big Peter Ackroyd Jean had given him for Christmas.

"I'll come."

28.

Jamie vacuumed the carpets and cleaned the bathroom. He thought briefly about washing the cushion covers but, frankly, Tony wouldn't notice if they were covered in mud. and cleaned the bathroom. He thought briefly about washing the cushion covers but, frankly, Tony wouldn't notice if they were covered in mud.

The following afternoon he cut short the visit to the Creighton Avenue flats, rang the office to say he could be contacted on his mobile, then went home via Tesco's.

Salmon, then strawberries. Enough to show he'd made an effort but not enough to make him feel too fat for s.e.x. He put a bottle of Pouilly-Fume in the fridge and a vase of tulips on the dining table.

He felt stupid. He was getting worked up about losing Katie, and doing nothing to hang on to the most important person in his life.

He and Tony should be living together. He should be coming home to lit windows and the sound of unfamiliar music. He should be lying in bed on Sat.u.r.day mornings, smelling bacon and hearing the clink of crockery through the wall.

He was going to take Tony to the wedding. All that b.o.l.l.o.c.ks about provincial bigotry. It was himself he was scared of. Getting old. Making choices. Being committed.

It would be ghastly. Of course it would be ghastly. But it didn't matter what the neighbors thought. It didn't matter if Mum fussed over Tony like a lost son. It didn't matter if his father tied himself in knots over bedroom arrangements. It didn't matter if Tony insisted on a slow snog to Lionel Richie's "Three Times a Lady."

He wanted to share his life with Tony. The good stuff and the c.r.a.p stuff.

He took a deep breath and felt, for several seconds, as if he was standing not on the pine floor of his kitchen but on some deserted Scottish headland, the surf thundering and the wind in his hair. n.o.ble. Taller.

He went upstairs and showered and felt the remains of something dirty being rinsed away and sent spinning down the plughole.

He was having a shirt-selection crisis when the doorbell rang. He plumped for the faded orange denim and went downstairs.

When he opened the door his first thought was that Tony had received some bad news. About his father, perhaps.

"What's the matter?"

Tony took a deep breath.

"Hey. Come inside," said Jamie.

Tony didn't move. "We need to talk."

"Come inside and talk."

Tony didn't want to come inside. He suggested they walk to the park at the end of the road. Jamie grabbed his keys.

It happened next to the little red bin for dog s.h.i.t.

Tony said, "It's over."

"What?"