Tess was jigging up and down and waving like a cheerleader on speed. She was wearing emerald-green jeans, the Chloe top I'd sent her for her birthday back in March and the most enormous thrilled-to-see-you-Rosie grin.

He was a red-haired thirty-something guy in rimless gla.s.ses, almost handsome, over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and well-made. So good face, good body, but whatever was he wearing? Good grief, he was a tartan-shirt-and-bright-blue-boot-cut-jeans fashion disaster. What could Tess be thinking, letting him go out looking like that? I supposed she had to be in love. But there are standards, aren't there?

'Rosie, hi!' Tess threw her arms around me, hugged me tight and then stood back to look at me. 'How are you doing, love?' she added, in the careful way that practically everybody spoke to me since Charlie- I still find it hard to say the word.

'I'm very well,' I said, and then I thought, I must work on my Amglish or n.o.body is going to understand me. 'I mean I'm good. I'm doing great. I'm not sure of the time, of course. h.e.l.lo, you must be Ben?'

'Yeah, I guess I must be.' He grinned and winked and shook my hand. 'I love your accent, Rosie.'

'Rosie's posh,' said Tess. 'She went to Cheltenham Ladies' College and Cambridge University. She got a quarter blue in tiddlywinks.'

This obviously didn't mean a thing to Mr Tartan. 'Posh I just adore that word,' he said. 'It's so British and ridiculous.' Then he glanced at my left hand and saw what I was holding. A red-and-green-striped apple, a James Grieve from my Granny Ca.s.sie's tree. 'You brought that foreign vegetable matter into the USA?'

'Oh I meant to put it in the bin.'

'She means the trash,' said Tess.

'You'll probably suit orange.' Mr Tartan winked at me again and then began to stroll towards the exit, jangling a giant bunch of keys. Those jeans were flipping awful, so loose around the a.r.s.e he looked like he was wearing Pampers, and I hoped for Tess's sake that this was not the case.

'Gorgeous luggage,' Tess said enviously, gazing at my shocking-pink-with-gold-tone-hardware bags. 'Where did you get it?'

'Guess?'

'Oh, I don't know Aladdin's cave?'

'If you mean f.a.n.n.y's office, yes. It's all Versace see the tags? You can have it, if you like. I dare say I can get some more or something similar. f.a.n.n.y's place is full of stuff and there are always new things coming in.'

'Thank you, Rosie, you're a mate!'

'You're welcome.'

'It makes me want to go on holiday. Bermuda, Rome, Capri ...'

'Or Bethnal Green? Tess, will you be coming home for Christmas?'

'Americans aren't big on Christmas holidays. They don't have Boxing Day or anything. So I don't know if Ben-'

'But if you're not working, you could come back for Christmas, couldn't you? Your relations, they'll all want to see you?'

'Yeah, some of them might.' Tess shook her head and sighed, stopped walking, turned to look at me. 'Mum's still well hacked off because I didn't ask her to my wedding.'

'I can't say I'm surprised.'

'My brother reckons she's taken out a contract on me. If I show my face in the East End I'm going to wish I'd been stillborn. Mum had big plans for my big day, you see. Me in a meringue and limousine, my poor old dad hoiked out of his recliner and made to wear a topper, those awful wedding trousers and a pair of tails, and my nieces bundled up in turquoise polyester.'

'So you sort of ruined everything by getting hitched in Vegas three days after you met Mr Gorgeous?'

'I suppose.' Tess shrugged. 'Yesterday, my cousin rang to ask me when it's due.'

'So are you?'

'No, I'm not or I don't think so, anyway.'

'Speaking for myself, I'd rather have a nice new handbag, Fendi or Armani preferably.'

'Yeah, me too. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd like some children one day, just a couple. But I don't want any yet.'

'I don't want children ever.'

'You'll change your mind,' said Tess. 'Your eggs all have a sell-by date, you know. One day something will go click. You'll decide it's time and you'll go looking for the man who'll be the father of your children.'

'Does Ben have any pre-existing children?'

'He hasn't mentioned any.'

'Perhaps it slipped his mind?'

'I'll have to check his bank accounts and see what's coming in and going out. Rosie?'

'Yes?'

'Do you want to talk about it?'

'Why would I want to talk about Ben's bank accounts?'

'I meant Charlie all that stuff?'

'No, thank you.'

'I hope you got some counselling or therapy?'

'I said I didn't want their counselling.'

'But it must have been an awful shock? Do you get nightmares?'

'Yes.'

'So maybe talking to a counsellor or therapist or even me or Ben would help a bit? I was reading something in a magazine, it was about bereavement and how people deal with it in different cultures and it said the British-'

'Tess, you haven't mentioned it to Ben? I asked you not to tell him. I can't deal with sympathy from strangers.'

'I haven't told him, Rosie.'

'No?'

'I haven't even hinted, cross my heart.'

She didn't add, and hope to die. She glanced towards her husband. 'I suppose we'd better make a move his lordship's getting fidgety. Rosie, did you mean it about giving me the bags?'

'Of course I did.'

It was so lovely to see Tess again.

We'd only known each other for a year, but I felt I'd known her all my life. She and I could not have been more different if you're talking about background, social cla.s.s and education. But we understood each other perfectly because in all the most important ways we were the same.

'It's hot out there,' she warned me as we reached the exit and I shrugged into my jacket. 'You won't need your coat.'

'Ninety degrees and counting,' added Ben. 'But let's look on the bright side. At least it isn't raining. It was wet in August which brought out the mosquitoes. Place was a malarial swamp. But the forecast this week's hot and dry. Maybe with a little patchy cloud and first thing in the morning there might be some light-'

'Rosie doesn't want to hear a weather forecast, Ben.'

'Of course she does, she's British.' Mr Tartan winked at me once more and made me want to ask if there was something in his eye? Or if all this winking was a twitch or nervous habit and he couldn't help it? 'What did your Dr Samuel Johnson say?' he added, grinning. 'When two British people meet, their first talk is always of the weather?'

'Yeah, all right,' said Tess. 'He's only showing off,' she muttered tartly. 'He does it all the time. He's always spouting literature and stuff. He even quotes some guy called Robert Frost at our Somali janitor. I mean, who's ever heard of Robert Frost?'

'I have,' I replied. 'He was an American poet, he won lots of prizes and his father's family came from Tiverton in Devon.'

'Well done, my clever phone-a-friend! I know you and Ben are going to get along just fine.'

I wondered if she'd read her husband's book.

PATRICK.

It was Lexie calling to inform me what she wanted from me in the way of maintenance for Joe and Polly paid into her brand new bank account on the first day of every month. Then she added if I didn't like it that was just too bad. She had met with her attorney and she knew her rights.

The following day I called my own attorney.

He said unless I wanted to file for divorce in the immediate future, maybe I should cut my wife some slack, see how it all panned out. This British guy, he might be just a wild infatuation. Maybe Lex would realise she had made a big mistake. Maybe she would call to say she wanted to start over.

I figured he might have a point. Whatever had gone wrong with me and Lex, I didn't want to make things difficult between me and the kids.

So I didn't make any kind of scene when on the weekend Lexie, Joe and Polly and the British guy headed to Duluth to stay in a log cabin or I should say a north-sh.o.r.e-timber-home-with-stone-tiled-bathrooms-panelled-den-and-luxury-wood-burning-stoves. Lexie kindly emailed me the link on Lake Superior. They were going fishing, swimming, hunting, biking, rafting, hiking and a bunch of other outdoor stuff all in two days. The forecast was still set to heatwave. So I hoped they packed the Factor 50 or whatever, otherwise the kids were set to fry.

When they left, Joe was beyond excited and Lexie said this was because it would be such a novelty for him to go do boy stuff with a guy who actually liked kids, not one who merely tolerated them.

I hoped the Limey b.a.s.t.a.r.d couldn't swim. But I guessed the chances were he'd swim as good as any catfish, any mucus-covered bottom-feeder. He was surely bound to do so, coming from a country that's surrounded by the ocean and is full of lakes and rivers, as I seem to remember from studying the geography of Europe while I was in high school. All British people probably had fins.

After Lexie, Joe and Poll were gone, I walked round the apartment. It was far too quiet, like somebody was sick.

I went into our bedroom. It was a s.h.i.t-awful mess drawers pulled open, clothes thrown everywhere as Lexie packed her things. I put some of the stuff back in the closets and straightened up the bed.

Then I went into the children's rooms.

Polly's was a riot of pink pink drapes, pink comforter, pink rug and pink stuffed toys with big sad eyes. It smelled of baby girl. A mix of powder, wipes and something sweet like cotton candy.

Baby girl I still thought of Polly as a baby, even though she would be three next birthday and was walking, talking, eating anything and everything except the additive-free toddler dinners Lexie bought at great expense from some weird organic-vegan-wholefood store downtown. I held her pillow to my chest, inhaling her sweet scent and almost able to believe it was my Polly in my arms, her little roly-poly body squirming as she struggled to get down to crayon on the walls or go annoy the hamster.

That reminded me I better not forget to feed Joe's hamster. My son would kill me slowly if The Terminator died. But I was sure the rodent would remind me when it was time to make with the banana and zucchini. Come sundown, I would hear it running on its little wheel and fussing in its cage.

Joe's room smelled of popcorn, schoolbooks, sneakers and it was a shrine to Angry Birds. There was a red backpack, ditto lunch box, ditto flip-flops and a new black hoodie which made him look like some teen hoodlum's behaviourally-challenged little brother. A dedicated follower of fashion that was Joe. I gave his Red Bird squeeze pillow a hug and felt myself well up.

Where was his red messenger bag we bought last Sat.u.r.day while we were at the mall? He must have it with him. So it was on the lake sh.o.r.e now with Mr Wonderful. Joe and Mr Wonderful were filling it with rocks and sticks and ring-pulls and a ton of other treasure/trash.

I shut my eyes. I wished my wife and kids were home. I wished it was a lazy Sunday morning when n.o.body was rushing to get up, head out to work or go to school. I wished Lex and I were still in bed with both the kids rampaging round the room, Polly trailing her wet diaper, Joe on Lexie's phone shooting at pigs and shouting out his score and with me not yelling go away! What does a person have to do to get some sleep round here?

I offered G.o.d a deal.

If he would let me keep my kids, I'd be a better father.

I realised I'd messed up with Joe and Polly. I'd a.s.sumed it was enough I'd never been like Dad, who'd used me as punchbag, beat up on me, broken my bones and put me in the hospital. Who'd been too fond of bourbon and had cheated on my mother with a score of trashy blondes, leaving us when I was twelve to go down south, where in due course he ended up in jail where he belonged.

Then Mom worked at half a dozen different jobs so I could go to college, even though I told her I didn't want or need to go to college. I would be a construction worker plaster walls, pour concrete, mix cement. I would service trucks in a garage. But she was so determined I would make professor in some university that my choice was be a college student or break my mother's heart.

So from this moment on, I told myself, I'd play with Joe and Polly. I'd take them to the park and to the diner and to the museum for children in downtown Saint Paul. I'd push Polly in her bright pink stroller, even though I know she's far too big to have a stroller and she ought to take more exercise. Otherwise she'll end up looking like Miss Piggy's child.

So now and then I would forget the stroller. Polly has to realise she can walk and then she has to do it because it's not an option. She can't be the only kid in high school still demanding to be carried everywhere. I'd take my baby girl to baby gym. I'd get her pumping iron.

As for Joe I'd answer all his everlasting questions. I'd tell him why the sky is blue, why mommy hens lay eggs, why bugs have great big eyes, why red-brown cows don't give us red-brown milk. I'd play Angry Birds with him and always let him win.

I'd never, ever yell at them again.

I would have a heart-to-heart with Lexie. We would buy a house, a big old house out on the prairie with some land, and she could have her garden, and if she wanted we would have more kids. We'd even have some horses.

How would we afford it?

We'd get by.

Then my cell was ringing and I thought my prayer was answered blame a Catholic childhood but it wasn't Joe. It wasn't Lexie saying she was sorry, she had got it wrong, that she'd dumped Mr Wonderful and they were homeward bound.

It was Ben and he was asking me to join him and the British bride and bride's best friend for dinner. I didn't want anything to do with anybody British. 'I'm busy,' I replied.

'Yeah, sure you're busy watching some hot movie? Or reading Lexie's Fifty Shades and picking up some pointers for when she's home again?'

'I'm finishing my grading.'

'No kidding, buddy boy. You're always grading. You're so conscientious with your students it makes me want to p.i.s.s into your shoes. But listen, did you eat yet? If you didn't, you could come eat here. Let me tell you, something smells delicious.'

'Why, what are you cooking?'

'I'm not cooking anything, Professor. I have Tess and Rosie she's the girlfriend waiting on me hand and foot. So right now everything's as nice as ninepence.'

'Pardon me?'

'It's a charming Old World saying dating back to when our British cousins hadn't figured out the use of decimals, when they still had a mediaeval form of currency. Last time I pa.s.sed the kitchen, T and R were fixing meatloaf, sweet potatoes, collard greens, and I believe there's home-made New York cheesecake for dessert.'

'Your foreign wife, she knows to fix all that?'

'She learns very fast, mate that's another Britishism in all sorts of interesting ways. So we'll see you in twenty?'