And last week, when she finished her grocery shopping, she found herself passing the liquor store, and she hesitated for longer than was comfortable before pushing her trolley past and trying to think of other things.

She knew what this was called. She was white-knuckling it. She hadn't even told her sponsor she'd had these feelings, convinced, just like the old days, that she could do it on her own.

Saffron would look around her in restaurants and see people enjoying a glass of wine. That could be me, she would think. I could have a glass of wine. I could be normal. If all those other people can do it, then surely I can too.

'You need to start working the steps,' her sponsor would say. 'You haven't done any step work for ages.'

'I know, I know,' Saffron would groan. 'It works if you work it.' But she didn't seem to have the will to do anything other than turn up to meetings as an excuse to see P.

And last year has been the happiest of Saffron's life. She is convinced that P is her soulmate. That they belong together, that it is just his marriage of convenience that is keeping them apart, and that soon they will be able to stop sneaking around, and he will marry her: they will be together for the rest of their lives.

Chapter Ten.

Sarah groans and rolls over in bed as the tapping on her door continues.

'Sarah, love,' her mother-in-law's voice is soft as the door gently pushes open. 'Paul and his wife, Anna, are here to see you. They're playing with the kids downstairs, and Paul brought some old photographs of Tom from school that he thought you'd like.'

Sarah sits up and throws the duvet back. 'Tell them I'll be down in a sec,' she says, as she runs her fingers through her hair and sighs. Why do people keep coming? Why do they keep arriving proffering gifts food, photographs, stories? Do they think it's going to make her feel better? Is it going to bring Tom back? All Sarah wants to do is crawl under the covers and sleep for ever, waking up when the pain has disappeared.

It is easier to hide here in this house. Despite being surrounded by Tom photographs, mementos, constant reminders this is Tom's childhood home, not the home she and Tom created together.

Those first few days had been unbearable. Numb. Letters had started arriving, bills that needed to be paid, life insurance policies that needed to be dealt with, and Sarah had taken everything and put it where she always put it on Tom's desk in his office. She had never dealt with it, could not imagine dealing with it, and couldn't think about any alternative other than putting the mail where she had always put it.

She had tried to be normal for the sake of Dustin and Violet. Had even attempted to drive Violet to pre-school one day despite the protestations of an appalled neighbour who had taken on that role. She had strapped Violet in the car, had climbed into the driver's seat in pyjama bottoms, bare feet and an old sweatshirt of Tom's, and had pulled out of the driveway.

An hour later she had found herself on I-9 5. No idea how she got there, what she was doing there, or where she was heading. Violet had been happily sucking her thumb in her car seat, listening to XMKids on the radio, and Sarah had started to shake before pulling to the side of the highway and bursting into tears.

Paul hovers in the doorway of the living room and watches Anna tickling Violet, whose peals of laughter ring throughout the house.

'I'm guessing it won't be long before you have children of your own,' Maggie says, placing a hand on Paul's arm and smiling up at him.

'Fingers crossed,' Paul says, and as Anna looks up and catches his eye, he feels a wave of sadness wash over him. Life never turns out to be the way you expect. How could Tom possibly be taken from them at such a young age, and how is it that he and Anna, Anna who would make the most wonderful mother in the world, have not been able to have children?

This morning they had been back to the hospital for egg collection. Egg collection. Sounds so innocuous. Paul remembers how they had laughed when they first heard the term, imagined themselves as country bumpkins, reaching under fat, happy hens to collect the eggs.

When Anna came out of sedation, the specialist told her they had released six eggs from the follicles. Better than last time, and they both left feeling a surge of optimism and hope.

Tomorrow, as always happens, they will receive a phone call to tell them how many of the eggs have been fertilized, or, as happened before, that no eggs have been fertilized, and there are no embryos to potentially carry their hopes and dreams into the future.

It seems inconceivable that out of six eggs, none should be fertilized, but that has been the case so many times already, and Anna doesn't think she has the emotional fortitude to go through it again, not to mention the financial ability.

Anna never minds being the breadwinner, never minds that the money that keeps the joint account afloat is almost exclusively provided by her. Paul puts the money he earns from freelancing into the same account, but it seems to be a drop in the ocean towards their lifestyle.

Not that it is particularly extravagant heaven knows Anna could choose to live in a super-smart area of London but they travel well and often, go to all the best restaurants, and a couple of years ago, just before finally deciding to go forward with IVF, they bought a house in the country.

Well, not so much a house. More of a barn, and one that needed work; it hadn't been touched since the early seventies. It is on the top of a hill with views for miles over the Gloucestershire countryside, and even though it was just about habitable, they brought their friend Philip, an architect, to see it; and Phil's enthusiasm for the project was so infectious they found themselves, shortly afterwards, the proud although slightly apprehensive owners of White Barn Fields.

Plus the barn was a bargain. At the time, it seemed so cheap they almost felt it would have been rude to say no. So cheap they paid cash for the entire thing, planning on starting the work immediately. Phil designed an incredible house. A modern stainless-steel and glazed-concrete kitchen, huge windows to take in the views, four bedrooms off a steel gallery upstairs: a huge master, a guest suite, and two bedrooms for the children that were undoubtedly on their way.

A local landscape architect designed a spectacular garden. There would be a cobbled courtyard with huge oversized terracotta pots that would hold olive trees in the summer. Lavender and rosemary would spill out of the raised beds on either side. The handful of old, gnarled apple trees that sat at the bottom of the hill would form the basis for an orchard twenty fruit trees were going to be added, and a raspberry patch. The landscape architect added, 'Your kids can spend hours picking their own fruit.'

It was Anna's idea of heaven, and Paul, who mostly thought of himself as an urban creature, was happy doing what made Anna happy. Plus even he had to admit that the plans were remarkable, and they would end up with an idyllic getaway. Anna made sure to include a study for Paul all the way at the top of the barn, up a hidden staircase, the cupola would open into his office, flooding it with light. 'If you can't write the great British novel here,' Phil joked when he showed the plans for the office to a breathless Paul and Anna, 'I don't know where you can.'

Now, over a year later, they can hardly bear to think about it. People assume that Paul and Anna are rolling in it, they assume that Anna makes a fortune; but the truth is that although the company is thriving, Anna only takes out a salary. And what used to be a comfortable salary has been eaten up by buying the barn, followed by back-to-back IVF treatments.

White Barn Fields is jokingly referred to by everyone they know, themselves included, as the Money Pit. Except it doesn't feel quite so funny any more, not since finding out they weren't getting pregnant and they weren't going to take no for an answer.

Anna's stubbornness is something Paul has loved about her from day one. So tough she is referred to by her father as a ball-breaker. Said lovingly, of course. She knows exactly what she wants and how she is going to get it, and nobody ever says no to Anna. She is charming and down-to-earth and persuasive, and she somehow always manages to get her own way.

She cannot understand why having children hasn't come to her as easily as everything else in her life. She will tell the various journalists who interview her about Fashionista that she is stunned by its success, but in truth she is not stunned. It is exactly what she expected to happen. Too many fashion websites had fallen by the wayside because they didn't keep their stock on site, had to ship it from afar, running the risk of delivery being far later than their instant-gratification-obsessed customers would accept. And then when the clothing did arrive, it was badly packaged in ugly plastic envelopes or badly wrapped in wrapping paper.

Anna designed shocking-pink boxes, layers of delicate orange tissue paper carefully enfolding the purchases, all tied up with animal-print velvet ribbon. The boxes and the ribbon are a fortune, but worth it. They are always voted best packaging on the Internet, and the boxes are so beautiful her clients regularly write to her to say they can't throw them away. Many is the time Anna has opened an interiors magazine to see someone's dressing-room shelves piled with Fashionista boxes in assorted shapes and sizes.

And shipping is twenty-four hours. No matter where in the world you are, if you order an item on a business day, you will have it the next. Customer service is everything in Anna's book. It is one of the reasons she loves having an Internet company she is fed up with going into trendy boutiques and having young, imperious sales assistants ignore her as they chat on the the phone, only perking up when she hands over her credit card and they realize who she is.

So the fact that fashionista.uk.net is now the third most successful Internet company in the UK is no surprise to Anna whatsoever, although she would never admit that in public. The truth is that Anna has always felt blessed, always felt that her guardian angels were looking after her. Where others see adversity and hardship, Anna has only ever seen a challenge that she will inevitably overcome. She always believes the glass is half full, even when everyone else is convinced it is empty, and because she has always believed her life is charmed, her life has always been charmed.

When she met Paul, she knew he was perfect for her. After she left him on the very first day he interviewed her and well before he started pestering her about things he had forgotten to ask, she phoned her mother. 'Mum? I've met the man I'm going to marry,' she said, and her mother knew that she had, because when Anna stated something, it always happened.

So when Anna announced they were trying for children, everyone knew that Anna would have a baby within the year. It was partly why they bought the barn: what a wonderful place for children, how perfect to spend summers out here with the kids, or come down on winter weekends for leaf-stomping, and hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire in the huge stone fireplace at one end of the enormous great room.

Anna's obstinacy is why they cannot give up on IVF. Why Anna refuses to believe there will be a last time. She cannot believe that this will not work when everything else in her life has gone according to plan.

So far they've spent around fifty thousand pounds on IVF, a huge chunk of the savings they had put aside. The work on the barn has started. The walls that were rotten have been replaced with reclaimed barn siding they found at an auction, and the roof has been done. Kitchen and bathrooms were ordered and then cancelled. The house is half done. Piles of sawdust everywhere, dust sheets on half-sanded floors, unpainted window frames. The last time they went up to have a look, Anna burst into tears.

'This was our dream,' she said to Paul. 'And now we cannot even afford to finish it.'

'We will one day,' Paul said, so sorry that he wasn't able to pull out a magic wand and make it happen, so sorry that his work didn't provide him with enough money to take over when the going got tough. 'I promise you, one day this will be finished.'

They left that night and stayed at a local B&B a few hundred steps down from the Relais & Chateaux along the road where they used to stay before starting IVF, but a lot of things have changed since the treatment began.

'If they could see me now,' Anna sang, picking her way gingerly down the hallway, having run lukewarm water into a cracked bath in the bathroom at the other end of the hall, and Paul shrugged.

'We have to stop the treatment, you know,' he attempted carefully. 'This is ridiculous that we can't afford anything any more. We can't keep going like this.'

'Hopefully we will not have to.' Anna squeezed his arm. 'I have a feeling this one is going to work,' and Paul sighed. She said that every time. But having to watch every penny was stressful, to say the least, particularly when it had never been an issue before.

Although if you didn't know, you'd never know. Anna still looks the part she has to for her job, and no one is a better PR for Fashionista than Anna herself but watch her carefully and you'll see that she isn't frivolous in the way she used to be.

Her make-up is always from work. No longer does she run to Space NK to replenish the jar of Eve Lom that's almost finished. Now, if she can't get it sent to her through Fashionista, she'll change brands. Her finances have dictated that her brand loyalty is no longer important.

Her hair is no longer cut and coloured at Bumble & Bumble. For cuts she goes to the local hairdresser on the high street, and she has discovered that Sun In, thanks to her natural fair Swedish locks, does almost as good a job of highlighting her hair as Enzo used to.

They don't go out to the expensive restaurants any more unless it is for work and either Anna is expensing it or someone else is paying, and frankly there is always more than enough to eat and drink at the hundreds of fashion parties that are going on all around London on practically any given night.

Not that they can't afford to feed themselves heavens, no! But where Anna used to absentmindedly put whatever she wanted in a shopping trolley with no thought to the price, now she will look at the price and, if it is too much, she will think about whether they really need it.

She will no longer wander round Graham and Green on a Saturday afternoon, filling her arms with throws and candles and interesting statuettes and lovely linens that she certainly doesn't need, just because they're there and because she can.

You would never know any of it. Looking at Anna right now, sitting cross-legged on the floor as Violet who, like all children who come into contact with Anna, has fallen completely in love with her hangs around her neck squealing, you would think that she is beautiful, poised and perfect. You would think that nothing in her life could ever go wrong.

'Hi.' Sarah's voice is listless as she comes into the room and sits on the sofa, dark shadows under her eyes, her hair still mussed.

'We brought some photos of Tom.' Paul thinks about going across the room to hug her, but something about her is so shut down he knows he'll be rejected, and he stays where he is, unsure of what to say.

'I know. Maggie said so.'

'Would you like to see them?'

'Sure,' she says. Paul hands them to her and she starts to sift through the photographs. A ghost of a smile hovers over her lips as she stops at a picture of Paul, Holly and Tom, all of them with braces on their teeth, at Paul's fifteenth birthday party.

'God, look at that hair!' Sarah says. 'I never knew Tom had long hair. He looks awful!'

'We all looked awful,' Paul says, grateful that Sarah finally seems to be engaged. 'Look at Holly's shocking-pink lipstick. I think she thought it was sophisticated.'

'Tom was so skinny,' Sarah muses, tracing his arm in the photo with her forefinger. 'You'd never think he'd become so buff.'

'Buff?' Paul asks.

'Fit. He was forever in the gym. He got this thing about Ironman contests. Crazy stuff where you bike 112 miles, swim 2.4 miles, then run 26.2 miles. He did one in Florida and was training for another.' She shakes her head. 'He was so fit. So strong. That's what I find so hard to believe. I mean, I could understand almost anyone else not surviving, but Tom? How could Tom not have got himself out of there? How could anything take Tom down?'

There's an awkward silence, neither Paul nor Anna knowing what to say, and after a while Sarah turns to the next picture and bursts out laughing. 'Tom was in the army?' she splutters.

'TA,' Paul says sheepishly. 'Was the thing to do at the time.'

In the kitchen, getting a tray of tea ready to take inside, Maggie sits down heavily at the table.

'Thank you,' she looks up at a concerned Anna, 'this is the first time Sarah has sounded anything like herself. Those photos are what she needed right now.'

'What about you?' Anna says gently. 'What do you need right now?'

'Oh I'll be fine,' Maggie says with a false brightness. 'I'll just finish making this tea and I'll be right out. If you could just take Pippa outside to pee that would be wonderful.'

Anna leaves, but she turns just as she reaches the doorway to see Maggie collapsing in her chair. Anna hovers, unsure of whether to go back, but she knows Maggie thinks she is alone, thinks Anna has left the room; she knows Maggie would never allow herself to drop her composure in front of anyone.

It is absolutely quiet. There are no more tears, there surely can't be a drop of water left in her body, but Anna watches as Maggie leans her head on her arms on the kitchen table and groans softly as she rocks back and forth.

And Anna sees that this matriarch of what is left of her family, this strong, stoic, wonderful woman is finding the pain may be too much for a human being to bear.

As she listens to Maggie's quiet groans, she understands that Maggie honestly doesn't know how she can get through the rest of her life knowing she will never see her beloved son, her firstborn, again.

Chapter Eleven.

'What's the matter with you today?' The receptionist at the animal shelter walks into the sitting room with a sandwich at lunchtime and collapses on the sofa as Olivia looks up in surprise.

'What do you mean? Nothing's the matter. Why?'

'You're acting like you've got ants in your pants,' Yvonne says. We think it must be a man.'

'What?' Olivia attempts a laugh, then rolls her eyes. 'Good lord, Yvonne. I'm the bloody director haven't you got anything better to do than gossip about my love life?'

Yvonne purses her lips. 'Actually we all wish you had a love life for us to gossip about. Lovely girl like you, you deserve someone much better than that awful George.'

Olivia's mouth falls open. 'But you all said you loved George.'

'Yes, well. That was before he dumped you for that American bimbo.'

'Yvonne! How do you know all this?'

'Know what? I don't know anything. I'm just saying. You ought to have a lovely man who makes you happy.'

'I'm not going to talk about it any more,' Olivia says, picking up her coffee and walking out through the door. 'But just for info, I do have a date tonight,' and as Yvonne's face lights up and she prepares to shower Olivia with questions, Olivia shuts the door and walks off towards her office, giggling.

She is meeting Fred tonight. He is finally here. She shouldn't be excited, sees no reason to be excited, particularly given that this is a five-day business trip, and she'll probably hate him once she meets him anyway, but this is the first time she has felt there is something to look forward to. She has arranged to pick him up from the Dorchester at seven o'clock.

At three, she does something she never does. Pulls on her coat, picks up her bag, and announces to Sophie, her assistant, that if there's anything urgent, she'll be on her mobile. 'But only call if it's an emergency,' she says, and Sophie, who has inadvertently seen a couple of emails from Fred, winks her approval and shoos her away, knowing that nothing, bar the shelter burning down, would cause her to interrupt Olivia on her date.

Her first stop is the hairdresser. 'I need to cover the grey,' she tells Rob the colourist, 'and then I need a trim.'

Rob purses his lips as he examines Olivia's never-been-touched hair. 'God, you've got a lot of grey,' he murmurs, almost to himself as he picks up her hair. 'Natural colour, or can I throw in a few lowlights just to add a bit of depth?'

'Whatever you want.' Olivia shrugs. 'I'm in your hands now. Knock yourself out.'

Two hours later, Olivia stares at herself in the mirror in awe. Chestnut and copper streak her hair; and Kim, the junior stylist, has cut long layers into her bob that sweep her cheeks and make her look years younger.

Kim and Rob stand behind her, arms crossed, waiting for Olivia's reaction. They have dealt with women like her before women who come in wearing jeans and boots, who don't possess a scrap of make-up, and believe that natural is better. They have performed makeovers on these women before, and are never quite sure what the outcome will be. Some have cried with joy at how much younger, how much better they look; and others have spat in fury and refused to pay, demanding they strip the colour off the hair immediately, somehow put it back the way it was.

Olivia, thank God, is one of the good ones. She started smiling halfway through the blow-dry when her new colour emerged, and is now clearly delighted.

'I love it,' she squeals. 'I love, love, love it,' and they hand her a mirror to see the back, laughing as she stares with obvious delight at herself and her new swinging, shiny hair.

'Now just remember what I said,' Rob says as he walks her to reception to pay. 'Lipstick and blush, little black dress and a lot of confidence.'

Olivia turns to him. 'Thank you so much,' she says, spontaneously reaching out and giving him a hug. 'Wish me luck!' And with that she's off.

Her Beetle zips through the London traffic, and at every traffic light Olivia stretches up and checks herself in the rear-view mirror. It's not that she's vain, it's that she can't believe how different she looks. She is, just as Rob suggested, wearing a black wrap-dress that she got on sale last winter and wore to George's office Christmas bash. She felt beautiful that night and loved feeling George's pride as he introduced her to his colleagues at work. She tried not to think about it tonight as she pulled the dress from the back of the wardrobe, tried not to think how that pride and love that she was so sure was in his eyes could turn so quickly to dust.