Holly had been completely consumed by this presentation for the past few days, and turned back to check her emails before she left, just to be sure there wasn't, as there so frequently was, a last minute email from work saying the meeting had been cancelled.

And there it was. An email from Will. Holly, as usual, was in a hurry, but she leant over her chair and clicked it open, the rush on receiving the previous emails he had sent disappearing completely, simply curious to know what he might have written after what feels like weeks of radio silence.

To: HollyFrom: Will26/11/06 4:56:09 AMSubject: ApologyDear Holly,I meant to write earlier but life suddenly seemed to become very difficult. Losing Tom felt like I was living in a dream sequence for a while. A part of me kept expecting to wake up and hear that it was a joke, that someone had played an enormous trick on me, and that the next time the phone rang it would be Tom at the other end.But at some point after the service, it hit me. He's dead. And I just couldn't handle speaking to anyone at all. I think it hit Mum and Dad at the same time. It's almost as if having a house full of visitors, people dropping in all day and night to pay their respects, allows you to not think about the terrible thing that's happened to you, and you spend each day thinking that although it's horribly painful, it's not unbearable, and you are relieved that you are able to function, to smile when you see people you haven't seen for years, and even to joke with them. You feel a bit guilty, particularly because you sense that there are those who want to see you fall apart on them, expect you to break down on their shoulders, and resent you for not doing so, but then there are the others who are relieved you're normal, who turn away from you and whisper to their friends that you are doing fantastically, and they're so grateful they haven't been the ones to kneel down on the floor and pick up the pieces they once knew as you.And of course there are Mum and Dad to think of. I've been going over every day, and they're fantastic when people come over they can sit and chat about nothing and everything and listen to stories about Tom without falling apart, but then as soon as everyone leaves, as soon as the house is quiet, I hear Mum sobbing in the bathroom, or Dad goes out to his greenhouse and I see him there, shoulders heaving as he buries his head in his hands, sitting on a plastic milk crate, thinking that no one can see him from the house. I have a bird's eye view from my bedroom window, though.So I have to be the strong one, particularly now. So strange to find yourself taking care of your parents. I didn't expect to be doing this until they were old, although even then I suppose I had thought Tom would be the caretaker. It's a role I've never played. Tom was the strong, responsible one. Tom was the one who always bailed me out of trouble when I was younger, whom I turned to even as an adult if ever I wanted sensible advice or words of wisdom.We'd grown apart the last couple of years. Mostly because I always sensed Sarah didn't approve of me, and I had been out to Boston to stay with them, but it didn't feel comfortable, and so I'd see Tom when he came to England, and we'd talk on the phone every couple of weeks.Of course now I feel so guilty. So much I wish I'd said, so many things I wish I'd told him. I imagine he knew that I loved him, but I'm not sure I ever told him, and I wish I had. And even though we weren't as close as when we were kids, I still can't believe it.I think one of the biggest surprises is how alone I feel. Even though he lived in America, and I barely saw him, I feel completely alone in the world, and the grief sometimes does seem harder than I can bear, after all. And I suppose with that loneliness comes fear not an emotion I'm used to, and I still can't figure out exactly what it is I'm fearful of my own mortality, perhaps?So, I digress. The point of this is twofold: somehow I feel that I can talk to you and not be judged, and coming out of the abyss, I so desperately need someone to talk to right now; and I wanted to apologize for not being in touch sooner. I just couldn't talk to anyone for a while. I hope you understand and hope you're still willing to play the role of big sister God knows I could do with someone like that now.Thinking of you and sending my love, Will To: WillFrom: Holly27/11/06 9:56:24 AMSubject: Re: Apology Will What an amazing letter. Thank you for being so honest and so brave clearly you're writing to the right person, since I am someone who finds it far easier to express herself on the page than in person. Mostly, though, I feel honoured that you've chosen to reveal yourself to me, and I'm relieved that this is a way for you to get at least some of it out.I think I do know what it feels like to be that alone. In many ways, I feel like I've been alone for years. I'm not sure whether you'll understand, but when I was younger, I suppose when Tom and I were closest, I never did feel alone. Tom was always my closest friend, my ally, but since I've been married I haven't really felt like I've had an ally. Of course Marcus is my partner, but he is away so much for work I realize as I'm writing this that I do understand loneliness far better than I think I'd really like to admit (God, big step for me even writing this down... and I apologize if I'm gabbling).As for fear, it doesn't come naturally to me I tend to rush in guns a' blazingbut I can relate to the fear of our own mortality. Somehow we are not supposed to lose people we love we're too young. I remember friends of my parents dying when I was a child, but even though I am now the same age as they were, I don't feel old enough to lose people, and if people I love can die in a flash, then so can I.So cliched to say that when someone dies, it forces you to re-examine everything about your life, and I'm not sure I'm ready to re-examine it all now (I think I may not like what I find... joke!), but it does definitely make me aware that my time here is finite, and there are still things I want to do, to achieve, still so much about my life that hasn't turned out to be the way I expected.Or perhaps this is just a mid-life crisis?So... sigh... (gabbling again)... the point is, I think, that you are entitled to feel exactly what you're feeling. Tom's death has forced all of us to re-evaluate, and perhaps in your case you are having to step into a role that you weren't prepared for. BUT and so important for you to hear this, Will it's a role I know you can do. I have such wonderful memories of you when we were younger you were always so sweet and so caring even when you were, as usual, getting into trouble (of course, I didn't know then you had a crush on me and, admittedly, perhaps I am being naive. Perhaps you were actually a monster who did a very good line in pulling his big brother's friends...). I think this is going to be such a difficult time for all of you, but you can get through it, and just as you said yourself at the memorial service, Tom wouldn't have wanted you all to give up your lives. Tom's probably looking down on each of us now, shaking his head, sighing and saying, 'Pull your finger out, you silly arse.' (Can't you just hear him now??!!!)I'm also so glad you felt able to write as honestly as you did, and so eloquently as well who knew the annoying little brother would grow up to be so emotionally aware? Seriously, though, much kudos to you for being able to express yourself in this way I think if there is any outlet at all for the kind of grief you must be feeling, the kind of grief we are all feeling, writing is probably one of the best.And I'm sure you know this, I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but you can absolutely trust me. Strange, I know, given we haven't seen each other properly in about twenty years, but I would love to become friends, and mostly would love to be there for you if ever you need to talk.

Holly x Friends. They can be friends, can't they? Naturally she can't deny a slight hint of attraction, but weren't all her old friendships with men based on a hint of attraction? Didn't those crushes almost always disappear, leaving in their place friendships that were fun and strong and solid?

And Holly has been so lonely. She never thought it was possible to be this lonely in a relationship. But until rediscovering friendships with these old friends, she hadn't thought about what she was missing.

But aside from Olivia, Saffron and Paul, who better to be friends with now than Will? Not a replacement for Tom, never a replacement for Tom, but someone else who loved Tom as much as she did, someone else who has a shared history with her, someone else perhaps she could talk to.

For Holly misses having a man to talk to. She and Marcus have become, she realizes with horror, the couple she has always pitied in restaurants. The couple who look bored to be with each other, who spend the evening eating a delicious meal and exchanging less than a handful of comments. They sit in silence and observe people around them, both looking as if they wish they were anywhere but where they are, anywhere but with the person they are with.

For the last year, Holly has tried very hard to talk to Marcus. She has even and, oh God, how like a teenager she felt made a list of subjects to talk about over dinner just to ensure they don't sit in silence.

She stores up stories about the children and about her work, but she tails off when she realizes Marcus isn't paying much attention. So unlike her dinners with Tom, the two of them talking so quickly because there never seemed to be enough time to say everything they wanted to say.

She remembers one time when they went for a Chinese meal in Queensway. Out of nowhere Tom brought up her time as a nightclub hostess, complete with fake French accent, in a smart French club in a basement in Piccadilly. Holly started laughing, and something about the night sent the laughter spinning out of control, both Tom and Holly laughing so hard they were leaning over the table clutching their stomachs, tears running down their faces. People at the neighbouring tables had started laughing too, just at the sight of Tom and Holly together.

Has Marcus ever made Holly laugh like that? Well, yes. In truth there are a couple of times he has. But they seem so very long ago, a lifetime ago. Holly can't remember the last time they really laughed together, just the two of them, nor the last time they even had fun.

'One person can't give you everything,' she said to Saffron just the other night when Saffron phoned her from LA to bemoan the fact that P, who was supposed to be coming over, had just cancelled, and she wished he'd just hurry up and realize they were soulmates, made for each other, perfect together.

So odd, Holly thought in the beginning, to have fallen straight back into these friendships as if no time had gone by at all, and perhaps more odd that it wasn't odd, but so normal, and so easy.

'You must think I'm mad,' Saffron sniffed dramatically, 'phoning you when I hadn't spoken to you for about twenty years before Tom died, but Holly, you're the only girlfriend I have who is happily-ish married, and I need your advice.'

'Happily-ish?' Holly laughed. 'I'm the very last person you should be coming to for advice. Plus I don't believe in that whole soulmate theory.'

'Probably because you haven't met him yet,' Saffron said. 'Oh God, Holly, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to come out the way it sounded, and maybe Marcus is the one.'

'Don't worry.' Holly chose to ignore it. 'But I really don't believe there's one perfect person, I think there are any number of people who could make you happy. And I also think it's completely unrealistic to place so many expectations on one person. No one person can fulfil all your needs.' And as she said it, she thought about Will. It is innocent, she thought. It's just having a man she can talk to, a man with whom she can be friends.

'I know that,' Saffron said. 'I do, really, but I love this man. I just never expected life to be this hard.'

Me neither, Holly thought, but she didn't say anything at all.

Chapter Thirteen.

To: HollyFrom: Will30/11/06 10:23:38 PMSubject: FriendsDear Holly,I liked getting your email. It made me smile, and it made me think. All the things you said about questioning your life are absolutely right. I hadn't thought of it as a mid-life crisis in fact, I don't feel old enough to actually be having a mid-life crisis, but I started to think about what would happen if I were to die tomorrow (more apologies for the morbidity), and I realize I wouldn't leave much behind.Tom had created so much. Scary Sarah. She may not be entirely my cup of tea either, but there is no doubt in my mind that they loved each other, and although I couldn't ever imagine myself with anyone that rigid, I know it worked for Tom, and I believe that, despite what we all thought, they had an exceptionally strong marriage.And of course the children. Dustin and Violet. Dustin like a little Tom, serious and gentle, always preferring to hang out with the grown-ups just as Tom did when he was little. But both of them so incredible these little people that Tom created, who will take his spirit into their world.Then there was his success in business. Not that I ever wanted what Tom had the suits and the business meetings and the ties... the conventional life, which fills me with horror, but I always felt safe with Tom, always trusted his advice because he always seemed to know where he was going, and I have less than no idea what I am doing from one day to the next, let alone for the rest of my life.So I have wondered what I would leave, and the answer is not much. I never thought that bothered me, but all of a sudden it does. Not that I'm going to do anything stupid like get married to the first girl who captures my heart (although if you're interested in divorcing Marcus and making an honest man out of me, do let me know!), but Tom's death has made me think, for the first time, that maybe I should settle down a bit. Get a mortgage. Find a girl I could love. Maybe have a couple of kids.I can't even believe I'm writing this! It does feel good, being able to 'talk' to someone about this. I suppose it is true what they say after all so much easier to write your feelings down than talk about them. I think if I ever said any of this stuff out loud, they'd put me in the loony bin.Hope you are having a peaceful day and that you have got your little monkeys to bed. I'd love to see photos of them-do they look like you? I'm imagining Daisy as, naturally, a mini-Holly I know she's younger than you were when I first met you, but I still remember you as this exotic bohemian creature, and I am hoping Daisy has inherited that. Unfairly I see Oliver as being a mini-Marcus, and I only say unfairly because I hope he isn't as serious or as stuffy as I've heard Marcus is.Love,WillTo: WillFrom: Holly01/12/06 4:09:28 AMSubject: Re: FriendsWill -I have always wondered who 'they' are. 'They' do seem to say an awful lot, and they do seem to be right a lot of the time, so if you ever come across 'them', do let me know would love to say hello...I ought to be fast asleep, but find these days that I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm done for. Recently I've been coming up to my studio a quiet place to read, have a cup of tea or surf around reading inane gossip on the Internet, but how lovely to have received your email and lovelier still to have some peace and quiet to send back a proper response.My day yesterday was quite peaceful, since you asked. The monkeys went to bed early, and I was able to sink into a hot bath with a glass of wine, then crawl into bed. As far as I'm concerned, a good night is going to bed by nine, and a great night is going to bed by eight. Tonight was a great night. I have to say I do love it when Marcus travels around the country for trials I can do whatever I want whenever I want, although it occurs to me, writing to a young, energetic, childless whippersnapper such as yourself, that you probably think I am deeply boring, going to bed at such an unseasonably and unreasonably early hour.Yes, well. You're probably right.And you made me laugh saying I was exotic and bohemian. I never saw myself like that at all. I'm thinking it was those cheap Camden Lock Indian fringed skirts with little mirrors all over them that must have made me look bohemian. I have a very hard time picturing myself as anything other than a mum and wife these days. I like the word exotic too.Am going to forward a joke after this don't normally forward those things and hope you don't find the levity inappropriate, but this one made me laugh and I figure you could do with smiling a bit these days. I love that you felt able to unload to me truly. I feel enormously honoured, happy that you said such sweet things and that I feel I have rediscovered a friend I didn't know I had, and sad that this is all the result of such a tragedy.To: WillFrom: Holly01/12/06 4:42:56 AMFw: Cowboys (Friends Part II)An old cowboy sat down at the Starbucks and ordered a cup of coffee. As he sat sipping his coffee, a young woman sat down next to him.She turned to the cowboy and asked, 'Are you a real cowboy?'He replied, 'Well, I've spent my whole life breaking colts, working cows, going to rodeos, fixing fences, pulling calves, bailing hay, doctoring calves, cleaning my barn, fixing flats, working on tractors and feeding my dogs, so I guess I am a cowboy.'She said, 'I'm a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower, I think about women. When I watch TV, I think about women. I even think about women when I eat. It seems that everything makes me think of women.'The two sat sipping in silence.A little while later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, 'Are you a real cowboy?'He replied, 'I always thought I was, but I just found out that I'm a lesbian.'To: HollyFrom: Will01/12/06 10:33:25 AMRe: Fw: Cowboys (Friends Part II)So not only am I a whippersnapper, but I'm a lesbian too???!!!!!!!

Holly bursts into laughter reading Will's email. She files it away and goes back to reread his previous emails. She's not sure why she does this, but she has reread them every day. They make her feel happy. Free. Young. She even stole away one night when Marcus was asleep, just to check if another email had arrived. It had. It seems Will is as obsessive as she.

There is nothing quite as exciting as sitting at her desk, clicking on the inbox and seeing his email address, the anticipation so sweet at times she can hardly stand it. For the first time in years, Holly has something to look forward to, a reason to get up in the mornings.

She alternates between being giddy with happiness when the emails arrive and riddled with insecurity and doubt when they don't. A lot of the time, she feels as if she is sixteen.

She is fun and playful with the children but far too distracted to give them her full attention, and her distraction is affecting her relationship with Marcus. She doesn't care any more that he's never at home or that he doesn't seem particularly interested in her life.

One night Marcus comes home so much earlier than usual and announces that he has booked a table at Petrus as a special treat. Holly runs upstairs and changes, and Marcus frowns at her as she walks back into the hallway.

'New clothes?'

'Yup.' Holly twirls. 'You like?' She is wearing a brightly coloured print dress, huge splashy flowers, and a long, retro necklace of enamel daisies. She fell in love with all of it when she took Daisy to Petit Bateau in Westbourne Grove the other day. And of course Daisy ended up with underwear and Holly ended up with four bags stuffed with the type of gorgeous, funky, hellbohemianclothes that she had tried to pretend she would never wear any more because she knows they don't fit her role as Marcus's wife.

'It's fun,' Marcus says eventually, and they leave, Holly not feeling the slightest bit upset by Marcus's clear disapproval. When it comes to Marcus she doesn't feel much of anything these days. Not love. Not hate. Nothing. Sheer indifference.

Marcus's wife, it seems, has left the building.

At the restaurant Marcus says, 'You seem miles away.' Tonight Holly hasn't done what she so often does chatter away about inane things, nineteen to the dozen, so all he has to do is smile and nod every now and then and look interested while he is actually thinking about work. Tonight Holly seems happy but not altogether there. And she looks different. Her hair is not pulled back in a sleek ponytail tonight, the way he likes it. It is messy, even a little curly. As it happens, it is actually quite sexy.

When they get home, Marcus comes up behind Holly in the bathroom and puts his arms around her. She turns round and kisses him back, and fifteen minutes later, when he rolls off her with a kiss and a smile, he watches her get up to go to the bathroom and says, 'Holly, that was fantastic.'

'It was rather, wasn't it?' She shoots him a smile as she disappears through the doorway. What she doesn't tell him is that she closed her eyes just twice, and only for seconds at a time and imagined it was Will. Not that she is planning an affair God, no!but she just wanted to see what would happen if she did it. What the hell.

Isn't everyone entitled to a little fantasy now and then?

Across the pond Saffron is indulging in a little fantasy of her own. P's wife is away filming, and he's staying with Saffron while she's away, at least for tonight.

Saffron has ordered his favourite from Wolfgang Puck, currently being picked up by Samuel, to be dropped off at Saffron's and heated up when P arrives. Alcohol-free beer is in the fridge, the logs have been stacked in the fireplace ready to be lit just before his arrival. Jack Jones is emanating softly from the Bose speakers a gift from P when he realized all she had were tiny iPod speakers that made everything sound tinny.

Her legs are newly waxed, her nails newly painted and her hair newly highlighted. She hasn't seen P for two weeks and, as always, is almost dizzy with excitement at the prospect of seeing him, and not just for the evening but for the whole night.

No make-up, though. P loves her natural. He tells her frequently he loves her best first thing in the morning when her hair is messed up and her face scrubbed clean. He loves her in old sweats, baseball caps and his oversized sweatshirts. That's how she looked when he fell in love with her, he tells her, seeing her at meetings looking as if she had just fallen out of bed.

She wonders sometimes whether their incredibly intense attraction for each other would wane if they were together all the time. She suspects it would not. They have shared so much together on such an intimate level in the meetings, how could it possibly wane when she knows him better than anyone else in the world, and he, her?

Her fantasy tonight is much the same as it is every night. That he realizes the futility of staying in a marriage just for the sake of his career and finally decides to leave. That he moves into this little house and it would be this little house; Saffron has no desire to step in and take over from his wife as lady of the manor and that they fall asleep every night, wrapped around one another.

The fire is lit, the food warming gently in the oven, the setting is perfect. When P rings the doorbell, Saffron runs down the stairs like an overexcited teenager, flinging her arms around him in the hallway and kissing him for hours.

She cannot believe how much she loves kissing him. Her previous relationships, previous flings, have wanted to move straight on to the main course, but P, so starved of affection in his marriage, loves nothing more than lying in her arms on the sofa, just kissing, well into the small hours.

He loves being loved. Of course, he is one of the most-loved stars of this generation, but that is not love. When he married his wife, he loved her and, naively he now thinks, he thought that she loved him.

He married her because she made him feel safe, because he thought they would be a good team, and because wherever he was weak, she seemed to be strong.

Where he could be, particularly in those drinking days, self-important and pompous, she seemed grounded and down-to-earth. She had an amazing perceptiveness and wisdom, and he loved taking her to business meetings with him, listening to what she thought afterwards, knowing that she invariably had insights that were spot on, that he would never have thought about.

He loved her business mind. That she set up her own production company and immediately set about buying scripts. That she would lie in bed for hours, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, pencil in hand as she made scrawling remarks on the manuscripts she would read endlessly.

In those early days, he would often reach out for her, slide a hand up her thigh, and lean over and kiss her neck, but she would shake her head distractedly and move away from him, telling him she had to read this by tomorrow or she had to get up early or not tonight, darling, too much work.

He doesn't blame her for making him turn to alcohol, but certainly alcohol made the rejection easier to bear. It excused his bad behaviour when he started looking elsewhere for the love and affection he craved. It made him feel strong and invincible; that it didn't matter that the one person in the world he wanted didn't seem to want him in return.

Now he thinks bitterly that it was a marriage orchestrated by their agents. He wishes he'd known it at the time. It would have saved him a lifetime of pain if he'd known she had always seen it as a business arrangement.

So he turned to other women, but what he had never found before Saffron was love. He had never found intimacy and had never trusted that anyone loved him for him rather than for being a rich and famous actor.

LA abounded with young gorgeous women who would drop their knickers at the bat of an eyelid and, for a while, that was enough, but when he found Saffron and got to know her slowly in the safety of their shared AA meetings, he knew what he had been missing.

He has spoken to his manager more times than he cares to think about of leaving his wife and being with Saffron. His manager, his agent, and his publicist all agree: it will be career death. He can't do it. He doesn't tell Saffron he thinks about this all the time, doesn't want to give her false hope, but he thinks that, at some point in his career, he will be able to stop, buy a ranch in Montana, leave his old life behind and create a new one with Saffron.

For Saffron is not the only one with fantasies. P has fantasies of family life. He has fantasies of a wife who loves him, who sleeps cuddled up to him at night, who supports him unequivocally in the choices he makes. He has dreams of children a pack of kids running around laughing and of his wife showering them all with kisses and fun. He dreams of wide-open spaces, of horses, of owning land. And he still can't quite believe the choice he made when he married his wife.

A good friend though she may be, she doesn't want children. She doesn't like animals. Her idea of a perfect house is the mansion they are currently in, in Bel Air, expertly decorated by the top decorators in town, beautiful to look at but nothing about it spells home.

In the beginning, he vaguely recalls, they would talk about their vision for their lives. He remembers her saying she wanted a production company, but she also said she wanted kids. He told her of his vision of the ranch, and she said it sounded wonderful. She said a lot of things in those days, he realizes now. A lot of things he wanted to hear, very few of them true.

When he first came into AA, he hated her. He resented her for trapping him in a loveless marriage, hated her for lying to him, could barely bring himself to talk to her. They would sit in limos on the way to premieres, arguing fiercely, then step into the flash of light bulbs with equal megawatt smiles on their faces, stopping for the film crews to demonstrate how much they loved one another.

They gave interviews about the strength of their marriage, the things that they loved about each other, and with every one he believed he was giving the performance of his life, easily Oscar-winning, if faking undying affection were ever to be added as a category.

The twelve-step programme gave him the gift of acceptance. He learnt to accept her rather than hate her because she wasn't who he wanted her to be. It was never going to be the marriage he wanted, he realized, but he also realized he had a choice: he could stay in a slump of self-pity and resentment, and stay a victim for the rest of his life, or he could change the way he looked at his life and embrace it exactly as it was.

And just as he had learnt to accept it, to accept that his marriage was a great friendship and a wonderful working arrangement, Saffron had walked into the meeting and captured his heart.

There is no such thing as coincidence. There is no doubt in his mind that he and Saffron were in that particular meeting that particular day for a reason, and however much he tells his manager he is committed to perpetuating the lie of the golden couple that is his marriage, he knows that there is only so long that he can live not being true to himself, and the longer he stays in AA, this programme that demands nothing less than rigorous honesty, the harder it becomes.

And so much harder on nights such as these when Saffron is so clearly everything his wife is not.

'Confession time,' Saffron says, as P helps her stack the dishes in the dishwasher. 'But first,' she says, grinning, 'can I just say how much I love that you, hottest sex god in America, are stacking dishes in a tiny kitchen in my little house? If your fans could see you now...'

'What? You don't think this is sexy?' P places a hand on his hip and poses with a plate. 'Isn't this what every woman wants? A man who helps out?'

'Sort of, but I think if they were with you they'd expect to be waited on hand and foot by a butler, no?'

'They'd be waiting a very long time for that.' P laughs. 'So, back to confession time. What's the confession?'

Saffron blushes. 'Okay. I lied.'

'About what?'

'I didn't cook this. I really want you to think I'm a great cook, so I lied.'

P roars with laughter. 'I know you lied. Only Wolfgang Puck makes this as well as this. Plus I was with Samuel when he picked it up. I'm not stupid, my darling.'

Saffron breathes a sigh of relief. 'I know you're not stupid, but I wanted you to think I'm a great cook.'

'Honey, cooking is the last thing I care about.'

'Oh yes?' She raises an eyebrow and P closes the dishwasher and puts his arms round her waist, pulling her in for a kiss.

'Do you know something?' He pulls back and gazes into her eyes as she smiles at him. 'I love you, Saffron.'

'I love you too,' she says, and taking him by the hand she leads him out of the kitchen and upstairs to bed.

Chapter Fourteen.

Frauke looks up from where she's scrubbing down the counter after Daisy's lunch and whistles, low and slow. 'Wow! You look fantastic!'

'Really?' Holly does a delighted twirl in the kitchen. 'You don't think it's a bit... young?'

'Holly, you are young. I am always telling my other au pair friends that I am lucky because I have such a young host mother. I even say that you should dress more like this. Younger. The clothes you wear are beautiful, but they make you look older. If I didn't know I would think you were in your mid-forties.'

'Frauke!' Holly says indignantly, even as she laughs. 'Talk about knowing how to ruin a good mood.'

Frauke looks confused. 'Why? Today, Holly, I think you look maybe thirty. No, twenty-eight.'

'Really?'

'Yes, and I love your hair like this. It is very sexy. Where are you going?'

'Oh just lunch with an old friend. Daisy!' She shouts up the stairs. 'Come and give Mummy a kiss goodbye!'

Holly climbs into her car and takes the CD from her bag. She has made it herself, a series of songs that somehow speak to her, tell her about her life, fill her with optimism about what her future holds.

She had forgotten music could be this powerful. As a teenager, her life was music. She would leave her mother's house with her Walkman in hand, and spend hours traipsing, depressed, around Hampstead Heath, being the lonely misunderstood teenager who needed to be rescued by a knight in shining armour.

She listens to the radio now, but hasn't actually bought a CD for years unless it was something for the children. Two weeks ago, on Will's advice, she went out and bought an iPod, bringing it home and spending the next two days uploading CDs, buying songs, creating playlists. This one she called 'Happy', filled with music that lifts her up.

Van Morrison's 'Brown-Eyed Girl'; 'I'll Take You There' by the Staples Singers; then Corinne Bailey Rae. Holly shakes her hair out, curls that she expertly worked in using the curling iron this morning, and she sings along at the top of her voice, feeling sixteen, feeling young and free and as if anything is possible.

Which it is.

She is first to arrive. Damn. She hates being first. She had deliberately timed it so she would be five minutes late, but when she walks into Nicole's, she doesn't see him.

'How many?' The maitre d' asks politely and leads her to a table at the back for two. Holly resists the temptation to run to the loo to check her make-up. She knows it's fine she checked it at every red light on the way here and several times while driving somewhat erratically along the winding London streets.

She taps her boot impatiently on the floor and catches sight of herself in the mirror on the other side of the room. God, if she didn't know better she'd never recognize herself. Skinny jeans tucked into knee-high, buttery-leather boots, high enough to be sexy as hell, not so high she can't walk. A cotton shirt, classic, but slim and long, and a chunky wide belt.

She realizes, as she gazes around at the rest of the clientele, that she looks as if she belongs. She looks no different from the other young mothers sipping cappuccinos with their strollers parked next to the tables, and even though she is childless today, stroller-less and child-accoutrement-less, she is what she is, and how funny, she thinks, that she has exchanged one uniform for another.

Her uniform of cashmere and pearls, so befitting a lawyer's wife, has today been swapped for a uniform of Notting Hill trendiness, and although still a uniform, Holly notices how much better she feels in what she is wearing today. She does feel young and, let's face it, she is only thirty-nine. No need to pretend to be forty-five.