Joanna Trollope.

Second Honeymoon.

Chapter One.

Edie put her hand out, took a breath and slowly, slowly pushed open his bedroom door. The room inside looked as if he had never left it. The bed was unmade, the curtains half drawn, the carpet almost invisible under trails of clothing. There were single trainers on shelves, mugs and cereal bowls on the floor, scatterings of papers and books everywhere. On the walls the same posters hung haphazardly from nuggets of blue gum: a Shakespeare play from a long-ago school outing, Kate Moss in a mackintosh, the Stereophonics from a concert at Earls Court. It looked, at first glance, as it had looked for a large part of his twenty-two years. It looked as if he was coming back, any minute.

Edie stepped through the chaos on the floor a" ah, thatas where her only bone-china mug had got to a" and pulled the curtains fully apart. One side, obviously accustomed to doing this, rushed headlong to the left and slid triumphantly off the pole to the floor. Edie looked up. The finial that stopped the end was missing. It had probably been missing for months, years, and Benas solution had been simply, pragmatically really, not to touch the curtain. In fact, on reflection, he would have had to thread the curtain back on to the pole just once, when the finial first fell off, and this small sign of enterprise and efficiency on his part made Edie think that she might cry. She picked up the fallen curtain and held it hard against her, swallowing against the crying.

aHe hasnat gone to Mongolia,a Russell had almost shouted at her that morning. aHe hasnat died. Heas gone to Walthamstowa.

Edie had said nothing. She had gone on jabbing at a hermetically sealed packet of coffee with the wrong kind of knife and said nothing.

aEnd of a tube line,a Russell said unnecessarily. aThatas all. Walthamstowa.

Edie flung the coffee and the knife into the sink. She would not look at Russell, she would not speak. She hated him when he was like this, when he knew perfectly well what was the matter and refused to admit it. She didnat hate his attitude, she told herself: she hated him.

aSorry,a Russell said.

Edie pulled the curtain up now and covered her face with it. It smelled of dust, years and years of grimy London dust, silting in through the window frames like the fine tilth from a tea bag. She hadnat acknowledged Russellas aSorrya. She hadnat looked at him. She had remained silent, distanced by emotion, until she heard him go out of the room and down the hallway a" fumble, fumble by the coat rack a" and out through the front door, letting it crash behind him the way they all had, two parents, three children, for close on twenty years. Twenty years. Almost all Benas lifetime, almost a third of hers. You come to a house, Edie thought, pressing the dusty curtain against her eye sockets, carrying almost more life, more people, than you can manage. And then, over time, almost everything you have carried in begins to leak out again, inexorably, and you are left clutching fallen curtains at ten oaclock on a Saturday morning instead of applying yourself, with all your new reserves of no longer required maternal energy, to quality leisure.

She dropped the curtain back on to the floor. If she turned, slowly, and half closed her eyes, she could persuade herself that Ben had left his room in a mess as a signal to her that he hadnat really left it. That this notion of his to put all the essentials of his life into a duffel bag and carry it off to live with Naomi, in a spare room in her motheras flat in Walthamstow, was in truth no more than a notion. That he would begin to miss things, his childhood home, the cat, his pillow, his mother, and would see that life was not to be lived so satisfactorily anywhere else. But if she made herself open her eyes wide, really wide, and looked at the calibre of things he had left, the outgrown garments, the broken shoes, the discarded or irrelevant books and discs and papers, she could see that what Ben had left behind was what he didnat want any more. He had taken what represented the present and the future, and he had left the past, leaving it in such a way as to emphasise its irrelevance to him. Edie bent down and began, without method or enthusiasm, to pick up the cereal bowls.

It wasnat as if Ben had ever, really, been away from home. His school days had melted comfortably into his college days and then into irregular, haphazard days of assistant to a self-employed photographer who specialised in portraits. All through these years Ben had come home, more nights than not, to sleep in the bedroom across the landing from his parentsa bedroom, which had been allotted to him when he was two. His bedroom had been by turns pale yellow, purple, papered with aeroplanes, and almost black. The detritus of his life, from Thomas the Tank Engine to trailing computer cables, had spilled out of his room and across the landing, symbols of his changing taste, his changing world. The thought of the order a" no, not order, the absence of chaos a" that might follow his departure for Walthamstow brought Edie close to panic. It was like a" like having an artery shut off, a light extinguished. It was far, far worse than when Matt had gone. Or Rosa. It was far, far worse than she expected.

She began to pile mugs and bowls without method on Benas table. He had done homework at that table, made models, hacked with blades at the edges. She sat down by it, on the chair with the broken cane seat, filled in by a gaudy Indian cushion embroidered with mirrors. She looked at the mess on the table. Ben was her youngest, her last. When the others went, she had felt a pang, but there had always been Ben, there had always been the untidy, demanding, gratifying, living proof that she was doing what she was meant to do, that she was doing something no one else could do. And, if Ben wasnat there to confirm her proper perception of herself in that way, what was she going to do about the future? What was she going to do about herself?

aItas awful,a her sister, Vivien, had said on the telephone. aItas just awful. You spend all these years and years developing this great supporting muscle for your children and then they just whip round, donat they, and hack it througha. Shead paused, and then shead said, in a cooler tone, aActually, itas not so bad for you because youave always got the theatrea.

aI havenat,a Edie said, aIa"a aWell, I know you arenat working at this precise moment. But you always could be, couldnat you? Youare always going for auditions and thingsa.

aThat,a Edie said, her voice rising, ahas nothing to do with Ben going, nothing to do with motherhooda.

There was another pause and then Vivien said, in the slightly victim voice Edie had known since their childhoods, aEliotas gone too, Edie. And heas my only child. Heas all Iave gota.

Eliot had gone to Australia. He had found a job on a local radio station in Cairns, and within six months had a flat and a girlfriend there. Ben had gone five stops up the Victoria line to Walthamstow.

aOK,a Edie said to Vivien, conceding.

aI do knowa"a aYesa.

aLovely,a Vivien said, afor Russella.

aMmma.

aHaving you backa"a Edie felt a flash of temper. Eliotas father, Max, had drifted in and out of his wife and sonas life in a way that made sure that the only thing about him that was predictable was his unreliability. Vivien might be able to trump her over the pain caused by distances, but she wasnat going to trump her over the pain caused by husbands.

aEnough,a Edie said, and put the telephone down.

aEnough,a she said to herself now, her elbows on Benas table. She twisted round. Against the wall, Benas bed stood exactly as he had left it, the duvet slewed towards the floor, the pillow dented, a magazine here, a pair of underpants there. It was tempting, she thought, holding hard to the chairback as an anchor, to spring up and fling herself down on Benas bed and push her face into his pillow and breathe and breathe. It was very tempting.

Downstairs the front door crashed again. She heard Russellas feet on the tiles of the hall, heard him say something companionable to the cat.

aEdie?a She went on staring at Benas pillows. aIave got the newspapers,a Russell called. aAn orgy of thema"a Edie looked up at Benas bookshelves, at the space at the end where his teddy bear always sat, wearing Russellas old school tie from over forty years ago. The bear had gone. She stood up, holding an awkward stack of crockery.

aComing,a she said.

The garden was one of the reasons they had bought the house twenty years ago. It was only the width of the house, but it was seventy-five feet long, long enough for Matt, then eight, to kick a ball in. It also had a shed. Russell had loved the idea of a shed, the idea of paraffin heaters and fingerless gloves and listening to the football results on an old battery-operated radio. He saw seclusion in that shed, somewhere set apart from his family life and his working life because both were, by their very nature, all talk. He had a vision of being in the shed on winter weekend afternoons, probably wrapped in a sleeping bag, and looking back down the garden to the house, a dark shape with lit windows, and knowing that all that life and clamour was there for him to step back into, when he chose. It was a very luxurious vision, in that it encompassed both privacy and participation, and he clung to it during the years while the shed filled up with bikes and paint tins and broken garden chairs, leaving no space for him. It was even called aDadas sheda.

This Saturday afternoon, he told Edie, he was going to clear it out.

aWhy?a aBecause itas full of useless junka. She was chopping things, making one of her highly coloured, rough-hewn salads.

aAnd then?a aThen what?a aWhen you have cleared out the shed, what will you do with it?a aUse ita.

Edie threw a handful of tomato pieces into the salad bowl.

aWhat for?a Russell considered saying for reading pornography in, and decided against it.

He said, aThe purpose will become plain as I clear ita. Edie picked up a yellow pepper. She had gathered her hair on top of her head and secured it with a purple plastic comb. She looked, in some ways, about thirty. She also looked small and defiant.

aYou were clearing Benas room this morning,a Russell said gently. aNo,a Edie said.

He went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of Belgian beer. The boys would drink it straight out of the bottle. Russell went across the kitchen, behind Edie, to the cupboard where the glasses were kept.

He said, his back to her, aWhat were you doing then?a aNothing,a Edie said. aThinkinga. Russell took a glass out of the cupboard. He said, his back still turned, holding the glass and the bottle, aThey just do grow up. Itas what happensa. aYes,a Edie said. aItas whatas meant to happena.

aYesa.

Russell turned. He put down the glass and the bottle and came to stand behind her. aHeas doing what he wants to doa. Edie sliced through the pepper.

aI knowa. aYou canata"a aI know!a Edie shouted. She flung the knife across the table.

Russell moved to retrieve it. He held it out to her.

aStop chucking things. Itas so childisha.

Edie took the knife and laid it down on the chopping board with elaborate care. Then she leaned on her hands and looked down into her salad.

aI love Ben as much as you do,a Russell said. aBut heas twenty-two. Heas a man. When Ia"a aPlease donat,a Edie said.

aI met you when I was twenty-twoa.

aTwenty-threea.

aAll right, then. Twenty-three. And you were twenty-onea.

aJust,a Edie said.

aI seem to remember us thinking we were quite old enough to get marrieda.

Edie straightened up and folded her arms.

aWead left home. We wanted to leave home. I left home at seventeena.

aBen didnata.

aHe liked it here, he loved ita"a aAnd now he loves Naomia. Edie gave a little snort. Russell went back to his beer.

He said, pouring it, aThis happens to everyone. Everyone with children. It started with Matt, remember. Matt left at twenty-twoa.

Edie moved away from the table and leaned instead against the sink, staring out into the garden.

aYou just donat think,a she said, athat itas going to enda.

aGod!a Russell said. He tried a little yelp of laughter. aEnd! Does parenthood ever, ever end?a Edie turned round and looked at the table.

aIf you want any lunch,a she said, ayou finish thata.

aOKa.

aIam going outa.

aAre you? Where are you going?a aA film maybe. Sit in a caf. Buy a forty-watt light bulba.

aEdiea"a She began to walk towards the door to the hall. aBetter practise, hadnat I? For the next chapter?a Outside the shed, Russell made a pile of things to keep, a pile of things to throw away, and a pile to ask Edie about. He had made a cheese-and-pickle sandwich from the last of the white sliced loaf a" there would presumably be no more of those, without Ben around to indulge with them a" and had eaten it sitting in a mouldy Lloyd Loom chair that had belonged to his mother, in the pale April sunshine. He would also have added a newspaper or two if the sunshine hadnat been qualified by a sharp breeze blowing intermittently through the gap between the semi-detached houses that backed on to his own. They were much grander houses than his a" broad steps to the front doors, generous windows to the floor, gravelled car-parking spaces a" in a much grander road, but they faced east, rather than west, so they got the wind before he did, and only early sun.

Edie wasnat back. She had returned briefly to the kitchen, wearing a cast-off denim jacket of Rosaas, and kissed his cheek. He had wanted to say something, to hold her for a moment, but had decided against it. Instead, he let her bump her face against his, fleetingly, and watched her go. The cat watched her too, from a place on the crowded dresser where he was not supposed to sit, next to the fruit bowl. When the front door slammed, the cat gave Russell a quick glance and then went back to washing. He waited half an hour after Russell went out to the garden and then he came out to see what was happening, stepping fastidiously over the damp grass. As soon as Russell left the Lloyd Loom chair, he leaped into it and sat there, watching, his tail curled trimly round his paws and his expression inscrutable.

He was really Benas cat. Ben had been the only one of their children who had longed for an animal, who had gone badgering on about everything from a hippo to a hamster until, on his tenth birthday, Russell had gone to a dingy pet shop somewhere in Finsbury Park, and come home with a tabby kitten in a wire basket. Ben called the kitten Arsenal, after his chosen football club, and remained indifferent to the implications of this being inevitably shortened to Arsie. Arsie was now twelve and as cool as a tulip.

aLook,a Russell said to Arsie, aRosaas tricycle. She loved thata.

Arsie looked unmoved. Rosaas tricycle, once metallic lilac with a white plastic basket on the front, was now mostly rust.

aKeep or chuck?a Russell said.

Arsie yawned.

aChuck,a Russell said. aChuck, but inform Rosaa.

He crouched and inspected the tricycle. Rosa had stuck stickers everywhere, glitter stickers of cartoon animals and fairies. She had looked sweet on that tricycle, pedalling furiously, straight red hair flapping, the white plastic basket crammed with all the stuffed animals she carried everywhere, lining them up at meals round her place, putting them in a circle round her pillow. Sometimes when he looked at her now, twenty-six years old and working for a public relations company, he caught a glimpse of the child on the tricycle, like a ghost in a mirror. She had been a turbulent little girl full of noise and purpose. Some of the noise and purpose were still there, but the turbulence had translated itself into something closer to emotional volatility, a propensity to swerve crazily in and out of relationships. At least one had to be thankful that she did swerve out again, particularly in the case of the appalling Josh.

Russell straightened up and looked at the house. Rosaas window was on the top floor, on the left. Since Rosa had left home, theyad had the odd lodger in that room, and in Mattas, next to it: drama students Edie was teaching or impoverished actors shead once been in repertory with who had small parts in plays in little North London theatres. They were good lodgers on the whole, never awake too early, never short of something to say, and they provided, unconsciously, the perfect excuse to postpone any decision about moving to something smaller. The house might be shabby, in places very shabby, but it was not something Russell could imagine being without. It was, quite simply, a given in his life, in their lives, the result of being left a miraculous small legacy in his twenties, when he and Edie were living in a dank flat, with two children and a baby, above an ironmongeras off the Balls Pond Road.

aFour bedrooms,a Edie had said, whispering as if the house could hear her. aWhatall we ever do with four bedrooms?a It had been in a terrible state, of course, damp and neglected, with mushrooms up the stairwell and a hole in the roof you could see the stars through. But somehow, then, with Edie enjoying a steady spell of television work, and the agency getting going, the house had seemed to them needy rather than daunting, more theirs, somehow, because it was crying out for rescue. They had no kitchen for a year, no finished bathroom for two, no carpets for five. Matt wore gumboots all his childhood, from the moment he got out of bed. It was perhaps no surprise that Matt should turn out to be the most orthodox of their children, the one with an electronic diary and polished shoes. When he came home, he was inclined to point out that the crack in the sitting-room ceiling was lengthening, that the smell of damp in the downstairs lavatory was not just a smell, that regular outside painting was a sound investment.

aItas hard,a Russell said, afor us old bohemians to get worked up about such thingsa. aThen listen to me,a Matt said.

He said that often, now. He had started saying it after he left home, and returned, just for occasional meals, with a newly critical eye. aListen to me,a head say to Edie about a part she was reading for, to Russell about some new direction the agency might take, to Ben about his A-level choices.

aYouare so adult,a Edie would say, looking at him fondly. aI love ita.

She loved it, of course, because she didnat listen to him. She loved it the way she loved his regular haircuts and well-mannered clothes and competence with technology. It was amusing to her, and endearing, to see this well-put-together grown man in her kitchen, explaining to her how to send text messages on her mobile phone, and visualise him, simultaneously, once asleep in his cot or sitting, reading earnestly, on his potty. She could play games like that, Russell thought, because she still had Ben; the security of Ben gave her the licence not to take Matt seriously, not to see his maturity as anything other than sweet play-acting.

If Matt was irritated by her attitude, he gave no sign. He treated her as he had always treated both his parents, as very well-meaning people of whom he was fond and who he needed to take practical care of because they seemed to decline to do it for themselves. It was plain he thought Edie indulged Ben, just as it was plain he thought Rosa indulged herself, but he kept these opinions to their proper place, on the edges of his own rightly preoccupying life. He worked for a mobile-telephone company, had a girlfriend with a job in the City, and with whom he shared a flat. He was entitled, Russell thought, inspecting a neat stack of broken lampshades and wondering why they had ever been considered worthy of salvage, to say, every so often, and to a family who lived so much more carelessly than he did, aListen to mea.

Russell did listen. He might not often take advice, but he listened. He had listened while Matt had explained, at tremendous length one evening in a cramped bar in Covent Garden, that Russell should specialise. Matt described his fatheras agency, which represented actors who were particularly interested in film and television work, as alimping alonga. Russell, nursing a glass of red wine, had been mildly affronted. After the next glass, he had felt less affronted. After the third glass, Mattas proposal that Russell should specialise in providing actors for advertising voice-over work seemed less alien, less unattractively practical than it had an hour before.

aI know itas not theatre,a Matt had said, abut itas moneya.

aItas all about money!a Edie had cried, two hours later, brushing her teeth. aIsnat it? Thatas all itas about!a aPossibly,a Russell said carefully, ait has to bea.

aItas sordid. Itas squalid. Whereas the acting in bouncing on sofas?a aNot bouncing on them. Talking about thema.

Edie spat into the basin.

aWell, if you can bring yourselfa"a aI rather think I cana.

aWell, just donat ask mea.

Russell let a pause fall. He climbed into bed and picked up his book, a biography of Alexander the Great. He put his spectacles on.

aNo,a he said. aNo. I rather think I shanata.

Since 1975, Russell Boyd Associates (there were none) had occupied three attic rooms behind Shaftesbury Avenue. For almost thirty years, Russell had worked in a room that had undoubtedly once been a maidas bedroom. It had a dormer window and sloping ceilings and was carpeted with the Turkey carpet that had once been in Russellas grandparentsa dining room in Hull, now worn to a grey blur of weft cotton threads, garnished here and there with a few brave remaining tufts of red and blue and green. Matt, encouraged by Russellas acceptance of his advice about the agency, then tried to persuade him to modernise the office, to put down a wooden floor and install halogen lights on gleaming metal tracks.

aNo,a Russell said.

aBut, Dada"a aI like it. I like it just as it is. So do my clientsa.

Matt had kicked at several straining cardboard folders piled like old bolsters against the bookshelves.

aItas awful. Itas like your old sheda.

Russell looked now, at his shed. It was half empty, but what remained looked intractable, as if prepared to resist movement. Arsie had left the chair and returned to the house and the sun had sunk behind the houses leaving a raw dankness instead. He glanced down at Rosaas tricycle, on its side in the stack to be discarded.

aRosaas bikea, she had always called it. Not aminea but aRosaasa.

aRussell!a Edie called. He raised his head.