aItas brilliant,a Naomi said, abrilliant. Iam going to tell my mum. Does he die?a aGod,a Barney said, ais this going to be like Shakespeare, stage littered with bodies at the end?a aI donat know,a Matthew said, aIave never seen it before, either. Iave nevera"a He stopped.

aYou must be so proud of her,a Naomi said. aIf that was my mum up there, Iad be so prouda.

Matthew nodded.

aI just wish a" everyone could see hera"a aEveryone?a aWell,a Matthew said, swirling the inch of wine left in his glass round and round, aeveryone I knowa"a aIad feel like that,a Naomi said. aIad make them all come. I made Ben comea.

Matthew looked sharply at her.

aDid you?a aCourse,a she said. aFamily is family, isnat it?a aYes,a Matthew said.

Barney looked at Naomias shoulders, and the sequins lying over them, like little trails of stars. Then he thought of Kate sitting upstairs with her hands resting on the mound that was their baby because there was nowhere else to put them. Amazing how different women could be, how different they could become, how a" differently they could make you feel about them. He swallowed.

He put out a hand and gave Matthewas nearest shoulder a quick cuff.

aBetter get backa"a aOK,a Matthew said.

Barney glanced at Naomi.

aNice to meet youa.

She nodded.

aAll the best for the babya.

aYes,a Matthew said. aGive my love to Kate. Good of you to comea.

Barney put his wine glass down on the nearest surface and made for the stairs. There was a girl standing a little way up them, staring down into the bar, a dark girl in black, with a hat on, and sunglasses. In Barneyas fatheras now collectable vinyl record collection from the sixties, there was, Barney remembered, a 45 rpm record whose cover featured a woman head been much struck by, when he was about fourteen, a French woman, all in black, with symmetrically cut black hair and black glasses. Her name was Juliette Greco, and Barneyas father, as an undergraduate as he called it, had hitch-hiked to Paris to hear her sing live in some dive on the Left Bank. Barney hadnat thought about Juliette Greco for years, but this still, dark girl on the stairs, watching the crowd through the open doorway below her, had just the same cheekbones, just the same air of mystery.

aPenny for them,a Barney said cheerfully, as he went up past her, back to Kate.

aI think,a Edie said, aIall just stay down here for a bita.

Russell, filling his nightly glass of water at the sink, turned round.

aReally?a aYes,a she said, aIam tired but not tired. I couldnat sleep yet. Iall just stay down here and revela. Russell turned the tap off. aWould you like me to stay with you?a She shook her head.

aSure?a aSure,a Edie said.

He came across the room to where she was leaning against the cooker, and bent a little, to look into her face. aYou were quite, quite amazinga. She looked down. aThank youa.

He put the hand not holding the tumbler under her chin.

aLook at mea.

Edie raised her chin an inch.

aYou were absolutely wonderful and I am unspeakably proud of youa.

She looked at him, saying nothing.

aAnd Iam really sorry to have been such a grumpy sod about the children coming back and everythinga.

aForget ita"a aI loved watching their faces,a Russell said. He let go of Edieas chin and straightened up. aI loved seeing all that amazement and awe. If theyad had thought-bubbles coming out of their thick heads, theyad have read: aThis is Mum? My Mum?aa Edie laughed.

She said, aTheyare not thicka.

aOnly when it comes to seeing you as other than the provider of home comforts. Dear old room servicea. aNot just them,a Edie said, aguilty of thata"a aI know. Iam sorry. Iam truly sorry abouta"a She put a hand up, across his mouth. aEnougha.

He nodded. She took her hand away.

She said, aIall be twenty minutes. You go upa.

He leaned forward and kissed her.

aSee you in twenty minutes, fantastic Mrs Alvinga.

She smiled.

She said, stretching against the cooker, aYou canat imagine how it feelsa"a aNo,a he said, aI canat, quite. But I can see,a and then he turned and went humming out of the kitchen and Edie could hear him going up the stairs at a run, the way he had when they first had the house and everything seemed somehow an adventure.

She looked at the clock on the wall above the dresser. Twenty-past one. Arsie was curled up on the nearest kitchen chair, pretending, with great professionalism, that he wasnat waiting to accompany her to bed. She stepped forward and scooped him up into her arms, and went over to unlock the kitchen door to the garden. Arsie stiffened slightly, alert to the awful possibility of spending the night outside, like any other cat.

aDonat worry,a Edie said, holding him. aIam only taking you out for companya.

The air outside was cool and sweet. It was only at night, Edie thought, that London somehow relaxed into its past, into the villages and huddles of huts it had once been, into a place that would quietly, un-urgently, outlive all its inhabitants. She walked slowly down the damp dark grass, holding Arsie against her neck and shoulder, admiring the way the white climbing rose whose name she could never remember shone in the gloom with an almost eerie luminousness, as if it had stored up energy in the daylight hours to use when darkness fell. There was a seat at the far end of the garden, beside Russellas shed, a basic wooden playground bench, that theyad ordered from an offer in a Sunday newspaper without realising that Russell was going to have to assemble it, all one painful weekend, with the instruction sheets laid out on the grass, weighted with stones, and Russell crawling round them, cursing and saying he hadnat got the right screwdriver. Edie sat down on the bench, and settled Arsie, rather tensely, in her lap.

Down the far end of the garden, the house shone like some tableau of domestic contentment. Its black outline stood sharply against the reddish sky, and every single window was lit, oblong after oblong of clean yellow light, with a shape moving here and there, Matt perhaps, Lazlo in Rosaas bedroom, Rosa in Benas, Russell in the bathroom. To look at that, to look at what she was shortly going to return to, and to remember Freddie Cassas arm briefly round her shoulders a couple of hours ago and his unengaged voice saying clearly in her ear, aOutstanding, Edie. Possibility of West End transfer not a fantasy,a gave her a feeling of such hope and such pleasure and such energy that she could only suppose it was triumph.

Chapter Fourteen.

aHow would you like,a Russell said, aa new computer?a Maeve didnat look up from her screen. aI donat care for that kind of jokea. Russell sat on the edge of her desk. He said, aHavenat you noticed anything different lately?a aIn what waya"a aAbout mea.

She shot him a glance. aAbout youa"a aYesa.

aWell,a Maeve said, taking her hands off the keyboard, ayouare in a little earliera.

aExactlya.

aBut,a Maeve said, aI put that down to sulks. Your house is full again, Edieas making breakfast for the kids, or not making it at all because sheas sleeping in a little these days, and youare sulkinga.

Russell gave a small sigh.

aI was a bit. But I stopped. I stopped when I saw how beautifully the next generation do ita.

Maeve typed two words. aRosa,a she said. Russell took no notice.

He said, aBut I havenat stopped my intention to galvanise myself. Inject some energy into the business. Buy a new computera.

aI may,a Maeve said, abe beyond galvanising. I am fifty-two years olda.

aNothinga.

aYou get soas you donat want to learn new tricks. You get immune to curiosity. Someone in Whoas Who some time ago, maybe it was Elspeth Huxley, listed her main hobby as resting. I can identify with that. A new computer doesnat sound very restfula.

Russell looked up.

aAnd perhaps some new painta. He looked down at the carpet. aAnd a new floor?a aStop right there,a Maeve said. Russell got off her desk. aPerhapsa"a aThe voice of good sensea.

Russell took a step towards his own office.

aMaeve, even if you wonat have a new computer and I never get around to re-decoration, I do want to make some changes. I do want to revive a little vigour round herea.

aWhy?a aBecause otherwise,a Russell said, aI shall feel everything is going backwardsa.

Maeve said nothing. Russell disappeared into his office and, uncharacteristically, closed the dividing door behind him. Maeve looked at the door in some surprise. Having it closed suddenly made her own room seem much smaller, much more isolated, as if an energy supply had been shut off. After a moment or two she could hear, indistinctly, Russell speaking on the telephone and, even though she couldnat hear what he was saying, she could hear that he was talking animatedly, as if he were urging something, or proposing something. Then he laughed. Maeve looked at her screen. There was half a letter on it, asking why London Energy had abruptly cancelled the direct-debit mandate for the firmas electricity bills. Would such a letter be any less tedious to compose or type on a new computer with a flat screen edged in silver? By the same token, was Russellas disappointment in his present personal circumstances going to be mitigated by tricking out his working life with a deliberate renewal of animation and commitment? You could only admire the man for trying, you could only commend him for attempting to fashion something he could live with out of something he really didnat want, but you couldnat let him fool himself, not if youad worked for Russell as long as Maeve had. She looked again at the closed door. She couldnat a" and she wouldnat a" let him delude himself that a new computer would change a single thing.

Vivien laid three heavy books of fabric samples out on her white bed. The woman who ran the local interior-design shop had said pointedly that, while it was difficult to advise precisely on the changes Vivien was after without seeing the room, she herself thought that a strong neutral colour, such as tobacco or anthracite, often helped to make an all-white room less, well, bridal. She suggested plain linen curtains and possibly a valance for the bed, with maybe a dark alpaca throw and a bedside rug with a masculine feel, edged, say, in leather. Vivien opened her mouth to say that she didnat want brown or grey in her bedroom, or a masculine feel for that matter, and then remembered why she was in the shop in the first place, and closed it again.

aItas not that I donat like it,a Max had said, lying against a pile of her white broderie anglaise pillows. aItas just that I donat feel very comfortable in it. I feel like the lodgera.

Vivien giggled. She was sitting at her dressing table -something she had only acquired after Maxas departure -and was watching him watching her in the mirror, like someone in a movie.

aWell, you area.

Max immediately looked dejected.

He said in a small voice, aAm I?a Vivien considered. She had already persuaded him out of the gold chain round his neck (on the grounds that she hadnat given it to him) and felt that possibly that was sufficient evidence of having the upper hand, for one day.

She smiled at him in the mirror.

aJust teasinga.

Max said, aItas a beautiful room, doll. I mean it. Youave done it beautifully. Itas just that it makes me feel a bit out of placea. He grinned at her. aA bit hairya.

She turned slowly on the dressing-table stool and crossed her legs.

aIam not changing the beda"a He winked.

aIam not asking you toa.

She waved a hand towards the curtains.

aMaybe thosea"a Max looked at the curtains. They were heavy white voile, looped up with white cords. They reminded him of the day his sister got confirmed, and he managed -no, was allowed a" to put his hand up the skirt of her friend Sheilaas white confirmation dress.

He said, aThatad help, dolla.

Vivien stood up. She was wearing satin backless mules head bought her and walking in them required concentration.

She said, aWhat do you suggest instead?a Max looked at the curtains a bit longer, and then he said, aVelvet would be nicea.

aVelvet!a aYes. Why not?a aYou,a Vivien said, aare stuck in the seventiesa. aI was young thena"a aI knowa.

aAnd in some ways,a Max said, transferring his gaze from the curtains to Vivienas feet, aI havenat grown up at alla. He grinned again and sat up a little straighter. aLuckily for youa. Now, looking at the blank squares of linen laid out on her bed, Vivien tried to recall the warm feeling of acquiescence that had induced her to think of changing her bedroom. Max hadnat actually called it aoura bedroom but, with his clothes in the cupboards and his aftershave on her bathroom shelf, she knew she had rather conceded exclusive possession. And sometimes a" often even a" that shared occupancy was wonderful, leaving her with a glow that lasted long enough to enable her to look with pity at women who came into the bookshop to buy novels to beguile solitary evenings. It was extraordinary not to be in that position any more, the position of buying single salmon steaks and half-bottles of wine and four-roll packs of lavatory paper. But there was also some little reservation too, some small but unmistakable loss of freedom, the freedom to have gauzy white curtains instead of plain dark ones that wouldnat, as Max said while they were taking rather a riotous shower together, make a red-blooded man feel like a fairy.

Vivien turned her back on the fabric samples and went across the landing to her guest room. Even when Rosa occupied it, it felt like Vivienas guest room because although Rosa had a lot of possessions and was hardly tidy, she had managed, all the time she was there, to convey the sense that her living there was impermanent and therefore superficial. Max, however, had colonised the room. He had given up a" aI only want to be with you, Vivia a" his large flat in Barnes and, despite the fact that all his furniture and a lot of his possessions had gone into store, he had still managed to arrive at the cottage in Richmond with an astonishing number of things. Vivienas guest room had vanished, almost completely, under piles of boxes and bags, sliding heaps of clothes on hangers, small mountains of shoes and sports kit. Some of it, Vivien thought, was familiar, but much of it, most of it really, was not. She took a little breath. The room now smelled of Max, of his aftershave. Close to her feet was a new tennis racket in a sleek black cover and a pair of tan suede driving loafers with studded backs. Vivien had never seen either of them before. She gave a little shiver of excitement. She had got Max back, certainly, and a lot of him was known of old. But there were other aspects that werenat so known, that were changed, new almost. She glanced down at the driving shoes. They looked Italian. It was, she thought with a little internal skip of pleasure, like having a lover in the house.

It had not occurred to Rosa that, in a household of five people, she would ever find herself alone. When pondering the implications of trailing home with all her worldly goods squashed, depressingly, into black bin bags, at the shameful age of twenty-six, she had consoled herself by thinking that there would always, at least, be company. She would not, as she had in the cottage in Richmond, spend evenings on the sofa eating the wrong things out of boredom while watching programmes on television she had absolutely no recollection of next day.

Yet here she was, six days into being at home again, mooning round the kitchen by herself on a Tuesday evening, watched by Arsie from his position next to the fruit bowl, with a kind of knowing pity. Edie and Lazlo were at the theatre, Russell had gone to a reception somewhere and Matthew was having dinner with a colleague from work. It wasnat simply that they were all out that was upsetting Rosa, but that no one had seemed to notice that she would be on her own. Of course, it wasnat reasonable to expect a family of working adults to behave like a family of school-aged children, but reasonableness, Rosa realised, was not top of her reaction list just now. It would have made all the difference a" all the difference, she was sure a" if Edie had left the briefest of notes about something in the fridge for Rosaas supper, or something shead noticed that Rosa might like to read or watch. She couldnat help resentfully noticing, either, that Edie rather clucked round the boys at breakfast. Did you have to be a boy, then, to get maternal attention? Was there something extra abject about being a girl who hadnat coped with the outside world? Rosa made an angry lunge for an apple from the fruit bowl, and Arsie followed her movement with disapproval.

What added to the sense of disorientation, she decided, was that the kitchen itself was so very much the same. She could remember that blue paint going up on the walls and Edie madly machining the striped curtains on the kitchen table, so eager to see the effect of them hanging up that she had never finished the hems. The dresser was so much a fixture it had almost grown into the wall behind it, the table and chairs shead known all her life, also the yellow pottery sugar bowl, the mismatched mugs, the Spanish ceramic jar of wooden spoons, the over-zealous toaster, the little red-handled paring knife, which was the only one that really cut anything a" oh, it was all so achingly, deeply familiar, but managed, simultaneously, to be disturbingly alien because the life lived in it had changed. Rosa had been away five years, and in five years the kitchen table had stopped being a family altar and reverted to being a kitchen table. This room, this house, this street had stopped, in essence, being her home, and turned itself, slightly chillingly, into merely the place where she grew up.

She took her apple and dawdled across the hall to the sitting room. Unlike Vivien, Edie was impervious to crushed cushions, just as she was impervious to piles of old newspapers and magazines. The sitting room looked as if several people had simply walked out and left it at the end of a day. Rosa leaned in the doorway, chewing, and wondered whether anyone would notice if she shook up the sofa cushions and removed discarded papers. If they did they would no doubt tease her and make her cross. If they didnat, she would have done it for nothing and that would equally make her cross. Was it, in any case, her sitting room any more? If this was now her parentsa house, what level of domestic responsibility would constitute interference? You could hardly, after all, as a rent-paying adult, see ahelpinga your mother the way you had when you were twelve. She and Edie would always be mother and daughter, but the relationship was no longer one of dependency and lunch boxes. Rosa threw her apple core accurately into the wicker waste-paper basket by the fireplace and took her shoulder away from the doorframe. Edieas sitting room was no longer automatically her daughteras affair.

She turned away and began to trudge up the stairs. She had anticipated a small feeling of triumph in occupying Benas bedroom a" the bedroom of the cherished baby, after all, right opposite his parents and significantly larger than either her or Matthewas bedroom on the top floor. But the reality had been rather a disappointment. Benas room might be larger, but the view wasnat as good as from higher up, and it wasnat as private. The plumbing from the bathroom next door banged and gurgled and the door had a way of swinging quietly open as if she were stealthily being spied on. Also, the dcor was dismal and the curtains ran off the rail with alacrity if drawn without the utmost delicacy. Three months ago, Rosa would have shocked herself if shead confessed to liking the carefully considered feminine comforts of her auntas spare bedroom, but now, secretly, she thought of them with a certain wistfulness. Benas bedroom, even overlaid with her colourful and characterful possessions, remained resolutely Benas bedroom. It wasnat home and it certainly wasnat hers.

She went on slowly up the stairs to the top floor. Matthewas bedroom door was closed. Rosa opened it a little and put her head inside. The room looked much as it had always looked, rather careless and impersonal. Matthewas suits, hanging on an extension rail, attached to his cupboard, looked like dressing-up clothes. There was a towel thrown over a chair back and an American thriller by his bed. Rosa closed the door again. Poor Matthew, poor Matt. She put her forehead against the door. The room had reeked of stoicism, of someone bearing something painful and inevitable. It had seemed to Rosa more like a cell than a room.

Lazloas door was half open. Rosa gave the door a push and looked in. Then she moved forward, stepping across a new rug on the floor, noticing a Ghosts poster on the wall and a copy of Samuel Beckettas Endgame on the chest where shead kept her china-shoe collection. Lazlo, she decided, was very tidy. The tracksuit on his chair was folded, the boots on the floor in a pair, the rug on his bed straight. Rosa went over to the Ghosts poster pinned to the wall and examined it. It was strange to see her mother photographed by someone who didnat see her as a mother, didnat know her as a person. The portrayal of Edie as Mrs Alving gave Rosa a queer little rush of possessiveness, a desire to say loudly to all those people who simply saw her as an actress giving a fine performance, aExcuse me, but this is my mother! She wasnat used to feeling like this, it wasnat what she expected to feel, it was, in fact, as unbidden a feeling as the one of pure admiration that had overcome her when she saw Lazlo on stage, when she saw the way he and Edie could make her, for a while, utterly believe in something that bore no relation to the people they were in real life. Looking at their two profiles now, pinned up on the wall by Lazloas bed so that she could get close enough to touch their faces with her own face if she chose, Rosa felt herself consumed by a desire to be part of whatever it was they had, whatever it was they could make between them.

She turned sideways and looked down at the bed. Then she bent and put a hand on it. His bed. Her bed. She stood on one leg and then the other and pushed her shoes off. Then she sat down on the side of the bed. It yielded just as it always had, just as she expected it to. She swung her legs up sideways and lowered her head carefully on to the pillow.

aGoldilocks,a Rosa said, with a giggle, to the empty room.

Naomi said she didnat want a curry. It then transpired that she didnat want a pizza either, or pasta. Or Chinese. By then they were, for some reason, standing outside Walthamstow Town Hall, and Naomi was facing away from Ben, and staring at the fountain in front of it as if it was as absorbing as a television.

aWhat then,a Ben said. He had his hand in his pockets.

Naomi raised her eyes from the fountain and gazed instead at the door to the Assembly Hall.

aIam not really hungrya.

Ben sighed. The quotation chiselled into the stone over the Assembly Hall door read: aFellowship is life and lack of fellowship is deatha.

He said, aYou mean youare pissed off with mea.

Naomi didnat move.

aCourse I am. Upsetting my mum like thata.

Ben waited a moment, and then he said, aI didnat upset her. I didnat say anything to her. It was you that upset hera.