She said, almost into his skin, aWeare not going ina.

He extracted his arms from the folds of the duvet and put them awkwardly round her.

aEdie love, you knew thata"a aWeare not going in,a Edie said again in a harsh, tearful whisper. aThe playas not transferring. Itas all overa. Russell adjusted his hold.

He said gently, aYou knew that. You knew Freddie wasnat really trying to find a theatre, you knew that was all talk. Youave known that for weeksa.

aIave only just realised it,a Edie said. aI donat want this to end. I donat want this play to be overa.

aThereall be other partsa"a aNo, there wonat. This was freak luck. Freddieas taking Lazlo with him to do this Italian detective thing and he never mentioned it to mea.

aPerhaps thereas no part in this cast for youa"a aI thought,a Edie said, aIad be in the West End. I thought Iad have my namea"a She stopped.

Russell said, aAnd I thought you were so tired and fed up you just wanted it all to stopa.

Edie said nothing. She moved her face slightly so that her cheek lay against his chest.

He waited a few moments and then he said, aYouave loved this run, havenat you? Youave loved being on stagea. Edie nodded.

Then she said in a whisper, aIam so afraid of it stoppinga.

aItas not the lasta.

aYou donat knowa"a aNo, but I have a pretty good huncha.

He felt her face move as if she was looking up at him.

aDo you?a aYes,a Russell said.

aDo you really think Iam any good?a aYes,a Russell said, aand so do other peoplea.

aBut not Freddie Cassa.

aYes, he does. But thereas a part for Lazlo in his new project and not a part for youa.

aReally?a aReallya.

aI donat think,a Edie said, laying her cheek back against him, aI donat think I could bear it if I couldnat work againa.

Russell let a small silence fall, and then he said comfortably, aAnd Iam sure you wonat have to bear anything of the kinda.

aI donat feel at all certain about thata"a He said nothing. He moved slightly, to free up an arm, and then he yawned into the dimness above Edieas head. From somewhere above them, the floorboards creaked.

Edie stiffened.

She said, in quite a different voice, aThereas something going on between Rosa and Lazloa.

aIs there?a aYes, definitelya.

He felt another yawn beginning. He said, round it, aDoes it matter?a Edie said vigorously, aI donat like it, Russell. I really donat. Not here. Not in my housea.

aAha.

aI mean, if you take people in, take people back, itas only fair, isnat it, to expect a littlea"a She stopped and then she said sadly, aI donat mean thata.

aI thought you didnat. I hoped you didnata.

aI didnata.

aWhat did you mean then?a She said, in the same dejected voice, aIt all feels so fragilea.

aWhat does?a aWhat theyare doing, both of them so uncertain, so without a proper planned futurea"a aDonat you think,a Russell said sleepily, athat we looked just as fragile in our day? That dismal flat, all those babies, me earning three thousand a year if I was lucky?a aMaybea"a aI think we did. In fact Iam sure we did. I expect our parents a" mine certainly a" had a version of exactly this conversationa.

aRussell?a aYesa.

aI just wanted,a Edie said, ato keep everything safe. I just wanted to make everything all right for all of them. I wanted to be back in control of thingsa"a aI knowa.

aAnd I canata.

Russell moved his head a little and gave Edie a brief kiss.

aI know,a he said again.

Chapter Nineteen.

The trouble was, Ben reflected, that he hadnat thought things through. He had supposed, rather vaguely, that he would go back to a few weeks of his old life a" unexciting but familiar and easy a" and then he would take up, in an unspecified but attractive way, his new life with Naomi. It had not occurred to him, in trying to get what he wanted while causing as little upheaval as possible, that all the wrinkles wouldnat somehow just iron themselves out of their own accord. It had not really crossed his mind that Naomi meant exactly what she said when she told him she needed space to think, and that space included hardly being in touch with him at all beyond a few text messages of the kind you might send to any old common or garden friend. And it had certainly never struck him that ambling back home, even without his fatheras full blessing, would prove to be anything but easy or familiar.

He had thought, for the first few nights, that it didnat feel right because he was sleeping on the sofa. He told himself that there was just something pretty weird about being on the sofa when your sister was through the ceiling in your bedroom and your bed. But, as the days wore on, he suspected that, even if Rosa were to surrender his bedroom, it wouldnat now be the bedroom he had left only a few months before, and therefore the strangeness of the sofa didnat belong to the actual sofa: it belonged to the situation.

The situation was, as far as Ben could see, that his childhood home had changed. He might know every corner and creak, but he knew them as he supposed he would know the similar characteristics of the secondary school where he had spent seven years of his educational life. You could know a thing, it seemed, you could feel a thing to be deeply, powerfully familiar, but at the same time you were keenly aware that this known and familiar thing was no longer in the least relevant to the place you were now at, never mind the place where you were going. When Ben put the key in the lock of the front door of the house, he knew precisely how to do it, but that was no comfort or pleasure because he didnat, fundamentally, want to be doing it any more. It was as if the lock looked the same but had, in fact, changed its nature, just as the quirks of taps and light switches and cupboard doors had. It was like looking at a well-known face in a distorting mirror.

The same was true of his family. There were no surprises in any of them, except that they all seemed to him more shadowy. He initially supposed that this was because all of them were trying to deal with difficulties of one kind or another, which rendered them tired and preoccupied. Given everyoneas work schedules, no one saw very much of anyone else, but all the same, the household had no coherence about it any more and, instead of feeling in any way a unit, it felt like a collection of people living together without any real sense of binding unity. It was only after a few weeks, lying wakeful one night on the sofa and wishing for the hundredth time that it was even six inches longer, that it struck Ben that what was the matter with him was not really the sofa, or the accessibility of his family, but that he was missing Naomi.

Once he had considered this, he realised that he had never actually missed anyone before. He had never, all his growing up, been put in a situation of having to miss someone: no boarding school, no college years in the North of England, no opportunity to feel keenly the absence of someone important. And, once this painful and interesting revelation had broken over him, he could see that it was neither the house nor the family that had changed, it was him. He might only have been living with Naomi and her mother a short while, but it had been long enough to give him a taste of what it might a" could a" be like to live according to his own inclinations. Naomias mother, for all her rules and regulations, had unconsciously allowed him to take the first tentative steps towards independence.

The feeling of missing Naomi was, once acknowledged, extremely acute. It rendered him at once impatient with living in a temporary dossing-down way on his parentsa sofa and, at the same time, eager to mend fences with Naomi and to set about achieving what he now clearly and urgently wanted, which was a place of their own. Such a place, he could now see, would bring with it responsibilities of a kind he had once shrugged off as the dull concern of generations older than his, but he was sure he would not be daunted by that. Indeed, if that kind of obligation was the price to be paid for living with Naomi, then he would gladly pay it.

The difficulty was, how. Naomias texts had not suggested, in any way, that she was missing him as he was missing her. In fact, the brevity and scarcity of her communications might have led a fainter heart to think that she had definitively chosen an immediate future with her mother rather than her boyfriend. But Benas heart, buoyed up with his new self-knowledge, did not feel faint. It felt that, even if it did not succeed, it was going to make stupendous efforts first, before acknowledging even the possibility of failure. He would shower and shave, he decided, put on clean clothes, buy flowers for both Naomi and her mother a" a significantly larger bunch for her mother a" and take the tube, that very day, to Walthamstow.

The water in the shower changed abruptly from tepid to gaspingly cold. Edie, her eyes tightly shut against the shampoo cascading down her face, gave a scream. Then she gave another, a scream of rage this time, rather than shock. They had all had showers, of course, they had all showered and gone out, even Lazlo, and left her to do battle with the aftermath of their leaving. Also, she thought, stumbling out of the shower and fumbling about for a towel, to deal with an elderly boiler and a water tank designed for the needs of a small nuclear family who bathed by rota.

She found a damp towel and wrapped it tightly round her. Then she ran a basin of cold water and dipped her hair into it and rinsed her eyes. There was a perverse relief, somehow, in being able to cry because she had soap in her eyes, being able to blame some small, tangible element for the need to howl away to herself, wrapped in an already used towel, in the forlorn middle of a weekday morning. She straightened up a little and peered at herself in the mirror. Her hair hung in wet dark snakes. Her eyes looked as if theyad been buried. She looked, she decided, more like the embodiment of a state of mind than a human being. She reached out and pulled another dank towel off the pile on the chair and wound it round her head. Now she looked like a huge blue towelling thumb.

From downstairs, the doorbell rang.

aGo away!a Edie shouted.

It rang again, politely but firmly. Edie dropped the towel she had tucked round her armpits and clawed her way into Russellas ancient bathrobe that was hanging on the back of the door. Then she went cautiously out on to the landing and pressed her forehead against the glass to see down into the street.

On the step directly below her a young woman was standing. She wore a dark suit and was carrying a briefcase and there were sunglasses perched on top of her head. Edie looked at the briefcase. It seemed familiar, familiar enough to picture it propped against the wall inside the front door. It was Ruthas briefcase. Edie unscrewed the security bolt on the window and put her head out.

Ruth glanced up.

aEdie,a she said uncertainly.

Edie put her hand up to her immense blue turban. aJust a" washing my haira"a aIam sorry,a Ruth said, anot to tell you I was coming, but Matt said youad be in, and Ia"a aMatt did?a aYes,a Ruth said. aMatt suggested I just come. When I said I wanted toa.

aWait,a Edie said.

aLook, if it reallya"a aWait,a Edie said. She slammed the window shut and tore off her turban. Then she ran downstairs. Arsie was sitting in the hall, affecting indifference to whoever had come. Edie picked him up and held him against her while she opened the door.

Ruth said at once, aIam so sorrya"a aDonat be,a Edie said. She stepped back. aItas a" well, Iam very glad to see youa.

aAre you?a Edie looked at her.

aWhy shouldnat I be?a Ruth put out a hand to touch Arsie.

aWell, I thought you thoughta"a A drip from Edieas hair slid on to Arsieas shoulder and he sprang from her arms.

aI did thinka.

aYesa"a aBut a lotas happened and I a" well, my thinking has shifted a bit. You look very smarta.

Ruth made a little self-deprecating gesture.

aYouall have to forgive me,a Edie said. aI was in a temper as well as in the shower. Coffee?a aCould a" could I have tea?a Edie looked at her.

aI didnat think you drank teaa.

aI a" didnata.

aCome into the kitchen. Thereas too much to apologise for in there so I wonat even starta.

Ruth said from the kitchen doorway, aItas nice to be backa"a aIs it? Have you been very unhappy?a aYesa.

Edie picked up the kettle.

She said from the sink, her back turned towards Ruth, aSo has Matthewa. aI knowa.

aRuth,a Edie said, acouldnat you just have made a compromise? Couldnat you just have made it possible for him to contribute something?a Ruth went slowly across the room to the table and leaned against it. Then she put down her briefcase and took her sunglasses off her head and laid them on the table with precision.

aI came,a she said, ato tell you that I was pregnanta.

Edie froze for a moment. Then she turned off the tap and set the kettle down carefully in the sink.

aPregnant?a aYesa.

aI thought,a Edie said with emphasis, athat you and Matthew hadnat seen each other since you a" parteda.

aHe came for dinner,a Ruth said. aHe came to my flat. I asked him to. I was missing him so mucha.

Edie put her hands up to the collar of Russellas bathrobe and held it against her neck. Then she turned round.

aDoes Matthew know?a aOf coursea.

aHow a" long has he known?a aAbout two weeksa. Edie shut her eyes. aTwo weeksa"a aYesa.

aAnd a" forgive me a" but are you going to keep it?a There was a small pause and then Ruth said, with barely suppressed fury, aYesa.

aBut if you and Matthew arenata"a aWe are,a Ruth said. aThatas why Iave come. Iave come to tell you what weare planninga.

Edie put a hand out for a chair as if she was suddenly very old, and lowered herself into it. She didnat look at Ruth. Instead she looked at the box of Grapenuts someone had left on the table.

aBut why come and tell me? Why not both of you? Why not tell Russell and me together? Why come like this, out of the bluea"a aBecause I wanted to,a Ruth said. aBecause you needed to know. Because you were so angry with mea.

aI wasnata"a aOh yes,a Ruth said. aWomen are always angrier with other women. Iad hurt your son. Iad achieved more than he had. In your view, Iad rubbed his nose in ita.

Edie put her elbows on the table and her face in her hands.

She said, muffled by her hands, aYouall learna.

aOh,a Ruth said, aI understood why you were angry. Of course I did. And I felt awful myself, awful at what Iad done and furious at being made to feel awfula.

Edie took her hands away from her face.

aYouad better sit downa.

aIam finea"a aSit down,a Edie said. aSit down and Iall make you some teaa.

She got up and retrieved the kettle from the sink. She said, aDo your parents know?a aNot yeta. aWhat?a aIall tell them next,a Ruth said. aIall tell them at the weekenda.

aBut whya"a aBecause I wanted to see you first. Because I wanted to do something for Matthewa. Edie spun round. aMatthewas not afraid of me!a aIt wasnat about that,a Ruth said, aitas about saving him having to explain himself again. Itas about me explaining to you how hard it is for women my age to deal with motherhood and work when both are so demanding and important, and how wonderful it would be if you could be on my sidea. She paused. And then she added, aIrrespective of Matthewa.

Edie said nothing. She went back to her chair and sat down in it and pulled the belt of the bathrobe tighter. Then she looked at Ruth across the table, at her polished hair and her sharply cut suit.

aDo you think,a she said, athat itas any easier for me?a aYes,a Ruth said.

aDo you?a aYes,a Ruth said, aI think that women after their families have gone are pretty unstoppable. Thatas what it looks like, from where Iam standinga.

aReally?a Ruth leaned forward.

aThe classic reproach, the one about women promoting themselves at the expense of people who need their care, doesnat apply to you. Not any morea.