aWill she?a Ben spread out a faded black T-shirt with a skull printed on the front and then he tossed it on the floor. aOh yes,a he said.

aDayou mean,a Edie said, athat youall cook supper and light candles and buy flowers?a Ben inspected another black T-shirt.

aMight doa.

aAnd if it doesnat work?a aThen,a Ben said, chucking the second T-shirt after the first, aIall still end up with my own gaff and Iall think againa.

Edie began on the next batch of gum patches with her scourer. Ben wouldnat let her see this flat of his any more than Rosa and Lazlo would let her see the one theyad found in Barons Court.

aBarons Court!a Edie had said. aBut thatas the other side of London!a aItas a very nice flat,a Lazlo said seriously. He looked at Rosa. aPiccadilly Linea. Rosa looked at Edie. aGood for worka.

aOh yes,a Lazlo said, avery good for worka.

aBut why canat I see it?a aYou can,a Rosa said, ain time. When weave a" done something about the bathrooma.

She looked at Lazlo. They both giggled. He said, aAnd the kitchena. They giggled again.

Edie said, aI really donat see why you have to be so secretivea.

aNot secretive, Mum. Just privatea.

aTheyare paying two hundred pounds a week,a Edie said to Russell, aand Benas paying a hundred and twenty-five. How will they manage?a aWe donat ask them,a Russell said, aand we donat worry. Certainly not until this fails to sella. He put a hand on the nearest wall. aWhich it wonat because I am going to paint the front doora.

aI really think,a Matthew had said, surveying the house from the street, athat you should at least paint the front doora.

aItas always been that coloura.

aIt isnat the colour,a Matthew said patiently, aitas the chipsa.

aButa"a aDo it, Dad,a Matthew said. aJust bite the bullet and do it. Like the damp in the downstairs looa.

Matthew, Edie thought, aiming her scouring pad towards the bucket, and missing, was different. He was, in one way, back to the Matthew he had been when he first met Ruth, the Matthew who had kindly, if patronisingly, told his parents how much better their lives might be if only they followed his advice. But there were new elements now, as well, elements that were softer and more sympathetic, elements induced, it seemed, by his knowledge that he was going to be a father. He had, for example, gone, almost at once, to live with Ruth in the flat that had been such a bone of contention between them, in order, he said, to look after her.

aBut she isnat ill,a Edie said. aPregnancy isnat an illness. Itas a a" well, itas a very natural state of being but she isnat an invalida.

Matthew was standing by the kitchen table, dressed for work and drinking orange juice.

aI want to look after her. I want to make sure she eats the right things and gets enough rest. Iam going to the doctor with hera.

aAre you?a Matthew drained his glass.

aIam going for every ultrasound. Iam going whenever I need to know what Ruth knowsa.

He had left his room as if he had never been in it. In fact, he had left it so completely that in order to visualise him in it at all Edie had to remember all the way back to the serious-minded boy in gumboots who had so feared the leak in the roof that going up and down the staircase had been a real test of courage for him. That was the boy who was now proposing not only to devote himself to his girlfriendas pregnancy but also to put his own career on hold when Ruthas maternity leave was over in order to care for their child. He said it was his choice to do that, he said it was what he wanted.

aIs it a" is it what Ruth wants?a aOf coursea.

aBut I thought you couldnat bear the flata"a aWhat I couldnat bear,a Matthew said, awas the situation. And then I could hardly bear what followed it. But now itas changed. Everythingas changed. Everythinga.

Edie looked at him.

aYes,a she said faintly.

She sat down now, on the edge of Benas bed, and then she lay back and contemplated the ceiling. When she and Vivien were growing up, she had always prided herself on being like their father, a restless man who found any kind of routine not so much anathema as impossible. Vivien, of course, was like their mother, the kind of person who sees change as some malevolent plot deliberately devised to distress her. But look at Vivien now, staring into the wreckage of the fragile edifice shead spent so much of her life patching and mending, and not, repeat not, falling to pieces. It was Vivien who, in between looking for flats in Fulham for herself -aWhy shouldnat I live further in? Whoas to stop me living exactly where I want?a a" was urging Edie to think of where she and Russell might live after the house was sold. aWhy donat you think about Clerkenwell? Or Little Venice? Why donat you have an adventure?a It was Vivien who had said to Edie, aGoing on is hard, but going back would be a whole lot worsea.

Going back. Edie stretched her eyes wide and focused on a long, wavering crack in the plaster above her head. To think now how she had longed to go back, how fiercely she had told herself that all she wanted, all she was truly able to do, lay in what she had already done, in the way she had lived her life since they had moved into the house. But if she was completely truthful with herself and somebody, some fairy godmother, materialised out of the battered walls of Benas bedroom and offered her the chance to go back, she would have to make sure of where she was going back to. Not, now, to maternal supremacy, not, now, to that beguiling power of sustenance and control, that luxurious simplicity of society-approved choice: children first, everything else second. What she would have to say, slightly embarrassedly, to the fairy godmother, was that she would indeed like to go back, but not very far back, back in fact only as far as the first night of the production of Ghosts, when she had known that she had done something exceptionally well, and been applauded for it.

aHow odd,a shead say to the fairy godmother, ato have one hunger almost replaced by one so very differenta.

aNot replaced,a the fairy godmother would reply, adjusting her gauzy skirts, amerely augmented by, added to. Nothing, you see, stands stilla.

Russell had said that. Head been shuffling through some property brochures that Vivien had zealously sent and he said, aI never thought wead leave this house, I never thought I could, but now I wonder if I could stay. Nothing stands still, does it, and I suppose, if it did, wead stop breathing. Itas not change thatas so painful, itas just getting used to ita.

Edie sat up slowly. It actually wasnat getting used to change that hurt, it was getting used to the truth, or whatever that element was that wasnat the illusions youad clung to and comforted yourself with for more years than youad care to remember. And once youad started doing without the illusions, you got braver, you could breathe the thinner air, take longer strides, allow yourself to make claims. And the claim I want to make, Edie thought, getting to her feet and moving towards the window again, is to work. I want to act again, I want to be on a stage or in front of a camera, and I mind very much indeed that nobody has asked me, since Ghosts.

She looked down the garden. Russell was standing outside the shed holding Rosaas old fairy cycle. Russell had said she must keep the faith, that there would be other parts, that he would help her to change agents if she thought that would make a difference. She leaned her forehead against the glass of the window and stared at him. He had put the bike down now and was pulling out of the shed yards and yards of crumpled green plastic netting that they had once used in an attempt to stop the boysa footballs flying over the fence into neighbouring gardens. He looked purposeful and determined and, at the same time, as if this task was far from easy. He looked like someone who was doing something he didnat want to do in order to be able to move on to something better. He looked like the kind of person Edie was going to have to be when she ate all the hard words and thoughts she had uttered and believed in the past about his agency, and asked him for work to tide her over until a" until something better came up.

aIall do anything,a she planned to say to him, aand Iall do it properly,a and he would give her a long look back and say with emphasis, aYes, you willa.

She took her face away from the window and bent to pick up the bucket. She would go downstairs now, and make a mug of tea and carry the tea down the garden to Russell, and she would ask him, there and then a" humbly and there and then a" if he could help her. She looked back from the doorway, at Benas room. It was his bedroom but it was also the past and there was, suddenly, excitingly, frighteningly, no time like the present. Not, that is, if you wanted a future. Edie closed the door behind her, and trod carefully down the stairs.

aaPerhaps,aa Lazlo constantly said to her as Osvald Alving, aaPerhaps thereall be lots of things for me to be glad about a" and to live for aaa Arsie was waiting at the foot of the stairs. He looked up as Edie passed him and made a small, interrogative remark.

Edie paused and bent to touch the top of his head with her free hand.

aaYes,aa she said, as Mrs Alving had always said. aaYes, Iam sure there will.aa Joanna Trollope has been writing for over thirty years. Her enormously successful contemporary works of fiction, several of which have been televised, include; The Choir; A Village Affair; A Passionate Man and The Rectoras Wife, which was her first #1 bestseller, and made her into a household name. Since then she has written The Men and the Girls; A Spanish Lover; The Best of Friends; Next of Kin; Other Peopleas Children; Marrying the Mistress; Girl from the South; Brother and Sister and Second Honeymoon. Her latest novel is Friday Nights. Trollope has also written Britanniaas Daughters, a non-fiction study of women in the British Empire, as well as a number of historical novels now published under the name Caroline Harvey. Joanna was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1996 for services to literature.

Visit her website at: www.joannatrollope.com.

Also by Joanna Trollope.

THE CHOIR.

A VILLAGE AFFAIR.

A PASSIONATE MAN.

THE RECTORaS WIFE

THE MEN AND THE GIRLS.

A SPANISH LOVER.

THE BEST OF FRIENDS.

NEXT OF KIN.

OTHER PEOPLEaS CHILDREN

MARRYING THE MISTRESS.

GIRL FROM THE SOUTH.

BROTHER & SISTER.

FRIDAY NIGHTS.

By Joanna Trollope writing as Caroline Harvey LEGACY OF LOVE.

A SECOND LEGACY.

PARSON HARDINGaS DAUGHTER

THE STEPS OF THE SUN LEAVES FROM THE VALLEY.

THE BRASS DOLPHIN.

CITY OF GEMS.