'And...'

'I said I saw the world as a sort of giant compost heap... no, listen Spence, I thought it was a really good a.n.a.logy. Stop laughing.'

'I'm sorry,' said Spencer, composing himself, 'but Sylvie's right, that is wonderfully prosaic. "In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth and the earth was a kind of giant compost heap." '

'Yes, all right.' She found herself grinning reluctantly. 'But at least you don't use the phrase as if you're speaking to a peasant. And you don't have who was the bloke in the film? '

'Robert Browning.'

' Robert Browning agreeing with every word you say. They give me this look and I can feel my knuckles starting to sc.r.a.pe the ground give me a couple of months and I'll have forgotten how to use tools. My opposing thumbs will wither away.'

'She's really got under your skin, hasn't she?' said Spencer, bemused.

'Yes, she has, and I don't know how to cope with her, I don't have a strategy. If I say anything even vaguely defensive she folds up like a deckchair and Peter gets all hurt and disappointed. You know they write in novels "she nestles in his arms"? I swear, that is literally what she does. He probably feeds her undigested food when I'm not looking.' She took a long, soothing drink of beer. 'And the thing is,' she said, more meditatively, 'when she gets upset I never know whether it's my fault or not.'

If Spencer had been standing, he would have had to sit down.

'What?' she asked, noticing his expression.

He hesitated for a moment and then checked his watch.

'What?' she asked again.

'Just thought I'd better note the time for the records nine fifteen, February the thirteenth, nineteen ninety-one, public expression of self-doubt from Fran Tomlinson.'

She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

'It's not something you normally do,' he said gently.

'Really? Don't I?'

'No.' He tried to swallow his laughter at her amazement. 'Sylvie's clearly having a terrible effect on you.'

'I'm sure I have private self-doubt,' she said, a touch uncertainly.

'Well maybe you just hide it better than the rest of us.' Though he hoped that wasn't true; he really hoped that Fran's psyche wasn't a vicious maelstrom of self-destructive angst and internal conflict, kept in check only by a meniscus of iron will. It seemed unlikely.

'Anyway, what I meant,' said Fran briskly, moment of introspection apparently over, 'is that it's impossible to know in advance what's going to upset her. Her whole life is a minefield. You mention the word "uncle" you find her uncle's just died. You happen to say that you think tortoisesh.e.l.l cats are hideous, you find out that her first ever cat was a tortoisesh.e.l.l and someone reversed over it.'

'Her uncle?' suggested Spencer.

'Exactly. You mention in pa.s.sing that music therapy's a complete waste of time '

His jaw dropped.

'Just kidding, Spence. But it's a kind of power she has. Sometimes it feels deliberate she wrong-foots me every time. Nothing's straightforward any more.' She finished her beer and plonked it onto the table. 'I've had enough of it.'

'I'm sure you all have,' he said, with feeling. He wondered how poor old Peter was coping with this running battle between Morgan le Fay and Jet from Gladiators.

'Well, yes. Hence the meeting tomorrow evening.' She picked up the pencil again. 'And it's nearly two years since we bought the b.l.o.o.d.y thing so I suppose it's time we talked through the options. What there are of them.'

'OK.' Spencer hauled himself upright and tried to look alert. 'How do you want to do this?'

'Well, you know Peter he'll want a thorough discussion of every single permutation, even the ridiculous ones, so I want to be prepared. I want my arguments marshalled.' She thought for a moment, beating a little tattoo with her pencil on the table top. 'What about if you do the pros and I do the cons? It'll be mainly cons.'

'Fine.' He stifled a yawn. The crickets that had escaped from the lizard tank had set up a breeding colony in his room, and he was finding it difficult to sleep. The noise that he had once found soporific was horribly disturbing when it came from just behind the bedside table, accompanied by unpleasant rustlings.

'OK,' said Fran, starting to write. 'Number one sell the house. Pros?'

'Ideal solution.'

'Cons. Completely f.u.c.king impossible.' She marked a brisk little cross by the option and then suddenly looked up. 'Did I tell you the house opposite's been on the market so long that a bat hibernated in the little gap between the two halves of the sign? A pipistrelle. First sighting in Dalston, apparently.' Her face, alight with momentary enthusiasm, resumed its expression of serious intent. 'Right, number two. Everybody moves out and we put the house up for rent. Pros? Actually, Spence, it's not even worth you saying anything, because the man in the letting agency said they had more stuff on their books than they knew what to do with and that it would have to be something "really special" to shift. When I said it was in Stapleton Road he laughed. b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' She put another cross on the paper.

'I'm finding this quite easy,' said Spencer.

'Number three,' she continued, ignoring him. 'This is a good one. The good one. I move out, rent somewhere else and Sylvie and Peter get in a lodger to cover the mortgage.'

'They'd need to do that, would they?'

'The payment's gone up three times in three months. It's ironic, isn't it Sylvie's actually an essential member of the household, financially speaking. Pros?'

He thought for a moment. 'You and Sylvie would be living in different places.'

'Yup, that has to be the top one. Any others?'

'You could move out of Dalston.'

'G.o.d, yes, to somewhere on the tube. That would be nice.' She noted it down.

'And cons?' asked Spencer. 'Are there any?'

Fran paused, and considered. 'I'd miss Iris,' she said. 'And I'd really miss the garden.'

'... so nearer the spring I could come over once a week for an hour or two and work on it. You'd just need to do some basic maintenance the rest of the time you know, pull up any couch gra.s.s, pick off caterpillars, nothing very demanding and we could share the veg. Of course, if you wanted to do more than that, it'd be great.' Feeling generous and slightly n.o.ble, Fran put down her list and glanced across the table. Peter was looking inscrutable, and Sylvie sat with her eyes downcast, hands knotted under the long sleeves of Peter's favourite pullover. The silence lengthened. The meeting so far had been oddly quiet no disagreements, no provocative statements instead Fran had the feeling that all parties were biding their time, manoeuvring quietly for position.

'So what do you think?' she prompted.

Peter cleared his throat. 'I think we should talk through all the possible options before we make a decision.'

'All right,' said Fran doubtfully. She glanced at her list again; after number four, the level of seriousness decreased rapidly, something she blamed on the combination of Spencer and alcohol. 'Before we go on,' she said, unwilling to relinquish her carefully thought-out plan, 'is there anything about the idea of you two staying here and me moving out that's specifically a problem?'

Peter looked at Sylvie, and her head drooped like a flower soused with paraquat. 'Yes there is,' he said. 'Sylvie doesn't like Dalston.'

'I don't think anyone likes Dalston,' said Fran. 'I don't, for a start.'

'No, I mean she wants to move away.' Sylvie nodded behind the curtain of hair.

'Oh. You mean ' hope flooded through her ' on her own?'

'No, with me. We want to move out of London.' One of Sylvie's hands emerged from a sleeve and sought one of Peter's and he took it as if accepting a gift. 'I'm applying for a job in Norwich.'

'Norwich?' said Fran, stupidly.

'We want to live somewhere where people care about each other,' said Sylvie.

'So, hang on ' said Fran, trying not to be distracted by this non-sequitur ' you want to move out, right out of London, and leave me here?'

'Yes,' said Peter.

Fran looked at her list. This was option four, and while the only 'pro' Spencer had come up with was physical separation from Sylvie, the number of 'cons' was almost into double figures, the handwriting becoming larger and more frantic as each contraindication had occurred to her.

'But that means I'd have to get two lodgers to cover the mortgage.'

Peter nodded sombrely.

'But that would be awful, it would be like running a boarding house one of me and two of them. And you wouldn't even be near enough to help with any problems. What about the next time a bit of the house falls off? This place takes two of us to maintain.' The previous weekend she and Peter had spent a whole afternoon taking turns at the top of a wavering ladder, clearing bucketfuls of putrid black gunk from the guttering.

'I'd be general handyman and landlady. I'd have to do everything.' The future scrolled away from her a constant round of interviewing prospective tenants, of reminding them about rent and bills and double-locking the front door, of dull discussions about who pays for bog roll and washing-up liquid ('but I only eat takeaways'), of clipped conversations about phone and bathroom usage and the idiosyncrasies of the pre-Cambrian thermostat, of justified complaints about lukewarm radiators and disintegrating floorboards and cupboard doors that came away in the hand. 'Oh G.o.d, Peter,' she said, with desperation, 'you can't mean it. There must be another option.'

'Well, what else do you have on your list?'

Fran hesitated; a truthful reply was impossible. It read: 5. n.o.body move out, instead learn to live together in an atmosphere of love and mutual understanding.

6. Hire an arsonist and collect on the insurance.

7. Buy a fake hand and leave it on the hall floor for Sylvie to discover.

8. Smuggle Mr Tibbs to a cattery and start sending ransom notes. ('If she really loves him then thirty-five grand's nothing' Spencer) 9. Lease the house to a film company specializing in suburban p.o.r.n.

The last suggestion had been so appealing that they had wasted nearly half an hour thinking up t.i.tles ('Sadie Does it Herself in Six Weekly Parts', 'Those Big Boys Next Door', 'How Firm Your Courgette' (subt.i.tled)) before Spencer had fallen asleep between adjacent sentences, and she had tiptoed away.

Peter was waiting for her answer. 'None of them is very practical,' she muttered, slightly ashamed, crumpling the piece of paper so that it would be unreadable from the other side of the table.

'So where does that leave us?'

'I don't know. With you applying for a job in the sticks, I suppose.'

'I've only just seen it advertised,' said Peter. 'Nothing's definite yet.'

But looking at his hand grasping Sylvie's, at the welded unit they formed together, Fran saw that the discussion was over and that all roads would henceforth lead either to Norwich or to some other provincial Utopia. Peter looked as implacable as when he'd forbidden her to borrow, or even touch, his new ca.s.sette player fourteen years ago and now, as then, her sole remaining option was to rage impotently.

'Of course it's definite,' she said. 'You've made up your mind, I can see you have. You decided this ages ago and didn't tell me. What was the point of even having this talk? You might as well have left me a note on the table and b.u.g.g.e.red off. "Dear Fran, please look after the white elephant, all it needs is twenty-four-hour care and a constant supply of money." '

'Sylvie and I have been discussing it for a while,' said Peter, calmly, 'but we had other decisions to make first.'

'Oh yeah, like what?' She felt poised for the next rally, tongue at the ready.

'Well...' He drew Sylvie's hand closer to his chest. 'Do you want me to say, Sylvie?' She raised her head and smiled at him shyly.

'I don't mind,' she said.

'Or would you rather wait?'

'No, perhaps we should say.'

'All right then. If you don't mind.'

'No, I don't mind.'

'What?' asked Fran, hoa.r.s.e with frustration.

'Well...' They exchanged complicit looks. 'Sylvie Sylvie and I are going to have a baby.'

Fran blinked at them.

'We thought you might have guessed,' said Peter. 'Sylvie's been getting terrible morning sickness.'

'And migraines,' said Sylvie, smiling wanly. Peter lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles.

'But I thought ' began Fran, and then stopped. They looked at her, Sylvie a little anxious, Peter shiny with bliss. 'Congratulations,' she said, almost too late.

'Are you pleased?' asked Sylvie.

'Yes. Yes, of course I am.'

'It means you'll be an auntie.'

'Yes, I suppose I will.' She couldn't believe her own obtuseness. How many more signs would Sylvie have needed to display? A half-knitted matinee jacket? A foetal scan sellotaped to her forehead?

'We didn't want to say anything until Sylvie was at least twelve weeks pregnant.'

'It was a surprise to us, too,' said Sylvie, eyes modestly lowered.

'You're the first person we've told.'

'Oh. Well, thanks. That's brilliant. Fantastic news.' Her mouth seemed to be doing the right thing while her brain was still lying on the canvas, being fanned by the seconds.

'When's it due?'

'August,' said Peter.

'Our little Leo,' said Sylvie.

'What, you've already picked a name?'

'No, I meant the birth sign.'

Fran realized with a jolt that there would be no getting rid of Sylvie now she might be leaving the house, but she was entering the family, and every Christmas, every wedding, every funeral would be studded with exchanges exactly like the last. She felt worn down by the burden of future feyness.