'I wish they would put what the book was about on the back. It's really offputting when it's just quotes. You want to know what the story's about, not whether it's won loads of prizes or critical acclaim. That just makes it pretentious, doesn't it? This is a cla.s.sic example of a book I would never have picked up if it hadn't been for the reading group.'

'Me too. I'm glad I did.'

'Oh, G.o.d, and me. I think it's my favourite of the whole year.'

'Definitely.'

'Really? It was nowhere near for me. I thought it was boring. For the first hundred pages or so I didn't give a d.a.m.n. It was so agonisingly slow. I'd never have finished it on my own.'

'I can't believe you thought that! It was exquisite. I really, really believed that Griet was real it had that authentic quality, like you were reading a real diary.'

'I know. Didn't you keep flipping back to the front cover? When there was that bit about him making her pierce her other ear, even though it wasn't going to be in the painting, and even though it was agony for her, didn't you spend ages looking at the front cover wondering why?'

'No. It was obvious. He was testing her feelings, flexing his power over her. I thought he was a bit of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He knew she loved him, and he knew she would do whatever he asked her to do.'

'He never tried it on with her, though, did he?'

'Wasn't that the times they lived in, more than anything?'

'I don't think so. There was more illicit s.h.a.gging going on then than there is now. She did it with the butcher in the alleyway because she thought that other guy, the patron, was going to rape her, didn't she?'

'So that if she got pregnant the butcher would have to marry her.'

'I think it was more that he just wasn't interested.'

'He was interested enough to get his wife pregnant every ten months, though, wasn't he?'

'But that just shows the contempt he had for her, and for "ordinary" women. You never saw him show her any affection. It was just physical. Functional. Like the household, which his mother-in-law had to run for him. He couldn't be doing with anything practical or base. For him it was just the painting. Do you remember it says several times that he wouldn't paint any faster, compromise his perfectionism, even though the family finances were really stretched?'

'Yeah, selfish git.'

'No, real artist. That's what the author wants you to think, I think. One of those people who just isn't of this world.'

'And it was Griet's sense of colour and s.p.a.ce, which she demonstrated in the kitchen with those vegetables the first time they met, that attracted him, even though she was a servant and a woman.'

'I don't think that was all. I think the scenes where he's painting her are as s.e.xy as h.e.l.l.'

'I agree. Completely heavy with desire, aren't they?'

'I waited two hundred and forty-seven pages for him to throw her down on the bed, and it never b.l.o.o.d.y well happened!'

'You can choose Lady Chatterley's Lover when it's your turn if it's dirty bits you're after. This was much more subtle than that.'

'It gave me a real ache in the stomach. She knows nothing can ever come of it. She knows she has to settle for the butcher. The resignation...'

'Absolutely.'

'She isn't cowed, though, not really. When she gets the pearls, you know, after he dies, she uses the money to buy back her freedom. No one but her will ever know she's done it, but she knows, and that's enough.'

'Don't you think she sells them because she knows they belong to a different life, one she's not ent.i.tled to have? She says it, doesn't she? "A butcher's wife did not wear such things, no more than a maid did."'

'So, do you reckon he left her the pearls because he loved her?'

'No, out of guilt. He knew he had shown her a glimpse of a world that she could never have.'

'No, he left them as thanks, and remembrance. He would never have acknowledged in his lifetime the debt he owed her she was the one who made that painting what it is. So he did it after he died.'

'Don't you think there was a big cliche running through the whole thing? Don't you think Griet was just the younger woman to the man whose wife didn't understand him?'

'No, I don't, because nothing ever happened between them.'

'That's not the definition of cheating I'd use. They cheated on his wife. They spent lots of time together in a place where his wife was refused entry. And he told her things and shared things with her that his wife had no knowledge of. That's cheating. s.e.x is just s.e.x. They might as well have done it.'

'Do you realise that most of the women we've read about this year have pretty miserable lives? Because of men. That's the most consistent theme.'

'Because of men, or because of themselves?'

'Don't be pedantic. What gets done to them what they let be done to them. That's the same thing.'

'It absolutely is not.'

'I agree. I think the ones that get redemption, or even where you're left believing they will be okay like, say, Heartburn, or Paula in the Roddy Doyle are the ones who take the control back.'

'You always generalise, did you know that? Every month.'

'I do not. Can I help it if I see the wider picture?'

'Hah!'

'Are we turning ourselves into a feminist book group? Because if we are, I would like to state for the record that I like men. Nearly all of them. Some more than others, admittedly, but in principle I'm for them.'

'Me, too. And I'm not about to start shaving my head, wearing dungarees and quoting Germaine Greer.'

'Enough, already. You lot have the concentration span of squid. Who's for trifle?'

'I love this reading group.' Harriet beamed at the other three.

'You love everything tonight.' Susan smiled. 'What's up with you? You're acting like a newly-wed.

Harriet exchanged a glance with Nicole. 'Something like that.'

'Hey,' Polly cried, 'I've got dibs on all things newly-wed. Seventeen days to go.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, is that all? I'm never going to lose that half-stone, not with Christmas to get through.'

'Give up, Harriet, for G.o.d's sake!' Susan laughed. 'You've been saying that as long as I've known you it's the same seven pounds that just keeps going on and coming off. Learn to love it, I say. And buy a bigger size.'

'I can't. Me and my weight have been the longest relationship of my life.' She laughed, and took a truffle out of the box that Susan had put on the table to eat with coffee. She pa.s.sed one to Nicole, who ate it, still vaguely surprised at herself.

'But I do. I love this reading group. I think it's time to reflect we've been together for a year now and I've come to look forward to these Wednesday nights as much as almost anything else.'

'Are you going to suggest a group hug next, because I think I may need to excuse myself if you are?' Nicole was goading her. She knew exactly what Harriet meant.

'We've read some great books,' Susan said.

'And some absolute turkeys,' Polly added.

Harriet leant down and pulled a piece of paper out of her handbag. 'I've started on a list for next year. We have absolutely got to read Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I can't believe we haven't read a Margaret Atwood you can't call yourself a proper reading group if you haven't read Margaret Atwood. There's a sequel to Rebecca out, by Sally Beauman, who wrote that fantastic book do you remember? Destiny. And I'm still determined to make you all fall in love with Jane Austen.'

'Hang on. Isn't this a democracy? We all get to choose, don't we?'

'All except you, I vote.' Harriet sn.i.g.g.e.red. Nicole looked round the table for support, but Polly and Susan were laughing as well.

'You may laugh. You'll only make it worse for yourselves when it is my turn to choose. I feel a bit of Salman Rushdie coming on...'

They all groaned.

She nodded at them, like a mother nods at a naughty child. 'What about new members? Without Clare we're a bit on the minimal side.'

They ran the idea round their heads. It had been a pretty weird year for all of them. When they'd first sat down at this table, with their carefully read copies of Heartburn, and that strange first-day-of-term feeling, they'd all been fundamentally different. Nicole and Harriet had been unhappily married; Susan had had a mother she loved and thought she knew everything about; Clare had had no future; Polly had thought that becoming a grandmother was something in her far distant future. Everything had been turned on its head, and everything was different now for all of them. Some of their lives had become simpler, some had gone through complications they could never have imagined. And through it all, there'd been this forum where they had come together, sometimes to share their secrets, sometimes to escape them, but always to listen to each other and talk about life, in the abstract or absolutely in the present. They had learnt so much more than they had expected to. This felt comfortable for them now: they knew each other. It would feel strange, wouldn't it, having other people here?

'Nah.' Polly shook her head.

Susan did too. 'I'm happy.'

'You're happy because there are fewer people here to argue with you. Suppose we got someone really clever in. Who actually got out of bed at university to go to lectures. That'd pee on your bonfire, wouldn't it?'

Harriet lifted her nose in the air, haughtily, and looked round the table at her friends. 'I just dare you to try!'

Acknowledgements.

I would like to thank everyone at Penguin for their support, their consummate professionalism and their dedication. I feel very lucky to be a part of this team.

The following individuals are all owed a special debt of grat.i.tude for the help they have given me: Nicola Barker, Stephanie Cabot, Mari Evans, Sue Fletcher, Margaret Forster, Katy Gibb, Jamie Hodder-Williams, Catherine Holmes, Katharine Livingstone, Jonathan Lloyd, Louise Moore, Hazel Orme, Ian Osborne, Annabel Robinson, Maura Savage, Jenny Shaw, Alison Stubley, Kathryn Sweet, Yvonne Temple, Tom Weldon and William Young.

And lastly, but definitely not least, I thank, with love, my family, David, Tallulah and Ottilie Young.

end.