'It was, in those days, wasn't it? A girl didn't have options, not like now.'

'Is now really so very different?'

'Don't be ridiculous. Of course. We all have options. There's no excuse now just to settle for something.'

Nicole stood up abruptly. 'Susan's brought something totally wicked-looking for dessert. I'll get it, if someone gives me a hand to clear these plates.' Her mouth was set in a hard line, and she wouldn't meet Harriet's eye.

Clare stood up quietly. 'I'll help.'

Harriet closed her copy of I Capture the Castle and laid it beside her placemat.

Polly and Cressida It wasn't that Cressida was locked away in the bathroom for hours every morning, heaving theatrically. Or that she was wearing her baggiest jumpers. Or eating lots, or eating nothing. It started out as a feeling. Cressida had changed since Christmas. At first Polly, typical single mother, had looked to herself for the blame. Maybe Cressida wasn't as happy as she had seemed about Polly accepting Jack's proposal. Perhaps she found it embarra.s.sing, inappropriate, to watch the two of them together. Maybe it was strange having a man who wasn't your father at home all the time. She was as sure as she could be and she had thought about it, which made her feel horrid that Jack's behaviour towards Cressida was everything it should be and nothing it shouldn't. Could Dan be putting on pressure in some way? It didn't seem likely: it wasn't his style. Perhaps the Joe thing had run its course and she wasn't sure how to tell him it was over Polly couldn't imagine it was the other way round. Not college, surely... Cressida loved the course.

But something wasn't right. And, frankly, Polly was a bit fed up with it. Cressida was too b.l.o.o.d.y old for a teenage funny-five-minutes. She'd been a pretty easy kid at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, but Polly had no intention of putting up with a late adolescence. By nature Polly was confrontational about problems: festering, sulking and petulance were a cancer to her eating away at her family's equilibrium.

But, lately, Cressida had put quite a lot of effort into dodging what would obviously be a difficult conversation. So, that afternoon, as she put away the Sainsbury's shop (for probably the millionth time, she reflected, squashing tins of beans into the too-full larder cupboard), Polly was feeling frustrated and not a little hurt. She'd tried that morning, she really had. Over breakfast she'd said, 'I've a free day today. Daniel's at Dad's and Jack's sorting out some stuff at his place. How about coming to Kingston shopping with me? We haven't done that since before Christmas. Just the two of us. We could even have a laugh in the Bentall's bridal department. I can just see you in a peac.o.c.k-blue taffeta job. And I promise to try on the most hideous dress you can find, just for your amus.e.m.e.nt. Mind you, they'd think I was the mother of the bride, I suppose.'

'Can't, Mum. Sorry. I've promised someone. See you.' And she'd been gone, quick as that.

Bentall's bridal department wasn't so enticing on her own, and Susan was busy with Alice, so she'd taken a deep breath and tackled the supermarket. The worst thing about working full-time was having to negotiate the aisles and tempers on Sat.u.r.day morning with the rest of the world. No, take that back. The worst thing about shopping was having to put it away.

Polly staggered upstairs under the weight of loo rolls, shampoo, a deodorant for Daniel and a month's supply of tampons. She opened the cupboard on top of the water tank, and attempted to push everything in. She was moving last summer's now defunct factor-15 to one side when she noticed something. Every month she bought two boxes of Lil-lets, super for herself and regular for Cress. Her own last month's box was nearly empty. Cressida had one, two, three unopened boxes. Polly had been buying and putting them away without noticing.

She opened the door to Cressida's bedroom, feeling strangely guilty. She was often in the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her daughter brush the fabulous hair she'd inherited from her dad, listening to stories about student friends, collecting the dirty laundry that both kids left mouldering on the floor. But it was an unspoken rule that she didn't go into their own bedrooms when they weren't there, as they didn't come into hers.

Ostensibly everything was as usual: a funny mixture of little girl and lovely young woman. It was a room on the cusp, with teddies still squashed at one end of the bed, ill at ease with the CDs, makeup, and tiny underwear strewn elsewhere. The mirror was framed with snapshots of friends, smiling brazenly to the camera. Cards birthday, Valentine, silly sorrys stood on the desk among the papers. And the two big black art folders Polly had given her for Christmas were leaning against a chest-of-drawers, one spilling out something vibrantly coloured. On the dressing-table there was an aerosol deodorant, a tub of hair wax and a bottle of the 'grown-up' perfume Dan had given her every year on her birthday since she was thirteen. ('You're a young woman now. About time you stopped smelling like sweaty socks at a bonfire'.) No tampons.

Polly was anxious now, and that made her do something she would normally have recoiled from. Leaning over Cressida's desk, she opened the black plastic diary that lay there. It was marked with a bright pink ribbon that declared the diary's owner to be a 'groovy chick'.

And it almost jumped off the page at her: the telephone number of the family-planning clinic at college, circled in red, on a date some time in the second week of January.

A couple of hours later the house was in darkness when Cressida's key turned in the lock. Earlier, Polly had made two calls: to Dan, 'Can you keep Daniel with you tonight? Something's come up and I need a bit of time to sort it out... no, thanks, love, it'll be fine... just hang on to Danny for me... you, too. 'Bye.' To Jack, 'I need to take a rain-check on the cinema tonight. I think Cress might be in trouble and I want to talk to her about it... Can I tell you later?... Thanks, sweetheart... yes, I'll call you in the morning. I love you too. Night.' Then she sat and waited.

'Mum?'

'I'm in here.'

Cressida went straight to the lamp and switched it on. 'What are you doing in the dark? Where's Danny and Jack?' She saw her mother's face. Started to speak, then just sat down, heavily, on the edge of the sofa, opposite Polly.

'Cress, don't you think it's about time you told me?'

The relief in Cressida's shoulders, in the sob that escaped before she buried her face in her hands, covered with stretched jumper, shocked Polly. The distance she had aimed to keep between them for this conversation was suddenly too far, and she was across the room, pulling her daughter's lovely head on to her own chest, murmuring as though Cress were a baby. 'There, there. Sssh.'

Long minutes of silence later, Cressida asked, 'How did you guess?'

'Oh, darling, I've known for a few weeks that something was wrong. I've only just today concentrated on working out what it might be. I'm sorry have I been too far up my own b.u.m since this wedding business?'

'Oh, Mum, don't you say sorry. Typical! I'm the one who's stuffed up, and you're the one apologising. I didn't want you to know. I thought I could sort it out on my own but it's got away from me. It's all too big, you know?' More tears.

Polly cuddled her a bit more, then sat up and pushed her hair behind her ears. 'Let's be very British and have a cup of tea with sugar. Got us through the war, you know.' Cressida smiled weakly.

Later, in the kitchen, Polly thought she had better be practical. 'Darling, how far along do you think you might be?' G.o.d, saying that was scary made it real.

'About three months, I guess. I must have been you know before Christmas, but I didn't know until January. You know I've always been a bit late, and I suppose I didn't think about it, what with everything that was going on...' Her voice trailed off. 'And we were careful. We were, Mum, honest.'

'Oh, love, it happens. I'm sure you were.' Polly felt sick, and stupid. She always told people, like a mantra, 'We're so close, Cressida and I, more like sisters, really. I was so young when she was born, you see.' She didn't even know Cressida and Joe had been sleeping together. Not for sure. In fact, she had thought Cressida would be bound to talk to her about it if she was thinking of doing it. At the very least she had believed she would recognise the change in her if she had slept with Joe. To be honest, she had seen their relationship as a cushion between Cressida and the big bad world of s.e.x the two of them had been together so long, and there was something so comfortable, s.e.xless somehow, about them that Polly had believed Cressida would be chaste for a while longer. 'Have you been to see anyone? A doctor? Someone at college?'

'No. I couldn't face that, Mum. If I'd gone to the surgery, Roger might have seen me and then he'd have told Susan and it might have got back to you. I got the number of the clinic at college, but I lost my nerve. I can't believe I've been so thick. I'm probably too late to do anything about it now.'

Is that what she wants? Polly thought. Thank G.o.d. An abortion had to be the best way Christ, wasn't it the only way? Cressida had it all in front of her. She couldn't give it up now.

But suddenly Polly was twenty-one again, sitting in the front room, tw.a.n.ging nervously at the stretchy olive-green cover of the three-piece suite, listening to her mother ranting: 'How could you be so stupid, Poll? Did I teach you nothing? Your father and I have slaved for years, gone without, never thought about ourselves, to put you through school, college. The world was your b.l.o.o.d.y oyster you could have been anything you wanted. Why, for Christ's sake, would you choose a life like I've had, choose all this instead of something better? This wasn't supposed to happen to you.' Throwing her arms out expansively in the small room.

Polly had never before heard such venom and rage in her mother's voice. It was the first time she had ever seen that her mother was unhappy. The contempt she had felt for her own life was staggering when she gave it vent.

Cressida was blowing her nose loudly. She looked pale and very young. More tears were welling in her red-rimmed eyes, and Polly saw that her nails were badly bitten. Not now, she told herself. There's time for all this. She did a quick calculation in her head. If Cress hadn't suspected anything until New Year, she must be eleven or twelve weeks. There was time to make it all right. Polly knew instinctively that tonight was not the time to force Cressida to become an adult, responsible and efficient. She must let her be a child while Polly was her mother. Just as she had always been, even when her own mother was pouring scorn on that role all those years ago. It hurt to think that her baby had been struggling on her own with this secret for weeks. Her poor, poor baby.

'What does Joe think?' she ventured. It was hard to picture the lad as a tower of strength and support.

'Joe doesn't know,' Cressida sat upright. 'and I don't want him to.'

'But, Cress, sweetheart, he-'

'No, Mum. Promise me. I don't want to tell him, and I don't want you to either. Promise. Please? Mum? Please?' More sobs, big, long, loud.

'Okay, baby, okay, baby.' Polly rocked Cressida gently.

Hours later, Cressida had fallen asleep on the sofa, and was curled up now in its feathery depths like a baby. My baby, Polly thought, as she laid a plaid blanket gently over her, tucking a rogue curl back from her face.

In the kitchen, she poured a gla.s.s of wine, drank deeply from it and leant against the sink. She looked at the phone suddenly felt hugely lonely and scared. She wanted Jack.

He answered after four rings. He sounded sleepy.

'It's me. Did I wake you, sweetheart?'

'You did, as it happens, but it's fine. I'm in my armchair, as usual, so it's just as well. Maybe I am a sad old git, after all. What's going on? Things sounded a bit odd when you rang earlier. Did you get to the bottom of it?'

'Oh, Jack.' Polly started to cry softly.

For a couple of minutes, Jack murmured to her, stroking her down the phone with his calm, strong voice. Then he said, 'Darling, do you want me to come over? I could be there in just a while.'

She loved that about him: no explanation required, just a promise to be with her. But it wasn't a good idea. 'No, Jack. No, thanks. It's Cressida. Oh, G.o.d, Jack, she's pregnant.'

'Whoa! Christ.'

'Exactly. You can't be any more shocked than I was. I knew something was up you and I both did but the penny only dropped this afternoon. And I had it out with her this evening.'

'Where is she?' Jack sounded worried.

'Here. She's had a good cry and she's fallen asleep. I think she's relieved to have it out in the open. She's known for a few weeks, and the poor kid's obviously been scared to death. I feel so stupid, Jack. I had no idea.'

'You're not stupid, love. How could you have known? I didn't even know Cress and Joe were at it.'

'Neither did I, Jack. Neither did I.' Polly leant her head against the wall, with the phone cradled against her shoulder. She felt old.

Susan Roger had a late surgery so Susan and Alice had eaten together at the kitchen table. Now they were in the living room, one at each end of the deep sofa. Susan was trying to read Atonement. She's only got half-way, and the meeting was next week. But she couldn't concentrate. She was watching her mum. Alice was supposedly reading a colour supplement from one of the Sunday papers, which went largely ignored on Sundays but spent the week on the coffee table. This one had a feature on Robert de Niro, who was promoting some film or other. No chance of getting Roger to that he had a pathological dislike of the actor and any film he was in. Susan didn't know why she didn't think Roger really did, either.

Alice was holding the magazine upside down. Susan turned it round for her.

'Oh, thank you, dear.' But now that it was the right way up, she still wasn't reading it, although she had her gla.s.ses on. She hadn't turned a page in ten minutes, and, now that Susan looked at her, she could see that she was staring into the middle distance. 'Not in the mood for reading tonight, Mum?'

'Oh, yes, dear, very interesting.'

'You're not reading it, though, Mum.'

'Oh. I'm not?' It was a question.

'Are you tired?'

'Me, dear? No, no. You go off to bed, though, if you like. I'll wait for your dad.'

Roger had told her there wasn't any point in arguing, or correcting her, because Alice's short-term memory made it impossible for her to hold on to whatever you told her. But Susan couldn't do that. It felt like surrendering.

'Dad's not coming home, Mum. Roger is coming home.' She spoke slowly, and she held Alice's hand as though it might help.

'Oh, Roger, of course. Silly me. Lovely boy, Roger. A lovely boy.'

'He is, Mum. Not so much a boy, these days, though. Do you remember? We've been married for years it'll be twenty-five next April.'

'Twenty-five years?' Alice said slowly, working the words around her mouth. Her eyes were blank. 'A happy marriage is a wondrous thing.' She sounded as if she was reciting poetry, or sermonising. 'We had the very happiest, your dad and me.'

'I know you did, Mum. Would you like me to get you the alb.u.m, so you can look at some pictures of Dad?'

Now she smiled at Susan, all maternal and warm. 'No, dear, there's no need for that. I've got it all locked away up here.' She pointed at her temple, where the hair was thinning, yellow white. Then she tapped her forehead sagely a couple of times. 'You don't need pictures, if you've a fine memory.' She was still for a moment, then nodded again, as if she had completed the inventory of her mind and was satisfied.

She leant over suddenly and kissed Susan's cheek. Her cheek was cool and powdery. 'You're a good girl, Susan. We were so lucky to get you. So lucky.'

That made it harder. 'I wanted to talk to you about something, Mum.' I'm going to put you in a home. I can't cope with you, and everybody tells me I mustn't try, so I'm going to get rid of you.

'Lovely, darling. Let's just have a nice cup of tea, shall we? I'll make it.' She started to get up.

'No, Mum, you sit down. I'll get it.'

'You're an angel. You do that, and then we'll have that chat.'

When she came back with two mugs, Alice had turned the television on, and was staring straight through a doc.u.mentary about insects. The volume was at its highest level. Susan took the remote control and turned off the sound. 'We were going to talk, Mum? Can I switch it off?'

'Oh, no, darling. Your father will love this he's mad on this sort of thing. He'll be home any minute.' She took her tea, and patted Susan's hand gently, dismissively, never taking her eyes off the screen.

March.

Reading Group.

Atonement.

IAN MCEWAN 2001.

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend, who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.

By the end of that day the lives of all three will have changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

Atonement is Ian McEwan's finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and cla.s.s, at its centre is a profound and profoundly moving exploration of shame and forgiveness, of atonement and the difficulty of absolution.

'What are you making that face for?'

'What face?'

'That "I hated it" face.'

'Oh, G.o.d, I'm not, am I?'

A chorus of 'Yes' rippled good-naturedly round the sofas.

'You made that face about all the books I suggested!'

'I just didn't fancy any of them. Sorry.' Harriet made a self-deprecating face.

'Can you remember the last book you really liked?'

'Yep. Heartburn. Loved it. And I Capture the Castle.'

'Do you know why?'

'Actually...' Harriet shuffled her book and her notebook, tapping the edges like an orderly secretary after a meeting '... I think I do.'

Clare loved it when the book group took this turn it was usually Harriet who started it. She didn't like talking about this bit or that bit of a book she was still afraid she might say something stupid or just wrong, or have missed something through reading too quickly. The others seemed to have read so much more of this stuff than she had. Really, she wasn't much of a reader. She had devoured the Sue Barton series Student Nurse, District Nurse, that lot when she was a kid, and she remembered one of the girls at school bringing in her mother's copy of Lace, by Shirley Conran when they were all about twelve, and reading them the rude bits. After the goldfish scene Susie Atterbury had burst into tears and had to lie down in the sick room. Clare had quite liked it. When she was training at St Thomas's the flat had been full of magazines (and policemen from the station in Lambeth Sue Barton might have bagged a doctor, but most nurses seemed to end up with PCs): light relief after textbooks and wards. Thick glossy novels had been reserved for holidays.

Elliot was the reader. He browsed in Waterstone's for his books while she was more of a Tesco shopper chuck in the new one by so-and-so, with its pretty pastel cover, next to the pet.i.t pois and the fromage frais. In recent years she'd had a go at a few of Elliot's. She hadn't been able to make sense of Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Elliot said it reminded him of d.i.c.kens, with all its characters and sub-plots. Clare just felt, each time she picked it up, as though she'd missed a chunk the text escaped her. It made you look clever, though, so she'd held it up across her chest beside the pool on that holiday they'd had in Cyprus in 1996; she'd had her sungla.s.ses on, and dozed off behind them. Elliot got cross with her. It was affected, he said, this feigning of ignorance. He called her Uriah Heep (who the h.e.l.l was he?) because he said she always offered an opinion apologetically about politics, literature and big things, as if she was unworthy. She was just as clever as him, he said, and most other people.