Daisy offered the incendiary, 'Mum said he could.'

'Your mum's not here, is she? This is a family day. You're seeing too much of him anyway. You're way too young to get so serious.' He looked over at Susannah. 'Back me up here, Susannah.'

Daisy had looked at her imploringly.

Susannah smiled at her, and her answer was truthful that it got up Douglas's nose was an added bonus. 'I don't mind if he's here.' Douglas glared at her, and she shrugged. What was it Amelia had said about the more the merrier? Couldn't get much less merry ... 'I really don't. If that's what Daisy wants. Sorry. But doesn't his family expect him to be with them?'

Daisy threw her a grateful smile and shrugged. 'It's no big deal at their house. He's got, like, a thousand cousins big family all shouting and screaming all the time, and they'll all be there he says his mum'll barely notice whether he's there or not. And he wants to be with me.'

Susannah remembered that feeling.

She remembered a Christmas Day when she just wanted to be with Rob. There'd been no question, of course, of skipping out on the family lunch in her house. That could never happen. But Mum had let her go at around 4 p.m. She was used, after all, to letting her go to Amelia's to watch TV and compare presents. Dad always fell asleep on the sofa with a paper hat across his eyes after lunch, and once the dishes were done, Mum just wanted to put her feet up, too. Alex had Scalextric that year, and Alastair had promised to help him put it together. She'd run all the way. Frank had cut big slices of raisiny, lemony cake from a vast cylindrical panettone, and served them with tea. Lois had given her a small bottle of Anais Anais. After the cake, Frank and Lois had gone for a walk around the village. Frank claimed he needed to walk off all the food, but Lois winked at her as they left, and Susannah had known they were giving them some space. They were much more likely to do that than Mum had ever been. Mum was forever coming in with a drink, or a question, or in search of something she claimed to have left in whichever room downstairs, always downstairs she and Rob were in. Lois had once squeezed her arm, and said she trusted them both, and wasn't averse to a closed door. Much later, Rob had walked her home, and they'd stood for ages at the end of her drive, kissing and kissing in the cold air, until Dad came out in his slippers and called her in.

In the end, Doug relented sulkily, and Seth came after lunch. After a brief and tense conversation, in which Seth avoided eye contact with Susannah and gave monosyllabic responses to her questions, shuffling uncomfortably from one foot to the other as Douglas barely acknowledged his presence, Daisy dragged him upstairs into her room.

They were washing up in the kitchen. Susannah had relented. There were twice the number of pans, bowls and utensils there would have been if she'd cooked how did men manage to do that?

'I really don't think she should be doing that,' Douglas offered, after they'd gone, as though he expected Susannah to do something about it.

'They've left the door open,' Rosie added, having just been upstairs. She was sitting at the kitchen table, busy separating all the strawberry delights from the family-size tin of Quality Street Mum had given her yesterday.

'I'm sure it's fine. They're not exactly going to start having sex on Christmas afternoon, with us downstairs, are they?'

'Ew. Gross.' Rosie gathered her booty and left the room, her nose wrinkled in pre-teen distaste.

Douglas looked at her as if she'd just spoken Esperanto. 'Sex?' He sounded horrified.

Susannah couldn't help laughing. 'Don't make that face. You look like Rosie. She's nearly seventeen years old, Doug.'

'She's a child.'

'You may think so, but she certainly doesn't.'

'What do you mean?'

This was dangerous territory. She didn't want to have this conversation with Douglas. Not today. And especially not with Seth upstairs, in right-hook distance.

She still hadn't told him about the incident with Daisy. Nor about the subsequent visit to the doctor, nor the pink package of pills she knew Daisy was now taking. Daisy had begged her not to. That wouldn't have stopped her, if she'd thought he might take it well, or if she thought he needed to know. Deserved to know. But she suspected he wouldn't take it well, and so she'd said nothing.

She didn't think Daisy had told her mother either. After the Rosie incident, she didn't doubt she'd hear about it, if Sylvie knew. She was defiant, though. Rosie was feeling better whatever that poker-faced, mealy-mouthed teacher had thought of Susannah, she'd obviously dealt with the problem for now.

Dishes done, Doug fell heavily asleep on the sofa in front of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, adding his intermittent snoring to the already cacophonous soundtrack. As she crept away to boil the kettle for a cup of tea, Susannah heard muffled giggles coming from the top of the stairs. She almost hoped they were at it. Someone in this house should be getting some for Christmas.

Rob and Helena were making love silently or, at least, as quietly as they could under the old-fashioned sheets and blankets on the guest bed in his parents' house. Helena swung one strong, lean leg across Rob's lap and straddled him, rearing up and throwing off the covers. She looked fantastic from where he was lying, her breasts with their tiny brown nipples jutting forward, the muscles of her stomach strong and defined.

She pushed her short hair back from her forehead, and it spiked with sweat. She exhaled loudly, not moving for a moment. 'Christ! It's so hot in here. Like a sauna. How many layers are on this bed anyway?'

'Sssh.' Rob was laughing at her. 'Mum likes a warm house and a well-dressed bed.' He stroked her skin, pushing himself upwards at her. 'Don't stop. Please, don't stop ...'

She leant forward and kissed him deeply, pushing herself back hard against him, reestablishing their rhythm of a few moments earlier. 'Okay. Since you asked so nicely. I ... won't ... stop ...'

She was sexy as hell when she was like this. Dominant and confident and strong. Earlier, when she'd reached for him under the covers, he'd paused, wondering if he dare make love under his parents' roof he never had before. She'd giggled when he told her that, and then kissed him from the base of his throat down his chest and down further, way down under the candlewick and duvet and flannel, kissing until his objections faded away.

Afterwards, they whispered to each other about the day. Rob hadn't admitted how nervous he'd been. This was the first time they'd met Helena. He'd brought his wife home to meet his parents all the wrong way round. He knew how much he'd hurt his mother by getting married without her there, and he was sorry. He'd told Helena all about them, about the house, and their marriage, and Dad's illness. He realized, when they drove up to the house, that he hadn't told them much about Helena.

But Mum had treated her as if she'd known her for ever. There was no awkwardness. She'd opened her arms wide, like she always did, and held Helena tight. Told her she was beautiful, far more beautiful than in the pictures Rob had sent of her. And so skinny. Too skinny, she'd clucked. She needed feeding up.

Mum had gone crazy in the kitchen, baking and cooking for them. He almost wished she hadn't she looked so exhausted but it had clearly given her such pleasure to do it for them. The tree was up and dressed, exactly as it had been when he was a boy, with its garish, multicoloured lights and 1970s tinsel.

His dad had been in his chair by the gas fire. It was obviously a struggle for him to stand, but he did when Helena came in, though it took a while. He'd kissed her hand, like he always used to do with women, but his arm shook, and the gesture cost him, Rob could see. Helena put an arm gently around his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek, and Rob found the sight of the two of them together almost unbearably poignant. He looked at his mother, and saw her wipe away a tear, so he put an arm around her.

'He'll hate that she only sees him this way.'

'I told, her, Ma. I told her all about him. I haven't forgotten.'

'She's a beautiful girl, Rob.'

He nodded. She was. She was sitting now, on a footstool she'd pulled up so it was beside Frank. She was resting her face in her hands, and her elbows were on her knees, and she was talking softly to him.

'He seems worse.'

Lois shrugged. 'You think so? I see him every day, so I see everything and nothing, if you know what I mean.'

'He's shakier. He can barely stand, and I bet he can't walk far.' Rob hated the thought of his mother buckling under the weight of his father as she helped him to the bed next door. They were getting close, he knew, to a time when she wouldn't be able to cope alone here with him. He didn't know how he was going to handle that. It wouldn't be easy Mum was determined to care for him herself.

She nodded. 'You're right.'

'What does the doctor say?'

Lois made a clicking sound with her tongue against her teeth. 'What can the doctor say?'

Later, after they'd eaten as much of what Lois put in front of them as they could manage, Helena helped her wash up in the kitchen. From his seat beside his father, Rob could hear the two of them chatting happily. Lois was telling stories about him, he knew, but he didn't mind. He loved his mum for her easy, embracing style. Helena was laughing and exclaiming. Later, she'd promised to bring out the photograph albums, and Helena had winked mischievously at him above his mother's head.

His dad's voice was so much quieter than the booming one he remembered from his childhood. It was one of the things he missed the most. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard his father sing, and he used to sing all the time when Rob was a boy. Now, he had to lean in to catch words, and sometimes Frank had to repeat himself, something he obviously found frustrating.

'She's a looker.'

'That's what Mum says.'

'She's right. She's sweet, too, son. Much more important.'

Rob nodded. 'Like a meringue. Tough on the outside, sweet and soft inside.'

Frank laughed and raised a hand. 'I saw no tough.'

'You should see her in fatigues, ordering blokes around.'

'And you're happy together, the two of you?'

'I think we are. Yes.'

His father looked at him strangely.

Neither of them wanted to tell his parents that she was leaving in January. Not tonight, they'd agreed. They didn't even talk much about it themselves. They saw it differently. Helena was excited. She saw it as her job the thing she'd been training for. She was gung-ho to get out there. Rob knew better. But when he tried to talk to her about the realities of the situation she was about to find herself in a combat zone, a real war, with real dangers and real crises Helena almost brushed him off. It was the only real source of tension between them this difference between her expectations and his knowledge. They'd declared an amnesty over Christmas. Helena's mother, Helen, couldn't acknowledge it. And Frank and Lois didn't need to know.

Not yet, at least.

January When she was young, Susannah had made New Year's resolutions religiously, writing them out on the pages of a new diary the week before school started. Save money, get more sleep, be nicer to Mum, lose 5 lbs. She'd loved the start of a new year almost as much as September and the start of term. It always felt like anything was possible. She thought about resolutions as she walked to the underground on the 4th of January, her first day back at work. What would this year's be?

Pull yourself together.

Stop daydreaming about your past, and someone else's husband.

Lose 5 lbs.

Stop accepting the status quo.

Heal Amelia.

Be happier.

Get pregnant.

Run away.

She didn't feel exhilarated so much as exhausted, before she'd even begun. Going back to work was a relief. Christmas week hadn't panned out the way she'd planned. Sylvie had only got back on the 2nd of January, so they'd had Rosie and Fin for New Year's Eve. Another row Daisy had wanted to go to someone's holiday house in Abersoch, with a load of mates. Doug had said no the moment he'd heard Seth was going, and much door slamming and silent treatment had ensued. In the end Daisy had flounced out at around 6 p.m. on New Year's Eve, saying she was going to stay at her friend Alice's, although Susannah wasn't sure she believed her. Doug didn't check up on her either demonstrating the kind of inconsistent lack of follow-through that Amelia swore was the beginning of the end of the world in parenting terms.

Amelia and Jonathan had come round for drinks, bringing their two youngest, Elizabeth having been invited to her first formal New Year's Eve party. The kids sat stupefied in front of Harry Potter, while Jonathan and Douglas made their most valiant attempt at amiable small talk.

The women escaped to the kitchen at the earliest opportunity, claiming canape duty, but once there they both sat at the table with their champagne while Amelia told Susannah about Elizabeth. 'You should have seen her, Suze. She looked about twenty-five. She was wearing my shoes, and my earrings, my Chanel perfume. She was beautiful.'

Susannah clinked glasses with her. 'Shouldn't surprise you. You're beautiful.'

Amelia rubbed her head ruefully. She wasn't wearing the wigs they'd bought together not yet but she'd had her hair cropped very close. Because it was so blonde you couldn't see how thin it was until you were up very close to it.

Susannah tried to tell her she looked elfin like Mia Farrow in the Polanski years.

But Amelia wasn't buying it. 'Maybe once.'

'You still are, you self-pitying mare. Drink with me. Come on. Drink to the all-clear.'

'Bloody hell, yes. I'll drink to that ...' She downed the last of her glass, the fingers on both hands crossed and her eyes closed, and then held it out for more. 'Fill me up. Douglas only poured me half a glass first time round. He does know it's chemo not rehab I'm in, does he?' She was obviously feeling good. She hadn't had a treatment since just before Christmas.

There was a pattern now. Treatment. Three really crappy days. Three not quite so crappy but still really tired days, a good five or six days. Treatment. This was a good day. But it wasn't just that. She looked good, too. Her eyes were bright, and her colour was up.

'You're practically twinkling. Something's up. What gives?'

For a moment Amelia looked like she was going to withhold information, but then she remembered that she was Amelia. Leaning forward as though there were other people in the room who might overhear her, she almost whispered, 'I slept with J yesterday.'

Susannah leant, too. It was lean-worthy information. 'You did what?' Was everyone she knew having sex except her?

'Actually, there was no sleeping.' She was giggling lasciviously, suddenly more like her old self than Susannah could remember her being for the longest time. 'I should say, to be absolutely accurate, that I had spectacular, orgasmic, very yummy indeed sex with J yesterday afternoon while my mother took the kids to the IMAX to see something or other in 3D. Twice.'

'Blimey.' It had been a while since Susannah had done it twice. Years, in fact, now she was forced to think of it.

'Blimey indeed.' Amelia looked absurdly pleased with herself.

'What brought that on?'

'Christmas spirit?' Amelia laughed. 'Oh, I don't know. Christmas was part of it, though I hadn't been on the Baileys. He's been around a lot. He's been great with the kids ... and me. I haven't been a real ray of sunshine. You know that as well as anyone. He's just ... he's been a real brick.'

'So, you were paying him back? Reward sex?'

'No! It wasn't like that.'

'What was it like, then? Explain it to me.'

'Only if you tell me why you suddenly sound pissed off with me.'

'I'm not pissed off, Meels. It's none of my business.'

'We both know that isn't true.' Amelia smiled.

'I just don't want you to mess him around. You don't know what a mess he's been. You know it will mean something different to him than it means to you.'

'I don't know. Not any more.'

'What are you saying?'

Amelia shook her head. 'I'm not sure what I'm saying, Suze. Things are different, you know. This illness it makes you think. Re-evaluate. It makes things that did seem huge, and really important, seem like nonsense. Does that make sense?'

Susannah nodded.

'So, on Christmas Eve, we were all in the kitchen. All five of us. Can't remember where Mum was. Jonathan was making the brandy butter. He always used to do that, do you remember? And he hasn't made it, the last three years. And he's making it, and there's never much brandy in the bottle. There never was much brandy left in the bottle it's one of those little half-bottles of Courvoisier not any of the years we cooked a Christmas lunch. And we're having the same conversation we always used to have. Like, who drinks the brandy, because neither of us do we don't go near it, in fact, except every Christmas Eve, to make the brandy butter. The same talk we had every year. So we're laughing, and it just felt so familiar and so comfortable. And I see the kids' faces, and they're loving it. Sam is just beaming.'

Amelia's eyes had tears in them now, and Susannah reached over and touched her hand.

'And then later, at bedtime. Mum's in the guest room, so Sam is on the sofa in the study and Jonathan's got his bed, and I've gone downstairs to get a glass of water, and when I come back up, he's standing in the doorway of Victoria's room, and the light from the hall is shining on her face, and he's just staring at her.

'He kissed me goodnight. On the landing. Just on the cheek. And it felt ... it felt right. Does that make any sense at all?'

'It makes such sense to me, you have no idea. It's all the other stuff that never made any sense, Meels.'

Amelia pursed her lips and nodded her head.

'So, this is going somewhere?'

'I don't know. I don't want to make those kinds of decisions while I'm still sick.'