Lucy

'Put your finger right there, Auriol.'Obediently Auriol pushes her tiny forefinger on to the ribbon and I'm able to tighten the bow around the parcel. I step back and view my work with triumph. 'What do you think?'

'They look excellent!'says Auriol brightly as she surveys the two huge boxes wrapped in blue metallic paper, presents for Sebastian and Henry.

Inside one is an Xbox 360 and inside the second there are six games for them to play. I had considered buying them a console each but Peter said that would be too much and that it would be good for the boys to practise sharing. I doubted their ability to do this but understood the principle. In addition I've bought them each a new bike. They have bikes at their mother's but I thought the ones I'd purchased for their birthday (with fifteen gears) could stay at our home for them to use when they are here. Despite mildly chastising me that I was spoiling the boys, I knew Peter was thrilled with my efforts. I hadn't realized that gift-buying for kids is an aphrodisiac. But, at the moment, pretty much everything I do seems to have Peter simmering. I hadn't realized that he thought the Mary Poppins type was so hot. I notice that I am singing under my breath. I stop, stare at Auriol and throw her a return wide smile.

Without any warning the smile Auriol was wearing collapses, her brightness and breeziness vanishes and suddenly she is sobbing.

'I want an Xbox.'

I take a deep breath and summon my now oft-drawn-upon supplies of patience. No one ever said this was going to be easy. But no one ever said it would be this hard either. I reach for a tissue and wipe her eyes and nose (it always seems to be in need of a tissue even when she doesn't have a cold is that something I just have to get used to?).

'But it's not your birthday, sweetie,'I say reasonably.

'I want, want, want one,'she says as she slams her foot on the kitchen tiles. The vulnerable sobbing has disappeared as quickly as it arrived and in its place a tempest is stirring.

Sometimes, I still find it very hard to like her; loving her is a given but liking is occasionally still a test. Until very recently, whenever Auriol threw a tantrum I employed the policy of giving in to her immediately. Whatever it was she demanded I'd find a way to provide it. It was not because I was besotted and wanted to fulfil her every whim the truth is, I don't like scenes. If I said yes she could have another ice cream/Barbie doll/TV in her room/friend to play then I avoided a scene. As I averaged seven hours a week contact with her, it didn't really matter to me if she was spoilt to the point of being delinquent. Now, however, I try to get home most nights for bathtime or at least in time to read her a story. I don't go to the gym on Sat.u.r.days and I now have my manicure on Sunday morning, when she's at horse riding. Previously I had always timed my beautician appointments to coincide with Auriol being at home. With the increase in contact I realize that I cannot allow her tantrums to continue because I have to live with the consequences. Occasionally, of late, I've discovered that I have to bite the bullet and say no.

'When it's your birthday Mummy and Daddy will buy you whatever you want and wrap it in a big box just like this one,'I tell her.

'No!'

For a moment I'm puzzled.'Except with pink paper,'I a.s.sure her.

'And?'

I try to think. 'A purple ribbon?'

'No. No. I want a bigger box.'Auriol flounces out of the room and I follow her progress through the house, tracking her by which doors she's banging closed. As she exits dramatically, Peter comes into the kitchen. He is much more serene.

'h.e.l.lo, darling, what are you up to?'

I stand away from the beautifully wrapped gifts so that Peter can get the full benefit of my efforts with the bows.

'Just finishing wrapping up the boys'gifts,'I say with a beam. 'Are you going to take them round now?'

'Yes, I thought so. Would you like to come?'

A month ago I could have answered that question in a heartbeat. No, I would not like to visit Rose's home and I do not want to have to endure watching her brats greedily open their gifts. I would have told him that I had no interest in whether they delighted in the presents or hated them, the result was normally the same the twins would dismiss the gifts in moments and move on to the next parcel. It always sickened me. Besides, not a birthday had gone by without Rose alluding to the fact that she gave birth with nothing more than gas and air and that both the twins weighed over 8lb. I hate the way she tries to collude with Peter and constantly prompts him with 'do you remember'stories. However, now, I take a deep breath and I wonder what to say for the best. The best for everyone.

'Would you like me to come?'I ask.

'Yes,'says Peter firmly.

My heart sinks. 'I think Rose prefers it if I don't,'I comment. I'm pretty sure that if I attend the twins'party she'll surmise I'm there just to spite her. She'll end up annoyed, I'll end up frustrated. A lose/lose situation. All my good work of the last few weeks could be blasted apart in one hasty sentence.

'Auriol would love it if we went as a family,'says Peter.

It's a low trick. In the past I've followed a strict policy of limiting the time Auriol spends with Rose and the boys. I maintained that the only things Auriol could learn from Rose were pastry-making and cross-st.i.tch, not skills I felt Auriol necessarily needed. Once, when Peter was in an especially grumpy mood, he'd pointed out that maybe she'd learn respect and the ability to be pleasant from Rose. The insult was implicit but marked and I was furious. Now, I concede it might not be a bad thing for Rose to have some influence on Auriol. I'd never admit it aloud, but Sebastian and Henry aren't absolute little snots the entire time. They can be quite decent company when she's not inciting them to rebel against me.

'OK, I'll come.'

Peter looks thrilled. He cups my face in his hands and kisses me. 'You really are wonderful.'

'I know.'

For reasons which are beyond me, it takes us about another forty minutes to get ready to leave the house. I have noticed that it's impossible to go anywhere on the spur of the moment with a child or even to leave one destination smartly in order to arrive at another promptly. I'm slowly accepting this to be a life truism, but I am still uncomfortable with it. Lateness is laziness. While Peter and Auriol run around the house collecting car keys and essential favourite dolls, I utilize the few spare moments by attending to some of the e-mail which is backing up in my inbox. Shortening the hours in my day has led to a backlog of e-mails so I systematically work through them at home, adding another three or four hours on to my day after Auriol is asleep. On Thursday the unthinkable happened, I couldn't be bothered. I spent the evening shopping online for toys for Auriol instead and then on Friday Peter and I went to n.o.bu. It was an overdue trip. I am aware that I probably have over two hundred e-mails waiting for my attention and I can't put off attending to them beyond this weekend.

I see his notes immediately. His name jumps out like a vivid scab. Joe Whitehead. I'm tempted to press delete without even reading them, but there is always the slim chance that he's contacting me about a work issue. I'm being disparaged and overlooked at work enough at the moment as it is, so it would be professional suicide to ignore e-mails.

The first one is a round robin to the entire floor. It's a grumble that people congregating at the water-cooler chat too loudly and apparently he finds this distracting. Moron. I never go near the water-cooler as it is right next to his desk. I press delete, with a sense of relief.

The second note is one of those ridiculous chain letters. This one is about confidence and individuality. The instruction at the end of the note is to pa.s.s it on to ten people you admire for having those two qualities. I see from the address list that Joe has only sent the note to six people, two of whom must be relatives as they share his surname. He doesn't have ten friends, let alone ten confident and individual friends. I'm so not surprised. Maybe a nicer person would pity him. I'm just ashamed that my name has found its way into his e-mail address book. I press delete.

The third note is more worrying. I'm the only addressee.

Beautiful Lucy, you look hot in your blue suit. Is it new? Are you trying to impress me?

Yours, duly impressed, Joe x.x.x I press delete.

The fourth note is similar.

Hey Stunner, have you been working out? Your legs are looking fab. I'd like to get hot and sweaty with you again some time soon.

Yours, panting, Joe x.x.x I press delete. Notes five and six are on a similar line. The subject matter being my hair and my mouth. We have firewalls at GWH, so Joe cannot use any expletives, but the notes feel dangerous and threatening. The volume screams desperation. The fact that he has sent me so many e-mails without receiving any encouragement through a reply makes me as fearful as if the man had laid a shotgun on my desk. I delete six more notes without reading them. I doubt they are work related. As I press refresh, two more notes come into my inbox and then messenger pings on to my screen.

Hey, Sweetheart, you are on line, me too, want to chat or more?!

x.x.xx I slam down the screen of my laptop. For Joe to have a messenger link he must have tampered with my computer. The thought is horrifying. I look around, as I half expect him to be standing in the kitchen with me. I've noticed that he's always encroaching on my s.p.a.ce at work. I'm reluctant to call him a stalker because I want to believe he is too ridiculous to warrant such a threatening label. But the fact is if I venture to the bathroom or the photocopier he always seems to pop up from nowhere, right by my side. More than once I've spotted him in the queue at the deli when I've been buying my sandwiches. He seems to be in an increasing number of the same think-tank groups as I am. I try to tell myself it is just coincidence and I find ways to avoid him I hold my pee and send Julia out to buy my lunch. After receiving an insufferable number of text messages and phone calls I reported my mobile lost and changed my telephone number. This has been hugely inconvenient but has meant that Joe can't call me. I've avoided his gaze, I've rebuffed his conversation and I've never found his jokes funny so it's been easy to refuse to laugh at his gags. I thought he'd get the message. He's had his moment. There is not going to be a repeat performance.

Why doesn't he go away?

'Everything all right, darling?'

I look up and Peter and Auriol are standing in the doorway. They have their coats on and look ready to leave. They both look beautiful and the kitchen appears to glimmer in their presence. Joe's messages seem so dark by contrast. Shame scratches at my throat.

'Yes, fine,'I say hastily. And I force a smile.

'Problem at work?'

'No. Why would you think that?'

'Because you look worried.'

I kiss Peter and hurry them both out of the door.

'Nothing I can't handle,'I a.s.sure him.

44.

Sunday 3 December

Rose

I have no idea why Peter insists on torturing me on an ongoing basis. I wonder at the depth of his cruelty when I open the door and see that he has brought Lucy to the twins'birthday party. I accept that Auriol must be a guest but why is he so insistent on ruining everything?

Of course Lucy looks absolutely wonderful. She is wearing white trousers and a white shirt, for a children's party! It's madness. Or at least it would be for mere mortals; she'll probably leave the party looking immaculate. I am wearing my cerise cardigan from Monsoon and had been rather pleased with the effect until I opened the door and was faced with the combined effects of years and years of self-absorption, iron willpower (when it comes to carbs or saturated-fat intake), a platinum American Express and several hours'grooming in front of a mirror. I study Lucy very closely and note that she's wearing her latest adultery rather well. But then, it always was a look that suited her. She looks unchanged from last time I saw her and yet my whole world has altered.

Lucy presents the boys with two enormous boxes. She tells them that these presents are just the little gifts and that their real presents are waiting for them at home and they can open them next time they visit. I balk at her use of the word 'home'but as the boys'real home is full of their guests I resist pulling her up.

The boys tear off the wrapping paper while we are standing in the hall. I'm irrationally irritated by their obvious excitement. I remind myself they are just kids, they know their dad's pockets are deep and are antic.i.p.ating something especially 'cool'; it's not disloyal for them to be so clearly keyed up by Peter and Lucy's gifts. I try not to mind that my more modest, but very thoughtful presents did not attract such a frenzy of attention. I'm grateful that their desire to open the gifts as quickly as possible at least means that they are opened in the hall and Lucy is denied the theatre of all our guests looking on and appreciating her generosity.

'Wicked, a 360!'yells Sebastian.

'Look at all these games!'cries Henry. Both boys bounce up and down and, unprompted, they lavish a number of 'thank-yous'and 'just what I wanteds'on the smug and self-satisfied-looking Peter and Lucy.

The boys pick up their spoils and run through to the sitting room so that they can show off to their friends. All thoughts of the zoologist I've hired are forgotten. The boys came across Mr Mammals and his collection of exotic pets (ranging from tarantulas to pythons) at someone else's party months ago. Since then, they have repeatedly asked if he could come and entertain at their party. They've talked of nothing else all day and we've been waiting for their father to arrive, to let the show begin. Now the lizards and geckos are forgotten. I s.n.a.t.c.h the Xbox away from the boys, muttering that we can look at it later, after the party is over. I'm pretty certain that Henry and Sebastian are now desperate for the party (which we've planned with minute detail and for several months) to zoom by.

As I pa.s.s Peter I mutter, 'I battle every day to limit the time they waste on their Game Boys and watching TV. This isn't going to help matters.'

'They are kids, Rose. This is the stuff kids like.'

As opposed to autumnal displays on the table in the lean-to, I suppose. I wonder if the boys have told him about the conkers. I take a deep breath and consider whether this would be a good moment to blow that haughty, superior look off his face? Would it be fun to see Lucy shrivel with ignominy as I announce the fact that she has a new lover and my husband, ex-husband, is yesterday's story. I bite my tongue. Between them they have ruined enough 'special occasions'for the boys and me. They are not having this one.

I remember that the twins'third birthday was the day Peter chose to tell me he and Lucy were expecting a baby. Auriol was a honeymoon baby. Or at least that was the official line. By my calculations she was conceived a few weeks before the vows, not that that sort of thing matters a jot to anyone any more, even me. That's why I think it's pathetic they'd lie about it. It sometimes seems to me that lying is Peter and Lucy's natural state and they are actually incapable of being straightforward. Lots of women who have secret fears about whether they can or can't get pregnant throw away the pills as soon as. No shame there. The interesting thing is, of course, Lucy would never admit that she had secret fears about anything, but she must have. Despite all the evidence, she's only human.

My take on it is that she was desperate to have a baby, motivation questionable. Probably just to show me that anything I had with Peter she could have too. She no doubt a.s.sumed that fifteen years of aggressive dieting, high-stress living, moderate to high alcohol intake and low use of recreational drugs might well hamper her attempts, and therefore she stopped using contraception as soon as Peter moved his shoes out from my understairs cupboard and into hers.

When Peter called to tell me his good news, Lucy was sixteen weeks pregnant, although not showing, naturally. He had known about the upcoming addition to his family for eleven and a half weeks, yet he decided that the twins'birthday was the optimum time to tell me. Sod him.

Obviously, I congratulated him. A baby is something I get excited about, whatever the circ.u.mstances it's a new life. But I was vexed to the extreme when he commented that we'd all need to sit down and discuss the best way to introduce the twins to the subject of a new brother or sister.

'Half brother or sister,'I corrected.

'That seems unnecessarily pedantic,'he'd replied.

He'd never been one for details. Who he slept with while he was married to me was nothing but a detail, apparently. I wanted to point out that Peter had not thought to sit down with either the boys or me to discuss the initial move out of our family home. The destruction of their family life was executed with Ninja silence. Why the sudden keenness for chat? Instead, I sighed, said I'd give it some thought and that I'd come up with an idea on how best to approach the matter after all, my concern was to save the boys'feelings. I didn't want them to feel rejected or pushed out as Peter started afresh.

Feeling rejected and pushed out must be, exclusively, my territory.

When I first told people about Peter's happy news they were sympathetic but sensibly pointed out that I must have always known it was going to happen. True. I also know that one day I am going to die but I don't like to dwell on that fact either.

It's simply another biological fact in favour of chaps, isn't it? They get to pick themselves up, dust themselves down and start all over again with incredible in fact indecent ease. I'm of course delighted that the boys live with me and are my responsibility. I would die rather than have it any other way. But occasionally it crosses my mind that Peter ought to have had a single restless night because Henry hasn't quite got the hang of long division (will he ever get to university?) or a sleepless night because Sebastian is in trouble for being too rough on the rugby pitch (do I have a thug in the making?). It seems unfair that the only necessary qualification for starting up a second family is destroying the first one.

Following the ill-timed announcement of the pregnancy, Peter chose Christmas day to text me with the news that the baby Lucy was carrying was a 'healthy baby girl', although I can't believe they got their scan results on that particular day. In the text he also asked if I would 'hug the boys for him'. While texting these good tidings and good wishes it appears that he didn't think to use the phone to actually speak to his sons. He's not what I would describe as a traditionalist. He asked me to sign divorce papers on Mothers'day and every Easter I fight to keep the children at home with me. Whether his actions are malicious or thoughtless I am unsure. It hardly matters. In addition, birthdays, anniversaries and holidays are spoilt because like an amputee I ache in the place where my limb once was.

All the children are now agog watching spiders scuttle and frogs leap so I leave the room, partly because I have to take the clingfilm off the sandwiches and partly because since Joe Whatshisface's revelation I am continually angry and irrational, which is not a great mindset at a kids'birthday party.

Connie follows me through to the dining room.

'Do you think there's enough food?'I ask her. She gazes at the table.

'Yes, even if you open your doors and call in the homeless of London. Please tell me this stuff is shop-bought.'

'Certainly not. All home-baked.'

She groans dramatically. 'Can I do anything to help?'

'You can make some juice. I have cordial in the top left-hand cupboard, it's '

'Organic?'she interrupts with a grin.

'Am I very predictable?'I ask.

'No, actually, Rose, you are not.'Her tone is suddenly serious and I get the sense that Connie followed me out of the sitting room with a mission. 'I'm quite relieved that you've put on such an elaborate home-baked, organic, tooth-kind spread, in fact.'

'Are you?'

Normally she gently teases me about my party spreads. Her style is to stuff as many E-numbers down a child as possible and hope they don't throw before they get home. In fairness her att.i.tude to adult entertainment is similar, except she's more likely to ply her adult guests with champagne than Jelly-tots.

'Recently, you haven't been yourself at all, Rose. I've been worried about you.'

'Don't worry about me. I'll be fine,'I say.

I count the paper plates, we're one short. I bustle through to the kitchen to unearth the wayward plate; I know I bought enough. Connie trails behind me.

'You will be fine. So, you are saying that there is something wrong.'