The Reading Group Part 6

She wasn't sure that was true but she was feeling braver, here, in this group. They were so nice. She liked Harriet best, though. Harriet was funny and rude, and Clare had this secret theory that when she hadn't finished the book, or had read it too fast to talk about details, she just thought up this big debate you could have about something in it and steered the discussion that way. Clare thought that was clever. Maybe that was what she was doing now.

'Come on, then, Professor, let's have it.' Nicole was smiling at Harriet.

'I don't think I like books written by men.'

Polly laughed. 'Well, that's most of the literature of the last two thousand years wiped out, then. Let's p.i.s.s off home.'

'Hang on, hang on. There's more.' Harriet wasn't defensive, and this wasn't one of her planned diversions. She'd read every word of Atonement, which had left her grumpy and dissatisfied. 'It's about how you read. And why. And we're all different.'

Nicole poured herself another gla.s.s of wine. 'Christ, she's getting deep. Anyone?' She waved the bottle.

Susan sat forward. 'What do you mean, Harriet?'

'Okay. I've got a mythical hour no, a morning with nothing to do but read, right?' Some snorting around the coffee table. 'And I'm offered either the new Penny Vincenzi or the new Ian McEwan. I'm going to take the new Vincenzi every time, aren't I? I've always been that way, even when I was a student. Now, I've always thought that that was because it was less demanding. You'd have to think less, that it was less clever. And, to an extent, I've always been happy with that diagnosis that I would rather read a woman's saga than a man's intellectual novel because it was easier. But now,' and here her tone was Agatha Christie's Miss Marple revealing a red herring, 'now I realise that it is because I care so much more about the characters women create. And if I don't care, really care, by about page fifty, forget it. I can read it, most of the time I can understand it, but so what? Who cares?' Harriet finished with a flourish.

Clare was nodding: Nicole was shaking her head.

Susan spoke first, choosing her words carefully. 'I think you have something there. But I have to tell you that I think you're quite wrong about the male-female divide. Look at... D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy Shakespeare, dare I say it? Dripping with emotion. Total wets, the lot of them.'

'Historical novelists. Aha. Completely different. That's why I don't want to do the cla.s.sics. Life was so different. Everything was different. I'm talking about modern writers.'

'But I like reading cla.s.sical stuff for exactly those reasons. I like to learn about things I want to feel like I've learnt something when I get to the end of a book, not like I've been put through an emotional mangle. I can watch Oprah on Sky if I want that.' This was Nicole. No surprises there, then, thought Harriet. It was always about control with Nic. 'Or ring Harriet!'

'I agree with Harriet,' Polly chimed in. 'Think about the books you've loved, loved, loved over the years, whether they're literature or not. Jane Eyre? Rebecca?'

'A Woman of Substance.' Clare was warming to Harriet and Polly's theme, so much so that she didn't feel nervous about offering up Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Polly was exultant. 'Exactly. Big fat wonderful book. I can still remember their names. Emma, Paul, Blackie. And it must be, what? twenty years since I read it. You just didn't want it to end.'

'But they wouldn't be much good for a reading group, would they?' Nicole said. 'However much you loved them, what would we talk about? You need something more complicated, something with "themes" and "issues".'

Harriet was still thinking about men. 'Men are emotionally r.e.t.a.r.ded writers. Not all of them, but a lot. They've got the imagination and creativity to come up with plots and stuff, but the feeling is all missing. Like Atonement. Cold, just cold.'

'Don't you think that maybe the whole point of "literature", if that's what you want to call it, is that the emotion is there, but below the surface, between the lines, hidden in the language and the action, and you put it in yourself. You personalise it with your own experience. Maybe?' Susan looked at them.

'I suppose.' Harriet mulled over the thought.

'Yes, I agree with you, Susan. The trouble with you lot...' Nicole gestured at Harriet, Polly and Clare '... is that you want all the work done for you. Like there's a recipe for heartstring tugging, and you want every author to follow it.'

'That's not fair. I just want to care.'

'Me too.'

'And you didn't? About this lot?'

'Not really.' Harriet shrugged. 'They annoyed me.'

Polly laughed. 'At least that's an emotional response, of sorts.'

'Well, honestly, what atonement? Typical Catholic. As long as you feel sorry, tell G.o.d you're sorry, that's enough. You don't actually have to make everything okay in the real world. She doesn't atone at all. I don't buy it.' Harriet was stroppy now. Happy, interested and stroppy. The others enjoyed her like this. Nicole liked to take a position she took on Harriet most frequently. But Polly was getting braver, too. Susan sometimes got left behind, thinking too carefully about Harriet's throwaway remarks. And Clare was happy more often than not just to listen. Her book was always well thumbed, and Harriet, next to her, saw notes written, corners turned down. She hoped Clare's confidence would grow in time. The group needed everyone to contribute a silent person was audience, not cast, and inhibited the rest of them. She knew Clare was thinking things that were worth saying.

'I just think you have a much more black-and-white idea about guilt and remorse. You want her stoned in the street before you believe she's sorry,' Nicole said. 'You're obviously not happy that she's clearly going to be full of regret and remorse for the rest of her life.'

'Remorse is one thing. Guilt's another. I'm talking about the book's own t.i.tle. Doesn't "atonement" mean "making up for"?'

'It does. And she's trying.'

Harriet harrumphed. She wasn't sure any more whether they were talking about Briony or Gavin. She might be more prepared to forgive Briony.

The debate raged for another hour or so, across dinner and coffee. It was loud, full of unfinished sentences and eager b.u.t.ting-in. The conversation flew, like the workings of a pinball machine, between Catholicism, Harriet's diatribe against male writers, Susan's a.s.sertion that she did, indeed, care horribly about Briony and Cecilia, Nicole's enthusiasm for McEwan's atmospheric sociological history, and how good Polly's tarte tatin was.

'Look, here, page three hundred and twenty. "Everything she did not wish to confront was also missing from her novella and was necessary to it. What was she to do now? It was not the backbone of a story that she lacked. It was backbone." I rest my case.' Harriet, the natural, if slightly despotic leader, closed her copy dramatically. 'Whose turn is it to choose next month?'

'I think it's me, isn't it?' Susan said.

'No pressure, now, Susan. Just don't choose anything by a man, or a Catholic, or anything that isn't positively reeking of sentiment!'

'How about Love Story?' She wasn't serious.

'Aha!' Polly shouted theatrically. 'I think you'll find that was written by a man. The soppiest book ever!'

Harriet laughed. 'Okay, okay you got me.'

'I'd already chosen, I'm afraid.' Susan pulled a book out of her bag. 'Roddy Doyle The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. I got this from the library.'

Harriet was impressed she never made it past the children's section, with its primary-coloured sofas, and its endless supply of lift-the-flap books with the flaps missing.

'It's been out a couple of years, I think,' Susan went on, 'so you should be able to buy it in paperback. I was quite interested in the subject it's about wife beating.'

'Something you want to tell us?' They weren't serious. Roger seemed pretty much dream-husband material if a bit dull, Nicole thought.

Susan giggled. 'I haven't read anything of his before. Have any of you?'

They hadn't, but they had all seen and enjoyed the film of The Commitments.

Nicole found herself humming 'Try A Little Tenderness' in the car on the way home.

Harriet Harriet looked at herself hard in the mirror. Service stations on motorways were not great places to appraise your appearance the lights were bluey-white and far too bright, and the mirrors did you no favours at all. So, although you knew you looked better in reality, your self-esteem suffered untold damage. She remembered reading somewhere that Liz Hurley recommended plucking your eyebrows in first-cla.s.s aeroplane loos because of the quality of light in them. (Was it darker in Economy?) She ought to try it on the M3 at Fleet Services. The under-eye concealer wasn't quite covering the bags left from Chloe's week of 'hacking-cough-need-juice-pink-medicine-and-a-cuggle-Mumma' nights. The lip-liner, which the much-pierced man in the exclusive shop had told her would change her life, had indeed stood the test of time well, an hour, anyway but the lip-gloss hadn't: it gave her mouth the appearance of an unfinished cartoon. Her Bridget Jones knickers were holding her tummy in, all right, but were pus.h.i.+ng it back out again at mid-thigh. Still, there was half a stone or so less of her, thanks to the diet that had gone from an indulgent 'I'll cut out crisps and biscuits, I've got eight weeks to go' to a rather more desperate 'If I don't eat for the next seventy-two hours and drink ten pints of water I'll do it', and the label in her suit said size twelve. Harriet was so proud of herself that she'd considered wearing it label side out. Not for the first time she wished she could be more like Nicole, who always looked as if she'd just walked out of the salon, hair, face, nails, clothes always just right. Harriet always looked as if she was on her way in: too little hair, too much bosom, not enough polish but plenty of s.h.i.+ne. It was a pretty suit, though, and Harriet had to admit that even in this ghastly light it was a gorgeous colour just the right shade for her eyes and skin. Of course Nicole had chosen it, marching authoritatively around the department store, dismissing all Harriet's own selections 'Too fancy, they'll think you're the cake!'; 'Only if you're planning to stand up and sing "It Should Have Been Me"!'; 'Pleeease are you a bridesmaid?' She felt... cla.s.sy. Successful. Tearful.

Back in the foyer, Tim was easy to spot among the crowd conspicuous, even, in his morning suit. Why did he have to come in with me? I'm not Chloe, for G.o.d's sake, Harriet thought crossly. He looks a prat. He'll get knifed if he's not careful, looking like that.

Clearly today was a day on which Tim could do nothing right. He had taken Josh and Chloe to his mother's first thing this morning, remembering their swimmers and armbands. He had stayed out of the bathroom while she busied herself in it, had taken the car to be washed so that it shone, and picked up pretty b.u.t.tonholes for both of them from the florist on the corner. A white rose for himself, freesias for her. Bit pointed, that, Harriet thought. If he were a dog he'd have weed on me to mark me out. One tiny bit of her tried to remind the rest that it couldn't be easy for Tim, taking her to Charles's wedding. The two men had met once, years ago, and these days Charles was almost never mentioned, certainly not by Harriet. But, still, she hadn't made much of a secret of her feelings. For heaven's sake, Tim had been around at the beginning he was a volunteer: he'd known what he was letting himself in for, hadn't he?

The first time she'd met him she'd almost flung herself into his arms. She and Charles had had the most terrible fight, and she'd been lying alone a bit chilly drama-queen style, on the hall carpet in the flat she and Amanda had shared in Wimbledon, sobbing and waiting for his return, his abject apology. At the sound of the doorbell, she'd jumped up, checked that her face looked attractively ravaged by misery, and thrown open the door to feel the full force of Charles's guilt and affection. Instead she got Tim, sober-suited, straight-faced and horrified, looking for his colleague Amanda with whom he had agreed to play squash that evening. Tim had been instantly sympathetic, melted by the sight of her dishevelled sadness, which, though definitely hammed up for effect, was undoubtedly genuine. Harriet had been mortified, and far too miffed that he wasn't Charles to take much notice of him.

Story of their life, really, Harriet supposed, as she watched him perusing the newspaper headlines.

'You really do look very pretty, Harry,' Tim said, as they set off west again. 'That colour is beautiful on you. I'm proud to be with you.' And he took his hand off the gearstick and placed it across her own, which was lying in her lap. 'They've been pretty lucky with the weather, haven't they?'

The previous week had been miserable; grey and drizzly. But this morning was of the kind you must have imagined when you planned a wedding for March bright blue sky, not too cold.

Christ, we're actually talking about the weather, Harriet thought. How totally scintillating. To Tim she murmured that, yes, it was a nice morning, then switched on the radio. Whitney Houston was belting out 'I Will Always Love You'. Not good. Not even with waterproof mascara. Charles had given her a Walkman for Christmas one year. With a tape in it. Of 'their' songs. Not all quite as hackneyed and cliched as Whitney's, but few that could have been more tear-jerking this morning. Over to Radio 4, and something less emotive, in clipped BBC English. It was going to be a long day.

Hideous traffic on the A343 meant that Tim and Harriet arrived fl.u.s.tered just what she hadn't wanted and feeling for all the world like Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral, with the bridal Rolls-Royce hard on their heels for the last mile to the irritatingly perfect church in the chocolate-box quaint village where b.u.t.ter-wouldn't-melt Imogen must have grown up. Yuck.

They slid into pews half-way back, aisle seats, just as the music started. Something very trad but not, heaven forbid, the Bridal March. Everyone stood up, and Harriet saw Charles square his shoulders and make a quarter turn to watch his bride. She felt as though a physical blow had landed on her. Her heart was pounding, her breath caught in her mouth, her palms were moist. She put her hand on the pew in front to steady herself. Charles. Charles.

He didn't see her. His eyes bored into the approaching Imogen. Who had not even had the decency to wear a meringue with b.i.t.c.hing potential for bitter ex-girlfriends. She was looking, as brides should, her best. Not catwalk material, but no jodhpur thighs either, Harriet was forced to admit. She looked, well, nice. Smiley. Warm. And totally smitten with her groom. Harriet's mother loved two things best apart, Harriet hoped, from her family: musical films, and Christopher Plummer. 1965 was thus an extremely good year for her, marrying, as it did, Plummer and the excruciatingness that was The Sound of Music. '"Eidelweiss",' Harriet used to say. 'Need I say more?' Harriet's family was forced to watch the film every time it was shown, until the video release, after which her mother was happy to watch it alone, often. And every time, after Julie Andrews had triumphed over the scheming society babe and caught her captain, Harriet's mother cried real tears during the wedding scene and said, 'Fancy having that waiting at the bottom of the aisle for you!' That was how Imogen looked like Harriet's mother would have looked if she was tripping down the church towards Christopher Plummer. Harriet could understand why.

Throughout the ceremony she made a serious study of her hands. Every time she looked up she could feel Tim's eyes on her, his concern always palpable. Which made it worse. It seemed to take ages. Our wedding took all of ten minutes, Harriet thought, even on island time. Suddenly she felt as if saying all those words, singing those hymns, and having loads of acquaintances there in hats made this wedding more important. As if not doing it made her marriage a bit of a fraud. Like it was no wonder it wasn't working.

She hadn't felt that way in 1993 when she had married Tim. But maybe even then she'd known it was a second-choice marriage to a second-choice husband so had deliberately settled on a second-choice wedding. No, surely that wasn't true. She had loved Tim. She was sure she had. They'd gone to St Lucia, just the two of them, had planned the wedding for the second week long enough to get a licence and a tan for the photographs, with time for a honeymoon afterwards. Her mother had gone mad, although Harriet was secretly sure that her father was relieved at being saved the expense of a traditional, full-monty wedding. Then it had seemed to her like a great adventure, something a bit different.

A few nights before she'd left, Harriet had got drunk with Amanda, cried a bit about Charles, then protested, slurring, that she did 'really love Tim, honest'. Drunk though she might have been, Harriet remembered to this day what Amanda had said: 'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks! You know what this is. It's one of two things. One: (waving her thumb) you're playing a really stupid game of Call My Bluff with Charles, which, I ought to tell you, you've lost. He isn't going to be climbing out of the surf in Paradise to raise an objection, you know. Or two: (shoving up what she thought was two fingers, although she couldn't be sure) this is a Musical Chairs wedding.'

'What the h.e.l.l is that?'

'You're afraid that the music's stopped and you're going to be stuck on your own, so you're grabbing the nearest chair. Which is ridiculous, since you're only twenty what twenty-five. But that's what I reckon.'

'You can shove your stupid amateur psychology, you drunk cow,' Harriet had spat at her friend. 'We'll be fine, you wait and see.' But she had never forgotten it. Maybe that was why it had been St Lucia. Like it was a secret, or something. It was a bit funny, actually, getting married on the beach. Harriet's view, throughout the most important ceremony of her life, was of an impossibly pert pair of male b.u.t.tocks, neatly dissected by a black strip of thong. At the time it had made her giggle uncontrollably the hotel's luxury portfolio of ten photographs all showed her looking a bit sweaty in her not entirely appropriate wedding dress and laughing. Tim looked impossibly proud. St Lucia hadn't been his ideal, but he had hugged her close and said they could be married anywhere, he didn't care, as long as she was there and she said yes...

And then it was done. All those beautiful words had been said, the register had been signed, to the strains of something tasteful, and Charles and Imogen were heading straight for her, with huge smiles. Friends and family were mouthing to Imogen, 'You look beautiful' and 'Well done, darling'. She had her arm through Charles's he had put his left hand across to grab her fingers and was squeezing so hard that his knuckles were white. He would have been nervous, she realised. He hated public speaking or being the centre of attention. As they pa.s.sed, he turned and looked straight at her, smiling. Harriet waited for a wink, a change in the smile, something to pa.s.s across his face, but he carried on, the same expression for the dowager-aunt figure in the pew behind, the slightly shocked look of unseeing joy to which everyone was being treated. He hadn't really seen her.

Outside the church, Harriet didn't want to stand around in the customary pre-drink, 'let's pretend the photo bit is interesting' limbo, watching Charles watch Imogen. 'Come on, Tim, let's find the hotel. I'm dying for a pee must be all that coffee I drank this morning.'

'Okay, sweetheart.' Tim wanted to get her away to where she could have some peace before the ordeal of the reception. It must be b.l.o.o.d.y odd for her, he told himself. She and Charles were together for a longish time she must know all these relatives and people. He wished again that they hadn't been invited to the G.o.dforsaken wedding. It just stirred up all those old feelings. For Harriet and for Tim. Why did there have to be this ridiculous pretence at civility and friends.h.i.+p? Once, Harriet had really loved Charles, and he, fool that he must have been, hadn't realised what a wondrous thing he had, and had broken her heart. Left her the wreck that Tim had found. So lucky for him. He thought he'd probably been in love with her from the first day. He'd never believed anyone who said that before. And certainly, on that evening when he'd gone to Amanda's flat, he hadn't been expecting the flood of feeling he'd experienced for the crazy-looking, puffy-eyed girl who had let him in. He had wanted to pick her up and take her away and make her safe and make her happy. He still wanted to do that. Especially this morning. But he knew Harriet well enough to grasp that today, of all days, she needed him to keep his distance.

Harriet had to drink a gla.s.s of champagne very fast before she could collect herself. Then she grabbed a second from a pa.s.sing silver tray and joined the long queue for the receiving line. She was well into the third before she reached the bridal party. She issued a suitably effusive remark to the smart couple who were obviously Imogen's parents (still married, of course), then moved on to Charles's father, a twinkly eyed, gentle man of whom she'd always been fond. When she and Charles broke up that last time, he'd written to her, a sweet note saying he would miss their talks and walks and that he knew she would make some lucky fellow a wonderful, funny wife, and what a pity it wasn't foolish old Charles. He kissed her on both cheeks, held her shoulders, and told her she looked good enough to eat. To Tim he said simply, 'Lucky chap!' Charles's mother was considerably less warm no doubt she thought it was highly inappropriate, not to say messy, to include ex-girlfriends in the proceedings, particularly girls who had been so... highly strung, shall we say? as Harriet. 'Such a shame you weren't able to bring the children, dear. It would have been lovely to meet them.' You're not convincing me, you dessicated old bat, Harriet thought from behind her best smile. Tim nudged her gently forward, and launched a brief charm-offensive on Charles's mother. Imogen, engaged in a giggly chat with a woman in front, was holding up her dress at the front to reveal her shoes and Harriet found herself looking up at Charles.

'Hats! It's really really lovely to see you. You look wonderful. Motherhood and country air agree with you. Thanks so much for coming. We were so thrilled you could make it.' Ouch at that 'we'. Did his hand linger a little too long in hers? Was his smile regretful? Lascivious? Private? Not a bit of it. 'Tim, old chap! Good to see you. Thanks so much for coming!' And on he went.

Tim saw that Charles had caught the longing in Harriet's eyes. Longing and three gla.s.ses of champagne. Agreed with him, for once, that control had to be exerted over her. He reached across her to shake the groom's hand, giving her no opportunity to linger.

Well, f.u.c.k him, then, Harriet thought, moving reluctantly away into the marquee. f.u.c.k him. And f.u.c.k Tim. Why couldn't he have stayed away? Is that why they invited me? So that Charles could be all smug and happy and rub my face in it just one more time? Did he not do a good enough job of it last time? She wished fervently that she was anywhere else in the world. Had she imagined what they had had between them? Daydreamed it all into something it never was? No, she b.l.o.o.d.y well hadn't. Charles ignoring it couldn't change the past. It was hers, his and hers, whatever he did. She knew.

Harriet moved towards a waiter for yet another gla.s.s of champagne. They had been in Imogen's home, with its enormous hall, sweeping staircase and serious art, barely twenty minutes and the first three gla.s.ses hadn't caught up with her, but she could feel bubbles in her legs, and in her fingers.

'Hats? Hats!' Her old university name again. Jesus, if this place was going to be full of alumni she might as well go home now. She was not up for a cosy trip down Memory Lane. She turned and looked into the chest of a very big man. 'Remember me? Nick?'

Remember him? Oh, yes, she remembered him, all right... Nick had been one of Charles's closest friends at university. They were united by a love of beer, rugby and pretty girls, and a loathing of economics lectures. Harriet had always thought he was handsome, in a von Trapp family blond and blue-eyed way, but thick, and a bit of a s.h.i.+t. A friend of hers, whose name she couldn't remember now, had been hopelessly in love with him and he had treated her pretty shoddily all over her like a (stubble) rash when he was p.i.s.sed and she happened to be about, then dismissive and high-handed the next day. Stupid girl, Harriet had thought, to make an idiot of herself like that, but even she had had to admit he had a bit of something about him. He'd been on Ios that summer with Charles, Rob, Amanda and the others, and he was cute, good fun. She hadn't seen him for years, but she thought he was 'something in the City'. Oh, yes, she tuned in to Tim's polite small-talk, he was a broker Tim appeared to have heard of his firm and 'having quite a good time of it right now, actually. Easy come, easy go, and all that.' All what? City talk bored the pants of Harriet. She understood shockingly little about finance (she always declined the 'check balance' b.u.t.ton on the cashpoint machine if it let you have money it was good, if not, bad, that was all you needed to know) and even less about what men like Tim and, apparently, Nick did. While the men chatted easily she looked Nick up and down. She'd forgotten how tall he was, and how cute. Had he always had that dusting of freckles across his nose that made his eyes seem even bluer? Had he worn his hair shorter in college? She remembered slightly jug-like ears, but they were not in evidence today, hidden by hair that curled over them, in a not quite girlie way that she liked. He looked sort of rich it was a Hermes tie, she knew, and a Jaeger Le Coultre watch. No wedding ring. Big hands. As she continued her appraisal down to his shoes, Harriet felt a bit dizzy, and by the time she focused on the black lace-ups her head had fallen forward to rest on Nick's suit. Tim put his arm round her shoulders, righting her as subtly as he could. He was saying, 'Two, a girl and a boy...' but Nick wasn't listening: he was smiling naughtily, Harriet thought right at her. The pig.

Susan When the alarm went off at five fifteen Roger rolled over and took Susan in his arms. 'Morning, darling.'

'Mmm. No, it's not.' Susan opened one reluctant eye, closed it again. She had been dreading today. She leant back into Roger's warmth.

Roger gave her a squeeze, rolled once more and got out of bed. 'You jump into a quick shower and I'll make you a nice cup of tea.'

He returned as she was pulling on her clothes with tea for both of them, and a piece of b.u.t.tered toast. 'Are you certain you want to face her yourself? I could come, you know. Might not even miss the start of surgery I just checked on Ceefax and the flight's on time. If the traffic's not too bad we could be back by eight thirty.' He sat down.

'No, but thanks. It was my decision about Mum, and I've got to sort it out with Maggie.'

'All right, darling. You do it your way. But I'm telling you now that if she gives you a hard time she'll have me to deal with. I'm not having her swan in after all these years and start throwing her weight around. It's just not on.'

Susan looked at her husband's face. Normally so gentle, it was tight with anger. Her hero. What would she ever do without him? She picked up her handbag from the chair by her side of the bed, bent down and kissed his forehead. 'Look, this is bound to be hard for her too. Let's get her home and then we can talk properly. She probably isn't as cross as she sounded on the phone. She's had time to get used to the idea to see the sense in it.'

'You have rather more faith in her better nature than I do.'

'She's my sister.'

'I know.' His forehead crinkled. 'I'm just not having her have a go at you. That's all.'

'Understood, Sir Galahad. Now, why don't you curl up and go back to sleep? You've another good hour at least.'

'No, I'm awake now. I think I'll potter about a bit pay some bills.'

'Okay. I'll see you tonight. We'll have dinner, the three of us. Better make it an early one Maggie'll be tired after the flight.'

Susan looked around her, taking in the real-life soap operas going on at every corner. She loved airports because they were places full of expectation and excitement. And she especially loved the drama of long-haul terminals, like this one. A British Airways Sydney flight coming into a Heath-row dawn was one of the most emotional: families meeting after months, years apart; anxious parents waiting for grubby backpacking teenagers, as she had waited last year for Edward who, much to his chagrin, had been wheeled off by ground crew with his ankle heavily bandaged: he had joked ruefully that he'd escaped his heroic outback journey unscathed only to trip ignominiously over his shoelace on a Melbourne street the night before his plane took off. Susan remembered how she had stood on the highest step she could find, tears close after her son's six-month absence, and how her heart had stopped at the sight of the wheelchair, until she'd seen Ed's face, the familiar twinkling smile. She had exhaled a tremendous breath that, she later realised, she'd been holding since he had gone away from her.

Next to her on the metal rail was an elderly couple, waiting, they had told Susan, for a daughter they hadn't seen in ten years, and the two grandchildren they had never laid eyes on. The woman was bobbing with antic.i.p.ation, and Susan's eyes filled when two little blond heads ducked under the rail, reaching for people they had only seen in photographs. Above them the father clung to his daughter. Her tanned, strong-looking body made him seem frailer still. Pull yourself together, Susan, she told herself. She had been in a bit of a state lately, with all this Mum stuff going on. It reminded her of how she had reacted when the boys were born: everything hit you harder when you were newly delivered the news was sadder, even the adverts were sadder, as if you had been peeled and now all your emotions and nerves were closer to the surface. And it was the same now, every time she thought about Alice in that place...

And then Margaret was at the rail.

'h.e.l.lo, Maggie.'

'h.e.l.lo, Suze.'

No hugging across the rail. They walked together, on either side of it, avoiding the humanity piled all around them, and met at the end in an awkward embrace, Margaret one-armed as she held her bag beside her.

'Here, let me help you with that.' Susan took it. 'We're in the short-stay just over here. Good flight?'

'Under the circ.u.mstances? It was okay.' Margaret's voice was flat, almost expressionless. Susan's spirits sank even lower. This was not going to be easy. She wished now, as she set off towards the car park, Margaret following, that she had accepted Roger's offer to come with her.

Margaret had never been an easy person to love, even harder to like. Although they were close in age, with Margaret just a year older, they had always lacked the closeness Susan had envied in other siblings. People seldom made the connection that they were related. Physically they were dissimilar Margaret looked more like their mother: there had been a picture at home, when they were little, an old-fas.h.i.+oned formal one of Alice, aged about four, in a high-backed chair with her brother Alexander standing stiffly beside her. She looked just like Margaret in it, with the clear blue eyes so distinctive even in a black-and-white photograph. Susan's eyes were brown. But for all that they looked alike, Margaret and her mother were of different temperaments: Alice was gentle and calm, Margaret rough and excitable. While Alice and Susan loved to sit at the table to draw elaborate fanciful scenes with stories woven into the pictures, Margaret longed to climb and rampage in the garden, throwing conkers at far-off birds and digging muddily in the vegetable patch their father had made for them in the corner of his own. If Maggie was jealous of Alice and Susan's closeness, she gave little indication of it as a child, treating them with disinterest and, even, disdain. She was always amazingly self-contained. Every day when Alice collected them from the village school and they walked the half-mile or so home across the common, she proffered two hands to her daughters, but only one was taken. So she and Susan walked together, Susan spilling out all the minutiae of her day while Margaret zigzagged endlessly across their path, waiting for her mother only at the big road they must cross half-way home. At night they slept together, in narrow twin beds, with a tall chest-of-drawers between them, so they could hear but not see each other in the dusky landing light. But it seemed to Susan that Margaret always went straight to sleep after their mother had read to them; she never seemed to want to talk.

And that was how it was between them, through school and on, until the day Margaret had come home with Greg, a young man unknown to them. Susan and Roger had been courting for almost a year by then, and Roger had become a regular fixture at Sunday lunch, ambling to the pub for a pint with Susan's dad while Alice and Susan peeled carrots and laid the table in the dining room. Margaret, who was living in a flat with a girlfriend, and working as a receptionist in one of the big new office blocks on the edge of town, missed three out of four of the once-sacred weekly family roasts. But one Sunday she telephoned and said she would be there, and could she bring a friend?

Greg had filled the house with his tanned bulk and his deep, Australian voice. They had met at a party, Margaret had said, a few months ago. Greg had asked her to marry him, and she had told him she would. Greg, momentarily shamed by Margaret's father's expression, added, 'If that's all right with you, sir?' his voice lifting in a question at the end of that and every sentence. They were going to marry over there, as soon as it could be arranged. Perhaps just have a party here, for the family, before they left. Nothing too fancy. And there were photographs of the farm, acre upon acre, sheep upon sheep, and a bronzed, weather-beaten group beside a farmhouse a handful of women and children and about a dozen men, all big and brown like Greg. 'So much s.p.a.ce, Mum,' Margaret had said, her eyes wide. 'Hard work, for sure, but... I just know it's the place for me. And he's the one.' She seemed happier than Susan had ever known her.

After they had gone, Susan's mum and dad sat side by side in their armchairs, facing out into the garden they loved, while Susan and Roger washed up in the kitchen.

'Christ, Susie, your sister never ceases to amaze me.' Roger and Margaret were not friendly. When she wasn't ignoring him, Maggie goaded him, half laughing at his earnestness and solidness. She made it clear that while he might do for Susie, he was far too pedestrian and dull for her to bother with. Susan was only worried about how her sister's bombsh.e.l.l would affect her parents.

'I know Margaret's been gone from here for a while now, and they're not particularly close, but Australia? That's half a world away. And to get married over there too they know Mum and Dad can't possibly make the journey, even if they had the money, which I doubt they do, now that Dad's retired. They've never been further than Malta.'

'That, my dear, is the whole point, I'm sure. She won't want them there. Margaret has always behaved as though she's trying to punish them for something G.o.d knows what but this is just another score for her.'

'Oh, Roger, that's a bit deep, don't you think? I reckon it's just selfishness she hasn't thought it through. This Greg bloke has turned her head, made her forget where she comes from because she's so excited about where she's going. I'm sure she'll change her mind, get married here, at least let Dad give her away, and let Mum fuss around with a dress.'