The Banker's Niece 8: Black Dog 1

Spring 1978

‘Black Dog,’ laughed Jane. ‘What sort of a name is that?’

    ‘A Devon one,’ said Rick.

    It was Sunday morning and they were in the Mini (Clubman), travelling at speed – as they always did when Rick was driving – through what Rick called ‘the back roads’ to the village where he’d been brought up and where his parents still lived, so that Jane could meet them for the first time.

    He always travelled by the back roads if he could. He called them the ‘proper Devon’. Jane called them lethal.

    They were always covered in slippery mud. They were one-vehicle wide (if that). Deep shade could turn to bright sun or vice versa in a second and blind you. They twisted like sidewinders and you never knew what you might find round the next twist – a horse, a dog, a deer, a tractor, a child, someone on a bicycle. Occasionally they were so steep Jane wondered if she would have to get out of the Mini and push.

    At first she used to hang on to the door handle and put her hands over her eyes whenever anything scared her, both of which actions annoyed Rick. He saw them as a form of back-seat driving.

    ‘I have rights, even as a passenger.’ she would retort. ‘Especially as a passenger because I feel so powerless.’

    ‘No you don’t,’ said Rick. ‘You just have to trust me.’

    So now she simply shut her eyes at intervals and hoped Rick didn’t notice.

    ‘Why’s the village called Black Dog?’ asked Jane.

    ‘There’s a legend,’ said Rick.

    ‘Ooh,’ said Jane. ‘Tell me.’

    Rick was good on legends. They’d been to Dartmoor a couple of weekends before and as they drove home in the dusk – with the moor black and deserted – Rick had told her about the ‘hairy hand’ that clawed at cars on exactly that stretch of road. They’d laughed together but when Rick wasn’t looking Jane made sure her window was properly closed.

     ‘A young girl was walking home alone in the dark through a wood. She was very frightened,’ began Rick.

    ‘Ooh,’ shivered Jane. She used to have to do the same after school. She knew exactly how the young girl felt.

    ‘But a black dog appeared and walked with her all the way. As soon as she arrived at her door it vanished. Ever since it’s reappeared to help any village girl who’s frightened and alone.’

    ‘Ohh, that’s lovely,’ said Jane.

    Rick laughed and swerved round a pheasant that was standing, bemused, in the middle of the road. He almost drove the Mini up the bank and Jane hoped he didn’t hear her sudden intake of breath.

    ‘Remind me about your family,’ she said to distract herself from Rick’s driving and because a minute ago they’d passed a sign that said ‘Black Dog 2 miles’ and her stomach was starting to flutter.

     ‘Only Ma and Pa will be there today,’ he said. ‘Brother’s in London climbing the greasy pole in the police and last heard of Sis was living in a tepee in Wales.’

    ‘A tepee!’ said Jane.

    ‘It’s a sort of tent.’

    ‘I know what a tepee is. I just thought it sounded, well, rather fun.’

    The nearest she’d got to the alternative lifestyle was being asked by a schoolfriend to go grapepicking in Spain the summer they finished their ‘A’ levels. She didn’t go. She was too keen to leave home and start earning her own money. In retrospect, that probably wasn’t the right decision, given what happened in London. Never mind. She was making up for it now.

    ‘Rather you than me,’ said Rick.

    And he was the one who’d been living in a hovel.

    ‘So, what do I call your parents?’ she asked.

    ‘Peggy and Philip, of course,’ said Rick. ‘What else?’

    Jane made a face. She wasn’t used to calling grown-ups by their first names.

    ‘And what are they like?’ she asked.

    ‘Ma’s born and bred in Black Dog,’ said Rick. ‘She was one of six children and the first of her family ever to go to grammar school. She works in the accounts office of a local building firm.’ He sounded so proud of her.

    Jane tried to absorb that information. Peggy couldn’t sound more different from her own mother, who’d travelled the world as a child with her diplomatic father then studied at Oxford University and the Sorbonne in Paris. Since marrying at twenty-four she’d not had a job.

    ‘And your father?’

    ‘He’s a bastard,’ said Rick.

    Rick had said that before but it still gave her a jolt. She’d never realised that you could criticise your parents. It was so ungrateful after all they’d done for you, wasn’t it? Even Shakespeare commented on it, on the awfulness of the ‘thankless child’, and he had to be right, didn’t he?
    She'd never been allowed even to disagree with her parents. They called it 'contradicting' and, along with 'fussing', was one of the worst things she could do.

    ‘Why d’you say that?’ she asked.

    ‘Ma did everything,’ said Rick. ‘Went out to work, looked after us children, paid the bills, cleaned the house. While Pa pretended to be a writer, disappeared whenever he felt like it and saw other women. Then, when she complained, he shouted at her.’

    ‘Ugh.’ Jane felt sick.

    She wondered what sort of a monster she was going to meet.

    ‘He is a bit better now, though,’ said Rick, as if regretting his venom. ‘Well, he’s got a job anyway.’

They reached the outskirts of the village and Rick turned into a street of large modern bungalows, every one different and every one immaculate, with velvety lawns, gleaming windows and fresh paint on all the walls.

    ‘Wow,’ said Jane.

    She knew what her mother would say about them. She’d call them ‘common’. Houses like clothes should be of the best quality, but battered. Being immaculate was vulgar. Nouveau riche.

    Jane thought of her parents’ Victorian mansion with its draughts, unpredictable plumbing and frightening creaks and groans, and knew which sort of house she’d prefer.

    Rick made a face. ‘I know. They’re a bit much, aren’t they.’

    Jane looked at him in surprise.

    ‘Pa’s choice. His family gave them some money. They moved here after we all left home.’

    ‘Were your father’s family rich then?’

    ‘They ran a chain of local shops. Thought they were the bee’s knees. Disapproved of Ma. Called her a “dance-hall pickup”.’ He snorted.

    But Rick’s parents still married, thought Jane, in spite of family disapproval, and by the sounds of it his mother although of lowly origin was the better person.

    ‘What sort of a place did you live in before?’ she asked.

    ‘A proper Devon cottage,’ said Rick. ‘In the village high street, next door to Grandma and Gramp, Ma’s parents.’

    She wondered what sort of a house she and Rick would live in, when they acquired somewhere of their own.

    Rick slammed the brakes on and stopped outside one of the smaller bungalows – matching blue-painted gutters, downpipes and garage door.

    Leaping out of the car, he led her round to a side-door and into a bright blue and white kitchen. There at the sink was a female version of Rick. The same green eyes, the same generous mouth and the same fluffy hair, only hers was blonde not brown.

    She came towards them, wiping her hands on her apron, and patted Rick on both cheeks. ‘Dear boy.’

    ‘This is Jane,’ said Rick putting his hands on Jane’s shoulders and pushing her forward. ‘We love each other and we want to get married.’

    ‘I can see that,’ said Peggy.

    She touched Jane on the cheek. ‘Dear girl.’

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The Mad Englishwoman is completely fine

If you’ve been following my novel as serialised in this blog, you might notice that I haven’t posted any extracts for over a fortnight. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that The Builders have left. There are one or two jobs still to do when items arrive which they’ll come back for and there are several plumbing jobs that Frog is busy doing. The bathroom is however usable and I’m no longer marooned in my study trying to keep out of the way. Consequently, I’m not tied to my computer and have found lots of things to do in the rest of the house and in the garden, and writing has been abandoned.

One end of our new bathroom. Note makeshift curtains.

The other end of our new bathroom. Note absence of basin mirror and shower screen (and door).

The second reason for lack of posting is that I’m approaching some dark areas of the novel and am busy telling myself that I’ve delved into them more than enough and don’t need to do it any more. Like the heroine of this delightful book which I’m reading at the moment, I’m telling myself I'm ‘completely fine’. Which no doubt means that I’m not.

The internet is probably not the best place to read a novel. You need to curl up in bed with it, take your time and shut out the rest of the world. So if you’ve stuck with The Banker’s Niece so far, many many thanks. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

    It’s been fantastically helpful writing for real people and not just to appeal to agents and publishers. It’s made the novel come alive for me and honed my writing (I hope).

    So I’d better get back to it.

The Banker's Niece 7: House-hunting

‘You have reached your destination,’ says the annoying voice of the annoying sat-nav lady.

    She’s definitely a lady, not a woman. That’s probably what makes her so annoying – that and her bossiness and her stupidity.

    Sat-navs are new to Jane, but she’s bought one specially for this trip. She hoped the woman would be a friend, someone to hold her hand in the ‘wilds’ of Devon, but the partnership is taking its time to gel.

    Jane slams her foot on the brake and surveys the turning. ‘Stockland Farm’ says a faded wooden sign on its back in the hedge. The entrance surface is a mixture of cowpat and stones, and the rest of the track doesn’t appear to be much better. Jane’s damned if she’s taking her beloved, new, bright-yellow, Renault Clio up that. On the other hand, does she want to leave Clio on her own by the side of the road in this god-forsaken corner of this god-forsaken part of the country?

    Let alone sat-navs, she’s not had a car for the last twenty years, what with the London traffic, the congestion charge, the impossibility of parking anywhere away from her flat and the Kafkaesque methods of the Residents’ Permit authorities. Buying Clio was a gesture, another step towards her 'new life in the country' as her friends call the move.  Much as she loves Clio, however, she’s finding her something of a responsibility – rather like a new dog, she supposes, not that she’s ever had one herself but she remembers the kerfuffle when her lovely brother Ollie and his lovely wife Lucy acquired their first puppy.

Last night she couldn’t decide whether to leave early, before the morning traffic, or late, after it. But then she woke with the light at 4am and decided she might as well make a move there and then. It was too early for coffee, even for her, so she stopped at a roadside café two hours into the journey and had one of the most disgusting beverages she’s ever tasted. How can you turn a fragrant bean into something that resembles week-old dishwater?

    The roads became smaller and smaller, more and more empty, steeper, twistier and narrower, and now here she is at ten in the morning, worn out, coffee-less and cross. She wishes she’d stayed in London.

She’s been in a mood ever since her mother’s phone call five days ago. She can’t bear being organised, especially by her mother and her mother’s ghastly friends. They have however provided her with an incentive to brave another trip to Devon, explore Moreton Courtney (without Henry), check out the neighbouring towns and villages and drop into a few estate agents for advice. It’s something she has to do and she’s been putting it off for far too long.

    So she’s booked herself into a B & B for three nights, Thursday to Sunday, and emailed the estate agent handling the cottage of William Davenport Junior.

    ‘We’ll leave the door unlocked and let you look around on your own,’ they said, obviously not keen to trek out themselves. ‘Just get in touch if there’s anything you want to know. The owner will probably be around anyway and I’m sure he’ll be only too pleased to help. You can put your questions directly to him if you prefer.’

    Not blooming likely, thinks Jane. Even though she has both the man’s mobile and his landline number – Jane’s mother was most insistent about that, making sure Jane wrote them down and then read them back to her – Jane is darn sure she will do everything in her power to steer clear of him. He’s probably some appalling tweedy brute who shoots everything that moves or – even worse – rampages through the countryside on horseback encouraging packs of rabid dogs to gang up on poor defenceless foxes while he laughs at the law. She’s met plenty of those in Kent, usually in her parents’ drawing-room.

   

She manoeuvres Clio on to a patch of flat grass next to the turning and climbs out.

    ‘Look after yourself,’ she says, patting her vehicle on the roof, ‘and don’t talk to any strange men.’

    With a sense that she’s leaving behind her last connection with civilisation, she starts to pick her way up the track, around the cowpats. They look dry on top but goodness knows what they’re like underneath. She shudders at the thought of green slime oozing over her toes and ruining her new silver sandals. The stones dig into her feet through her thin soles.

    She’s forgotten what the countryside is like. She was an idiot not to come with better footwear. Not that she has any. She has walking boots, which she uses occasionally when ‘hiking’ with friends, and a pair of pretty wellies (blue with pink spots) that she bought for wet days in the city or visiting her parents in Kent but as far as she can remember they leaked from day two. Neither would be appropriate.

    The track is lined with trees but they’re small and the sun is already high. There’s no shade and it’s getting hot. She has of course come without hat and suncream too. Weather forecasters always say that in June the sun is at its most powerful – and dangerous –  even if it doesn't feel like it and she can well believe it. Her head is already aching and the skin on her bare arms is turning red.

    She wonders not for the first time if she’s mad to consider exchanging her London life for something so different. Does she still have it in her to make such a radical transition? Has she thought it through properly? Has she considered the implications – for her career, her family, her friends?

    And why Devon? Except for one small connection nearly four decades ago there’s no logical reason for her to move to the other side of the country. What does she know about the place? Is she allowing Sharon to have too much of an influence on her? Should she step back for a few months and take stock?

    It’s all happening too fast.

  

This walk on the other hand is taking too long. After what feels to Jane like half an hour, but is probably only a few minutes judging by the directions and map that came with the property's details, a building appears on her left, a small white house with a tiled roof which she recognises from the pictures.

    As far as she understands from her mother – who’s heard it from Lavinia – who’s heard it from William Junior - it’s two farm cottages knocked into one and modernised about ten years ago. Until now it’s been let and the most recent tenant, a widow in her eighties, has left for a council flat in the village two miles away.

    Jane pushes open the front door, wondering what detritus of an old woman’s life she’s going to find inside the house. (By old woman she means a woman even older than herself.)
    She doesn't know if she could bear to buy a house found for her by her mother, and why would she want to live out here where she would have to drive both to the nearest village and to Courtney Press when she could find somewhere in Moreton Courtney and walk to work?
    She'll take a quick look round to satisfy her curiosity and to please her mother and her mother's friend (get them off her back), and then she'll head off for some proper exploration.

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The Banker's Niece 6: The telephone conversation

‘Jane,’ says Jane’s mother like a sergeant-major, demanding attention as she always does. She never says ‘Is this a good time?’ or ‘Have you got a moment?’ as other callers do.

    ‘Yes,’ says Jane warily.

    It’s 9am on Saturday morning, not her mother’s normal time. She usually rings on Sunday evening about six, if Jane hasn’t got there first – which she tries to do so as not to spend the entire weekend dreading their conversation. Whatever her mother wants, it must be urgent, and urgent isn’t good news as it tends to mean her mother’s coming up from Kent to London and wants to meet.

    'Jane,’ says her mother again, taking a slurp of something.

    At this time of day it’s probably coffee. She’s always slurping something when she rings. Jane wonders if it’s because she hates their conversations as much as Jane does and needs fortifying. If only Jane had something to hand as well, but she’s this minute tumbled out of bed and is standing in the kitchen in bare feet and her pink fleecy dressing-gown, vulnerable and unfortified.

    ‘I’ve got some wonderful news for you,’ continues Jane’s mother.

    Oh my god, thinks Jane. She’s getting married again.

    Since Jane’s father’s death her mother has blossomed. She’s always rushing off somewhere – holidays, parties, bridge, pilates, cultural coach trips. The last few years of Jane’s father’s life were pretty grim as he became more and more incapacitated and her mother had to look after him, and now she’s obviously making up for lost time. In some ways, Jane is pleased. Both for her mother and because it’s heartening to think that she herself could still be enjoying life like that when she reaches her eighties.

    ‘Ooh,’ says Jane, trying to sound excited but her voice comes out more like a hiccup.

    ‘You remember my friend Lavinia Balfour? We were debs together. Her mother was the Honourable Caroline Griffiths. Her father was a judge, became a Lord. She married William Davenport, now Sir William. They live in a lovely house in the Cotswolds – very near Jilly Cooper.’

    ‘Er, no,’ says Jane.

    Her mother has a vast network of friends and acquaintances, all of the same type. It’s like a mafia. She never describes them by their personal qualities but always by their family trees which Jane finds baffling for so many reasons.

    She herself has not the slightest interest in family trees. They’re mostly concerned with the male line which to Jane is retrograde and disgusting, and families in her experience are a handicap and not at all something to hang on to or be proud of. She goes to the minimum of family parties and then only out of duty and because she doesn’t want relatives complaining about her behind her back – which they probably do anyway, but at least her conscience is clear. Ish.

    So when her mother starts to talk about her friends and their pedigree, Jane switches off. In any case, most of her mother’s friends are dreadful. Unfortunately her mother doesn't notice Jane’s distaste and simply redoubles her efforts to explain.

    ‘Well anyway,’ says her mother, obviously in a hurry this time to get to the point, ‘we met again at a drinks party at the Ponsonby-Smythes. D’you remember them? Their daughter is about the same age as you. Went to Benenden. Married that Conservative MP. Whathisname? The youngest son of the Duke of Essex. Their son is that famous photographer.

    Jane has lost the thread. All she knows is that she’s failed. She didn’t board at a girls’ public school. She didn’t marry some scion of the aristocracy. She doesn’t have illustrious children.

    She hears her mother take another slurp. Perhaps she’s lost the thread too.

    ‘Lavinia Davenport,’ says Jane, thinking back to when her mother’s conversation last made sense, not because she cares about the wretched Lavinia but because she could be here all day if she doesn’t prompt occasionally.

    ‘Ah yes,’ says her mother, coming to life again. ‘Quite a coincidence. The Davenports were staying with the Pollocks. Very old family. Related to the Viscounts Hanworth. Lived near us at the old house.'

    Jane’s mother has recently moved from the seven-bedroomed Victorian farmhouse where Jane and her younger brother Ollie were brought up to a small modern place in a nearby village.

    ‘And?’ says Jane. She wants her coffee. What on earth did her mother ring for?

    ‘So I told Lavinia about you moving to Devon seeing as you’d be quite near –’

    Well not really, thinks Jane. Devon - Gloucestershire. Several hundred miles from each other. Several hours’ drive. Thank goodness.

    She’s accepted the job at Courtney Press, given in her notice at work and put her flat on the market. And told her mother. All she has to do now is find somewhere near Moreton Courtney to live. It’s June and she has until the beginning of September when the new job starts. She’s done some half-hearted property searches on the internet and bought a car to help with the move, but hasn’t yet been down to Devon to look at anything. It’s all a bit daunting. She doesn’t know what sort of place she wants or where she wants it to be – in a village, a town, a city or the middle of nowhere.

    ‘- and she said - actually it’s all rather exciting – that her son – William – a little bit younger than you but not that much – and probably tall if his father’s anything to go by – used to be in the army - was married to that glamorous barrister Arabella Sotheby, the one who represents all those celebrities – but divorced now, and a bit of a worry to the family I would say, reading between the lines.’ She pauses for breath. ‘Anyway William looks after a family farm and guess where it is.’

    ‘Um, Devon,’ says Jane.

    ‘Yes, but thassnot all,’ says her mother, tripping over her tongue in her excitement. ‘It’s near Muddicombe.’

    ‘Muddy-cm,’ says Jane, copying her mother’s pronunciation. Whether that's how the locals pronounce the word is anyone’s guess. The name means nothing to her.

    ‘Yes, Muddicombe,’ says her mother impatiently. ‘Only a few miles from Moreton Courtney.’

    Her mother’s obviously been doing her research. She even claims to have met Henry and his wife at a dinner party twenty years ago. Her memory for some things is phenomenal. For others, not quite so good.

    ‘Right,’ says Jane.

    Is her mother really lining up young William as a husband for Jane? Does she really think Jane’s that desperate? Is that all she’s called to say? She’s been thrusting suitable men at Jane for almost fifty years and it hasn’t worked yet. You’d think she might have got the message.

    ‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ says her mother as if it’s Jane’s fault she hasn’t grasped the whole picture. ‘William has a cottage for sale on the farm. Lavinia’s given him a ring and he’s expecting you.’ 

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The Banker's Niece 5: I wish we could run away

Spring 1978

‘I wish we could run away and get married on our own,’ burst out Jane, taking her eyes off the book of literary criticism on the desk in front of her. She’d been reading the same paragraph for the last half an hour without taking anything in.

    ‘I know what you mean,’ said Rick, putting a finger on his place in the electronics magazine he was reading and looking up from the mattress on the floor where he sprawled. ‘It’s nothing to do with anyone else. And we don’t want a big wedding.’

    ‘God no,’ said Jane.

    The thought of all those relatives eyeing up the two of them and all the arrangements involved in a big wedding, filled her with horror. Her mother would no doubt organise everything and it wouldn’t be Jane’s wedding any more.

    Even supposing she and Rick got that far. Her parents hadn’t met him yet.

    It was Monday evening. They were in Jane’s room at her student house in Exeter. It was a small room with only two pieces of furniture – a wardrobe and a desk. Rick’s clothes spilled from a built-in cupboard next to the fireplace and his bits and pieces (belt-purse, keys, unpaid bills, electronic components) shared the mantelpiece with Jane’s hairbrush and moisturisers. Their new double mattress filled most of the unused floor space.

    Actually it wasn’t new - Rick found it in a skip - but it was new to Jane’s room. He’d appeared with it balanced on the roof of the Mini (Clubman) one evening the week before.

   ‘I’m not squashing in your single bed any longer,’ he said.

   Luckily he didn’t tell her where he’d got the mattress until she’d been sleeping on it for a few nights and by then she was past worrying. She was still alive, wasn't she? And Rick was right about it being more comfortable. Both of them were big people, Rick being three inches taller than her, and she hadn’t slept much in the single bed once Rick arrived to share it.

    Back in January when they first got together they’d spent the nights at the country cottage Rick rented where there was plenty of space, but one Saturday in February it snowed and snowed and Rick was marooned at Jane’s house in Exeter for a whole week. Somehow, after that, he never left.

    Anyway, the mattress was the least of her worries. As well as the prospect of telling her parents about Rick, there was the problem of her housemates.

    Her best friend Heather, the only other girl in the house, wasn't talking to her any more because Jane wouldn't tell her about Rick. It wasn't that Jane didn't want to to ell her. She couldn't. She couldn't explain to herself what was happening, so how could she explain to anyone else? Heather obviously didn't understand that and had taken Jane's reticence personally.

    Then there was Gordon, who still behaved oddly around Rick even though she finished with Gordon on her very first day back at university after Christmas which was nearly a week before she and Rick became serious.

    He’d unfortunately appeared at the top of the stairs as Jane and Rick were dragging the mattress up. He’d given a sickly grin and squashed himself against the wall pretending to get out of their way.

    Her whole stomach tightened. She’d never meant to hurt him and once upon a time he’d been a friend too.

    She was now waiting for her other housemates, Mike and Pete, to complain about Rick’s hi-fi and records (thankfully only a selection of both) which had landed in the sitting-room.

    ‘Can’t I put them in the bedroom?’ Rick had said.

    ‘Whereabouts in the bedroom?’ Jane had asked.

    Rick didn’t have an answer to that.

She tried to study again but, after ten minutes of getting nowhere, gave up.

    ‘But we do want to get married,’ she said.

    ‘We have to,’ said Rick, keeping his eyes on the magazine. ‘We’ll never survive otherwise.’

    ‘Survive as people, and survive as a couple,’ said Jane.

    ‘Indeed,’ said Rick.

    It was a conversation they’d had several times before but each time it gave her a wave of relief.

    It was extraordinary. On the surface they were different in every possible way but deep down they were the same. They spoke the same language.

    Marriage was something else that came between them and their friends. None of them was married themselves or even contemplating it. 'Marriage is a way of enslaving women,' they said. 'It's an institution and who wants to live in an institution?'

    She and Rick didn’t see it that way.

    ‘But do we have to tell our parents?’ she asked, coming back to where she started.

    It was dark outside, time to close the curtains, but she didn’t want to stand up and interrupt the conversation.

    ‘I’d like to tell Ma,’ said Rick, still reading.

    Rick’s parents lived in Devon. Jane hadn’t met them yet but she and Rick were having lunch with them at the weekend. Jane was looking forward to it. They sounded normal.

    Unlike her own.

    ‘So I suppose it’s only fair I tell mine then,’ she said. ‘I suppose I owe it to them.’

    ‘You must do exactly what you want,’ said Rick.

    ‘If only it were that easy,’ she cried.

    ‘It is,’ he said.

    She tried once again to return to her book. She had a third worry, her finals in May, and worry was turning to panic. Normally this close to exams she’d be following a revision timetable drawn up months earlier. She’d be working through old exam papers, preparing answers and storing them in note form on index cards. This year she’d done nothing. Rick had overturned everything.

    It had been a struggle getting to university at twenty without the backing of school but she’d done it to get away from London, because she thought a degree might help her to satisfying work and because she enjoyed academic study. Or always had done.

    Recently however her brain had refused to cooperate. She couldn’t get into the right frame of mind. Studying felt harmful somehow, as if she were going in the wrong direction.

    She looked down at Rick. She suspected he was reading the ‘small ads’ as he called them, lists of parts with minute differences between them and names she’d never heard before like ‘capacitor’ and ‘resistor’. He read everything and anything, even dictionaries and circuit diagrams.

    No one could be less academic than Rick and yet what he was doing now was a form of studying. But it was on his terms and certainly not any form that her parents would appreciate.

    ‘They can’t be that bad,’ said Rick, nose still in the magazine.

    She laughed. He’d read her mind.

    They were and she’d tried to explain them to Rick but she didn’t think he understood, not because he was unsympathetic but because he’d never met people like them before.

She shook herself. Why should she be the one to bring such trouble into his life? She wanted to make him happy not unhappy. She wasn’t going to harp on about her parents any more. The question of what she told them was one she would have to answer for herself.

    He started to sing.

            We grew up together living separate lives.

            Now we need each other.

            What a big surprise.

She wanted to cry. She loved this song.* It had been reverberating around the house last weekend while Rick installed his hi-fi.

    She abandoned her books and crept on to the mattress to join him.

*'I was made to love you’ from Dreamweaver by Gary Wright

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