It is a long time since Martyn and Hattie did any entertaining, but now Martyn does not hesitate when Harold says, ‘Debora would love to come round and talk babies with Hattie sometime.’

  ‘Why not come round for a meal one evening,’ he suggests. ‘Tomorrow’s good.’

  Hattie thinks it is a good idea too, though she is finding work quite exhausting: not that she seems to get much done, just that everything seems to take so long. Pointless emails spawn exponentially, no one ever calls back when they say they will. She and Hilary have been separated, so at least now she has an office of her own, but this means she can no longer keep an eye on her colleague. Once the division between domestic and overseas rights has been blurred, which it was with the Tourette’s writer, Hilary could start poaching Hattie’s authors. But it’s obviously a good idea to have Martyn’s boss to dinner, and she can be sure Kitty will look adorable and stay asleep during the meal, and Agnieszka can do the cooking.

  Hattie wonders briefly whom to ask as well – Babs and Alastair obviously won’t do for political reasons, and she can’t ask Neil and his wife until she and Martyn are way up the wage scale and better housed. Being Serena’s great-niece might help them up a little on the social ladder but Hattie is not naive enough to think that this will totally compensate for other factors. It is probably more useful to have Martyn’s father, the electricians’-strike martyr, as a deceased father-in-law, than Serena as a great-aunt. She could mention her mother Lallie the internationally famous flute player, who is well-enough known in musical circles, but literature and music, like literature and politics, do not necessarily overlap. Moreover, she prefers not to think about her mother if she can help it. It sets off too many complicated emotions. Lallie is too strange and remote a creature to seem like true family: Hattie is closer to Frances.

  Besides, Hattie is proud. She would rather be taken at her own valuation: that is to say, not as someone with impressive relatives, but as a lively and competent publishing executive, who may have a child but has a supportive husband and reliable child-care as well and will one day qualify as a fit hostess for Neil and his wife, but not yet. She seems to remember, in any case, that Neil is off again to the Bahamas.

  She could ask Frances, but whoever asked their grandmother to parties? And Frances is bound to talk about Sebastian, and her views on drugs will be too naïve for comfort: Frances would probably argue that all controls be taken off all drugs, including cigarettes, and the market let go free. From the sound of Debora she will think weed is okay, but tobacco evil. So Hattie will play safe; it will just be herself and Martyn, and Harold and Debora, and of course Agnieszka.

  Hattie really looks forward to meeting Debora and showing off Kitty and is pleased that Martyn invited them, even if he did so without consulting her, and at so little notice. She has a meeting with Hilary at five thirty – Hilary always sets up in-house meetings with women colleagues last thing, allegedly just to catch out those who are hurrying home to children – but Hattie will boldly cancel it, and get back home early. She will serve moules marinières followed by light couscous, then just cheese and biscuits and fruit. Hattie talked it over with Agnieszka in the morning. She will do the moules marinières and Agnieszka can do her special chicken couscous with marinated vegetables of which they have all become fond. Agnieszka looks a little doubtful and suggests to Hattie that instead of moules marinières, which can be acidy and is rather obvious and takes a long time to prepare and you have to be so careful to discard any shells that are open, she does coquilles au gratin - scallops with breadcrumbs, cheese and garlic, put under the grill for just a few minutes – so Hattie can pay proper attention to her guests. Hattie thinks this is a very good idea.

  On the day of the dinner party (or shared meal – ‘just to talk about babies’) Agnieszka does the shopping, and buys fresh scallops from the fish stall in the market. The shellfish are truly beautiful to look at, but Agnieszka has not bought them opened, cleaned and laid out prettily on their shells, with that strange orange segment – actually the scallops’ sexual organs – settled in neatly next to the white flesh: but still alive, and in their shells. Agnieszka has done this for the sake of ‘freshness’.

  Hattie gets back from work at six thirty – Hilary managed to keep her late after all talking about another novel which one of ‘her’ writers, Marina Faircroft, real name Joan Barnes, had rather oddly sold to several foreign territories herself, so it was a moot point whether the writer was ‘hers’ or Hattie’s. Hattie had no problem with Marina’s being Hilary’s, but Hilary wanted to talk about it at length, and has called Marina at home, and then everyone had to wait for Marina, who has just run to collect her little girl from Guides, to call back and confirm it was all right by her.

  Now Hattie realises that she has to open the live scallops, separate flesh from shell, clean them, and cook them, wondering the while at what point of the process life leaves their little bodies.

  Agnieszka is still getting Kitty to bed. She calls Hattie in to read a bedtime story, which Agnieszka chooses, and strikes Kitty as rather mystifying since it is so full of words rather than pictures, and Kitty keeps looking for pictures which aren’t even there.

  Meanwhile, Agnieszka stirs up a couscous, cooking it in a stock she made earlier in the day, and adding chicken and her marinated vegetables, which Martyn and Hattie know quite well by now, and approve of. Hattie is left with the scallops: how they resist her every attempt to open them: she slips a knife between the flanges of a shell and it opens fractionally only to clamp back down upon the blade of the knife. She tries to get it out by twisting and the knife breaks and she is lucky not be blinded. There is a nasty black pouch which is some kind of gut. The large private parts, or whatever they are, cling to both top and bottom shells. How to separate them? She has to consult the Internet where fortunately some kind person has provided written and illustrated instructions as to how it’s best done.

  By the time Hattie’s cleaned three of the scallops, and there are twenty-two to go, and has not even begun the cooking process, let alone prepared cheese, onion, garlic or breadcrumbs, she hears Harold and Debora come laughing and talking into the house with Martyn. They go through to the living room where Agnieszka, already changed, wearing Hattie’s red dress and lipstick, has the table laid and the candles lit and is arranging flowers.

  It is Agnieszka who takes Debora in to see the now sleeping Kitty. Little cries of Debora’s appreciation come from the open bedroom door, which is nice, but Hattie is pink-faced from frustration and inadequacy. She is still in the jeans and T-shirt she now automatically changes into when she gets home from the office. She’d wanted to receive Harold and Debora looking at her best, not at her worst. It is the pre-Agnieszka days back again, when nothing was ever ready and nothing properly done. Her period has started, which is a relief, because she understands why the office was being so trying, but a nuisance because she has a pain.

  ‘And you must be Agnieszka,’ says Debora to Hattie, as she comes by the kitchen. Debora speaks most civilly, as one does to a servant, conscious that they are not in a position to change the nature of their employment and like all vulnerable creatures must be treated well. ‘Your fame has spread far and wide. I hear you’re a brilliant cook.’

  ‘Actually,’ says Hattie, ‘I am not Agnieszka. I’m Hattie, Martyn’s partner and Kitty’s mother. I am so pleased to meet you.’ And she offers a red, raw, scratched and fishy hand.

  Debora is mortified and offers to help with the scallops: an offer Hattie gratefully accepts. But Debora insists on wearing rubber gloves and is even.less effective at opening, knifing and cleaning than is Hattie: the shells snap shut and trap the rubber ends of the fingers, and Debora realises with a little cry of horror that the creatures are still alive.

  Family and guests end up without a first course at all, going straight to the couscous, which is delectable so everyone is happy, discussing the extension of the anti-fox-hunting bill to include angling, and what’s to be done to avoid cruelty to lobsters, scallops, oysters, mussels, and so on, and at what stage human responsibility for the well-being of simpler organisms stops. All agree that the chicken they are eating, being organic, lived a good life and a full life, just one that was cut short. There is much laughter. But it is some time before Hattie can join in with a good grace: she would like to blame Agnieszka, but can’t really since Agnieszka was only following the basic rules of the household, which was always to buy foods as little packaged and pre-prepared as possible.

  The talk settles on Debora’s dilemma: to have a baby or not to have one? It appears her desire to be a mother derives from a feeling that she owes it to the cosmos to spread their genes: she and Harold together would surely produce a baby which could run the WHO or Oxfam. With Debora’s logistic skill and Harold’s compassion – even Harold begins to look a little embarrassed – they would surely produce a baby that was both brainy and beautiful; theirs would be a designer baby as nature meant it to be, rather than thanks to tinkering in a laboratory.

  ‘It may not be quite like that,’ demurs Hattie. ‘What comes out comes out.’

  ‘If it’s God’s will,’ says Agnieszka, ‘we have to accept it.’ It’s about all she has said all evening. The candlelight flatters her complexion and she speaks softly and sweetly. Conversation stops flowing for an instant, and then resumes. ‘If she were otherly-abled,’ says Debora, ‘we’d still love her, wouldn’t we, Harold? We wouldn’t shirk our responsibilities.’ Harold says the baby has a fifty percent chance of being a boy, and Debora looks quite put out.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘I’d only have a girl.’

  But on being asked why, she just says she’s the kind of person to have daughters. Anyway, Harold already has two sons.

  ‘The point is,’ says Martyn, ‘this ideal baby doesn’t exist yet. It’s all in the head, and if you keep it like that much longer you won’t have one at all. You know how female fertility drops after thirty-five.’

  ‘The same blunt fellow as ever,’ says Harold, a little stiffly.

  ‘It’s what we admire in you.’ Debora is thirty-six.

  Hattie, to cover the gap, says she hopes Kitty at least inherits some of her mother’s talent, and when asked who her mother is, mentions Lallie’s name. Debora looks blank but Harold reacts. Harold’s parents were concert-goers and interested in the world of music. Hattie is gratified, and would say more, but Martyn now wants to talk about his father’s adventures in the Communist Party, and Debora wants to talk about herself. Debora wins, because she is the boss’s mistress. Debora says that – taking everything into consideration – she may not after all be quite ready for a baby, and Harold, perhaps thinking of his column, looks vaguely disappointed, but also relieved.

  Hattie, who has had quite a few glasses of wine – Agnieszka does not drink – launches into a passionate defence of motherhood, and how it need not interfere with a career so long as a woman gets herself organised, but her voice drifts off as she sees both Martyn and Agnieszka looking at her in a puzzled way. The red silk dress, now decidedly too small for Hattie, stretches over Agnieszka’s fine bosom, a magnet for male eyes, and indeed Debora’s and Hattie’s.

  It occurs to Hattie that perhaps Agnieszka has had a boob job but that is obviously out of the question – where would she have found the time? Then Hattie realises it’s just a rather efficient uplift bra, and is probably one of Hattie’s own, because she can just see its distinctive red strap when Agnieszka clears the plates. It was a gift from Serena and fabulously expensive: Serena says it’s what she would like to own if only she had the figure and youth for it, which she hasn’t. So she bought it for Hattie.

  But it is pleasant just to sit there and have someone else clear the plates, and bring out the cheese. Martyn makes the coffee.

  While Agnieszka and Martyn are both out of the room fetching and carrying, Harold says to Hattie: ‘Brave of you to have her in the house. The inspirer of dreams.’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ says Hattie. She doesn’t think she likes Harold very much. He smiles as if he was agreeable and sighs a lot as if he was sensitive but he is sexist and spiteful.

  ‘Agnieszka comes to Martyn in his dreams,’ explains Debora. Hattie doesn’t think she likes Debora very much either.

  Hattie hopes she will have a lot of trouble getting pregnant. Then she is ashamed of her thoughts.

  ‘How could you possibly know that?’ she asks.

  ‘Because Martyn told Harold and Harold told me,’ says Debora. ‘Office life and pillow talk. You know what it’s like. If I ever have an au pair I’ll make sure she’s as plain as a toad.’

  ‘Plain ones are the worst,’ says Harold. ‘Never think you’re safe. Don’t you worry about Martyn, Hattie. When you dream, you don’t do.’

  Hattie wonders why they are trying to upset her, and decides they are jealous because she is happy, and they are not. ‘Like suicide?’ says Debora. ‘Those who threaten it don’t do it.’

  ‘Statistically speaking you’re wrong there, Debora,’ says Harold. ‘Those who threaten frequently do.’

  Martyn and Agnieszka bring in the cheese, and some green-tomato chutney which Agnieszka has brought back from her friends in Neasden. Martyn runs his hands over Hattie’s shoulders as he passes the back of her chair, and Hattie is comforted. It has not been an easy evening.

  When they are going to bed that night Hattie says: ‘You shouldn’t have said that stuff about infertility and age.’

  ‘Why not? It’s true,’ says Martyn.

  ‘I think it touched a nerve,’ says Hattie.

  Martyn puts on the pyjamas that Agnieszka has laid out for him.

  ‘It was rather odd, not having a first course,’ he says. ‘That didn’t help. I hope they didn’t find it too strange.’

  Hattie says: ‘It was Agnieszka’s fault. She bought live scallops, not cleaned ones. I think she knew what she was about. She loves to show me up.’

  And Martyn says: ‘Now look, Hattie, don’t take your failures out on Agnieszka.’

  Cooking Disasters

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ says Serena. ‘Not just that Martyn’s loyalties may be getting confused, but that Hattie should report that remark to you.’

  ‘It’s in the nature of women to report the bad behaviour of men to other women: he did this, then he said that, I can’t stand it a minute longer. They don’t expect to be taken seriously.’

  Serena agrees that it is certainly safer to report one’s wrongs to other women than to men. She tells me how recently she was sounding off about Cranmer to a male friend and months later when she saw him again he said ‘thank God, you two are still together – I thought you were splitting up’, and she couldn’t even remember what the quarrel had been about, except she had been very angry at the time. What woman ever can remember? Unless of course, Serena observes, it concerns some act of infidelity, where the female memory seems to be more tenacious than the male. She is of course talking about herself.

  More than ten years now since George died, and she remembers those quarrels, those insults, those tears, as if they were yesterday. We are coming up now to the anniversary of his death. Serena tries to keep the memories and images out of her head, she says, but they keep coming back. Today she chooses to remember the latter days of the marriage and George saying, as he carted her off to a new-age therapist – whom she hadn’t until then realised he was seeing – ‘She’ll soon tell you a thing or two about yourself and your behaviour’: and how she was bewildered, thinking, ‘But I love him – why does he seem to hate me? What have I done but be myself?’ She knew George was depressed: it was cyclical and left to itself would soon clear up. The depression showed itself as hostility to her, but it would pass. It had before: she must sit it out and wait for the good days to return.

  Dr Wendy Style, the new-age therapist, who had already read both George and Serena’s astrological charts and come to the conclusion they were totally unsuited, pointed out that both of them could live perfectly well without the other. George had agreed. This had left Serena open-mouthed while in the consulting room and gulping with tears on the drive home to Grovewood, but George was unmoved. She could not live without him, but it appeared he thought he could live without her well enough. Only later did it occur to her that this was the way he had chosen to tell her that the marriage was over. He had lacked the courage himself. Break the bad news by fax, text, email – or therapist, that’s the post-modern way. Scraps of the past, gathered together, distorted and handed over.

  But have some sympathy for George. He had had a minor heart attack, been told by his doctors to make major life changes, been directed to a therapist who told him that to survive he must ‘cut the ties that bind’, and was doing for once in his life what he was told. If his therapist said his wife must go, so that he could live healthily, breathe properly, think high thoughts and find his destiny as a great artist and a spiritual leader, he would believe her.

  His paintings, it was true, and whatever his personal problems, were getting better and better. They were rich with colour: he painted flowers, fish, landscape, as if he owned them, had thought of them in the first place, almost indeed, as if he were the prime creator. They had an astonishing intensity.

  Today they sit in store, gaining in strength, waiting purchasers. Some paintings lose power after the death of the artist: some seem to gather it. George’s do. Until his split with Serena I hung them in my gallery and they sold fast and well. Out of loyalty to Serena I took them all down. Now she is with Cranmer she will not have one in her house, but she pays for their storage and there is talk of George (posthumous) and Sebastian (imprisoned) having a joint show in London, which she will encourage her children to organise.