Serena hears about the wedding first. I suppose Hattie is more frightened of me than of her great-aunt. I get to hear when Serena calls me and says simply, ‘Martyn married Agnieszka three weeks ago’, and I go cold, efficient and distant, as I did when the lawyer from Rotterdam rang me up. It is something to do with having been brought up in New Zealand, where everyone, male and female both, knows how to go into emergency mode. It is why New Zealand men – I will not insult them by calling them Kiwis, though they seem to like the term; Kiwis are cautious, frightened little birds, and I cannot think how that bold, fierce landscape, this noble race, ever spawned them – are found in charge of field hospitals and NGOs, and why New Zealand girls make such excellent au pairs, pausing in your home a little as they gather strength for some amazing leap into future life. If the refugee camp is bombed, the New Zealander does not run away but stays and puts it together again; if the baby falls on its head the New Zealand girl doesn’t have hysterics, she just gets it to the hospital.

  Serena and I share this ability, though I was born in New Zealand and she was not. Show us a sheep and we shear it: an earthquake, and we know to sit beneath the stairs, a tidal wave and we know when and where to run. It’s just when we see men that the knack deserts us: we run into danger, not away from it. I’ve failed Hattie: my beautiful Hattie, with her upright back and wilful ways; Martyn has left her, left her for the maid.

  ‘I hope to God she’s seen a lawyer,’ I say, cool and calm.

  ‘It isn’t like that,’ says Serena. ‘They’re all still together.’

  ‘What, in one big bed?’ I have all the meanness that comes with fury. It is in my voice.

  I hear it, and I intend it.

  ‘No wonder she didn’t confide in you,’ says Serena. ‘She knew how you’d react. Of course not in one big bed. It’s a marriage of convenience so the girl and her family don’t get put on a plane and sent back to the Ukraine. If you didn’t want something like this to happen you could always have gone to live with them and helped out. It’s perfectly obvious to anyone that Hattie would never settle down and be domestic. She’s too bright.’

  ‘What, me give up the gallery? I have to earn a living.’

  ‘Since when?’ By which she means: ‘think how I have helped you out over the years.’

  Serena and I are having a quarrel. That’s what stupid Hattie has done to us. I am so angry. And Serena is upset too, or she wouldn’t be referring to what we never refer to: my financial dependence on her.

  ‘Nothing profitable ever happens in that gallery,’ she says.

  ‘You hardly ever had it open until Sebastian was out of the picture and you had nothing else to do.’

  I find the grace to acknowledge the truth in what she says, and the quarrel is over before it began.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I say, ‘you’re right. But there wasn’t room for me in their dinky little house and they’d have hated having me there watching them and worrying. And then the prison people might have let Sebastian out early, and then we’d be back where we started. As well suggest that you moved in with them.’

  ‘But I have Cranmer,’ she says, and we both laugh.

  Excuses, excuses. The partner, the spouse, the children as excuse. ‘Can’t do this because it is my duty to do that.’

  Serena found Cranmer quickly enough after she split with George. She knows the importance of a male partner for a woman. Leaving aside matters of love, loyalty and companionship, without a partner for an excuse a woman quickly gets roped in to do baby-sitting, emergency dashes to hospitals, fund-raising, caring for ageing parents (decades out of her life), collecting others from stations. With a partner she has of course another set of problems, all to do with love, loyalty and companionship. But the first, or so Serena demonstrates in her life, is preferable to the second. I’m pretty sure she married the schoolmaster to get away from Wanda. Just as Susan ran off with Piers and I ran off with Charlie. We were all terrified of ending up living with our mother.

  Not that there was anything terrible about Wanda: on the contrary, we loved her and admired her, but she did like her own way and she was censorious. And if I were in a room and standing up, Wanda could be guaranteed to come in and say ‘why don’t you sit down and have a rest?’ and if I were sitting down she’d say ‘doesn’t the window need opening?’ or closing, or cleaning, or whatever, so I’d have to get up and do it. She needed to make her mark, change the world as it laid itself out before her, to suit the way she thought it ought to be. Serena complained she couldn’t write if Wanda was anywhere near.

  Poor Susan, not as adept as her sisters, ended up having to share a roof with Wanda so of course she preferred to die young. Now we are older, we who survive invoke lover-dependents (Cranmer, Sebastian), so as not to have to live with our children.

  ‘You’re telling me that Martyn and the au pair had a Catholic nuptial Mass, then they all just went back home, and everything is expected to go on as before?’ I have passed from anger to disbelief. I suppose this to be an advance on the road to ‘closure’, albeit an erratic one.

  ‘I believe Martyn wants Agnieszka to shorten her name to Agnes, so Agnieszka is thinking about it.’

  ‘Does she still keep calling him Mr Martyn?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Stone the crows. But Hattie stays just Hattie?’

  ‘Yes. Thank God. To them it’s the marriage certificate which is important; the marriage is beside the point. Agnieszka sends the scrap of paper off to the Home Office, Martyn’s boss helps it on its way, and lo! Agnes Arkwright is a citizen.’

  ‘I can’t believe they’ve done this. They’re so moral,’ I say.

  ‘They’re the new young,’ Serena says. ‘They have a different idea of morality from us.’

  I ask for more detail about the wedding. I am calming down. I can see that in Hattie’s eyes she has done a good and noble thing. But it’s always sad to miss a wedding, and I do think that as her grandmother, and the one who brought her up, I should at least have been invited, if only to refuse.

  I didn’t tell Wanda when I married Sebastian: we just went off and did it with two witnesses. It was in the middle of Hattie’s exams, so she couldn’t come. That was more or less how I timed it, to save her embarrassment; who wants to go to their grandmother’s wedding? Perhaps Hattie is only doing to me what I had done to her?

  Wanda didn’t come to Serena’s wedding to Cranmer, claiming infirmity of age. The wedding was a couple of weeks after George’s funeral, which was perhaps the real reason, the speed of it being scarcely decent. Wanda did not go to the funeral either, saying when you got to her age you were excused family obligations. Before George died she told Serena she should stop moaning about George’s desertion because who wanted to look after a man in his old age, and now Serena was free of the obligation and Sandra would have to do it.

  George died when he and Serena were in that limbo between decree nisi and decree absolute when nobody is quite sure what anyone’s legal situation is. I am not surprised that Hattie has such a low opinion of marriage. But if she had only talked to me, I could have warned her not to bring down so much complexity of practical obligation and legal cost on the unfortunate Martyn’s head.

  Serena decided it was best not to cancel the wedding to Cranmer, but to get on with it so the children didn’t have to go on waiting for her to realise it was madness to marry a man some twenty years younger and an anarcho-conservative to boot. Serena’s children, like mine, were all what Cranmer calls lefties, born to go on demos and fight for the rights of the oppressed from the safety of their kindly homes. Serena thought it was worse for her children to wait in false hope than face the fact that this she meant to do: marry again, and not live the left-over life that George had bequeathed her. But she was of course half-mad from grief and resentment at the time, and the more reasonable she thought she was being, the less she was. She could have afforded to wait just a little – any therapist would have told her that.

  Some of the children came to the wedding, some did not, and she could not blame them either way. And, come to that, Serena did not go to George’s funeral either, to most of her friends’ and family’s dismay. Widows go to funerals, but do ex-wives? Not if they have any sense. And Serena did not know if she was a wife, an ex-wife or a widow. But she did know that Sandra, in whose arms her husband or ex-husband had died, meant to attend.

  I went: I asked her permission and she said I could stand in for her and do her public grieving. I had been very fond of George. He went very peculiar towards the end, and whether that was because of his genes or splashes of oilyblue organophosphate, the Nazi nerve poison, we will never know.

  Sandra came to the funeral in an orange dress and a yellow Ascot hat. She was distraught with ostentatious grief. A cortège of friends came with her, all in tears, all in hats, weeping and wailing. I didn’t speak to her; few on our side did.

  The new-age therapist did not come: she was probably too guilty and frightened: she had wanted his money but not for him to die. The day after the death she came round to Grovewood wanting to recover any letters she might have written to George, which his children refused to either look for or supply.

  George really has to take some responsibility for his own death: why did he trust such an egregious person in the first place? Poor George. I am lucky with Sebastian. He has managed to get past seventy without going doolally, getting depressed, splashed by nerve poison, changing his nature, trusting demented therapists, chasing after little girls as some men do, forgetting to zip up his flies, dribbling his food, champing false teeth, shuffling in slippers, quarrelling with neighbours, cursing his enemies, shaking his fist Lear-like at the skies: all the things – Wanda is quite right – that men tend to do as they get older.

  What he has developed, alas, is a liking for short cuts, which is why he is in the Bijlmer and not with me.

  As for Sandra the mistress, she did all right for herself in the end; we don’t have to be sorry for her. Six weeks after the funeral she stood pathetically outside a married girlfriend’s window looking at the domestic scene within and quietly weeping. They opened the door to her.

  ‘Sandra, why are you crying?’

  ‘Because George is dead, and I envy you so much,’ she said. ‘I will always be on the outside and never on the inside.’ So they invited her in and asked her to stay until she felt better. Six weeks later and she’d run off with the husband: he just happened to be a millionaire. So far as I know, she has lived happily ever after.

  Serena tells me more about the wedding. Hattie told her that after the ceremony, when they were all walking home for refreshments – Agnieszka had made profiteroles, little cinnamon cakes and a special bread made with evaporated milk – the bride ran ahead, clip-clop on green kitten heels, to open the front door and get the kettle on. (The heels once belonged to Hattie, but these days she likes to wear higher ones.) And the cattery-mother did a strange thing. She ran after Agnieszka into the house, went into the back garden, took a handful of earth and flung it on the kitchen floor. The others had come in by now. Agnieszka had filled a bucket with hot soapy water and her mother sloshed it all over the floor and Agnieszka took a broom and swept it all out again, earth and all. The sister had mysteriously found the strength to clap her hands, then everything went on as normal.

  ‘Hattie actually said “as normal”?’ I ask. ‘So what’s “normal”?’

  ‘It sounds like some kind of ancient wedding custom,’ says Serena. ‘And that’s not so good. Hattie and Martyn may not think it’s a real marriage but Agnieszka and her family probably do.’

  Martyn And Agnieszka In Bed

  The wedding is three weeks behind them. Hilary has left for Frankfurt, and Hattie now has a nice office with a view over rooftops. Elfie is her likeable if erratic assistant and Marina – who had been suffering from pre-submission nerves when she’d threatened to sue – has finally finished and delivered her manuscript. The book will do well. Agnieszka has found her passport, and written to the Foreign Office forwarding a marriage certificate which no one queries. It seems as if the Ukraine will be part of Europe before long, and so no one is bothering much about from which side of a soon-to-be-irrelevant border someone came. Babs is on maternity leave in Florida, and Debora is not pregnant.

  Martyn now works for d/EvOLUTION, and his boss is Cyrilla Leighton, a smart young woman of twenty-seven. She is helpful and encouraging – even flattering – about Martyn’s work. She can’t write but at least she knows it; and if sometimes his articles go under her by-line he is not bothered. Evolution, when it comes to it, is more entertaining than Devolution. The Darwinians and Neo-Darwinians drink more, use shorter words and make more jokes than those steeped in the theory of politics. They may veer to the right, throwing up their hands when presented with human nature, saying what do you expect, rather than earnestly attempting to introduce policies to put things right, but Martyn can cope with that. He knows where his sympathies lie.

  When asked about his marital status (and it’s amazing how many young women at conferences or parties come straight out with: ‘Are you with someone?’), he replies: ‘I’m with a partner in a committed relationship. We have a child.’ He does not of course mention the marriage, and is glad that Harold is moving in higher circles, so is seldom in the office to allude to it by suggestive wink or whisper.

  Martyn’s political prospects advance steadily; he hopes to be adopted by the Party for a marginal seat up North, which he also hopes he will not win. Best to lose this one, then be given a safe seat in a constituency nearer home. He cannot see Hattie agreeing to move far from London.

  Agnieszka would follow him wherever he went but he is with Hattie, not Agnieszka.

  Agnieszka cares for Kitty as usual, sleeps in her own bed, puts Martyn and Hattie’s food upon the table, is sweet and kind – and you would not know anything was wrong, except now she cries in bed, night after night. They can hear the soft, whuffling, gulping sounds just the other side of the wall. What can she want? How can they make her happy?

  ‘Whatever can be the matter with her?’ asks Martyn. ‘She’s keeping me awake, and if I don’t sleep I don’t write.’

  ‘We can hardly do any more for her than we have,’ says Hattie. She would like a little more happy gratitude from Agnieszka than she receives.

  Martyn nudges Hattie, laughing quietly – they always speak quietly in bed – and says:

  ‘Well, I suppose we could.’

  ‘You mean take her into our bed,’ says Hattie, ‘like we used to with Kitty before Mrs Arkwright came into our lives and we learned better? I don’t think so, Martyn!’ She’s joking.

  ‘Don’t call her Mrs Arkwight,’ says Martyn. ‘It sounds hostile.’

  ‘Oh, so she’s your wife and you need to protect her,’ says Hattie, who now is feeling hostile. ‘I’m so glad you have these proper husbandly feelings about her.’

  ‘I don’t know what I should do,’ says Martyn. ‘It was your idea. I can’t stand female crying. It’s manipulative.’

  Hattie has asked Agnieszka what the matter is, but Agnieszka just shook her head and said: ‘Nothing.’

  Kitty’s so bored with the tears she no longer even tries to catch them with her tongue.

  A night or two later they make love with a little more noise than usual, they can’t help it, and afterwards Martyn says, ‘Since we can’t live without her, perhaps we’d better do more to live with her.’ In the ensuing silence the sobbing from next door gains intensity.

  ‘That does not include her in my bed,’ says Hattie, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’ She should not say such things, she knows it; she is venturing into dangerous territory, but she can’t help it.

  ‘For God’s sake, Hattie,’ says Martyn, ‘I’m not thinking anything of the sort. You have no idea what I’m thinking of.’ He hates it when she claims to know what’s going on in his head. They both take sleeping pills. Hattie sleeps, Martyn doesn’t.

  Martyn’s frightened of his own thoughts. Agnieszka’s tears arouse him. He would like to get out of bed naked and bonk her there and then. That would make them stop. He daydreams about it in the office: increasingly. Agnieszka is his wife.

  The other day she bent over the ironing board, and she was wearing Hattie’s yellow leather skirt and her legs were long and bare: he could see the muscles standing out along the backs of her knees and he had to go and sit in the bathroom to calm down. But he loves Hattie. He does not love Agnieszka. Hattie is his partner, the one for whose sake he does not go off with girls at conferences. Hattie is the mother of his child, Agnieszka is not, though Agnieszka certainly has more to do with Kitty than Hattie does. Kitty has quite a few words now: she pronounces them with Agnieszka’s lilt and slight lisp. It melts his heart when he hears her. ‘Oh bozzer it!’ she will say, in imitation of Agnieszka. She does not emulate Hattie’s ‘Oh shit’. She knows that sweetness and light are a little girl’s best bet, not Hattie’s brisk, cross assertiveness.

  He loves the tenderness with which Agnieszka smiles at Kitty, the way her upper lip draws away to show her teeth: do other people’s mouths do that? He is increasingly angry with Hattie for putting them into this situation, into the way of his temptation. It was her idea. She must put up with the consequences. He falls asleep. It is past five in the morning.

  The next night he cannot bear Agnieszka’s crying a moment longer. He switches on the light. It is eleven o’clock. They’ve all been in bed for at least two hours. Hattie, Martyn, Agnieszka, Kitty, and Sylvie too. They all go to bed early, the better to be on their toes during the day.

  He gets out of bed, shakes Hattie, and says, ‘This is impossible, Hattie. You’ve got to talk to her.’

  Hattie wakes out of a sleeping-pill drowse and says, ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘You’ve got to get up,’ he says.

  ‘Why can’t you just be happy, Martyn?’ asks Hattie.

  ‘Everything is going so well.’