So after a couple of weeks go by, I’m surprised to find myself looking back and realising that I’m coping. I like being by myself, if I’ve got work to do. I like the chal enge of it al . I was never sure about hiring the PR and giving up the stal , and I know I should have listened to my instincts now.

The bank thinks my husband is stil around to bankrol things and so they’re off my back for the moment. It’s going to be tight, but I know what I’m doing each day and why I’m doing it. And that feels good.

I haven’t seen Oli since last week, when I watched him walk away. We have spoken, though, briefly. ‘How are you?’

‘OK, yeah. You?’

‘Good, OK, yeah.’ He’s going to come round sometime and pick up some more of his things, and we’l talk then. For the moment, the space is good. When I think about his face, laughing in the kitchen as I try to make scrambled eggs, or the hot, humid day we moved into Princelet Street, how we had sex in the kitchen, hurriedly taking each other’s clothes off, amazed that we had done this, that we were living together, for ever we thought, or even just doing karaoke together, singing Heart’s ‘Alone’ – his favourite song, Oli has a penchant for a bal ad – sometimes I think I’m going to start crying, about how sad I am, how much I could miss him if I let myself. But that’s not how it happened. He left, he has given me this month’s rent, and moreover, he’s loaning me five thousand pounds to pay back the bank, and for that, at least, I am truly grateful, as wel as for the memories we have. I just – I’m just not ready to total y move on from them yet.

There are two things on my list I stil haven’t sorted: the diary, and Mum. Something is going on with her and I haven’t faced up to it. I was supposed to be having dinner with her the week after Oli left for good. She cancel ed me at the last minute, and hasn’t been in touch since, though I’ve tried her every day. She’s great at being unavailable, she’s doing it now and I don’t know why. Does she know I’ve got the diary? What Octavia said? Does she real y just not care that much? I’ve cal ed her again this morning, and there’s no answer. ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, my voice keen and bright.

‘Just at the studio, cal ing to say hel o! Hope you’re wel . . . Um, OK then! Bye.’

Actual y, part of the reason I’m cross is because I’m relieved. I don’t like going to Bryant Court. I’d do a lot to avoid it, in fact. Since I left for col ege, twelve years ago now, I haven’t been back much. I’d spend holidays with friends or my col ege boyfriend or at Archie and Sameena’s in Ealing, or mostly down at Summercove. Bryant Court is my past, and I don’t like it much.

It’s not how smal it is, or how dingy. It’s not how the outside of the thirties block looks rather stylish and then you get inside and it’s damp and musty-smel ing, with an under-tone of something rotten, and always too hot or too cold. It’s not that when you arrive, you get the feeling Mum wants you to leave. It’s al those things and more. It’s the sense of detachment I feel from it – I lived there for almost twelve years of my life.

I look back on those years now and try and make sense of them. Was I just an uptight kid? Probably. But lately, when I look at my list of things to do, which I stil keep by the bed, I see ‘ 6. Mum 7. Find diary’ and I realise how far I am away from doing those things. More and more as the days go by, I find myself thinking about Mum and the flat and our lives together there, and how strange it was. It doesn’t seem strange when you’re in it.

It’s starting to, now.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A fortnight after the funeral, one Wednesday afternoon, I am in the studio. I have ticked several items off my To Do list for that day, and I’m feeling virtuous. I’ve cal ed Mum: no answer. I’ve sent Arvind a New Yorker cartoon card to his new home, the one with the two snails and a remarkably similar-looking tape dispenser, and the first snail is saying to the second snail, ‘I don’t care if she is a tape dispenser. I love her.’ I have spoken to Clare Lomax today, to let her know I’ve made my first monthly repayment. I’ve phoned a couple more shops about the possibility of them taking my pieces and I’l go and see them tomorrow. I’ve had two more orders today, and I’m extremely pleased. I need more to show them, though. And it needs to be great, real y great.

As part of the new col ection I have been trying to work on a new version of the jewel ed headbands I did wel with a couple of years ago, based on a photo I saw of a headband worn by a Maharani of Jaipur. The bands are black silk, and clasping gently on to the side of the head are grey and palest pink velvet floral shapes studded with diamanté. They can be worn to a wedding or a birthday party. They are real y beautiful, at least they wil be if I can get them right, but every time I try to add the diamanté it just looks tacky, amateurish. My fingers get covered in the glue, I prick my thumb twice on the needle as I try to sew them on, and eventual y groan in frustration. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

I start to sketch alternatives. I flick through the V&A book of jewel ery that I have by my side. Ben and Tania gave it to me for my birthday last year. I get out my cardfile of postcards, pictures of different pieces of jewel ery, different paintings and images that inspire me, everything from Rita Hayworth to a portrait of a very cross-looking Medici duchess, decked out in the most beautiful rubies. I jab my pencil into the soft paper and stop, looking up around me, blinking hard.

It’s quiet here this afternoon. The writers’ col ective is meeting in the basement this evening, and they are always extremely raucous –

apparently they have a lot to be angry about, and it often involves drinking a lot of beer. I can hear people pul ing rails of clothes over the road in the market below but that’s it. My eyes are heavy, with a sense of peace, but I’m not especial y tired. My hand steals to my neck as I stare into nothingness and I realise I’m clutching Cecily’s ring.

I’ve taken to putting it on every day since I got back, I don’t know why. I like wearing it. It’s unusual. Moreover, I like the fact that it was hers, and that Granny wore it al those years. I know nothing about Cecily, except from those pages of the diary, but I have this and I like wearing it.

I pick up my pencil and start sketching the ring from memory as I can’t see it, nestled in the hol ow at the base of my neck. The flowers are so pretty – simple and attractive. I join the tiny gold buds studded with tiny diamonds together, linking them together like a daisy chain, in a row. It is one of the most pleasing things I have done for a while, but I’m not sure I can execute it myself – it’s too elaborate, and I may have to hire someone else to work it out. A section of it would work as a pendant, as wel . A charm bracelet?

Necklace? My pencil skates busily over the white paper, and the scratching sound echoes in the silence, broken only by the occasional noise from the street below. There’s something there, I don’t know what it is. The links . . . the flowers . . . Cecily’s ring, perhaps I should use the ring as the centrepiece? My pencil is getting blunter as I push heavily down onto the pad, sketching, rubbing out, resketching . . . My mind is clear of everything else troubling it. I love this, the fact that you can escape into your imagination, use a part of your brain that isn’t affected by everything else in your life. I lost it for a while. It’s so good to have it back; even if what results is rubbish, just to know I stil love doing it is the most important thing. And the voice in my head, sounding remarkably like Clare Lomax, that has been tel ing me I ought to give up the studio and save on the rent, is silenced. I need a place to come to, to work. This is my job, and if I’m going to take it seriously, I ought to have an office. If Oli’s not coming back we don’t need the flat, do we? I’d give that up before the studio. Somehow, that clarifies things for me.

And suddenly, as I am drawing furiously, there comes a soft tapping at the door.

‘Natasha, are you there?’ a voice cal s.

I unfurl my legs, stiff and aching from the cold and from being in the same position for so long. I rol my head slowly around my neck, and it crunches satisfyingly.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s me,’ says the voice. ‘Mummy.’

What’s she doing here? The hairs on the back of my neck stand up; my hand flies to my throat. ‘Come in,’ I say, after a moment.

She peeks around the door, her dark fringe and long eyelashes appearing first, like a naughty child, her green eyes sparkling. ‘Hel o, darling.

My little girl.’

‘Mum?’ I say, standing up. ‘Wow. I’ve been cal ing you for days. Hel o! What are you doing here?’

‘I was in the area,’ she says. ‘I wanted to see you. I’ve been rather un-loco parentis lately.’ She gives a tinkling laugh. ‘Awful joke. I’m sorry, should I have cal ed?’

‘No, of course not,’ I say, sounding ridiculously formal. My heart is beating fast, and my palms are slick. ‘It’s fine. I’ve been wondering where you were. I haven’t seen you since the funeral and—’

Mum frowns. ‘Wel , I’m here now, aren’t I?’

She advances into the room, arms outstretched. She looks fantastic, as always, skinny jeans tucked into brown suede leather boots, a thick grey cardigan-coat and a long floral scarf wrapped many times round her neck and tied in a knot. Her skin is gleaming, her nails are beautiful, her hair is shining and soft. She wraps me in her arms.

‘Poor girl.’

She squeezes me tight. Her scent is heavy; it makes me nauseous. Suddenly I want to push her away. I’m repulsed by her.

I step back. She clutches my hands, then reaches into her large canvas bag. ‘Bought you a little something,’ she says, handing me a box of tiny, very expensive-looking cheese crackers in a beautiful y printed box.