She broke off, embarrassed suddenly. Too often lately she had found herself going on and on about her mother’s situation, as if it consumed her. It wasn’t a healthy sign.

‘As it is,’ Ed finished for her in a practical voice, ‘you have to do everything. Isn’t there anyone else in the family who could help, or are you an only child?’

‘No, I’ve got two brothers, but one emigrated to New Zealand a couple of years ago, and the other lives in Devon and is married with three small children, so obviously he can’t be expected to help, especially when there’s me with no husband or family to take into account. It goes without saying that I have to be the one to give up my life.’

She broke off abruptly. ‘Sorry, I should have a paper bag to put over my head when I start going on like this!’ she apologised. ‘It’s just that I get so resentful sometimes, and then I feel guilty. The fact is that I don’t want to give up my job to look after my mother. I don’t know how I would manage financially, but perhaps that’s just an excuse? My mother spent enough years of her life looking after me, after all. Am I just being selfish in not selling my flat and moving in as a full-time carer?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Ed frowned as he considered her situation. He could quite see how frustrating she found it. ‘It does seem hard that all the responsibility falls on you. Couldn’t your brothers at least help persuade your mother that she needs some practical care?’

‘Mum doesn’t believe in worrying men about domestic details,’ she said wryly. ‘She’s always so thrilled to hear from them that, of course, she tells them everything is fine-and then tells me at length how good it was of them to have called her when they have such busy lives!’

Hearing the bitterness in her voice, she flushed. Ed was a sympathetic listener. Too sympathetic, perhaps. He didn’t gush, or exclaim, or tell her how awful it was for her. He just sat there and listened with a thoughtful expression that made her want to blurt out all the worry and grief and frustration and resentment bottled up inside.

But he had problems enough of his own and, anyway, he was her boss. Remember that, Perdita?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said wearily. ‘I shouldn’t be like this. I love my mother. I should be grateful that I’ve still got her, not moaning about what a worry she is.’

‘It’s normal to feel resentment,’ said Ed. ‘When you love someone, it’s hard to cope with the fact that they can’t be what you need them to be any more. I loved Sue very much,’ he told Perdita, ‘and I miss her still, but there were times when I was angry with her for getting ill, for dying, for leaving me to cope on my own, for leaving the kids without a mother…I had to try and be strong for her and for the kids, and yes, I resented the fact that there seemed to be no one to help me be strong.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I hated myself for how I felt,’ he said honestly. ‘And I felt guilty about it, the way you do. If I’d been able to stand back and analyse the situation dispassionately, I’d have been less hard on myself. I’d have been able to see that anger can sometimes be a mechanism for dealing with fear.’

‘Did your wife know how you felt?’

‘I think so. I tried so hard not to take it out on her, but she knew me very well. And, of course, she was afraid too. Things were better when we both just admitted it, and then we could help each other.

Perdita swallowed. ‘I feel terrible going on about my mother when you’ve been through so much worse,’ she confessed, but Ed shook his head.

‘It’s not a matter of “worse” or “better”. You can’t compare how it feels to lose someone you love. You can’t say it’s better to lose a partner through death rather than through divorce, or that it’s easier to lose someone in spirit than physically, that you don’t grieve as much for a mother as for a wife…However it happens,’ he said, ‘you have to deal with the pain of not having the person you love any more.’

‘Still…’ said Perdita, not entirely convinced. She thought Ed was probably just trying to make her feel better. ‘How did you manage?’ she asked tentatively after a moment.

‘After Sue died?’

‘Yes. It must have been so…’ Perdita struggled to find the right word to express how she imagined he’d felt, but ‘terrible’, ‘awful’, ‘sad’ just sounded like trite clichés. ‘So lonely,’ she said after a pause. ‘So desolate.’

Desolate was a good word, Ed thought. ‘Yes, it was a terrible time,’ he said slowly, remembering Sue’s hand, so painfully thin in his, the deafening, unbelievable silence when she’d stopped breathing at last. The expression in Tom’s eyes when he’d told him that his mother was dead. Holding Lauren and feeling how her small body was racked by sobs. The fury in Cassie’s face. She hadn’t really believed until then that her mother would actually leave her. The tearing grief that had clawed at him when he’d tried to imagine the utter emptiness of a future without Sue by his side.

Ed shook the painful memories aside. ‘For a while, you just have to go through the motions,’ he told Perdita. ‘Nothing seems to make any sense. But I couldn’t fall apart. I had to keep the kids going somehow, and it wasn’t easy.’

‘They were terribly young to lose their mother,’ said Perdita quietly.

‘Lauren was only eight.’

Eight. She was forty, and the thought of losing her own mother filled her with dread. Perdita felt very ashamed of the fuss she had been making about caring for her mother earlier.

‘There were practical problems to be dealt with too,’ Ed was saying. ‘My sister came for a while when Sue was dying, but she has her own life and she couldn’t stay for ever. I wanted to find a nice, comfortable housekeeper, but they’re not easy to come by and the kids wouldn’t accept anyone else living in the house for a while-a bit like your mother, in fact! So we moved to a place where there was a flat over the garage where an au pair could live. None of them were very successful, though. It was really just someone to be in the house when the kids got home from school, but once Lauren got to secondary school, they said they didn’t want anyone any more.

‘They’re used to getting themselves around London, but it’s one of the reasons I wanted to move to a smaller place, where I’m hoping they’ll make a network of friends who live nearby instead of the other side of London. And somewhere I can get home more easily, and have a less pressurised job. Although they’re all old enough to look after themselves in lots of ways, in others they need just as much attention now as when they were toddlers.’

He looked around the kitchen. ‘So here we are! I’m hoping I’ve done the right thing, but it’s always difficult to be certain. The girls are moaning about having to leave their friends in London and everything’s a mess…It’ll take us all a little time to settle down, I think.’

‘And the last thing you need is me burdening you with my problems,’ said Perdita guiltily. ‘It sounds as if you’ve got more than enough of your own.’

‘That doesn’t make yours any less important,’ said Ed, thinking how surprisingly easy it was to talk to Perdita. He didn’t usually tell virtual strangers about Sue. She had been so effervescent and lively on the course that he would never have been able to imagine talking to her like this then, but she seemed oddly right sitting at his kitchen table now. She was no less vivid but her dark brown eyes were warm and sympathetic, and looking into them Ed felt the tight feeling in his chest loosen for the first time in years.

He made himself look away. ‘My own mother died a couple of years ago, so I know what it’s like,’ he said gruffly.

A silence fell. It wasn’t that uncomfortable at first but, as it lengthened, it began to tighten and tighten until it seemed to stretch and twang and, the longer it went on, the more impossible it seemed to break it.

Perdita was drinking her wine with a kind of desperation. Her father would have been appalled to know that she might as well have been drinking pop for all she could taste. She was too aware of Ed across the table from her, of the planes of his face, the angle of his jaw, the line of his mouth…Her blood thrummed and her mouth was so dry, she had to moisten her lips. Was it just her, or was there a dangerous charge in the atmosphere?

She made herself look around the kitchen as if fascinated by its design, but her gaze kept drifting back to Ed and, every time it did, their eyes would catch and snare and the air evaporated from the room, leaving her with a rushing in her ears and a scary sensation pulsing beneath her skin.

Perdita fought to get a grip. This wouldn’t do. This was Edward Merrick. Her boss, remember?

‘More wine?’ he said, lifting the bottle, and his voice seemed to jar in the silence.

‘No…thanks…’ For heaven’s sake! She was blushing and stammering as she drained her glass, squirming with embarrassment in case Ed somehow guessed the physical attraction-oh, why be mealy mouthed? Perdita asked herself impatiently-the sheer lust that had her in its grip. ‘I should probably be getting back,’ she said, horrified to hear the words come out as a croak.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ Pushing back her chair, she got abruptly to her feet. ‘My mother will be expecting me.’

It wasn’t true, but Ed wasn’t to know that and Perdita was suddenly desperate to get away before she made a complete fool of herself. Perhaps she could blame it on the wine, she thought wildly. If it were as good as Ed said, there was no knowing what effect it might be having.

Ed escorted her to the door. ‘Did you want to leave those numbers?’

‘Numbers?’

‘In case we need to get hold of you about your mother,’ he prompted. ‘I’ve got your work number, of course, but presumably your mobile would be better.’