On the way out, I stopped and tidied the pamphlets on the table.

Even though it was dark, I continued home by the park, prudently choosing the path that ran alongside the river.

Nobody could argue that it was anything but a city park, ringed as it was by traffic, pockmarked with patches of mud and dispirited trees, but I liked its determination to provide a breathing space. Anyway, if you took the trouble to look, it contained all sorts of unobtrusive delights. A tiny corona of snowdrops under a tree, offering cheer in the depths of winter. A flying spark of a robin redbreast spotted by the dank holly bushes. Rows of tulips in spring, with tufts of primula and primrose garnishing their bases.

So far, winter had been a mild, dampish interlude. Earlier in the day, there had been half-hearted spatters of rain but now it was almost warm. It was too early to be sure, only February, but there was a definite promise of spring shaping up, things growing. I stopped to shift my book bag from one shoulder to the other, feeling the stretch and exhilaration of my life pulse through me.

I was late. I must hurry. I must always hurry.

Five minutes later, I walked up the tiled front path of number seven Lakey Street. Twenty years ago, Nathan and I had talked of restoring a silk-weaver’s house in Spitalfields, or discovering the perfect-priced Georgian family house on four floors, which – unaccountably – no one else had spotted. Lakey Street fitted between our small flat in Hackney and any wilder speculations. One day, we promised ourselves, we would upgrade, but we settled promptly into the Victorian terrace that comfortably encompassed our family and forgot about doing any such thing.

The street-lights were lit, and the fresh white paint on the window-frames was washed with a neon tint. The bay tree dripped on to me as I passed and, for the thousandth time, I told myself it was far too big, planted in the wrong place, and would have to go. For the thousandth time, I reprieved it.

Chapter Two

Six hours later we were in bed, and Nathan laid his hand on my breast in the old familiar way. There was no trouble and no barrier. It was as easy as silk sliding over silk, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him and drew him down. Afterwards, he murmured, ‘That was nice,’ and drifted into sleep.

I should have dropped off too, for we had been out late at a company dinner, but I was too tired for sleep – a hangover from the days of having small children. Recollections of the evening threaded through my mind, cobwebby, not important, but there.

‘The works,’ Nathan had ordered, as he plunged barelegged around the bedroom in his socks. He gave off an air of I-have-too-much-to-think-about, and I fetched his shirt for him. ‘Best bib, Rosie, and glam. Otherwise these damn politicians think that all we’re capable of is rolled-up sleeves and eyeshades.’

Occasionally, Nathan’s fixed ambition nettled me: it was so set, so immutable, so… predictable, and I had lived with it for a long time. Selling your soul was one thing; having the greater portion of your home life dictated by a newspaper was another. Then I reminded myself that, in my own way, I was as committed to my job, and the irritation never lasted long. I helped him on with the shirt and did up the top button. ‘Darling, that’s only in Hollywood.’

Only Nathan called me Rosie – I would not allow anyone else to muddle around with diminutives. ‘That’s because roses are too beautiful and important,’ Ianthe had once told me. ‘Roses are the only flowers that have never had a nickname. No heart’s-ease or Dutchman’s breeches for the rose.’ She was holding me tight after an adolescent wobble in confidence. ‘Roses rustle in the wind and smell of heaven. They are tokens of love, as well as grief. Think of that.’ Goodness knows what she based this on, but her words flowed through me, gelled, and prescribed the manner in which I perceived my name and, I suppose, myself.

Nathan was different. He could call me what he wished.

I had put on a sleeveless black sheath, which was a little too tight, and high heels. My hair needed cutting but I had had no time recently to get to the hairdresser so I bundled it up into a chignon – not the most flattering style but it would do.

With Nathan’s hand tucked under my elbow, we walked into the smart restaurant, the kind featured in magazines that existed to make their readers miserable because their own lives were so far removed from the fantasies on the pages. It was awash with silver and glass and exquisitely coloured blush ranunculus in white vases.

Peter Shaker and his wife Carolyne were already there with a young rising star called George from the financial department and his pregnant wife, Jackie, who both looked nervous. They were hammering into the champagne. Although we were not intimates, we knew Peter and Carolyne quite well: Carolyne was also in a black shift and high heels, but she is tiny and dark while I am tall with chestnut hair so the effect was different.

Carolyne kissed me, more or less affectionately. Over the years we had seen a lot of each other at company dos, but that was all. In the beginning Carolyne, who did not have a job and was an über-wife, asked me to accompany her to several afternoon charity functions, which I always had to decline, and therefore, too, the possibility of friendship. Since then, whenever we met, I could not help feeling that Carolyne, whose home was immaculate, whose two daughters won scholarships to their secondary schools and made their own clothes, was making a point about our respective choices. In the nicest possible way, of course. She was, she implied, a Good Wife. Women are as competitive as men but their subversions are better hidden and sometimes their competitiveness is, curiously, a sign of affection.

While we waited for our guests – a couple of politicians and Monty Chavet, an author who specialized in insider exposés of Westminster – we drank more champagne and exchanged company gossip.

‘Have you seen this week’s figures, Nathan?’ inquired Peter. He stood boldly in front of Nathan, legs a little akimbo. When he was younger, Peter had been painfully thin but, with the growth in his confidence, he had put on weight, which suited him.

Nathan frowned. ‘We’ll have to talk about last week’s dip -’

Before the numbers game could begin in earnest, the other guests arrived and I found myself sitting next to a junior health minister, whose name was Neil Skinner. He was pale-skinned and red-haired, with the sort of lips that cracked easily in the cold, which could not have been good for winter television appearances. I found myself pitying him: his ambitions were so transparent, and health such a difficult portfolio – only for political suicides. We plodded through the highways and byways of his career, and then he asked, ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m the books editor for the weekend Digest.’ Oh, books, said people I met at social events, you’re so lucky. Have you met Salman Rushdie?

‘And a very good one,’ Monty cut in. He was talking to Carolyne but listening to our conversation at the same time. It was how he found his material, he had once told me. ‘Best pages in town.’

‘Oh dear,’ Neil Skinner frowned, ‘you must think I’m very stupid.’

My lips twitched and I wondered who suffered from the worst inferiority complex: the politician or the journalist? Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Nathan being his most charming with the second and more senior politician who, rumour had it, might make the cabinet in the next reshuffle. As usual, he was utterly focused and alert. ‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘Why would I?’

Neil tapped his glass with a finger that I could swear had been professionally manicured. ‘Isn’t it difficult working for an outfit that can do such damage to people?’

I looked into the pale eyes and replied truthfully. ‘Sometimes.’

He leant forward and refilled my glass. ‘But you do it?’

‘Yes, but I believe in my bit and I think you have to hang on to that.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have something in common.’


*

A sixth sense told me now that Nathan was not asleep, he was too still, and I flipped over to face him. He was lying stiff and straight under the duvet, not in his usual akimbo style. I laid my palm on his chest. ‘Are you worrying about something?’

There was a silence. Then he shifted on to his side so that he was turned away from me. ‘Of course not. Go to sleep.’

‘Nathan?’ Our pillow-talk was usually conducted face to face and this was when we exchanged snippets that we were supposed to keep secret. ‘We’ve got a nasty exposé coming. A minister, actually’

There was a grunt. ‘I know. Timon warned me. It’s Charles Madder. They’ve been working on it for months. Had a whole team on the case.’

That meant at least six people had gone through whatever material they could lay their hands on, dustbins, past records, that sort of thing, and probably kept a watch. ‘Neil Skinner asked me if I minded working for an outfit that could do so much damage to people.’

‘You could ask the same question of politicians.’

‘True.’ I shifted closer to him and slid my arm round his waist. ‘Even so, I don’t like to think about what’s going to happen to that home.’ I kissed his shoulder, the bit where it begins to curve down into the arm. ‘Death is supposed to be the worst thing to happen, the event that tears out your heart, but it must be far crueller to be made a fool of by the person you loved and trusted. At least if someone dies you can shape them up nicely in your memory.’

‘If you can’t stand the heat, Rose, you know what to do.’

I pinched the edge of his pyjama top between my fingers. ‘Hey, there’s no need for the Gordon Gekko act. We’re in the privacy of our own home.’