‘Bad play?’ Edie said, taking her glasses off.

‘Wordy,’ Russell said. He bent to kiss her. ‘Wordy without grasping the subject. You indulge that cat’.

Edie looked at Arsie. He didn’t trouble to look back.

‘I know’.

‘Good rehearsal?’

‘Not bad. Lazlo’s very good at super-sensitive but he isn’t making him bright enough yet. If he makes Osvald all quivering introspection, it’ll turn the audience off’.

Russell went over to the fridge and opened the door.

‘What about supper?’

‘I’ve had it,’ Edie said, ‘but there’s plenty of ham’. Russell bent to look into the fridge. He said nonchalantly from inside it, ‘Supper with anyone?’

‘Yes,’ Edie said, ‘Matthew’. There was a silence.

‘Matthew,’ Russell said, without straightening.

‘Yes’.

Russell stood up, holding a plate of ham.

‘Why didn’t you have supper here?’

‘It sort of didn’t arise,’ Edie said. She folded the paper. ‘We went for a drink and then we had a plate of pasta. I am beginning to think I never want to see pasta again’.

Russell put the ham on the table and went across the kitchen to the breadbin.

‘How was he?’

‘Russell,’ Edie said, sitting up straight, ‘it was awful. He’s in a terrible state’. Russell turned round.

‘Matthew?’

‘Yes’.

‘Has he lost his job?’

‘He’s lost Ruth’.

Russell came back to the table and sat down. ‘Has she thrown him out?’

‘No. It’s sadder really. He’s left her because she wants to buy a flat and he thinks she should and she’s chosen this rather glamorous one, near Tate Modern, and he can’t afford it and he hasn’t been able to afford their lifestyle anyway, for ages, it turns out, and he doesn’t want to hold her back, so he’s gone’.

Russell stared at the ham.

He said, ‘Matt has left Ruth because he can’t afford to buy the flat she wants?’ ‘Basically, yes’. He raised his eyes. ‘Edie, what’s the matter with them?’

‘With Matt and Ruth?’

‘Yes. No. With all of them. With all these children and all they’re earning and still can’t manage’.

‘It isn’t them,’ Edie said, ‘it’s now. It’s how things are. We got married young because people did and we didn’t have any money or furniture because people didn’t, but now they do, and it’s different’.

Russell sighed.

‘Does he still love her?’

‘I think so’.

‘And does she love him?’

‘Well, she texts him most days saying so, apparently’. ‘I don’t get it’.

‘It doesn’t matter whether you do or not,’ Edie said. ‘It’s how it is’.

Russell folded his arms on the table and leaned on them.

‘He looked launched to me’.

‘I expect he looked launched to himself’.

Russell said, ‘Poor old boy. Poor Matt. So it’s back to bachelor flats and sharing and squalor and nosing around clubs for women’.

‘Certainly not,’ Edie said.

Russell raised his head and looked at her.

‘Oh Edie—’

‘I can’t watch him flounder—’ ‘He’s twenty-eight’.

‘That’s got nothing to do with anything. He’s in trouble and miserable and lost and I can’t bear to see it and I’ve told him he can come home’.

Russell sat back in his chair and crossed his arms on his chest.

He said to the ceiling, ‘I thought only the royal family continued to live with their parents when adult. Oh, and Italians’.

‘His room is there,’ Edie said, ‘and empty. He’ll give us rent’.

‘That’s not the point, really’. ‘I know. You told Rosa’.

Russell shut his eyes.

‘You told Rosa,’ Edie said, ‘that she couldn’t come home because you wanted my undivided attention’. ‘I didn’t quite—’

‘Well, that may be what you want, but it isn’t what I want. I want my children to know they are wanted and supported’.

‘It isn’t good for them,’ Russell said. ‘It isn’t good for them or for us. Remember the fox in Le Petit Prince?’

‘What fox?’

‘The fox who said, “You become responsible for ever, for what you have tamed.”‘

Edie brought her fist down on the table.

‘I’m not taming them. I’m helping them. It’s a rubbish old myth, this idea that you undermine someone by helping them, that it’s good for people to struggle—’

‘It is’.

Edie stood up.

‘God,’ she said, ‘it’s like pushing a bloody elephant upstairs’.

‘You don’t want to let go—’

She began to move towards the door.

She said furiously, ‘You can’t let go of being a parent. Not ever. It’s the one relationship you’re stuck with, besides yourself’.

‘Where are you going?’

Edie turned in the doorway.

‘To Matthew’s room,’ she said. ‘To see what he needs. He’s coming on Saturday’.


* * *

The weather in Cairns, Eliot told his mother, was bloody great. Twenty-five degrees and not a cloud and Ro was going to be a Buddhist. ‘A Buddhist?’

‘Yeah,’ Eliot said. ‘There’s a temple here. She’s going to meditation classes’.

‘Well,’ Vivien said, ‘good for her. Are you going too?’

‘Nah,’ Eliot said, ‘I’m helping a mate service his powerboat’.

‘You sound so Australian, darling’.

‘Yeah. Well’.

Vivien said, ‘I’m having dinner with Dad on Saturday. Again’.

‘Yeah’.

‘Do you know why he’s asked me a second time?’ There was a pause and then Eliot said, ‘Why shouldn’t he?’

‘Well, we’re separated—’

‘So?’

‘If you’re separated, it’s usually because you don’t want to see each other’.

‘Don’t you want to see Dad?’ ‘Yes, darling, I do, but—’ ‘That’s fine, then,’ Eliot said. Vivien gripped the telephone.

‘I don’t want to ask you anything unfair, darling, but -but do you know if Dad has a girlfriend just now?’

There was another pause and then Eliot said, ‘I’ve no idea’.

‘So he hasn’t said anything to you? Named any names?’

‘We don’t talk about that,’ Eliot said. ‘We talk about footie’.

‘Of course—’

‘Ma,’ Eliot said, ‘I have to go. I’m meeting someone’. Vivien looked at her watch.

‘How nice. Are you having supper with someone?’ ‘A few beers,’ Eliot said, ‘till Ro finishes her class’. ‘Lovely to hear you, darling. Give my love to Ro’. ‘Cheers,’ Eliot said. ‘Take care’.

Vivien put the telephone down. While talking to Eliot she had drawn a huge pair of parted Roy Lichtenstein lips, with teeth just glimpsed, and a high shine. It was the biggest mouth she’d drawn for ages, taking up half a page. She wondered briefly if it meant anything, and if so, what. Possibly something a bit excitable, louche even, the same sort of thing that had propelled her into buying some suede sandals, on impulse, in a colour the girl in the shop described as watermelon. They were rather high, higher than Vivien was used to, and would need a little practice. Before Saturday. Vivien put out a hand and tore the drawing of the big lips hastily off the pad.

Rosa had left a note propped up against the kettle that morning. She had also remembered to put the box of Grapenuts back in the cupboard. The note said she was meeting a friend for a drink after work and she wasn’t sure when she’d be back so not to bother about supper. Then she’d drawn a small sunflower with a smile and added, ‘Hope you hadn’t planned anything?’ Well, Vivien had, of course, because she couldn’t help planning. It was one of the elements that Max always wanted to loosen up in her, this propensity to live life in detail before she actually got to it. There were two tuna steaks in the fridge, and some borlotti beans soaking, and a bag of salad leaves. Well, they could all probably wait another day, and if they didn’t, she could freeze the tuna and cook up the beans and – oh, stop this, Vivien said to herself, stop this and focus on the fact that you had a lovely time last Saturday having dinner with Max and that he plainly did too because he’s asked you again.

She went out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the landing. Rosa’s bedroom door was shut. Do not open it, Vivien told herself, just do not because a) it is her room for the moment and b) you won’t like what you see if you do. She walked on down the landing and into her own bedroom, decorated entirely in white during a moment of feeling I-am-a-strong-woman in the aftermath of Max’s departure, a feeling that hadn’t lasted. The pink suede sandals were sitting neatly at the end of the bed. Vivien sat down beside them, kicked off her shoes, and bent to buckle them on.

Beside her bed, next to a china tray of all her manicure things, the telephone began to ring.

‘Are you hoovering?’ Edie asked.

‘No’.

‘In white cotton gloves?’

‘Naked, actually,’ Vivien said. She lay back on the bed, the telephone to her ear, and thrust one leg upwards to admire her pink sandal.

‘You sound happy—’

‘I’ve just spoken to Eliot’. ‘Not that kind of happy,’ Edie said. ‘Who is he?’ Vivien hesitated a moment, turning her foot this way and that. Then she said, ‘Max’. ‘No change there then’. ‘We had a really good time on Saturday—’ ‘Did he kiss you?’ ‘Edie!’

‘Did he?’

‘No,’ Vivien said. ‘I haven’t been kissed for years’. ‘Nor have I’.

‘Yes, you have. On stage’.

‘That doesn’t count and it isn’t usually what you’d choose, anyway’.

‘Russell kisses you—’

‘Yes. But …’

‘Did you ring,’ Vivien said, lowering her leg and raising the other, ‘to talk about kissing?’

‘No. But I do rather wonder why you’re seeing Max again’.

‘So do I’.

‘But you like it—’