I waited until the storm had died down. ‘It will get better, I promise you.’

‘At least you don’t say, “It’ll be all right.’” His voice was muffled. ‘I couldn’t bear that. It’ll never be all right. It was awful, horrible. Mum’s story, I mean, and she’s left behind such complicated feelings and muddle.’

This was the closest Sacha would ever come to criticism of his mother, and I loved him all the more for his loyalty. ‘It’s not complicated for her any longer.’

‘No.’ He raised his drenched face. ‘But I feel… as though she didn’t love me enough to stick around.’

‘Oh, Sacha…’ I got up and put my arms round him. His hair was wild and – so unlike him – in need of a wash. I kissed his wet cheek. ‘Meg loved you better than she loved herself.’

Sacha thought about it, then asked, ‘Is life so exhausting all the time?’

I shook my head. ‘Not all the time. You’ll have moments of great joy, I promise. And contentment. And pleasure in small things.’

He ducked his head. ‘I wish.’

‘But you have to make up your mind to look for the moments.’

‘You think?’

I said, as steadily as I could, ‘It’s taken me a bit of time, but I do think.’

‘Fanny, you’re not going to leave Will, are you?’ He stumbled over the words.

Shocked, I stared at him. ‘What makes you ask that?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t think I could bear it if you did. And it would kill Chloë.’

‘Chloë?’

‘She said as much to me.’


*

Sacha left to go up north before I attempted to do anything with Meg’s things. Before he left, he gave me permission. ‘Please… please will you do it? I trust you.’

Meg’s bedroom smelt unused and stagnant, but the mess was as if she had walked out just a few seconds ago. Not surprisingly, her presence felt stronger here than anywhere else. I picked up a scarf from the floor, bright pink silk, one of her favourites. Traces of her scent lingered on the fabric – and I sat down, abruptly, on the bed. We had been so mixed up, Meg and I, so entwined. She had been part of me: the dark, tangled side but something else, too.

I pleated the expensive silk this way and that.

The door to Meg’s cupboard was partially open, revealing her clothes bunched up like anxious spectators. A photograph of Sacha in his leather jacket grinned down at the empty bed. A book lay on the bedside table and I picked it up: self-help psychology, with a message that to feel the fear was to defuse it. A postcard marked Meg’s place. It was from Chloë in Australia. ‘It’s cool,’ she wrote. ‘Hope you’re well. Looking forward to seeing you.’

I longed for my daughter. For her mess, her occasional rudeness, the glimpses I caught of Chloë’s private, interesting inner life. Her ‘Oh, Mum, you’re so sad.’ I hated to think of her so far away and, no doubt, feeling left out of the family business.

Sacha had owned up to the mess and muddle of his own feelings and I should do so too. When it came to Meg, mine were as painful and as disturbing as his. They always would be. Yet, I must do my best not to remember her in a negative way. Nor should I for, in her own way, Meg had struggled so hard not to allow the negative to overwhelm her.

Her room transformed – clean, aired, sterile – I twitched back the curtain and said aloud, ‘I’ll miss you, Meg. Do you believe that?’

I was folding up her favourite cotton blouse, ready for the charity pile, when Will walked unexpectedly into the kitchen. He was dressed in his dark grey suit and immaculately polished shoes and he was carrying – of course – the red box.

‘Fanny, the election is on. It’s battle stations.’ I tucked the blouse into a bag and spread tissue paper on top. ‘Can I count on you?’ He dumped the box on the table, moved too abruptly and knocked over a carrier-bag with a clunk. ‘What on earth…?’

‘Her lifeline bottle. She always kept one.’

When everything had been sorted and stowed, Will suggested a walk.

It was fresh up on the ridge and a breeze shook the leaves in the trees, like impatient strokes of a hairbrush. Rabbit spoor peppered the rough grass on the slope and, under the beeches, there was a faint imprint of deer tracks. We traversed the ridge and dropped down alongside the hedgerow, which still bore the scars of a recent swiping. Tucked under the blackthorn was the tiny body of a fledgling. It had been dead for a long time, and had dried and stretched almost out of shape.

Will walked on ahead and I watched him.

I was trying to puzzle out what, in the end, I was doing here, with Will.

Then I remembered.

‘Mama…’ whined three-year-old Chloë, during the sermon of one of the innumerable church services we had had to attend, ‘Mama… I was tired, so tired that I felt almost dead. Will swooped down, picked up his troublesome daughter and held her close. Enchanted, Chloe ran her tiny hands over his face, exploring every plane, every angle of his chin and poked at his eyes. And Will, gazing with pure love on his fair-haired, minxy daughter with an expression that was as far removed from ambition and striving as it was possible to be, let her do so.

That was what it was about.

Will waited for me to catch up. ‘You will be able to spare time to climb on the batde bus,’ he asked anxiously.

There was an edge to his tone – a reprise of the doubting Will of the Casa Rosa – and I knew, for certain, that they were all frightened that they would lose.

‘I can manage without you,’ he said. ‘But I’d rather not.’

‘That’s something, after all these years.’ I would have liked to have raised a smile, at least, if not a laugh. ‘It’s that bad?’

His reply was dragged out of him. ‘It’s that bad.’

I braced myself mentally. ‘I’d better get going then, hadn’t I?’

The tea-and-cake session for the party workers was, of course, well attended. There was nothing like an election for galvanizing the sheep and the goats, the supporters and the detractors, even if the press had already rushed to print its doubts about the party.

Mannochie came over. ‘Glad to see you back.’

He was holding a mammoth sheaf of papers. I looked at them. ‘Are they all for me?’

‘Not quite.’ He sounded cheerful at the prospect of the fight. Someone had to. We commandeered a couple of plastic chairs and ran through the staggering list of commitments. Coffee mornings. Suppers. Press calls. Mannochie had excelled himself. ‘I’m counting on Will to wheel in some big guns. The Chancellor… or even the PM. Nothing like the big cheeses to make us feel we’re on the map.’

A little later, I got up to make a rally-the-troops speech. I knew I looked the part – unremarkable skirt, slightly more elegant black jacket, discreet jewellery. The uniform of the model political wife.

I surveyed the faces. They were good-natured, expectant, and wishing to be told that all was well. I had the choice as to whether to be honest – and the speech would run along the lines of it was going to be hard and bumpy, there were no safe harbours and no safe outcomes – or… I smiled. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I know Will would have liked to be here, and he will be just as soon as he can. Meanwhile, he sends his thanks in advance for all the work he knows you’ll be putting in during the next six weeks. None of it will be wasted. We have the right policies, the right team and, if I may say so, the right person to represent you and lead you to victory. I live with him…’ pause for a ripple of laughter ‘…and I know he spends every waking minute thinking about the constituency… even when I reckon he should be thinking about me.’

More laughter.

‘One of the things that I know concerns Will in particular is, as a minister, how much time he has to spend in Westminster, but that does not mean that his constituency of Stanwinton is not engraved on his heart. I hope you feel that he has always considered your views and put your interests at the top of the list.’

I sat down to enthusiastic applause.

‘Very graceful,’ said Mannochie. ‘Thank you.’

I was sitting in front of the mirror rubbing cream into my face and getting ready for bed when Will placed a hand on my shoulder.

‘Fanny, I must ask you. I have to ask you. When Raoul came and saw you in Italy. Was that… was it?’

I knew exactly what Will was asking, and I knew he must have thought it over very carefully before he broached the subject. If it had not been for Meg, I am sure he would have tackled me earlier, and the long interval between my telling him that Raoul came to visit and this moment must have given him pain, for which I was sorry.

I continued to smooth the cream into my cheeks and neck and I watched my reflection performing this little everyday routine.

I had it in my power to square an old circle, to redress a balance. I could choose to tell Will the truth. I could say that Raoul offered me sweet and civilized delights, a moment of pleasure and sun, where I was not a wife, but myself… and I could add that I wanted very much to accept.

Or I could tell Will that I had taken Raoul as a lover, but he was not to worry. It was a terrible mistake and certainly was not going to affect our marriage. He would know what I was talking about.

Or I could say that I had thanked Raoul, and replied that I would bear his offer in mind for the future. Keep it stored in the attic, so to speak, and drag it out every so often to dust it off.

I encountered Will’s wary expression in the mirror and put down the tube of cream. It struck me that the politics of a successful marriage involved never asking too straight a question, and in never answering it fully, always leaving that tiny margin of unknowing. It was enough to know that each loved the other, and the rest had to be done with smoke and mirrors and more than a little trust.