Lydia made no comment; she had heard it all before. ‘I can’t believe Bobby is old enough to leave school,’ she said. ‘Where have the years gone? It only seems five minutes since he was a baby.’

‘All mothers say that,’ Tatty said, standing up. ‘Just don’t say it in his hearing, that’s all. Are you ready?’

They were going to Bobby’s last end-of-year prize-giving. He was to receive two prizes and his A-level results from Mr Lockhart, the headmaster, though he already knew what they were. Three straight As in English, European history and politics. How proud she and Robert were of him! And of Tatty too. She had done well in her O levels, which just went to show, Lydia mused, what her daughter was capable of if only she would put her mind to it.

‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’ She slipped into her high-heeled sandals, picked up her clutch bag and took a last look in the mirror. What faced her was a middle-aged woman, whose waist was beginning ever so slightly to thicken and whose hair was growing grey, but she flattered herself she had kept the wrinkles at bay and her skin was still smooth. In the navy linen suit and ruffled white blouse she had chosen to wear she didn’t look half bad.

They found Robert in the drawing room. ‘Smashing,’ Robert said, looking Lydia up and down. He turned to Tatty. ‘As for you, young lady, you will have every young buck falling at your feet.’

‘Young buck!’ Tatty laughed. ‘No one uses words like that nowadays.’

‘Why not, if it expresses what I mean?’ He was grinning with paternal pride. ‘We ought to go, we mustn’t be late.’

They accomplished the journey in less than an hour in what had been Sir Edward’s Bentley. It was getting on in years but it still went well, kept in good repair by Andy at the garage. Lydia rarely drove it, preferring her own little car, but Robert used it to get backwards and forwards to the Merry Maid, which was moored at Ipswich.

He had a nine-to-five desk job at the Admiralty which kept him in London during the week, but he came home to Upstone Hall every Friday night. Sometimes he stayed with her until Monday morning, but sometimes he went sailing. Lydia, who had never forgotten that dreadful wartime voyage from Russia to Scotland, did not share his enthusiasm and did not go with him. Bobby and Tatty had been once or twice but they were so busy with their own friends and social engagements it did not happen often. When she asked him who was crewing for him, he said, ‘A friend I met at the Admiralty, you wouldn’t know them.’

If she wondered why she had never met this crewman, she did not voice it. And if he chose to spend his time away from her, who could blame him? It was her fault, she knew that. She had not loved him as she ought, certainly not as well as he deserved. She hadn’t exactly kept him at arm’s length, but neither had she cleaved to him, sharing his highs and lows as, in the beginning, he had tried to share hers. She was carrying too much emotional baggage and didn’t seem able to let go of it.


The school assembly hall was packed with parents and siblings come to watch their sons and brothers line up to receive their accolades, smart in their school uniforms, their hair slicked down and their ties straight. Cameras were flashing everywhere and Tatty took a picture when it was Bobby’s turn. Afterwards there was tea in the marquee put up on the green in front of the school, a word with the head and then home again.

‘Phew! I’m glad that’s over,’ Bobby said as he climbed into the back seat beside Tatty.

‘I thought it was a lovely afternoon,’ Lydia said. ‘And the head was very complimentary about your results.’

‘I worked damned hard for them,’ he said, over her shoulder. ‘I didn’t want to let Grandpa down.’

‘Grandpa’, Lydia noted, not ‘Father’, and looked sharply at Robert, but he was looking straight ahead, watching the road. Bobby could not have failed to notice that his father had rarely been at home during his childhood and even now, when he could have been at home more, he was more often sailing his yacht. Grandpa was the male adult to whom he had always turned.

As soon as they arrived home, Bobby changed out of his school uniform and into jeans and T-shirt. ‘You can send this lot to the charity shop,’ he said, bringing his flannels, blazer and white shirt down to the kitchen and dumping them on the table. ‘I shan’t need them again.’

‘There’s plenty of time for that. Take them off the table, I want to prepare dinner.’

He scooped the clothes up, took them into the laundry room next to the kitchen and dropped them on the brick floor. Lydia sighed in exasperation. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I think I’ll have a wander outside, see if anything’s changed while I’ve been gone. What time’s dinner?’

Lydia laughed. ‘Nothing’s changed. And dinner is at seven.’

‘OK. I’ll be back. I might even bring you a nice fat trout.’ And he was gone out of the back door, whistling tunelessly.

Her son loved Upstone Hall and its surrounds as much as she did. As soon as he arrived home at the end of every term, he would go out and walk round the grounds. It was a sort of proprietorial beating of the bounds. One day, she supposed, it would be his and Balfour Place would be Tatty’s. She put a chicken into the oven to roast, prepared the vegetables and then went out to find him. He was in a rowing boat on the lake. Seeing his mother, he wound in his line and rowed back to shore.

‘Have you caught anything?’ she asked.

‘Not a thing.’ He shipped the oars, jumped out of the boat and tied it up. ‘I wasn’t really paying attention.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Something on your mind? You’re not worrying about going to university, are you?’

He picked up his rod and line and walked beside her. ‘No, of course not. I was just wondering if I could have a party, you know, to celebrate the end of school. Most of my friends will be scattered all over the place next year and I thought it would make a good send-off. You’ll let me, won’t you?’

‘How many?’ she asked warily.

‘Oh, about fifty, perhaps a few more,’ he said airily. ‘There’s plenty of room, isn’t there? And we won’t make a mess.’

She laughed. ‘Fifty young men not make a mess! Impossible.’

‘Oh, go on, say yes.’

‘I’ll have to ask your father.’

‘He won’t care. He’s never here anyway.’

‘Bobby, don’t speak about him like that.’

‘It’s true. He’s obsessed with that boat.’

‘He loves the sea, Bobby, and there isn’t any sea about here, is there? I don’t begrudge him.’

‘So what about the party?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘You always used to say that when we were little, as if that would be enough to shut us up.’

She laughed, taking his arm. ‘It didn’t work, did it?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want me to mention it?’

‘Yes, please. It’ll be better coming from you.’


‘Bobby wants a party for his friends from school,’ Lydia said to Robert next morning at breakfast. Tatty and Bobby were still in bed.

Robert looked up from the newspaper he was reading. ‘Why not? That’s the usual thing, isn’t it? Do you mind?’

‘No. We used to have lovely parties here when I was young. I remember my twenty-first. Everyone came, old and young, all dressed up to the nines. It was when Papa had the Kirilov Star made into a pendant for me. We danced the night away.’

‘I am sure it was a glittering occasion,’ he said, laconically. ‘But young people nowadays don’t want that kind of do. They want music by the Beatles and dancing the rock and roll and the twist.’

She should not have said that about her party; it was before she met Robert, before she met Kolya even, but Alex had been there. And as usual Robert had detected the note of wistfulness in her voice. ‘We can manage that, can’t we?’ she said brightly. ‘He says they won’t make a mess.’

He gave a grunt of a laugh. ‘Believe that if you like.’

‘I was thinking we should leave them to it,’ she began tentatively. ‘That’s what most parents do nowadays. Bobby’s very responsible and we’ll only be in the way if we stay around. We could go to a show and stay the night at Balfour Place.’

‘No,’ he said, somewhat sharply, then moderated his tone. ‘I mean, it’s no change for me, is it? I’m there all week.’

‘Yes, silly of me. What about a run up to the Dales? We could tour around, have bed and breakfast, walk a bit.’

‘OK, you see to it.’ He folded the paper, laid it beside his plate and stood up. ‘I’ll be off now. There’s a spare part I need to get for the Merry Maid and then I’ve got to fix it. I’ll probably stay on the boat tonight.’ He had told her of that the day before, and though she had been disappointed, it came as no surprise. Their relationship was one born of mutual respect, parenthood, habit, a kind of fond contentment with no great highs and lows. It was not enough to keep him at home. He bent to kiss her. ‘See you Friday.’

She went to the door to see him drive away as she always did, then turned back indoors. Bobby was just coming downstairs wearing jeans and a sloppy jumper. ‘Dad just gone?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Did you ask him about the party?’

‘Yes. He said you could organise it yourself.’

‘Great.’

‘But I want to know who’s coming, how many, and I want it all over by two a. m.’

‘Yes, Mum.’ He was grinning from ear to ear.

‘Your father and I are going to have a weekend away and leave you to it, so no funny business.’

‘Funny business, Mum?’ he queried, adopting an air of innocence. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’