Case Histories

They had honeymooned in Jersey because, rather late in the day, Caroline realized that she didn't have a passport. Jonathan didn't care, he wasn't terribly interested in anywhere that wasn't North Yorkshire. She could have got a passport, she had a birth certificate – in the name of Caroline Edith Edwards. Caroline thought "Edith" was probably the name of a grandmother, because it was an old-fashioned name for someone born in 1967. "Caroline Edwards" was six years younger than Caroline, although, of course, she had never reached Caroline's age. She was dead by the time she was five years old, "taken by an angel," according to her gravestone, although her death certificate claimed it was a more prosaic leukemia that had carried her off. Caroline had visited the grave, in Swindon, and laid a little posy of flowers on it, just to say thank you to Caroline Edith Edwards for the gift of her identity, even though it was taken rather than given.

When they finally arrived back at the house it was almost half past five and Ha

Rowena didn't see the point of having an au pair and constantly found ways of antagonizing Paola. "The children are out of the house all day," she argued with Caroline. "It's not as if you have a baby." There was an invisible question buried in this statement. Was she pla

John Burton's hair was thi

"Where?" She loved the way he said "the lady" rather than "the woman."

" Majorca."

"Do you pay her?"

"Yes, of course," he said, looking shocked.

"I thought churches were full of women doing things for the love of it, arranging flowers and polishing brasses and all that stuff."

"I think that's the past you're thinking about," he said. "Or a television program."

Caroline sat in the front pew and said, "I could do with a cigarette." He sat down next to her, the brush and dustpan still in his hand, and said, "I didn't know you smoked?" and she said, "I don't. Not really." He was wearing vicarish trousers, black and nondescript and rather cheap, a white T-shirt, and an old gray cardigan that she wanted to stroke as if it were an animal. Even when he was in mufti he looked like a vicar. She couldn't imagine him in jeans or a suit. She didn't think he had any idea about how she felt about him. If she told him she "would spoil his i

She felt suddenly tearful. "My au pair's going to leave me," she said. Oh, how pathetic must that sound to him. On a scale of world peace and third-world poverty, how did an unhappy Spanish au pair rate? But he was kind, as she knew he would be, and he said, "I'm sorry," as if he really were, and then they sat in silence and stared at the altar and listened to the summer rain drumming on the ancient stone slates.

Chapter 13. Amelia

Julia hauled a scuttle full of coal into the sitting room, escorted by a limping Sammy. "I can't believe Victor never put in central heating," she gasped, dropping the scuttle to the floor so that coal dust and tiny pieces of coal, like polished, unworked jet, spilled on the carpet. Amelia frowned at her and said, "I've just cleaned in here," and Julia said, "That's what will be written on your gravestone," and Amelia said, "Oh, really, by you?" and Julia said, "God, I'm gagging for it, aren't you?" and Amelia said, "Apropos of what exactly?"

"Two weeks of enforced celibacy since we've been here," Julia said. "it's doing my head in, it really is. I'm having to wank every night."

"Oh, for God's sake, Julia, you're so crude. It's disgusting." Amelia hated that word, the slaters and brickies used it all the time, the hairdressers too – the girls were just like the boys. "You wanker!" – yelling at each other across the room.

"What would you call it then?" Julia asked, and Amelia said, "I don't know – pleasuring yourself," which made Julia fall about laughing and say, "God, don't tell me you don't do it, Milly. Everyone does it, it's normal. I'm sure you do it and think about Henry – oh, no, you don't think about Henry. I bet you think about Jackson !" Julia seemed particularly delighted with this idea. Amelia wanted to slap her. "You do it, don't you, Milly? You frig yourself and think about Jackson!"

"You are disgusting, Julia. Offensively disgusting." Amelia knew she had turned as red as her tights – do