Another wire arrived three weeks later, weeks in which she’d stared at her children and they’d stared at the table, and all had silently agreed that it was rather better if they spent most of their time in their rooms; either one, though they seemed to prefer Ian’s. Finetta’s was smaller and darker, the window was to the back. Enid moved in a daze. She woke and thought, this can’t really be happening, can it? and then would hear Peel getting the children their breakfast, and remember. Sometimes she couldn’t manage her post. She left it piling on the hall table, but Peel had received the wire and handed it right to her with her tea. It said: Ian to reside with you in the interim. Visitation set out. C

She took the bus.

“Why?”

“Why is he to remain with you?” said Crowther.

“I didn’t expect him to.”

“I hesitate to say, madam, that you know nothing about the law.”

Why should she? She knew nothing about anything – bank accounts and bills, light bulbs and clocks, children. Douglas used to do the former, paid and changed and wound; Everett and Mary the latter. Peel had her hands full; running the kitchen, shopping and meals was were all she could manage. That’s what she said, anyway.

“So he’s to stay with me until we go before a judge?”

“And hopefully after, if I’ve understood your point correctly,” said Crowther.

“And she is allowed to visit?”

“He is set to visit his aunt at regular intervals. See here,” he turned the document so she could see it, “the third Saturday in each month. They’ve asked that he stay at least three nights on each visit.”

“Fine,” she replied.

She wished she hadn’t. The first time he went, she sat at the kitchen table unable to move until he came back. Of course she went to bed and got up again; of course she didn’t only sit at the table, but it felt like it – it felt as if, if she held her breath, he’d be home by the time she breathed out. What if she keeps him? she’d said to Crowther. Then our case will be stronger, he’d replied, and she hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry.

He came back, not in the clothes she’d sent him in but back, nevertheless, a little boy on her doorstep, dropped off by the Rolls, his teddy under his arm. This time his nanny had to give him a push, and it was she who hurried away as soon as Enid held him.