‘After you left last night I got a call from my sister-in-law—’

‘The one you said lives with her daughter in Israel? The press are now calling what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank an uprising. But you told me your relatives live in Tel Aviv. It wouldn’t affect them. Why in the hell can’t you go with me?’ And why did I, before asking you, waste time mentioning something irrelevant to us? Because I’m still trying to take in this last minute let down by the woman I love.

‘The call was from Lyn, Matthew’s mother,’ Marianne said. ‘There’s been another crisis, his worst yet, and it’s still going on. He couldn’t breathe and was rushed to hospital by ambulance. They say it’s pneumonia and the outlook is grim.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘As if that weren’t enough for Lyn to take, after the doctors had spoken to them Arnold let Pete have it. He’s been bottling it up for years, holding Pete responsible for Matthew’s being gay. Pete is now in pieces.’

‘All concerned have my sympathy,’ said Simon, ‘but why does this have to mean you can’t go with me?’

‘If you have to ask that, you’re not the man for me, Simon.’

‘Damn right I’m not! Nor you the woman for me.’

A moment later each had replaced the receiver and stood staring down at the telephone. Marianne in Hampstead and Simon in Highgate, a ten-minute drive from each other, but for both it was as if a yawning cavern now stretched between them.

What is it with her? thought Simon. Is she some kind of masochist? She’d looked forward to this trip as much as he had, even gone out and bought herself new outfits to wear in Bermuda. OK, so her sister-in-law needs some support, but Laura’s around, and also that young rabbi and his wife I met at the bonfire party. Well, Simon had sure seen Marianne in action now! But why did it have to be her, and why did she stand for it?

He could not have known how often Marianne had asked herself that question, or that she was again doing so. If ever there were a reluctant and unsuitable unofficial matriarch, it’s me!

The answer to why she stood for the demands made on her, though, lay in what she had finally said to Martin on the night they discussed pros and cons of the institution responsible for her present plight.

Come what may, she was thankful that hers was a family that continued to stand by each other.

Simon took his shower, tidied his kitchen, checked his briefcase, dressed and left for the airport like a robot going through the motions of getting where it was programmed to go. Robots didn’t feel pain, and he would hold his at bay for as long as he could.