‘My stepdaughter has just thrown a potted plant at her brother and the housekeeper is threatening to leave. The minute Jake and I stepped through the door she began telling us what a terrible time she’d had with the kids in our absence—’

‘Exactly as I predicted,’ said Shirley. ‘You’d better offer her a rise if you want her to stay.’

In that respect, Laura, for whom money had always been a minor consideration, was due to learn what her mother never had.

Also to suffer her first doubt that living happily ever after would be the outcome of her marrying a widower with two teenage children. Who stopped scowling at each other and scowled at her, when she entered the living room.

Laura’s own child then set herself up as the family tell-tale. ‘It was Jeremy who started it, Mummy, and Janis—’

‘Shut up, you little sneak!’ Jeremy cut her short. ‘My sister doesn’t need a baby elephant to defend her.’

Bessie ran to Laura. ‘I’m not a baby elephant, am I, Mummy?’

But Laura had the wisdom not to cuddle and comfort her. It would seem like taking sides. Instead she said to Jeremy and Janis, ‘Who started it doesn’t matter. All I saw from the hall was Janis throw the plant at Jeremy. What is it all about?’

‘Who started it does matter,’ said Janis. ‘Our mum believed in justice, didn’t she, Jeremy? She was anti-apartheid like our dad.’

While Laura was trying to relate that to the situation in which she now found herself, the housekeeper, standing by tight-lipped, said, ‘What those two kids need is a smack on the bum, but it isn’t my place to give it them. I’m going upstairs to pack my things.’

‘Please don’t, Doris,’ Laura appealed to her.

‘It’s as good as done.’

The forthright Yorkshirewoman marched from the room. And if someone like Doris couldn’t cope… thought Laura. But she’d got used to there being only Bessie, whom her no-nonsense manner had scared into submission from Day One.

Laura rushed after her. ‘If you’ll stay, though I’ve already given you a rise, I’ll double your salary.’

Doris paused on the stairs and turned to give her a pitying glance. ‘I’m more interested in keeping my sanity.’

She went on her way, sensible shoes clomping and blue nylon overall rustling. With her went Laura’s hope of a stable beginning to her married life. It was all fine for Jake! He’d escaped to a business meeting. Now he was to be based in London, not Johannesburg, he had set up an office in Mayfair. Laura, though, worked from home and had not yet had time today so much as to pop her head in her darkroom. The kids had begun squabbling at breakfast and so it had continued.