She kicked the pieces of the drawer away from her, she did not notice the pain in her hand, she dragged her raincoat from behind the door so violently that it tore along the shoulder, she ran out into the rain. She walked very fast along the river not knowing where she went, once she thought she saw Hammersmith Bridge, found herself finally in Chelsea as dusk fell. Knives twisted in her heart: she saw again Molly and Anthony in the study at the top of the house the day of the garden party, the palpable feeling of sex in the air although they sat across the room from each other, a feeling so strong in the room that she could almost have held it in her hands. What was it they had that she was excluded from? What did they do to each other? And now Anthony was trying to take this last chance away from her and give it to Molly McKenzie; Anthony Bonham was doing this to his own wife: this was the man she had married and lost her career for.

Suddenly, down by Chelsea Bridge, Pauline vomited violently into the Thames. The rain became heavier and heavier but she did not notice.

*

Sometimes when it had been raining the river rose. Once when they were children Portia and Viola and Benedict Bonham had actually seen the River Thames creeping right up their back lawn; they had screamed in terrified delight, then watched in fascination as the fingers of water fell back.

It was late when Pauline got home. Benedict, feet up, eating crisps in front of the television, looked actually alarmed when he glanced up and saw her.

‘You’re soaking Mum,’ he said. ‘The river came up the lawn.’

Pauline did not answer.

‘You look a bit funny Mum.’ And then after a pause because she still did not answer him he added, ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Fish and chips,’ said Pauline. ‘Go and get them,’ and she threw him the keys to the Mercedes with a five pound note. Ordinarily he would have complained, talked about homework, insisted he hated driving the sissy pink Mercedes; tonight he stared at her again and decided not to.

*

At three o’clock in the morning as the rain pounded on the river still, Pauline conceived the bizarre and unlikely plan that was to change her life.

Sometimes she rubbed her bruised hand but she did not know that she was doing so. She walked up and down and up and down in her long bedroom by the river. She would do it. She would do this: nothing would stop her.

She finally heard – with a start of guilt that she had not realised earlier that her daughter was still out – Viola come in at nearly 4 am. It was so unlike Viola not to phone if she was going to be late or was not coming home that Pauline put on her dressing gown, went downstairs.