‘He – he won’t –’ Viola was uncertain for the first time ‘– speak about it,’ standing up abruptly, clearing the table. ‘He says he can’t speak about it just now. We’ll talk about it one day. But of course –’ and Viola busied herself at the bench, scraping plates, gathering cutlery, her own doubts in this area resolved in her own mind, banished, ‘– it couldn’t have gone on, could it?’

And just for a moment, there was the same icy glitter around the eyes of the daughter. ‘Surely Auntie Moll couldn’t have expected it to go on forever? She must’ve known it couldn’t. I’ve always loved her of course, ever since I was a little girl but – she’s – well she’s always been a bit of a bohemian hasn’t she, she’s never led an ordinary life, she’s never settled. How could Banjo be happy with her in the long run?’ Viola briskly ran hot water to rinse the plates.

‘Of course,’ said Pauline. And she wondered: as Molly was presumably having an affair with Anthony presumably she wasn’t suffering. But what if she was, what if this wasn’t what she’d wanted, what if Pauline’s daughter had broken her heart? What if Molly was actually suffering as she, Pauline, had once suffered so desperately in a two-roomed flat in Vauxhall nearly thirty years ago?

She took out her red lipstick. ‘I have to go out in a little while,’ she said to Viola.

Nevertheless, as they were stacking the dishes into the dishwasher, as Banjo’s green van appeared, as he ran up the path with a scarf round his neck past the snow-covered rose bushes, Pauline suddenly put her arms around her daughter.

‘Don’t throw everything away darling,’ she said, ‘for love. It’s never worth it, in the end.’

‘Of course not Mum,’ said Viola, hugging her mother briefly. ‘Really, you don’t understand,’ not thinking just now of anything but her own happiness, running to the front door to let Banjo into the warm Sunday afternoon house, running to meet her love.

Her mother turned the dishwasher on and placed the remains of the peach pie in the refrigerator. She then went quietly, unobserved, to where her pink Mercedes stood in the garage.

She was an actress, and she was going to a rehearsal.

34

Next morning at l0 am the case in Court Number Ten in the Old Bailey was reconvened. Another case was scheduled to begin there later in the day when this one was over, as it was expected to be. The court rose as the judge, her cold obviously worse, walked in; sat, as she put her throat pastilles and her small box of tissues on the bench beside her. The prosecuting barrister had spent the weekend in bed, his voice sounded better. The court stenographer, whose sneezing had been a part of the proceedings the past week, had been replaced.