Melanie made no bones about the fact she didn’t like Lawrence. And the feeling was mutual. Grace knew that most of her friends avoided Lawrence, but Mel was the only one who’d told her bluntly that she should never have married him. And, more and more lately, Grace was wondering the same thing.

They’d been married seven years, after a whirlwind courtship. She’d met him at a cocktail party for movers and shakers in the business world after she’d done an advertising campaign for a big, newly merged financial institution. He was English, with an Australian-born mother who’d lived in England most of her life. Lawrence had come to Australia to go to university and stayed. When Grace met him, he’d recently come out of a long relationship, and he’d told her he wanted to settle down and start a family.

Grace had been on the cusp of travelling, looking for a job overseas, but Lawrence had swept her off her feet, taking her on luxurious holidays and surprising her with expensive gifts. He’d proposed after six months, with a very large Bvlgari diamond ring. He had been working on a major contract at the time and, if it came through, he’d suggested that they could live in Italy for a year or so. ‘Then you can choose to work or not. Or just take assignments if you want to, not because you have to,’ he’d said.

She was thirty at the time and suddenly she’d been able to see her life pattern: being a mum and working when she wanted. Come her forties she’d have kids in school and could concentrate on a career in visual advertising, finish her film and video production course, maybe start her own company. Well, it had all seemed very appealing. There was a lot to be said for a doting, older, well-to-do husband, she’d thought.

Her mother, Tina, had agreed, if not too enthusiastically. She confessed she would have been happier if Grace had chosen someone like the boys she’d gone out with when she was growing up on the Northern Beaches.

‘They might look like surf bums,’ Tina had said to her once, ‘but some of those lads have done very well for themselves. Marty Davidson, who won all those Bells Beach championships, has his own law firm now. He still surfs here every weekend.’

‘Mum, you’re such an old surfer chick.’ Grace had laughed. ‘You’ve never got over your wild hippy times in Bali.’ Tina had spent some time in Bali in the seventies, well before it was the tourist mecca it had since become. She spoke about it often as one of the best times of her life.

Tina had given her a quick smile. ‘Yep, Kuta back then was something else!’

So Grace had married Lawrence and looked forward to the sparkling future she pictured for them. However, the big contract Lawrence had anticipated didn’t pan out, and Italy was off the cards. Perhaps it had always been a pipe dream, Grace thought. Anyway, by then, Lawrence had been very keen for them to have a baby.