It would have been a perfect home for somebody who actually wanted it. Three storeys high, with five acres of land, sitting halfway up a hill with a view across the tree-lined valley and the sound of the River Irthing occasionally bubbling up through the silence to soak into the old stone walls. It had stood for a hundred years and bore the mixed tastes of each of the previous inhabitants. Some of the rooms looked little changed from Victorian times with their high ceilings and dusty chandeliers, picture rails and ornate fireplaces. Others were homely, as if a smaller, cosier residence had been crammed into the interior of the stately shell. I had made little impact. The books that had threatened to overwhelm my living space at college took up barely one shelf of the colossal library and the framed pictures of the Parisian jazz bands that had looked so sophisticated when I was nineteen seemed faintly ridiculous hung against floral wallpaper in the master bedroom with its sagging four-poster bed. Cranham had bought the place at auction. Took it lock, stock and barrel. Paid over the odds, no doubt. Stuffed handfuls of cash into the pockets of locals and told them to make it habitable. Probably held their handshakes a little too long; that little smile twitching in the corner of his eye. It was wrong of me to think of him in anything but affectionate terms. He had saved me, though by God I resented him for that. Took a woman who was carrying another man’s child and offered her a home and an income. Had no interest in what I got up to or who I got up to it with. Just needed a wife and child and a cover story so his family and colleagues would stop questioning him about when he was going to find a wife. Needed one, if he was going to become a parliamentarian. Couldn’t let the truth get out. Couldn’t tell the world that he had as much interest in women as a fish does in aeroplanes. He liked men. Rough, dirty-faced, hard-skinned men. Kept one, almost as a pet, in the Knightsbridge flat where he slept on the nights he wasn’t reclining on soft sheets in some luxurious hotel or another. He was a kind man, in his way. Did right by me when he really didn’t have to. But we both knew what our marriage was for. He would have come to the funeral, had I given him the chance. There was no service. Just the cremation and my own mumbled words as I scooped up handfuls of what used to be my son and tossed them onto the breeze.

CORDELIA