Alex strode up the garden with the kettle and cup. After topping up the teapot with hot water, Alex wedged himself beside her on the bench, making sure all Lottie could think about was his proximity.

52. Joan

52

Joan

4 August 1962, 6.10 p.m.

My skin smells of Allan’s aftershave and I haven’t time to take a bath. Adding my own scent would make me smell like a bordello. What the hell is happening? I yank my gown over my head. No sex for months then a delicious quickie. It is like we have started over. We need to. The stress of our life outside is eating into family life. Allan is always travelling and has so little time for Diana. She needs him. I know exactly what having a distant father does to a daughter.

I wriggle in order to get my zip up. Teasing the front of my hair to achieve a lift, I sweep my hair into a French twist, securing it with a few pins and a diamond clip that had been my mother’s. I look like her, but act nothing like her. She had been typical of women of her day. Well-read but under educated. Like the clip that adorned my hair, she adorned my father’s arm until her end. No, I am not like her at all. In fact, I am more my father, wily and evasive. He gave nothing away, not even love.

In the bottom of the wardrobe, I pull out my jewel case and run my fingers over the pearls, but my fingers settle on the diamond necklace that Allan had given me for the birth of Diana. He’d never expected to become a father and his delight had surprised us both. It was never meant to happen, Allan and me. We were both letting our hair down. A tense operation finished. We were alive and before we knew it, we were making love. The following morning, we had laughed while smoking in bed listening to the muezzin recite the adhan. We would say no more about it. These things happen and all that.

A month later a decision had to be made. But due to work I could not travel. Rage ensued. This was not the plan. Allan and I married, sealing my fate and providing me with a different cover. Diana arrived not quite eight months later. She changed me in ways I’d never expected. Love was one of them.

The diamonds catch the light as I lift the necklace and place it around my neck. It is Cartier. Memories. When Allan had presented it to me, I recalled wearing it and nothing else. Looking at myself now, that carefree abandon feels very far away from here.