The next morning, Sol was up and dressed before her. Catrin came downstairs in her pyjamas, sleepy headed and toasty, to find him in his best suit protected by a Spice Girls apron, making scrambled eggs. Romy was sat in her baby chair chatting away to her banana and yoghurt.

‘Blimey, you’re eager beavers,’ she said, kissing Romy on her soft downy hair.

‘I didn’t risk putting her christening dress on,’ said Sol, scooping up the creamy eggs on to thick buttered toast and handing it to her. ‘Thought we ought to leave it till the last minute. Don’t want her all covered in breakfast when Father O’Leary’s holding her over the font.’

‘Very wise,’ said Catrin, grinding black pepper on to her eggs. She watched as Sol poured them both coffee then came to sit next to her at the breakfast bar. Romy gurgled at them both and Catrin sighed, contented – inwardly offering up a short prayer of gratitude for her beautiful little family. ‘You look so gorgeous,’ she said to Sol.

‘So do you,’ he laughed back, ‘in a sort of crumpled, slept-in kind of a way …’

They munched on their toast and eggs. He was such a good cook. One of his many, many qualities. How blessed was she? She couldn’t shatter all this now, could she? Now wasn’t the right time to pose the question.

As if reading her mind, he looked at her and smiled.

‘Nervous?’

She was thrown off balance. ‘What? Er, no.’

‘Good. ’Cos you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about.’

He was talking about the encroaching potential clash between Lana and Judith at the christening. She wished he was talking about babies. More babies.

No. This wasn’t the right time. She didn’t know when would be, but it certainly wasn’t now. And once again Catrin chickened out, swallowing her nerves with a big gulp of coffee.

36

Judith

They arrived at her mother’s house at midday. They’d planned it this way so they wouldn’t have to spend more than an hour there before going to the church. It took a while for Patricia to answer the door, and when she did she looked a bit ragged.

‘Late night, Mother?’ Judith asked.

‘Don’t start,’ growled Patricia, leaving the door open for them to follow her inside.

Judith shared a smile with Gareth. Her mother no longer scared her. If anything, she found her entertaining. She’d long since let go of the catalogue of hurt inflicted by Patricia as she was growing up. And she’d long since forgiven the more palpable blots on her mother’s pitiful copy-book, such as trapping George into marriage, or rejecting her daughter when she was pregnant. In fact, she’d long since stopped indulging the self-pity of trawling through Patricia’s list of parenting failures. Because happiness was the best revenge: and Judith had found happiness in her own life now, as a mother and a wife and a woman with a highly successful career. These days, she viewed Patricia as a sad, lonely relative, more like an ageing aunt than a mother, to whom she and Gareth would always be connected through a duty of care and no more. And, of course, she was still Jack’s grandmother, and that counted for something.