‘Wel —’ Mum blinks slowly, her long, soot-black eyelashes brushing her smooth skin. There is a crumb of mascara on her cheekbone; I stare at it. ‘It was lovely to see you again. It’s been a long time.’

He nods, and bows his head at me. ‘Natasha, you too.’ He clears his throat. ‘Once more, I’m sorry if you’ve thought I’ve been inappropriate, or anything like that. Let me—’ He fumbles in his pocket and takes out a card. ‘If you’re ever up this way—’

Guy Leighton

Antiques & Rare Books

Cross Street

London N1

‘I’m sure we’l be in touch, about the foundation at the very least.’ I take the card. ‘Wel , thank you, Guy. Thank you.’ As if I am a dowager duchess whom he wil never be fortunate enough to meet again.

‘Goodbye, then,’ he says, and shuts the door quietly behind him, with one last apologetic look at my mother.

The room is silent. ‘Are you OK?’ I say. Mum is blinking back tears.

‘I am,’ she says. ‘I’m just rather tired. It’s been a long day. Lots of memories, you know? And I’m worried about you, Natasha.’

She says it quietly, without tossing her hair or rol ing her eyes or trying to get something. She just looks rather beaten, and it hits me in the solar plexus. I put my arm round her. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I tel her. ‘I wanted to explain about me and Oli, but it was . . . too hard. And then Granny died – I couldn’t just drop it into conversation, could I?’

‘So what happened?’ she says. ‘Do you want to tel your old mum about it?’

Mum isn’t very good at being a mum out of an Oxo ad. She’s better when she’s just being a person.

‘He’s been sleeping with someone else,’ I say.

‘An affair?’ Mum’s eyes are wide open now.

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘A girl at work. It was a couple of months ago. He says it’s nothing. It’s over.’

‘Ohh!’ my mother says, her voice high, as if that’s that then. ‘Right.’

I look at her.

‘That’s absolutely awful,’ she adds. ‘You poor thing.’

I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with her; in fact I remember one of the reasons why I dreaded tel ing her in the first place. Mum absolutely adores Oli. They get on real y wel . I often think they’d have a better time without me there. He thinks she’s hilarious, wonderful, and she plays up to it, and they get drunk together and egg each other on, like old boozers in a pub, and I sit there, wearily watching them, feeling like a beige carpet in a Persian rug shop.

There’s a frown puckering her forehead. I say, ‘I think he wants to come back, but I don’t know what to say if he asks. I just don’t know if I can trust him.’

‘Hmm,’ says my mum, one finger on her cheek as if consider ing this point seriously, and I remember the times I’d ask her when she’d be back home from a party or dinner with friends. ‘Hmm . . .’ she’d say, finger on cheek, and after a long pause, ‘not late, darling. Not too late.’ And then, when I’d final y got to sleep, worn out by being terrified by noises inside the flat that I thought were rats or sinister intruders, and of being terrified by noises outside the flat that I knew were masked robbers or deranged psychopaths, in the dark stil hours of the early morning I’d hear the creak of the door and the soft tap on the parquet floor as she crept past my room to her bed. ‘Hmm . . . I’m just not sure.’

‘I am,’ I say. ‘I can’t trust him. I can’t have him back if I don’t trust him.’

‘He’s your husband, and he looks after you, and you don’t have to worry about anything,’ Mum says sharply. ‘I think you need to look at it like that instead, Natasha. I mean, he didn’t kill anyone, you know. He slept with someone. He’s a good husband.’

‘What?’ I am momentarily stunned, as though this is a modern-day version of Gigi and I am Leslie Caron and should just put up with it. ‘He pays for our nice life, for my new boots, I should just shut up, right?’

She stares at me defiantly. ‘Sometimes, darling, I think you just don’t get it at al . I’m just saying it’s hard, being on your own.’

I can’t answer this, as I know she’s right, but I can’t agree with her without hurting her feelings. ‘I just don’t know, Mum,’ I say. ‘I look at our life together and I—’

She interrupts me. ‘Relationships aren’t perfect,’ she says. ‘They’re not. You have to work at them. You were the first of your friends to get married, weren’t you?’ This is true, and I’m surprised she’s aware of it. ‘Perhaps you just don’t see your other friends in the same situations as you.

And I’ve certainly not been much of a role model in that direction, have I?’ She grimaces, blinking rapidly.

‘He slept with someone, Mum. He didn’t forget our anniversary. It’s a bit different.’

‘Like I say. People make mistakes.’ She pauses. ‘Your grandparents are a good example. But they got over it.’

‘How? What do you mean?’

‘I mean –’ Mum begins, and then she stops. Her mouth is open, as though she’s not sure how to continue, and then we hear a noise.

‘Hel o?’ someone cal s from upstairs. ‘Hel o? I think your grandfather needs help.’ I push open the swinging kitchen door. An old lady is standing at the top of the stairs, peering out of the dark. ‘I just came up here to use the lavatory and I heard him . . . he’s cal ing for someone.’

I see Louisa breaking away from her husband and Guy and hurrying towards the hal . I step out.

‘I’l go,’ I say suddenly, watching my mother’s face. I can hear Arvind’s voice, growing louder.

‘Someone needs to come up here!’ he is squeaking. ‘Immediately!’

‘Thanks,’ I say to the old lady, who is waiting at the bend in the staircase. ‘See you later, Mum,’ I say, and I run up the stairs, my hands running along the smooth, dark wood of the banisters.

‘I do hope he’s al right,’ the old lady says, looking anxiously towards the closed bedroom door. I push it open and go in.

Chapter Nine

‘Hel o, Natasha,’ Arvind says. He is sitting up in bed, smal as a child, bald as a baby, his hands wrinkled and lying on the crisp white sheets. The wheelchair is parked neatly in the corner; a metal stand is next to the bed. They don’t go with the room, these metal hospital items. They don’t match.

I love this room, perhaps more than any other in the house. But here on this dark February evening the heavy brocade curtains are drawn, and it is gloomy, with only the light from a lamp on Arvind’s side of the bed. On Granny’s side the sheets are smooth, and the bedside table is empty except for a blue plastic beaker; there’s stil water in it. I wonder how long it would take for it to evaporate al away.

‘What’s up, Arvind?’ I say. ‘Are you al right?’

‘I was bored,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to sleep. I wanted to put some music on, but I was prevented by your wel -meaning relative.’ He nods. His teeth are on the side, in a jar. His voice is muffled.

‘Music?’ I say, trying not to smile. ‘I like Charles Trenet, so does your grandmother. When is a better time than at her funeral to play a compact disc of Charles Trenet? But that is not important.’ He taps the sheets with his fingers. They are etiolated and dry, dead twigs scraping the smooth linen. His mind is working away though, looking at me. He screws up his face. ‘Sit down.’

I sit down on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you know what the col ective noun for rooks is?’ Arvind asks.

‘What?’ I say.

‘The col ective noun for rooks. It has been annoying me. Al day.’

‘No idea, sorry,’ I say. ‘A rookery?’

‘No.’ He glares at me in annoyance. ‘I would ask your grandmother. She would know.’

‘She would,’ I say. I glance at him. ‘It is sad,’ my grandfather says. His hands work away at the sheet. He stares up at the ceiling. ‘So, how is the atmosphere downstairs? I must admit I was not sorry to have to retire. I was finding it rather exhausting.’

‘Most people have gone,’ I say. ‘But there’s stil a hard-core group left.’

‘Your grandmother was a very popular woman,’ Arvind says. ‘She had a lot of admirers. The house used to be ful of them. Long time ago.’

I say, trying to keep my voice light, ‘Wel , you may find a couple of them sleeping on the sofas tomorrow morning.’

He smiles. ‘Then it wil be just like the old days, except they are al greyer and not that much wiser. Are you staying tonight?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I have to get back. I have a meeting with the bank. They want their money back.’

‘Oh? Why is that?’

‘Wel , I’m going out of business.’

I don’t know why I tel Arvind this. Perhaps because he is not easily spooked and I know he won’t start wringing his hands or sighing.

‘I am sorry to hear that.’ He nods, as if acknowledging the situation. ‘Again. Why?’

‘I’ve been stupid, basical y,’ I say. ‘Listened to people when I should have just done my own thing.’

‘But perhaps it wil give you back some freedom.’

‘Freedom?’

‘The ties that bind can often strangle you,’ Arvind says, as if we were chatting about the weather. ‘It is true, in my long experience. How is Oli?’

‘Wel —’ It is my turn to start smoothing the duvet down with my fingers. ‘That’s another thing, too. I’ve left him. Or he’s left me. I think it’s over.’

Arvind’s eyes widen a little, and he nods again. ‘That is more bad news.’

I put one hand under my chin. ‘Sorry. I’m not doing very wel at the moment.’ My throat hurts from trying not to cry. ‘I’m sort of glad Granny doesn’t know. She was . . . wel – she wouldn’t have screwed everything up like this.’

Arvind says slowly, ‘Your grandmother wasn’t perfect, you know. Everyone thought she was, but she wasn’t. She found things . . . hard. Like her daughter has. Like you.’ He gazes at the curtains, as if looking through them, out to sea, to the horizon beyond. ‘You’re al more alike than you think, you know. “The sins of the fathers shal be revisited upon the children.”’

I can’t real y see what he’s talking about: Mum looks like Granny, but apart from that two more different people you couldn’t imagine. Granny, hard-working, charming, interested and interesting, beautiful and talented, and my mother – wel , she’s some of those things I suppose, but she’s never real y found her own niche, her own place, the way her brother has. Granny was sure of her place in the world. Wasn’t she?

A thick, velvety silence covers the room. I can hear faint noises from downstairs. A door slams, some murmured voices, the sound of crockery clattering against something. I wonder what time it is now. I don’t want to leave, but I know I wil have to, and soon. Arvind is watching me, as if I am a curious specimen.

He opens his mouth to speak, slowly. ‘You look just like her,’ he says. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Like Granny?’

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘No. Like Cecily. You look just like Cecily.’

‘That’s funny – Louisa just said that,’ I say. ‘Real y?’ A memory from long ago begins to stir within me.

‘Oh, yes.’ Arvind scratches the side of his chin with two thin fingers. ‘I thought you understood. That’s why.’

‘That’s why what?’

‘That’s why your grandmother, she sometimes found it hard to be with you. She was so proud of you. Said you had her blood running in your veins. She loved your work, loved it. But she found it very hard, at times. Because, you see, you are like twins.’

‘I – I didn’t know that,’ I say, tears springing into my eyes. ‘It’s not your fault.’ He wiggles his toes under the duvet, watching them dispassionately. I watch them too. ‘But you did look very like her. Perhaps her skin was darker, so was her hair, but the face – the face is the same .

. .’ He gives a deep, shuddering sigh, almost too big for someone so tiny, and his voice cracks. ‘Cecily. Cecily Kapoor. We don’t talk about you, do we? We never do.’

He is nodding, and then he mutters something to himself. ‘What did you say?’ I ask. ‘No, it doesn’t matter. Here. Wait.’

Suddenly, like an old crab, he shuffles over and pul s open the top drawer of his bedside table. He is surprisingly agile.

‘It’s right.’ He leans forward and takes something out. ‘What’s right?’

Arvind moves back to his side of the bed again. I move forward, to plump up his pil ow, but he shakes his head impatiently. His face is alive, his dark eyes dancing. ‘Have this. It was your grandmother’s. She wanted you to have it. I think you should take it now.’

Like a magician, he opens his fist with a flourish. I peer down. It is the ring Granny always wore, twisted diamond and pale gold flowers on a thin band, Arvind’s family ring, the one his father sent over for his son’s new bride al those years ago. I know it so wel , but it is stil startling to see it here, on my grandfather’s palm and not on Granny’s finger.