Elinor, driving the seventy miles from Exeter to Cleveland after work, watched the evening deteriorate. She had left Exeter in late-afternoon sunshine, but as she drove up towards Bristol, the clouds ahead darkened and lowered, piling up into great bruised masses until, ten miles from her destination, the rain suddenly crashed down on to the motorway as if a bath had been tipped sideways, and she found herself battling both to keep the car steady, and to see. She had Heart FM on the radio – Margaret’s preferred choice – but even that was drowned out by the drumming of rain on the car roof. She leaned forward in an effort to see better, and, not for the first time, wondered what it was in Marianne that made her requests so difficult – even impossible – to refuse.

‘Just a weekend at Cleveland,’ Marianne had said. ‘Two nights. Please. Don’t make me go alone.’

‘But I don’t see why you want to go at all. Why don’t you just come straight home?’

Marianne said, sadly, weakly, ‘I can’t quite do that …’

‘But what’s the difference between coming straight home on Friday or, via a weekend you don’t want to do, on Sunday afternoon?’

There was a pause. Marianne was silent and Elinor, at her desk in Exeter, was in no mood to help her. Then Marianne said, in an even smaller voice, ‘It’s a kind of test.’

‘What? What is?’

‘Going to Charlotte’s. I’ve got to make myself be normal again. I’ve got to – to train myself to be more ordinary. I’ve got to go to Charlotte’s and be a good guest and take notice of the baby and be appreciative.’

‘If I were Charlotte,’ Elinor said, ‘I’d be pretty insulted by an attitude like that. Luckily for you, she’s too nice and cheerful to care, even if she notices.’

Marianne said, ‘It came out wrong.’

‘Did it?’

‘I didn’t mean to sound superior. I don’t think I’m superior. I think you are superior. I just meant that – that I was trying. Not – to be like I was being.’

Elinor relented a little. ‘OK.’

‘If it’s a big deal when I get home, Ellie, I’ll know it’s because I made it a big deal. I really don’t want melodrama, or even drama drama. I want to get home and plan my future and be – well, something like I should have been. But I would so … value it, if you came to Cleveland.’

So here she was, battling up the motorway in a spring storm with a weekend ahead among people who were all, with the exception of Charlotte’s baby and Marianne, not only older than she was, but who had a completely different take on life. Life, she thought suddenly, and almost bitterly. Is life what I’m having? Even if I fairly powerfully do not want pubs and clubs and getting wasted, surely life for someone of my age should be just slightly more fun?

‘She got soaked,’ Charlotte said. ‘I mean, drowned. She wanted to walk up to the temple and I said, Oh, do wait for Tommy to show it to you, it’s his pride and joy, he’s even had a Wi-Fi connection put in there, but she wouldn’t, she said she had to have some exercise after all those weeks in London, and next thing we knew was this absolutely deafening crash of thunder and the heavens opened and Marianne, of course, was drenched, and then I could not make her take off her jeans and put on something dry, and nor could Mummy, and really, honestly, Ellie, it’s no wonder she feels ghastly. Aren’t these little pea shoots just adorable? I’m going to put them in the salad. I put nasturtium flowers in salad in the summer, and it’s completely worth it, just to see Tommy go ballistic. He can’t bear savoury food with fruit or flowers in. Too funny.’

Elinor was leaning against one of Charlotte’s artfully distressed painted cupboards, nursing a mug of tea. She said, ‘I’ll go and see her. Did she go to bed?’

‘Well, I hope so. I told her to, and so did Mummy, but she waved away Lemsip and Nurofen and, quite frankly, I didn’t want her sneezing all over poor little Tomkins, so I said go to bed and stay there.’

Elinor glanced across the kitchen. Inside a playpen on the carefully flagged floor, little Tom Palmer, dressed in bibbed dungarees and a miniature check shirt, was lying in a bouncing chair, feebly waving his arms and legs like a stranded insect. She said, ‘I do hope she hasn’t given him anything.’

‘Never fear,’ Charlotte said, competently slicing a fennel bulb, ‘I didn’t give her the chance. Bundled her upstairs at the double.’ She looked across at her son. ‘Didn’t we, baby buster? And won’t Daddy go apeshit when he sees you dressed up like that? It’s so funny, but Tommy thinks all babies should be in white nighties for months. So we’ll just hide the new cashmere baby cardi from Daddy, shall we? Ellie, you must be exhausted. Go and have a bath. The men won’t be here till nine and Mummy’s glued to the telly news, as ever. I keep saying to her, Isn’t it better not to know, when it’s all so ghastly, but she says not knowing makes her feel worse. Ellie, what am I going to do with her in London without your sister to fuss over?’

Marianne was lying on her side, on her bed, not in it, with her knees drawn up and her eyes closed. Elinor bent over her. ‘M?’

‘Oh,’ she said, not stirring. ‘Oh, Ellie. I’m so glad you’ve come.’

Elinor put a hand on her sister’s leg. Her jeans were damp, almost wet, and the strands of her hair snaking across the pillow were clearly not dry, either.

She said, almost crossly, ‘What are you doing?’

Marianne said, gritting her teeth against her shivering, ‘I don’t feel too great.’

‘No,’ Elinor said, ‘of course you don’t. You look awful. Have you got a temperature?’

‘Probably.’

‘And you are an asthmatic. And you lie there in wet clothes with a fever. You are not a baby, Marianne.’

Marianne said weakly, ‘Please don’t be cross. I just suddenly felt so awful, and then a bit caged, and I got caught in the rain—’

‘Sit up,’ Elinor said.

‘I can’t …’

‘Sit up!’

Marianne, her eyes still closed, struggled into a sitting position.

Elinor grasped the hem of her sweater and began to pull it over her head. She said, ‘Help me.’

‘I’m trying …’

‘Now your shirt.’

‘Ellie, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just can’t—’

‘Jeans,’ Elinor said. ‘Socks. Everything. God, you are so clueless.’

‘I didn’t want it to be like this.’

‘Have you got your inhaler?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘In my bag,’ Marianne said. She crouched on the edge of the bed in her underwear, shaking. Elinor dug her own pyjamas out of her case and held them out.

‘Put these on. I’ll get your puffer.’

‘I don’t need—’

‘M,’ Elinor almost shouted, ‘if you have a cold and it’s anywhere near your chest, what will happen? What? What?’

‘I didn’t want it to be a drama—’

‘There’s always a drama round you!’

‘I’m really sorry,’ Marianne said. ‘I am, I am. I needed you to come, I wanted you to come, but I didn’t mean this to happen.’

‘I’ll get you a hot-water bottle.’

‘Ellie?’

‘What?’

‘Have Bill and Tommy come?’

Elinor paused by the door. ‘Why should that make any difference?’

‘I don’t know. It’s – it just seems to be a bit reassuring when Bill’s around, doesn’t it …?’

‘Heavens,’ Elinor said tartly, ‘there’s a change of tune. I thought you thought he was old and boring.’

Marianne said, with as much dignity as she could muster struggling into Ellie’s pyjamas, ‘I’m – trying to think differently. I was trying to be different. I don’t want to have a cold. I’m sorry, Ellie. I’m sorry.’

Elinor looked across at her. The pyjamas were very old, made of brushed cotton and patterned with teapots. They had always been too big. But even dressed in them, with her hair in damp ropes on her shoulders, and her eyes circled with fatigue, Marianne looked, well, outstanding. Elinor sighed.

‘Get into bed,’ she said. ‘Right in. Properly. I’m going to get a hot-water bottle and some paracetamol and you are going to swallow it.’

Marianne attempted a smile.

‘Of course,’ she said.

Bill Brandon tried to make Elinor have some whisky. ‘Just a weak one. Medicinal. You look worn out.’

‘I don’t really like it.’

‘Even if I add ginger ale?’

‘Even then.’

‘I suppose I couldn’t take some up to Marianne …’

Elinor smiled at him. She said, ‘I hope she’s asleep.’

Bill Brandon said, ‘I don’t want to fuss but shouldn’t we get a doctor? Or ring NHS Direct or something?’

‘She’s got a cold,’ Charlotte called from the other side of the kitchen, where she was feeding the baby, a cream pashmina shawl draped decorously over the child and one shoulder. ‘She’s not dying, you old fusspot.’

‘She’s asthmatic.’

Tommy came across the room, put a glass of wine into Elinor’s hand and clumped Bill Brandon on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be an old woman, Bill. She’s got a cold. Listen to the sister lady.’

Elinor took a sip. She said to Bill, ‘I’ve lived with asthmatics all my life. Honestly. She’s got a cold because I expect her immune system’s a bit shot after everything this winter, and she just needs to sleep. She’ll be fine in the morning.’

‘I still think—’

‘Too awful,’ Mrs Jennings said, sweeping into the room. ‘Why do I watch the news when it just makes me despair? I’m sure the Greeks hate austerity but your father, Charlotte, always maintained that if you haven’t got it, you shouldn’t borrow to spend it. I’m with Mrs Merkel, all the way. Now, Tommy, it’s a Friday night so I think something serious is called for.’

‘Gin and serious?’

She gave him a wide smile.

‘Lovely. Just go easy on the serious. Elinor dear, you look a wreck. How is that sister of yours?’

‘I want them to get a doctor,’ Bill said. ‘She’s asthmatic.’

‘She’s OK,’ Elinor said. ‘She’s asleep. She’ll be fine by the morning.’

Mrs Jennings nodded towards her grandson. ‘Let’s hope she hasn’t given him her lurgy, poor mite.’

‘Not while I’m feeding him, Mummy. He’s immune to everything. Tommy, is that glass just neat gin, really?’

‘Pretty well.’

‘Perfect,’ Abigail Jennings said with satisfaction. She raised the glass towards the assembled company. ‘Chin chin dears. Happy weekend to us and happy futures all round.’ A thought suddenly struck her. ‘Bill,’ she said. ‘Bill. Wonderful of you to give that boy a job. Wonderful.’

‘And a flat,’ Charlotte called.

‘Which I’m doing up,’ Bill said, smiling. ‘I couldn’t ask any girl to put up with it as it is. I was going ask Elinor to help me, as it happens.’

‘Oh—’

‘Perfect,’ Abigail said again, swinging round to beam at her. ‘The perfect person. Our tame architect! Ideal. And the more you two see of each other, the happier I shall be.’

‘Abi—’

‘Mrs J.—’

She waved a plump hand at them. ‘Oh, get on with you both. We need cheering up in the romantic department after all we’ve been through.’

Elinor put her wine glass down on the nearest kitchen counter. Tommy Palmer, she noticed, was holding his son’s tiny feet and smiling down at what the cream pashmina hid from view. She said, ‘I’ll just go and check on Marianne.’

Bill touched her arm. ‘Can I help? Can I do anything?’

She shook her head. ‘No. But thank you.’

‘Just call me. If you need anything …’

‘Of course.’

He looked at her, suddenly intent. ‘Give her my love,’ he said.

Across the room, Charlotte and Mrs Jennings rolled their eyes at one another. ‘Not a hope,’ Charlotte mouthed at her mother.

Tommy Palmer turned his gaze from his son’s shrouded head to his wife’s face. His expression was reproving. ‘Don’t you, either of you,’ he said clearly, ‘be so sure.’

Someone, somewhere in the cloudy confusion of Bill Brandon’s dreams, was knocking. He couldn’t tell where the knocking was coming from, or what it was made by, but it was persistent, on and on, and then somebody was calling as well as knocking, calling him by name and suddenly his eyes were open and he was abruptly awake, staring into the darkness of the single bedroom at Cleveland Cottage where Tommy Palmer kept his weekend clothes.

He was, as a soldier, alert and out of bed in a second, grateful to have remembered – being in someone else’s house – to have put on at least pyjama bottoms the night before. The knocking was on his bedroom door, and the voice was Elinor’s. He flung it open and said, in a voice that was not quite as steady and purposeful as he had intended, ‘Marianne?’