Cat nodded and mumbled, “I’m fine shanks.”

“Gemma Kettle’s family?” An efficiently frowning nurse appeared. “She’s doing well. Four centimeters dilated. Who’s going to be with her for the labor?”

“Just the father,” said Lyn.

Charlie gave a little start. “I guess that would be me.”

The nurse gave Cat and Lyn a meaningful and hugely unjust “Men!” look and said, “This way, please.”

“Rightio.” Charlie handed over a sports bag to Lyn and obediently followed the nurse without looking back, his shoulders in the dirty T-shirt very square.

Lyn sat down next to Cat and shook her head. “That man is a saint. If she doesn’t hold on to him, I’ll throw a fork at her!”

At that moment Maxine marched into the hospital waiting room to find her daughters, propped up against each other’s shoulders, laughing helplessly.

She held the strap of her handbag disapprovingly against her chest. “Well, really!”

At eight o’clock the next morning Cat held her nephew for the first time. A tightly bound eight-pound bundle with a wrinkly red face, matted black hair, and long eyelashes resting mysteriously against caramel-colored skin.

Cat and Gemma were alone in the room.

Charlie had gone home to change. Lyn was coming back with Maddie and Michael later that afternoon. Maxine and Frank were buying coffee in the cafeteria.

“I’m sorry, Cat.” Gemma’s face against the pillow was blotchy, puffy, and suffused with joy. “I did a terrible thing to you.”

Cat shook her head and kept looking at the baby.

Some time last night, a doctor had informed her that her jaw was broken. Her back and front teeth were now wired together. If she tried to talk, her mouth started foaming with saliva.

She felt, fittingly, like a freak. It was her penance.

“I thought of the baby as yours,” said Gemma. “All the way along. I swear to you. And then all of a sudden, I started wanting—I wanted the baby and I wanted Charlie. I wanted everything.”

Cat placed her little finger in the palm of the baby’s hand and watched his tiny fingers curl in a miniature grip.

Soap Bubbles on the Corso

It was a lovely day today, wasn’t it? Did you have a lovely day? I bet you didn’t move from that step, eh? I caught the bus down to the Corso, you know how I like to do that. I’m sure the sea air does wonders for my arthritis.

I sat on my favorite bench there and ate my banana sandwich, and watched the families. There were some lovely young girls sitting in the shade with their children. One was a toddler—oh, she was a terror that one! They had their hands full. And there was also the dearest little newborn baby! The girls were all taking turns holding the baby. I couldn’t quite tell which was the mother but they were sisters, I’m sure of it. They each rocked the baby in exactly the same way, gently swaying their bodies. Tall, graceful girls. I always wanted to be tall.

Oh, and they had a clever way of distracting the little terror! They had one of those little bottles of detergent and they were blowing soap bubbles for her. She was running around with her hands outstretched, laughing, trying to catch them. Those bubbles looked so pretty floating and dancing in the breeze—like hundreds of tiny little rainbows. It made me cry a little. In a happy way.

But you know one of those young girls wasn’t so happy. She was really down in the dumps about something. She was doing her best to hide it but I could tell. Something about the way she held her shoulders. As if she’d lost. You know what I mean? Defeated. That’s the word.

I wanted to say to her, Oh, darling, don’t be sad. Whatever it is that’s worrying you will probably turn out to be nothing. Or eventually it just won’t matter anymore. And one day all you’ll remember is blowing soap bubbles on the Corso with your sisters. And how you were young and beautiful and didn’t even know it. But she would have just thought I was a mad old woman, wouldn’t she, Tabby? Yes, she would have.

CHAPTER 25

Cat got to the park a few minutes early and sat on one of the swings to wait for Dan.

It was a viciously cold Saturday morning, and the park was deserted. There was something a little spooky about all that empty play equipment, the chains of the swing rattling ghoulishly in the wind, like the laughter of ghostly children.

A wisp of a memory she felt like she was remembering for the first time floated across Cat’s consciousness. Maxine pushing Lyn on a swing. A yellow dress.

“When’s it my turn, Mum?”

Lyn flying high in the air.

She opened and shut her mouth like a fish, enjoying the glorious freedom of a fully functioning jaw.

It was six weeks since the night of the fondue fork.

Apparently the story was doing the rounds. Michael said he was at a work function when he overheard a guy tell a story about someone throwing a fork at a pregnant woman in a Chinese restaurant. The pregnant woman had then given birth to triplets on the restaurant floor.

Michael hadn’t bothered to correct them. “I hope you’re not embarrassed to know us,” said Lyn.

“The opposite, my darling! I didn’t want to show off.”

Gemma and Charlie had called the baby Salvatore Lesley after both their grandfathers.

Little Sal was the baby from hell. He hadn’t inherited his mother’s love of sleep, or his father’s saintliness. Gemma and Charlie had been walking around in dreamlike, sleep-deprived trances.

Fortunately, on Tuesday Sal cleverly chose to smile for the first time at both his parents, causing them to melt into adoring puddles at his bootied feet.

Cat kept the door to the yellow-walled nursery firmly shut and lived her life like a robot. I feel nothing, I feel nothing was her new mantra. She worked so hard at Hollingdale Chocolates that Rob Spencer felt the need to give her a smarmy little lecture on the importance of having “balance” in her life.

She gave up alcohol for a record four weeks before saying, “I think that’ll do it, God,” and returning to her faith as a devout atheist.

Dan had telephoned the day before and said he wanted to talk to her.

“Could we get together for a drink?”

“Tell me over the phone,” she said, using the brittle, faintly mocking voice she seemed to have created especially for conversations these days with Dan.

“I’d rather we met, face-to-face.” He had a new voice too. It was formal and restrained, as if he were in the witness box. It broke her heart.