I almost laughed, but I stayed coldly silent. This ridiculous man wanted my sympathy. He wanted me to say “There, there” because it was so hard to be a policeman. I felt like throwing him out, him and the rest of them.

“What we have to consider,” he continued, “is that he has made a serious threat on your life. We want to catch him, but our first priority is your safety. I don’t feel we can take any more risks with that. The alternative would be for you to move away from this house to somewhere more protected.”

I’d felt like there was a volcano trying to erupt deep in my stomach. The second prospect was even worse, so I had agreed, in a sort of cold fury. I asked when he wanted them to leave and he said straightaway, while he was in the house. So I stomped around like a nightclub bouncer and briskly ejected everybody. Then there was an awful hour of phone calls and half explanations to baffled people and attempts to make vague commitments for the future.

I drank the last of my gin and tonic and got out of the bath and wrapped myself with the big soft towel. It was so hot and so steamy in the bathroom that my skin remained clammy however much I rubbed it, so I walked through to the bedroom. The doors on the fitted cupboards had full-length mirrors on them. They were to have been ripped out next week. I stood in front of one of them and watched myself as I dried my hair and then my body. Even then I still felt damp in the heat of the evening, so I tossed the towel down on the carpet and stood and looked at myself. It was something I hardly ever did, not naked, without makeup.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be unfamiliar with that body, to see it for the first time and to find it attractive. I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head to one side, but it seemed almost too much of an effort. I suppose it happens with all married couples after years together and children and all that, and hard work-you just become part of the furniture, something you hardly notice except when it starts to go wrong. Maybe that’s why other things-I mean other people-might seem more enticing. I tried to imagine what it was like when Clive and I had first seen each other in, well, in that sort of way, and the funny thing was that I absolutely couldn’t. I could remember our first time. At his first flat in Clapham. I could remember all the details. I could remember the play we had been to see beforehand, what food we had eaten afterward. I could even remember what clothes I was wearing, which he had then taken off, but what it had felt like, to see each other’s flesh for the first time-that had gone.

I’d had only one serious boyfriend before that. Well, fairly serious, to me at any rate. He was a photographer called Jon Jones. He’s pretty famous now. You see his name in Harper’s and Vogue. He did a nail-varnish commission using my hands, and one thing led to another. I was quite nervous really, about sex, I mean, that sort of thing. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was obedient, really, more than anything. I’m not sure how exciting it actually was technically, but the idea of it-of him-was exciting.

I was almost in a dream and then I realized I was standing naked in my room with the light on. The curtains were open. The windows were open. I walked to the window quickly to close the curtains and then stopped. What did it matter after all, to be looked at? Was it so bad? I stood there for a moment. The wind blew in hotly. I felt as if I would have given anything for a breath of cool breeze. It was too hot to close the window but I turned and switched off the light. That amounted to the same thing.

I lay down on the bed, on my back with the covers off. Even a sheet would have been agony. I touched my forehead and my breasts. I was already sweating again. I moved my fingers down across my stomach and between my legs. I felt warm and wet. I touched myself gently and looked up at the ceiling. What would it be like to be looked at for the first time? What would it be like to be wanted? To be lusted after. To be looked at. To be wanted.

SIX

I’m good at packing. I always pack for Clive when he has to go away for a few days. Men are hopeless at folding their shirts properly. Anyway, now I was packing for the boys, who were off into the wilds of Vermont for their summer camp. We’d heard about it years ago from a friend of a friend of a friend at Clive’s work. Three weeks of rappelling and windsurfing and sitting round campfires and, in Josh’s case, probably eyeing up nubile young girls in skimpy shorts. I said as much to him as I was carefully laying the T-shirts, shorts, swimming things, and trousers into his case. He just looked glum.

“You just want us out of the house,” he muttered.

Everything he says now is in a mutter that I can’t quite catch. It makes me feel as if I’m going deaf.

“Oh, Josh, you know you loved it last year. Harry doesn’t think it’s too long.”

“I’m not Harry.”

“Don’t say you’re going to miss me,” I said teasingly.

He gazed at me. He’s got huge dark brown eyes, and he can use them to look pathetically reproachful, like some fuzzy donkey. I noticed how bony and pale he was looking; his collarbones jutted out like knobs; his wrists were a mass of tendons. When he took off his shirt to put on his clean clothes for the flight, his ribs were like a pair of ladders climbing up his skinny body.

“You could do with some fresh air. As could this room. Don’t you ever open your windows?”

He didn’t answer, just stared moodily out at the street below. I clapped my hands to wake him up.

“I’m in a hurry. Your father is taking you to the airport in about an hour.”

“You always think you’re in a hurry.”

“I’m not going to have an argument with you just before you go off on holiday.”

He turned and looked at me.

“Why don’t you get a proper job?”

“Where’s your deodorant? I’ve got a job. Being your mother. You’d be the first to complain if I didn’t drive you around to your parties and clubs, and cook your dinner and wash your clothes.”

“So what do you do while Lena’s doing your job?”

“And I’m doing up this house. Which you seem happy enough with. Okay, what are you going to do in the short time you’ve got before you leave? Why don’t you go and see Christo-he’s going to miss you.”

Josh muttered something and sat down at his computer.

“In a minute. I want to look at this new game. It’s only just come.”

“That’s why it’s good you’re going away. Otherwise you’d spend two weeks in the dark in front of a screen. Anyway, while you’re here you might as well strip your sheets and put them out for Mary.” Silence. I started to leave the room and then stopped. “Josh?” Silence. “Will you miss me? Oh, for God’s sake, Josh.” I was shouting now.

He turned sulkily. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

I left him locked in a form of unarmed combat in which every blow sounded like a falling tree.

I hugged Harry, though he seems to think that eleven is far too old to be hugged and he stood stiffly in my arms. He’s an eager boy, none of Josh’s moodiness, thank God. He’s like me, not one to brood. You can tell just by looking at him, with his brown curly hair and his snub nose and his stocky legs. Josh looked spindly beside him, his skinny neck sticking out of his new, too-big shirt. I kissed him on the cheek.

“Have a wonderful time, Josh; I’m sure you will.”

“Mum…”

“Darlings, you’ve got to go. Clive’s in the car. Be good-don’t get in trouble. See you in three weeks’ time. Bye, darlings. Bye.” I waved to them until they were out of sight.

“Come on then, Chris, it’s just you and me for the next three weeks.”

“And Lena.”

“Well, yes, of course, Lena too. In fact, Lena’s going to take you to the zoo soon, with a picnic lunch. Mummy’s got a busy day.”