And, left alone in his flat without them, contemplating the ugly, empty day that had passed, Jonathan had cried too.

Barney was literally having nightmares about the inquest. Every time he thought about being asked about the tyres and how he would have to say that Toby hadn’t let him check them, he thought he would throw up. The fact that there had been a nail in one of them, initially an immense relief, now seemed of less importance. He should have insisted on doing all he could to ensure the car’s safety; that was the whole point.

And he would think about Emma and how happily and quickly they had tumbled into love; and then how much he missed her still. And he would even, in spite of everything, realise how much he missed Toby too, missed having him there to have a laugh with, to send stupid e-mails to, to get drunk with… Toby would be back at work after Christmas; he was bound to run into him in bars and so on, and Amanda was bound to ask why they weren’t seeing each other. She knew about Tamara, of course, and the broken engagement, and she’d been very upset, her great blue eyes filled with tears. “But I suppose it’s for the best; Tamara said they’d just fallen out of love-how awful is that?”

How awful indeed…

Emma spent much of Christmas trying not to wonder what Barney was doing, which large country house he and Amanda would be staying in, and whether there would be discussion with their families-

Christmas being the sort of time such conversations did take place-about their wedding plans.

It was a relief to get back to work.

Mary and Russell had a perfect Christmas. Tadwick House was absurdly overdecorated, with fairy lights in every room, round every fireplace, and entwined round every stair rail, and strung along every hedge outside as well. A vast Christmas tree stood in the hall, a second in the drawing room, complete with a mountainous pile of presents, mistletoe hung in every doorway, huge log fires burned in every grate, and the house was filled with the irresistible mingling of wood smoke and baking. And it was wonderfully, noisily full.

Not only were Christine and Gerry, Douglas and Maureen and their children, Timothy and the lovely Lorraine there for Christmas Day, together with Lorraine’s parents, but to Mary’s absolute surprise and delight, Coral and Pearl and their respective spouses asked if they might join them as well, an English Christmas having long been a dream of theirs.

Russell was delighted as well. Christine’s initial rejection of him had hurt him badly, and he felt rather proud that his own daughters were more generous-hearted than Mary’s. He still found Christine rather hard to embrace-both physically and emotionally. She had failed to say anything to him by way of an apology, and every time he looked at her rather self-satisfied, plump face he wondered at her dissimilarity from her mother.

The weather was most obligingly Christmassy, crisp and sunny; the entire party went to morning service on Christmas Day, came back for a vast lunch (with a break for the Queen’s speech), and then went for a short walk before having presents in the drawing room. After that everyone withdrew for a short rest and then reassembled for games and to sing carols round the piano. The piano had been Russell’s Christmas present to Mary, who had always longed for one ever since learning to play on her own grandmother’s when she was a small girl, and had never been allowed one since. Rusty at first, by sherry time she was sufficiently adept to play “Jingle Bells” and “Away in a Manger.” Russell was a superb pianist and took over for the evening performance, finishing with a flamboyant, concert-style rendition of Rhapsody in Blue that reduced Lorraine’s mother and both Coral and Pearl to tears.

The party broke up at about ten, apart from Timothy and Lorraine and the Canadian cousins, who were watching an old Bond movie; Christine walked to the bottom of the stairs, then turned and went back to Russell and kissed him.

“It’s been wonderful,” she said. “Thank you very much for having us here today… and I’m very sorry about my… about… well, I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you’re here. You’ve made my mother happier than I can ever remember. Since Dad died, that is, of course.”

At which Russell kissed her back and said, “Of course,” and added that he was proud to have succeeded someone who had clearly been so remarkable a gentleman as Donald.

Later, as they sat in bed, Russell leaned over and kissed Mary and said, “I meant it about Donald. I’m going to have a tough job living up to him.”

Mary kissed him back and told him he wasn’t doing too badly so far.

CHAPTER 46

She supposed she should have realised, really: if they squabbled as much as they did when they were living in different houses-and different cities, come to that-what hope for them when they were sharing the same room with no escape in any form, even into work?

Actually, and perversely, she had enjoyed the first part of the trip, the conference in Cape Town, a great deal more than she had expected. She had thought it would be tedious in the extreme, and it had actually turned out to be rather fun. Not least because she was quickly established as something of a star, certainly among the men, not just because of what she looked like and how she dressed, but because of what she did: a glossy, entertaining creature from another world altogether.

She had made two friends in particular, one a rather dashing neurosurgeon, who had actually first trained as a barrister; he told her life was too short to spend it in one discipline, as he put it, and asked her, his blue eyes dancing with appreciation at her very low-cut black velvet top, what she was going to do when she grew up. Linda told him she was going to be a lap dancer, and he laughed so much and so loudly that the entire dining room turned round to look.

The other friend was a part-time primary-school teacher called Martin, rather plain but very funny, accompanying his wife; he said he was quite used to coming on the spousal programmes.

“I don’t mind a bit, actually. I enjoy it all except the shopping. And the other wives are very nice to me. There’s usually more than one of us these days, but I can handle there being just me.”

He said he had always looked after the children, ever since his wife, an orthopaedic surgeon, had got her first consultancy. “I mean, why not? She earns squillions more than I ever could. She gets a bit tetchy if dinner isn’t ready when she gets home, but I can handle that.”

Linda laughed. Maybe that was what she needed-a house husband. It would be great to get home every night to find dinner cooked and the fridge stocked. Not to mention all her dry cleaning and laundry sorted, and the cleaning women organised. Wonderful…

But then, house husbands just weren’t very sexy.

On the second day the spousal programme took them up Table Mountain via the cable car. Linda walked round the top with Martin; they admired the views, the almost literally intoxicating air, and agreed that they might both duck out of the visit to the township the following day.

“But Alex tells me they don’t like that,” she said.

“Oh, they don’t mind once or twice. I usually say I’ve got my period.”

Linda giggled.

“Your husband come on these things a lot?”

“My partner. We’re not married. Well, if you can keep a secret, he’s just my boyfriend. I dared him to bring me on this and he did.”

“I won’t tell a soul. Why should you need to dare him? Any normal red-blooded man would be dying to take you anywhere. Or is his blood a bit pink?”