and got asked to Camilla
Bartlett’s party.’
‘Did you, darling? How lovely.’
‘More than lovely,’ said Poppy. ‘Her dad’s renting a
plane and flying twelve of us to France. I’ve got a letter
here.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Octavia, her eyes scanning the letter
(‘… love you to join us … 19 June… Le Touquet … day by the French seaside… bring swimmers and something a bit more formal to wear for lunch … ask your mother to phone me … Lauren Bartlett …’), ‘whatever happened to musical bumps?’
‘It might be bumpy,’ said Gideon, ‘on the plane. They often are, those little ones. Then you’d be sick. Then you might not be so pleased.’
‘Oh, shut up, Gideon. Why do you have to spoil
everything?’
“That’s not spoiling it. That’s just being truthful.’
‘Of course it’s spoiling it, it’s saying it won’t be nice,
when it will.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Twins, please!’ said Octavia wearily. ‘Listen, shall we
play something before you go to bed?’
‘Like what? Murder Mystery?’
‘No, there isn’t time for that. You know those games take hours.’
‘So what, then?’ Poppy’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.
‘Something like Scrabble? Pelmanism?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘Bor-ing,’ they said in unison. ‘No thanks.’
At least she had stopped them arguing.
They watched the first twenty minutes of A Hundred and
One Dalmatians, and then went to bed. The last thing
Octavia heard as she went back down the stairs was them
arguing (from their different rooms) about whether the
landing light should be on or off.
Octavia went into her bedroom and changed into some
leggings and a sweatshirt and then walked very slowly along
the corridor to her study. She always spent her rare solitary
evenings there, working, writing letters, making phone
calls. It was where she felt happiest, most at home, most
safe.
The day’s post was on her desk, placed there by Miri
Donaldson. She put Poppy’s invitation on the top of the
pile, and sat looking at it, oddly unsettled by the events of
her day; by the difficult lunch with Margaret Piper, by the contretemps with Caroline, by the near confrontation with Michael Carlton.
He was right, in a way, about the children. They did
grow up so quickly, and you did miss so much. She hadn’t
been there when the twins had taken their first steps, or
when Poppy had said her first joined-up sentence (although
it was engraved on her heart and her conscience: ‘Mummy
gone work’), but could she really have spent all that time in
all those years with them, long, long tedious days with
nothing to think about but the house and the supper and
whether they were going to get chickenpox this time
round?
It was very shocking, but she feared she could not; the
restless, questing, ambitious Octavia would have become
bored, depressed, and therefore, and inevitably, a bad
mother. Far better that she was fun, adoring, interesting for
them. Only — that was what all working mothers argued.
And it wasn’t quite true. She knew it. She quite often
wasn’t interesting or fun; she was too tired, if she was there
at all. The whole concept of quality time was a dreadful
con. The quality was frequently very poor. And children
wanted you when they wanted you; they didn’t save things
up to tell you, to talk to you about, cry over.
She sighed. She had always promised herself that one day,
when the business could stand it, she would work less, a
four-or three-day week, spend more time at home with
the children. Only clients were rather like children, they
also wanted you on demand. Most of their lives belonged to
clients, Tom’s as well as hers; no moment was sacred, no
corner safe from them. She sometimes thought, in her
wilder, more distressed moments, that if she woke up and
found one of them lying between her and Tom in bed, and
an earnest discussion going on