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little push. ‘Hurry now young boy,’ she says. ‘We eat cake.’
    And it is too late. Everyone turns as they enter the Farkas flat, smiling at him, then at her, as if—
    Oh, my God. They can’t think that.
    They put him on the sofa. They bring him an extra-large slice of what Zsuzsi unnecessarily informs him is boyfriend cake, and coffee, which he nervously declines, and so thrilled are they by everything he says, and so eager to spot signs of love in Marina, that she cannot stand it. She sees him being made to talk to hundreds of relatives. She squirms, she blushes. She starts to sweat. He catches her eye, this infant, this Fiver, this destroyer, and he smiles.
    It is the day after, New Year’s Eve eve, and they have been clearing up since breakfast. There is only just room in the kitchen for two people; it is five feet wide, maybe nine feet long, so careful choreography is needed. Poor Marina, who cannot pass a door frame without crashing into it, continually hurts herself. What, wonders her mother, has she done to herself now? Is this why she is being so difficult?
    The problem is that Marina could be bleeding dramatically and would not admit it. Although her face shows every emotion, pride closes her up. She has been this way since babyhood, refusing to admit to pain, or distress, or even ignorance, as if she thinks it is dishonourable. It’s like having a little Hapsburg, thinks Laura vaguely, somewhat out of her depth.
    ‘Sweetheart,’ she says, when Marina bangs her hip on the oven for the second time, ‘are you really all right? What is it?’
    ‘Nothing,’ says Marina, looking offended.
    It cannot be normal for a teenager to be so reserved. What if living with the world’s most formal pensioners has somehow over-matured her? Was it something to do with that rather lumpen boy at the party, with whom Marina was so set-faced, so gloweringly wooden that any (dear God) thought of romance on his part must have stuttered and died? Or could it be that bloody school, with its petty rules, its cheese-paring insistence on charging for every tiny ‘extra’, its complacency? She keeps catching herself cursing it, then remembers that Combe was Marina’s choice, her ardent wish, and Marina will never admit that she was wrong.
    ‘But—’
    They eye each other over the knife drawer. Mothers are supposed to know their child instinctively: not Laura. One of her many greatest fears is that Marina might want her, need her even, and she, Laura, will fail to realize: ‘If only she’d told me,’ she will say afterwards. ‘If only I had known.’

3
    Marina never thinks of Guy Viney; she notices this quite often. Spring term, Hilary, is about to begin; only four months have passed since she started at Combe and she feels exhausted already, achy and defeated. She goes to see Dr Zhivago at the Czech Centre and attends a children’s New Year party at the house of Mrs Dobos, with lemonade and coffee and a real gypsy violinist, embarrassing to watch, and she can’t even pretend to enjoy either. A frown is settling into the skin of her almost-seventeen-year-old forehead. Packing takes days; she seems unable to make decisions about which home clothes will stand up to the astonishing cold, how many photographs she can bear to have scrutinized. It’s like going off to war. What were once merely things now have special significance; her family’s safety depends on identifying a hitherto unnoticed lucky scarf, her future on the crucial pen which will get her into Cambridge. Cambridge. She holds her breath when she thinks of it; it is too sacred to be spoken of. She wants it. She needs it. She is in love with it, and valueless without it. She must not be distracted now.
    So passing Fivers are nothing to her. Guy will ignore her when they are back. She is another’s anyway.
    But Combe is interested in its pupils’ social lives. They print a crested booklet, the Register , containing contact details. She cannot find him in it