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have remembered her love of animals. This tough, brittle woman was as soft as marshmallow where animals were concerned. He’d seen her cry when stories came on the television about dogs or cats being neglected. She’d driven into Leek once to take an injured hedgehog to the vet, had sobbed uncontrollably when she’d hit a rabbit with her car – even though it had bounded straight back into the hedge. He’d watched her free flies from spiders’ webs and then worry what the spider would eat for lunch. She’d stopped the traffic once to retrieve a dead catfrom the middle of the road. Her love of animals didn’t stop there. She spent three days a week helping at the animal charity shop in Stanley Street. In contrast, her toughness towards the human race was little short of Draconian. She was for hanging, castrating, flogging, cutting ears off. All her pity was focused on the animal world.
    ‘You think an animal’s died?’ Her face twisted in alarm.
    He twitched.
    And as he had looked at her, she now studied him. A thin, worried, guilty face, thinning hair – just like his father. Bowed shoulders, which made him look years older than his early forties. Fast on the heels of these observations came a further thought. What the dickens did Faria Probert see in her husband?
    Sex? Was the woman a sex maniac?
    Faria’s husband, George, was equally as unexciting as Steven. In fact there was little to choose between them. Maybe the explanation was that Faria was simply addicted to bland, middle-aged men. In spite of herself, Kathleen smothered a giggle, turning it into a cough. Perhaps Faria had a secret source of Viagra and turned these unexciting men into something else. The thought conjured up images too funny to contemplate.
    Kathleen frowned and looked again at her husband. Yes, there were traces of the man she had fallen in love with – honest, hard-working, affectionate and loyal. Steven had had all these attributes together with a soft, sweet, private smile. But the years hadintervened cruelly. Perhaps if they’d had children their marriage would have entered a second stage. But she had failed to conceive. How was it that it was she who had failed? Why didn’t they say that he had failed to impregnate her? But that was never the way. It had been she who had earned the looks of pity while he had merely smirked and said jauntily, ‘Not for want of trying,’ which had earned sniggers from both men and women.
    Her lack of a family had, in turn, isolated them from their friends, who never quite knew whether to chat about their own offspring or pretend they didn’t exist. But the very worst thing about being childless was that they were exclusively together. In an undiluted form. Like too strong a cordial they’d needed water. As it was they had each other – or no one. But perhaps now he did have someone. Someone who was as fertile as rich farmland. Kathleen shivered and felt suddenly very alone. She plunged her hands deep into the pockets of the zip-up sweater she was wearing with jeans faded at the seams and reflected. Perhaps her love of animals was nothing short of an outlet for the love she would have lavished on children. She couldn’t help a weary sigh. She’d mentioned the word adoption to Steven only once. He had looked horrified. ‘Bring up some whore or drug addict’s kid?’
    So she’d dropped the subject but felt her insides twist with grief at the thought of the thieving, fertile Faria, who had five children – and a lover – as well as teaching belly-dancing.
    How did she find the time? The energy?
    She looked up to see Steven eyeing her uncomfortably and the silence between them grew thicker.
     
    ‘The worst thing about holidays is the hours wasted hanging around at the airport,’ Matthew grumbled. ‘Why do we have to be here three hours early?’
    He knew the answer, of course, as did everyone. The spectre of terrorism was enough to make travellers obedient to the rules. From removing