Case Histories

They had honeymooned in Jersey because, rather late in the day, Caroline realized that she didn't have a passport. Jonathan didn't care, he wasn't terribly interested in anywhere that wasn't North Yorkshire. She could have got a passport, she had a birth certificate – in the name of Caroline Edith Edwards. Caroline thought "Edith" was probably the name of a grandmother, because it was an old-fashioned name for someone born in 1967. "Caroline Edwards" was six years younger than Caroline, although, of course, she had never reached Caroline's age. She was dead by the time she was five years old, "taken by an angel," according to her gravestone, although her death certificate claimed it was a more prosaic leukemia that had carried her off. Caroline had visited the grave, in Swindon, and laid a little posy of flowers on it, just to say thank you to Caroline Edith Edwards for the gift of her identity, even though it was taken rather than given.

When they finally arrived back at the house it was almost half past five and Hannah and James immediately started demanding something to eat. Paola was sitting at the kitchen table looking morose, but when she saw them she got up and started rooting through the freezer for minipizzas and Caroline had to tell her to sit down and do nothing because it was her day off. It wasn't as it there was anywhere for her to go. Sometimes she went out for a walk, but she was from Barcelona and had no affinity with damp, green countryside. Sometimes Caroline gave her a lift to the bus stop on her way into school, and she spent the day moping around Richmond or Harrogate, but getting back again was a problem. More often than not she just stayed in her room. A couple of times Caroline had given her money to go down to London for the weekend because she seemed to know hundreds of Spanish people down there. Caroline was terrified that she wouldn't come back. Paola was the closest thing she had to a friend, someone who was more of an outsider than she was. Gillian was long gone, doing VSO in Sri Lanka, and Caroline wished now that she had done that.

Rowena didn't see the point of having an au pair and constantly found ways of antagonizing Paola. "The children are out of the house all day," she argued with Caroline. "It's not as if you have a baby." There was an invisible question buried in this statement. Was she planning on having a baby? Rowena didn't want the bloodline of the Weavers diluted with Caroline's suspect DNA. ("What did your father do, exactly, dear?" Caroline Edith Edwards's father was a butcher but that would have been too much for Rowena to bear, so she said something vague about accountancy.) They didn't need a baby. They had an heir and Hannah would do as the spare. They were a complete family – two adults, two children, four corners of a square, solid, like the keep of a castle. No room for any more, no room for a baby the size of a flea currently being incubated inside Caroline's belly. Jonathan would be cock-a-hoop probably. How many times would she make the same mistake in her life? The idea was that you were allowed to make one big mistake, and then rectify it and not make it again. And, anyway, whether you rectified it or not, what did it matter, because it would follow you forever. Wherever you went, whatever you did, there was always a corner somewhere that you would turn and there you would see that little bug lying on the floor, the little bug that had cried itself into the oblivion of sleep. The little bug in its new OshKosh dungarees.

John Burton's hair was thinning, the faint outline of a monk's ton-sure forming on top of his head. Caroline's heart went out to him when she noticed his little bald patch. She was continually amazed at the absurdities of passion. He was kneeling in front of the altar doing something that she supposed was religious, but when she drew closer she realized that he was sweeping the floor with a dust-pan and brush. He gave an embarrassed laugh when he caught sight of her and said, "The lady who cleans the church is on holiday."

"Where?" She loved the way he said "the lady" rather than "the woman."

" Majorca."

"Do you pay her?"

"Yes, of course," he said, looking shocked.

"I thought churches were full of women doing things for the love of it, arranging flowers and polishing brasses and all that stuff."

"I think that's the past you're thinking about," he said. "Or a television program."