she had said. ‘I’m sure I can.’
‘I’ll help.’
Martin had put his warm hand out to cover hers, and then they had turned on the television to watch the news.
And so it had been arranged. Three couples were coming to dinner, and because she wanted to make everything the same as it would have been before, Annie had decided that it must be a proper meal. She was a good cook, and her dinners had a reputation amongst their friends. So she had planned an elaborate menu, and done the shopping this morning while Benjy was at nursery. Now both the boys were watching television in the sitting room. Annie put down the big casserole dish she had taken out of the cupboard and went to stand in the doorway to look at them.
Tom was sitting on the sofa with his knees drawn up and his chin sunk into his jersey, his eyes fixed on the screen. Benjy was lying on the floor with strands of fine hair fanning out around his head. It was much too long, Annie noted automatically. She must take him for a haircut.
‘D’you want a peanut butter sandwich, either of you, before I start cooking?’ she asked. Neither of them spoke or took their eyes off the television and she asked again, hearing herself on the point of shouting at them.
‘Oh. Yes, okay,’ Tom said and Benjy declared, ‘I want the same as Thomas,’ just as he always did.
Annie went back into the kitchen and made the sandwiches, took them through to the boys, and then started work.
She made a stuffing of spinach and calves’ liver cooked pink and spread it in the boned shoulder of lamb she had stood over her butcher for this morning. She rolled the meat and trussed it neatly with string, then browned it in the frying pan. The smell of fatty meat made her feel slightly sick.
Annie looked at the clock. It was almost six o’clock. She had intended to make her own puff pastry to wrap around the lamb, but she realized now that there wasn’t time for that. She opened the freezer and rummaged for a packet of ready-made, then left it to defrost while she began work on the starter. She had made the same mousselines of sole a dozen times before, but today the fish seemed full of tiny, hair-line bones and her fingers felt clumsy and stiff as she tried to pick them out with the slivers of grey skin that stuck everywhere.
The buzz of the blender sounded unnaturally loud, sawing through her head.
Thomas came in and asked, ‘Can I have another sandwich?’
Annie was about to snap at him, ‘Wait for supper,’ when she realized that it was past time for that. She clattered amongst the dirty saucepans and chopping boards, making beans on toast and poached eggs.
She put the food on the table and Benjy groaned, ‘I don’t want this.’
‘It’s all I’ve got time to do tonight. Eat that or nothing at all, I don’t mind which.’
The boys sat opposite one another, silently eating their beans, eyeing her. Just the vegetables to do now, and ten minutes to deal with the pastry, Annie calculated. She had made lemon syllabub the night before and it was ready, a pale yellow froth, in the glass bowl in the fridge. She was congratulating herself on that when she remembered that she had forgotten to buy any cheese. Martin would have to buy some at the deli on the way home. He should be home by now, Annie thought with weary resentment. As soon as she recognized that she did feel resentful, it grew inside her. She was on her way to the telephone when it rang.
It was Martin.
‘I’m sorry, love. I had to stay late with the client. One damn niggle after another. I’m on my way now. Are you okay?’
‘Wonderful,’ Annie said.
There was a tiny pause.
‘Oh dear. And it’s supposed to be your party. I’ll do everything else, I promise.’
‘Get some cheese at the deli, will you?’
‘Done.’
Annie went back to the sink and clattered the greasy saucepans. I don’t want to do this, she thought, very clearly. I don’t want to make dinner for these people, and sit through an evening’s talking and drinking. Then a wave of fright washed through her. These people were her friends and her husband, and dinners together had been their pleasure, before. She felt cold as she recognized how much reckoning she did in terms of before.
Before the bomb? Or was it not the bomb at all, but Steve?
To postpone the thought Annie whirled around the kitchen, clearing the worktops and banging the doors shut on the chaos inside the cupboards. Miraculously the room looked tidy again and the sink was empty.
She took the boys’ plates and said, ‘I’m not cross, Ben. Just in a rush.’
She gave them fruit yoghurts, and while they were eating them she stood at the other end of the table and rolled out the defrosted pastry. She set the lamb shoulder in the middle of the rectangle then deftly parcelled it up, trimming off the surplus and crimping the seams with her fingers. She crumpled the leftover pastry into a ball and rolled it out again, then cut out leaves with the point of a knife. The decorations looked pretty and the job was soothing. She was brushing her handiwork with beaten egg when she heard Martin’s bag thud down on the step, and his key in the lock.
‘Dad,’ the boys shouted in unison, and ran to meet him. He came in, swinging Benjy. Martin looked anxiously at Annie and then glanced around the kitchen.
‘Mouthwatering smells and a scene of perfect domestic harmony,’ he murmured. ‘I was expecting something different.’
‘If you had been here an hour ago you would have seen something different.’
‘I said I was sorry, Annie. I got the cheese.’ He held up the carrier bag, as if to placate her.
Annie’s resentment was focused on Martin now, but she felt too tired to embark on an argument.
‘Why don’t you go and get ready? I’ll see the kids into bed, and do whatever else needs doing.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, still angry and yet knowing that it would make the evening worse if she and Martin were on bad terms.
She went slowly upstairs and took a shower. Wrapped in the blue dressing gown that made her think of Steve again, she went into her bedroom and took her favourite dress out of the wardrobe. It was a swirly black jersey that clung in the right places. Annie pulled the dress on over her head and stared at herself in the long mirror. She was too thin for it, and it hung like a shroud from her shoulders. The black material made her face look sallow because she hadn’t regained her natural colour yet.
As she looked at her pallid reflection Annie had the vertiginous sense that she was confronting someone else, and not herself at all. Steve, she thought stupidly, you know who I am. Is this me?
Then she snatched up the hem of the dress and pulled it off, struggling for a minute within the black folds of the skirt. She searched along the row of hangers and took out a bright red shirt and narrow trousers, and bundled the black dress into the farthest corner.
When she was dressed, Annie faced the mirror again. She began to make up her face, outlining her eyes with grey pencil and dabbing blusher
