dream,’ he sobbed. ‘Terrible dream.’
Janice put her arms around him and smoothed his pudding-basin of blond hair.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, ‘I’m here. Only a dream, nasty old dream.’
They made way for her to lead him to the sofa, stumbling a little in adjusting to this different focus, no longer quite catching each other’s eyes. Janice sat down and hugged William and Andrew leant over him.
‘It’ll go away, Will. You’re awake now. He’s been having these dreams,’ he explained to the others.
Hannah pushed her hair back from her face, gathering it up with one hand into a bunch at the nape of her neck. Michael looked at the crescent of white skin that was momentarily exposed, and then made himself bend down to see William Frost instead.
‘Poor old chap,’ he said pleasantly. He felt the child’s forehead and then ran his fingers lightly under his jaw. ‘Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Some hot milk, perhaps?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Hannah said. With her hair pulled back, in the changed atmosphere, she appeared almost matronly. Marcelle sat down in her old place, and Darcy went to the table where the whisky bottle was waiting. Someone turned off the music and the room became bright and ordinary, as it had been at the evening’s beginning.
Janice sat on the edge of the bed to take off her slippers, and then slid sideways into the warmth under the covers. She reached to turn off the light, then curled herself beside Andrew.
‘Are you asleep?’ she asked. She had waited up to make sure that William had settled down properly again.
‘Not quite. Is Will all right?’
‘I think so.’
Out of habit Janice listened for the ticking of their bedside clock, as she always did in the intervals of their night-time conversations, then remembered that they were not in their own bedroom. The evening had left her with a knot of anxiety that she knew would keep her awake.
‘What were you doing with Hannah?’
Andrew sighed. ‘What was Hannah doing with me, don’t you mean?’
‘Is there a difference?’
‘Of course there is. She was trying to make some point for Darcy’s benefit, I suppose. Whatever it was, do we have to analyse it now?’
‘You didn’t look as if you minded.’
‘I didn’t. That was then, and now is now and here we are in bed, my love, and it’s time to go to sleep.’
He settled the hard French pillow under his head, offering more of himself to her as he did so, but it was as a comforting gesture, without any suggestion of sex.
Janice mumbled to him, with her face pressed against the warmth of his shoulder, ‘Do you mind that I don’t look like Hannah?’
‘What? Certainly not. What do you think I want? Anyway, in a couple of years Hannah will look like you.’
She waited in the absence of the clock’s ticking for Andrew to realize what he had said, and when he did not she was nearly angry.
Then she understood that he was sliding into sleep, and she knew that it was easier not to have an argument than to wake him up and insist on one. She found suddenly that she was smiling, out of affection for his clumsiness and relief that the evening had harmlessly ended.
Marcelle lay on her back and stared up into the darkness. She was thinking about the separate wooden cubes of the chalet rooms stacked above and below her, and of the walls that separated the couples from each other, two by two.
Michael was breathing evenly beside her. She was not certain that he was asleep, but when she had put out her hand to touch his side he had made no response. That was the pattern now. If one of them was awake the other was asleep, or seemed to be.
She turned away from him, on to her side, and began to think about the evening. It was Hannah who had set it off, but Marcelle knew that she had only been the trigger. Since the day she had seen Gordon and Nina together at the level crossing she had known that the possibility of collapse, of the destruction of their tidy lives, lay quietly just beneath the surface of these featureless days. Dissatisfaction and the desire for change, for the sharpness of some new feeling, whether pleasure or pain, was like a virus that had reached Grafton with Nina Cort. The virus must spread, Marcelle thought, whichever direction it took.
She put her hand to where Darcy’s mouth and cheek had rubbed against hers. She could still taste the whisky from his tongue.
She closed her eyes, willing sleep to come.
If it had been Jimmy, Marcelle thought. If it had been Jimmy, tonight, what would I have done then?
She was not certain, but she thought that she might have clung to him, and begged him to rescue her.
Hannah put on the oyster-grey silk robe that matched her pink and grey lace and silk nightgown, and loosened her hair from the bunch she had tied at the nape of her neck. Standing in front of the small square of mirror fixed to one wall, she examined her reflection. She gave it her full attention, knowing that by doing so she was avoiding the necessity of thinking about less pleasant things. She spread her hair over her shoulders, admiring the way it rippled over the sheen of the silk.
Not bad, Hannah thought. Not bad for thirty-four, after having had two children. Better than Vicky Ransome, anyway.
She had seen the way Andrew and Michael had looked at her. It had given her a wonderful surge of power, to switch on the magnetism and see that it worked. The pleasure of their admiration stayed with her, energizing her. She lifted her chin, and met her own eyes in the mirror. There had been a time, when she and Darcy had met and fallen in love, when Darcy had looked at her like that every time she came near him.
But it was not all bad. Whatever Darcy thought, whatever he thought he wanted, the truth was still partly palatable. She was still objectively desirable.
She watched the reflection of her mouth, and saw how the corners of it had begun to take on a downward curl. She made herself smile, reversing the expression.
Darcy came out of the box of a bathroom and walked across to the bed without glancing in her direction. He took off his robe and lay down in his pyjamas, easing himself into the unfamiliar bed. Watching him, as he turned on to his side and his body slackened under the sheets, Hannah realized that he looked heavy and old. She felt a quick and surprising beat of sympathy, as she might have done for her father, or for Freddie if he was unhappy or ill.
She turned out the lights and got into bed beside her husband. Carefully, she fitted herself against the loose curve of his back. Then she edged her arms over and under him. She waited, acknowledging to herself and waiting for Darcy’s acknowledgement that the evening had excited her. Darcy did not pull away, but he did not respond either.
Hannah whispered against the meaty slab of his shoulder, ‘Come on, come to Mummy.’
Darcy turned over then.
He did not say anything, but he put his hands under her nightdress and spread them over her breasts.
Hannah
