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By Root 1763 0

for Ant feeling pressurized by Neville, that bit wouldn't bother me. Oh, initially, yes, but I rather agreed with Caro; once I'd got over the shock I'd think – well heavens, it was a long time ago and OK, we were engaged but we weren't married and an awful lot of water has flowed in seventeen years, and I'd be in the Brora sale in moments, riffling amongst the cashmere. But in a scrupulous, fourteen-year-old mind, being engaged, or even going out with someone and cheating on them was a terrible treachery. I'd once had to explain to Anna why some family friends were getting divorced, and not wanting to go into the husband's unforgivable serial adultery had said, ‘He, um, had a quick fling.’ ‘Oh right,’ she'd said immediately. Case explained. It didn't enter her head that the wife should overlook a quick fling. Her little life was still ruthlessly honest; it revolved around friendship bracelets, promises, trust. She wasn't to know that the vagaries of life and the fallible human condition changed all that later, and that occasionally one had to… not necessarily forgive and forget, but fudge and forget. Her eyes filled for me, for what she saw as my pain, and I took advantage of it: in that moment, I knew I could reach her. I swooped to hold her and she clung to me as I folded her in my arms, kneeling there by the loo.

‘It's fine,’ I whispered into her sweet-smelling blonde hair. ‘We'll all be fine. It's like being frightened of the bogeyman, Anna. Someone we can't see, looming over us. But she won't be like that at all. She'll be scared, frightened. Imagine this from her point of view. Here we are, this well-off, educated Oxford family, and there she is, an outsider, looking in.’

‘Which is where I want her to stay,’ she said harshly. ‘Looking in. She has no right to come and make demands of us – to intrude!’

It occurred to me that she had every right. I got to my feet and turned to switch off the taps, wearily untying my dress.

‘And it's all because he's written a book, I bet! Just because he's well known, she wants to meet him!’

This wasn't my Anna talking. She was upset. And yet I'd felt the same.

‘And I don't feel I know Daddy at all now,’ she blurted, getting up and turning round to face the street, arms tightly folded. ‘Don't feel I know this man who gets students pregnant. I mean, God, it could be one of my friends in a couple of years' time. It's just so debauched of him!’

‘He was young,’ I soothed, hating that she thought of him so. I slipped off my dress.

‘Well, youngish. Thirty, and he was engaged and—’ She turned. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘What?’

She was staring at me. ‘What are you wearing?’

‘Oh!’ I grabbed a towel. I'd forgotten about the underwear. ‘Just something I… threw on.’

‘Threw on?’ Her eyes popped in wonder. Then they came up to mine. A light bulb seemed to go on in her head.

‘My God, you guys…’ she whispered.

‘What?’ I muttered uncomfortably. She looked around. Took in the candles. The soft music. Her eyes came back to me, appalled.

‘Are you swingers?’

‘What?’

‘You and Dad. Are you secret swingers? Is that what this is all about? Do you go to parties and go home with other people's husbands?’

‘Anna, don't be ridiculous!’

‘WELL THEN, WHAT'S WITH THE UNDERWEAR?’ she roared.

I licked my lips. ‘If you must know, I was feeling a little insecure in the light of your father's revelation. Felt like – looking attractive. Young again.’ I raised my chin defiantly.

She reached out and yanked my towel away. ‘Don't,’ she said, recoiling in horror.

‘What?’ I was covering myself with my hands now, looking around desperately for another towel. I seized one, but she yanked that away too.

‘Anna!’

She looked me up and down, appalled. ‘It's sad,’ she said finally. ‘You look minging. Like a singing telegram.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ I said stiffly. ‘It was supposed to be sexy.’

‘On Kate Moss, maybe, but on rippling middle-aged flesh,’ she shuddered. ‘No way.’ She turned the light on to get a better look. ‘Where did you get it, Ann Summers?’

‘Certainly not. Darling, turn the light off, the curtains are open.