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bitterly.
    ‘It was certainly surprising.’
    Mum brushed an imaginary speck off her skirt. ‘You didn’t invite him tonight? Did you?’ In her hazel eyes I saw a heart-rending combination of panic and hope.
    ‘No I didn’t,’ I replied softly. Not least because she might have come. I wouldn’t have put it past Ruth. Or rather Ruthless.
    ‘Thirty- six ,’ Mum said bitterly, as though it was the ‘six’ that offended her.
    ‘She must be thirty-eight now,’ I pointed out.
    ‘Yes – and he’s sixty-two! I wish he’d never done that wretched TV series,’ she wailed.
    I took a forest green Hermès Kelly out of its dust bag and put it in a glass display case. ‘You couldn’t have known what would happen, Mum.’
    ‘And to think I persuaded him – at her behest!’ She picked up a glass of champagne and her wedding ring, which she continues to wear in defiance of my father’s desertion, gleamed in a beam of sunlight. ‘I thought it would help his career,’ she went on miserably. She sipped her fizz. ‘I thought that it would lift his profile and that he’d make more money which would come in handy in our retirement. Then off he goes to film The Big Dig – but the main thing he seems to have been digging’ – Mum grimaced – ‘was her .’ She sipped her champagne again. ‘It was just … ghastly.’
    I had to agree. It was one thing for my father to have his first affair in thirty-eight years of marriage; it was quite another for my mother to find out about it in the diary section of the Daily Express . I shuddered as I remembered reading the caption beneath the photo of my father, looking uncharacteristically shifty, with Ruth, outside her Notting Hill flat:
    TELLY PROF DUMPS WIFE AMIDST BABY RUMOURS.
    ‘Do you see much of him, darling?’ I heard Mum ask with forced casualness. ‘Of course, I can’t stop you,’ she went on. ‘And I wouldn’t want to – he’s your father; but, to be honest, the thought of you spending time with him, and her … and … and …’ Mum can’t bring herself to mention the baby.
    ‘I haven’t seen Dad for ages,’ I said truthfully.
    Mum knocked back her champagne then carried theglass out to the kitchen. ‘I’d better not drink any more. It’ll only make me cry. Right,’ she said briskly as she came back, ‘let’s change the subject.’
    ‘Okay – tell me what you think of the shop. You haven’t seen it for weeks.’
    Mum walked round, her elegant little heels tapping over the wooden floor. ‘I like it. It’s not remotely like being in a second-hand shop – it’s more like being somewhere nice , like Phase Eight.’
    ‘That’s good to hear.’ I lined up the flutes of champagne gently fizzing on the counter.
    ‘I like the stylish silver mannequins, and there’s a pleasantly uncluttered feel.’
    ‘That’s because vintage shops can be chaotic – the rails so crammed that you give yourself an upper-body workout just going through them. Here there’s enough light and air between the garments so that browsing will be a pleasure. If an item doesn’t sell, I’ll simply bring out something else. But aren’t the clothes lovely?’
    ‘Ye-es,’ Mum replied. ‘In a way.’ She nodded at the cupcake dresses. ‘Those are fun.’
    ‘I know – I adore them.’ I idly wondered who would buy them. ‘And look at this kimono. It’s from 1912. Have you seen the embroidery?’
    ‘Very pretty …’
    ‘ Pretty ? It’s a work of art. And this Balenciaga opera coat. Look at the cut – it’s made in just two pieces, including the sleeves. The construction is amazing.’
    ‘Hmm …’
    ‘And this coatdress – it’s by Jacques Fath. Look at the brocade with its pattern of little palm trees. Where could you find something like that today?’
    ‘That’s all very well, but –’
    ‘And this Givenchy suit: now this would look great on you , Mum. You can wear a knee-length skirt because you’ve got great legs.’
    She shook her head. ‘I’d