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but apparently there’s something wrong with the younger one, the boy.’
    ‘Something wrong?’ Alice’s heart dived. So-called ‘normal’ children, especially someone else’s, were hard enough to accommodate in a relationship, but surely so much worse if they had something wrong with them.
    After a glass or two of wine, Douglas had opened up a bit more. His ex-wife, Thea, had fallen pregnant with Zara, their daughter, they’d married and tried to make a go of it, even having another baby – which led to a temporary reprieve though it didn’t last. They limped along until Thea had been offered a high-powered job with her firm in Hong Kong she’d taken it, leaving the children with their father and grandparents and seeing them when she could.
    ‘What exactly is wrong with the little boy?’ Alice asked again, wondering why neither Douglas nor Laura had mentioned it.
    Evie shrugged, ‘Oh introverted, slow, something like that.’
    Her words crushed her, how was she going to cope with all these dramas without Julian’s comfort and good sense?

4
    ‘So, have you test-driven any more glamorous cars complete with sexy men?’ Margot greeted Alice and Petra when they met at a restaurant in Covent Garden for lunch.
    Alice was getting bored of the jokes and innuendo aimed her way after her test drive had become common knowledge. ‘No, but I might do it again. It gave me such a lift.’ She pulled out a chair and sat down next to Margot at one of the tables that were set up on the square on this sunny day in early May. Petra piled her shopping on one chair and sat down on another, complaining of the heat and how she wished she hadn’t put on a jumper, fanning her flushed face with her hand.
    The three of them had known each other since school. They’d been through marriage, childbirth, divorce in Petra’s case, and widowhood in hers, and despite their teasing and occasional rows, they were firm allies against the world.
    ‘Take me with you, next time,’ Margot said.’ It’s not like you, I couldn’t believe it when I saw you speeding by.’
    Alice laughed, ‘You sound like Laura, but it is like me. It’s just that Julian didn’t like risky sports and things. Perhaps it was an age thing.’
    ‘We’ve no idea what he was like before we knew him,’ Petra said, ‘for all we know he could have lived the most daredevil, rackety life before you met him, then when he fell in love with you, he calmed down.’
    ‘True.’ Anxiety sunk its teeth into her. Her mother had said the same thing and she’d briefly wondered about it, but she’d never seen that side of him. He was first and foremost a family man and he wanted to keep them safe. She needed him now, calm and reassuring, soothing away the bouts of anxiety that plagued her with Evie’s unfortunate pregnancy and Laura’s engagement. She went on quickly before either of them could throw up anything else unsettling, ‘I don’t know what came over me that day of the test drive. I’d just left Cecily and I was wishing Julian were here to be a support with Evie… I didn’t know about Laura’s engagement then.’
    She took a mouthful of the wine Margot had ordered while they studied the menu. ‘Then as I passed the car showroom I suddenly remembered Frank Trevelyan and driving in his Bristol, ages and ages ago. Goodness knows why I thought of Frank then. I haven’t seen him for years.’
    ‘Ah, Frank.’ Petra went all misty-eyed. ‘Sad he left the country to live abroad, wasn’t long after your wedding, was it? I wonder what he’s up to now.’
    ‘I can’t remember. All I could think of at that time was Julian.’
    Petra sighed, put her hand over hers. ‘And now he’s gone, and far too soon, he really was the perfect husband. The rest of us who’d married lesser mortals were deadly jealous. But, love, time’s marching on and you’re still young and very attractive, you ought to start dating again.’
    ‘Oh no,’ Alice gave a horrified laugh.