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as if it was really entirely Cassie’s role, as if when he joined in he was bestowing a generous favour, not taking an automatic fair and equal share of the responsibility – but then in the early months, if the feeding doesn’t involve bottles, it was hard to prevent it being mostly a mother’s role.
    â€˜He’s got rugby training all the time,’ Cass muttered. ‘And his dissertation to do. And . . . I hate the flat . . . it’s a minging filthy pit. It never feels clean, whatever I do, and . . .’The tears began rolling again.
    Sara picked up the nearest of the bags and started to take them upstairs. ‘It’s all right – you don’t have to explain. I can guess,’ she said. ‘Your old room’s big enough for you and Charlie for now. We can sort something else out later, depending on what you decide about staying.’
    â€˜It’s only for a little while, Mum. I’ll be OK soon.’ Cassandra picked up some bags of books and hauled them up the stairs. On the wall at the top was the familiar strange, gold-dappled painting Conrad had done of her and Pandora as children, playing in the garden. His signature spare yet bold brushstrokes looked so casually placed and random to the passing glance, but there was that depth, that magic capturing of the easy animal grace of children running. You could almost hear them laughing, smell the soft, lush grass beneath their flying feet. Cass touched the painting with her finger as she passed, feeling love and warmth and the safety of being back home.
    Charlie was too young to care about the ducks or admire the view across to Petersham Meadows, but walking by the river was what you did with babies and Sara liked the continuation of tradition. She’d wheeled her own daughters along this path, thrown bread to the ancestors of these same mallards. Any hour of any weather-bearable day, parents and grandparents were out here with infants, enjoying this time-honoured way of entertaining them. Sara, leaving Cass at the house to do whatever she wanted in precious, uninterrupted peace – whether it was unpacking and sorting her room, washing her limp hair or simply lying on her old bed staring at the glow stars on the ceiling – pushed the buggy along the towpath and talked to Charlie as he waved his hands excitedly whenever the patterns of shadows from overhanging trees fell across his face. They seemed to delight him, these swift-changing moments of light and dark. He smiled, sometimes breaking into a giggle, startling himself with new noises and reactions. How wonderful, she thought, this constant discovery that babies had. How innocent and delightful to be thrilled by the pattern of shadows, the fall of a twig.
    She thought of Marie, whose discovery of new love was giving her that giggly all-is-bliss look that Charlie had in his sweet baby way. She too was like someone who was looking at everything around her as if for the first time. Where, Sara wondered, did that leave her husband? Relegated to the unwanted pile like so much jumble? Marie said the Angus thing was ‘separate’ – but how could that work? She felt curious about it, really trying hard to think inside Marie’s head. Mike was almost as much her friend as Marie was. She often met up with him in the park, dog-walking. How was she ever going to face him, knowing what she knew? And what a mad waste of time it all seemed. Sara knew she was lucky: how, she thought as she watched the swans chasing the mallards across the Thames, could sex with someone who wasn’t Conrad be better than what she already got (if a tad rarely, just now)? It had always been top of the range with him. No wonder she had trouble imagining casual adultery – what, exactly, would be to gain?
    At the slipway outside the White Swan pub, she pushed the buggy a little way down the slope so Charlie could get close to the ducks and geese that had already sensed the