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about her baby, and she’d always thought it was because he didn’t want to imagine her with another man. Most people of her generation had some sexual history, but often it was hidden or merely hearsay. She still found she was embarrassed by this living, breathing evidence of a life before she’d met Richard.
    ‘Come with us then. Please, Richard. It would be great to have you there.’
    He shook his head. ‘You’re probably right … and we don’t want to frighten him off with great crowds of us.’
    ‘It wouldn’t be crowds.’
    ‘No, but perhaps it’s better, this first time, that you keep it simple.’
    She reached for his hand. ‘I’m sorry. I should have discussed it with you.’
    ‘Doesn’t matter. No harm done.’

5
    Annie’s bed looked as if she were clearing out her cupboards for a jumble sale. Discarded clothes lay in untidy heaps as she tried on one thing after another. She paused to look in the long mirror at the latest – navy trousers and a blue pastel cashmere V-neck – then ripped them off again. Nothing looks right, she wailed silently. It feels exactly like when I was young and dressing to meet a new date.
    She was passionate about clothes, her style classic yet individual. When she had the time, she would spend hours in the local north-London charity shops where, to the irritation of her relatively impoverished daughters, she would ferret out designer gems for less than five pounds. But what on earth do you wear to meet a long-lost son?
    Richard poked his head round the door. ‘Jamie’s here.’
    She turned from the mirror in a panic.
    ‘Already? What’s the time?’
    ‘Nearly ten,’ Richard’s expression was solemn. Shewasn’t sure he had quite forgiven her for the arbitrary way she had organised the meeting without him.
    ‘But I’m not ready!’
    ‘You look great.’
    She pulled a face, turning back to the long mirror. By now she had on black jeans, a white tee shirt and a dusky-pink fitted Chanel wool jacket with bold pink and gold buttons she had picked up in one of her charity-shop forays many years ago.
    ‘I love the jacket,’ Richard added, ‘but isn’t it a bit smart for Marjory’s kitchen?’
    She sighed impatiently and ripped it off. ‘I know, but I feel good in it. Well, what should I wear then? Some hideous old cardie?’
    ‘As if.’
    She picked up a charcoal wool tunic. ‘This’ll have to do. What do I care if he thinks I’m a frump?’ She pulled it quickly over her head and began to fiddle with her hair, which she’d had cut just above her shoulders the day before and which was, in her opinion, much too short. While wondering what Daniel would look like, she wondered as well what he would make of her. She knew she favoured her late father more than her mother. She had strong cheekbones, her father’s elegant, aquiline nose and wide-set grey-blue eyes. She knew she wasn’t beautiful, but hoped she passed for good-looking. People said she looked much younger than she was – not too much sagging and bagging yet, thank goodness – but would her son approve?
    ‘OK … that’s it. I can’t do any more.’ She cast an agonised look at Richard. ‘I’m scared.’
    Her husband smiled sympathetically. ‘Of course you are.’
    ‘You could still come with us?’ She reached to kiss him on the cheek.
    ‘Thanks, but no. I’ve got work to catch up on,’ he replied. ‘You’d better get going.’
    Annie drove. She had long since refused to go in Jamie’s car. He not only drove like a boy racer, but kept the interior so immaculate that if she so much as breathed he would tut and whip out a wet-wipe.
    ‘How do you want to play it? Do you want me to stay in the room while you meet him?’ Jamie asked, as they sat in the Saturday-morning traffic clogging up Lewisham High Street. ‘Or hover? What?’
    She shook her head. ‘I just can’t imagine it. I mean, what will we do? Hug? Shake hands?’ She drove in silence for a while. ‘And what will we talk