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lecturer in women’s studies at the University of London.
    â€œSarah has a flat in Kentish Town. Do you know what he said? He said, ‘I wish I was a rich man and could buy you homes in Mayfair or Belgravia.’ He was always thinking of us. When we were children, he was with us all the time. If we cried in the night, it was he who got up to comfort us. He played with us and read to us and talked to us all the time. I’ve wondered since when he got time to write his books. When we were asleep, I suppose.
    â€œHe never punished us. I mean, it’s laughable even to think of such a thing. And he used to get so angry when he heard of people who smacked their kids. I don’t mean seriously abused them, I mean a little smack. That was the only time we saw him angry.”
    Talking to Hope Candless, you might be forgiven for concluding she and her sister had no mother. Or had a mother who left this paragon, ran off with the milkman, and abandoned them when they were little. But Ursula Candless is alive and well and living in the north Devon house her husband left her.
    â€œA lot of people would say she was lucky,” says Hope. “After all, women are always complaining their husbands won’t look after the kids or even help. One hears about all these fathers who never see their children from Sunday evening till Friday evening, not to mention the ones the Child Support Agency has to chase after. No, I think my mother was a fortunate woman.”
    Ursula threw the paper down in disgust. She would have read no more if Pauline hadn’t come into the kitchen at this point. Pauline greeted Daphnewith a brisk “Good morning,” seized the paper, and, as Ursula had feared, read the rest of it aloud.
    â€œWhere did you get to, Auntie—I mean, Ursula? ‘A fortunate woman,’ right. It goes on: ‘Has this happy childhood and devoted father made Hope want children of her own? And does a life partner have to be another Gerald Candless?
    â€œÂ â€˜Â â€œI’m very monogamous,” she says. “I suppose you could say I haven’t had a problem forming a stable relationship, and that’s said to be the result of my sort of childhood and home life. As for children of my own, we shall have to see.” She laughs and then, remembering she shouldn’t be laughing, brings out the handkerchief again. “My partner and I haven’t actually discussed children.”
    â€œÂ â€˜Her partner is fellow lawyer Fabian Lerner. They met at Cambridge and have been together ever since.’
    â€œÂ â€˜Â â€œTwelve years now,” says Hope. Is her smile a shade rueful? She adds, surprisingly, “We spend most weekends together and go away on holiday together, but we’ve never actually lived under the same roof. I expect you think that’s peculiar.”
    â€œÂ â€˜Perhaps. Or is it only that Hope’s significant other can’t match up to her all-too-significant father?’ Well, that’s a bit snide, isn’t it?”
    â€œTo say the least,” said Ursula.
    â€œI expect you’re glad Hope and Fabian don’t live together, aren’t you? It wouldn’t be very nice to have that in the papers.”
    Daphne Batty took the vacuum cleaner into the dining room, humming a song Ursula had never heard before called “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”
    The day Pauline went home was bright and sunny and there were already a lot of people on the beach by nine in the morning. They came down the private cliff path from the hotel and out of the public car park behind the icecream kiosk and the beach-supplies shop. Some came from the village across the dunes and some from the caravan site at Franaton. The surfers, in their wet suits, had been out since before Ursula and Pauline got up. Pauline, looking up from her breakfast, wanted to know why Gerald had chosen to live here, since his roots weren’t in Devon. She had