September

'Now. Today. I'm catching the first shuttle down to London. Flying out of Heathrow this afternoon.'

'But-'

'I'll be back at Balnaid on Friday in time for the party. Probably about six in the evening. Earlier if I can make it.'

'You mean…'It was difficult actually to take in what he was telling her. 'You mean you'll be away all week?'

'That's right.'

'But… packing… clothes…' Which was ridiculous because she knew that he kept a duplicate wardrobe in the flat at Moray Place, with suits, shirts, and underclothes suitable for any capital and any climate.

'I'll do that here.'

'But…' The implication, the truth of what he was saying, broke at last. He can't do this to me. The bedroom window was open and the air that flowed through it was not cold, but Virginia, hunched over the telephone, shivered. She saw the knuckles of her hand, clenched around the receiver, grow white. 'Tomorrow,' she said. 'Tuesday. You're taking Henry to Templehall.'

'I can't do that.'

'You promised.'

'I have to go to New York.'

'Somebody else can go. Not you.'

'There's nobody else who can. There's a panic on and it has to be me.'

'But you promised. You said that you would take Henry. I told you that it was the one thing that I wouldn't do. It was my condition and you accepted it.'

'I know, and I'm sorry. But what's happened is beyond my control.'

'Send somebody else to New York. You're the boss. Send some underling.'

'It's because I am who I am that I have to go.'

'You are who you are!' She heard her own voice, shrill with scathing. 'Edmund Aird. You think of nobody but yourself and nothing but your hateful job. Sanford Cubben. I hate Sanford Cubben. I realize I come fairly low on your priority list, but I thought Henry rated a little higher. You didn't only promise me, you promised Henry. Does that mean nothing to you?'

'I didn't promise anything. I just said that I'd take him, and now I can't.'

'I call that a commitment. If you made such a commitment in business, you'd kill yourself to see it through.'

'Virginia, be reasonable.'

'I will not be reasonable! I will not sit here and listen to you and be told to be reasonable. And I will not deliver my child to a boarding-school that I never wanted him to go to in the first place. It's like asking me to take one of the dogs to the vet to be put down. I won't do it!'

By now she was sounding like a fishwife, and did not care. But Edmund's voice remained, as always, infuriatingly cool and dispassionate.

'In that case, I suggest that you call Isobel Balmerino and ask her to take Henry. She's driving Hamish. She'll have plenty of space for Henry.'

'If you think I'm going to palm Henry off onto Isobel-'

'Then you'll have to take him yourself.'

'You're a bastard, Edmund. You know that, don't you? You're behaving like a selfish bastard.'

'Where is Henry? I'd like to speak to him before I go.'

'He's not here,' Virginia told him with a certain malicious satisfaction. 'He's buying his sweets from Mrs. Ishak.'

'Well, when he comes home, tell him to ring me at the office.'

'You can ring him yourself.' And on this biting exit line, she slammed down the receiver and put an end to the miserable exchange.

Her raised voice had penetrated to the kitchen.

'What was that all about?' Edie asked, turning from the sink as Virginia stormed in with a face like thunder, and arms filled with rumpled linen, to stride across the kitchen towards the open door of the utility room and hurl her burden in the general direction of the washing-machine.

'Is something wrong?'

'Everything.' Virginia pulled out a chair and sat, her arms folded and her expression mutinous. 'That was Edmund, and he's going to New York today. Now. And he's going to be away a week, and he promised me… he promised, Edie… that he'd drive Henry to school tomorrow. I told him that it was the one thing I wouldn't do. I've hated the whole idea of Templehall from the very beginning, and the only reason I finally relented was because Edmund promised that he would take Henry tomorrow.'

Edie knew a nasty temper when she saw one. She said reasonably, 'Well, I suppose if you're an important business man these things are bound to happen.'

'Only to Edmund. Other men manage their lives without being so bloody selfish.'

'Yju don't want to take Henry yourself?'

'No, I do not. It's the last thing in the world I want to do. It's inhuman of Edmund to expect it of me.'

Edie, wringing out her dishcloth, considered the problem.

'Could you not ask Lady Balmerino to take him with Hamish?'

Virginia did not let on that Edmund had already made this sensible suggestion and got an earful for his pains.

'I don't know.' She thought about it. 'I suppose I could,' she admitted sulkily.

'Isobel's very understanding. And she's been through it herself.'

'No, she hasn't.' It was obvious to Edie that she could say nothing right. 'Hamish was never like Henry. You could send Hamish to the moon, and all he'd worry about would be when he was going to get his next meal.'

'That's true enough. But if I were you, I'd have a word with

Isobel. It's no good working yourself up into a state if there's nothing to be done. What-'

'I know, Edie. What can't be cured must be endured.'

'That's true enough,' said Edie placidly, and went to get the kettle and fill it with water. A cup of tea seemed to be in order. There was nothing, in times of stress, like a good hot cup of tea.

They were drinking the tea when Henry returned, his carrier-bag bulging with goodies.

'Mummy, look what I got!' He emptied the contents out onto the kitchen table. 'Look, Edie. Mars Bars, and Smarties, and Cad-bury's Dairy Milk, and some Jellybabies, and Jaffa Cakes, and Chocolate Digestives, and treacle toffees, and Rolos; and Mrs. Ishak gave me a lollipop for going away. I didn't have to pay for the lollipop, so can 1 eat it now?'

Edie surveyed his loot. 'I hope you're not going to eat that lot all at once, otherwise you won't have a tooth left in your head.'

'No.' He was already unwrapping the lollipop. 'It's got to last a long time.'

By now Virginia's fury had simmered down. She put her arm around Henry and said, in consciously cheerful tones, 'Daddy phoned.'

He licked. 'What about?'

'He has to go to America. Today. He's flying from London this afternoon. So he won't be able to take you to school tomorrow. But I thought I'd…'

Henry stopped licking. His pleasure flowed from his face, and he turned enormous, apprehensive eyes upon his mother.

She hesitated, and then started up again. '… I thought I'd ring Isobel and ask if she'd take you with Hamish…'

She got no further. His reaction to the news was even worse than she had dreaded. A wail of dismay and floods of instant tears…

'I don't want Isobel to take me…'

'Henry…'