sharp-faced girl of thirteen, with a candid tongue and a disconcerting ability to make her mother laugh. Despite some routine mother-daughter battles they were good friends.
'The way he goes on about that money,' she said now, 'you'd think he was the cheated heir in some Victorian melodrama. Honestly, he's a pain in the-'
'Sonya!'
'I was going to say in the neck,' Sonya insisted with an air of innocence that didn't fool her mother. 'And he is. It was much nicer when he wasn't here.'
'Darling, what could I do but take him in? He's a babe in arms in the common sense department.'
'Oh, come on, Mum. Mark's got it sussed. That little-boy-lost stuff is supposed to make us all run around after him.'
Lee chuckled. 'Well, he failed with you, didn't he?He's improved since he's been living here. One day his wife will thank you.'
'I wish he'd get married and move out, like he keeps threatening to.'
'Does he? I hadn't heard.'
'He says if he was a married man you'd have to hand over his money.'
'Oh, I see. Leaving him free to blue the lot on expensive cars.'
'Why don't you let him have a car, Mum? Then he might save us all a lot of trouble by eloping, like you did.'
Lee sipped her tea, glad of an excuse not to respond to this.
She'd been fifteen when she'd become madly infatuated with Jimmy Meredith, and just sixteen when she'd run away with him to Gretna Green. Almost at once she'd discovered her tragic mistake. Jimmy was addicted to the drug of excitement. It had been exciting to court the daughter of a prosperous businessman thwarting his attempts to break the couple up. It had been even more exciting to plan a runaway match, dodge her frantically pursuing parents, and confront them in the smithy at Gretna Green, defying them to do their worst. But when he found himself married, with a child on the way, he grew bored.
He'd discovered a new thrill in gambling. Her father had several times had to hand over money to cover Jimmy's spiralling debts.
The only good thing to have come out of the marriage was Sonya, born while her mother was only sixteen. For her sake Lee had clung to the remnants of her broken-backed marriage, even after Jimmy had moved on to the excitement of other women.
Whatever his faults, he'd been a loving father, and when he'd been fired from his last job he'd spent all his time with his little daughter. Lee had been able to start her own career as a photographer, leaving Sonya with him while she went out to work. She prospered, and by the time her father cut off the money supply, saying, 'That's all my dear. The rest is for Mark,' Lee was able to cope alone.
At last Jimmy had moved out to live a hundred miles away with the woman who became his second wife. Sonya stayed with her mother, but paid her father long visits in the holidays.
Sonya knew nothing of the worst details. She adored Jimmy, so Lee said nothing now, and let her chatter on about eloping as though the subject didn't give her a pang.
'Couldn't we nudge him into eloping?' Sonya was saying wistfully. 'Then we'd get rid of him.'
'Darling, that's very unkind.'
'But it's a fantasy, Mum. It's all right for fantasies to be unkind because they're the safety valve for our aggressive instincts. 'It's easier to treat our neighbour with charity in real life when we've just given him a satisfying come-uppance in the privacy of our minds.''
'Who said that?' Lee demanded, for Sonya's theatrical manner made it clear she'd been quoting.
'Daniel Raife, in his newspaper column.'
'Who?' asked Lee sharply.
'Daniel Raife. Mum, whatever's the matter?'
'That was the name of the man I collided with.'
'It must be a coincidence. It couldn't be the same man because you said your Daniel Raife had a real down on women and this one's the opposite. He writes for one of the tabloids and has a page in a woman's magazine, plus a TV chat show, where he gets people talking about controversial things. And he's always arguing in favour of a better deal for women.'
'Of course!' Lee said. 'I knew I'd heard his name before. I don't think I've seen his show, though.'
'It's on during the day, when you're out.'
'So Daniel Raife is on our side, huh?' Lee asked skeptically.
'Honestly. He writes books with titles like Women Are The Best, and he talks about how brilliant his daughter is, and how he's looking forward to her being made a judge.'
'Is she anywhere near being a judge?'
Sonya chuckled. 'I shouldn't think so. She's only fifteen. She goes to my school. She's mad about clothes. She thinks it's wonderful that my mother's a fashion photographer.'
Mark had returned to hear the end of the conversation. 'She sounds like a real twit,' he observed.
'Phoebe isn't a twit.'
'What was that name?' asked Lee quickly.
'Phoebe,' said Sonya. 'She's his daughter. Why?'
Lee was staring at her. 'The man I collided with had someone with him called Phoebe. What does she look like?'
'About five foot nine, very beautiful.'
Mark vanished into the next room and emerged a moment later with a book. He showed Lee the photograph on the back cover. 'Is that who you saw?'
The picture showed a young man with handsome, regular features and dark eyes. Her professional attention was alerted to the tell-tale signs of touching up that made the face bland and uninteresting. Even so, there was no doubt that this was the man she'd crossed swords with.
'That's him,' she groaned. 'And let me tell you, he's a fraud. If you could have heard the way he talked to poor Phoebe-'
'Most people talk to their kids like that,' said Sonya wisely. 'That's not sexism. That's parentism.'
'It still doesn't justify the remarks he made about women drivers,' said Lee firmly.
'But you can't blame a man for what he says when his car's been damaged,' protested Mark. 'That's not sexism either. It's driverism. I don't suppose you were sweetness and light yourself.'
'Well, he had no right to call me a fluffy-headed little thing. I certainly wouldn't have put him down as a man who wanted his daughter to be a judge.'
'He's wasting his time. Women are incapable of being impartial,' Mark declared from the lofty heights of his age. 'They should be kept ignorant-like Sonya.'
'Well, it would be better than knowing eight languages and talking drivel in all of them,' Sonya countered.
He departed without deigning to reply. Sonya murmured wistfully, 'One of these days I'm really going to enjoy kicking his shins.'
'Aren't you supposed to be working that off in your fantasies?' Lee enquired.
'Oh, no, Mum. Kicking his shins is for real life. The fantasy is boiling him in oil.'
Later that evening the phone rang. 'Lee, thank heavens I found you in,' said a relieved voice on the other end.
'Hello, Sal. What's the crisis?' Sally was an old friend who worked for a public relations firm.
'Could you possibly do an extra session tomorrow? Please, Lee. It'll save my life.'
'It's a bit difficult,' Lee said doubtfully. 'I'm fully booked. I could fit someone in at the end, but they'd have to wait a while. Who is it?'
'Daniel Raife. It's for his new book.'
'Sorry, Sal, you're wasting your time. I'm Daniel Raife's most unfavourite person since our cars collided. He'd never let me take his pic'
'But he asked for you.'
'He what?'
'We handle publicity for his publisher. They always put his picture on the back cover. At the very last. minute
