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cooked meals for her, tried to plan outings
to cheer her up. But wherever they went, they saw
babies: healthy babies, beautiful babies, screwed-up-faced
babies, in the street, in the supermarket. Babies
kicking, crying, sleeping; babies with tiny fingernails
and delicate tracings of eyebrows and whorls of soft
hair; babies held by parents or grandparents. After a
while Kathy refused to go out at all.
    'It's understandable,' Sean kept saying to Charlie,
always generous, always patient. 'She needs time. We
all need time.'
    But what Charlie didn't find understandable was
that her mother was gradually dismissing Sean, pushing
him away. At a time when she might have been
expected to need him more than ever, she seemed
determined only to hurt and reject him.
    Charlie tried not to hear, but the bedroom walls
were thin.
    'You don't have to stick around with me.' Her
mother's voice was tight, accusing. 'If you want kids,
you can find someone ten years younger. Start again.
There's no need to tie yourself down to a failure.'
    And Sean's voice, quieter, insistent: 'But I don't
want . . . Don't talk such rubbish . . . Why should you
think . . .' And eventually, rising in angry despair, 'But
I love you , Kathy, for Christ's sake!'
    Charlie, at fourteen, felt that her life was falling
apart. First, there was the loss of the baby sister she
had so looked forward to; she'd imagined herself
pushing Rose in a buggy, looking at picture books,
reading stories at bedtime. The abrupt snuffing out of
Rose, and of all the possibilities of her future, was bad
enough. Even worse was watching her mother punish
herself and Sean, dismantling their life together with
what seemed to Charlie a deliberate, callous obstinacy.
    Charlie had to do some thing. Eventually, after Sean
walked out of the house one Saturday evening, with
the strained, twisted-mouthed look that meant he was
only just holding back tears, she confronted her
mother in the kitchen.
    'What have you said to him? It's not Sean's fault,
what happened! Why are you being so horrible?'
    Kathy was standing by the cooker gazing at a fast-boiling
saucepan of spaghetti. They'd all been about
to sit down and eat. She took no notice of Charlie, nor
of the saucepan, which was about to boil over. Charlie
snatched the pan handle and pulled it to one side,
then turned down the flame.
    'Mum!' It was like talking to a sleepwalker. 'Where's
he gone? Don't you care that he's just walked out?'
    Her mother turned away, studying the instructions on
the packet as if she'd never cooked spaghetti before.
    ' Mum . . .'
    Then Kathy said, slowly, 'You don't understand,
Charlie. I know what I'm doing.'
    Charlie stared at her through a cloud of steam.
'Upsetting Sean? Driving him away? Is that what you
want?'
    'Oh, for goodness' sake don't talk like someone in
an American soap!' Kathy said, with a flash of spirit.
    'But Sean loves you. He loves us . Why won't you let
him help you?'
    'Are you going to drain that spaghetti or not?'
    'Yes, OK,' Charlie shouted. 'I'll drain the spaghetti
and then you can sit down and eat the meal Sean's
cooked for you. And I hope you're grateful. You won't
even marry him—'
    'No,' her mother said mildly. 'You're too young to
understand, Charlie. He'll be glad, later. When he's
found someone new. He's eight years younger than
me and that's a big difference. He's not even thirty yet.
There's plenty of time for him. I don't want to wreck
his life.'
    'But that's rubbish! You know it is. You are wrecking
his life! Sean doesn't care about the age difference,
why should he? Neither did you, till . . .'
    Kathy shrugged. 'Everything's different, now.'
    'Only because you're determined to make it
different, to make it even worse than it is – oh, you're
so selfish! Yes, you've had an awful time, everyone
knows that. But what about Sean? What about me ?
You've got me, haven't you? Don't I count? Don't I
mean anything to you?'
    Charlie hadn't intended to shout, especially not
these terrible me me things