Rosamunde Pilcher - September

"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."

"Y judon'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…"

He jerked himself out of her embrace and flung his lollipop onto the floor. "I'm not going to go with Isobel and Hamish. I want my mother or my father to take me. How would you like it, if you were me and…"

"Henry…"

"… you had to go away with people who weren't your own mother and father? I think you are being very unkind to me…"

"I'll take you."

"And Hamish will be horrid and not talk because he's a senior. It's not fair!"

Furiously weeping, he turned and fled for the door.

"Henry, I'll take you____________________"

But he was gone, his footsteps stamping up the stairs to the sanctuary of his bedroom. Virginia, gritting her teeth, closed her eyes and wished that she could close her ears as well. It came. The deadly slam of his bedroom door. Then silence.

She opened her eyes and met Edie's across the table. Edie gave a long sigh. She said, "Oh, dearie dear."

"So much for that bright idea."

"Poor wee soul. He's upset."

Virginia leaned her elbow on the table and ran a hand through her hair. All at once the situation had become more than she felt able to cope with.

She said, "This is the very last thing I wanted to happen." She knew, and Edie knew, that Henry's tantrums, though rare, left him vulnerable and touchy for hours. "I wanted this to be a good day, and not miserable. Our last day together. And now Henry's going to spend it bursting into tears and blaming me for everything. As if things weren't bad enough. Damn Edmund. What am I going to do, Edie?"

"How would it be," said Edie, "if I just came back this afternoon and took Henry off your hands? He's never so bad with me. Have you finished his packing yet? Well, I could finish his packing and do any wee bits that need to be done, and he can just be around the place and have time to collect himself. A quiet day, that's what he needs."

"Oh, Edie." Virginia was filled with grateful love. "Would you do that?"

"No trouble. Mind, I'll have to go home and see to Lottie, give her her dinner, but I'll be here again by two."

"Can't Lottie see to her own dinner?"

"Well, she can, but she makes such a hash of it, burns the pans, and leaves my kitchen in a midden, I'm better to do it myself."

Virginia was repentant. "Oh, Edie. You do so much. I'm sorry I shouted at you."

"Good thing I was here for you to shout at." She heaved herself onto her swollen legs. "Now, I must get on, or we won't get the baby bathed at this rate. Up you go and have a word with Henry. Tell him he can spend the afternoon with me, and what I'd really like would be one of his bonny pictures."

Virginia found Henry, as she knew she would, under his duvet with Moo.