The ring of the doorbell surprises Carol. She is not expecting any deliveries and not many other people come to visit. She dries her hands, leaves the kitchen and goes down the hall, taking a quick look at her five-year-old daughter Sophie who is happily playing picking out notes on the piano in the sitting room.
Her house is small, an end of terrace built in the flurry cheap housing that expanded London in the 1930s, but she and Charlie have made it bright and cheerful. One side of the house faces north, with a view over the Thames to the towers of Canary Wharf. Charlie is there somewhere, at a desk, on a phone, earning money. He’ll be back sometime after seven.
London has been a disappointment to Carol. Exciting at first, newly married, starting out in the world. But it is not her sort of place. Chris’s friends, all university types, unlike her, are brash and quick talking, in ways that make her feel dizzy and inadequate. The constant traffic, the press of people always hurrying,