CHAPTER ONE

      THE morning the anonymous letter arrived was no different from any other Sancha had had over the past six years.

      She had opened her brown eyes with a reluctant jerk when the alarm went off, hearing Mark stir in the twin bed beside hers before he stretched, yawning. For a second or two Sancha had fantasised about the years before the children started arriving, remembering waking up in a double bed, naked and sleepy, to find his hands wandering in lazy exploration. In those far-off, halcyon days they had usually made love in the early mornings as well as at night.

      They had switched to twin beds a couple of years ago because she was always having to get up in the night, either to feed a baby or comfort a child, and Mark had complained about being woken whenever she left their bed. Sancha had often wished, since, that they had not stopped sharing a bed. They had lost their old, loving intimacy; making love could no longer be so spontaneous or casual, and since Flora’s birth they’d rarely made love at all. At night Sancha was always too tired and in the mornings there was never time.

      This morning she reluctantly pushed her memories aside and made herself fling back the duvet, her feet fumbling for slippers, groping her way into her dressing-gown. She rushed into the bathroom, cleaned her teeth, splashed cold water on her face, ran a comb through her curly red-brown hair and then began the job of waking the children. She didn’t have to wake Flora, who was already bouncing noisily round and round her cot, stark naked, with her red hair in tangled curls around her pink face.

      ‘I’m a kangaroo! Look at me, Mummy, I’m a kangaroo-roo-roo...’

      ‘Lovely, darling,’ Sancha said absently, retrieving the small nightdress from the floor and dropping it into the washing basket before picking Flora up with one arm and carrying her into the childrens’ bathroom. ‘Get up now!’ she yelled into the room the two boys shared. Six-year-old Felix was still lying in bed, with his duvet pulled over his head. Five-year-old Charlie was up, pulling off his pyjamas with his eyes shut.

      By the time Sancha had dealt with Flora and was heading for the stairs Felix was up, still yawning, and Charlie was in the bathroom. Sancha could hear Mark having his shower.

      Downstairs, she scooped the letters and a daily newspaper off the front doormat, with Flora squirming under her arm, her dimpled legs in green dungarees kicking vigorously. Sancha disliked wasting money, so she had kept all Charlie’s baby clothes, washed and neatly folded away in a drawer, in case another baby came along. It had saved a fortune. She hadn’t needed to buy any new clothes at all and Flora looked great in them. The fashion for unisex baby clothes suited her.

      Turning towards the kitchen, Sancha shouted back up the stairs to the two boys to hurry up or else. A sound of stampeding feet followed; at least they were both up.

      Dropping the handful of letters and the newspaper onto the table, beside Mark’s place, she pushed Flora into her highchair, handing her a spoon to bang, and then put the coffee percolator on.

      She didn’t bother to look through the letters—she rarely got any: just the odd postcard from a friend or relative who was abroad on holiday, brown envelopes from a wishful tax inspector who refused to believe she no longer earned any money, or offers from catalogues and firms trying to sell her something which came in envelopes marked urgently ‘Open me and win a fortune!’ She read the postcards, but the rest of her mail was usually discarded into the kitchen bin at once.

      All Sancha’s movements at this hour of the morning were automatic; she often felt like a robot, moving and whirling around the kitchen. She had so much to do and so little time to do it in that she had worked out long ago the fastest way to get the coffee percolating, the porridge cooking, slip a couple of croissants into the microwave to warm through, set out cups, cutlery and mugs of cold milk, pour the orange juice and spoon prunes into a bowl for Mark. All with the minimum of effort.

      Hearing the crash of feet on the stairs, she turned off the porridge, poured it into the childrens’ bowls, put the saucepan into the sink and ran cold water into it to make it easier to clean later, then grabbed Flora, who was climbing out of her highchair, and put her back into it just as Felix and Charlie tore into the kitchen.

      Sancha caught them and checked that their faces and hands were clean, their teeth and hair brushed, their clothes all present and correct—Charlie often forgot important items, like his underpants or one sock. He was very absent-minded.

      By the time Mark got down his children were all busy eating their breakfast. Flora beamed at him, showing him a mouthful of porridge and little pearly teeth. ‘Dadda!’ she fondly greeted him.

      Mark looked pained. ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, Flora!’ He sat down and drank some of his orange juice, looking at his watch with a distracted expression. ‘I’m going to be late. Hurry up, boys, we have to go soon.’

      He ate his prunes while glancing through his mail. “This is for you,’ he said, tossing one envelope over to Sancha, his grey eyes briefly touching her then moving away, a frown pulling his black brows together.

      She felt a sting of hurt over that look—had that been distaste in his eyes? Of course, at this hour, in her shabby old dressing-gown and no make-up, she wasn’t exactly glamorous, but there was no time to do much about how she looked until he and the boys had left. She really must make more effort, though—it made her unhappy