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was.
    ‘Laura will understand,’ Vivien said. ‘In time.’ Children got over it. They had to.
    Pearl glanced at her.
What do you know?
she might have said. After all, Vivien didn’t have a child, couldn’t have a child– maybe. But she didn’t say it. And would there even be enough time for a new understanding between mother and daughter? Vivien didn’t know how long Pearl had or when Laura might be coming home.
    But Pearl didn’t look convinced. ‘I don’t want you telling everyone round here either, Vivien. I don’t need anyone’s pity. I can manage on my own.’
    Vivien sank bank into her seat. Her heart went out to her. ‘I won’t.’ But she would have to do something.
    *
    She told Tom about it later, when they were cuddling in bed. Everything seemed to be all right again between them, but she’d caught a glimpse of a different side to the man she’d married, and it had shown her how fragile some things could be – things that you thought were built in stone, immovable, unbreakable.
    ‘Poor woman.’ He stroked Vivien’s hair. ‘I’ll go round and offer to do her lawn for her. See if there’s anything that needs to be done in the house.’
    ‘Thanks, love.’ She squeezed his shoulder. ‘But don’t—’
    ‘I won’t.’ He tipped her chin so that she was looking into his eyes. ‘I’ll be the soul of discretion. I can be sensitive, you know.’
    ‘I know.’ She held his gaze.
    ‘And about those tests … ’
    ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She turned her face away. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to argue. If they weren’t meant to have children, then that was all there was to it. It wasn’tworth breaking up a marriage for.
    ‘Oh, it does though, love.’ He held her face cupped in his palm so that she had to look back at him. ‘It matters to you, doesn’t it, having a baby?’
    She shrugged. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, under her breath. Oh, yes.
    ‘Then we’ll have those tests. I want a baby too, you know.’
    ‘You do?’ Thank God, she thought.
    ‘I do.’
    She cuddled in closer. ‘I’m scared too,’ she whispered. Scared of what she might find out. But Pearl was right – they needed to know.
    He held her more tightly. ‘We won’t be scared, love. We need to know the facts. And if there’s anything they can give us to help … Well, we’ll try everything.’
    Everything. Vivien let out a deep sigh of relief. It was what she’d longed to hear. ‘Thanks, Tom,’ she said. She could cope with anything if Tom was with her. And once they knew … Well, then they could decide what to do about it – together.
    ‘And in the meantime … ’ He rolled over so that he was sideways on to her. ‘We could always keep practising.’
    ‘Practising?’ Vivien closed her eyes.
    To have a child.
She felt the brush of his lips on hers, his hand on the soft flesh of her upper thigh. And she thought of Pearl – poor Pearl who had only tried to fight for what was hers, who had cancer and who was alone, and who didn’t even know where her daughter Laura might be.

CHAPTER 6
    Andrés was sitting at a table outside a café on the beach, a café he had begun to frequent more and more. Soon it would be invaded by summer tourists; this was the lull before the storm – particularly at this time of day when most people were packing up to go home to their families. It gave him what he needed – especially out of season. Space to think, a sense of quiet and a view of the ocean.
Si. Bueno
. Even the coffee was good.
    But today his coffee had grown cold. Yet again, he’d been staring out to sea. Daydreaming. This sea was very different from the sea he’d grown up with on the island. Vast and a gentle blue-grey, it was another creature entirely. And yet, strangely, there were similarities in the landscape and perhaps that was why he had come here to West Dorset, escaping from the city of London where he had first found himself when he came to England. Another similarity about this