On my wedding night I hid under the bed to surprise my husband. His mother came in instead, sat down on the mattress above me, and put a call

He sat in a solicitor’s office in the November and said, out loud, in front of that solicitor, that a woman should always have something of her own.

I cried in the car afterwards.

I believed it was love. It was a plan

with a solicitor as a witness.

PART 2
Lorna took another drag and said: she’s so easy to manage.

She said: that shabby little flat she took me to was pathetic.

My father is an engineer.

I have never told Lorna what kind. He is chief architect for one of the largest aerospace contractors in this country and he has been for nineteen years.

That shabby little flat belonged to my late grandmother. Two  bedrooms, third floor, a kitchen that has not been touched since 1988.