The day seemed at first as though it would be like any other.Angela watched with mounting irritation as Kate picked up the box of cornflakes and shook it haphazardly in the direction of her Peter Rabbit bowl. The flakes scattered across the table and drifted like autumn leaves onto the floor, there to be ground into fine orange dust. Kate picked up the milk. Angela watched, immobile, as it splashed into the bowl and over the brim, onto the table and down over the edge and onto the floor in a thin white stream. Without speaking, Angela stood up, went to the sink, picked up the cloth and began to clean up the mess. Kate chewed impassively, swallowed, and grinned peaceably at her.

"You're very messy" Angela told her.

"I know. That's what Miss Bannister says".

"She's right". Not completely stupid then, Angela thought, visualising Miss Bannister with her pierced nose and gormless beige eyes. It was not just that Kate was messy, she reflected. She had a sort of generalised clumsiness, a lack of affinity with the material world, as if it and she were constantly engaged in some kind of battle for supremacy. Angela found it intensely irritating. Although when she thought about it Peter was the same, always tripping over himself and dropping things. But when he did it she found it endearing, charming. Or at least she used to. She sighed as she pushed Kate's unyielding arms into her coat. She missed him. It was pointless, missing people, and it wasted energy, but she couldn't stop doing it.

"Stuck" she said, and Kate said "What?" but Angela did not answer.

Leaving Kate at the school entrance, she kissed her especially warmly to assuage her feelings of guilt. It was the day before half term started and Kate looked tired. She had found school difficult at first, but then life was difficult, Angela thought, and Kate was bright and resilient. She had soon made friends. Angela was relieved about this. Kate had been so devastated when Peter left. But then, so had she. The circular thoughts began again in her head; his smile, the way his hair looked when he had just woken up, his crooked front tooth. Stop it, stop it, she said to herself. It's hopeless, it's pointless. And then the worst thought, the nagging one she could not chase away - what if the other baby had lived? Would he still be around? He had never really wanted children, too much of a child himself to give over much of himself to other people, but when she told him she was pregnant the first thing he had said was 'Hope it's a boy'. And when she told him it was twins, he just said. 'That doubles our chances then.' He had always referred to the babies as 'him' and when she reminded him that they might be girls, or one of each, he had just laughed. But Angela knew, because she asked at her second scan. She kept it secret from him. That was destructive in itself, she supposed, secrets in a marriage. Stupid. Anyway he was gone and living with a blonde bimbo with a drink problem. And I wish them joy of each other, Angela thought as she shut the front door behind her. But she was crying by the time she got into the kitchen. She sat down at the table and put her head in her arms and felt helpless and abandoned. It had gone on and on, the boy fantasy. 'We'll call one of them Edmund' Peter had said one evening. She still remembered the sound of her voice as she said 'Edmund? Why Edmund?'. 'It's a good English name' Peter said, ' a noble name. For a noble child'. He was drunk, of course. He usually was by that time in the evening, by that time in their marriage. He was away when the babies were born. They came three weeks early and Peter had gone on a fishing trip. By the time he got back, his son was dead. When he came into the ward he just looked at the single, tiny baby in her cot. Angela still remembered the coldness in his eyes. Then he said 'Is this it, then?' She knew then that it was only a matter of time. She found out later that he had not been fishing at all, or at least not for fish. He had spent the weekend with the bimbo. Her bleached hairs were all over his jacket. And a few days later, floundering in a sea of crashing hormones, Angela heard herself say 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry it wasn't the other way round'. She cried for a long time after that, and a few months later Peter moved out. He still came round occasionally to see Kate, and she seemed to like his visits, but it was not the same.

After half an hour or so Angela stood up and made herself a cup of coffee. I need more to do, she thought, then I wouldn't have time to mope about like this, I need a job. Peter was generous with money and she did not have to find a job to support them, which was something, she supposed. But it would not go on for ever. The bimbo might want a baby of her own - Angela shut her eyes tight but the images would not go away. Them in bed, him kissing her. She had heard people say that emotional pain could be physical. They talked of their hearts aching, breaking. She had never understood it before. But now I do, she thought. The times she had driven past their flat, desperate, wanting to plead with him,sometimes just longing to see him. Surely if he knew how unhappy she was he would come back. He was not a cruel man. She told herself this, but another part of her knew it wasn't true. He did have a streak of cruelty, and a streak is all it takes to inflict havoc, torment, misery, on others. And he had shown her a depth of unhappiness in herself that she had not known was there. Like a deep wound, it was healing slowly. Sometimes it hardly hurt at all now. But there were still days when it paralysed her, when everything reminded her of him, when she thought of murder or suicide. Mad with grief. Strange how these phrases, which sound melodramatic when others say them, become so real when they happen to you. She drank her coffee and then went out into the garden and weeded and dug the plants into submission until it was time to go and pick up Kate from school.

Working in the bright September air revived her, and she felt better as she walked to school. The leaves were falling, the sun was shining. Perhaps things were not too bad after all. Kate was standing at the school railings, her coat neatly buttoned, her outdoor shoes closely buckled. There was a little boy with her. One of her new friends, Angela thought.

Kate came out, the boy's hand in hers, and Angela bent to kiss her. To her surprise, the little boy put a small soft hand on her cheek and kissed her too. She looked at him. He had brown eyes fringed with very long, very black lashes, a short straight nose and a perfect cupid's bow mouth. He was very pretty and looked very much like Kate.

'Hello, Mummy' he said. And Kate said 'This is Edmund, Mummy. He's my brother, he's coming home with us now.'

'Don't be silly' Angela said. 'Let's go and find his Mummy'.

The little boy had taken her hand. He looked anxious. 'But you're my Mummy'.

'No'- Angela looked desperately round the playground, but it was completely empty. The grey tarmac loomed at her. Helplessly, she grasped the boy's hand in hers, and then Kate's hand, Kate's warm familiar female hand, and strode, with them attached to her like stabilisers, into the school.

Miss Bannister was in her classroom. It was a shambles as usual. Miss Bannister, pushing her long greasy hair out of her eyes as usual, was stacking paint pots at the sink.

Angela cleared her throat.

'Hello, Miss Bannister', she managed to croak. 'I was wondering if Edmund's Mummy was here? By any chance?'

Miss Bannister looked at her blankly for a second, then laughed merrily.

''He's done brilliantly!' she said. 'Starting a bit later than Kate doesn't really seem to have made any difference. But then, they are twins - we often find that -'

Angela tried to form her features into a socially acceptable mould.

'A very well adjusted little boy. A credit to you.' and she turned back to the paint jars. Angela looked at Edmund. He beamed calmly back and squeezed her hand. Kate beamed too.

'Oh well' said Angela ' we may as well go home'.

"Have a lovely half-term" said Miss Bannister, without looking round.

Kate hated milk, but Edmund asked if they had any in the house and if not, could they stop at the shop and buy some please? They did, and it turned out that Edmund liked semi-skimmed, which was what Angela always bought anyway. The children both came into the shop with her, and stood holding hands while she bought the milk. Angela stole covert looks at Edmund as he stood there solidly beaming. He looked happy. Healthy, too, she noticed. His hair shone, his skin glowed. He was lovely. But where on earth has he come from, she wondered. What am I going to do with him? What she did was buy some marshmallow biscuits and hot chocolate, and put both her children into the back of the car, and take them home.

Kate went into the living room as soon as they got home and switched on the TV. Edmund followed. He seemed to know where everything was. They sat down together on the sofa and linked hands again. Angela made hot chocolate for the three of them and put biscuits on a plate. There were some messages on the answering machine, she noticed, but she ignored them and sat down with the children.

"Edmund - " she began. Edmund put down his mug and looked at her, cocoa fringing his upper lip like a moustache. "Yes, Mummy?" he said. "You - where were you before you came here?". "Nowhere" he said. "I've always been here". "But - I haven't seen you before". His eyes were very deep, very brown. "Yes", he said, "you have. Don't you remember?" He took a biscuit and resumed drinking his hot chocolate. Kate looked round. She looked very happy, happier than since Peter had left. "It's nice, isn't it", she said "now Edmund's here with us?" "Yes" Angela heard herself say. "It is".

The evening passed. Things had changed utterly, but everything seemed right. She made a chicken casserole and broccoli, which the children ate enthusiastically, chatting to each other all the time. After tea they found a jigsaw and did that for a while, then they looked at books together. Angela bathed them and they sang and splashed together in the bath, perfectly content. Angela made up the bed in the spare room, but they wanted to be in the same room, so she blew up the Lilo and made a cosy bed for Edmund on the floor. She could hear them chatting until late. She opened some wine and sat on the sofa alone, listening to the peaceful sound of their voices. She felt vaguely that there was something she should do, but couldn't think what it could be. Everything was allright, wasn't it? But this doesn't happen, she told herself, this isn't real. How can he just appear out of nowhere like this - who is he? She tried to stay awake and work it all out somehow, but she felt exhausted and as soon as she got into bed she fell instantly and deeply asleep and didn't wake up until the children came into her room the next morning.

It was the first morning for a long time that she hadn't thought first of Peter. She always imagined him waking up next to the bimbo. Did he make her a cup of tea in the morning as he had always done for Angela? Was it just anybody he wanted? Sometimes she thought that was how men were - they just wanted a body next to them. Preferably a quiet, undemanding body.How can love die? Your love for your children doesn't die, does it? It was nice not to have those tormenting thoughts. Instead she thought of Edmund. Peter would like him, she thought. I should tell him he's got a son. But she knew that that wasn't possible. Not really. And anyway she wanted to keep Edmund for herself. He and Kate were standing together at the bedroom door.

"Edmund would like Rice Krispies, but I would like Shreddies" Kate said.

"Fine" said Angela. "We've got both". Everything seemed easy and right. She felt better than she had for months. She got out of bed and her body did not feel heavy and half-dead as it usually did, but easy, flexible, alive. "I'd forgotten" she said to the children "how it feels to be happy". They smiled together. "When's your birthday, Edmund?" she asked. "November the twenty-third" he answered instantly. "The same as Kate's".

"Of course" said Angela. "Silly me". So they really are twins, she thought. He really is mine. She picked him up and held him for the first time, kissed him, pushed back his hair from his smooth forehead, and saw a tiny birthmark high on his forehead. A sharp memory overwhelmed her and she nearly dropped him, concentrated on putting him down carefully. The baby boy had had one just the same. So it was him. But people don't come back from -

"What shall we do today?" Kate asked. She always liked to plan her day, took as much pleasure from planning as from doing. "Well - we could go to the park." "Yes - and we could go for a pizza". This was Kate's favourite treat. "Have you got any cars?" Edmund asked. "Toy cars?" Kate thought. "No, not really," she said "we haven't got any boy's toys. But we could go to the toy-shop, couldn't we Mummy?" "Of course" said Angela. Of course her new son must have some new toys. She would buy some for him, she couldn't wait.

So that was their first day together. The toy-shop, the park and then a pizza. Home for some TV, some dinner, a story and then bed. Angela felt as though she had finally got somewhere she didn't even know she was going to. A happy family, a happy life. There was nothing missing. After she had put the twins to bed she sat alone, drinking a glass of wine, and realised she hadn't thought about Peter all day. He didn't seem to matter any more. She left the answering machine to wink away by itself. It wasn't important. She felt complete, enclosed, happy. Someone rang the doorbell, but she didn't bother to answer. They rang again, then went away. Suits me, she thought. I've got everything I need now. She had no fear of loss.

She was in a deep, dreamless sleep when she woke suddenly, aware that there was someone in the bedroom. "Mummy?" Edmund said. "Can I come into your bed?" She moved the duvet for him to get under it. This was something she had never done with Kate, but now it felt right. She put her arms around him. He wore new pyjamas which they had bought that day, and smelt clean and boyish. He lay close to her, quite still.

"Daddy went, didn't he" he said. "Was it because of me?" Angela felt as though she were still dreaming. "No" she said. "It was me. You weren't here then". "That's what I mean" he said. In the darkness everything seemed possible. "I had to be somewhere else" he said and Angela said "Where?" "I can't remember now" he said, and then slept, curled against her like part of her flesh. When she woke up he was gone, and she felt instant, total panic, and ran into Kate's room. But it was allright. He was asleep on his lilo bed, peaceful and warm. The second day was much like the first, but there was something strange. They went to the park again, and as they were leaving Angela heard someone calling them. It was her friend Lucy. She came over, said hello, talked to Angela and Kate. Quite normal, really. Except that she didn't speak to Edmund, didn't seem to see him. Angela brushed this quite easily to another part of her mind, the part that dealt with things later. And by the time they got home, she had forgotten all about it. Nothing was a problem. They had fish for tea, then she read them Hansel and Gretel. Kate didn't like the witch, but Edmund said "It's just pretend. And anyway, if we got lost in a wood I'd look after you". "I feel as though I've been lost in a wood" Angela heard herself say, but they just smiled and went to fetch another book. Angela watched Edmund as he looked through the books, choosing one for her to read to them. She felt as though she were falling in love. He filled up an empty part of her that she hadn't even realised was there. "I love you" she said as they came back and sat on either side of her. "I love you both so much". She felt euphoric, could not remember ever feeling so perfectly happy.Perhaps I'm going mad, she thought, but she didn't feel mad. She felt complete and healed up and as though she could deal with anything. She thought briefly about Peter and acknowledged for the first time that he was not going to come back and that even if he wanted to, she no longer wanted him. What had been between them was finally finished and she could lay it to rest. Laying ghosts, she thought, then pushed the word out of her mind, together with Lucy in the park and the winking messages on the machine. Live for now, she said to herself, live for now.

On the third day it was raining and they stayed in. Angela felt strange, as though she was waiting for something. The children were happy as usual, playing, chattering, never arguing. When she put them to bed Edmund said goodnight in what had become the usual way, but when Angela shut the bedroom door she knew with utter finality that she would never see him again. She did not feel sad. It was the way things were, the way they had to be.

And in the morning life went on in the same old way, but everything had changed.