Chapter One
The Table That Would Not Fit
The table had survived three decades of dinners and the end of Mara's marriage. It was not going to survive her front door.
"If we turn it," Nessa said.
"We have turned it."
"The other way."
They stood at opposite ends of the thing, considering a third direction in which to be defeated. One padded corner rested against the frame. The legs were in the courtyard, the tabletop was in the hall and Mara's entire new life appeared to be waiting behind it for permission to begin.
The two men who had brought her furniture had taken the last boxes inside and gone back for their van. They had offered to try again. Mara had said she and her daughter would look at it first, a sentence she was beginning to regret. Her arms ached. There was dust on Nessa's cheek. Across the courtyard a window opened, then closed, with the discretion of someone who intended to watch from indoors.
"Your father measured it," Mara said.
"He measured the room."
"That was thoughtful. I shall put the room outside."
Nessa laughed, and for a moment Mara could bear the table. She knew every mark on it. The pale ring near one corner had been made by a flowerpot. A dark crescent along the edge came from Nessa's childhood experiments with clay. At its centre there was a scratch left by an anniversary platter, put down too hard during an argument neither Mara nor Hugh could later remember. She had spent years covering these things for visitors. Now they seemed to be all the table was good for.
