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Talking of whom, where has she gone? She's left her magazine and cup on the seat under the plum tree. I'd better go and make some kind of peace with her. Tonight, Aunt Laetitia's trunk…

18
MAY
2003 –
LONDON
–
GLASGOW TRAIN

Well, Daddy's account of Aunt Laetitia didn't offer any new insight. I have her diary and the letters from Harry I found in the trunk last night spread out in front of me here. As things stand, the two brief letters I've read so far don't reveal much more: the address, 15 Larchfield Road in London; date: 19 Sept. 1915. Then –

Dearest Laetitia (that gave me such a strange feeling!),

I have at last recovered sufficiently from our European adventure to risk reaching out to you again…

They must really have fallen out in the end.

…
I write to ask if you would be willing to meet with me to try, in some small way, to re-establish our relations on a more friendly footing, away from the baleful influence of the ‘arrangement' we lived by in Florence. I had thought that, should you agree, we might choose somewhere public and open, such as Kew Gardens, and see how we go from there.

And it ends –

I await your reply, and remain forever

Your loving Harry

There's no indication of whether or not the meeting happened, no surviving entry in Laetitia's diary around that time, just a few ragged edges near the spine. Then, in another letter, dated 14 October 1915, two lines and a photograph:

Mr Haldane, the young American we met in Florence, sent me this photograph taken in Fiesole. I thought you might like to have it. H.

The photo is not particularly clear. It shows two women sitting at a table on a terrace in dappled sunshine. The one in the foreground is smiling from under a wide-brimmed hat, squinting a little, her face turned up to the sun; the other, further back, is almost totally obscured by the shadows of leaves. On the back of the photo are the words: ‘Laetitia Gardener, Fiesole, April 1915'. The writing is Harry's, same as the letters, same neat hand from the dedication in the notebook. It's fascinating trying to cross-reference the letters with the journal, ‘read' the ripped out pages, guess at the mysterious ‘arrangement'. Unbearably tantalizing! How odd
to erase sections of one's life like that. I should think one would want to hold on to all of it, especially the parts one can't expose to the public gaze. Perhaps she foresaw that someone from the future would rummage about in her personal writings, pore over her private papers, ferret out her secrets. Had she known it to be her namesake, would it have made a difference? Why won't you tell ME, your greatgreat-niece, Laetitia? Will you mind very much if I find you out? Before we parted, Daddy said he would try and find out some more information about Laetitia.

18 JULY 2003 – GLASGOW

Bright sun again today, not particularly hot, I'm told, but I'm finding it close to unbearable, what with the traffic fumes and the migrainey shimmer above the cars. Silvio's wasn't much better, the hiss of steam from the espresso maker apt soundtrack to my discomfort. So, back in the cool of the flat, before the sun moves round and makes sitting in the window impossible.

Another dream last night, like most nights since I came back from London in May. This time, the action has moved on; it's more like a half-submerged memory. I need to nail it before the baby comes. So here goes…

The point disappears soundlessly in the soft fur between the legs. There is a sudden stink: blood, raw meat. A hand works quickly to withdraw the knife, lay it on the bench. In the dusty light a flash of the blade. Pink fluid oozes from the slit in the body, as fingers probe the lips of the wound and pull apart. More pink revealed. I am unprepared for the
WHACKWHACK
! of the cleaver. My eyes are level with the edge of the bench and I blink and blink. The furry feet set aside look wrong; white knuckles of bone gleam. When I turn to you again, you are pulling the skin like socks off
stumps of limbs, folding the fur back on itself along the hare's body, rip, ripping it away from the naked flesh. Why are you taking his jumper off? I ask. The skin reaches the front of the body, stops at the base of the skull. WHACK! goes the cleaver again and the head is off. You toss it by an ear to the side of the bench from where one dead eye regards me. The neck is ragged, trailing strings of blood, Two more whacks then silence. I stare at the naked body, the glistening headless doll…

I sat up with a cry and Julian held me. Shh, shh, it's OK, it's OK. Was it that pesky wabbit again? Shh, it's alright. And so we added another to my list of theoretical frameworks to tame the beast: Looney Tunes. Elmer Fudd gets lucky and bags Bugs Bunny. That's all, folks!

By the time I calmed down, we were fully awake. Julian lit a roll-up. He'd avoided the discussion till now, but this time when I asked what we should call the baby, he said, If it's a girl, she could be Florence after the place of her immaculate conception. And if it's a boy? I ask. Let's see what Joyce has to offer, he says. He jumps naked out of bed, takes down
Ulysses
from the shelf, opens it at random and reads off a list of names. I remember some of them: Goodman, Simon, Blazes Boylan, Horatio Nelson, Theobald Matthew… That's just the first two paragraphs, he says and reads out another list, ending with: Dedalus, Dignam, Bloom. He looks up and smiles, See, a rich crop! Never fails. Any among that lot tickle your fancy?

How about Matthew? I say.

I favour Dedalus myself. What do
you
say? He puts his ear to my belly and the baby kicks hard. He agrees, Julian says. Unequivocally!

Danny came in at that point in my musings and turned on the TV. Dr David Kelly, the Iraq weapons expert, has been
found dead. There are pictures of an area of woods, cordoned off with crime tape, and a stricken Tony Blair disembarks from a plane in Tokyo. Now the shit will really hit the fan, Danny said. Will it? I said. Action and events, things happening, are unimaginable to me now; the world has stopped for me till the baby's born.

27 JULY 2003 – QUEEN MOTHER'S HOSPITAL, GLASGOW

My baby boy was born at 3.00 a.m. He's asleep in the Perspex crib beside my bed. So much black hair – such a red face. So beautiful! Quiet now among the white beds after the clamour of birth. Julian fetched my journal so I could record it. The night nurse is reading in the nurses' station opposite. Earlier, Danny and Jed brought flowers. Danny had a tear in his eye, I know he did, called the baby ‘Wee Man'. How you doin, Wee Man? Julian's gone back to the flat for a sleep – white as a ghost after staying with me through labour. He has bruises on his arms where I

9
NOVEMBER
2003 –
KELVIN QUADRANT, GLASGOW

A long gap since the last entry – no time, what with Matthew and getting our new place ready. And now I have
two
journals to choose from. Funny my lost one turning up on the day we moved out of the flat. It was behind some books on the shelves in our room. How it got there, I can't imagine. I stopped among the packing cases for half an hour to look through it. It's as if it belongs to someone else, someone in a different age. I blushed to read my preoccupations before Matthew was born. It's so strange to think that's the person I was less than a year ago; even stranger to transport myself to a world without Matthew, in which his cry had never sounded, the cry round which my entire existence now revolves. A chill came over me at that
moment, kneeling on the floor in the flat, with the light dying at the window. I was struck by an unbearable longing to hold him close and rock him and feel the weight of his little body in my arms. But I couldn't. He was at Peter and Maeve's. I got hold of myself and the feeling passed, but not without a surge of resentment towards P. and M. Unfair. They have been incredibly kind, looking after him for us. And the best of it is, they never made it seem like an imposition; they so delight in Matthew, that it's rather as if we were the ones doing
them
the favour.
Sometimes I
wonder if they

When I think of my hesitation in taking up their offer! I don't know
what
I expected that first day; some ghastly high rise with broken lifts and graffiti and used needles abandoned on the stairs. But their house is warm and comfortable – a good close, as Maeve said. There's plenty in the scheme not so good, but this stair's not bad. Danny was there to introduce us and he stood back smiling when Maeve took Mattie from me. I found myself swaying in unison with her, as she rocked him, cooing, his little red face peeping out from under his hat, his eyes squeezed shut. Your mammy can't take her eyes off you, she said to him. No she canny. And it was true. I liked her immediately. She has a faded version of Clare's red hair, dyed a kind of strawberry blonde to hide the grey, and Danny's green eyes almost, though more of a blue-green. And when she looks at you, she has a level gaze that could cut through any bullshit. A little unnerving. She's obviously very close to Danny too. I was slightly anxious the atmosphere would change when Peter came in, but I needn't have worried. Danny and he have clearly arrived at some sort of workable truce. He was quiet that first day, Peter, quite formal when we were introduced, more reticent than Maeve, I thought. But since then, it's an
absolute joy to watch him with Mattie. He walks about the floor with him and sings him funny little Glasgow songs, as well as Van Morrison and other golden oldies.
I sometimes
wish

Clare is the only source of tension in the house now, the only fly in the ointment. Most of the time she keeps to her room, but occasionally she doesn't escape soon enough when I turn up to drop Matthew off, and it's obvious she's miserable. The whole family is very edgy around her, since she didn't sit her English exam in May and consequently ruined her chances of going to university this year, despite doing rather well in her other subjects. She dug her heels in and left school, with no plans to sit the exam next time round. Now she seems to do nothing but mope around the house all day.

14
DECEMBER
2003 –
KELVIN QUADRANT, GLASGOW

Mattie asleep, fitfully; teething I think, his cheek red. Julian gone to buy him some rusks and a ‘playstation', as he calls it – a ‘command centre' of spinning, clacking, rattling coloured plastic – for his Christmas!

A letter from Daddy today – not coming back before the end of the year after all. Still hasn't seen Matthew.

Saddam Hussein captured, hauled from a hole in the ground in Tikrit, bearded and filthy. Americans cock-a-hoop.

12
APRIL
2004 –
SILVIO'S CAFÉ

Haven't been in here for
ages
. Danny taking Mattie for a walk in his buggy in the hope the movement will induce a nap. A chance to catch up with myself before Julian comes. Coffee and a scone, I think. So tired. Mattie up again most of last night. Not even Maeve could get him to sleep last time he was there and she's the champion. Nearly puts
me
to sleep
with her rocking and crooning! Met her sister Patsy on Thursday. No mistaking
she's
from the same family – a mass of red curls, pale skin, dark blue eyes. She and Clare were deep in conversation when I arrived – they could easily be sisters – till Maeve introduced me. Clare scuttled off to her room then as usual, leaving the real sisters to argue over who got to hold Mattie first!

US began bombing Falluja on Good Friday. Happy Easter, from the civilized Christian West!

15
JULY
2004 –
KELVIN QUADRANT, GLASGOW

Less than two weeks till Matt's first birthday – can't believe it! It's passed in a flash at the same time as feeling like eternity. How does that work? Thank God he's sleeping better now – I'm starting to feel vaguely human again. Dug out Aunt Laetitia's journal once more, determined to get to the bottom of it. Read it cover to cover this time; realized I
had
actually seen it all before, I just didn't feel as though I had. Not surprising, given the removal of half its pages – kept having the sensation I was just missing something. But I was right first time round – mainly art criticism, travelogue stuff, a quest for the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi. Nothing more about Harry. A mystery. A closed book. Daddy still hasn't found out anything about Laetitia – or at any rate, hasn't sent me it.

Round at the old flat yesterday, all of us glued to Jed's giant TV for the Butler Report. Talk about Teflon Tony! Hutton, now Butler. Couldn't stay till the end – Mattie was crawling around, ‘into everything', as Maeve puts it. Danny's done a great job holding back the tide of grunge, but there are still too many hazards in a flat geared towards starting the revolution!

*

23
OCTOBER
2004 –
SILVIO'S GLASGOW

Waiting for Danny to bring Mattie down from the flat when he wakes up. He sent me off for coffee and a chance to read my letter from Daddy again properly, without Matt grabbing for it. Typical Daddy – he writes me a letter instead of phoning. He's had to cancel his visit again – or rather,
postpone
it, he says. But he's sent information about Aunt Laetitia – as a softener, no doubt. So let me get it down here.

… Laetitia was a leading light in the suffragette movement, an embarrassment to the family, with all her banner-waving and unladylike activities. She narrowly avoided disinheritance by marrying well at the eleventh hour – some silly sod who was besotted with her, Lord James Gregory by name. Marriage only lasted four years – or rather Lord James did; he died suddenly, done in, so the story goes, by his helpless adoration of the beautiful but difficult Laetitia Gardener. (See photo enc.)

The photo is of them on their wedding day in 1921; L. in flapper gear, cloche hat, dark bob, looks straight at the camera, a determined set to her jaw, striking rather than beautiful. Lord James, in some sort of military get-up, has failed to watch the dickybird; his face is a soft blur, though the angle of light reflected in his eyes suggests he's gazing fondly down on his bride.