A Game of Proof by Tim Vicary Page B

gauche and unassertive. Where Kevin had been a ravenous, demanding, insatiable lover Bob was gentle, sensitive, almost shy. He was also idealistic. He was fascinated not by Sarah’s body, as Kevin had been, but by her story. It seemed to him she had lived a whole novel by the age of eighteen. Her hard work and determination to succeed reflected something in himself; her disastrous circumstances challenged him to help her.
    If she married him, he would adopt Simon too. It was the right thing to do.
    And so it might have been, too, if they hadn’t had Emily.
    Not that Emily was a mistake, of course not, Sarah told herself, as she turned her bike onto the quiet country road that led to home. The mistake had been having her so soon after they married. While Bob’s relationship with Simon, his project to demonstrate the benefits of having a teacher for a stepfather, had only just begun. Of course Bob tried to be fair and kind to Simon but his enormous delight at Emily’s birth had been obvious to everyone. Especially to the troubled little boy, who had just come back to live with the mother who had abandoned him, and now had a new baby. And this strange, bearded man who wanted to teach him things.
    Perhaps if we’d waited a year, Sarah wondered sadly. Would that have made the difference? Or were the difficulties in his genes? Simon was Kevin’s son; that had become clearer the older he got. But he was hers too - if only he’d wanted to learn from her and Bob, instead of defying them as he always had. But now he was nineteen and had left home. He had his own life to lead, his own mistakes to make. There was no more she could do.
    Whereas Emily and Bob were at home, waiting for her impatiently. Sarah pushed her guilt about Simon into a drawer at the back of her mind, and closed it. For the moment, Emily and Bob were more important. And things were not going particularly well with them, either.
    As she approached home Sarah saw Bob’s Volvo parked in the drive. When Sarah had first seen this house three years ago she had thought it entrancing. It was a detached modern house, in half an acre of its own grounds. It had a lawn and a golden Robinia tree in front. But it was the back that was its real glory. The spacious rooms had large picture windows which opened onto a fifty metre lawn which sloped away towards a meadow with grazing cows the far side of a little gate. Beyond the meadow was a footpath and willow trees on the banks of the river, and beyond that again, more meadows and the church of a distant village whose bells they could hear on Sunday mornings. Socially it was as far from Seacroft as you could get.
    With Sarah earning fees for the first time and Bob just having become a head teacher they took a deep breath, an enormous loan, and joined the middle classes.
    Or at least, Sarah, Bob and Emily did.
    Simon hated it from the start. He had been sixteen then, beginning his last year at school. The new house meant long bus journeys, and hassle when he wanted to meet his friends. To him it was the final proof that he meant less to his mother than her own lust for success. Two years later he moved into a small terraced house in town, the deposit paid by Sarah and Bob.
    The loss of Simon twitched in Simon’s mind daily, like the nerves from a missing limb. He was the family ghost, the casualty of her conflict with Kevin.
    She parked her bike in the garage, and walked into the dining room. Bob was in his shirt sleeves, eating baked beans and reading the paper. Emily was nowhere to be seen
    ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Anything for me?’
    ‘Beans in the warmer,’ Bob answered, frowning. ‘You’ve got ten minutes.’
    ‘Why ten minutes?’
    ‘Emily’s concert. She’s got to be there by eight fifteen. Or have you forgotten?’
    ‘Oh Christ!’ She went into the hall and began to peel off her boots and leather trousers. The trousers snagged in her tights, pulling them half down too, and as she struggled, bent over, Emily