Gifted and Talented by Wendy Holden Page A

of joyful fascination to Diana, mixed with guilt. She should have insisted Hannah went long ago. The person she was now would never allow someone else to take such a primary role in Rosie’s life, even if money was no object.
    Diana looked carefully about to make sure no tools had been left. She could not afford to lose a single one. Then she walked over to where Rosie was reading in the back of the car.
    Diana’s afternoon had been punctuated by near-constant glances over to the battered blue banger, which contained the single thing most precious in the world to her. But Rosie had not moved.
    ‘You won’t be bored?’ Diana had asked, anxiously.
    ‘I’m OK, Mummy, honestly,’ Rosie said, smiling and shaking her light brown curls. ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ she added reassuringly.
    Rosie had been as good as her word, Diana reflected now. As good as gold. Autumn gold.
    There were a couple of mature beeches overlooking the car park. Diana admired them as she carried the tools towards her car boot. She loved beeches, especially at this time of year, their formerly rich green leaves turning slowly through gold to burnished copper. Sometimes, to show off, one tree did all three at once. Whereas the poor old elms, so stately in the summer, lost their leaves like men lost their hair: the top was the first to go. Simon’s early-onset baldness had been a source of agony to him. Perhaps, Diana reflected, it was that which had made him vulnerable to predatory women. She blinked, recognising a sea change. She had been, up to this point, too angry with her ex-husband to care in the least about his motivation.
    It was getting colder. There was a nip in the air, tweaking the tops of her ears and tightening the end of her nose. Diana felt glad of her hat, however unflattering. What did it matter if only stupid people like the cyclist saw it?
    She opened the boot and placed the tools carefully in. Rosie was sprawled on the back seat placidly reading In The Fifth At Malory Towers . It took some time, even after opening the door and speaking to her several times, to catch her attention.
    Diana got in, her heart sinking slightly at the mess. The front passenger seat was awash with battered cardboard boxes, empty plastic plant pots and plant markers. The days of valeted limousines were over, she reminded herself. And, on the whole, unlamented.
    Apart from in one respect, possibly. It was not enough, Diana thought, that she herself had survived her own change in circumstances. Rosie’s great test was yet to come. None of what had happened was her fault, but was she about to suffer for the folly of her parents?
    Diana could hardly believe how Rosie seemed amazingly happy, in spite of everything. She was sure she must be pretending in some way, and yet, Globe acting lessons notwithstanding, would a nine-year-old be so accomplished a dissembler? Nonetheless, she had worried herself sleepless that Rosie would miss her old lifestyle, her princess bedroom, her riding lessons, her friends and their birthday parties that seemed to get more elaborate and expensive every year. One of the last Rosie had attended involved stretch limos and party bags containing DVDs and Dior make-up.
    More than anything else she had worried about how Rosie would cope with school. It was her first day at her new one, Campion Primary, tomorrow. Diana’s secret terror was that her daughter would be bullied. Would she be picked on for her refined manners and accent? For the fact she had come from a different world?
    Smart’s Preparatory School in West London had occupied a white stucco town house with a portico. Rosie had worn a blazer and a stiff-brimmed straw boater. The school’s website was slick, as was the silver-fox headmaster, whose blog successfully balanced amusing with authoritative. Among Rosie’s fellow pupils, the offspring of media bigwigs, film stars, oligarchs, Cabinet ministers and royalty (both home-grown and European) had been two a penny. The