February 16th-19th 2004

"Mummy!!!! Guess what! I saw Daddy on the TV and he fighted lions!!"

Lily ran through with the TV remote in her hand, wielding it like a short sword. Pulling it from her, I went into the lounge. She had managed to access some satellite channel showing *Gladiator. "They are tigers, not lions.' I answered in a daze. What would we say to her when she was older? When she saw all the films? Jesus Christ- what kind of freaks were we?

"This isn't a children's channel. Let's find some cartoons, hey?"

"NO! I want to see Daddy. He fighted the lions. It was funny."

"Lily. It isn't Daddy. It's a man like him," I lied.

She looked at me curiously. "Roma est! picturas vidi!" (It's Rome! I saw the pictures!) Her sudden shift to Latin stunned me. She had seen pictures. We had bought her a little children's book of ancient Rome and Maximus had shown it to her one night and spoken of it in Latin. She had made the connection. Ridley Scott had a lot to answer for.

I wriggled out of it with the usual parental get out. "Ask your father when he gets home."

Turning off the TV, telling her it was tired and needed a rest (not sure how much longer I can get her to accept that one) I settled her down in the kitchen while I carried on preparing dinner. Lily was playing with a doll, a towel and an empty box. I think she was looking after her baby. I marveled that I had already so signally failed to make my daughter a liberated woman. At that moment to my annoyance the doorbell rang. Wiping my hands on the towel, I made my way to the front door. Terry Thorne.

"Terry!"

"Uma! Where's my girlfriend?" He grinned and Lily came peeping round me. A scream of "Unca Terry!' and she threw herself at him; he picked her up, upended her and dunked her inches from the ground. She was in her element. Without missing a beat, he raised her gently and held her from him shaking his head.

"Again!" She shouted.

He shook his head some more. "What's this? My girlfriend - and she doesn't even get dressed up when I come round? Here...better wear this..." He tucked her under one arm and pulled a gift from his pocket, wrapped neatly in bright paper. It had been her birthday last week. I was amazed that he knew.

By now, she was an expert in presents. He lowered her to the floor where she sat cross- legged and ripped off the paper. Inside was a T- shirt. Yellow and green. Australian rugby shirt aged 3 years. "I got it a big bigger. She seems tall for her age..."

Lily simply stripped to her knickers and asked him to put it on. I said that I would do it. She said. "NO! Terry do!"

"Bet it's a while since you've dressed a woman as opposed to undressed her," I grinned saucily.

"Reckon it's a first, actually," he replied with a glint in his eye. But he dressed her and she stood there with an overlarge rugby shirt on and thought she was the bees' knees. Terry zipped opened his leather jacket and iced her cake; he had on a man's sized identical shirt. She was beside herself with joy.

"Happy Birthday, Lily!" Terry said. Lily preened. I gloated.

"Thanks a lot, Terry," I whispered.

"My pleasure. At least she'll never wear a British Lion now...I have struck my revenge for Oz."

I love that guy. 

One of my ex-colleagues rang from the Museum. There was a stellar short-term contract being advertised. She said they all wanted me to go for it. Major world tour of the Vindolanda Letters. It was mine if I applied. Curtin was going for it.

"I can't. How can I leave Lily?"

"Look -it's a couple of trips tops. Your Mum. Get an au pair. Ask your gorgeous husband to take some leave and do his bit....Uma, you have to do this!!! It's six months' at the outside but will raise your name all over the world. New York, Paris, Rome, Munich, Madrid...they will want to publish a book of the tour...your name fronting it...don't be an idiot...this is yours..."

I rang off and had a think. I had said next year. He had promised me that. I could do this and keep my hand in and then I would give him what he wanted. Another child. It was the perfect compromise. I rang her back and got all the details. It seemed I had to make a rush application. The deadline was in two days. I spent the next day feverishly assembling my CV and letter of application and emailed it with my fingers crossed. Immediate response. Interview on Friday.

Lily had been two on February 10th. A week or so later we had an unexpected guest come calling. Right out of the blue, Isobel Aubrey turned up. It seems Jack was out of the country with Stephen and she was at a bit of a loose end in London. She had remembered it was my daughter's birthday and had brought her a gift. It was a fairy outfit- a little rainbow dress with lots of netting, sparkly tiara and magic wand. Lily was in her element and spent the whole afternoon casting spells on us and running about like a mad thing. She is such a girl.

We took tea in the lounge and caught up on gossip- Isobel told me about her exotic honeymoon in the Virgin Islands and waxed at length about how happy she was and what a man Jack was and the usual gushing talk of a young bride. I smiled to hear that things were going so well- I knew she must be missing her husband now that they had been separated for the first time.

"Enough about me now! What's new with you? How are things with you and your handsome husband?"

"Fine. We're still thinking about a second child but haven't actually done anything about it yet."

"What no sex? How do you keep your hands off him?"

I chuckled. "I didn't say that. Plenty of sex- Maximus has a healthy appetite for most things, but I mean I'm still on the pill. But he is circling. I don't know how long I can hold out, really."

Isobel nodded. "I remember you saying how much he wanted a son. Now I hate to be presumptuous, but I brought something for you that might be just what you need. It's an old family recipe." She pulled a little parcel wrapped in soft tissue paper from her purse. I opened it and found a sort of locket made of woven herbs and dried flowers.

"What is it exactly?" I asked, a bit sceptical.

"Just an old wives' thing, but so many of these ancient folk remedies have been found to work for some scientific reason or another in the modern age. You're supposed to tuck it beneath your mattress on the side where you sleep, and it's supposed to help you conceive a son. Another mixture will work for a daughter. I have no idea how it works but my mother swears by it. And hey, it can't hurt, right? I'll probably have one under my pillow soon enough..."

"A charm for a boy? Are you joking? Shouldn't it be underneath his side of the bed then- after all, he's the one with the X and Y chromosomes! I keep trying to explain that to him but he's hard to shift - he can't quite see how he can have any female parts."

We both had a giggle at that. "Well, I think the assumption is that when you're at it, he will most likely be on your side of the bed. Give it a try - you never know!"

I gave her a dubious look. "OK, I'll give it a whirl. I'll tuck it under now so that it can start warming up for the big event. When Maximus gets the big ballista out and goes for broke..."

At that we both cracked up and a fair amount of smutty girl talk followed until Lily came back crying because the star on her wand had fallen off. We were patching that up when the front door opened and Maximus came unexpectedly back home early. His face when he walked in on us was a picture; he was so rude the way he stared at Isobel.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. Isobel blushed and looked really hurt by his remark.

"She came to see me and brought Lily a birthday present," I answered defensively. The pair eyed each other up. It was very awkward.

"Perhaps I should make another pot of tea?" I asked to change the subject. Maximus jumped on that.

"Yes, a good idea...go and make something in the kitchen. I would like a word with Isobel - alone."

I was so angry with him to be dismissed like that but there wasn't much I could say in front of her without really showing him up- even if he deserved it. I took Lily's hand and we withdrew to the kitchen, but I made sure he saw the daggers' look that I threw his way.

I have no idea what happened when we were put of the room - Maximus refused to discuss it later- but Isobel left very suddenly afterwards with a curt farewell. I was furious with him but he would not engage in a discussion, putting on his tight-lipped face and countenancing nothing that I said. I stormed off and took the charm that she had given me, placed it by her instructions under the mattress where I slept and didn't speak to him all evening. Sometimes he can be such a pompous ass.

Maximus stayed in the study all evening working on some report; I watched TV desultorily. I went to bed alone, pretended to read awhile and then snapped off the light. It was the interview tomorrow and I should have discussed it with him by now. But I was so bloody angry with him.

He is such a dickhead at times. What is this crazy idea he has about Isobel? What on earth has she ever done to him? Once he gets an idea in his head he is simply stupid about it; he will not be shaken or listen to reason. He thinks he is always right about everything. He is a man so he must know best. Jesus Christ- how did I get myself into this place? I will not let him dictate to me....

Thoughts whirled through my mind and I got myself into a state of real temper, winding myself up until I was ready to believe that I was going to pack my bags and walk out and...he walked into the bedroom. I feigned sleep, still seething as he got ready for bed and threw himself in beside me, making no attempt to be quiet. That annoyed me again. I mean, I know I was not asleep...but he didn't know that, did he? He is so selfish...

"Uma...are you awake?"

I did not answer. He rolled over and pulled me against him; I shrugged his touch away.

"Uma...this is ridiculous...we cannot let this woman get between us..."

"She hasn't. She is a perfectly respectable woman whom you are being unreasonable about..."

"So you are awake? Good, I want to talk." Ignoring my exasperated sigh, he switched on the lamp and sat up, leaning against the head board. The sheet fell away from him as he leaned there, one leg bent, the other thrown casually away from him. I tried not to notice the plump droop of his thick cock flopping onto his thigh and the dark swell of his scrotum, stark against the white cotton.

Shaking erotic impulse from me, I lay on my back and tried to cast away the image of his sexuality, so arrogantly displayed before me. For God's sake, I have been married to him for nearly three years. I have seen him naked thousands of times. Why was his genitalia making it so hard for me to think clearly tonight?

"I agree that I have little evidence upon which to base my reservations about this woman. TOL could not even find anything incriminating on her. Perhaps I am being foolish - but I still don't like her. She is not like the sort of woman you normally befriend. Can you just try to understand my perspective? If you must be her confidante then - so be it. But, do not discuss me with her. I know how you modern women talk such intimate nonsense with your friends about men. Women in my time would not have dared to speak of their sexual relationships with their husbands..."

"Max...I don't go around telling anyone about you. That's the point. I actually have no one to talk to. No friends at all. Everything is wound up inside me. Isobel is one of us now- like it or not -and she has confided in me- so I have done with her. But not about us! You think I talk about our sex life with her?"

He cleared his throat. "I have no idea what passes for amusing conversation with modern women. I know you are profane in your speech and read magazines in which the writers discuss men as if they were prize bulls for the stud farm. How do I know how you compare me to others?"

I stared at him. "Compare you? What are you talking about? I have never ever said anything about our private life to another soul...."

"Serena would have cut out her tongue before she allowed anyone to know anything about me..."

"What? WHAT??" I leapt from the bed and stood shaking with temper before him. "What the fuck has she got to do with this? Why is her name always creeping into our conversations? It isn't me who compares you to others...it is you who constantly compares her to me. You and your perfect dead wife. I am so sorry I'll never match up to her. Not unless I die first, hey? Give my life up for you? Get raped and crucified? Then I might be just about good enough for the great man himself? Jesus fucking Christ, sometimes I hate you. I HATE you..."

I ran to the door. He went after me. "Get back to bed! You are hysterical. Compose yourself and close your mouth before you say something you may really regret. I cannot believe that even you would stoop so low to say those things to me..."

I turned and faced him. "Oh yeah? Back to your bed? It's a bit crowded in there- with a dead wife between us..." He raised his hand at that and I really thought he was going to hit me. I saw the tic in his upper cheek as he struggled with the blazing anger that his eyes showed. I flinched, expecting the full force of his palm across my cheek, but nothing came. He dropped his hand and pushed me aside, storming out of the door and on downstairs. The air in the bedroom seemed to crackle with tension, as though particles of the energy we had created were still lingering in the atmosphere. I realized that I was holding my breath and my heart was racing. I was afraid. I was also ashamed of myself.

Putting on a wrap, I went down after him. Maximus was standing in the lounge, naked, silhouetted against the moonlight streaming in from an open window, his head hanging down as he leaned on the bar top with a glass in his hand. Again the erotic compulsion seized me and I stared pruriently at what a man he was; my insides loosened and my sex watered, even as my heart pounded and my temper flared. Anger, passion, lust, love. They all seemed to be swirling in the same arena tonight.

"I'm sorry, Max. I shouldn't have said those things about Serena. I shouldn't have. They were unforgivable."

He nodded and downed the tumbler of Scotch in his hand. He said nothing.

"I was just angry....irrational...don't be angry with me, Maximus...what is happening to us?" A sudden cold hand had gripped me, as if this argument seemed to be warning me that it wasn't like our usual petty squabbles and annoyances anymore. Something really sinister seemed to have hold of us both. For the first time we had actually been trying to hurt one other.

He turned and came to me, took my cold hand and raised it to his lips. "It was my error. I am not sure why I have reacted quite like this. And I began the challenge. I accused you of things I know you would never do to me." A kiss upon my palm and he bent to transfer it to my mouth. Pressed together in that dark room, I felt his deep sensual nature reflected in his lips. An unspoken truce was declared. He pulled on my hand and led me back to our room. Again at the foot of our bed, he kissed me deep, this time allowing his hands to touch my body, loosen my wrap and claim me for his own.

We fell to the bed. I rose up on him and straddled him sensuously, saw his eyes flare and darken, ran my hand down to grasp him. But as quickly as his mood had turned to intimacy he seemed to tense, a sudden panic flitting in his eyes for a moment and then he stopped my hand and pushed me from him. "It is late. We must sleep."

I felt his verbal slap more strongly then than if he had let his fist go earlier. Maximus simply shrugged me away, got into bed and snapped off the light, already with his back to me by the time I joined him in bed. I snuggled up to him, still a little unsure, kissed his shoulder, and slipped my hand around his hip, to reach for him. He was flaccid.

"Max?"

"Go to sleep," was his sharp reply.

"Roll back. You're just tired. Let me use my mouth...you know what that will do to you!" I teased softly. "You'll be hard in seconds..."

"There is nothing wrong with me. I merely want to sleep. Leave me be." His hand closed over mine and moved me from him. He was still flaccid. Not even a spark of interest. That has never happened before in all the time I have known him. I didn't know what to do except comply. To push him further would have been cruel and would have shamed him - he is a proud man and would hate to appear weak or unmanly before his wife. He is not weak. Any man can have an off day, I know that. But it was still so sudden and so unlikely that it left me even more anxious and unsure. I was also very frustrated. My mood had been aroused all night for some reason and the release of anger seemed to have made it worse. I felt like I was holding in a powder keg of sexual energy.

I lay in the dark and heard him drift off to deep sleep beside me whilst I stared at the ceiling and longed for his touch.