The Children Act

When a court determines any question with respect to … the upbringing of a child … the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.
—SECTION 1(A), THE CHILDREN ACT, 1989

be set as a choice of the lesser evil

, the nation at large had a view.

He turned and came toward her with his undiluted drink. The Jewish girls, Rachel and Nora, must hover behind her like Christian angels and wait. Their secular god had troubles of her own

She had the power to remove a child from an unkind parent and she sometimes did. But remove herself from an unkind husband? When she was weak and desolate? Where was her protective judge?

“For the last time, Jack. Are you seeing her?

peer over a cliff edge.

left their mark on her,

Life accelerating to people a small village clustered on a baby grand. She and Jack had contributed nothing, no one, beyond family reunions, near-weekly birthday presents, multigenerational holidays in the cheaper sort of castle. In their apartment, they hosted much family. At the end of the hallway was a walk-in cupboard filled with folded-up cot, high chair and playpen, and three wicker baskets of chewed and fading toys in readiness for the next addition. And this summer’s castle, ten miles north of Ullapool, awaited their decision. According to the ill-printed brochure, a moat, a working drawbridge

would be grave and rational when she would have preferred him loudly in the wrong.