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After thirty-five years it's the little things that get to you. Tonight as usual Ned gets up from the kitchen table before she's finished eating and carefully rinses plate, knife and fork under the cold tap. Then he places the still-wet plate on the draining board, cutlery crossed on top as though in readiness for the next meal. The way knife and fork are crossed has a religious look, part of some ritual known only to himself. Apparently he's failed to notice the existence of the dishwasher, even though it's hardly new, but she's given up reminding him of it. When she's finished her dinner, she'll stack crockery, cutlery and whatever else he's used (probably a tea-cup) in the correct compartments to be washed.

She filled up the fruit bowl this morning, and he reaches over to snap off a banana from the bunch. "Careful!" she warns, shielding her glass as the table sways slightly under his weight. Giving her a bemused look, he removes the banana skin and consumes the fruit in four or five bites. He shakes out the empty banana peel as though it's a skirt, folds it in half and puts it next to the fruit bowl. She wonders whether he thinks she has some use for banana skins, perhaps as an ingredient in stews or cakes, but she doesn't have the energy to ask him.

"Now," he mutters, turning towards the fridge, "Where are my…?" If he makes me get up and look for them again I'll go mad, she thinks, staring resolutely at the half-eaten trout on her plate, which returns her look with a single exploded eye. But he's found what he wants, and now he's standing by the cooker sliding date stones out of his mouth into the hand cupped beneath his chin. Next it'll be tea, perhaps half an hour of television; then he'll shuffle back upstairs to his study and she won't see him again until some time tomorrow morning. It annoys her that she feels sorry for him when he eats. She doesn't have the heart to look at her fish again either, but she's determined to make a point of not getting up before her husband leaves the kitchen.

To her surprise he throws his date stones in the bin and sits down next to her at the table, smiling in that way he has. She thinks he's going to talk about money, so she starts doing rapid mental calculations - shoes for Jasmine, nursery fees, restringing the tennis racquet. At least a hundred and fifty pounds. But he reaches across the table to touch her and says, "How is your wrist, Jill?"

Taken aback by this rather formal expression of concern, she flexes her hand. "Oh, not too bad."

Then, deciding she'd better make the most of the unexpected opportunity, she adds, "Though it was twinging quite a bit when I played tennis this morning."

He shakes his head seriously as if he's about to make a medical diagnosis. "You must be careful," he tells her. "Don't strain it, and keep it warm." This last piece of advice seems irrelevant, and she thinks it has more to do with his own pathological aversion to cold than her strained wrist. His hand hasn't quite reached hers and apparently the conference is over, for he's pushing himself up from his seat, groaning slightly as he speaks.

"You needn't worry. I've asked Sheila to do the typing this time. Mustn't get too worn out."

"Worn out" is the expression he uses to describe his own fatigue, but he has his back to her, and there's no time to make a retort before he leaves the room with a brisker than usual farewell.

"Well, I'd better get on. Thank you very much for the meal." And then he's gone.

It's just like Ned to ruin her supper by telling her so casually that he no longer requires her services, running away before she's registered the shock. She slithers the half-fleshed fish into the bin and rains peas on top of it, thinking about other, similar announcements she's expected him to make in the course of their years together. Friends of hers are married to men who have suddenly produced second wives and whole families out of nowhere, sometimes with a mistress in tow. She's often wondered why the same thing hasn't happened to her, whether he's simply too cowardly to tell her about his other life, but her frequent hunts for clues have yielded nothing. By now she is resigned to the incomprehensible fact of his fidelity.

The old doubts and insecurities begin to return with sickening force, and she reprimands herself for her complacency and lack of vigilance. She has typed every single one of his manuscripts, and although she once suspected there was something between him and Sheila, those fears vanished when he kissed his secretary goodbye at the retirement party five years ago. She had no idea they were still in contact, not an inkling that he would ask her to type his novel for him. If she had Sheila's phone number she would call her, but she doesn't and it will be impossible to decipher the Arabic figures in his address book. Instead she'll have to set to work, something she's good at, she thinks with mild satisfaction as she surveys the mess he's made in the kitchen.

***

Jill cleans the house from corner to corner while her husband sits upstairs smoking and scribbling in his study. She's not one of those neurotics who has to clean everything in the same order every day, but still, her life sometimes feels like an ongoing battle against muck, grime and stains of various kinds. The fight is all the more challenging because most of the other members of her family do not share her passion for hygiene. Ned hasn't let her in his study since the time she scoured his desk with Jif, not realizing he was fond of the greasy surface. He complained about the raw wood for weeks afterwards, accusing her of deliberately hiding his papers. She doesn't understand how he can find them in there anyway, and she only regrets that there wasn't enough time to remove the thin film of ash from his bookshelves and books.

She isn't distressed by dirt; in fact, it delights her to find a new pocket lurking in some hitherto unnoticed corner. Then she approaches it with horrified fascination, duster and polish in hand, as though stalking her prey. Once when she was lying in the bath, the sight of the extractor fan above the shower made her jump straight out of the water and climb up to get a closer look. Placing one hand against the tiled wall to balance herself, she carefully removed the wheel of dust that had accumulated in the lint over the years. Then she lowered herself onto the side of the bath to contemplate her finding. There was something about it - the wheels within wheels, the way the spokes were connected - that made her want to preserve it, but there was nowhere to put it so she threw it in the bathroom bin.

Cleaning is useful to Jill because it makes her notice what she might otherwise have overlooked, she discovers surfaces and shapes she never knew existed. It's all about separation, she thinks, not just separating the clean from the unclean, but the necessary from the unnecessary, the useful from the useless. She can never hide behind dysfunctions of her own making, because cleaning inevitably reveals what's broken. Then she can either fix it, or leave things as they are. She has long identified her husband as a leaver, someone who goes around wrecking things and expects them magically to repair themselves. Noor is a bit like that too. As Jill gets older and more tired, she is increasingly irritated by the strategic bewilderment and fecklessness of father and daughter, particularly since these days they seem to be working so hard to wreck each other.

***

The kitchen surfaces are bleached. She has wiped down the hob and the inside of the microwave, always the last cleaning task of the day ever since that mortifying visit last year when Petra took to it with a J-cloth because she said the fall-out from Ned's croissants would contaminate the baby's food. Actually, it wasn't Petra who told her that, but Jill's son Ham who seemed to enjoy relaying the news that the house was considered dirty. Since then Jill often looks at things through her daughter-in-law's eyes to make sure the house passes the "Petra-test". Germans are clean she thinks, which is probably why Ham married one.

No point starting on the sitting room now, since Noor is bringing Jasmine tomorrow. Ned is saying his evening prayers in the dining-room, and a series of low grunts warns her not to enter. It's been a long time since anyone has dined in there, but somehow they've never got round to renaming it the front room. She's considered calling it the nursery because of Jasmine's toys, or the prayer room because of Ned, but Jasmine doesn't always play in there, and Ned often chooses to pray upstairs in his study. For now it'll stay as it is.

She fetches her radio and a glass of water from the kitchen, tucking the newspaper supplement under one arm before making her way upstairs. On the landing she pauses and rests glass, radio and newspaper on the bookshelf. She listens carefully for sounds from the dining room. Once she's reassured, she pokes her head round her husband's study door. The pall of smoke makes her wrinkle her nose in disgust, but she resists the temptation to open a window. He hates that, and would doubtless think she'd invited the wind in to disorder his papers. The dining room is directly below the study. The floorboards and carpet muffle his prayers, but his voice is audible nonetheless. She tiptoes to the desk and glances swiftly at the books. Several of his own novels are on display, The Long Absence, Outside in the Citadel, Station Number 6. She likes the titles but has never been fond of his pen-name, "Al-Sudani". Sometimes he calls her Mrs. Al-Sudani as a joke, but she finds this insulting rather than amusing and she's always quick to point out that it isn't his real name.

"Well, Ned isn't either, and you call me that."

"That's different. It's an abbreviation."

"Not in my language," he tells her. "You should call me Nadim, and learn Arabic like a good wife."

But it's too late for that now and anyway, he doesn't even write in Arabic, a fact that still puzzles many of his interviewers. He is fond of telling them that he learnt many languages at his mother's breast, but she thinks it must be frustrating to have to answer the same question over and over. Perhaps it's just as well he chose English. It might have been difficult to find a secretary in London who numbered Arabic typing among her skills.

It's not unusual for Ned to keep quiet about a work in progress, but he's been particularly reticent about this one. Still, she only has to move aside two sheets of paper to uncover a thick block of hand-written manuscript in the middle of the desk. The sheets look ready for typing, and he's prepared a title page for Sheila, The Woman of Ed-Debba, by Al-Sudani, complete with typographical instructions and an intriguing contortion of Arabic lettering which will surely be impossible to render on word-processor or typewriter.

She lifts up the title page and reads the first line of the first chapter, holding the piece of paper in mid-air and breathing softly, quickly, listening for him. Her breathing stops when she hears the dining room door creak below, the page in her hand quivering as she waits for the sound of his footsteps, the kitchen door handle, the clink of the milk-pan as it's removed from the cupboard. Lucky for her that he observes his domestic rituals too. She has five minutes at the outside. Once she's read the first page all the way through she replaces it and lifts up a handful of paper, then another and another, just to make sure. She has never read anything like it, not by him anyway. When she hears the kitchen door closing and his heavy tread on the stairs, she's tempted to stay where she is so that she can ask him how he can write such stuff, at his age, and isn't he ashamed of asking Sheila to type this muck. Instead she leaves the manuscript intact, replacing the two blank pieces of paper on top of the pile as though she is pulling dust-sheets over furniture she does not much care to protect.

***

"Is Sittinoor coming today?" he asks at breakfast without lowering his newspaper. He calls his daughter by her full name now, as though he can't bear the intimacy of the abbreviation he was once so fond of. Noor doesn't know about this shift, but these days she always asks after "Ned" rather than "dad." After all, Jill thinks, he's not really her father any more. He hasn't spoken to her for three and a half years. But she's noticed that Noor keeps a photo of him on her mantelpiece, and she seems genuinely concerned about his blood pressure, his smoking, the state of his heart. Perhaps that's why she's acting the silent accomplice to the drastic decision he's taken, or perhaps it's because she doesn't want him to shout abuse and hit her again. Jill is perfectly happy for the two of them to remain apart indefinitely. She doesn't think she could cope with any more trauma.

Noor drops Jasmine off twice a week, returning to collect her in the afternoon on her way back from school. Ned always checks in the morning to see whether it's a Jasmine day or not, although Jill has told him countless times that it's Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"Write it down," she tells him. "That way I won't have to keep reminding you."

"Oh write it down, write it down. I've got enough to write down without that, you know."

Today when Noor arrives with Jasmine, Ned hurries upstairs to his study as usual. By now they are used to these manoeuvres, although there have been a couple of near collisions, and on at least one occasion Jasmine has shouted out from the bottom of the stairs at the sight of Ned's retreating back. Somehow he managed to ignore her plaintive "Teddies!" and Noor pretended not to notice her father hurrying upstairs in order to avoid her.

This morning the hand-over goes smoothly. Noor gives Jill two plastic bags filled with Tupperware food containers and toys before kissing Jasmine goodbye. Jill notices that her daughter is raising her voice and glancing up the stairs out of the corner of her eye.

"You'll have fun with Nanny won't you?" Noor tells Jasmine, 'and you'll eat the nice lunch she's going to heat up for you." Seeing that Jasmine is beginning to look tearful she gives her another hasty kiss before closing the front door.

"Why don't we go upstairs and say hello to Teddy?" Jill suggests in an attempt to divert the inevitable protest, but since Jasmine is determined to cry, she carries her into the dining room and pulls out a box of Lego from under the table. Jasmine is still wearing her blue plastic sandals even though it's a cold September day. As she takes them off, Jill makes a mental resolution to give Noor the money for a new pair of shoes. It hurts her to see Jasmine's frayed dresses, the grubby hand-me-downs donated by well-meaning friends and colleagues, but she knows there's not much more a single parent on a part-time teacher's salary can do.

When Ned comes downstairs in his pyjamas an hour or so later, Jasmine throws her book to the floor and rushes into the hall-way shouting his name. He swings her into the air and hugs her, and she giggles when he pretends to take a bite of her rusk.

"Who gave you that biscuit?" he asks. "Was it that kind Nanny of yours?"

Jill knows that Ned is teasing her by calling her Nanny, a name she hates but puts up with. As yet Jasmine can only manage "Dill" for Jill, and for now she'd rather be a goat than a herb.

"And nice Teddy will take you into the sitting room for some nursery rhymes so that "Nanny" can clear up the kitchen and get your lunch ready," she says wryly. Now is the time to make the most of Ned's delight, and Jill knows that the best way to get what she needs is by playing the game.

"Are you a bit chilly, darling?" she asks, rubbing Jasmine's arm softly and pretending to shiver. "We need to get you a cardy and a nice new pair of shoes for the winter. What do you think Teddy?"

Ned nods as he leads Jasmine away by the hand. "My wallet's in my jacket. Take what you want."

Understanding that she is going to receive something, Jasmine smiles at her grand-father and repeats the new word, "chilly." As he leads her into the sitting room he reminds her of the nursery rhyme he taught her on her last visit.

"There came a big - "

"Bider"

"And sat down - "

"Besider"

"And frightened Miss Muffet - "

"Away."

***

Noor has no idea what her father looks like any more, but Jill says he's getting old and frail so she's started to leave a few extra seconds between ringing the bell and opening the door with the key she kept after she was banished. That way Ned has time to hide and her mother needn't bother coming to the door. Now that Jasmine is speaking, Noor is getting used to answering difficult questions about why Teddy disappears whenever mummy arrives.

"He's got things to do," she tells her. "In his study."

Jasmine is not allowed to play in Ned's study because of there are too many things for her to destroy. Jill's room is also out of bounds, and Noor always stays downstairs too. It's strange to think that her father can hear her voice quite clearly from up there, but she's given up asking when all this stupidity will end. In her gloomier moments, she thinks he'll be dead the next time she sees him.

"He has nothing to say to you," her mother told her last time they discussed it. "He thinks you did it on purpose to damage his reputation, and he doesn't want to see you any more."

Noor rings, waits, then lets herself into the empty hall. Usually Jasmine runs to greet her, but this afternoon the house is silent. She doesn't like to call out, so she puts her bags down and peers cautiously into dining room and sitting room before walking into the kitchen. No-one in here either, but the kitchen window frames her mother leaning on the fence in conversation with the neighbour. There's no sign of Jasmine in the garden, only her upturned pink plastic bucket with its matching shovel beside it on the lawn. Noor looks up at her father's bedroom window which is slightly ajar.

"Mum!" Her voice is too gentle and her mother can't hear her, so she tries again. This time Jill turns round.

"Where's Jasmine?"

Her mother frowns, then shrugs. "I think she's with Ned. Just give me a minute will you?"

Noor leaves her mother with the neighbour and returns to the kitchen where she stands with her hands squarely on the metal sink. Then she goes to the bottom of the stairs and listens carefully for sounds of playing or conversation. She can hear nothing. Her stomach begins to hurt. There are all sorts of ways Jasmine could injure herself in this house; she might have fallen in the bath or hit herself against a cupboard door or smothered herself in a blanket. Noor hasn't been upstairs since she left more than three years ago, but now she thinks of Jasmine lying unconscious and she makes her way to the landing.

There are four rooms - two bedrooms, study, and bathroom - and she's not sure which to look in first. Only the study door is closed. She knows that's where he's most likely to be at this time of day, so she starts with what used to be her room. It's her mother's bedroom now, but the door still bears the old sign, "Noor's Room," which her parents went to great trouble to have made for her when she was seven. The sight of the once-familiar white china tablet with its personalized inscription and swirl of purple flowers makes her feel as though she is about to enter the museum of her childhood, but nothing has been preserved in here. The battered old desk has vanished, and a steel computer table stands beside a low wooden bed that looks like a recent purchase.

She closes the door behind her and looks into the bathroom. Nothing. His room then.

This is where he hit me when I was pregnant, she thinks as she stands beside the bookshelf on the landing, and this is where he caught his thumb on the door-frame when he raised his hand again and Jill stood between them to stop him. He probably blamed her for the fracture too. She doesn't know, because after he'd apologized for hitting her, he started to sob and they never spoke to each other again.

***

The neighbour's face seems to swell and her eyes grow so large that Jill can see the delicate pink veins in her eyeballs. Jill feels her own skin crackling and prickling. She gets hotter and hotter, and finally she begins to sweat at the sound of the words floating down from her husband's bedroom window. As the abuse gets louder, she registers fear, then shame. Now the neighbour's head has shrunk back to its normal size and it is shaking from side to side in disapproval and wonder.

"What on earth's all that about?"

Jill's knuckles whiten as she grasps the fence and searches for a reply. The words have merged into a steady stream that's almost a shriek, but thankfully it's impossible to make out what he's saying. Panicking, she relinquishes the fence to run through the empty kitchen into the hallway. Noor is standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding herself as though she is very cold.

"I went to look for Jasmine," she says, "and he …"

There is a tiny sound behind them, and when Jill turns around she sees Jasmine on the threshold of the downstairs toilet, her face red and wet. Noor screams and rushes to her, but Jasmine drops what was once a tube of lipstick and the tears stream down her face.

"Teddy!" she cries, "Teddy!"

*** It takes them over an hour to clean and calm Jasmine and when they leave, her face is still raw from scrubbing and crying.

"I don't know about Thursday," Noor says. "Not after that."

Jill nods slowly so that the tears don't spill from her own eyes, and she reaches out and touches her daughter's cheek.

"I'll phone you," says Noor, and then she leaves with Jasmine slumped over her shoulder, asleep.

Nothing is in its place. The lipstick is where Jasmine dropped it in the hallway, the plastic lemon squeezer has found its way into the sitting room, and there are multi-coloured oblongs of lego littering the dining room floor. Jill will put everything away in a while, but first she must go upstairs. She heard Ned go out when they were in the bathroom with Jasmine. His coat and walking stick are gone, which means he'll probably be away for several hours. She hasn't made up her mind whether she'll be here when he returns, and she's not sure what to say to him if she is. She doesn't stop to think about it as she climbs the stairs and enters his study.

There are a few more cigarettes in the ash tray on the desk, and his prayer mat lies crumpled in the middle of the room as though it has been flung down in a hurry. The shrouded manuscript is still there, and a muscle clenches in her throat as she picks it up and takes it into the kitchen. She puts it on the table and sits down, frowning slightly. After a few moments she carries it onto the patio where the barbeque is already smoking. It isn't a very long novel, but it takes twenty minutes to burn. The flames leap dangerously high as she pokes fist after fist of white paper into the glowing charcoal with a trowel. She is sweating again, this time from the heat. Once it's done she looks at her hands, stained black from the charcoal and the dirt. It will take him over a year to write it again. She goes inside to wash.