She tried to pretend that such a certainty should crumble in face of her son's survival, but found she couldn't keep it up.
Other women's sons had fallen without being raised from the grave. How then could she be so arrogant as to assert the health of her own boy as the sole yardstick?
She tried to talk about her feelings with those she felt closest to, and found herself once again prayed over and patronized, and finally pushed towards a very fashionable psychiatrist who'd done wonders for Binky Bullmain's nervous flatulence.
Piers himself, far from being the hoped-for confidant, took to the role of bemedalled hero like a blowfly to dead meat and clearly regarded any hint of her new anxieties as a personal slur.
But still she looked for ways to adapt her new-found self to her family, her social circle and her political party, and still she found herself rejected like a new heart in an old body.
So she resigned from all of them.
The old Amanda Pitt-Evenlode felt a slight pang that the sighs which marked her passing contained as much relief as sorrow.
The new Mandy Marvell didn't give a toss.
She had married at seventeen, borne Piers at eighteen, and spent the next two decades performing all the duties proper to a woman of her husband's status in society. This meant that while tennis, golf and swimming kept her body in pretty good shape, her mind had fewer demands made upon it than would have stretched the ratiocinative powers of a footballer's parrot.
Now she found that one thought led to another in a most delightful way. Happily her father had died before succeeding in his avowed intent of dissipating all the wealth his father had so assiduously accrued, leaving Mandy with a sufficient private income to be able to live comfortably while at the same time paying the divorce settlement from Pitt-Evenlode straight into the coffers of various excellent charities. Her time and energy she gave generously too, but she did not miss any chance of proving all the pleasures which the hills and valleys, dales and fields, of her quiet country existence had failed to yield. She popped and snorted, drank and smoked; she read, wrote, painted and performed; she travelled widely and tried most alternatives from the religious to the medicinal.
For ten years she overwhelmed herself in experience and at this crowded decade's end she found that all she retained any real enthusiasm for was Mexican beer, the songs of Gustav Mahler, and straight sex. She even found she'd gone off the poor a bit, not in particular, but as an insoluble symptom of humanity's shittiness. Fifty was approaching fast. She wanted to do something she could see getting done. But what?
It had occurred to her from time to time as interesting though hardly significant that her strongest memories of life with the Hon. Rupert involved animals rather than people. They had started even, but as the humans faded, the beasts came into ever clearer focus. Now ten years on, with the Hon. reduced to little more than a long nose under a silly hat, she could still recall the exact disposition of the dark spots on a pair of Dalmatians called Aggers and Staggers she'd been given on her twentieth birthday. An upwardly mobile farm cat trying to ingratiate itself into smoked-salmon circles with gifts of moles and shrews was clearer to her than the infant Piers; and while she couldn't have sworn to the Hon's private parts in a line-up, the splendid equipment of Balzac, the estate's prize Charolais, was as detailed in her mind as if etched there by Stubbs.
She explained this to her current lover, an American evangelist, on their last night together before he bore his burden of souls and shekels home.
'This is your heart bleeping you, Cap. Pick up that phone and get in touch with base.'
His phraseology made her wince, but against that she set the pleasure she derived from his habit of crying 'HALLELUJAH!' at the moment of climax. And when he had gone she spoke to her heart.
Animals, her heart answered, were the unacknowledged legislators of mankind. They showed fortitude in adversity and temperance in prosperity. They had no need of prisons, nor did they prey on their own kind. Therefore the way humans treated them was the touchstone of their humanity.
To conclude was to act. Six months later her vigorous sampling of local loose coalitions of hunt saboteurs, cetaphiles, donkey sanctuarians, et cetera, had drawn to her several similarly minded women who agreed to form a more tightly knitted group which came to be known as ANIMA. That it was all female was not a conscious choice but a dynamic inevitability. Men fear more than they admire a powerful woman, and for her to rule over them she must normally usurp the masculine leadership of an already existing group. If instead she forms a new one, she will rarely attract male recruits till she is so successful, she doesn't want them.
The day after the abortive raid on Wanwood House, Cap Marvell laid the table in the kitchen of her flat for two.
It was simple fare: a large pie, a bowl of crisps, a green salad, a wedge of cheese, a jar of onions, and a couple of baguettes. By one place setting she put a tankard and three cans of draught bitter, by the other a tumbler and a bottle of Mexican beer.
At one o'clock precisely the doorbell rang.
Smiling she drew open the door.
The smile faded as she saw Wendy Walker standing in the corridor.
'Wendy,' she said. 'What do you want?'
'I'm not selling bloody brushes that's for sure,’ snapped the other.
'I'm sorry,' said Cap. 'I didn't mean to be rude, only I'm expecting someone for lunch.. '
'And I'll be in the way? Well that shouldn't bother you, Cap. You lot get trained to roll over folk who get in your way, don't you?'
Cap gritted her teeth. Why was it that every time Wendy treated her like she was still the Hon. Mrs Rupert she found herself wanting to act like she was still the Hon. Mrs Rupert?
She said, 'Wendy, please, unless it's a matter of life or death, I wonder if-'
'Life or death!' Wendy interrupted her. 'Why'd that bother you? 'Less it was some sodding animal's life or death, and even then I daresay you've slaughtered more birds and beasts than you've ever bloody well saved!'
'What is it you want to talk about, Wendy?' said Cap, dangerously calm.
'Last night, what the fuck do you think? The price of tea? You're our group leader, aren't you? Right, I want to talk to my leader about what happened on the raid last night.'
'Look, I can see how it must have upset you, finding that body..'
'That's not what's upsetting me, no, it's not a few old bones that's upsetting me. . look, you gonna let me in or not?'
Cap leaned forward and sniffed.
'You've been drinking,' she said.
'Well pardon me for breathing,' said Wendy. 'Pardon me for eating and drinking and sleeping and waking and pissing and crapping and doing all the other things that real human beings do. Yes, I've been drinking, not much, just enough for me to get the crazy idea it might be worthwhile coming round here to sort things out..’
'Very impressive,' said Cap. 'But it will have to keep till you're a little more sober and I'm a little less busy. I'll see you later, Wendy.'
'Later? Yeah sure, only it might be a bit too fucking late for you, Cap, a bit too fucking late!'
Cap Marvell stepped back and closed the door. Wendy Walker turned away and headed for the lift but before she could reach it, Andy Dalziel who'd been standing in it, listening, for the last few minutes, withdrew the foot which was holding the doors open, and pressed the button for the next floor up.
'Shit,' said Wendy, and headed for the stairs.
Five minutes later the flat bell rang again.
Cap checked through the peephole this time to be sure, then opened the door, smiling widely.