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+{"text":" \nThank you for downloading this Atria Books eBook.\n\n* * *\n\nJoin our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.\n\nCLICK HERE TO SIGN UP\n\nor visit us online to sign up at  \neBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com\n\nDear Mom,  \nYou who loves to talk, I mean, HONESTLY, WOMAN, without pause! Thank you for listening to pages upon pages\u2014even chapters\u2014with no regard to the hour or task at hand. I could not have accomplished this without your support. You are why God created moms. Thanks for being mine.  \nLove you!\n\"There's only one very good life and that's the life you\n\nknow you want and you make it yourself.\"\n\n\u2014DIANA VREELAND\n\n## Author's Note\n\nI LOVE TO READ and get lost in a moment not of my own making. It has been that way since I was a child in Alabama begging my mom to let me stay up past my bedtime, just long enough to finish the next chapter (or two) of whatever book had so captivated me. The escapism that others fostered also fed my soul and imagination. For that I am eternally grateful, because those authors opened up a world to me that showcased ways of existence far different from the one I knew, that of an only child of a single woman whose great love was not so great\u2014so life for me was not always crystal.\n\nI say all of this to tell you that I have an appreciation for great writers and storytellers, my favorites being Kundera, Z. Smith, Hurston, and Coehlo, but I make absolutely NO pretense of being an ounce of the writers they are. I do hope, however, to be an intriguing storyteller and provide you a good tale to get lost in. A friend once said to me, \"You speak like a novel.\"\n\nI hope that he is correct (thank you, Greg Cham) and that you will embrace what is to come. Welcome to the world of Jules Sinclair.\n\nSincerest gratitude,\n\nx Tamara\n\n## 1\n\n* * *\n\n## THE RETURN\n\n2001\n\nAWAITING ME AT baggage claim was a bespectacled middle-aged man positioned near the base of the escalator with Jules Sinclair written in a haphazard black script on a white board. He didn't appear too excited to be there, which was perfect for me as I am unclear of what awaits me when I get home, so any forced pleasantries at this point would be exhausting.\n\nBefore leaving for London, Marcus and I had the kind of argument where far too many things are said, some of which you just can't take back and others of which you say intentionally to hurt the other because you want them to feel as bad as you do at that moment. Instead of clearing my head, the time away only made two things obvious to me: I didn't want out, and I had no idea of how to get back in\u2014to us. Besides, even if I did have the solution, I'm not sure he'd want to hear it anyway. The answers that I hoped would be miraculously delivered, like how to retract all of the pain and harmful words, eluded me. We had come so far only to end up exactly where we should not be.\n\nOn the plane I ran a couple of scenarios in my head so that, no matter the outcome of putting my key in the door, I would be prepared. Option A: He would be there, relieved to see me and in that lovable yet obtuse manner feed me a line to let me know that we would weather this. Option B: He would be out but not gone\u2014his clothes remaining perfectly spaced on his side of the closet with a few items subletting space on my side. Seeing this I would just wait for him to come back, to come home to me. Option C: A \"Dear Jules\" note would be on the counter in his meticulous penmanship telling me that it was best if we had some time apart and that he had taken up residence elsewhere\u2014or, worse yet, that he was gone, never to return. While I know that C could very easily be my reality, I couldn't bring myself to consider it without bursting into tears\u2014again. Maybe things would have been different\u2014for the better of us, I mean\u2014if he had told me about the baby, or if I'd never made him feel like he couldn't. Maybe not.\n\nTaking a deep breath, I bring my thoughts current, focusing only on what is before me\u2014identifying my luggage and getting to the car.\n\n\"We're going to Beverly Hills, yes?\" asks the driver.\n\n\"Yes, One North Wetherly.\"\n\n\"Do you have any objections to taking La Cienega down?\"\n\n\"Any way you want is fine\u2014all goes to the same place,\" I say.\n\nNormally the drive to West Hollywood from LAX via the main street of La Cienega takes an eternity at this hour of the day, the 10 Freeway is even worse, so I settle into the black leather seats of the town car and allow my thoughts to be lulled into a void. You don't have to live in Los Angeles to know that rush hour traffic here is a terror in and of itself. People enter their cars pissed off at the workday that just ended, armored for the confrontation that awaits them as a result of listless drivers who seem resigned to repeat the habitual routine that has become \"adult life\": morning commute 8:00 to 8:45 a.m., sitting in the parking garage of your office praying that today will be better than yesterday 8:45 to 8:50 a.m., pasting a smile on your face at 8:55 a.m., \"Hello, Bob,\" \"Hi, Shirley,\" working someone else's job from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., getting in car and dropping the facade at 5:05 p.m., evening commute until 6:30 p.m.\u2014welcome home.\n\nWhat a life! I could never survive it, and yet the infinitesimal details make mine not so different. If anything my wrapping at this point just appears more glamorous and above it all; monthly travel to our homes in New York, Los Angeles, and Bridgehampton, filled with dinners and events that oftentimes end up chronicled in Page Six or photographed for the monthlies. What the rags don't catch are the quiet moments and everywoman experiences that no amount of Executive Platinum frequent-flyer miles, chauffeured cars, or exclusive access will allow me to escape. Basically, as a child of the '80s, I drank the Kool-Aid\u2014with a heaping dose of fairy dust for good measure, as it were\u2014hence I am woman hear me roar awaiting my knight in shining armor, that is, if I can, once and for all, put my BS aside long enough to rest in all that comes with the reality of us. Which clearly I had not done despite past misfortunes. Try admitting that about yourself and not cringing! To my mind's eye the details of how would always fall into place miraculously, because they always had for me with little or no effort. That is, until I ran full speed into the wall that said, \"You can't get what you are not so take a good look princess and be truthful about who is looking back.\" A frightening proposition any way I slice it, much more involved than maintaining the size 6, five-feet-eight-inch Jamaican-Dutch genetic lotto pool I was fortunate enough to be born into. In the event I ever went north of my regular 135 pounds, the solution was simple: a few spinning classes at Equinox, a horrid regime of salt-free\/fat-free\/taste-free food, hot yoga, and complete avoidance of the dessert menu for a week or more. Simple enough, right? But this navigating life\u2014getting personal purpose right more times than I fuck up and being brave enough to admit when I do without feeling diminished\u2014I don't know.\n\nIn all the commotion of exiting the plane, getting through customs, and worrying that my luggage (like my relationship) might not have made the same flight that I did, I forgot that daylight saving time had ended, so it was completely dark outside. Nightfall with the ever-present charcoal smog overcast was firmly set by 5 p.m., which now seemed fitting. As a child, I could always think better at night. I used to believe that the constellations appeared visible only to hear me talk about the grand life that was to come. Tonight, however, there was not a single solitary star to be found in the sky; there seldom are, actually, which is one of the sacrifices of living in Lala but I would gladly do without the galaxy, if he will have me. My hope is that Marcus and I, at the very least, are in the grasp of the half-moon revealing itself amid the smog, so I surrender, lean back and reminisce, allowing my thoughts to return to years prior until my future reveals itself.\n\n## 2\n\n* * *\n\n## MEETING MR. MICHAEL THURMOND KIPPS?\n\nTHE YEAR WAS 1998 and I was trying to return to New York full-time from a stint (forced sabbatical . . . okay, relationship exile) abroad when a friend suggested that I contact Michael Kipps as soon as my feet touched U.S. soil again. The intent being to discuss helming the PR department of his restaurant, Carly's, that was now all the rave in the ultrahip yet still seedy Meatpacking District. So I did as instructed sort of by preemptively e-mailing him from London, thinking it best to develop some kind of cheeky communication before actually begging for the position.\n\nMichael,\n\nJules Sinclair here. Blake says that you are utterly lost without me. Luckily I am bored with everything\u2014my life, the Brits, warm beer, peas and mash, etc. I hear you are divine, more important I am told that Carly's is the hottest upstart the NYC scene has encountered in some time. Let's make sure it stays that way. When and where?\n\nWarmest, Jules S.\n\nTo my surprise his response was immediate albeit short and completely devoid of the witticism that mine had been carefully crafted with.\n\nThursday at 8pm. \u2014MK\n\nThere was no inquiry on his part as to when I was scheduled to arrive in New York or an overture to convey that he understood flying across the Atlantic on three days' notice might be an imposition\u2014but it would be great if possible because he had heard good things about me. No, \"Thursday at 8pm\" is all he said, and so around 10:30 p.m. GMT on a Sunday night I went online to book my travel and pray to the credit card gods.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt has been said many times over that London is like New York because it has a broad array of cultures and ethnicities inclusive of new money, old money, and no money, all forced to coexist on metros and deckers. Also, it's an epicenter of style and is more than a one-industry town, consisting of banking, publishing, interior design, art, theater, music, etc.\u2014but they are completely wrong. To me New York is a hyperkinetic fishbowl anomaly of possibilities in and of itself; every other global metropolis is but an Off-Broadway production, nicely reviewed but lacking megawatt star power. Emotionally it conjures the innate fight-or-flight impulse for newbies. A rite of passage for all who aspire to re-create themselves on its dense littered streets, as it was for me a few years ago. Everything about New York is a complete affront to the senses, from being sandwiched on a subway multiple times a day and being inappropriately groped, to habitually stepping over trash and being heckled by street vendors, not to mention keeping the requisite pushcart near the door to transport laundry and groceries with no thought to how unnatural it is to be pushing a caged contraption in five-inch heels on any given day.\n\nNew York is hard on the body (kind of like sparring a few rounds with Tyson but coming out of it with both ears intact) and potentially mind-altering, but you don't realize it until you leave the island behind and see how life looks on the other side: minivans and carpools, chore lists, restaurants that close at 10 p.m., planned subdivisions with oversize, themed shopping malls that could hold Yankee and Giants stadiums collectively with room to spare. But no matter how damaging, the city's lure to rewrite a life, the addiction to \"anything is possible if your game is strong enough\" is swift. Either you do whatever is necessary to maintain the high or you nearly OD and in a fitful moment of clarity decide to go clean\u2014leaving it forever and relegating the experience to a \"when I was younger I lived in New York\" story to be dusted off for Middle American friends and relatives as either a badge of honor or a cautionary tale to a wayward child.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nTouching down at JFK before midnight on Wednesday I immediately feel that zing of energy coursing through my veins. The interior of the Virgin Atlantic concourse was sparse with some travelers awaiting takeoff, which made it easy for me to be one of the first people at baggage claim, and since I had used some miles to upgrade to business class, my luggage was certain to be labeled \"priority\" and descend the conveyer first so I could get a jump on the taxi line before the rush. Luggage in hand I impressed myself exiting the terminal, maneuvering the gypsy cabs who, by the way, are the furthest thing from being actual Gypsies. They are more like West Indian, Caribbean, Russian, and Middle Eastern entrepreneurs with a dream of capitalism, a car, and hopefully a legal driver's license. My first reaction was to put on my best I am not a tourist so don't fuck with me face\u2014that is, until I saw that the line of passengers awaiting a taxi in the center partition was wrapped in rows of three. No time like the present to double back and give my sweetest soooo about that ride into the city about-face. I was not going to wait twenty minutes or more in 30-degree weather at this hour, even if when compared with London it was warm enough for me to put on some knickers and sunblock and walk to the city.\n\nGreeted by the smell of Hai Karate musk mixed with a distinct middle note of curry, I settled in the backseat and waited for the twilight moment when we would be submerged in the Midtown Tunnel and ascend into the hub of Manhattan. That moment never disappoints. Well illuminated and sleek, the tunnel is a quiet conveyer that ends with the bustle of delivery trucks blocking roads with produce, shopkeepers preparing for the next day's business, and a few late-night joggers, which I've never understood. Honestly who needs to run that badly (my friend Richard)? I knew before we exited Murray Hill that no matter the outcome of my meeting with Michael, I needed to be back in New York. Nothing awaited me in London. It had served its purpose. Two years earlier I moved there to do in-house publicity for a new four-star hotel group\u2014and to put some distance in a relationship. Like most things, it was exciting initially sans the whole emotional despair shattered dreams broken heart of things. During the week, I worked hard\u2014put on my corporate suit (Chlo\u00e9 by Stella McCartney, of course) and sensible shoes (Alaia or Blahnik). At night, I combined work and even harder play in some of the best private clubs, Soho House and Opium being preferred locations. The weekends, however, I reserved for dropping the \"king of the world\" pretense and falling down.\n\nThe ironic and insufferable thing about a fast pace is that it is the biggest illusion of all. You find yourself so wrapped up in this obligation or that social commitment that you begin to believe your own hype. Mine was that I was living the fullest life possible in the present with no concern for past misgivings despite the obvious (weekends falling apart, h-e-l-l-o?!). Slowly, as the UK scene became habitual, the regimen of my life started to emerge and I found it hard to deny that my past was very much a constant companion in my present. Yes, this is the moment when, if my life were a film score, the music supervisor would cue \"Run to You\" by Whitney Houston. Instead of running to someone, I was running from someone sans the flesh-colored unitard and wind machine. Each day or so I thought There has to be more than this. Tomorrow will be better, and I would wait as patiently as possible for the moment to pass. But like the constantly changing forecast of any given English day\u2014overcast in the morning, sunshine by lunch, only to be disrupted by showers during the evening commute\u2014it just recycled.\n\nSometimes those moments went easily; other times they decided to battle. And let me tell you they played dirty. Along with their incessant noise reminding me of all that was lacking in my life, they would bring gray skies and make the heavens cry with such intensity that my only refuge was to take to my bed. Thankfully those moments would give way to a classic black-and-white with Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson, William Powell and Myrna Loy, or Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. And there you have it\u2014my life is not a music score but a classic Hollywood movie. The problem is that I live in a modern world and experience has made it clear that none of those archetypes exist anymore with the possible exception of my dad, Charles. There is no dashing man full of ambition with amazing style and comedic wit who is challenged in the best of ways by the paradox of my drive and vulnerability. So why can't I just accept this fully instead of holding on to a modicum of hope that he is out there, looking for me as well? I thought of this incessantly as we drove to the hotel until the friction to the car from the cobblestone SoHo streets interrupted my thoughts, forcing me out of my haze.\n\nTwo years had gone by since last I was here so I decided to treat myself and stay at the Mercer Hotel in order to be near my favorite haunts: the eats at Caf\u00e9 Habana, Balthazar, and Raoul's, the boutiques, and the friends. At check-in the impossibly perfect supermodel-in-training receptionist told me that not only would the temperature reach the mid-50s but that my junior suite was ready due to a cancellation. Initially when I made the reservation I was advised that no juniors were immediately available but would be later in my stay if I wanted to change rooms at that time. This trip was already starting off much better than expected. Before going to bed, I unpack and shower, after taking a last glance at some notes on Michael in preparation for our meeting later this evening.\n\nThe time difference caused my mind to wake up much earlier than my body desired. Instinctively I reached for the phone to order room service before remembering that the toniest of breakfast experiences was just down the street sans 18 percent delivery charge. Independent of what anyone will tell you or what you may read, Balthazar (noise level excluded) is by far the hippest enclave in the city to observe, be observed, and eat great food any time of the day.\n\nExiting the hotel I stop on the corner of Prince and Broadway to ogle a stylish day-planner in the window of Kate's Paperie before being accosted by two gusts of arctic wind that chills me to the bone. The first being the actual temperature\u2014mid-50s my ass, more like low 20s without the wind-chill factor. Mental note: After breakfast come back to hotel and put on anything in my luggage that suggests warmth; cashmere socks, wool tights, and ear covers, despite the fact that I am vehemently opposed to the latter due to chronic hair issues. The second of course was Cora's name flashing across the screen of my mobile. What is the deal with mothers and their incredibly poor timing anyway? Knowing all too well that any conversation with her this early would only bring an unnecessary amount of drama and derailment to my beautifully appointed selfish morning, I ignore the call. Allowing it to go to voice mail instead of pressing the ignore button, which never went unnoticed or unchallenged by her. Snapping back into reality, I continue on my way. I am not here to obsess on the Doppler radar system, Cora's intrusive manner, or even my own gastronomic pursuits. I am here to impress Michael Kipps and get this position. Then and only then can I justify leaving London professionally and afford to move back to the States without depleting my savings (again) in the process.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI did some homework on Michael and learned from mutual friends that he was a former model in the late '70s through early '80s (actually he was a major deal) who married very well (nice retirement plan if you can get it), enjoys the jet-set life and the spotlight that comes with it, so it was no surprise that he would go into the restaurant business. The shock to many was that he was fucking great at it\u2014front of the house and behind the scenes. So much so that the storied ego of his that was rumored to greet acquaintances before he did worked to his advantage now. Men and women loved to be in his presence and he was an amazing host. In the day-to-day operations he proved to be a skilled businessman, combining all that he experienced from fashion, society life, and dining at the best establishments into the secret of his success.\n\nCarly's was named after his wife and partially funded by her, an older generational wealthy blue-blood type. Carly Spencer Falles, in her heyday, was the standard by which all affairs were deemed a success or failure in New York. Success, if she decided to attend and bring with her a legion of trendsetters known as The Circle. Carly was a one-woman branding machine by virtue of her connections and influence. When she and Michael began dating in '89, most people were amused. Age-wise she preceded him by more than a decade. Anyone with eyes could understand why she would want him. The confusion was in his choosing her.\n\nMichael Kipps, at that time in his early forties, remained a divinely handsome man by any standard and, while not having discovered the fountain of youth, seemed to just get better with age. At six feet two, he was blessed with a deep olive complexion that even in the coldest of winter appeared to be sunkissed thanks to his Greek mother, dark wavy hair loosely sprinkled with silver, and a bountiful mouth set against a jawline chiseled by Michelangelo. His dating history read like a prepubescent boy's wish list of the world's most beautiful women, and by all accounts he was financially sound. Knowing these truths, to say that people were surprised by his courtship and subsequent marriage to Carly is a well-documented understatement. To quote a columnist from The Village Voice: \"For a man who has dated some of the greatest beauties in the world the new paramour of Michael Kipps doesn't seem to share the same looking glass.\"\n\nTrue, Carly was not a conventional beauty at any stage\u2014even she knew that. There was no late blooming period where her head would grow enough to minimize those elfin ears or make her nose appear less beakish. Forever lean and tall she kept her flaxen hair long and ethereal as a focal point, since the Nordic thing seemed to be a prerequisite for class distinction in Upper East Side (UES) society for any era. From what I was able to uncover, their public courtship was very brief, about seven months, which only added to the speculation that the marriage would dissolve within three years. She was infamously quoted saying that she felt like \"Linda Ronstadt and Michael is my Aaron Neville, together we make beautiful music.\" Yes, their first official dance as Mr. and Mrs. Michael Thurmond Kipps was to \"All My Life,\" so with all of this for evidence could you really blame the naysayers and skeptics?\n\nNow, nearly a decade later, with a young daughter (the ultimate wedding gift from one of Michael's exes), and having conquered New York on their terms, it seems that they have turned the skeptics into believers as demonstrated by Carly's best-selling book, Making It Work: A Guide to Lasting Love After 60. Business-wise Michael had effectively birthed an ultra-chic supper club that didn't feel gimmicky but wonderfully consistent, thanks to a world-class culinary team and marquee live performances. Now in its fourth year, the restaurant has to contend with competitors entering the neighborhood. This is where I come in. In order to remain ahead of the pack, Carly's needed to transition from being a novel idea into an institution that is the very essence of New York culture.\n\nOn the plane I reviewed the prospectus thoroughly as well as trend reports regarding consumer dining and spending behavior. So much of New York's business depends on a heavy amount of tourism dollars during peak seasons and the cool factor for locals during off-season, especially restaurants. The big question before me was how does one remain all things to all people while maintaining integrity? Excluding any biblical implications, of course. Actually, if I could answer that I would be so much further ahead in my life than twenty-eight years of age, relationship averse, hiding in my career, emotionally restless, and looking for the release hatch on my life, not necessarily to jump but just to see the abyss and contemplate what if?\u2014but I digress. I had some concrete ideas to make Carly's iconic but didn't want to get too attached to a specific pitch until I saw Michael in the flesh.\n\nAs I saw it, going into the interview I had the upper hand, so much information was available on Michael documenting his life, career, and loves. He, however, had little on me. For as much as I am a social ing\u00e9nue to some, I work very hard to keep my profile quite low, both professionally and personally. If you needed to know me, you did, and vice versa.\n\n## 3\n\n* * *\n\n## IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DUCK\n\nFOLLOWING A QUICK stopover at the hotel for those warmer clothes, I started walking to Gramercy Park to get reacquainted with my city. So much had changed, namely Bleecker Street was starting to show serious signs of gentrification with the addition of J.Crew on the corner of Seventh Avenue South. Thank goodness the falafel place, whose name I never committed to memory, next to The Peanut Butter Factory on Sullivan, was still open. I would stop by on my way back for a quick lunch. I wonder if that great vinyl music record store was still there? It wasn't exactly on Bleecker but on one of the side streets whose name I never bothered to memorize. No matter, in the next few days that I am here, I'm sure to stumble across it or a better one.\n\nSo lost in my thoughts was I that by the time I got my bearings I was in Union Square standing in line to buy zucchini bread from a vendor at the farmer's market. Hands down the best in the world! Previously, when I lived here and worked at Atkins & Klein doing fashion event\u2013related press, a coworker who was all about buying local and homegrown gave me a loaf. After that I was hooked. Since moving, however, I had not thought about how delicious it was to pop a slice in the oven and enjoy it with a cold glass of milk in the morning before hopping the A or C to my office in Midtown. Today, however, unless I was going to run across the street to The Coffee Shop, there would be no milk at this moment and since the divine zucchini loaf waits for no one I removed a glove exposing my right hand to the frigid elements, all for a delicious taste of memory lane.\n\n\"And you're not even going to offer me a bite? I see nothing has changed,\" he said.\n\nI'm certain that it was not the absence of milk that made this particular bread bite feel exceptionally larger than the previous and lodge in my throat, but the recognition of who owned that voice, Anthony Mason, alias \"my heart's greatest despair and UK decision.\" Quick invisible prayer and blessing to the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter before turning around. \"Depends on whether it is the first bite or the last,\" I say, impressed that neither the jet lag nor our history had delayed my retort. Damn it, I really should have left my hair out\u2014hate earmuffs.\n\nThank you, God, I'll never ever doubt you again! How I have dreamed about this moment and here it is\u2014you know the moment I am talking about, the one where after substantial time you see the man you gave your entire innocent heart to, only to have him completely twist your mind into a riddle of the most epic proportions and the only reprieve after he rips it from your chest and places it in a lockbox to which there is only one key is to put an ocean between you. Well, this is that moment, and I am pleased to report that my legs remain solid and I look as great as one can when wearing fifty layers and swathed like an Eskimo baby.\n\n\"Why can't it be both?\" asked Tony.\n\n\"Good-bye, An-TONY!\" I seethed.\n\nFuck no. He is doing it again, the riddles. And to believe that I once thought they were cute? He was never able to give me a straight answer then, so why would I hope to get one now? First bite or last? Beginning or end? Love me or not? Slept with her or did not? And yes, oral does count!\n\nImmediately spinning on my heels to leave in the opposite direction, he blocks me. I truly believe it was in this moment that I took temporary leave of my senses, all of them because he touched me, I smelled him, and when I went to object I looked up into the warm hazel with hints of emerald flecks that are his eyes. And just like that my heart, which had flatlined, started to beat uncontrollably and I was lost in 1995 again\u2014when we first met.\n\n## 4\n\n* * *\n\n## THE MAGIC OF RAIN\n\nNew York, 1995\n\nJULESY, DON'T TELL me you are still in bed. Angie and I are at Coffee Shop waiting on you. Snap it into gear, the movie starts in an hour. Oh, bring an umbrella,\" said Blake.\n\nShit, I completely overslept, technically not my fault. Every self-respecting Manhattanite knows that Friday is not a \"going out party night.\" It's the night exclusively reserved for the 9-to-5 Bridge & Tunnel (B&T) crowd to overtake the city in celebration of a completed workweek. And yet that is exactly what I was doing last night, playing wing-woman to Blake for her date with some dreadful Wall Streeter\u2014what is the deal with those guys anyway? Dreadfully immoral pompous bloodsuckers they are. I could never!\u2014who in an effort to impress her made sure our glasses were never empty. I in return felt it was my duty to at least try to reach the bottom of the glass, which is why I am desperately attempting to pull it together now and failing. My tipping point from buzzed to drunk must have been the two glasses of sambuca after being besieged at Cipriani's by a village of gelled hair and stretch-charmeuse-clad Ginos, Vinnies, and Ginas otherwise known as B&T.\n\n\"Ugh\u2014stop shouting. I hear you. Eat without me. I'll meet you guys at the theater.\" With my eyes closed, my hand clumsily returned the phone to its cradle and began searching the floor blindly for the water bottle resting somewhere in my bag from yesterday's gym excursion; an apt description since I have an aversion to sweating and will stop any activity (well, almost any) at the onset of perspiration.\n\nEarlier in the week I made plans to grab lunch and see Crimson Tide with Blake and Angie not expecting to have tied one on the night before. To make matters worse, spring was officially here, which meant rain, rain, glorious \"fuck up my hair and slip on my wellies\" rain. My only hope in salvaging the day was to see Denzel Washington shirtless or an extreme close-up on his \"I am a serious actor and not really trying to be sexy but you want this\" lip pout. Union Square being central to everyone, we decided to see it at the little theater across from ABC Carpet. Late for lunch but early for the movie, I bought tickets for the girls as a peace offering. It would be nice if the sun decided to make an appearance by the time we come back out, but conditions are slim.\n\n\"My God, that man is fine. Tell me about it. I swear they don't make 'em like that anymore. Could you imagine?! I would give him some. Hell, I would give him all,\" Blake and I cooed simultaneously, talking over each other. The gray chaos of earlier had given way to subtle rays of golden light to create rainbow spurts along the concrete.\n\n\"I know! Ge-ne gets me every time! That voice hmmm all gruff and authoritative. Papi can boss me around anytime. Did you see the way he put that Deezel in his place? Get 'em, Papi.\"\n\nDumbfounded, we stared at Angie for a few seconds in utter silence. Thankfully, Blake was not as lost for words as I initially was.\n\n\"First, it is DENzel. Second, it's GENE, and third, what the hell are you talking about, Angie? Were you even watching the same movie? Hackman, seriously? The only time he would ever get a glimpse at my cookies is if his Gold Card swiped it.\"\n\n\"Whah? He reminds me of my uncle Ramon. You should see that man smoke a cigar just like Gee-ene. Eeyy Mami it is hot\u2014\"\n\n\"Ang, please stop, I can't take this. You letting Gene spank it is bad enough, now you want to bring us into your incestuous fantasies. I can't and by 'I can't' I meant ewh!\" I said finally, after gaining control of my gag reflex, \"but it takes all kinds I guess.\"\n\n\"No, it doesn't. That's some Puerto Rican shit right there,\" said Blake.\n\n\"I swear you girls are sleeping. My abuela says a good-looking man can bring you nothing but heartache and bad credit. And she should know. She's been married like five times or something, although I'm not sure if Paco is legal. Anyway, Abuela says an average-looking man will work harder and treat you like a que . . . like a\u2014damn . . .\" whispered Angie, her words trailing off indicating that she had suddenly forgotten the point she was trying to make or it just didn't matter. Instinctively, Blake and I turned to uncover what had captivated her so. We understood immediately. Anthony (Tony to his friends) Mason, standing with some guys talking, looking like the divine rebirth of what heaven should be, at least to me. I'm not sure if I fell instantly in love with him or if it was lust. Spellbound as I was, one thing was certain, though: I would lose any battle that would ensue over the next year and a half. Within seconds I had taken an entire gallery of photos of him with my mind. Try as I might through the years I still can't seem to delete them.\n\nHe was carrying an oversize navy blue umbrella to protect his shoulder-length, sun-streaked, dark brown dreadlocks. Historically, I have never been attracted to men with locks\u2014unsanitary, as Cora would say\u2014but he was so much more than perfectly twisted hair. The rains had subsided, allowing glimpses of sunlight to break through the clouds, and the rays created a halo effect around him, highlighting his golden-honey complexion. A glow so bright that it seemed to emanate from his entire being through the wool peacoat, ivory cable-knit sweater, dark denims that were loose but not obscenely baggy, on to the camel Timberlands. I stood there transfixed like a child watching a magic show, and he didn't even notice.\n\nAt some point he ended his conversation and started to walk leisurely toward Fourteenth Street. Hypnotized, I followed some steps behind. He stopped to look in at a makeshift music store. Exiting, he came across a homeless woman sitting on the sidewalk and after some conversation placed money in her hands. An oncoming taxi separated us at that crosswalk. Looking ahead, I saw him crossing the street. \"Where are you going?\" I heard Blake and Angie asking from behind but could not be bothered to stop and explain my actions because I didn't have an answer yet even for myself. I only knew that I needed to see a little bit more of him before the moment passed. As soon as I relaxed, believing I had his pace down, he crossed another street, the abruptness of which paralyzed me. I stood at the corner for a moment watching him walk away, feeling as if a part of me that I would never be able to reclaim was being extracted. The return of rain only heightened the emerging panic of losing something vital. My legs sprinting into action before my head resolved the conflict, I dashed across in pursuit with absolutely no thought of what I would say when I reached him.\n\n\"Excuse me!\" I said, with an urgency that was startling even to me. He turned as if instinctively knowing that I was speaking to him, rendering me lost for a moment. Please, say something more than that, Jules. Words. You know what they are\u2014single distinct conceptual uses for language. Select a few, form a sentence, and for mercy's sake don't embarrass us. Come on, girl. \"My name is . . . Hi, I am Jules . . .\" Really, is that the best you got? OMG, it doesn't matter because he is now touching my hand. Dear Lord, I hope he thinks I'm cute and not about to have a heart attack. Okay, say something clever. Ask directions. For God's sake, breathe! \"I am Jules Sinclair and . . . I saw you coming out of the theater, back there, and wanted to say hello.\" WTF? Did you just say what was actually in your head? No style, no finesse, that was so amateur. Way to go, little one, way to freaking go. Oh my goodness, did he just smile? He did. Oxygen!\n\n\"Hi. I'm Tony,\" he said, looking down at me. \"Are you a dancer? You hold yourself like one.\n\nBefore I could answer, a hint of cinnamon from his chewing gum tickled my nose, giving me permission to close my eyes and inhale the moment.\n\n\"No, but thanks for the compliment,\" I say, slowly opening my eyes, allowing them to linger on every inch of his frame. When our eyes met he was blushing and I knew exactly what I wanted, to be anywhere that he is from now until forever stops being an idea.\n\nStepping closer and positioning his umbrella so that it shielded us both from the falling rain, Tony said, \"So you saw me at the movies?\"\n\n\"Yes. I was with my friends, saw you, and wanted to, actually needed to introduce myself\u2014say hello.\" Stammering to get the last few words out.\n\n\"Your friends,\" he says, pointing across the street. \"You referring to the two girls hiding behind that white van?\" Laughing aloud in a way that made me feel as if he and I were in on the joke the entire time, as if it had always been he and I against the world.\n\nAnd in my very first (of many) \"shit that only happens to Jules\" moments, Tony invited us to join him for dinner at this Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village just west of Seventh. The d\u00e9cor was nothing to speak of, very clich\u00e9d; red-and-white checker-patterned tablecloths with old candle wax\u2013laden bottles on each. I don't even remember if the food was good. The conversation flowed easily and he was more charming than any of us could have imagined. Tony spoke of living in a converted firehouse in Tribeca, transitioning from street dancing to modeling and now photographer. When he did excuse himself briefly from the table, our collective squeal was so loud that I am sure he could not help but hear it in the men's room.\n\n\"What would your abuelita have to say about that, Angie?\" Blake asked pointing in the direction of the chair Tony had been sitting in.\n\n\"Nothing, because she would be butt naked in the kitchen wearing only an apron and some heels screaming ayyy Papi and cooking him some paella y platanos, habas con arroz, flan y guava,\" I said mockingly in my bad Spanglish. Besides, I couldn't help but go for the big dig here if for nothing more than to shut Angie up a little bit. Over the course of dinner she had gotten a little extra chatty with Tony. \"Oh, by the way, missy, you do realize that I not only called this one first but I've already started to name our children, so keep your chi-chis in that enormous bra of yours. Comprende?\"\n\n\"Julesy . . . come on, you know he is not my type. You have nothing to worry about. I would never. Besides, what could a man like that do for me?\" she protested. In truth I knew no such thing, since Angie was the newest to our friendship circle by way of an introduction from Blake, so I adhered to a delicate dance with her that I tagged \"playfully serious.\"\n\n\"That is the farthest thing from my mind, Ang. I just don't want to have to cut you in front of the future Mr. Jules Sinclair, that's all. Haha.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIn time Tony would admit that he overheard us and was quite flattered by my proprietary declaration of him. By the end of dinner, despite having to share him with the girls, I had a calm about this man that exceeded any anxiety about when he would call or if he would call because I just knew he would. Even if I wasn't sure of how to be with one, seeing as though, until this point, I was so used to dating boys. As Blake and Angie headed out the door, Tony placed his hand on my face in a caress that allowed him now to take in the moment and me.\n\n\"I didn't plan on meeting you today, Ms. Sinclair, but I would like to know more. How about dinner . . . tomorrow at Odeon?\"\n\n## 5\n\n* * *\n\n## TONY & JULES\n\n8:30 p.m.\n\nWE MET IN Tribeca; our first date setting the stage for everything that was great between us. The conversation was open and intimate, unlike typical first-date small talk. It was akin to a third or fourth date when you know that time is going to be invested in this person, so you go a bit in-depth and open yourself up for a closer look, less afraid of the imperfections they may see. His firsthand experiences mirrored much of what I had only dreamed about at university.\n\n\"Yeah, divorce is rough but I came out of it better than most I guess . . . Funny, your escape was the rain, mine was the streets, which just made things worse at home,\" said Tony. \"You know, Jules, if you truly love the smell of the earth after a good rainfall, then you must love Costa Rica. I just got back from there surfing with my brother. The rain forest is amazing. Man, we saw animals unlike anything in the Bronx Zoo. This is our third time there. Have you ever been?\"\n\n\"No, but I saw a PBS documentary on it last year. It's on my list of must-go-to places,\" I said.\n\n\"Ah, you'll love it. I'll take you,\" said Tony, to my ears not sounding like an empty gesture but like a heartfelt desire. \"It's the best place to get lost and get found in, next to certain parts of Africa. Last year I went to sub-Saharan Africa for a photo shoot and ended up staying a few weeks working with the famine relief to deliver food and vaccines. You?\"\n\n\"No. I haven't been to the continent yet, but I am an avid supporter of Feed the Children. Okay, avid is a little strong. I have supported, would like to do more, and really want to impress you, but it's kinda hard because you have done everything,\" I said.\n\n\"Not true. I've never fallen in love,\" he said, completing the sentence with a wink, at which we both erupted in laughter. \"I can't believe I just said that to you. Did it work? Are you swooning? You are, come on . . . smooth.\"\n\nWith as much seductive sarcasm as I could muster, I replied, \"Oh yeah, something is seriously rising\"\u2014half covering my mouth with my hand to cough out the words\u2014\"and it's not the flag in Pamplona but the\u2014\" At which we both laughed. \"Seriously, don't you ever get tired of the nomadic life and just want a place to call home?\"\n\n\"On the real, I guess you could say I am a wanderer of sorts. There's so much to explore, and I plan to do all of it,\" he said. \"Besides, being transitory is actually comforting for me. My mom was inconsistent after the divorce, so I learned early on not to get too attached to things or hit the self-destruct button when things get so comfortable that I lose perspective. You learn to adapt. One day you'll reach for it and nothing is there, you know?\"\n\nI thought I knew but in truth I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I watched the words leave his mouth, heard them in my right ear, and by the time they got to the left I had paraphrased them into an immaculate tale of Scheherazade convincing myself that I was the answer to his wondering.\n\nEvery so often the ma\u00eetre d' came over to make sure that \"their Tony\" was happy, as would friends and neighborhood locals who, like him, considered the Odeon their personal kitchen. I was fascinated watching as he effortlessly transitioned from one to the other; each time never forgetting that I was there and making certain to include me in the conversation or cut a dialogue short when a dim-witted model creature was blatantly trying to blink me invisible.\n\n\"I could get used to you at my side, Ms. Sinclair,\" said Tony.\n\nOfficially, he was choosing me. This Sadie Hawkins\u2013esque mentality I reasoned was one of the rare places that Venus and Mars weren't actually so far apart. It's just that women and men approach love and idol worship far differently. As a woman, I acknowledge that I am preconditioned to wait to be selected for the moment \"he\" will announce to the gallery that I am the most beautiful one in the room. For their part, men\u2014no matter their size, shape, or credit score\u2014seem conditioned to believe that everything they survey is rightfully theirs, be it women or cattle; it is all property, one and the same. The only difference is that cattle can't hold them or build them up when the world around starts to disintegrate. It takes some time before they are ready to hear this truth and fold into a specific woman. I would be foolish to think that I was the first for Tony in this space, but I do believe that I am the most genuine he has encountered, and that in itself could be a frightening proposition over time.\n\nIn little to no time we came to know each other's mannerisms so well that the graze of a brow would be a signal to depart, a shortened laugh meant he wanted rescue from an impossibly boring conversation. His hand in the small of my back said, \"I'm proud you're mine.\" Before Tony, I never laughed so much about anything or took myself so lightly. For a while playing Lois Lane to his Superman was enough. But, as much as we were in harmony, there were hiccups that I didn't question, to a great extent because I trusted the strength of our union, until the moments that started as flint sparks erupted into four-alarm fires.\n\n\"What are you talking about, Tony? Don't break that! I told you last week that I was meeting Shawn for dinner. I even asked if you wanted to come. Why would I do that if I had something to hide? Why?! Whatever, I guess your boy Jay's word on what he thought he saw is more important than mine.\"\n\nHis quiet moments, the dark ones that were not about waking up late on a Sunday, having coffee, and silently dissecting the paper in bed together\u2014National Geographic and Sports Illustrated for him, Arts and Style sections of The New York Times for me\u2014were the worst.\n\n\"Hey, didn't you hear me calling you? What's wrong? How long have you been sitting here? It's past three o'clock,\" I'd say.\n\nBeing at dinner and catching a gaze between him and the waitress, never enough for our friends to notice but just enough for me to feel devalued. My initial thought was always to go quiet and not overreact, but words often found me when we were alone.\n\n\"Tell you what, next time I see lipstick anywhere on your person I will be certain not to fall back on the convention of us. You should know better.\"\n\nBefore long I found myself asking him questions I already knew the answers to, only to have him lie to me or avoid the response completely. More nights than I care to admit, I would leave his place in tears and vowing never again. Angrier than necessary at myself for always choosing the wrong corner to try to hail a cab. Tribeca is a bitch late at night. And every time we hit a wall he would find a way to reach in and take hold of my heart again. Maybe if I didn't love him as intensely as I did, it would have been easier to make a break sooner.\n\n\"Love isn't perfect, Jules. It's not the fairy tale you have worked out in your head. I am trying hard to be that man for you, baby, but you have to ride this out with me. I need to know that you will be there.\"\n\nI was there through everything, even as the tests got harder and harder. I was there when his brother Nathaniel died as they were riding (racing) back from the Hamptons on their bikes. I was there when he said that the recreational white powder was just a temporary situation to take the edge off and was nothing to worry about. I was there long enough to become the enemy so that everything I did to comfort him only infuriated him. I was there for the yelling, the crying, the apologies, and I truly tried to understand it and rationalize that it was not him, that he was under great pressure. To my heart's ache I was there when Angie's body held the comfort he needed.\n\nThat's the thing about giving a set of keys to your lover; eventually he or she will use them at an unexpected moment. Ours was on a Saturday\u2014October 9, 1996, to be exact, when I received a call from the Conrad Hotel Group in London to join their firm. Tony was the one who gave me the inside information to apply, so it seemed only natural that when they called and offered me the position on a day that was free of any expectations, I would rush to him to talk everything over. And boy, was there a lot to figure out. Could his job be done from London in order to be with me or at least could he split the time since the flight is only five and a half hours across the Atlantic? Should I keep my apartment in NYC or move my things into his? If I were to give up my place, did he want us to get the London flat as a couple with both of our names on the lease? The package they offered sounded good, but what should I counter with? Was the expense package sufficient? Tony held the answers to my future.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIn hindsight it's odd because I sensed my world was crashing before my eyes took in the full scene, but dismissed it. Maybe it was the eternity that it seemed to take traveling from uptown or the uncertainty of what it would mean for us growing to the next level. On entering the main level of his place I smelled a fragrance (freesia and lemon\u2014awful combination if ever there was) that was at once familiar but not readily identifiable. I called his name and immediately upon seeing his form coming down the stairs, I dove right in with my news. I must have been talking a mile a minute while trying to find a chilled bottle of champagne because I didn't initially notice the look on his face or the marks on his back. It was only when I held him again that I felt them accompanied by the unusual warmth of his mouth and that scent (freesia and lemon) in the fold of his neck. This time I didn't need to ask questions. His face was in my hands, so there was no place for his eyes to run in an attempt to escape mine. The story they told me was far more than I could bear, and it was right then that I understood for the first time what real loss was. It was the first moment that I felt I could truly empathize with his losing Nathaniel earlier in the year. I had lost him and unlike the times before, we both knew that I could not take him back, even though I still loved him, and that an ocean between us was the only answer.\n\nIt must have been the absence of screaming and dramatics or the unusually long quiet between us, but she called his name and suddenly everything made sense. She was always too eager about any developments about us. I erroneously had become far too open and comfortable in the certainty of Tony and Jules, so I disclosed freely.\n\n\"AN-Tony, is she gone?\"\n\nWell, so much for a long quiet. Somewhere between the first and second landing I met Angie and she met the champagne bottle in my hand. Damn shame actually now that I think about it\u2014Pierre Jou\u00ebt ros\u00e9 was my favorite champagne. I haven't had it since 1996. All the things that I could not do to him I did to her. Each blow landed only intensified the fury inside. In that moment I understood how someone could take a life, and I would have if he had not grabbed me. I remember him holding me tightly, rocking back and forth. His tears falling down my shoulder, and all I could do was collapse into his arms and mourn us. How odd the whole experience was. When I awoke, we were in the same spot on the floor and in the same cradle position that I so loved to be in with him. Being \"in the pocket\" is how he always referred to it. I was glad that he didn't wake when I left, for there was nothing else to be said except that I wished we could go back in time and meet all over again, but this time we would be smarter and not hurt each other.\n\nTony once said, \"J, it hurts sometimes to see myself in your eyes. You believe me to be the kind of man that I only aspire to be but fear I will never live up to.\" Maybe that is why I instinctively held his face in the kitchen, so that he could see my soul and all that he'd destroyed, because in some strange way I knew that it was the only way to reach him. I needed Tony to see what a living death looked like.\n\nI accepted the offer and left for London within the week. My phone met an unfortunate end somewhere along the West Side Highway. Smashing it was the only way I could stop his calls from coming through and my temptation to allow explanation. My office was no longer safe, because he camped out there now in order to explain, so I resigned effective immediately. I left my apartment as is, had my intern forward my clothing, and went to a hotel because I didn't know which of our friends to trust. I walked a lot above Twenty-first Street in the hopes that the city would heal me as it had many times before. But this time she failed me. On the plane I thought of my mother's warning about being mindful of what details one confides in girlfriends about their relationships because instead of celebrating your happiness one will be contemplating how to get what and who you have.\n\n\"Baby, watch yourself and these little fast girls you call friends. They aren't happy for you. You better wise up and see who is trying to get what you got.\"\n\n\"Cora, please. My girls are not like that,\" I said boastfully. \"Women today are not like they were back in your day. Besides, Tony would never.\"\n\n\"I prefer when you call me Mommy. Those are the times that I know you really hear the words I am saying to you,\" said Cora.\n\n\"And what if I wanted to stop, hear less. What about then, Cora,\" I asked, intentionally snarky.\n\n\"Nasty little thing you can be sometimes, Julesea. I don't know who you get it from\u2014definitely not from me,\" said Cora. \"Everybody knows the Dutch are extremely civilized people.\"\n\n## 6\n\n* * *\n\n## CLOSURE\n\nUnion Square, 1998\n\nFIRST BITE,\" SAID Tony, struggling to be accountable in the moment and not divert the gravity of our history entirely with charm. \"First bite and I'm sorry for what I did to you, for what I did to us. Jules, if I could . . .\"\n\nFeeling my resolve weaken, \"I can't do this right now. Not today, I just can't,\" I said, forcibly releasing myself from his grasp. A rush of uncontrollable trembles started to stir in my chest, only to erupt in my hands. I didn't think I had anymore tears left to cry, but there they were, at the ready and falling freely in front of him.\n\nI've always wondered who those people are that can love someone so deeply and, after a great betrayal, forget that feeling of all-encompassing devotion that was there. I never forgot. I was acutely aware of this disturbing fact whenever a big decision presented itself and my first instinct was to call Tony and get his insight. Our history wallpapered my life, so that in order to breathe, each day I had to place something new and \"more important\" on a mental Post-it to cover all the pain. Any efforts to peel the paper itself were as futile as the ink now embedded in my skin like a tattoo. Not wanting to lose the moment but seeing that I could not handle all that he needed to say, Tony asked about when I got back into town and if we could have dinner. The tears that escaped were captured by his caress, reminding me of that first night in Greenwich. For lack of words to save the moment, I closed my eyes to shut him out, get my bearings.\n\n\"I have to go,\" I said and started to walk off. Midstep, the history of us said walking away so abruptly was somehow cowardly and wrong, causing me to pause. Slowly, I turned around to face Tony, still standing there as on the day we first met, with the heavens still shining just for him.\n\n\"Breakfast, tomorrow, nine thirty. I'm staying at the Mercer.\"\n\nAny gesture requiring more of me would have been too much, so I dared not wait for an answer. I knew that no matter what was on his schedule, he would be there. The only thing I didn't know was what I expected, what I needed. Foolishly, I believed I could sashay down memory lane, to all the places Tony and I used to go, and not encounter any of our ghosts. But that, again, is not life and definitely not indicative of the shit that only happens to Jules. In some ways I guess the moment is fitting, Manhattan is after all only thirteen miles long and most everyone I know resides below Fourteenth Street. Peering at my watch primarily for somewhere to rest my eyes and resist the urge to look back, I realize it is approaching 3 p.m. My meeting with Michael is at 8 p.m., and puffy eyes and a broken heart do not make a good first impression.\n\nThere is no city as amazing as New York. Instead of crumbling on the walk back to the Mercer, I found my stride. The air that before felt cold and biting now felt refreshing. Something outside of myself that reminded me to be in the moment, not in a past that has been written and is at best just a bundle of memories of intangibles. Back at the hotel, a hot bath with my special blend of coconut and lavender bath salts was definitely in order, followed by a quick once-over to make sure that there were no chipped nails, no stray eyebrows, or that telltale mustache that had started to sprout immediately as I blew out the candles on my last birthday cake. If all was good, then I could treat myself to a disco nap and pray the last few hours away.\n\n## 7\n\n* * *\n\n## Carly's\n\nWITH THE EXCEPTION of two oversize gilded doors, the simple exterior of Carly's underscored its decadent Hollywood Regency d\u00e9cor meets members-only British club interior. Moments after entering, I was greeted warmly by the hostess, who while requisite supermodel Amazonian gorgeous was further along in years, more like an Iman-type from one of those ravaged African countries that possesses some of the most beautiful humans ever to grace the earth, Somalia or Ethiopia. Her generous nature was not reserved solely for me. There were a few patrons ahead of me, and she was quite accommodating. Beyond fierce is the Old Guard of glamazons. Hearing that I was to see Michael, she proceeded to escort me to the main dining room, which was accessible either by twenty or so steps descending into the most stylishly outfitted room I'd seen in some time or by a glass elevator that equally guaranteed you saw everything and were seen by everyone. Deep shades of mahogany, tobacco, and camel furnishings in various luxurious fabrications and skins accented with variations of jade and ivory marble and intricate moldings comprised the room's seating. A stage in the round was the room's nucleus, thereby making every table a great one. The entire layout demanded that I take a moment on the stairs to absorb it all. For the briefest moment I felt as if it were all for me. Immediately I felt ready for my Sunset Boulevard-esque close-up. If Michael concocted such an entrance to impress me, it's working.\n\nThe hostess, having reached the basin only to notice me stationary, asked, \"Ms. Sinclair, is there a problem?\" I shook my head no but had yet to move. \"Intoxicating, isn't it? If you will follow me.\" She was right, intoxicating was the perfect word.\n\nThe room seats about 250 and yet it manages to feel extremely intimate and inviting. On approach I was taken aback to see my table empty. With such an entrance, I expected to arrive at a filled booth greeted by Michael Kipps himself in the midst of an amazing story, surrounded by an admiring court hanging on his every word\u2014but that was not the case. Reluctantly, I accepted my seat as a party of one in a packed restaurant at a time when the last thing I needed was to be alone with my thoughts. After a few uncomfortable moments, I started to regret not wearing my actually I am not alone but here for an important meeting T-shirt in order to deflect a few pity-filled stares directed my way. Under different circumstances, I could have given my watch your man NOT me vibe, but not tonight, not after seeing Tony and knowing that I would have to face him again tomorrow.\n\n\"Ma'am, a Macallan 15, neat,\" said the waiter as he placed the drink in from of me.\n\n\"Actually, no. I didn't order anything yet,\" I replied, taken aback briefly, \"but a scotch would be perfect right about now.\"\n\n\"Yes, compliments of Mr. Kipps. Would you like something else?\"\n\n\"No. This is fine. Thank you.\"\n\nWatching him go, I sat there invisibly scratching my head as it dawned on me that Michael Kipps knew far more about me than I'd assumed. Without further hesitation, I took a full sip of the scotch that had been gifted to me. To feel something stronger than the thoughts I was fighting to suppress was highly welcome.\n\nIn truth, the disco nap did not help. I was in need of a double but feared turning into a blubbering wreck by the time Michael joined me. Normally, handling my liquor is not a problem. I am well aware of my limits and always mindful to have water between drinks. Actually, I consider the fact that I am not a sad or angry drunk in the rare moments that I take it there to be one of my best traits. Modern Girl Achievements, I call it. At my worst I am quiet and contemplative. Tonight, however, any extra fermented assistance could render me an emotional nutter, so my current plan is to nurse this one drink all evening. Tonight I need to dazzle and convince this man that the continued media development of his business would best flourish under my direction.\n\n\"Ms. Sinclair, I hope you are in the mood for a great show\"\u2014and with that Michael Thurmond Kipps finally showed himself. Ignoring the formality of a handshake, he slid into the booth alongside me. No sooner did Michael sit down than Alyson Williams, jazz and soul songstress, appeared onstage. Like the clientele of Carly's, Alyson was a New York fixture, known as much for her onstage presence as for being the daughter of legendary trumpeter Bobby Booker. Her personality was as flamboyant and colorful as the black crushed velvet bodysuit with a cheetah cape, matching pillbox hat, and oversize gold jewelry she wore. On the strength of a single note, she could express love's rise and fall with inexplicable clarity.\n\nThe performance list at Carly's is not published, so it is the luck of the draw as to who will be performing on any given night. When you call to make a reservation, the only thing that will be confirmed is the time your table will be available and that there will be live music. Quite a useful tool if you have the Rolodex to make each night a showstopper. You are all but guaranteeing that every columnist, \"It Kid,\" society heir, and social climber will be present nightly. For there is nothing more tragic to a self-proclaimed man (or woman)-about-town than not to be in the nexus of the most exclusive goings-on. Even if they are not genuine fans of the music, they are devotees of the scene. It is intoxicating, remember.\n\nThroughout the first half of Alyson's performance, I focused entirely on Michael. Yes, in person he was all that the gossips made him out to be: commanding presence, handsome, stylish, and tremendously confident. His choice of dress was understated yet impeccably bespoke. A few times he caught me eyeing him. I could see that he took some pleasure in watching me scramble to look elsewhere when caught. At a moment in \"Not on the Outside,\" he leaned over and said, \"I'm the most open cat you will ever meet, so don't try so hard to dissect me. At least not during our first meeting.\" And with that he affixed a firm squeeze midway up my thigh, just high enough to be indecent. Oh, great. Does this ever stop? For this I did not try to avert my gaze but demanded his so that he could see that those male power plays did not intimidate me.\n\nAll too often it seems that to be a successful woman in business and not be derailed by unwanted advances, we are to assume the posture of men in an attempt to be invincible\u2014and our femininity invisible. I rejected that doctrine from my first foray into the business world. Yes, my success is a result of the feminist movement, and I appreciate all that was done. However, I reject the belief that every advance by a man in a professional environment is a three-alarm fire sign to cry foul. More times than not I have found it to be a weeding-out process that is part of the game of big business.\n\nAs women we are still screaming to be treated as equals, so the easiest\u2014albeit most infantile\u2014way, it seems, for some men to determine if we are ready to play with the big boys is to go directly for the gaping wound of sexual discomfort. I mean, hell, why don't you just put a Coke can on the table and call me Anita? The key is how you handle yourself in that moment. Save it\u2014don't waste time trying to explain yourself, because it will fall on deaf ears or be interpreted as whining. Don't bristle either. Hold firm and assert your power with a smirk and a \"no\" head shake, then move his hand if it lingers and redirect his attention to a better candidate. If they are the daft type, defuse with a quick but serious joke, or mention his wife. And for heaven's sake DO NOT fool yourself into thinking that your sweet nectar will change his life and therefore send you skyrocketing up the corporate ladder of success. It won't. Daddy told me this countless times over the years. \"Jules,\" he'd say, \"the only ting dat type of ting will get a woman is a badt reputation.\"\n\nLeaning into Michael close enough to be within earshot while maintaining eye contact so that even in this dim light he could understand the magnitude of my intent, I said, \"You do know it would never work, don't you? I would just be dating you for your money, your power, and social position, only to leave you as soon as a bigger branch presented itself.\"\n\nMichael smirked. \"I like you, Sinclair. You got gumption.\" Then he patted my knee. \"Indeed, I can respect that.\"\n\nAfter Alyson's first set, we talked about his business. He spoke about feeling alive in Carly's like it was what he was supposed to do with his life all along and the modeling was just a step to get there. For so long he had been growing other people's wealth, either in editorial, by attending events, or with commercials. Then one day it occurred to him that if his face and name were this valuable for everybody else, then they would be just as valuable for ventures of his own. Now he wants Carly's to become a global destination. For the most part I listened attentively, because it was clear that he enjoyed having a captive audience that allowed him to do all the talking. All in all it was quite informative and impressive. In a much different way than with Tony\u2014in Michael I saw a man I could learn from.\n\nAt the start of the second set we began to eat, and just in time too. I never did get to have that falafel or enjoy the remainder of the zucchini slices from earlier. I ordered heartily; a beet and goat cheese salad to start, with a petite filet, twice-baked potato, and asparagus for an entr\u00e9e. Now it seemed Michael's turn to not-so-discreetly check me out. Unbeknownst to me, my ravenous appetite impressed him. I guess heartache and famine do have their benefits in the right circumstances. Through bites and head bobs to Alyson's singing, we exchanged some marketing ideas about the restaurant and debated who was a better baller, Vince Carter or Allen Iverson. He was delusional even to have uttered Carter's name, and I let him know it. At that he belted out a laugh that was so robust, even Alyson took notice midway through a song.\n\nThe night for me ended around midnight, and despite the time difference I didn't feel like turning in just yet. As Michael walked me to the door, he asked if I could come back tomorrow evening at six o'clock. He wanted to actually see the media strategy I spoke of and give me a proper tour of his burgeoning empire. Next steps in place, I climbed into the back of a taxi and directed the driver to the hotel. For all the things in my life that don't go the way I desire, there are gems\u2014like tonight\u2014that go better than I could ever imagine. The trick for me is to get better at compartmentalizing the storms, thereby always leaving me an open box to identify a great, unexpected moment. This was such a moment. I wanted to savor it, so I rerouted the driver up to Central Park through Times Square and back down Park Avenue so I could let New York know that, while I may have left for a moment, I didn't run away completely. I just needed some time to discover who I was outside its embrace.\n\n## 8\n\n* * *\n\n## LAST GOOD-BYES\n\nFOR THE BRIEFEST moment upon awaking, I forgot where I was and how my day was starting. Breakfast with ex. Inasmuch as there was immense unresolved pain in the anxiety I felt, everything within me wanted to see him and hear his reasons. I needed closure. Over time I had become equipped in handling that dull pain that never really seemed to go away, the twinge of jealousy and subsequent dismissal that I felt when young love was before me. All the darts and daggers became friends. And while intentional avoidance may not have been the recommended therapeutic approach, I found it useful. I had learned to rebuild my life bit by bit, and in doing so I pushed our relationship so far down that it seemed mythical. Today that fable would leap off the page and become all too real. I just wish I knew if the ending would reflect American movies, with no collateral damage and a neat little bow, or French ones, all bleak and undefined.\n\n8:15 a.m.\u2014The snooze alarm goes off a second time, forcing me to finally concede defeat, withdrawing the covers from around my head but still refusing to open my eyes. I fumble beneath the empty pillow on my left, searching for the mobile or, as I have come to begrudgingly refer to it, \"the only bed partner I've had for the past two years.\"\n\nYou have three new voice messages:\n\nMessage One: It's Cora. Did you just send me to voice mail? I would hate to think you are standing there looking at your phone, ignoring me.\n\nMessage Two: Julesea, why is your phone ringing like that? Are you in the States? Call Mommy.\n\nMessage Three: Julesea, it's Cora. Call your father, he is worried.\n\nMy word, what am I going to do with this woman? Against my better judgment I dial her.\n\n\"Hi, Cora\u2014\"\n\n\"Well, look who finally got around to calling back,\" said Cora. \"You know your father was worried sick about you.\"\n\n\"Was he now? Good morning, Cora. I just got your messages,\" I say.\n\n\"How is that possible? I called you at least three times, Julesea. What good is having a phone if you don't answer it? I will never understand. Is this what they are doing over there these days\u2014not picking up the phone?\"\n\nI couldn't help but chuckle at her theatrics. \"No, that's not what they are doing. I am sorry but I was exhausted having gotten to New York on the red-eye and\u2014\"\n\n\"New\u2014What are you talking about? What are you doing in New York and why am I just hearing about it? Is this keeping secrets from me going to be a habit or . . . ?\" Oh, if only she knew, but let's not complicate things now.\n\n\"Please, stop. It's far too early and there is no caffeine in my system yet. I'm here for an interview but didn't want to tell anyone.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm sad to hear that I am just anyone to you,\" said Cora, combining all of her thoughts into one stealth interrogation. \"What interview? Did you get fired from Conrad? What happened? Who are you meeting with? Does Daddy know?\"\n\n\"No! I did not get fired. I am meeting with this guy Michael Kipps about helming the PR division of his supper club, and no, Daddy does not know, so there is no need for you to feel left out.\"\n\n\"Umph. So you are leaving London to work at a restaurant? What kind of sense does that make? Are you mad, Julesea?!\" shrieked Cora.\n\n\"A supper club, Mommy!\"\u2014Why am I yelling?\u2014\"You know, the kind of place with cool singers and nicely dressed people. Trust me, you'd like it,\" I said. \"Listen, I promise to tell you everything later, but I really have to go now. Ton-y . . .\" forcing the last syllable to silently escape my lips . . . \"To a meeting downstairs and I'm not even dressed.\" Whoa, that was close. Even when we were dating and things were good, Cora struggled to tolerate Tony, always professing that something about that boy wasn't right. After our breakup she allowed the floodgates of wrath to open up, never missing an opportunity to highlight the flags she saw or the warnings she gave, all of which I was too na\u00efve to comprehend. I couldn't bear to hear the lashing she would give me, if she knew that he and I were meeting in a matter of minutes. Not today. I need to be as clear and connected to my feelings as possible, not echoing Cora's accusatory yet well-intentioned sentiments.\n\n\"Umph. Is this a good opportunity?\" she asked.\n\n\"I think so,\" I said, acutely aware of not giving too much for her to dissect.\n\n\"And it would put you back in the States, yes? Instead of thousands of miles away? . . . That's good, I guess.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\n\"I just don't know why it has to be in New York. That city is nothing good for you. Just your luck, you'll move back and run into that good-for-nothing wannabe ragamu\u2014.\" My goodness, was there any pleasing this woman?!\n\n\"CORA!\" I yelled. \"I have to go. I will ring you later, promise. Kiss Daddy for me. Love you, must go. Bye,\" I said, removing the phone from my ear but not actually hanging it up until I heard her mumbling subside. Oh, how I have wanted to hang up on her over the years but I never can. She's an absolute nutter and the very foundation that makes me believe that nothing is out of reach, although I will never tell her that much.\n\nFinally dressed and taking full inventory of myself one last time in the mirror, I think about the kind of woman who I would like to actually be (not a composition of the flaws and unfulfilled dreams that confront me every so often):\n\nI long to be the woman whom is loved passionately and deeply by a successful man who can provide for me in all ways that matter in this life. A woman who realizes that happiness is not a choice between this or that but an accumulation of moments experienced and shared. I want to be the woman who knows when to let a love go that existed in rose-colored glasses, only to walk into a true love that requires no special frames to be alluring. I want to be the woman whom he chooses to remain faithfully monogamous to and committed to even when things aren't going smoothly. I want to be the woman whose eyes hold his future.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nComing down the stairs, into Mercer's subterranean restaurant, I saw that Tony had selected one of the more intimate seating areas. This made me regret not having peeled myself out of bed sooner or speaking to Cora too long, at least I could have controlled the proximity of our bodies. Instead I now had to deal with the forced intimacy created by the booth he selected, which only heightened my anxiety. Seeing me approach, he stands. A proper gentleman. Despite Cora's misgivings, his mama did something right; he always walked on the side of advancing traffic and ordered for me. He knew my food allergies to shellfish and soy. He never complained about my desire always to see scary movies, only to scream and jump from the opening titles to the end credits. Things like that demonstrated why I thought he was a keeper and why then I felt so lucky. In reality, however, nice packaging doesn't always mean that you will like what is inside.\n\nUnsteadily, Tony took the cup from the waitress. \"Morning, I ordered you some hot chocolate with a shot of espresso. You're still drinking that, right? Of course you are. It's cold outside. It must be cold in London, huh . . . You look really good, Jules. I couldn't believe my eyes yesterday when I crossed the street and saw you. At first I thought it was someone who looked like you. I've mistaken quite a few girls for you over the years, and then I saw you do the 'first bite of zucchini loaf' dance\"\u2014stopping to mimic me with one hand in the air and a heavy-metal rocker head bob\u2014\"I watched you for a while, you know, frozen. I didn't know what I should say, I was just so glad to see you. I miss you. Can I say that, that I miss you?\" His nerves obviously forcing him to blurt out his confession all in one breath.\n\nI had forgotten what it was like to see him less than composed and how it affected me, so I watched and listened, taking him in. All the while feeling that when it was time for me to speak my truth I would know what to say.\n\n\". . . I fucked up, J. I hurt you something bad I know that. There's just no way to make that shit right. I would, you know . . . if I could.\" Despite the great effort he was making to hold my gaze, I needed to look elsewhere, electing instead to watch his hands dance frantically around the contours of the white linen napkin. \"That morning when I woke up and you were gone, everything stopped being a game. It all became too real.\"\n\nShifting uncomfortably in my seat, I fought to hold myself at bay and not move to wipe the dam of tears threatening to break over the rims of his eyes. A part of me found this show of emotion endearing. Not in the way that would make all that had occurred vanish, but it validated the fact that I wasn't in this nightmare alone. For so long, in my quiet moments I envisioned him and Angie moving along happily with their lives together and toasting to my broken heart. They would have sex in the bed that he and I had picked out together. In the morning he would gently caress the base of her stomach, as he did mine each day, and kiss behind her ear. Every beautiful memory that we had, in my pain, I extracted my image and replaced it with hers.\n\n\"Are you still with her?\" I demanded, unable to contain the residual bits of anger that refused to be tempered.\n\n\"No! Of course not. I have not seen that girl since that day.\" Off my disbelieving look he continued, \"I promise you, Jules. I have not seen her in years. I did call to make certain that she was okay and made arrangements to cover any medical costs she incurred, but that was all. Believe me.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, and I did.\n\n\"She wasn't the problem, Jules, and neither was the other shit. I was the problem. I wanted everything, to have you on my arm and keep the pretense that my life brought. Every time I felt us fold into each other it scared the shit out of me. Automatically I would check myself and run scenarios of how we would end. At first I thought I was crazy and set my mind not to fuck us up. I felt you would leave me at some point if I didn't get it right, so I wanted to be 'that guy,' not just for you but for me as well. It just all came too soon and I wasn't ready, I guess. I didn't want to choose.\"\n\nFeeling the urge to defend myself, I fired back, \"I never asked you to choose, Tony. I didn't even know there was a choice to be made. I never held you back. I encouraged every dream you had, and even when things were tough I pushed through for you, for us.\"\n\n\"Well, damn, I guess you were perfect, some kind of martyr or something, and I was a big fuckup, just lucky to have you, right? I know that's what everyone thought. . . . That's what I thought.\"\n\n\"Let's not do this. You know better. Don't spew your venom at me and I won't do it to you. We both messed this up, Tony. We were both guilty of some crazy idol worship of the other and for all of our intelligent 'ride or die' shit we couldn't make it work and people got hurt. I got hurt . . . and so did you. I am still hurting. I think of you more than I care to admit and I mourn us still every day. I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want you to hurt anymore.\" The enormous lump that had returned to my throat was still there but felt manageable. \"I want to let go.\"\n\nWe sat talking for hours about things, some reflections about the good times that continued to haunt us both but mostly about the mistakes and do-overs that were impossible to recapture. I don't recall much of the former now because in retrospect they were minor details. What I know for certain is that at some point we were holding hands like old times, crying forgiveness tears in a very public place that held many memories for us. Standing with him at the corner, saying good-bye, I still felt the full impact of us. Had he verbalized all the things I needed to hear? I would have no way of knowing this until time gifts me with perspective. For now I know that I heard the things I wanted to hear. More to the point, I know that I had enough to sleep for the first time in two years through the night\u2014but is it enough to free my heart and love again? A final embrace and Tony walked away toward Broadway. Even now he was the finest man my eyes had ever laid on.\n\nTurning to reenter the hotel, I hear, \"Jules Sinclair. Ti amo, baby, ti amo.\" People on the street must have thought Tony a crazy man, judging by the way they rushed past him. For the last time I cried for us, this time happy tears, and waved good-bye.\n\n\"Ti amo per sempre,\" I whispered loud enough for only my soul to hear.\n\n## 9\n\n* * *\n\n## AND YOU ARE?\n\nMICHAEL'S NOT HERE. Let me buy you a drink while you wait,\" said the man standing behind the host stand at Carly's.\n\nHad I not been fresh off the emotional roller coaster that was Anthony Mason or been so intently focused on landing this job, I would've noticed that this guy was absolutely swoonworthy; mid-thirties, I'd say, with dark blond hair and hypnotic ocean-blue eyes trapped behind the kind of long, sweeping lashes that women, myself included, buy Great Lash mascara to re-create. He was a proper mix of boyish-meets-rugged with a disposition and precise mannerisms hinting of an Ivy League\u2013New England pedigree, possibly, by way of Boston, maybe even spent some time abroad\u2014but not entirely sure, given the limited exchange. Immaculately dressed in a gray three-piece suit and winter-white shirt with mother-of-pearl cuff links, paired with an understated but noticeable vintage Rolex Submariner, and finished with apropos camel Brioni suedes. If I were looking, this is what I would have noticed\u2014but I'm not. Like Michael, he seemed to stand just north of six feet two because, even in my Sergios, he towered over me. The circumference of his noticeable egotistical sense of entitlement on the other hand was immeasurable, reminding me of a particularly colorful and equally gorgeous emerging Savile Row tailor who, with little to no effort at all, manages to consume 90 percent of the oxygen from any room he is within a three-block radius of. Obviously, given my asthmatic childhood, it is fair to conclude that we should not mix particularly well\u2014yet despite this insignificant little detail he is the prototype for the beloved of my \"grown woman imagined,\" but I digress.\n\nI ask current cocky man of mystery for the time to ensure I was not confused about the hour only to realize that I was correct. \"He said six o'clock. Do you know how long he will be?\" I asked, unknowingly biting my bottom lip as he stared at me with an amused look on his face, making me all too aware that I was at a disadvantage. \"Did I say something particularly funny? Maybe he left a message for me. Can you check? My name is Jules Sinclair and Michael said for me to meet him here.\" I continued feeling myself getting a little flustered, and rightly so. I felt bare and exposed, like he wanted something from me that I was in no position to give or even entertain.\n\nSatisfied with himself for having gotten unsolicited information, he replied, \"And so you are. Michael unfortunately is not here. Par for the course, really. However, when he does come, you will have to wait until he and I are finished.\" Devilishly smiling to reveal a slight upturn indentation on the left corner of his lip, the kind that frequently results from a childhood sports injury, he said, \"I mean, it is only fair given I was here first. Now, where were we? Ah yes, I'm buying you a drink while we wait. Between sips you can ask me anything you want, assuming, of course, I have piqued your curiosity as you have mine, in which case don't be bashful, ask me anything.\"\n\nDebating whether or not to take him seriously, in any manner, even briefly, I found him impossible to resist, and that irritated me all the more. \"You dropped something,\" I said, causing him to pat his pockets, then look around the floor to uncover what could have possibly fallen. After a moment or two of allowing him to search in vain and feeling quite satisfied with myself for having leveled the terrain, I said, \"Your r. Where are you from? I hear, what, Boston\u2014Toronto?\"\n\n\"And so I did. You've got a good ear,\" said cocky mystery man before ushering me by the elbow toward the bar area.\n\nOnce seated, he slid his chair uncomfortably close to mine and asked the bartender for a Pimm's cup and an herbal tea. \"You're meeting with Michael because of why?\" I asked, thinking that he could very well be here interviewing for the same position as me. I mean, let's be real, men only dress like this in magazines or for job interviews, so I am guessing it is the latter.\n\nWith a slight pivot of the head in my direction only to stop before facing me, he pauses for maximum effect before responding. Seriously, I have never! \"And here I was hoping that you would want to know about me as a person. Such is my lot, I guess. Women see me in this package and somehow it's still not enough. It's always who do I know? What do I do? What can I do for them? When am I going to be enough? When?\"\n\nFor a split second I was taken aback and thought that just maybe this guy might be slightly off. That was until the bartender placed the tea down in front of me and started to laugh. \"Are you shining me?\" I asked. \"You said to ask you anything and so I did.\"\n\n\"Correction, I said to ask me all the questions you wanted, assuming that I had piqued your curiosity as you have mine. The expectation being that we would get to know each other better, not make another man the focus of our relationship, which is never a good move, by the way. It's tantamount to us being on a first date and talking about some dreadful ex who broke your heart and slept with your best friend. Is that what you want?\" he asked, lowering his head in resignation, leaving me speechless again at the bull's-eye. \"Sadly I see I was mistaken and find myself in this all alone. I guess it's better that I know these shortcomings of yours now instead of later when\u2014\" Before he could finish his soliloquy, Michael blew in.\n\n\"Marcus, sorry to keep you waiting. I got stuck uptown with the missus\u2014you know. Jules, hang tight. Have a drink. Raymond, take care of her.\" He said all this in one sweeping movement that not only took my asthma-inducing companion but also left me in limbo to wait on him for an undetermined amount of time.\n\nThe long dial on my watch indicated that it was about twenty minutes to seven o'clock, so I picked up my phone to ring my friend Jessica to notify her that I would most likely not make dinner but surely be there for dessert. Tonight was the big group introduction, as she had recently started dating this finance guy and was now ready to have him meet her friends for final approvals.\n\nRemoving Marcus's drink, the bartender said, \"You should not have canceled. You'll make dinner, maybe not the apps, but you'll make the entr\u00e9e for sure.\" He was a slender gentleman with soulful eyes and the most amazing unblemished deep mocha skin that, like my father's, made his age hard to pinpoint\u2014but I'm guessing midforties.\n\n\"Really, what else can you tell me? Do I have this job? . . . Am I really doing the right thing in coming back to this freaking city now? Was this the right suit to wear? Am I falling apart with a total stranger or is this just a really bad dream?\" I said, sick with anxiety. \"Oh God, please don't tell me that I am sitting in front of you totally nude right now!\"\n\nWith little more than a raised eyebrow to convey that he was well equipped to deal with the brand of meltdown I was displaying, he offered, \"Maybe I should put a little something in that tea to warm you up. Rum?\"\n\n\"Sorry, it's been one of those days, you know. I do that, tend to ramble on when I'm out of sorts.\"\n\n\"It's all right, drink this. It won't put hair on your chest but it'll give you courage,\" he said, sliding the improved drink in front of me. His easy demeanor had an immediate impact on me, which I guess is the prerequisite for bartenders, especially since my grasp on reality was still not as strong as I would have liked it to be. From the enormous mirror hanging over the bar I watched as Michael and Marcus conducted their meeting\/interview at a table behind me, the emptiness of the restaurant enabling me to hear every fifth word or so of their conversation.\n\nAfter a few minutes it was obvious that this Marcus character was not some random guy trying to steal the job I had claimed. His interaction with Michael was far too casual. Although, the more I studied Marcus, the more I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew him, like maybe we had met before through someone significant, but for the moment I could not place him. Shortly thereafter they stood up, did the obligatory man-hug, and said good-bye. I chuckled to myself slightly, a combination of disbelief and disappointment, in seeing Marcus exit. That after all the work he had put in earlier to get my attention, now he made no effort to come over and say a proper good-bye. Well . . . Total wanker.\n\n\"Jules, thanks so much for waiting. Did Marcus try to pick you up?\" asked Michael, and didn't wait for my response. I could see now that this would be an underlying theme of our relationship and declined to accept it. \"Of course he did. Don't worry, he's harmless. Besides, you're a good girl and he wouldn't know what to do with someone like you. Hell, I didn't at his age and let me tell you I met many a good girl,\" said Michael, releasing the same hearty laugh as last night. Officially, they were friends.\n\nIn lieu of the formal meeting I understood we were to have, which was why I came equipped with three Kinko's-printed PowerPoint copies of the proposal, Michael gave me a tour of the restaurant that included a state-of-the-art kitchen that would make Jacques P\u00e9pin proud. The offices, to my delight, were not located in the basement or behind the kitchen as they often are but on several upper levels on the other side of the elevator, accessible only by key card. The rehearsal and recording studios with discreet sleeping chamber were located in the bowels of the building\u2014so very Marvin Gaye of him. He introduced me to the staff on hand. The Imanesque hostess I now knew as Lidia. Michael's girl Friday, Simone; at first glance one can see that she is highly efficient and not in the least bit fuckable (i.e., threatening to an aware girlfriend or insecure wife): tight bun, kitten heels, bare face with the exception of some rouge and a mouth that seemed turned down even when she was smiling. Clearly the answer to why she had been with him longer than any woman in his life aside from his mother. Next there was chef Grayson McClovoy, a James Beard winner who preferred diner food to the five-star meals that were his trademark. By the time he formally introduced me to Raymond, the gravel-voiced bartender, I felt as if we were old friends. And like a proud papa who was too easily distracted, Michael announced that this was his humble little core team and he was sure I would fit right in.\n\n\"I want to open the summer season strong with some Brazilian Corcovado shit while those other motherfuckers are on holiday, you get me? I'll need you set up in the office by next month . . . Walk with me,\" said Michael as he moved toward the lobby. \"I won't be here, but I am reachable to you through any number of privacy-killing methods of technology\u2014just don't video-conference me. I hate the way I look on that thing. If for any reason you can't get me, go to Simone. She actually runs this place. The missus and I will be in the Mediterranean. All right, that about does it. See you in a few weeks.\"\n\n\"Michael, Miiichael,\" I said as I struggled to gather my things and follow him to the elevator, only to have the doors close in my face with him smiling on the other side like the Cheshire cat.\n\nAlone, standing at the base of the stairs, breathless, I ran aloud the catalog of unanswered questions in my head: \"What just happened? Did he just offer me the job\u2014but how? What is my salary? Oh my gawd, who can pack up their life and move to another country in two weeks? I mean honestly, who? Me! Oh shit, am I really doing this?!\" I may have been caught off guard but clearly not lost for words.\n\n\"You sure do ask a lot of questions,\" said Raymond. \"That's Mike. You'll get used to him. I have worked for some of the biggest and best but he is the perfect mix of Sinatra and Dean. By comparison everyone else is a Bishop or Lawford.\"\n\nSurely, I must have looked at Raymond like he had two heads. What the hell is he doing talking about the Rat Pack when the limbo that is my life just got a little crazier and no one is forthcoming with the most precious details of HOW? I gather my things and grunt something inaudible that was meant to be \"Good-bye and thank you for the tea\" before racing up the stairs to try to get one last moment with Michael. Much to my dismay he was already being abducted by a bustling set of diners. Having canceled my dinner with Jessica, I decided to return to the hotel and just come back to the restaurant around 6 p.m. tomorrow for details.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen the state of your life is undergoing great reconstruction, the most desolate place to be is a sparsely decorated hotel. Oh, excuse me, contemporary-decorated hotel. Aside from Jessica, the only people to know I was in town were Blake and Richard, both of whom were unavailable tonight. And even with time to spare I didn't want to show up at Jessica's midcourse, only to interrupt the flow of her dinner. Thankfully I always travel with candles, bath salts, a classic movie, and a cashmere blanket Cora gave me one Christmas\u2014you know, all the essential accoutrements to make any place feel homey. Opening the door to my room, I was greeted by the most decadent floral scent before laying eyes on the large bouquet of tulips sitting on the coffee table. Ah, Tony. It's just like him to do this. Sending an arrangement of my favorite flowers was a beautiful bow of sorts to our story. Ending of a relationship or not, they are gorgeous. There had to be at least fifty stems of various marigolds, purples, whites, and pinks. I could not help but smile and closed my eyes for a moment to just enjoy meaning enough to someone to evoke such a gesture. Obviously, I was wrong:\n\nWelcome to the team, Jules. Call Simone to work out your move.\n\nMK\n\nOkay!!!!! This is one of those days (and nights) apparently. You know the kind, where you feel that everything was already in motion before you even got out of bed and no matter how hard you try to catch up you remain behind everyone else. So you resign yourself to accept that the deck is in fact stacked in another's favor and, although you may want to dissect Sun Tzu's army ball one soldier at a time, there are far too many of them and only one of you. I won't even ask how it is that Michael knew my favorite flowers were tulips, because it was obvious that I would be grasping at straws. When the hell did my life turn into a Cathy comic strip where I'm frazzled and scratching my head?\n\nNext to the flowers sat an oversize white envelope thick enough to hold a contract. Given all of the surprises of the last twenty-four hours, I was apprehensive\u2014okay, downright panicked\u2014to look inside immediately; for all I knew, the results of my recent gyno exam might have suddenly been telegraphed across the pond, made their way to Michael's office, and now he was the bearer of my female news. Who was to say? So, instead of opening it, I returned it to the exact same position I found it, tiptoed to the bar, poured myself a sizable glass of wine, and ordered room service. My food came quickly, allowing me to focus on something other than the magic envelope that had mysteriously levitated and found its way to the bed under the left pillow next to my phone. Soon all that remained were a few spoonfuls of butternut squash soup with truffles, a half-eaten burger, and an ivory puddle that once was apple pie \u00e0 la mode. All in all my belly was filled and my spirits soothed but my mind was a jumbled, singularly focused, erratic mess. I needed to know what was in that envelope. Was Michael making me an offer competitive enough that I could make this move back to New York in style and silence any potential objections from Cora in the process? Or would I be forced to exist on a salary far lower than what I am currently making with the Conrad Hotel Group, and have to live in some modified efficiency (translation: small enough that I could shower and flip bacon on the stove simultaneously); or a \"conventional\" one-bedroom walk-up in the sketchiest part of Alphabet City that would force me to wear track shoes on any given day in order to avoid stepping on a stray heroin needle or coke blade? I need this!\n\nAll my life it seems I have been adjusting to everyone else's playbook of priorities and deferred dreams. I went to undergrad at BU (Boston University) because my dad said he had the best years of his life there in grad school. I came to New York the first time to live out my mother's dream, because she was deprived of her Mary Tyler Moore life by getting married and starting a family so young, a not-so-little detail she mentioned more than a few times over the years, namely when Daddy would criticize her spending. I went to London to escape Tony and, in the process, found me. Now I just want to return home, on my terms, wiser and more aware than before.\n\nUsing my soiled napkin to wipe the remnants of mayonnaise and ketchup off the butter knife, I sliced the envelope open while saying the most pitiful prayer ever heard: \"Dear God, I promise that if you make this offer good I'll never ask for anything else . . .\" With only one eye open, I scanned the letter for the important points. \"HOLY SHIT!!\" I screamed, loud enough, without question, for adjoining rooms to hear. Not only was the offer good, less than $10K or so difference from where I expected my raise to be, but it came with serious perks. It allotted for proper moving expenses, an apartment in the city for the term of my employment (with an option to rent it at fair market value should I no longer work at Carly's), and a sizable entertainment account to be used for any number of things. Officially, I am moving back to NYC and, unlike my last move, this time I am not running away from something or someone. I'm running to my future!\n\nRiding high on the fumes of possibility, I was unable to sleep, so I stayed up making lists of all the things I could do over the next two days. Priority No. 1 is to get reacquainted with the city by doing all of the things I had once found a volume of excuses not to do when I lived here or missed when I was in exile: visit the Met, have a banana smoothie at New World Caf\u00e9 on Columbus, visit the Museum of Natural History, walk down to Coliseum Bookstore, take in an outdoor movie at Bryant Park, go to the Paris Theatre, and even hop the Staten Island Ferry to people-watch while getting a glimpse at Lady Liberty. Shoot, I just may go over to Ellis Island\u2014if it's open. On Saturday I would dine at Cafeteria with a hardy group of friends and then head out for a night of dancing as if there were no tomorrow. Sunday I reserve as the perfect day to get lost in a marathon brunch down the street at the Cub Room with Richard, one of my nearest and dearest, before heading to JFK for my return.\n\nIn addition to being one of the best political speechwriters in the business, Richard Boulton has the distinct honor of being the only Ivy League gay Black American card-carrying Republican I know. I mean really, who in their right mind is not pro-Clinton right now? Bill or Hillary? Really, who? His heart and capacity to love is more expansive than anyone else's I know. In the tough times he was always there for me and never outwardly judged my decision to stay with Tony during the initial onslaught of not-so-perfect moments that was clear to everyone else but me. When I escaped to the hotel to hide from Tony, Richard was the only person I called. Not to mention that the man can cook his ass off. It's a fact. In the beginning, when I was trying to impress Tony with my culinary skills, it was actually a Richard Prescott Boulton home-cooked meal, prepared in my kitchen of course, so that I could have evidence, by way of dirty pots and delicious smells filling the space. I remember his first words at the start of dessert. \"Damn, girl, my mama don't even make cobbler this good.\" He bakes cakes from scratch and spends his weekends in a place named Mantoloking. I mean, have you ever? I worship him and needed to bask in his goodness.\n\n\"Darling, when are you coming home? London is absolutely dreadful and the men are even worse. Come home. We miss you. I can't continue to carry the reins of fabulousness all by myself. Well, actually I can, but I don't want to,\" Richard said at brunch.\n\n\"May thirteenth,\" I said. \"I'm just going back to give notice and pack my things!\"\n\n\"I'll drink to that,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Of course!\"\n\n## 10\n\n* * *\n\n## HOLLAND PARK\n\nWHAT IS THE deal with that five-and-a-half-hour flight that just knocks me forever on my ass? Standing in what had to be the slowest of the Customs and Immigration queues at Heathrow did not help matters as my head was splitting, which could have had something to do with the two rasmopolitans and two celebratory Bellinis that Richard and I had before my airport transport arrived. Too much sugar, I need to lie down.\n\nMy flat is located in Holland Park, in a whitewashed Victorian town house, and of all the things that I do genuinely treasure about London it's at the top of the list. When I first settled on the location it was with the expectation that I needed something calm and far removed from my previous existence with Tony. Whereas we were modern and fast-paced, I wanted old-world and serene, the kind of location that would allow me to get lost in some well-deserved soulful moments. The interior had been restored to the original architecture, with intricate crown moldings and expansive built-in bookcases in the main room and bedroom. The only drawback is that it was a fourth-floor walk-up. One would think that coming from New York I would be used to that, but my building then had an elevator. What can I say?\n\nInitially when Blake told me to contact Michael, it was in response to an offhand suggestion I had made.\n\n\"You know, I should move back to New York. There is really nothing here for me in London. Lord knows I have not had a decent blowout since I moved here. What's the deal? Is England anti-Dominican or something? You would think that with all these Africans, Jamaicans, and Middle Eastern people there would be one on every corner, especially in Brixton.\"\n\nLaughing, Blake responded, \"You do know you are stupid, right? That's not a bad idea, though . . .\"\n\n\"And how would I go about importing a Dominican, Blake?\"\n\n\"Not the Dominican, crazy. You moving back to New York, it's not a bad idea. We are ALL here and the city is hot again. You could easily find a great position. I will make some calls.\"\n\nAt the time I did not give much thought to it because it was not realistic in any way, or so I thought. Blake and I always talked a mile a minute, and the ideas flowed faster than Niagara Falls, mostly from her.\n\n\"Let's open a B&B in Vermont. I am over NYC.\"\n\n\"I am ready to start my own clothing line. You and Jessica should join me.\"\n\n\"Did you read about such-and-such's new club? They asked me to come in as an equity partner. I think it is a good move, don't you?\"\n\n\"Let's go to Kenya and import some Maasai fabrics.\"\n\nMany, many ideas we've had over the years, and it never matters who originates them because 99.9 percent of it is just hot air and we know it. So when I hinted at coming to New York and she vowed to make some inquiries, I allowed it to be another grand illusion and didn't think to speak to my superiors at Conrad about desiring to move on, even when Michael confirmed he would meet with me. Undoubtedly my decision will come as a surprise. I wonder who they'll pick to replace me? Most likely that cute little pixie Rebecca Ryan, who transferred to PR when I joined. Initially I had reservations when tasked with the responsibility of starting a new position and training someone with relatively no marketing\/special events training\u2014or style for that matter\u2014but she proved to be a quick study and hard worker. I was glad to have her on my team, that's for certain. After a few work lunches at Selfridges and Harrods, she even started to show the signs of becoming a burgeoning fashion plate with her own style.\n\nOn Monday Mr. Conrad (Hershel to his friends) called me into his office to express his regret at my impending departure. He wasn't happy about the imposition but said he understood. In appreciation for the work I had done he let me know that should New York prove too naked of a city, I could return \"home\" at any time. It felt good to know that he valued what I had done, so I didn't have the heart to tell him that New York was home\u2014I just ran away briefly to gather myself.\n\nAt the risk of pushing Hershel's generosity, I asked to work half days in order to pack up my flat and be available to all things New York as soon as the city awoke for business. Michael's secretary, Simone, proved invaluable in the transition, sending me shipping account numbers, paint samples, and even selecting my assistant, Jacklyn (pronounced Ja\u2013clin) Travers. I'll bet anything she is one of those combo babies\u2014you know, dad's name + mom's name = what the hell?! Jacklyn, a recent grad with impressive internships at Cond\u00e9 Nast and Ralph Lauren in the Special Events and Marketing departments. In time those skills would be put to the test, but for now her most important job is to oversee the painting and setup of my new apartment.\n\nLocated on the Upper East Side\u2014not my desired location, but hey, who am I to complain\u2014the apartment is a few blocks down from Michael and Carly's penthouse. Actually it's one of theirs. That's right, my new boss and his wife, whom I had yet to meet, are also my new landlords. Oh, the smell of incest in the morning! Michael's rationale being that with only a few weeks' notice there is no time to secure a proper residence and focus on learning the ropes of the job. And even if there were, given the nature of real estate in Manhattan, after an exhaustive and lengthy search, I'd end up living unhappily in DUMBO or Hoboken all the while running up a very sizable hotel tab on his dime. Let's be real, even with my raise there is absolutely no way that I could have afforded an apartment like theirs, so I'd be a fool not to take it.\n\nListed as a two-bedroom, it was much larger than my current flat, complete with an open-plan living room\/kitchen, butler's quarters (i.e., guest room mini), a separate family room (i.e., my office and TV room), a decent-size dining room, and two full bathrooms. The only drawback that I could foresee was its proximity to the street. Apartment 8A is a corner unit with more than half of the property's living space on the Fifth Avenue side (too much freaking traffic all the time) instead of Seventy-third Street. An influx of images of New Yorkers leaning incessantly on their horns no matter what hour of day or night as if their lives depended on it made my ears hurt. Maybe I would have Ja-clin make sure the windows are double-glazed, or maybe I will just shut what they call the hell up, count my blessings, and finish with the last load of boxes.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nDespite this move being of my making, there were moments, fleeting at best, that I found it hard to fathom the little life I've built here coming to an end. London taught me how to breathe again. Had it not been for the pond at Kyoto Garden in Holland Park or the destinationless (obviously not a word but let's pretend) strolls down Regent Street, allowing me to be consumed in a voyeuristic moment, I would remain emotionally adrift. Feeling pity for myself because I decided that my personal best was left behind with Tony\u2014actually, that he had taken it. That is, I think, the cruelest thing about losing intimate love\u2014when in it, I truly believed that I was giving not just my realized best but my all, and when that love came to a bitter end, all that was left was a victim in place of the heroine I once envisioned myself to be. I felt as if I had been robbed of everything that made me meaningful. Eventually I accepted that it was me and not Tony who recast me as a secondary player in my own life.\n\nMy rebirth coincided with a fertile season, Tudors boldly blooming, the most breathtaking roses in vibrant colors that defied belief for anyone who saw their bare branches during the frost, I no longer felt the need to hide from my own image or believe the barrage of negative things about myself that my subconscious dispensed freely. Even when I had a relapse emotionally (and I did from time to time), it immediately felt wrong in some major way to dwell in pain when the world around me was screaming with such beauty and vitality. For the first time in what felt like forever, I could appreciate the beauty of simple things, the sun's warmth on my face, establishing eye contact with a passing stranger without the protection of oversize sunglasses, or taking a huge breath not because I was trying to stop time but because I wanted to feel life course through my system and with my exhale release any fragments of the reservation that was trying to block my happiness.\n\nFor the first time in my adulthood, I knew that I could depend on me no matter the terrain as long as I had my work to fall back on. And so, bit by bit I started to open myself up to conversations with people on my outings to Notting Hill, be it for carnival or to shop. At the Blakey and May Fair for drinks (because, no matter how depressed, one should never drink alone . . . too often), I left the book at home and smiled. I met people who through their stories taught me the invaluables I hoped not to forget once the geography was but a memory. The trick, as I was told, is being able to move on quickly and purposefully when the union brings more innate grief than joy. The next was taking responsibility by identifying the lessons learned and finally dreaming a bigger and better reality by painting a vision on a much broader canvas where I was neither the victim nor the damsel but the author.\n\nLabeling the final box, I took heed of the flashing red sectors of my life that I was not ready to advance toward. I've never known how to be okay with just being me until now. From the moment I arrived in New York, I was in a relationship, be it with Tony or the city itself, despite my cries of independence. Moving to London, not knowing anyone and not having a partner to spend countless hours on the phone with about the issues of transition, showed me just how codependent I was. So if I look at things from that perspective, I must admit that London gave me far more than I gave it. I am stronger like those trees over the way in Hyde Park, changing with the season. When it appears they are at their most vulnerable, dry, brittle, and weighed down with ice from winter's chill . . . a change of season comes, and they blossom from the inside.\n\n## 11\n\n* * *\n\n## WELCOME HOME\u2014I'M BACK\n\nHAD IT NOT been for an accommodating bearded doorman in a green stitched felt hat with matching topcoat and white gloves standing at the ready when my taxi pulled up, I surely would have continued questioning if I was in the right place.\n\n\"Good afternoon, ma'am. Let me help you with that.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I believe this is my new home,\" I said.\n\n\"If that is the case, then that would make you Ms. Sinclair in Eight A.\"\n\nImpressed more than surprised at the level of service, I responded, \"Yes, it does, and you are . . .\"\n\n\"The name is Percy. Been here nearly twenty years, so I know everything that is to be known here.\"\n\n\"Well, in that case you can tell me if I will be happy here,\" I said.\n\nTaking a moment to evaluate my person before presenting me with an envelope containing the keys to the unit, Percy said, \"Yes, ma'am, I do believe you will be.\"\n\n\"Then tell me where to go.\"\n\nThe photographs Jacklyn sent of the apartment did not do the space justice. Location notwithstanding, it was loaded with the kind of potential that would perfectly complement my interior aesthetic for all things bohemian chic and contemporary. Pungent still was the smell of fresh paint from earlier. I should have thought of that and told her to come by and air the place out so it wouldn't be so overwhelming, but that escaped me in all the commotion.\n\nThe main door opened onto a long hallway with bare walls ideal for displaying some of the art I planned to collect (item 2 on my \"all the things in New York I wish I had done before but didn't do and now would\" list\u2014right behind making better girlfriend choices). Similar to my flat in London, there were expansive windows, built-in bookcases in the family room\/office but not in the living room or sleeping areas. The teak floors played well against the caf\u00e9 au lait walls and white crown molding I had had done. Unlike London, the kitchen and baths had been completely remodeled with granite, stainless steel, and exposed cabinetry. The only noticeable drawback was that my unit didn't have a washer-dryer, but there was one in the basement.\n\nUnpacking proved far easier than I expected, a major advantage of traveling light to get over heartache and of treasuring little. With the exception of the clothes on my back and those in my carry-on, the remaining evidence of my life had been sent a few days earlier. Aside from a few fabulous flea-market finds\u2014clothes, shoes, and purses collected as part of my self-prescribed therapy regimen\u2014everything else would have to be new. The majority of the furnishings I bought in London were more about function than form and reflected a part of my life that I needed no reminders of. Lying in between a Vuitton monogram bag and a vintage Kamali romper was a holdover sweater from Tony's closet that managed to survive the shredder that ate our photos. Now, looking at it against the blank canvas of my emotional landscape, it feels ill placed and no longer necessary. No more did I need a memento of what it felt like to belong to someone in order to know that I was of the world. The fact that I awoke now each day not initially thinking how quickly can I get through it and come back to bed was more than enough.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWith less than a week to get fully settled and no welcome wagon in sight, I need to make this place livable or at the very least sleepable in a day. I mean, the expansive hardwood floors were nice enough to look at but not optimum for R&R. The sheer volume of windows alone guaranteed me no protection from the elements of sun and car horns when trying to sleep in late on a lazy weekend morning. Had it not been for Richard and his masterful OCD blueprint on the best one-stop shopping locations to purchase all things home-related, I would have been a sad sack of domestic ignorance.\n\nDarling,\n\nWelcome back to civilization and the land of men with straight teeth. Obviously, much has changed and you will need to get adjusted. Here's a little list of some stores to get you started.\n\nYours truly,\n\nRichard\n\nTopping his grid was Bed Bath & Beyond\u2014the latest mecca of all things home furnishing and less draining on the purse strings than ABC. Richard's craftiness went beyond bold script, bullet points, and highlighting; he even supplied street addresses of stores and cross-referenced the locations by inventory. The only thing missing was an in-store directory detailing which items could be found in aisle 5 as opposed to aisle 3.\n\nThe magnitude of the store was more than a bit intimidating, but easy enough to maneuver, enabling me to find the most divine 400\u2013thread count Luxe Versailles Jaipur cotton sheets and Bailmour comforter along with enough pillows to make me forget that I still slept alone. The Sofitel dream bed I'd preordered from London would be in perfect company. Luckily, I was able to make it to checkout moments before the store's same-day delivery cutoff took effect. With a three-hour window before everything arrived, I made my way to Carly's only to find the doors locked. Its entrance accessible only by a keypad requiring a code I had yet to memorize. Instead of returning home and staring at my watch, I walked over to Pastis for a late lunch.\n\nBack in the day this was my default kitchen, a little piece of France in the heart of the Meatpacking District. The crowd was always relatively the same: West Village neighborhood patrons and hip Upper West Siders who braved the C or E below Midtown to mingle with the artsy set for a bite of braised beef with carrots and sips of C\u00f4tes du Rh\u00f4ne with lively conversation. In all my years of coming here I'd never made a reservation, which was crazy, considering the place was always packed, and yet the staff always managed to find me a table. Today, however, may be the one time that lady luck was not on my side. As far as I could see, every table and bar stool was taken. My hopes of ensnaring one were rapidly evaporating. Of course I could use the wait time to people-watch, which was one of the major draws in coming here, but what fun could be had standing alone twiddling my thumbs, overtly staring at people? The whole idea of inconspicuous observation is to have a decoy or distraction method\u2014i.e., the menu, a magazine, food, a glass of wine, a semi-interesting companion\u2014while positioned comfortably, blending into the fabric of things, and not literally standing out. As I stood contemplating the best location to wait, a familiar but not readily recognizable voice greeted me.\n\n\"You know, it was rude of you not to give me your phone number, but I forgive you,\" he said.\n\nTurning around to see who was speaking and make certain that I was indeed the recipient, I came face-to-face with Michael's friend from the restaurant, Marcus. Temporarily I was lost for words. Apparently I am still doing that at the sight of attractive men. He was more handsome than I recall; definitely a James Bond\u2013esque panache about him, if Bond were ever to be blond, tan, and smoking hot with a come-hither stare. I recognized his cologne immediately, Clive Christian, a brilliant blend of success and power in every conceivable way. Also a clear sign for me to make haste and just feign ignorance. About a year ago I discovered it at Browns while engaging in some much-needed retail therapy. The spray guy was supercute and I was in desperate need of some male attention, so I walked over and freely gave him my wrist. In return he gave me a bill for \u00a3210. Desperate times, I say. The scent conjured up the image of the man I longed desperately for but fear I'll never find, having mucked it up so badly already, so I did the next best thing and handed over my credit card. In the times that I was sickened to be sleeping alone, I'd spray some on to usher in sweet dreams of coupledom.\n\nThe Achilles' heel in my selection of men was that I definitely preferred Type A's (emphasis on A)\u2014attractive, alpha, arrogant, ambitious overachiever just shy of asshole\u2014and this guy checked all those boxes and then some. I still didn't know exactly what he did for a living, but I KNEW HIM and his type all too well\u2014flashing red lights! Actually every man, starting with my first love, Adrian Perry, was some variation of him\u2014natural-born swagger. So, having been down that road far too many times before with only my battered heart to show as proof that I had loved and lost, it seemed best to neutralize this advance from the onset and pretend to not remember him.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" I said, coolly detached, \"but I think you have me confused with someone else. Sorry to disappoint.\"\n\n\"Quite the contrary, I can't ever see you being a disappointment,\" said Marcus, seeing through my staged performance of selective amnesia. \"You wore a pale pink pantsuit, almost blush, with a graffiti top. Your hair was tousled in one of those intentionally messy yet completely fussed-over updos like a morning-after. But what I remember most is that you smelled of Opium. My mother wore it when I was little, so I am entranced by any woman who can carry it off as she did.\"\n\n\"Well, don't you have a great memory?\" I responded, devoid of expression.\n\nHis disbelief obvious, Marcus responded, \"Amazing. You don't like me, do you?\"\n\n\"I don't know you.\"\n\n\"Which means what? You would like to? You'd like me.\"\n\n\"Listen, as touching a comparison as that is\u2014the bit about your mother\u2014I try to refrain whenever possible from talking to men with poor manners. I mean, honestly, who puts in that much effort and then leaves without as much as a good-bye?\"\n\n\"So you do remember,\" Marcus said triumphantly. \"I knew you did.\" The smirk on his face was just enough to reveal a dentist's wet dream. Clearly he was more than up for the challenge and quite enjoyed hunting his prey before conquering.\n\n\"Vaguely.\"\n\n\"If I gave you inside information, would that make us friends?\" he asked.\n\nAs I opened my mouth to respond, his leggy companion arrived. Completely typical, why am I not surprised? If I had to guess, I would say that she was requisite factory-grade SBA\u2014Super Blond Amazon\u2014hailing from some region in the Eastern Bloc where the grasp of the English language is just enough to make men (who should know better) turn over the keys and security codes before any talk of a prenup is had. Marcus, on the other hand, seemed undeterred by her presence, continuing, \"Michael said you were a beast at PR\/marketing and that he would be a fool not to hire you.\"\n\n\"Well, that's cool, I guess?! . . . It was lovely to see you again with your girlfriend.\"\n\n\"Yes, Marcus,\" he replied, slowly and demonstratively, as one does when teaching a toddler a new word. Not taking his eyes off me. \"That's my name, Jules Sinclair. Should you forget again, Marcus.\"\n\nI can't be certain, but I think I broke into a slight run when the hostess appeared to show me to a table, anything to put some distance between Marcus, his SBA, and whatever little flutter occurred in my stomach as I looked at him. True, I may have been off the emotional (and intimate) market for the past few years, but I didn't forget what butterflies felt like or their significance\u2014although I was starting to question if I would ever know what sex felt like again. That's right, I still had yet to put another man, no matter how superficial, between Tony and me with a proper screw.\n\nWhen not consumed with the emotional loss, I thought of nothing else in lucid moments but the physical deprivation of my body. In the middle of the night, my back would unexpectedly arch as if preparing to receive him. Showers and mornings proved the worst, when my fingers would automatically trace the contours of my body as if Tony still had possession of it, starting from the nape of my neck to the roundness of my breasts, only to linger between my legs until I was near explosion. With Tony I learned to appreciate the wonders of my body with the lights on, oftentimes with him watching. He always complimented me in bed, and that made me feel like the best he'd ever had. It's hard when you have been with the best to risk returning to average or unappreciative, so I pushed all that desire to the deepest crevices of my mind and went on with my life.\n\nIf anything, the time unavailable had only intensified my awareness of how few and far between those genuine feelings of interest and desire are. True, I met many men during the course of work or personal outings, some of which could have justified having a quickie. None sparking the slight tickle in the base of my stomach on sight or memory of him, or the faint twinge of disappointment that occurs in parting; none to date except this guy, Michael's friend, and that has trouble written all over it.\n\nDuring the cab ride home my thoughts did briefly\u2014hence, the entire ride\u2014return to Marcus. Throughout lunch, I caught sight of him, and indeed he proved to be a fascinating one. Easily, his self-possessed nature allowed him to own the room without overpowering it, a feat in and of itself. His mannerisms were purposeful without the appearance of trying. He was even personable with the staff. According to Daddy, one can tell a lot about a man's character based on the way he interacts with serving staff: waiters, maids, doormen, drivers, salespeople, and the like. If he is dismissive of them, then no matter how gracious he may appear to be on the first few dates, soon, asshole tendencies will emerge. Of course, if I was interested in him, then this would be a positive, but since I am not, then it is merely an observation. Much like the one I made in concluding that he and the SBA were together but not together. From my POV in the adjacent corner along the far wall it was easy to see that she was working a bit too hard for his attention. I mean, honestly, if this Amazon tosses her hair one more time I just might have to say something. And don't even get me started on the gratuitous, definitely vulgar use of food around her mouth. Seriously! Eat the damn french fries already!\n\nSomewhere between my being transfixed on their body language and wanting to snatch her off to the bathroom to give an albeit rusty yet decent tutorial on \"How to Be Comfortably Alluring During a Lunch Date,\" Marcus looked up squarely in my direction and raised his glass as if to say, \"I know you're watching,\" leaving me once again to conclude that proper people-watching cannot be done alone. Caught and having no other recourse, I smiled back meekly and flagged down the first waiter I saw to get the check and leave. Clearly not the best day for Pastis; the strawberry shortcake would after all be there far longer than he would. I'd just come back when they were not present.\n\nExiting the taxi back uptown on Fifth, I saw there was time, not much, but a few minutes or so to spare before the deliverymen were scheduled to arrive, so I popped across the street at the park entrance to grab a vanilla soft-serve cone. Percy was still on duty.\n\n\"Ms. Jules, deliverymen from the Sofitel are in the maintenance lounge for you,\" said Percy, as I entered the building savoring the final remnants of the ice cream.\n\nA few steps into the lobby I stopped midstride, acutely aware that I had absolutely no clue where the maintenance lounge was, so I doubled back.\n\n\"The maintenance lounge . . . what is? Where is?\" I asked.\n\n\"Ah, yes, ma'am. See you need to take me up on that tour of the building. The maintenance lounge is in the rear of the building down this hall to the left. It's a holding area for delivery and service staff.\"\n\n\"Really now? Fancy,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, only the best round here. You go on, I will send them up.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Percy, I think I am really going to like it here if everyone is as nice as you. Oh, by the way, you don't have to call me 'ma'am.' \"\n\nReaching up to tilt his head at me, Percy responded, with great affect, \"Yes, ma'am, I do. It's my job and I like it.\"\n\nOver the next couple of hours the delivery from Bed Bath & Beyond arrived as well, allowing me to put everything in its place before complete nightfall. Between the jet lag, the day's field trip, and unpacking, I was pooped. Before going to sleep, I fired off an e-mail alerting the gang that I was back.\n\nHello Lovelies\n\nIt's been a while but the wait is over. I's here and in need of my fam. Before anyone asks, yes, the rumors are true, I am on the Upper East Side, so YES you must venture above Midtown at some point and let's bypass the fretting. No stateside number yet but am reachable on the UK mobile. It feels good to be home.\n\nA zillion X's & O's\n\nJules S.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nPleasantly, Sunday morning arrived without the intrusive horns and sirens that I expected. Though not completely inaudible, the street noise was far less than I feared and didn't wake me through the night\u2014or maybe I was just so freaking tired that I could have slept through an AC\/DC concert at Madison Square Garden. With no food in the house and no desire to go purchase any, I dressed for breakfast and headed down to my SoHo destination, Cub Room. En route I grabbed a few glossies and city magazines to get an overview of what the evening dinner scene was in print. This would undoubtedly be the resource for visitors to the city. I wanted to understand what they were seeing and whether Carly's was part of that dialogue. Of course I would get the local intel from friends and casual \"about town\" hipsters soon enough.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe Cub Room's interior remained the same as that of a ski lodge, but that was it. The staff I knew was long gone. I didn't recognize anyone but did see a friendly face among the diners, semihidden behind a newspaper.\n\n\"And you didn't even call to say you would be here. Honestly, I am hurt, appalled, and lost\u2014lost for words at the utter disrespect,\" I cried.\n\n\"Oh dear,\" Richard said in an exaggerated Savannah drawl, \"I can see your mouth is rested but the rest is delusional. Sit, your drink is lonely.\"\n\n\"Merci,\" I said, and settled in for a marathon Sunday. Yes, it felt great to be home again, to be a part of something that is always good. Richard and I are one of those always-great things. Although I must say I often take more than I give.\n\n\"Now, darling, tell me, when did it become okay to leave the house looking like this? I mean, what, are you rapping now or something? A tracksuit? Tsk tsk. Is that what the queen is wearing these days?\" Shaking his head with disapproval and hissing, he said, \"I don't think so. It seems we have a lot of work to do now that you're home. Let's make a list.\"\n\n\"What? It's Adidas,\" I exclaimed, tugging at the label name strategically sewn below the left shoulder.\n\n\"Honey, I don't care if it's Valentino. It's still wrong.\"\n\n\"You're an elitist,\" I said, ending with an exaggerated furrow of the brow.\n\n\"Hmm, I am glad to see that at least you still remember how to do the pout 'n' furrow,\" interjected Richard between sips of his Bloody Mary and while still pretending to read the Financial Times.\n\n\"Of course, I just wish you gave a workshop instead of wasting your time writing speeches for a bunch of boring politicians. Yesterday after Bed Bath & Beyond I went to Pastis for lunch and observed this guy who should know better with an SBA severely in need. Dreadful.\"\n\n\"Ewh, they are back in force, you know. For a moment I thought the Asian girls were going to be the dominant dames on the scene but someone unloaded a freighter full of Nordics and God are they ever in need.\"\n\n\"Heinous creatures, they are,\" I offered.\n\n\"Which reminds me, by the way, I must take you to Pravda. It's cavernous, filled with Russians\u2014part of the room likes boys, the other half likes your kind and they all speak in code so repeat nothing. In any event we will have a ball! Cheers,\" said Richard, folding the paper in half and placing it atop the already explored stack.\n\n\"Interesting, but I'm not sure if I am ready for all that just yet,\" I confided.\n\n\"Oh dear, don't tell me you are still pining over that Bob Marley wannabe Antonio, are you? Darling, an ocean, two years, and a few decent lays later . . . let's move on.\"\n\nI could not help but respond, completely deadpan, \"I see your job at Hallmark fell through. Too bad, really you are so amazing with the whole sensitivity thing. No, I am not still pining over Tony. I just have not found anyone to fill the space in between is all. I saw him, you know, when I came in to interview. He smelled so good!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, there is nothing better than the scent of 'rip my heart out of my chest, Rasta betrayal' in the morning to get the juices flowing. Honey, tell me you are not going back down that road. We lost you for far too long. Last time everything happened so fast. We all stood by and did whatever we could to support you, but this time you have to know better. Don't you?\" asked Richard in a surprisingly fatherly tone, complete with disapproving head nod.\n\n\"Relax yourself there, Boulton. We saw each other. I almost choked on zucchini bread. We had the long-overdue talk. I inhaled deeply probably for the last time so I could lock the smell of him into my memory, and then we said good-bye. He finally gave me the closure I needed.\"\n\n\"Well, that's imagery. My dear, one day you will learn that you are the only one who can give yourself closure; no one else. I'm a wise old owl, so I know what I am talking about. In time you will accept that you hold the keys.\"\n\n\"My goodness, what the hell have you been doing while I was away\u2014reading Confucius or something! Enough now, enough,\" I said. I heard Richard loud and clear. He knows it as well, but I was far from ready to live in the reality of those words, so I offered, \"I missed you, my friend.\"\n\n## 12\n\n* * *\n\n## MEETING THE NATIVES\n\nBEING THE NEW kid on the block when the boss is away definitely has advantages. It gives you the time to form your own relationships without an overseer, forcing people to conform and mingle. Initially Michael was due back within a week of my arrival but decided to extend his trip for two additional weeks after he and Carly ran into Lord So-and-So Hoity-Toity in Capri, who asked them to join his entourage on one final jaunt up north to Croatia. I mean, who in their right mind could possibly say no to that kind of invitation? I would like the option to, though. For the most part the team at Carly's was nice. There was no apparent divisive line between the kitchen, front of the house, and executive office the way there often is in places like this. The only noticeable tension arose when Simone Phillips\u2014aka Girl Friday\u2014ventured down from her ivory tower for inspections. After some well-heeded water-cooler conversations, I choose to engage Simone rather than evade her despite her obvious lack of warmth.\n\n\"Afternoon, Mrs. Phillips, a beautiful day, isn't it?\" I'd say.\n\n\"That would depend on how you got here, now wouldn't it? For my part I was stuck in the freaking Lincoln Tunnel for nearly an hour because of all that dagnabbit construction. I swear to you that creep Giuliani is going to be the death of me yet.\"\n\nWhere does one go after that? Nowhere, so I offered a halfhearted \"Yeah\" and kept it moving.\n\nIn the encounters that followed I let her set the pace and always referred to her as Mrs. Phillips until the day that she told me to call her Simone. It seemed we had reached something of an accord.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nEveryone I've met in the apartment building falls firmly into one of three categories: ancient, married, or fabulously gay. In \"single woman\" terms this means that the common areas (hallway, laundry room, elevator, library, etc.) are tantamount to Switzerland; completely neutral, an unexpected perk that says \"no primping required when roaming the halls\" on the off chance that Mr. Right, Mr. Possibility, or Mr. Scratch My Itch are on the premises. There is Mr. Leon Sol, who has to be as old as the building itself. I see him every morning on my way to work with one of his many verbally abused nurses. Each time I smile and offer up a chipper \"Good morning. How are you today?\" In return he grunts, sucks his teeth like a West Indian, and cuts me a sideways glance. A nasty habit he obviously picked up from one of his helpers. On exiting the elevator, his nurses always shoot me the embarrassed sympathy gaze, as if trying to apologize for his lack of social graces.\n\nThen there are the married ladies who lunch at Fred's and Le Bilboquet daily as if it is a career to be mined for societal advancement defined by seating placement. For the most part they range from midthirties to late sixties and are totally insular. Their names fall somewhere between Muffy, Kinsley, and Taylor. Their collective identity is validated each time they can find someone to exclude, and at present that person is me. Within days of moving into the building I had my first encounter with one of them, Mitzy Bloomfield.\n\n\"Jules, right? The girls and I heard someone new was coming into the building, so I guess that is you,\" she said in all of her fake-enthusiasm, Lily Pulitzer glory. If this were Connecticut and not New York, I would swear her last name was Stepford. \"Normally, we have a full background on whoever moves in as they have to come in through the committee, you know. My husband, Randall, is the cochair, you know. This is after all a building of families with strong lineage and extensive ties to the city. We are very selective. Whereabouts did you and your husband come from?\"\n\n\"Virginia by way of London. Single\u2014me. I'm not married.\" Judging by the way she shrieked in horror, I feared for a moment that she was experiencing a shooting pain up her left arm.\n\nWith gravely exaggerated compassion she recovered to say, \"Ooooh well, it's not for everyone, is it now?! So I take it you're one of those career girls on the fast track or something\u2014so intriguing. I assume your boyfriend finds that attractive, yes? You know there is something to be said for that, I guess going against convention.\"\n\nOkay, Mean Girl. I get it loud and clear. You were sent here by the legion of Bitter Betty Sisterhood to put me in my place. Had this been another time (actually a year and a half ago because I still needed a place to deposit the anger and pain), I would feel the need to break your face or mind-fuck your husband just enough that he accidentally called you by my name over breakfast or in bed just before you can think to fake a headache. Lucky for Mitzy and her kind I am still operating at half-mast.\n\n\"Messy Missy, is it?\" I asked, knowing full well that it was not her name but enjoying the tense little pinch in her face just the same. Mental note: even if she redeems herself in the future, call her Missy. \"Surely you could give the ladies a much better report on my life situation if you made good use of yourself and helped me bring these bags inside.\"\n\nOn the way home I had stopped by D'Agostino's to pick up a few kitchen essentials but forgot to get one of those cart thingies downstairs in order to bring the bags up, so extra hands\u2014even hers\u2014were needed.\n\n\"I have always been curious about this unit, such great views. When Randolph\u2014that's my husband\u2014and I were looking to purchase in this building we tried to see it but were told it was not on the market, although it was obviously empty and had been for some time. Apparently it was part of Carly Spencer Falles's portfolio. I can't believe she sold it. You do know who she is, don't you?\" asked Mitzy, leaning in as if sharing highly classified information.\n\nHonestly, I know that I should have taken the high road here but why disrupt things now? \"Hmmm. Not really. I know of her. It's her husband I know best\u2014he's just too divine.\"\n\nIn hindsight it is more than fair to identify this comment as the one that put me at immediate odds with the wives in the building. Had Mitzy asked the proper follow-up question (How do you know Michael?), the gray area would have been cleared up instantly, but she didn't and I didn't volunteer. From that moment forward, anytime I entered a common area where they happened to be with their husbands, octopussy ensued. Suddenly they developed more arms than visible to my eye and began to twist, turn, and maneuver their men in any direction but to be in direct contact with or in sight of me. Sometimes I pretended not to notice, but if they caught me at an especially feisty moment, I forced interaction.\n\n\"Stuart, saw you yesterday headed out to play a few rounds. Looking good. What's your handicap?\" Flick the hair, cue laugh, and stroke his arm. \"I am totally taking you up on those lessons.\"\n\n\"Larry, when you get a chance, I would love to read that book on Goldman Sachs that you told me about the other day.\"\n\n\"Randolph, looking good . . . real good.\"\n\nOh, fun times, not just for me but also for the doormen (whom the Stepfords regarded as the help, with no life beyond getting the door and walking their pampered pooches) and the few boys in the building who loved boys and who formed their own little protective unit around me. It's like I was the most unruly one in the litter and they made it their duty to have my back no matter how many times I put my foot in it. My favorite was Gary, \"the gay,\" who lived across the hall in 8B.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nGary and I had the pleasure of meeting on a Wednesday afternoon in early October as I was checking the mail. The Brazilian Corcovado series was bringing rave reviews to Carly's. I was completely exhausted. Michael was beyond excited and rightly so, taking full credit for the earth, the stars, and all creation that comprised the parties and this new positioning. Somewhere along the way he did manage to squeeze out, \"Good work, young'n, now let's see what you have planned for the holiday.\" In all the commotion with work, a few personal things fell by the wayside, domestic upkeep being at the top of that list (note to self: call Richard and get a housekeeper referral to come weekly, stat), checking my mail a close second. Had Ivan, the evening doorman, not reminded me of the overflow of my box, I would have put it off another day. Gary discovered me there sitting on the floor in the lotus position, surrounded by piles of mail and unable to tear myself away from the image of Oprah, aka Glamour-puss Winfrey, sprawled out across the October cover of Vogue magazine.\n\n\"I know, could you just die?! Look at Ms. Thing on that chaise looking all kinds of sexy. Honey, I do the same thing\u2014only upstairs in my apartment in a green dress. You seem comfortable,\" he said in an animated tone that was peppered with a shade of disapproval for my loitering in the area. \"Nice shoes, by the way. Gucci?\"\n\nIgnoring the bit of gay snark, I conceded that the heels were in fact Gucci vintage, not Tom Ford, and found myself in conversation with, surprisingly enough, the guy who lives across from me: Gary \"the gay,\" until I learn his last name, contributing editor for Decor magazine. Over the course of my nearly five months of living here, with the first month and a half spent as quiet nights at home cradling with H\u00e4agen-Dazs, I couldn't help but notice that whoever lived across the hall entertained regularly. Actually, there were a few nights I pulled a chair up to the keyhole in order to watch the procession of spirited revelers come and go. From what I could see they were all quite trendy dames and dandies who were well aware of themselves. Basically, the kind of people I would be friends with if I were social.\n\n\"I can't believe you are just reading that. I ripped my issue open as soon as it arrived. Can you believe that Anna put her on the cover!\" exclaimed Gary, definitely more of a statement than a question. \"You know the old girl had to starve herself to make that happen or they did a hell of a job in Photoshop . . . My money is on Photoshop. For real, look at those arms! Now, you know and I know that's not possible . . . I'm an editor, you know, so they can't hide nothing from me. I mean, come on, Mommy didn't look this good when she was dragging those mounds of fat in that sad little wagon with all that hair on that deprived body. You have great skin, by the way. What's your secret?\"\n\nBy the time Gary came up for air, he was actually sitting on the floor next to me and had commandeered my magazine, flipping feverishly through the spread that he knew all too well, providing page-by-page commentary like a live sporting event was unfolding.\n\n\"Cetaphil or Leaf & Rusher to wash, pure cocoa butter at night, and light moisturizer in the morning. Normally I would also say 'all the sex I could handle' as part of a successful clear skin regimen, but that is a sadder state of affairs than Oprah dragging that fat across the stage,\" I replied. Judging from the blank expression on his face, Gary had forgotten that in the midst of his rambling he had asked me a question, so we just continued on into our love fest. If there is one thing I know well, it's the gays. What can I say, they love me and I them. Apparently, there is a burgeoning diva inside of me that appeals to them. That and the fact that I have an amazing set of natural breasts, not a nibble or a bite but a perfect mouthful of perkiness that is every man's (gay or straight) and woman's weakness.\n\n\"So you are the little thing that's got these women around here on high alert. You know, I heard all about you, Miss Thang! That Mitzy Bloomfield told us you were a husband-stealing piece of work with no respect for social seniority who probably slept her way to the middle. Of course you immediately became one of my favorite people, sight unseen. Poor Carly Falles. How did you do it?\" asked Gary.\n\n\"Ouch! All that just for little ole me,\" I asked, faking injury. \"Well, let's hope that Messy Missy is not called to testify to my character in a court of law anytime soon.\"\n\n\"GYRL, did you say Messy Missy?\" Gary cackled. \"I am dying!\"\n\n\"Honestly, Gary, she gave me no choice. I saw her one day in the elevator and instead of rolling out the welcome wagon she came at me with some antiquated insecure junior varsity high school cheerleader nonsense. It was like she had been sent out by the old crow's society to put me in my place . . . so I decided it would be a shame not to send her back with anything but a scintillating report for the very hens who clutch their chubby, balding, new-money husbands whenever I am around.\"\n\nBy this point he was totally engrossed, so I continued to plead my case, knowing full well that he would report every detail back to the old girls, which would be helpful. As much as I enjoyed being the topic of conversation, those women would surely have spread word along the UES soon enough that Michael and I were shagging behind Carly's back. That in itself would be absolutely scandalous and plausibly true if it touched her ears, so I had to set the record straight.\n\nCarly and I had yet to meet. Michael and I worked much more closely now that he was back full-time and soon would do some traveling together to heighten his business profile. The few appearances that she made at the restaurant always seemed to come when I was away. However, there was not a moment of the day at work that I did not feel her presence. She was in the paper, or on the phone with Simone, and in every nook and cranny of the restaurant's d\u00e9cor. Wanting to put a living face with the legend and feeling the urge to kiss the ring, I rang her up one afternoon, only to learn that she was out for the week at a health spa retreat, so I left word with her social secretary proposing high tea at the Peninsula when she returned.\n\nFrom the Oprah-Messy Missy encounter, Gary and I became fast friends. He took it upon himself to oversee the decorations on my flat, less as a solid to a newfound friend and more as an empty canvas to present to his object of carnal desire, Jean Pierre (no known last name), a totally cute, up-and-coming interior designer whom he wanted to bed repeatedly. Thankfully Jean Pierre's work actually appealed to me despite its being decisively more glam than my usual. Oh well, what's one more mirrored piece of furniture coupled with Mongolian fur pillows and a sparkly chandelier when it is free! In success, Gary promised a lovely profile on the apartment showcasing Jean Pierre's work with a requisite photo of me as the hip young Manhattanite. J'adore!! If all things remained on schedule, the piece would run near the top of the year. I gave them both keys, sat back, and watched the magic unfold.\n\n## 13\n\n* * *\n\n## MASTERS, THE MAN . . . NOT THE TOURNAMENT\n\nKEITH MASTERS (QUITE the accidental encounter) was managing partner of a pretty significant boutique advertising firm in the city. The first time I saw him was at Carly's while standing on the other side of the main one-way mirrors overlooking the main dining room. He came in with about five or so Midwestern types. The dynamics were obvious: he was the \"big city\" executive showing the good ole boys a proper New York evening. Once they were seated, I allowed my eyes to linger a bit longer before going back into the office to work on the task at hand: finalizing preparations for the last two major post-Fashion Week parties and locking in a private party; my first serious pressworthy events for the venue. Initially, Michael was against the ideas of catering to the fashion kids, as he now felt the scene had become too common and considered renting the venue out to Russian oligarch Nikolai Abramovich as his playland. Sadly, he, like a few others in the know, just could not get past the previous season's oversights of grunge and heroin chic. As for the Russian with a never-ending cash flow, well, that was far easier to finalize\u2014but only after chasing Michael for a few days about it and hijacking his office.\n\n\"Listen, Simone, I know that Michael has told you to tell me that he is not in, or that he is on a call, or is attending to something extremely important in some area of the restaurant that I am not in, so don't even bother. I am just going to sit here\u2014right next to you\u2014until he comes out of his office or gets off that elevator. Ah, before you protest, you know and I know that it is paramount that I sit next to you\u2014how else can I ensure that you don't send him some encrypted message or tap the little warning buzzer that I am told is somewhere on your desk?\" I said, wagging my finger, to chastise her as if she were a wayward student. \"I've been watching you, lass. I know how you two work, Batman and Robin, Lone Ranger and Tonto, Mr. Roark and Tat-t\u2014\"\n\n\"Jules, if you finish that sentence and make me Herve Villechaize, from Fantasy Island, I promise you that all of your vacation requests will be mysteriously lost in the vortex known as my shit list pile.\"\n\n\"Ouch, I love it when you bite. Grrrh. It just makes me feel all warm and tingly.\"\n\n\"Stop making me laugh. I have a reputation around here to keep up, you know. Some people are actually afraid of me,\" said Simone, trying to regain her composure.\n\n\"Yes, you do,\" I said, nodding in mocking agreement. \"Believe me when I tell you that everyone is aware of Superbitch. Instead of leaping tall buildings in a single bound, you can wipe out an entire service staff and a few creditors in a single glance.\"\n\nBy this time Simone and I were laughing so hard that Michael came out of his office motivated by sheer curiosity alone. Other people have a sixth sense about impending danger; his alerted him anytime fun and frivolity were going on without him.\n\n\"Simone, what's going on out here? I was gonna ask for . . .\" But then, upon laying eyes on me, \"Oh Jules, I should have known. I thought the English were incapable of laughter yet here you are, kee-keeing and laughing it up outside my office. Glad to know that I am paying you so well to languish about.\"\n\n\"Actually, you are paying me to do exactly what I am doing, creating great press opportunities for Carly's. However, in order to get an answer for some key requests, you force me to become duplicitous, chasing you down, attempting to bribe poor Simone, which by the way failed miserably, so in desperation I had no choice but to set up camp outside your office and, well . . . what can I say, I'm funny and you know I'm not a Brit. Just have not been able to shake the accent is all.\"\n\nRealizing he was cornered, Michael attempted to make a fast break into his office, but I had anticipated the move because he is anything but original and had already used it on me a few times successfully. So while speaking I made sure to position myself within two steps of him; close enough not to invade his personal space but not far enough away to have the door closed in my face, which he had done before as well. Michael's office is the only area in the entire restaurant that Carly had not taken her interior decorating ambitions to. It was once again indicative of their most interesting relationship. She was often looking for any way to have more meaning in his world, while he was keeping strict hold on the depth of engagement.\n\n\"The key to any relationship, Jules, is allowing a man enough space to be a man and to determine his own course of action. I had to learn that and when I did I found a woman who also knew it to be true.\" Michael said this to me one day when I was forcibly trying to coach him to say specific things for an interview. \"Your job is not to direct the tide but to ride it out. I'm a great wave, let me do my thing.\"\n\nMichael's office was an extreme ode to the Ralph Lauren Man, that is, expensive hunting lodge complete with thousand-dollar beverage coasters, tufted leather sofa, authentic deer horn magnifying glass, and letter opener\u2014poor Bambi's mama. Whenever I was inside I felt an overwhelming urge to light up a stogy and make some derogatory comments about women while leaning back to admire my boots made from the skins of endangered animals, just after calling PETA to say bugger off. Sometimes the feeling was so overwhelming that I would actually lose my train of thought, but not today.\n\n\"Why aren't you giving me an answer on this Abramovich party buyout?\" I asked. \"The deadline was two days ago, and if we don't respond today, surely they will secure another venue.\"\n\n\"And the problem with that is? Let him throw his money around to someone who needs it.\"\n\n\"Honestly, Michael, I don't understand. He is one of the wealthiest men in the world and is known for being an ultimate tastemaker. In selecting Carly's as the location for his event, we become an international destination, officially. Doesn't that mean anything to you\u2014hello?!\" Passively sitting there looking at me as if I'd asked him to pass the stapler. \"Fine. If you don't want to do it, then just tell me and I can take it off my list. Otherwise you have to give me something more\u2014like a yes, right now.\"\n\n\"Jules, you're good at publicity and events, but you don't know people like him yet. Not the way you should. Not the way you will. Your life experience has not afforded you those kind of years yet. I know people. I know Abramovich's kind all too well; new money\u2014enough to last for ten generations and save a few ravaged countries along the way. He is used to getting exactly what he wants when he wants. Afterward he tosses it aside with complete and utter disregard. Now he wants to come here and use my baby as his playground. I won't allow her to be disrespected. I know the deadline passed two days ago and I know that his team is still calling you, which raises the question of why is my space so important to him and how much is it worth to ole Nikolai?\"\n\nMichael's state-of-the-union speeches, as I had started referring to them, were now par for the course. The revelation that he knew the exact nature of my talks with a prospective client was surprising and showed on my face. He silenced me with a raised right hand.\n\n\"Don't ask. I know that the same way I know that it would do you good to actually go out some nights with your friends instead of curling up with H\u00e4agen-Dazs and Black and White cookies from Googies. No one wants a skinny fat woman. It looks bad in bed.\" Pausing to shudder at the visual, \"Now, where was I . . . oh yeah, Abramovich. He selected my place because he knows what I have created here, told his minions, and expected this to be done ASAP. Now they have undoubtedly gone back and told him the details for his big U.S. party are not secured. Despite the fact that he has far more pressing matters at hand, this will become the annoying fly in his day, which he will handle directly. When he does, I will be here.\"\n\nWith those final words, he buzzes Simone and tells her to have the car brought around. I, on the other hand, am still sitting there trying to process what I just heard\u2014the part about the ice cream and the cookies more so. Is there a camera in my shower that feeds directly into Michael's office? What the hell!\n\n\"Relax yourself, Jules, I don't have your place bugged. I just know people. I also know your doormen very well. Ivan and Percy are my guys, they tell me things from time to time about my new tenant.\" Now up and pouring himself a drink. \"Honestly, though, you should go easy on the snacks.\" Michael seems to have forgotten that his driver was patiently waiting downstairs, because he just continued to talk.\n\n\"I'll take that under consideration,\" I said.\n\n\"Do you know why I hired you? Not because you were the most qualified. You weren't. But you came as a referral by way of someone I value. Then we met and I saw myself in you as I first started in this town; hungry, ambitious, and na\u00efve enough to believe that I could play by the same rules as the other kids. Early on, life gave me a few hard knocks that would have broken a lesser man's constitution, but I rebounded quickly and quietly. I saw that in you,\" he said, taking a sip of the bourbon he had just poured. \"People, especially men, are easy to understand. We show you exactly who we are within ten minutes. Be smarter than the rest, Jules. Remember, if you are a quick study, then there is not enough time to invest too deeply and lose. Now, as it stands, I have something Nikolai wants in the short term. An association might not be a bad thing, so let's reel him,\" said Michael.\n\nFinally he headed for the door, with me glued to the chair trying to absorb, prioritize, understand, and cross-reference all that he just said. Before walking out, Michael says, \"I almost forgot, Carly will see you for lunch on Tuesday at the house. Simone will give you the address. Don't embarrass me; I've been talking you up.\"\n\nSeriously, the extra pressure I did not need. I was already on edge about meeting this woman, the icon, the legacy, the namesake. Meeting Noriega had to be less stress-inducing. Seeing that Michael left a sizable pour of bourbon behind, I downed it in one massive gulp. The trail it burned through my body left me off-balance, clutching the sofa for support until my chest stopped burning. Damn it to hell, too much testosterone in this freaking office. I don't even like bourbon\u2014I know this!\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nLater in the week I was out for dinner with Blake and Joy, at Indochine, when I literally bumped into Keith Masters. I had never thanked Blake properly for the referral to Michael, so tonight was in her honor. The place was packed with the usual clientele of models, artists, music guys, club kids, and a few bankers. As I made my way through the crowd, someone turned and pushed me hard enough to knock me off-balance. Before I could fall, a hand grabbed me firmly around the waist and pulled me up. Mere inches apart from his sun-kissed glory, I recognized him instantly as the big city guy from Carly's.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, thanks to you,\" I said, somewhat breathless. \"I don't know what I would have done if you weren't here.\"\n\n\"Lucky for me I was. I'm Keith, by the way. And you are . . . ?\"\n\n\"Jules Sinclair,\" I responded, without realizing that I was biting the inside of my bottom lip and trying to speak between clinched teeth. Always a telltale sign of arousal. So glad the ole girl is back! Keith was still holding me around the waist with one arm as he told me that he liked my name because it made birthdays and anniversaries a no-brainer. By the time Joy came over to redirect me to our table, I couldn't hear anyone else in the room but him. I didn't have visions of happily ever after or a baby carriage, but every nerve ending in my body was telling me that this was the man to officially put sexual distance between Tony and me.\n\nApparently, I was not the only one who saw the sparks. At the table Blake and Joy began grilling me about who he was, how I knew him, and what I was going to do about it. Before I could start fumbling for answers to their barrage of questions, two bottles of Mo\u00ebt & Chandon arrived at the table. The first bottle said \"For now\u2014because I loved meeting you.\" The second, \"For later\u2014because I want to know you. Keith Masters 917-409-6640.\"\n\n\"J, oh my gawd, that is Keith Masters, damn! I thought he looked familiar.\" Looking for a sign of recognition on my face, of which there was none, Joy continued, \"Listen, I read about him constantly in Adweek. He is hot shit.\"\n\nJoy is more like a half sister than a friend. She is the official Cuban in my life, and knows my heart and its failings better than most, so I always take her words as authority. Born in the U.S. but sounding as if she just got off the boat, raft, tire tube, whichever you prefer, yesterday. She works downtown in finance at Merrill Lynch and lives the American Dream inclusive of WASP husband, unruly prodigal son, a golden retriever, and local neighborhood watch. I firmly believe that had she been raised outside that little North Bergen enclave of Cubans and Dominicans, where they speak nothing but Spanglish, sounding imported despite being born in the States, listening to soca\/salsa, and shopping primarily at bodegas while reminiscing about the Old Country, she surely would be further up the corporate ladder by now. She is whip smart, as evidenced by the bonuses that her boss gives her annually in lieu of the promotion she so rightfully deserves.\n\n\"Aaaah, so that is Keith Masters. I have heard about him but didn't know he was so damn hot,\" cooed Blake, spinning around to uncover what direction the bottles could have come from. \"I wonder if that stops anyplace south of . . .\"\n\n\"Listen, blondie, hands off and stop twirling your hair\u2014this one's not for you. This one's for Jules,\" cried Joy, wrapping a protective arm around me as exhibit A. \"Besides, isn't he like forty years too young and a hundred million or so dollars too poor for you or something? Our Jules needs to get her stride back before those gates are rusted shut.\"\n\n\"What???!!! I was just looking. No harm in that, is there?\" responded Blake with a faux innocence that even she didn't believe.\n\nAt this point I had to interject, if for nothing more than just to fend off the first line of piranhas; and make the first rule of Girlfriend Code crystal clear: Thou shall not cockblock. As it pertains to my girlfriends, I have learned that no saying rings truer than \"To know you is to love you.\" In Blake's case, to know her is to understand that her gray area as it pertains to men is vast, with a sliding scale. Just because one of us may have seen him first, gone on a date with him, slept with him, or dated him for a few years but parted amicably, doesn't really register for her if he has the power and financial means to support her lifestyle. There are, however, attributes that make her essential, namely that she is up front in her motives (sometimes she will say things so matter-of-factly regarding her intentions that I wonder if she even knows what a filter is), extends the same courtesy to her girls\u2014she had no qualms about one of us dipping in her pool (although I would never)\u2014and she is ride or die in her love\/support for her girls (as long as it does not interfere with plans to land Daddy Warbucks).\n\n\"Blakesy, you can try but you will fail on this one. I mean, let's face facts. We both walked right by him. He allowed you to pass and keep walking. Me, he stopped and now has sent over drinks. Hmmm, actually, bottles. Yeah, not so much, sweetie, but I'll be sure to give you a full report.\" TMI\u2014Heaven forbid I would ever tell her that the only reason Keith stopped me is because he stopped me from falling.\n\nWe were laughing so hard that I didn't even notice Keith approach our table. This was definitely another point on his scorecard. Most men (outside of a sports bar and properly liquored up) would never have the chutzpah to approach a table of cackling women.\n\n\"Hi, again. So I realized that it might have been presumptuous of me to just send over my number the way that I did. I hope I didn't offend you, Jules Sinclair.\" If heaven had a light, hmmm, I am thinking it could be this man. I opened my mouth to respond but didn't recognize the voice that was coming out.\n\n\"Not at all! As a matter of fact, it was quite nice of you, Keith.\" Ahhhh, I love it when mama\u2013Cuban bear comes out of my Joy. It's sweet that she thought I needed it, but I didn't. In his presence I felt renewed physically. My body just responded to this man, so I took Keith's hand as he stood over me to make sure I was his only focal point.\n\n\"No offense taken at all. The thought of any man besides you sending his number over seems wrong, wouldn't you agree?\" Oh gawd, that sounds so cheesy coming from my mouth. Damn, I hope it's working.\n\n\"Indeed,\" he replied, holding my gaze while stroking my hand. \"Ladies, you seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know that I am Keith, and you are?\"\n\nBlake offered only a limp handshake and dismissive nod in his direction as if to imply \"why are you breathing my air.\" In the years that I have known her and seen her for who she truly is, I recognize this move and appreciate it. In Blakesy speak, it is a clear sign of surrender, love, and respect. Translation: I honor the code and will not jockey for position by blocking the cock. To the poor guy on the receiving end, he just thinks she is an uptight narcissistic shrew. He is partly right.\n\n\"Hi, Keith. I am Joy. I was just telling Jules that I was reading about you last week in Adweek. Great campaign, by the way. I am at Merrill in wealth management. We have many of the same clients.\"\n\nKnowing that Joy can gab on endlessly without coming up for air, I placed my left hand under the table and squeezed her leg. Hey, sometimes a squeeze is a love pat. Other times, like now, it's a shut-the-hell-up.\n\n\"Ah, nice to meet you both. I do have to get back to my table.\" Now looking squarely at me, he instructed more than asked: \"Tell me you will use that number, anytime.\"\n\n\"Promise,\" I said.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nUnder normal circumstances at some point in the evening our tables would have magically merged and dinner with the girls would have turned into dinner with new friends and new man prospect. That's part of the storied NY magic. Tonight, however, that was not the case. The place was standing room only.\n\nWhen time came to leave I had lost sight of Keith. His night out with the boys had long since turned into a raucous affair, far different from the civilized work evening I'd observed at Carly's. Gorgeous girls were abounding and doing their best to captivate. Obviously, he was not hurting for female company, so I pressed onward to leave. Having said good-bye to Joy and Blake, I stood in front of Indochine for a moment debating the merits of walking a bit to enjoy the crisp evening air or hopping a cab. Reaching the corner, I heard my name and turned to see Keith running in my direction. Amazing. Despite the commotion at his table, he had seen me leave.\n\n\"I had hoped you would at least say good night,\" he said.\n\n\"I thought about it but, ah, you seemed a little busy,\" I confessed.\n\nDismissive of the company inside, he replied, \"I can see why you would think that, but no.\"\n\n\"I see. Did you receive the bottle that I sent back over?\" I asked, hoping that it had been delivered, since my phone number was written in lipstick on the label.\n\n\"I liked that\u2014made me the hit of the table. The last number was smeared,\" said Keith. Liquid courage in place and too impatient to let the moment pass, I looked up and kissed him on the lips. Instinctually he responded with such passion that I almost collapsed again in his arms under the streetlights of Lafayette and Astor. The warmth of his tongue fondling mine tasted of berry sorbet. Pulling away I said, \"Three. The last digit of my phone number.\"\n\n\"I won't forget,\" he responded, and placed me in a cab with a final, shorter kiss good-bye.\n\n## 14\n\n* * *\n\n## A NEW ATTITUDE\n\nTHERE IS NOTHING like a hot new man prospect to put the pep back in one's step. A few days after our encounter, Keith and I had our official first date. I must confess that it was not without incident. The plan, as it were, was that we would meet at 147. Located in a converted firehouse, 147 was NYC typical: velvet rope, dimly lit, dinner reservations starting at 9 p.m., people dressed for a stylish evening out, and the dancing afterward sanctioned by the likes of Biz Markie or Q-Tip on the turntables. When I arrived, Keith had left word saying that he was running a few minutes behind and would be there shortly, so I took a seat at the bar and ordered a vodka martini. Unlike London, the bartenders at 147 were absolutely scrumptious, offering plenty to keep me distracted until Keith arrived, specifically Franco. Tall, olive skin, dark hair, probably Italian, with an air about him that said he was a bad boy so little girls need not apply. By the time Keith arrived, Franco and I were moments away from arranging to say \"good morning,\" at the end of his shift.\n\n\"Something told me to send security ahead to watch over you,\" said Keith over my shoulder. Swiveling around, I immediately cupped his face and said, \"Never,\" sealing the things that need not be said with a soft kiss.\n\n\"I can't stop thinking about you, Jules. Today I was in a presentation and found myself thinking about the other morning. It came much to soon.\"\n\nI had to agree. After Keith put me in the taxi the night we met, he went back inside to say good night to his friends and then proceeded to come to my apartment. There were absolutely no pretenses about why he was there. Immediately upon my opening the door, my skirt was on the floor and by the time it closed, so was his shirt. Two years is a long time to deprive a body from the nourishment that it needs. Our first location was the far wall in the entrance hallway. Afterward we made our way to the kitchen and finished off a carton of ice cream. Between bites we got to know each other better. I learned that he hailed from Newport Beach, hates surfing, and played baseball in college. Keith was recruited by a major team, but quit during training camp, finding the future lifestyle at conflict with his personal goals. He, like countless others, myself included, came to New York for the sole purpose of creating his own identity instead of the prefabricated one his parents had constructed. Once here he started working with a dot-com and excelled quickly through the ranks. When the company folded\u2014they all do\u2014he received an offer to join an advertising firm from a most unexpected contact: an exec he knew from the club scene whom he used to do blow with. One thing led to another and before he knew it, Keith Masters had found his calling. His charisma and quick wit were extremely advantageous, so his star continued to rise. On the personal side he was aware enough to know that he wasn't ready for a long-term relationship but didn't like coming home from a long trip to an empty home either. Keith was an open book. I found his candor quite refreshing and even surprised myself in response, so there was no pressure this evening now that we were dressed, off my kitchen floor, and out in public. I felt as comfortable with him as I did with Blake or Richard (sans ever having the desire to rip their clothes off).\n\nInstead of playing some antiquated role by telling him what it was that I thought he wanted to hear, I allowed my dialogue to be as bare as my body intertwined with his. I told him that I escaped to London after a bad breakup and had just returned. That in my heart I did not know if I was ready or even capable of loving another man as I had Tony. Hadn't even entertained it, although I did miss the familiarity that comes with togetherness. The mere thought of it\u2014loving another so hard\u2014scared me, so I tried never to entertain it any place other than on a film screen in the context of actors portraying characters. How much more distance can one get than that? I told him that I had no guarantees or expectations about us past tonight. To which he responded, \"Let's discuss that in the morning.\"\n\nWell, that morning came, as did many nights thereafter over the next couple of months. My every other Saturday was now his, but we were not in a relationship; sitting at Caf\u00e9 Gitane, talking about the goings-on of life with casual acceptance, no hope for more, shopping together, no agenda, dining with friends of his and mine. Sundays remained as they had always been: quality time with Richard. Depending on whose house I awoke in, Keith's or mine, Richard had the following to say:\n\n\"Looks like someone forgot creepin' etiquette. Darling, how many times have I told you to always have a clutch big enough and dress small enough for a quick change? The world need not know that you are doing The Walk.\"\n\n\"There is no shame to my game, Boulton, I shall have you know. Not only did I shower and refresh but I even picked up fresh panties from Vicky Secrets before joining you,\" I responded.\n\n\"Well, I guess that is something. Lord knows there is nothing worse than day-old fish. Ewh,\" he said, slapping the table to emphasize his pun. \"So tell me, when is lover back and what is the story?\"\n\n\"Lover is in Chicago for the week. The story is the same as before: I like him. I like him a lot, but beyond that I don't know. For example, I know that he likes me and shows me, but I don't see our story in his eyes, you know? Not in the long term.\"\n\n\"Good girl. Keep those tacky rose-colored glasses off and see a man for who he is. In doing so you will learn who you are too. What he has to offer will appeal to you or it will not. The moment you start to justify is the moment you say good-bye.\"\n\n\"Honestly, you should write a book or be the first fab gay rapper,\" I said, slapping Richard a high five.\n\n## 15\n\n* * *\n\n## ENCOUNTERS\n\nIN SPITE OF myself, I had to admit, there was a bit of melancholy that accompanied the physical absence when Keith was away, but I dared not tell him\u2014or say it aloud, as I knew it had more to do with enjoying being part of a pair again. We spoke or e-mailed often, if only to keep the lines of communication open by making an observation about something odd that occurred within our respective days. I'm quite sure that I started this habitual dynamic when I e-mailed him.\n\nSubject: URGENT!\n\nWhy is it that if another human being is doing something truly disgusting in public I am destined to be the only one who sees it; picking their nose, scratching their balls, or picking their nose while scratching their balls? I mean, honestly, you would think they are lying in wait for me to cross their path or something. How is your day?\n\nx Jules\n\nSubject: Re: URGENT!\n\nHi Princess\u2014consider yourself lucky. I was in the restroom before the first meeting and had the displeasure of seeing Mr. Cornell take a piss, handle himself, and exit the restroom without looking at the faucet. Entering the room I was wishing like hell that he was Japanese so we could bow instead of shake hands.\n\nMasters\n\nKeith was due back in town on Friday morning so we made plans to grab an early dinner and catch a movie, the same day as my long-overdue lunch with Carly after having it rescheduled twice. The first was her doing\u2014\"hair appointment with Domenico from Milan who is only in New York for the day.\" The second cancellation was my, or better yet, Michael's doing. He wanted to sit down and go over the holiday lineup I had put in place, specifically the money he would have to put out to have the likes of Lauryn Hill, Cassandra Wilson, and\/or Terence Blanchard take up a limited residency at Carly's. Fan of the latter two or not, he was not excited about investing in three costly acts for an extended amount of time.\n\nAwaking that morning, I found myself surprisingly antsy at the thought of spending time with Michael's wife. I had shared so much time with him that in some strange way it just seemed odd to now be meeting Carly. It was as if, since a meeting did not happen within the first couple of weeks of my arrival, then it shouldn't happen now, at least not in this very staged way; high tea at their penthouse on Seventy-eighth Street between Fifth Avenue and Madison. Not wanting to deal with the whole uptown-downtown transit thing, I decided to take the day off, electing to work from home, not just because of this appointment but because Jean Pierre and Gary were coming over shortly to oversee the finishing touches on the apartment.\n\nI must say that the outcome far exceeded my expectations. Jean Pierre completely ignored my request (thankfully) for a chocolate and ecru palette in favor of shades of charcoal silver, iced blue velvets with royal purple, chartreuse, and brushed gold accents. When I described it to Blake, she said that it sounded more like a Gypsy-inspired brothel than a pending feature in Decor. Her parting words were \"a Decor Don't\u2014I cringe.\" The reality of it, though, was quite striking. My favorite room of all was the bedroom, complete with a king-size four-poster bed. Hanging from each end of the bed were the most sensuous pewter dupioni silk drapes. The foot of the bed featured a powder-blue chaise, a coffee table, and two Louis someone or other chairs. The whole thing just seemed so civilized, in spite of the bold striped wallpaper that I still had yet to come to terms with. When Gary arrived, I was in the throes of dressing: options A through E on the bed or floor as I walked around in only my bra and a black pencil skirt, which would soon become option F.\n\n\"How I do love your chi-chis, darling. They're like mocha clouds of perfection. Can I borrow them sometime? You know, either as pillows or just cuddle buddies,\" he asked, standing behind me in the closet, proclaiming the merits of my cleavage instead of discussing the blouse options I asked his opinion on.\n\n\"Funny, you do know that they are part of a package, don't you? Wherever they go, I go, which means you would find yourself sleeping with a woman.\" I gasped, covering my mouth for effect.\n\n\"Oh dreadful, I would never! No offense, honey, but I've never had the desire like some of the boys to play in the shallow end of the pool. I mean, I hear it can be lovely but just not for me.\" After a beat, Gary had selected a completely new outfit for me and was shimmying me out of my skirt. \"Although, I must say, you do have a tight little body. Who knows, one day we may talk about you carrying my kids\u2014obviously by artificial insemination.\"\n\nI halfheartedly nod in agreement, \"Obviously!\"\n\nWhen did it become so en vogue to just loan your womb out or lay claim to someone else's? I mean, shouldn't there be a more extensive process to it, like drinks, dancing, expensive gifts, a small island, and not just a five-minute assembly of a day outfit?\n\nA few hair flips and perfume spritzes later I was primped and ready, wearing a pair of blush full-legged natural-waist trousers and a matching oversize silk blouse with a huge bow at the neck. The look achieved the desired sentiment, conveying, \"I am fashionable, yet I respect you and am not a threat.\"\n\nOne thing I know for sure is that the more accomplished, beautiful, and successful the woman, the more easily threatened she is. No matter how secure and pulled together she may appear to be, it's just window dressing\u2014underneath she is a hotbed of insecurity who would gladly chew off her own arm if threatened. Okay, that may be taking it a little far, but close enough. I have also learned that being shortsighted\u2014i.e., needing to show the world how attractive I am\u2014is the quickest way to make an oversight or misstep. At this age, coming into my own and now feeling on top of the world, I want to show it every moment possible, just not today. Not with Carly. I like my job, love my apartment, and would like to keep them both. So for today I am a great student, and Carly is my guide.\n\n## 16\n\n* * *\n\n## HIGH TEA\n\nIN NEW YORK there are three levels of High Society status. The first is New Money, often characterized by its lack of subtlety. The typical demographic consists of Wall Street traders, recording artists, and record label executives. The second is the Nouveaux Riches, which is just New Money but well traveled and of international origins. These are the second generation or so, known as trust-fund babies. For the most part, they are still trying to gloss over the famine, ill-gotten gains, and messy bloodlines of their heritage. Their sole ambition is to be part of the social elite. This brings us to the third, and most illustrious, category: the Blue Bloods. Their fortunes are so vast that no less than six generations can live off the interest of their great-great-great-grandparents' fortune. Their names adorn skyscrapers, medical institutions, and museums the world over. Their history of exclusion is almost as extensive as the endowments that they provide to support the arts, bankroll political campaigns, and implement medical research programs. Walking into the entrance hall of Michael and Carly's home, it was clear to see that she hailed from the last category.\n\nThe main elevator opened onto a foyer that was larger than most New Yorkers' entire apartments. Ringing the doorbell, I was greeted by a butler, who escorted me past the receiving level (the art gallery) through three additional levels (living area, bedrooms, and recreational, respectively) before reaching the solarium, where I would have tea with Mrs. Kipps. She arrived just as I had expected, immaculately put together, clad in covet-worthy 1920s deco jewels, and precision-dyed hair. Having elected to embrace her age, she wore a silvery maven cut like Carmen Dell'Orefice, every strand of hair meticulously painted to silver low-lights and highlighted perfection. We exchanged a few pleasantries. I commented on how lovingly appointed her home was. We glossed over travel, art, and the lack of style in present-day New York. She in kind responded that I was far more impressive at my age than she ever was. The only thing I seemed to be lacking, according to Carly, was a vice.\n\nBetween sips of tea, I could feel her eyes on me in an almost unnerving kind of way, as if she wanted to know what made me tick. No sooner had I thought this than she leveled me. Eerily her tone never changed in delivery, so I questioned if I was hearing properly.\n\n\"You are indeed a young woman with potential, Ms. Sinclair. I can see why Anthony fell and self-destructed.\"\n\nSurely she could see the mechanics of my brain trying to make sense of the words coming from her mouth and put the pieces together, so Carly went directly into her story.\n\n\"I met Anthony nearly two years ago in Costa Rica. Our daughter, Kaylin, was in her terrible twos or threes, which seems to have extended to her fours and fives. My nerves were at their absolute end, and I needed to get away. Michael was in such awe of her that every little tantrum and screech was a source of sheer delight. All I could think was that the 'gift' from his ex was more like a cursed life sentence that I would have to find a way to deal with. To get some perspective, I decided to go on retreat to one of those marvelous resorts in Costa Rica where they do yoga at sunrise before a waterfall and at night offer candlelight meditation accompanied with champagne. The first few days were blissfully beautiful and silent. You will find it's the simplest things that you miss when there are children to consider, which is why I never wanted them\u2014but for Michael. Like sitting alone, awaking late, being indulgent, and deciding how hard you want to love but I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, coming back from the trails one day I saw this divine specimen of a young man. The next day, around the same time, I saw him again and thought what an ideal distraction he would be. I was faking a slight injury, entirely possible given my advanced yet extremely well kept years, and he assisted me back to my bungalow. He was so attentive, and initially I was blind enough to believe it was indeed my charm that had elicited such a response from him. Then I looked into his eyes and I saw tragedy of immeasurable despair. Quite Greek, one would say. Understanding the other sex the way that I do, I didn't dare ask him but was intrigued, consumed even, to find out his story. Over the next week or so we spent a lot of time together, nearly every waking hour of each day.\" Feeling the intensity of my stare, Carly clarified her last statement. \"For my part I would have loved nothing more than to explore him, but such was not the case. He touched my heart in the most maternal way. The way that Kaylin should have touched my heart when she was placed in my arms for the first time\u2014but did not. I never wanted kids, you know. Did I mention that? Just not the type. I have since grown to adore her incrementally and will continue to appreciate her, but it is not the way I instantly loved Anthony\u2014like a son. I wanted to protect him, to heal whatever pained him. It was not until the fourth day or so that he told me that he had lost everything and came to Costa Rica to lose himself and see if anything was left to salvage. He spoke of his brother and of you, both losses of unimaginable depth. The whole thing was just far too tragic to be real. I needed to know more about you, so I made some calls.\"\n\nHaving heard more than enough, I was overcome with anger. Trembling, I railed, \"Who in the hell do you think you are, lady? You don't have the right to play with people's lives like this. You don't have the right to play with my life like this. What's next? Is he waiting downstairs for me on one knee, with a ring? Will he come to the restaurant one night when I am in the middle of a million things and obliterate my whole world?\" The tears were now streaming down my face with abandon. My mind was running a million scenarios at this point; under normal circumstances each would have been more outlandish than the next. But this encounter was anything but normal. \"What did you think, you would tell me this story and I would run back to him? Heal him? Forget everything? Well, you are wrong. You're dead wrong. I won't! I don't think of him anymore. I have moved on with my life, and now you are telling me that the cornerstone of the life I am building is an illusion. All constructed by some deranged old woman in heat with nothing better to do than play fucking Geppetto with other people's lives, with my life? Well, fuck you. Tony is not the victim here. I AM. He shut me out long before he broke my heart, and no amount of quiet walks in the middle of a fucking forest will change that.\"\n\nI hastily gathered my things to leave without regard for the china that I knocked over and sent crashing to the floor. Carly remained sitting, as calm and observant as when she began her tale. Reaching the door, I was empty, bereft of any fight. My shoulders and head collapsed into the door for support. I just wanted to disappear again. The loneliness was back and I was exposed.\n\n\"Jules, I did not ask you here today to hurt you anymore than you already have been. You must believe me. Initially, I did have this grand fantasy in my head that I would bring you here unbeknownst to Anthony and the two of you would miraculously find your way back together; with a bit more help from me, of course. I know that is not the case, at least right now.\" Carly walked over to me and held me with a tenderness absent of maternal instinct but filled with female compassion and empathy of what it feels like to love and lose. \"It took me nearly a lifetime to find Michael, to allow myself to be vulnerable to him and accept him as he is, trust him to accept me as I am in total. It was wrong of me to dream that you kids could be smarter than us at such a tender age, when neither of you truly even know what love is; that is, until you lose it, as you both have. I do think of Anthony now as my son, and I hope to help him be a better man. The same way that I know Michael is coming to adore you.\"\n\n\"Was Michael a part of this as well?\" I asked, having just thought of his potential involvement.\n\n\"No. As I said, I did have some intel done on you. Initially, I gave no thought as to what I would do with the information. I just wanted to know what kind of woman could bring a man like Anthony to such an emotionally barren place. I guess you could call it envy more than curiosity, really,\" said Carly, taking my hand in hers. \"Jules, for all the great loves and whirlwind romances of my life, I have never touched a man's soul as you have. Not even with Michael. Yes, he loves me now, but that is because he has played extensively with wild abandon and has made a conscious decision to have an easier, more peaceful life, and that is what I offer. But he is not passionate about me. So I was curious.\" Searching my face for agreement, as if pleading with me to believe her, Carly continued, \"When the position at the restaurant became available, I knew that you could do the job and suggested you. Next thing I knew, everything was happening so quickly and you were here to meet. You miraculously ran into Anthony and subsequently charmed my husband. And here we are. I do hope that despite my meddling, we can be friends.\"\n\nMy tears had stopped, leaving behind only a nauseating feeling in my soul. The overwhelming scent of roses that filled the room only made matters worse\u2014always hated roses, most overrated flower ever. I just needed to go. Removing my hand from Carly's and composing myself, I felt compelled to tell her one last thing before leaving:\n\n\"If you know Tony so well, then you know that he will hate you if he finds out what you have done. In loving him you must tell him, today. He will be mad, but it won't last long.\"\n\nDespite all that had happened between Tony and me, the thought of him hurting because of some crazy-ass, bored, rich woman was not what I wanted. In moving on with my life, I needed to know that he was okay. Saying good-bye to him at the Mercer earlier this year, I had that assurance. Now I was not so sure, but what was I supposed to do about it?\n\nMy intent had been to go home, but instead I found myself walking across the street to the park. I was in a daze, so I sat on the nearest bench and tried to drown out the incessant audio in my head, hoping to lose the previous two hours somewhere in the exhaust fumes of traffic. I knew that I would not contact Tony as a result of this meeting. Would I have to contend with him calling me to apologize for the nutter? If so, how would I respond? Did this revelation change things for us? I had no idea, but I felt sick. Sick in my heart. The kind of illness that makes it abundantly clear that for all the forward movement I truly thought I had made, there was one glaring omission: my heart still belonged to him in some crucial, infinitesimal kind of way, and would forever. Suddenly, I just felt overwhelmingly tired and needed to go home.\n\nI managed to pull myself together enough to walk the few blocks home, but not before nearly being hit by a black Mercedes. Completely my fault\u2014stepping into the crosswalk the way I did absentmindedly. Percy was standing out front at his post and saw the entire thing.\n\n\"Ms. Sinclair, everything all right with you? That was a close one. You have to watch out for these here drivers, sho'nuf. They ain't like London, no ma'am. They'll run you over before they think to stop.\"\n\n\"I don't know, Percy,\" I said, my voice trembling as I tried to hold myself together. \"I'll be more careful.\" Tears streamed down my cheeks.\n\n\"Aw, nah, miss. You're okay now. Just a little shaken up is all.\"\n\n\"It's not that. The car. I just\u2014one of those days, you know?\"\n\n\"Whatever it is, the good Lord will work it out for the better. Always does. You just hang in there. Get yourself upstairs and rest.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Percy.\" I smiled weakly.\n\nAs I turned to go inside, the doors opened on a black chauffeur-driven Mercedes like the one that nearly struck me.\n\n\"Welcome back, Mr. Crawford. How was your trip, sir?\"\n\n\"Good, thank you, Percy. It's good to be home. You're good?\" were the last words I heard before the elevator doors closed\u2014glad to know someone is good.\n\n## 17\n\n* * *\n\n## REFUGE\n\nONE DAY OUT of the office turned into three unexplained sick days, days that I had yet to actually accumulate\u2014a minor detail that I couldn't care less about. Once surrendering to the safety of my apartment, I undressed immediately, turned the shower on full blast, and prayed that the water would wash away all the feelings of pity and insecurity that Carly had conjured in me. In this moment I missed so much the rains of London that seemed to cry for me daily. There was no use pretending anymore, the grand illusion of reinventing my life in New York had come crashing down like an elaborate deck of cards. The fail-safes for healing that I had established across the pond, like watching Random Harvest, no longer worked. I could not calm my mind enough to watch old movies. Every time Paula entered Charles's (Smithy's) office for the first time in her new clandestine role as his secretary, I ached and yelled at the screen, rewriting their dialogue and demanding that she confront him in the moment and say:\n\nCharles, you fool. I am your wife. Don't you remember our little cottage in the countryside? We had a lovely life. We had a child and then you went away for a job interview and apparently bumped your fucking head, you dumb-ass motherfucker. Now you're allowing this little prepubescent twit to sink her claws into you when I am the one who brought your ass back to life. Why, I ought to bash your damn head in until your memory comes back and then I will leave your sorry ass broken and destroyed the way I am.\n\nYeah, it's safe to say that watching old movies was definitely not helping matters. Food and the occasional spliff, on the other hand, definitely were. My kitchen was littered with containers of takeout food from nearly every vendor in the neighborhood. Under normal circumstances I probably would have felt guilty or overly conscious of potential weight gain, but considering that my anxiety would not allow me to keep anything down, I had no fear of an emotional five or ten pounds.\n\nThere was no proper context in which to place things, so I allowed them all to coagulate in one big ball of crazy. In feeling the way that I do, does this mean that I am still deeply in love with Tony, even though I know that we are not meant to be? In truth I don't think we ever were\u2014in love, that is\u2014as much as we were codependent. But I do love him. I care about him but never really knew him. The man I knew would never conspire to do what he did. The man I loved would not have let me go to London without being hot on my heels, standing across the street from my flat, awaiting my exit in order to plead his case. The man I envisioned him to be would have fought for me. And that is where the insurmountable problem was in all of this. I still had never accepted that Tony was just a man, not a superhero. True, I no longer viewed him through rose-colored glasses but it was still, to some degree, Old Hollywood. The illusion of flawless perfection created by a lens smeared with Vaseline no longer was sufficient. It worked for the young adult that I was when we met, but it fell severely short of the woman I have become in the past couple of years.\n\nIt had never occurred to me that my very foundation had changed, that I had grown in principle. I spent so much time saying Tony's name, asking about Tony (indirectly yet directly), avoiding Tony, learning how to exist without Tony, that I never took the time to notice Jules Sinclair. And my, how she had changed. No longer was she playing dress-up going from one homecoming ceremony to the next. She was the main event. She is me, far from perfect but not as na\u00efve.\n\nThe final two days were a lighter version of my sabbatical, not so much an open gaping wound, but not fully healed either. Gary was out of town with Jean Pierre, recouping his \"favors,\" so there was no concern about an impromptu visit. The only people who dared to cross my doorstep were the delivery guys with my eats and the FedEx guy who erroneously delivered a package for Mr. M. Crawford in 7A. On the third day I received a call from Michael via Simone, which I answered.\n\n\"I have Michael,\" Simone said matter-of-factly.\n\n\"Jules, how you feeling? Hey, Simone, jump off this call. Carly told me what happened. That's wild, kid. Only the kind of perfect storm that my wife can create, always got her hands in something. Her heart was in the right place, you know, if you look at it from a specific geometric angle through an official NASA telescope.\" He paused for a moment to see if his attempt at humor actually registered on me. \"That's life, though. Some motherfucker is always pulling the strings like your ass is Pinocchio or something. Your only choice is to handle it and keep your priorities in check. We have a full season to prepare for. Your neo-soul artist is already becoming a pain in my side.\"\n\n\"Michael, why did you hire me?\" Among the many questions I had been wrestling with over the past few days, this is about the only one that I actually stood a chance of getting an answer to.\n\n\"Like I said before, you came at the recommendation of someone I value deeply, Carly, but that is not why I hired you. I met with you because of her. I hired you because I liked what I saw when we met, so I offered you the job. Jules, why are you making me repeat myself? You know I hate that. You're ambitious and a fighter. More important, I don't mind you breathing some of my air. Hell, if we had met earlier, I might have had to add you to the harem.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Mike. I needed that. Maybe not the last part, but\u2014\"\n\n\"Who's Mike? You've been hanging around Raymond too long. The name is Michael and you are out of sick days. I'll see you tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Correction, thank you, Michael. See you tomorrow.\"\n\n## 18\n\n* * *\n\n## EMERGENCE\n\nDAY FOUR AND I was ready to return to the world. And none too soon. The morning air, thankfully, was cool but not unseasonably cold. I checked the forecast with old reliable: my body and an open window to feel the breeze; goose bumps denoted a scarf, perky nipples meant a sweater or light jacket, a full-body shimmy inclusive of goose bumps and perky nipples meant head-to-toe North Face coat and gloves. Today was a perky nipple, so I put on an oversize cashmere angora-blend sweater, a military coat I found in a surplus shop off Shoreditch High Street, and black riding pants with over-the-knee boots, then headed out.\n\n\"Miss Sinclair, glad to see you on this fine morning. I was 'bout to send a rescue party, but the cadre of deliverymen gave me the distinct impression that you were still with us,\" Percy said jovially as I exited the building.\n\n\"You're quite cheeky today, Perceville,\" I said, winking. \"It's a good day to be seen.\"\n\n\"Can I get you a taxi?\"\n\n\"No thanks, think I'm going to walk a bit and allow New York to do her thing with my soul.\"\n\n\"That's the spirit,\" said Percy. \"Nothing better than a good walk. Keeps you young. The missus and I do 'em frequently. We even got a little group in the neighborhood and walk on the weekends at night down to the local . . .\"\n\nOooh, Percy and that gift for gab that seems to know no conclusion! Seizing a lapse in his story, I offered my final salutations and departed. Time permitting, I could make my way up to Fifty-eighth Street before crossing over near the Plaza and grab a quick bite at Rue 57. In spite of Carly's meddling, Tony and I had met and said whatever needed to be said, on our own terms and in our own way. The rest, at this point, was anybody's guess, but I could handle it no matter what.\n\nReaching Sixtieth Street, I wait for the light to change and join the other commuters entering the crosswalk. The roundabout was already filled with horse-drawn carriages and their handlers grooming them for tours through the park. Making way for an advancing pack of schoolkids, I step off the sidewalk, only to be accosted by the loud blaring of a horn. It's shrill, so loud that I nearly jumped out of my boots; so close that I could feel the heat from the engine before it ground to a halt. I mimed a profuse apology before walking on, in the hope that we could all agree to just let this little incident pass without a public spectacle. Continuing on my way, I had the unnerving feeling that despite the hundreds of people on the sidewalk with no thought of me, I was not alone, which in and of itself was crazy. Rationalizing that I was just being paranoid\u2014nerves having been frayed for days and such\u2014I keep walking. A few steps onward, I glance to my left, only to see the front bumper of the car seemingly keeping pace with me, so I pick up speed and maneuver myself to the inside of the sidewalk, farthest from traffic. Firmly enveloped in the sea of people, I relax and allow my mind to drift again until my thoughts are interrupted by a familiar voice.\n\n\"You do know that you are about to give poor Carlos a heart attack, don't you? This is the second time in less than a week you have walked out in front of him. You got to go easy\u2014space your collisions. He's an old man, the reflexes aren't always so sharp,\" said Marcus. \"Tell you what, why don't you make it easier on everyone and allow me to give you a ride? At the very least it would be less than the increase in my insurance, should he actually hit you next time.\"\n\n\"Sorry about that, but no. I'm fine to walk.\"\n\n\"Well, in that case why don't I join you,\" replied Marcus.\n\n\"Honestly, I'd prefer if you didn't,\" I said. The last thing I wanted or needed was company, especially his. The sheer fact that he was male, breathing and daring to interrupt my solo pilgrimage, rendered him persona non grata.\n\n\"You know, this is the third time we have met and the third time you have rebuffed me. I'm starting to get the feeling that you really don't want me around.\"\n\n\"Really, you're getting all that, are you? Maybe you should listen,\" I said.\n\n\"I know you didn't mean that. Probably didn't have your morning coffee or something. I know how you girls can be at certain times.\"\n\nHis last comment stopped me cold in my tracks. \"Seriously, you didn't just say that. Rude, actually, very rude!\"\n\n\"No less rude than you refusing my sincere generosity when all I am doing is trying to protect you from becoming roadkill.\"\n\n\"Listen, I said sorry. I said no thank you. I will even apologize to your driver if it will make you go away,\" I said, unwilling to disguise my annoyance. \"What else could you possibly want from me, Marcus? There must be a zillion women who would love nothing more than to be aggravated by you at any time, but as for me, no thanks. The last thing I need right now is another person trying to barge their way into my life and arrange things.\"\n\n\"So you're not a morning person. Got it,\" said Marcus, seemingly unfazed by my animosity. \"Let's just walk, shall we?\"\n\n\"Whatever,\" I replied, as it seemed easier at this point just to keep pressing forward. Reaching Avenue of the Americas, it was clear that he was not leaving my side anytime soon, so I mentally redirected my path, in the hope of coming across a subway stop without looking obvious. Surely there must be one on this side. The red and orange lines were never familiar to me, but I was prepared to hop anything moving and cab it from anywhere in order to put some distance between him and me.\n\n\"Do you mind telling me where we are going or don't you know? Carlos has been trailing for about seven blocks and pissing cabbies off.\"\n\n\"Marcus, I don't want to be rude to you anymore than you want me to, so I beg you\u2014go away. I am not interested. I am seeing someone.\"\n\n\"Well, forgive me for saying so, but it doesn't seem to be going so well just by the looks of things.\"\n\n\"What do you know? Besides, it's not him\u2014just got blindsided by some old ex issues is all. Never easy, but I'ma be okay. Shit happens, right?\"\n\n\"That it does. So is that what we're doing here, walking to recover?\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" I said, feeling a flash of relief at the sight of a subway entrance ahead on Fiftieth Street. \"Just thought certain things\u2014feelings and such\u2014were in the past. I mean, you would think there was nothing left, right? I left the country, for Christ's sake, even saw him earlier this year, and all was okay, and then this woman meddles . . . Anyway, who cares, right? We were young. I'm fine . . . and this is my stop,\" I said, gesturing to the subway.\n\n\"Sounds complicated.\"\n\n\"Unnecessarily so,\" I say, extending my hand. \"Thanks for the walk.\"\n\n\"Jules, we're not all bad, you know\u2014after the maturation process and all, we can actually be something great to call home about,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"I'll take your word for it. Sorry about before, really,\" I said, realizing that there was no justifiable reason for me to be so harsh to this guy, other than the obvious, my attraction to him in spite of myself.\n\n\"You sure I can't give you a ride? Not for me, for Carlos\u2014you can make nice.\"\n\n\"No thanks, another time\u2014Carlos,\" I said over my shoulder as I went into the station.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nJacklyn was the first person I encountered at the restaurant. I hadn't noticed it before but she too is quite the little chatterbox of unsolicited information. \"Hi, Jules. Feeling better? You sounded awful on the phone the other day. I think you and my friend Kelly had the same thing. She was sick too\u2014sounded like death. We were supposed to go to the Roxy and she canceled, so not cool. At first I thought she was ditching me for some guy, because she does that, you know, but then I realized, after speaking to you, that seriously she was sick. You both sounded the same\u2014awful. Also, Lauryn's people called. She needs to do a morning sound check. They should be here within the hour. I tried to reach you when they called earlier, but your phone went to voice mail.\"\n\nI seriously doubt that Kelly and I were suffering from the same illness. There was no need to stop and give her my full attention; as it was, Jacklyn always seemed to be a step or two wherever I was until dismissed. I continued into the elevator and waited for her to come up for air so I could tell her we would resume this after my morning coffee.\n\n\"How do you do that?\" I asked, staring at her in complete bewilderment.\n\n\"Do what?\"\n\n\"Talk for that long nonstop without breathing. I swear, I'm just waiting for you to pass out.\"\n\n\"I do? Didn't know. Should I stop?\" Jacklyn asked.\n\n\"No, just an observation. I must've been on the subway when you called,\" although she did not need my affirmation, seeing as how she knew the routine of my life better than I did most of the time.\n\n\"Yeah, that's what I thought, so I went ahead and rescheduled your morning appointments so you can remain on site. Mr. Kipps has already called to find out what's going on. He is coming in early, I think. I asked Simone in order to make sure, but she is crankier than normal, so I guess it's true.\"\n\n\"Of course he is. The Love Boat would never set sail without Captain Stubing.\" Off her utterly clueless look, I decided it best not to explain and just buy Jacklyn a box set of 1980s television shows for Christmas. \"Let me see the set list and her rider,\" I said, scanning the papers as I walked into my office, only to stop immediately in my tracks. \"Are you pulling my leg? She wants to be called Ms. Hill?! What the\u2014? Lordy. Alrighty then, let the games begin. Grab me a latte and meet me back downstairs in fifteen minutes.\"\n\nDespite whatever storm cloud could be brewing with this earlier sound check, I felt good being back in the office. Here the rules were abundantly clear and incapable of forcing me to take to my bed. The customer is always right and in some cases so is the entertainer if ultimately it will make the customer happy.\n\nFrom a comfort perspective, my office was the next best place to be other than the apartment. Because of the configuration of the building, there was no corner unit to be campaigned for. To compensate, Michael had placed all the executive offices with the exception of his on the top levels facing the street, each with floor-to-ceiling windows and discreet little patios. \"I only have one rule: no smoking in the offices,\" Michael had said within the context of one of his random daily e-mails regarding team and office protocol, which were sent more out of boredom than as mandates. A rule that apparently applies to everyone but him.\n\nI thought of this briefly as I laid eyes on the exquisite crystal and gold-plated ashtray that was doubling as a vintage paperweight. During the course of decorating my apartment, Jean Pierre found a few pieces that demanded to be in my office: an antique Italian desk, duo-toned Moroccan carpet, an amazing RMID sofa, and a coffee table.\n\nThere is no way that I could have afforded such luxuries on the modest decorating budget Michael approved, but with Jean Pierre's discount and an extra helping of charm, they miraculously found their way into my space without too much damage to my bank account. To complement, I added fresh orchids and vintage black-and-white photographs of my music and fashion inspirations. Taking a quick moment to flip through the phone sheet and monthly booking report before rushing downstairs, I came across a Post-it from Simone affixed to the second page that read, \"In case Michael doesn't tell you immediately. Looking good.\"\n\nThe restaurant was booked solid through the winter season, with an extensive waiting list to compensate for any cancellations. This was indeed promising. When I originally proposed the idea to Michael back in September, he made it clear that his only focus was the flow of the restaurant and being the most liked man on the island, \"so you better make sure everyone is at their best so I can be at mine,\" he had said.\n\n\"Jules, glad to see you could be with us today,\" Michael said, poking his head into the office and forcing me to look up. \"Good thing too. I hear your first one is already making demands. Ms. Hill, huh? Maybe you should start calling me Mr. Kipps as well,\" he said, pausing briefly as if to decide whether he was going to enter or just keep on moving. \"You ready for this?\"\n\n\"Real funny, Michael. Real funny. No worries, I am fine,\" I said, but judging by the look on his face, it was not the most convincing of deliveries. \"Seriously, I am fine. What are you doing in this early? Trying to get an autograph or are you worried about me?\"\n\n\"No, and you are delusional. Today is a heavy delivery day and we had to order more than usual in anticipation of the reservations. The restaurant will be filled throughout with service staff and outside people.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\"Usually I leave this to Raymond, but every once in a while I take a more hands-on approach. It keeps the troops motivated and engaged.\"\n\n\"Well, look at that. Here I was thinking you were Captain Stubing when in fact you're a modern-day Bonaparte,\" I replied, in a much lighter tone to let him know that my wits were about me and that I was indeed joking so he should take it as such.\n\n\"And you will be in Waterloo if your big idea doesn't generate enough money to recoup me on the enormous fees I am paying these singers to perform and the additional staff,\" said Michael, not missing a beat while still straddling the doorway.\n\n\"Well, based on the reservations\u2014\" I attempted to say.\n\n\"And before you tell me about a full house through December, tell me how many of them will be drinking hard liquor, ordering bottles, and how often we will be turning those tables over. That's the restaurant business, Jules. Those are the things that keep the lights on and me bespoke in Savile Row. Where is your assistant?\" asked Michael. \"Oh, there you are. Jacklyn, call my office and have Simone set up a call for me with Marcus and Simon. Afterward she should meet me in the restaurant.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Kipps, I'm on it.\" The syrup dripping from Jacklyn's every word was laughable. Her crush on Michael was completely obvious to everyone, especially him, yet she would never admit to it and was too na\u00efve to know how to conceal it properly. Even the one time I asked her about it. \"Absolutely not, Ms. Sinclair. I-I-I, why would you even think such a thing?\" That is the moment I figured out how to tell when she was lying, from her stuttering and being overly formal. I couldn't blame her, though. When I was twenty-two I only had eyes for older men and if one like Michael crossed my path, all jet-set debonair with a bit of edge, I surely would have been swooning. Thankfully, that phase was brief and lasted only a year or so until I met Tony.\n\nAs light and witty as his delivery might have been, Michael's point was abundantly clear. In business as in life, always know your break-even point. In doing so, you know how much you can risk and recognize when it is time to walk away or cash in. Two years in another country, three days in seclusion, and I still could not succinctly state this: five minutes with Michael and it seemed like common sense. \"I am going downstairs to check out the stage and Laur\u2014Ms. Hill's dressing room. Take Keith off my phone sheet. I will call him back later.\"\n\nBy later, I meant today within the next hour or so, but one thing led to another and before I knew it the phone call became a hastily typed e-mail.\n\nSubject:\n\nHi you,\n\nTemporarily fell down the rabbit hole. Might I ring you when I resurface?\n\nx Jules\n\nHis response was quintessentially Keith.\n\nSubject: RE:\n\nPrincess\n\nNothing you can't handle, I'm sure. Get back at me when you're ready.\n\nMasters\n\nIn the week that I allowed to not-so-subtly slip by, I was conscious of the fact that I was purposefully avoiding inviting Keith immediately back into my life. Not because of anything that he had done and not for some grieving or pining over Tony. Before the whole episode with Carly, I was clear on our dynamics. He was my Transition Guy, our chemistry (in bed and out) amazing, we enjoyed each other with no expectations of a future. But now the line was threatening to get a bit blurred because moment to moment my desire to just fall into him, to fall into any man and be rescued, was as pressing as Rapunzel's need to escape that tower. What can I say? It was a pattern that I could never seem to shake, so I kept busy.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI still had not found a cleaning woman of my own and Richard's seemed to be unavailable whenever I needed her, so on Saturday I decided to clean the apartment and do laundry, all four loads of it. It seems impossible that I could live here alone with no pets and yet accumulate so many dirty clothes in a matter of a week or so. After taking down the final two loads, I collapsed on the sofa and got lost in an episode of ER before realizing that the time had long since expired on the first load, so I rushed to the basement to place them in the dryer before someone in the building complained or rudely removed them from the washer and placed them on the folding table for anyone to see. Opening the door, I heard the phone ringing and decided it was probably best to pick it up this time. After all, Cora had phoned twice already and would probably continue calling until I answered. That woman was relentless. Saturdays were our day to have an extensive one-sided conversation, always in her favor, whether I wanted to or not.\n\n\"Hi, Mommy,\" I said.\n\n\"Hi, sexy. Sorry to disappoint, but you can call me Daddy if you like.\" My goodness, I love the sound of his voice. Most people's phone voice is uneventful, monotone, or nasal\u2014not Keith's. His was authoritative and rich with no reverb. He could probably make the Annual Crop Report sound desirable, which was no small feat since my eyes glazed over at the mere mention of stocks and such.\n\nNoticeably caught off guard, I said, \"Hiiiii,\" making a valiant effort to recover. \"The name is vaguely familiar but the specifics are a bit cloudy. Is this your new number? It is not in my phone.\"\n\n\"No, I'm just at the office putting the final touches on a presentation for Monday with the Japanese. Why don't you save me from this slave ship and let's grab a drink. Say, Amaranth in twenty minutes?\"\n\n\"Are you sure we could handle an impromptu drink on a domestic Saturday, and by impromptu I mean me showing up looking more casual than you have ever seen me?\" (Bare face, yoga pants, and a well-worn sweatshirt that I snagged from a college boyfriend many moons ago.)\n\nWe agreed to meet within the hour. He would still arrive in twenty starting off with a solo Dewar's, and me shortly thereafter. Despite the time cushion, I still found myself rushed for time. Thank goodness the restaurant is only a few blocks down the road on Sixty-second Street, just behind Barney's NYC.\n\nTurning the corner from Fifth onto Sixty-second Street, I was immediately reminded that Saturday night is a \"going out\" night for many. Normally Amaranth is filled with locals who over time become friends. It's comfortable, easy, and delicious. Tonight, however, it was packed. There were tons of people standing in front awaiting a table. Initially, I feared that Keith would be among them, but then I remembered that he and Gianni, the manager, were good friends. Sliding by a young couple who screamed, \"Connecticut date night,\" I saw Keith ahead at the bar.\n\n\"Did someone write an article this week about this place that I am not aware of? There's like fifty people outside waiting for less than ten tables,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, I'll say. Thank goodness Gianni had the chairs in the back or we would have been with them,\" Keith said, standing to kiss me. \"Welcome back from Wonderland, Miss Alice. I was beginning to think that you were lost for good.\"\n\nFor the first time we felt a bit strange to me, or maybe it was just the fact that I was still hypersensitive in my own skin and overtly aware of my failings, as it were. Some people were fine with a one-night stand to provide them the distance and security required to exorcise the demons of a former relationship. I preferred the composition of a full-on relationship, despite this casual exercising in \"just dating\" that we were doing. Eventually, I reasoned, I would find my knight, shining armor optional but sword essential. Looking at him now, I had this overwhelming need to apologize for the absence but was not quite sure of where or how to start.\n\n\"You look great.\"\n\n\"Really? Thanks,\" I said, a bit self-conscious and thinking that I should have put more effort into my physical appearance for him.\n\n\"I didn't want to crowd you, but I was getting concerned, you know?\" Keith said, preferring to focus his attention on the bottom of the nearly empty glass of whiskey than on me, ensuring that the \"keeping it light\" boundaries remained.\n\nI confided so was I, the first day or so, but once the initial shock of things passed, I was better than I had thought, which was great. My only concern was the epiphany that maybe just maybe Tony was not the love of my life, despite the immense pain that I had endured or the lengths to which I'd sought to escape. That part I still had yet to come to terms with, and in trying to do so I came face-to-face with old patterns, which is where my head lived right now. I wasn't ready to elaborate on specific tendencies just yet.\n\n\"Keith, am I a masochist or something?\" I blurted out, wanting a real answer and not to be pacified.\n\n\"No, baby, you're not. You're just on the later side of twenty-eight with Saturn's return in your house and it is having one hell of a time with you.\"\n\n\"Huh? What is that, Japanese or something?\" I offered, half serious. In response, he explained that the emotional roller coaster that has been my life for the past year and a half was more than normal as this was the astrological time when everyone's cosmic house was thrown into disarray by Saturn going retrograde.\n\n\"Think of it as the universe's way of making order out of the confusion your life until now has created, by showing you what you are made of so you can live on your terms. No one gives us a guidebook into adulthood, so we enter it boldly and unapologetically. Our parents long since forgot, so they only warn us of the obvious physical danger. The rest is left up to us to figure out or fuck up. In the arrogance of our youth, we are certain that we have all the answers, so we make career, life, and love decisions all from a place of sheer na\u00efvet\u00e9. Problem is, the overwhelming lot of those choices are not our personal truth. They are more conditioned precepts and societal brainwashing as to the life we are programmed to have instead of the life we want to have. So as we chronologically get ready to enter a stage of true adulthood\u2014at about thirty years old\u2014everything goes to shit in order to clean house and put us on the right track. Chaos into chaotic order is what I call it,\" he said, pausing only long enough to finish the last sip of his drink and signaling the bartender for another. \"The fucked-up thing is that while we are going through it, we vow to remember, but at its tail end, most of us are so happy to get through the shit that we immediately delete it from memory, forgetting to pass on the wisdom. Now here is the kicker: if you do remember to warn someone, understand that it is a waste of time because it will fall on deaf ears. Even if I knew you at the beginning of your cycle and told you what was about to happen, you would not have believed me.\"\n\n\"Yes, I would!\" I said incredulously.\n\nUnconvincingly he replied, \"Sure you would have if I came to you and said, 'Jules, for the next two years or so everything that you thought you knew and thought you had firm hold of in your life is about to be pulled from under you and no matter how hard you try to hold on, to fix it\u2014everything will fall apart.' Would you have believed me?\"\n\n\"Or would I have told the bartender to cut your drunk yet completely fine ass off immediately?\"\n\nI knew Keith was right. I would not have believed him if he had tried to explain that the chaos in my life was necessary. Tomorrow I would talk to Richard about this. I wonder what his retro-cycle was like. \"Or maybe I would have told you that you were on some Southern California surfer vibe and should put down the pipe.\"\n\n\"True. Unfortunately, you can't force this to pass, Jules, just because you want it to. If you allow it, you will be much better off in the long run than you can ever imagine. Seriously, I know this firsthand.\"\n\nI could feel his sincerity and was grateful. Nearing the end of my second glass of scotch, some parts of his dialogue escaped me\u2014or at least that is what I thought.\n\n\"Until twenty-seven I was the golden boy, came from the right family, captain of my high school football team, played college baseball, and got recruited into the majors despite the fact that I was marginal at best. Everyone was so proud, and in the beginning, so was I. Maybe I was just riding on their fumes and never stopped to own my desires because I didn't know I could. My all-American life was figured out for me at birth. Once out of the protective family enclave, I started to go off track but not enough for anyone to wave a red flag. My mom never wanted to see a problem, so she dismissed the drinking and partying. When undeniable, I remember trying to talk candidly with her about things I was feeling, but it was too much for her to hear, so she sent me to her therapist to be fixed. Much to her chagrin, the very therapist she sent me to forced me to dismantle my world in order to understand that I wasn't broken, that it wasn't a phase, and eventually the boundaries of everything in my life had to be redefined in order for me to write my own story. Leaving baseball for prospects unknown disappointed my dad, but we got over it soon enough. He is proud of my success. Accepting that I like men and women devastated my mom and put a wall between us that we are still recovering from. If someone would have told me at twenty-seven that the very foundation of my family life and my identity would be shaken to its core, I would not have believed it.\" Leaning in to emphasize his last point, he said, \"Jules, I only tell you this because the whiskey may now be talking but\u2014your man cried like a little bitch more than a few times. That's how intense everything was. We should really eat something or tomorrow will be rough. Steaks? I'm starving . . .\"\n\nThe walk back home was rough, but not because of the endless pour. Scotch I can handle. Learning that the man I am seeing is probably attracted to the same kind of men as me was another matter indeed. So, from Amaranth to the shower later that night, and on the subway Sunday to meet Richard in SoHo, I replayed the latter part of our conversation\/Keith's confession a million times. But was it indeed a confession, an impossibly late disclaimer (by the way, I too like boys), or a point of fact?\n\n## 19\n\n* * *\n\n## SWITCH HITTING\n\nDARLING, ARE YOU certain you heard him properly?\" Richard calmly asked within minutes of our meeting at the Cub Room and my immediately spilling the details of last night with Keith. \"Before you go and get yourself into a huff, know that I am not doubting your account so much as I want you to be absolutely certain before we go down this murky road.\"\n\n\"Richard, in case it's lost on you, I am having orange juice and not a cocktail, not a mimosa. Orange juice! Doesn't that tell you that something is seriously wrong?\" Knowing me as he did, even Richard had to concede that my starting our Sunday brunch with just juice was cautionary. \"He told me all this stuff about Saturn and Uranus, which I was going to ask you about, but then he levied the wallop about baseball, his mom, men and women, Aaron or Erin. WTF!\"\n\n\"Wait, wait, honey, are you sure of the context? Lord knows, with how creative people are today in naming their children, anything is possible. It could be Aryn, Erin, or Aaron. All of it is unisex now. I blame Calvin Klein. Would it kill anyone to just stick to the King's English?\"\n\n\"Ugh, stop, you are making my brain hurt more than it does already. I know he said A-Erin-Aaron-somebody, and I know I heard the words men and women after sumtin' sumtin' drinking and partying. And before you ask, NO. I did not stop him mid-sentence to get clarification. I didn't even realize I needed it until I was halfway home, and what was I supposed to do at that point? Besides, that's why I have you. Help meeeee!\" I whined.\n\nWatching me dissolve into a squealing tantrum suitable for a three-year-old was not exactly what Richard had in mind, so he attempted to soothe me as only he knew how. \"Here, take a sip of this. Before you speak again, take another. Then calmly tell me how he spoke of him\/her?\" he said, stuttering out a correction at my horrified expression. \"Darling, I meant her. Drink more, improves clarity.\"\n\n\"They met in college freshman year in a public speaking class. You know, that one random course that requires an x and y credit. Please refrain from making the obvious chromosome dig here, please. Anyway, one thing led to another and they became friends, hanging out partying, and ultimately it became uncomfortable for Keith because he was having feelings about Aaron, Erin, Aryn. What the fuck! They started dating, sort of, first love, and Keith felt as if he was living a lie. Oh gawd! He had a lot of pressure on him and they broke up, but not because Keith didn't love him\/her. Eventually, he spoke to his mom and she sent him to therapy. The flip is that, instead of 'curing' him, the therapist helped him own his truth.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear. I bet that is not what Mommy had in mind.\" Richard could not help but laugh at the irony. His shoulders animatedly bounced up and down as the spasm of laughter subsided. He knew this terrain all too well, as he had to contend with a disapproving mother when he came out.\n\n\"Honestly, I need for you not to be savoring the demolition of my pseudo-relationship as much as you are that drink. What am I supposed to do with this? Isn't there some type of law or something about this?\"\n\n\"Like what, honey? As far as I know there is no law for a knight in knight's clothing with a questionable sexuality who is not trying to hide it from you, as some do.\"\n\n\"Richard, we have slept together many times, and he responds to me physically, and I am not talking about the alcohol, the E, or 'blue pill' type of response. I mean, I know that we are still in the 'getting to know each other' phase, but this is just too much information and I am not sure I am equipped. This just introduces too many things into my world that are impossible to comprehend.\"\n\n\"Okay, first things first, tomorrow call your doct\u2014 Oh, dear.\"\n\nBefore Richard could finish what he was about to say, he'd laid eyes on Blake entering our sanctuary, looking all things equestrian city chic\u2014the Ralph Lauren version, that is. Her hair fell below her shoulders, the same golden wheat color as the turtleneck she wore, with matching riding pants and a blue denim jacket accessorized with an oversize paisley scarf in earth tones.\n\n\"Hey, kittens. I knew I would find you both here,\" said Blake, looking around to see who else was there. \"What is the deal with this place and both of you anyway? It's like you have this little Sunday sandbox with a standing reservation for the two of you. Anyway, I woke up and decided I was crashing this little party.\" Searching for a space to sit at our cramped two-topper, she added, \"Couldn't you find a better table?\"\n\n\"No, this is the only table I like. If you want something a bit more on the fringe, then I suggest you grab a lonely table of one,\" Richard instructed.\n\nFor as long as I have met him here, this table, located in the center room, directly across from the bar, has been his fixture. I have actually arrived on Sundays ahead of Richard to a wait list with every table in the restaurant filled with the exception of table 16, Richard's table. It awaited him, come rain, sleet, or shine, or standing room.\n\nChoosing for the moment not to be goaded into an early round with Richard, Blake continued, \"By the looks of things, it's a sad sack of a party and I probably would have been better served just staying home.\"\n\n\"Don't you worry, Blake, all is well here. Jules is just going through the relationship weeds.\"\n\n\"Not again. I thought we were done with the Tony thing. Carly is a meddling old bat. I swear, Julesy, you have to let that whole history go. He is great to look at but honestly, he is not the sort you build a life with. Tony is the kind of guy you meet in your twenties, fall head over heels for, surrender the last part of your innocence to, do some 'shrooms with, and in return he strips you down to your emotional core and obliterates your entire world. You grieve for a bit, pull yourself together wiser and stronger now, setting your sights on the guy who looks good but not as good, who loves you far more than you love him, and above all has the financial trajectory to keep you in the comforts you deserve. By all accounts I would say you are right on track, wouldn't you?\" said Blake, conscious of the dumbfounded expressions on our faces as she spoke: \"What?\"\n\n\"Just when I thought I had you pegged as a gold-digging social climber from the womb with a shovel in her shoe, you astound me,\" said Richard, causing Blake to do a double take. Because Richard handles me more with kid gloves, I oftentimes forget that he can be rather biting if need be. Much of his ire seems to be reserved for Blake, although I wouldn't daresay it was out of spite as much as it is a reflection of his former self. Somewhere in a world that only the two of them can comprehend. This is their way.\n\n\"Thank you. By the way, am I the only one who can make your inner cunty queen come out or do you use that kind of language with all the ladies? If so, I can see why Jules is still such a sad, sad sack.\"\n\n\"If this were the eighties, I would cut you,\" said Richard, with butter knife in hand.\n\n\"Richard, if this were the eighties you would have to find me, and by my calculations Salt Lake City, Utah, is a far cry from Studio 54, where you were most likely twirling. And I do mean 'twirling' in all connotations,\" said Blake.\n\n\"Stop it, you two! First, this is why you are not invited to brunch, Blakes. You and Richard can never seem to play nice, even for my sake. It's like you both went through some horrible divorce and I am the poor child stuck in the middle. Anyway, it's not Tony, so save it.\"\n\n\"Oh, thank Gawd,\" said Blake, gulping down the remainder of my juice.\n\n\"I think that Keith is bisexual,\" I said.\n\n\"And, what? I'm not following.\"\n\n\"Are you listening to me, Keith is\u2014\" off Richard's look I felt the need to amend my statement\u2014\"Keith and I had talked over drinks last night, and he told me that he is attracted to men and women.\"\n\n\"Welcome to New York! If they are not bisexual, they are bicurious or bipolar\u2014at least he's in the affirmative. If you like him, ride it out. What, why are you looking at me like that? I swear, you have been hanging around Richard too long. You're starting to get that same ole uppity scowl. Listen, I know you have not been on this island for a few years, but sweets, let me tell you, you will be hard-pressed to find a man of Keith's stature and age who is not dabbling. Seriously, forget difficult, it's nearly impossible in this town. The only question you need to ask yourself is, What's your endgame? If it is to have great sex\u2014and I assume the sex is good because he is too damn fine for it not to be\u2014then I say keep at it. If your intention for this one is marriage, babies, country homes, and beach club memberships, then you might need to find out which side of the pendulum he is most inclined to.\"\n\n\"Either I have had more drinks than I can recall or maybe my sugar levels are low, but dare I say you made sense again.\" Richard's backhanded compliment was not lost on Blake or me.\n\n\"I know. I do that, you know,\" said Blake, reaching across the table to take an unsolicited bite from Richard's omelet. \"Hmm, I don't like this. You should have gotten French toast.\"\n\n\"Well then, maybe you should order French toast and leave my food alone,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Oh, yeah, I could do that.\"\n\n\"That would be progress.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with her? Why is she just sitting there like a lump? This can't be what you both do every Sunday. If so, I will take that table for one,\" Blake said, in reference to the two-topper in the far corner near the kitchen\u2014clearly the worst seat in the place. The kind of table reserved for rude customers.\n\nMischievously, Richard responded, \"Stop it, Blake, can't you hear the wheels churning in that pretty little head as she tries to process all that you have said?\"\n\n\"Now that you mention it, there was a faint smell of smoke moments ago. I thought it was from the kitchen.\" Both snickering at my obvious despair.\n\nExhausted with being the pun of the joke, I spoke up. \"You are both quite cruel human beings when you want to be. You must know this. No more brunch trios. You bring out the absolute worst and snarkiest in each other. Yes, Richard, I know that 'snarkiest' is not a word in Webster's. So be it,\" I said, glaring at both of them equally.\n\nFor the next fifteen minutes or so we ate in silence, until Richard placed his hand on top of mine, offering, \"Honey, things aren't always so black and white, you know. Based on what you have told me, there appears to be no malice, so you can't cry party foul per se, but you must know if you can handle all that comes with being involved with someone who is hitting for both teams.\" Looking in Richard's eyes I could see that he did not take my predicament lightly, despite the earlier quips and jabs.\n\n\"That's what I said,\" Blake chimed in, midway through devouring a healthy bite of her French toast. You would think she had not eaten in days by the gluttonous display.\n\n\"Next time, can you please wait to swallow before enlightening us? I already feel ill,\" I said.\n\n\"Speaking of that, I hope you took your own advice,\" replied Blake. \"By the way, you should go and get tested tomorrow if you haven't already. The virus just isn't reserved for the boys who love boys, you know.\"\n\n\"The virus?\" I asked before understanding. Fuck, HIV, the one variable I didn't even consider in this whole equation. It is dangerous enough in this day and age having protected sex with a new partner who is heterosexual. There is always a fear of a condom slip and accidental pregnancy until the much-welcomed appearance of moodiness, bloating, and cramping that precedes a monthly visit from Mary. To my knowledge, four of my close girlfriends had abortions before they were twenty-five, and that was big news\u2014drastic even. Two of them occurred in college, and if I am correct, their parents still do not know. Now let's throw into the mix an incurable, fatal, easily transmitted disease that is highly prevalent in the gay community. I think I am now going to pass out.\n\nMy mind was reeling and I could not bring myself to tell Richard and Blake that there was indeed that one time Keith and I did not use protection. It was the first night, when I allowed myself to live too greatly in the moment of not having any for so long. A few days afterward, over dinner, Keith was the one to bring it up, more a preemptive discussion to unexpected fatherhood than anything else.\n\n\"Hey, I just want to let you know, in case you're worried about the other night, don't be. I don't have any diseases and shit. My fellas are great swimmers, though, so ya know.\"\n\n\"Relax yourself, Masters. While I am certain our fictitious children would be absolutely gorgeous if that was the case, it's not. I am still on the Pill. Never got off, actually. Having always lived by the 'what if?' factor, it just never made any sense for me to stop taking them. Now, obviously, I didn't know there would be a substantial drought in the forecast.\"\n\n\"And your decision had absolutely nothing to do with the documented weight gain that happens to women after they come off it?\"\n\n\"Your parents should never have encouraged you to read,\" I teased, pinching him lightly. \"All I will say is that it could have been a deterrent.\"\n\nIt seemed so light and trivial then. We laughed it off and all was forgotten. Now, sitting here, I can feel Blake's and Richard's eyes on me, and I can't decide if I am to look up and meet their concerned stares or look away and change the topic. I opt to just lean back and squeeze my eyes closed as tight as possible. Surely, I would awaken any moment to see that the drama being played out was not my own. Not so. Instead, a few air kisses and hugs later, Blake, Richard, and I were making our way down Prince Street so I can catch the N or R train on Broadway. Even if his apartment weren't located a few blocks east of Broadway on Mott, Richard would walk me to the subway or a taxi. To hear him tell it, \"Papa would turn over in his grave if I didn't see you girls off properly.\" It was part of our dynamic that I always looked forward to and, truth be told, looked for in the guys I date. Keith is chivalrous also.\n\n\"It's such a pretty day, but can we not do this again? I don't quite like being the center of all the drama, you know. That is not what our Sundays are supposed to be about.\" My body was now as tired as my mind, so it seemed only right to descend the steps into the subway, where there were fewer people to contend with, than on the streets where it seemed like the world was out and jovial.\n\n\"What we must never do is give our location to that dreadful Blake.\"\n\n\"Stop it, I know you like Blake. Admit it, she has grown on you.\"\n\n\"Honey, psoriasis also grows on you, but you don't see me inviting its discomfort into my life, now do you? Our Sundays are about enjoying each other's company, being a sounding board and reflecting on the week that was. Not an obnoxious free-for-all. Now, arguably, this one just happened to be a bit more complicated than most.\" Wrapping his arms around me tightly, Richard said the words I so needed to hear: \"We'll get through this. You are fine, don't worry.\" Pulling away to look at me, he added, \"As a precaution, though, I want you to call my doctor in the morning and see him immediately. If you wish, I can meet you there. Just tell me what time. Then we can decide what to do about Mr. Masters.\"\n\nEscaping into the subway station, I knew only two things for sure. The first was that Richard was still standing at the entrance looking after me, more concerned than he would like for me to know, so I dared not turn around. The second is that I didn't need the results of my AIDS test to help me decide about my relationship with Keith. At this point I know a few things about myself well enough to understand that I am just not that modern of a girl to be with someone with an affinity for both sexes, no matter how amazing the package is or how much he appears to adore me.\n\nTruth is, on a deeper level, if pressured to address this publicly, I would have to admit that I am not 100 percent comfortable with the whole intimacy of homosexuality, which seems like an enormous contradiction given my circle of friends, but it is true. With my friends I can compartmentalize things\u2014focusing only on their happiness, but not with a man I am intimate with. I am not proud of this, but such is the case. With each and every day I must admit that I am definitely my mother's child. You can take the girl out of Jamaica but some parts of Jamaica stay in the girl. Right now, the major problem, aside from the obvious, was how to handle things with Keith under these conditions. In my heart of hearts I felt that he was not the sort to cavort with such disregard if he knew there was a life-altering problem. Hell, Keith loves himself much too much. More to the fact, he is open and honest with me with no seeming agenda, which is new, in a manner of speaking, especially as it pertains to my romantic entanglements. The worst-case scenario cannot be my fate, it just can't.\n\n## 20\n\n* * *\n\n## THE VOICE IN MY HEAD\n\nSADLY, AFTER I returned home, the remainder of the day got progressively worse. As much as I attempted to calm myself and rest, the panic within me grew. Was I being delusional? Was I dying and didn't know it? Yes to the latter, because it is inevitable\u2014obviously. My overwhelming immediate concern, to be specific, was dying before the natural occurrence of events I envisioned claimed me; old age after having lived an amazing life as a media guru, traveling the world with my debonair \u00fcberamazing husband, jetting between our homes in Manhattan, Paris, and Lake Como while raising a beautiful family of two\u2014potentially being the bane of my daughter's existence because that is often the way of mothers and daughters, the apple and aspiration of my son's eye because that too is the way of things, and becoming the coolest grandmother ever. Then, after celebrating my ninety-fifth birthday, where I am fit as a fiddle and can compete with any sprite of a seventy-year-old, my house filled with family and friends collected over the years, I would go upstairs to rest and peacefully exit this world. Nowhere in this vision does it say that I am to contract a fatal, painful illness and die alone without even the most basic of comforts and support. I don't even have pets. Maybe I should get a cat! Hate cats\u2014hateful animals they are.\n\nAround 4:43 a.m., after the umpteenth infomercial designed to help me zap blemishes, lose belly fat, and tone my thighs\u2014am I the only one who finds the ThighMaster unsettling?\u2014I just couldn't take it anymore. Having left the solitude of my bed long before and repositioned myself in the living room on the sofa, I needed answers.\n\n\"Mommy, you up?\"\n\n\"Yes. Why are you, Julesea? Insomnia again?\" Cora asked, without much regard, because my nonsleeping bouts by this time have become sort of legendary for their duration and frequency.\n\n\"Why do you insist on calling me Julesea, Mommy? You know my name is Jules.\"\n\n\"Well, when I pushed you out of my body and signed the birth certificate, it was Julesea Isabel Sinclair. I don't know why you choose to keep forgetting that little fact.\"\n\n\"Well, if you would have asked me first, I would have told you that I prefer Jules.\"\n\n\"Really? And I was to wait how long for this personal identification preference, Julesea? A few months on the hopes that miraculously your first words would be something other than 'mama' or 'dada' or maybe just maybe I could have waited a couple of years. In the interim I would call you 'hey you' or 'the only fruit to have come from my womb' when strangers asked.\"\n\n\"Mom!!!!!!\"\n\n\"No, seriously, you're right. Of course you are. I have only been in the world slightly longer than you. Here I am thinking that giving you a name, an honorable name, your grandmother's name, would be a sense of pride for you and, if nothing more, save you from being picked on in school, but what do I know? I am just your mother.\"\n\nBy this time I was sitting up and laughing uncontrollably, nothing like one of Cora's ill-timed rants. A much-needed reprieve from the past few hours of mental torment. While it is true that we (okay, I) may not speak as much as we (okay, I) should, my mother has always been the one true constant in my life. A presence that, regrettably, I take for granted much too often and whose counsel I always seek at my darkest hour, even when I think that the decision has been made. I always want her final sign-off.\n\n\"I knew you would be up. Why don't you sleep, woman?\"\n\n\"I have not slept in thirty years, Julesea. That's your dad's job. The man can sleep through a tsunami. Mothers keep vigil. We pretend to keep ourselves busy with the minutiae of work\u2014if we are lucky, social engagements, and home to distract us, but all in all we are just waiting for the phone to ring and be needed again.\"\n\n\"Mommy, I'm twenty-eight. Please stop rounding up. It only makes me older and in doing so, you too.\"\n\n\"I look good. Always have. Let's hope you take after my side of the family. Did I tell you that I saw your Helen last week, and let's just say that time is not being a friend, but who am I to judge?\"\n\n\"Woman, you are shameless.\"\n\n\"The truth is always without shame, Julesea\u2014something I learned a long time ago. Now, what drama is plaguing that mind of yours and how can Mommy fix it? Let's be quick about it. Daddy will wake up soon and I still have not put my face on.\"\n\n\"Incredible! Has Daddy ever seen you without the face?\" I asked. Cora is a naturally beautiful woman, so her devotion to makeup borders on insulting to the rest of us. Her skin flawless and glowing, encases large chestnut eyes set high on Elizabeth Taylor\u2013type cheekbones, a telltale sign of her multiracial, Dutch-Spanish-African heritage and a blueprint to the Jamaican history. Her hair, the deepest mahogany, is fine yet thick and wavy; when loose it cascades down her back like one of those Spanish women from Seville who inspires men to paint and commit suicide. Growing up, I used to love just staring at her, specifically her mouth, full and bountiful, the most evident feature of her West African ancestry.\n\n\"Of course not, why do you think I don't swim?\" said Cora. \"Men should never see what's underneath. Kills the illusion.\"\n\nOh dear, she was firmly basking in her element. Humor was spot-on, with a healthy heaping dose of cynicism best served at twilight. How could I ever tell her everything?\n\n\"Um, well, you know I'm seeing someone new, right?\" I said, my eyes racing to the ceiling for the right delivery.\n\n\"The advertising guy?\"\n\n\"Yeah, Keith. Well, um . . .\"\n\n\"Dear, I am certain that Catholic school taught you actual words. If not, Daddy and I deserve a refund. Chop chop, now you're starting to make me nervous. Is he dead? Did he break up with you? Did you find him wearing your lingerie? What?\" Then she paused only long enough to work herself into a proper frenzy. \"Lawd Jesus! Are you pregnant, Julesea Isabel Sinclair?! Ya betta say nah, child, and it bets ta be the truths, gyrl!\"\n\nOh shit, whatever internal radar she has has gone postal, because her well-nuanced middle American dialect had now given way to her Jamaican upbringing, which is reserved strictly for family reunions and three-alarm, red-alert situations.\n\n\"Shhhhhhh. No, MOMMY! Stop yelling, you'll wake Dad,\" I said, looking over my shoulder frantically as if he were in my apartment instead of hundreds of miles away. \"I am not pregnant, I promise\" (I hope not, but it would be more welcome than the current proposition), \"and Keith has not broken up with me. We're fine\u2014sort of. Not really. I'm just not sure I want to continue is all.\"\n\n\"Lawd, why didn't you say so in the first place, gyrl? Calling me first ting tis mornin' all mealy-mouth. What was I ta tink? You know my pressure is bad.\"\n\n\"Lady, you don't have high blood pressure, so stop . . . Mommy, Keith is gay.\"\n\n\"I think I would have preferred you telling me you was pregnant.\"\n\n\"Really? Not funny, Cora. Well, to be fair, he's not actually gay. He's bisexual and\u2014\"\n\n\"And the difference is what? The man is a bati boy! Drop him immediately and change your numbers. Didn't I tell you to be careful in that city? I did. I told you. I know.\" She was so elevated, there was no reining her in.\n\n\"Cora, what's wrong?\" said Dad in response to the outburst.\n\n\"Oh, my Lord. Mommy, did you wake Daddy up? Where are you?\" Hearing him rustling in the background, I realized that this entire conversation was in fact being conducted from their bed. Not in the kitchen, where I thought she would be at this hour, making herself some tea or in the bathroom luxuriating over a multitude of creams, perfumes, and emollients.\n\n\"Charles, it's nothing. Hush up now and go back to bed,\" said Cora.\n\n\"Tat is what I waz tryin ta do, Cora, but ya so loud, all the tyme. Just loud. Who you talking to at this hour? Is it Helen? Tell her ta go ta bed and let us be.\" My father has never been the kind of man to make any airs about himself. To describe him as simple would be far too easy and erroneous, because he is anything but. Charles Barrington Sinclair, a kid from the slums who got a break, took it, and did good. Being a pure Jamaican made him proud and being from Kingston made him the third cousin twice removed from Bob Marley\u2014or so he said, but aren't we all? Cora is the great love of his life (by both of their accounts) and as such he allows her a lot of leeway to be grand, because it makes her happy and that's all he ever wants\u2014to make her happy. I have been searching for this type of man (age-appropriate and nonincestuous) my entire life. Most girls grow up wishing for Prince Charming. I only wanted my dad. Freud would have a lot to say about that, I am guessing.\n\n\"No, Charles, it's not Helen. Now stop making a fuss and go to bed,\" she said, admonishing him to a slight rumble before returning all her attention to me.\n\n\"Hold on, dear, I am getting myself up. Okay, now where was I?\"\n\n\"Before or after calling Keith a derogatory, homophobic term, Cora?\"\n\n\"Listen, dear, don't get snippy on me. I am not the bati-homosexual who has lied to you and God only knows what else.\"\n\nInterrupting her before the cycle of events fueled by her imagination became fact, I said, \"Keith did not lie to me. In fact, he told me of his own free will and unsolicited, I might add, about his life preference . . . situation, you know, I mean. I just don't know what to do about it is all.\"\n\nAnimated and muffled now, Cora said, \"You don't know what to do about it?! Well, I will tell you, Julesea Isabel. You are going to break up with him and go get yourself tested. Lawd knows what kind of tings he could've given ya. I can't believe this! Did you not see it? I mean honestly, dear, we raised you better.\"\n\n\"Seriously, Mommy. It is not like he was wearing pink sequin hot shorts, twirling down Fifth Avenue, and I intentionally went over and said, 'Date me, please.' Of course I didn't see it. Keith is a well put together, successful man who likes sports. Hell, he even played professional baseball. He drinks beer, out of the bottle. So, no, I didn't see it.\" Unbeknownst to me, my tone had risen slightly.\n\n\"What did I just say? Watch your mouth, Ms. Thing. I didn't go through eighteen hours of labor for you to take that tone with me.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"It's okay. You're not yourself. What cold cream are you using these days? I am trying some new organic something or other that cost seventy-five dollars, and I swear Noxzema works just as good and it is only four ninety-nine.\"\n\n\"Mommy, please focus.\"\n\n\"Honey, I am focused. I know exactly what this is. Keith is one of those metrosexuals. I was watching Sally Jessy Raphael a few weeks ago and know all about it. It was on Oprah's show too. They want their cake, yours, mine, and Daddy's. Walk away, Julesea, you aren't that New Age. Walk away.\"\n\n\"I know, and I am. I just wasn't prepared is all, and now my every sensibility is in knots,\" I confessed.\n\n\"Honestly, I don't know how you girls do it. In my time the only thing I had to worry about was making sure your daddy wasn't dumb enough to fall for that cheap Rosalyn Bradshaw before I was ready to be with him. The gay boys were easy to spot and they were run out of town. This is indeed a different time, and I am current, but some things just aren't to be, especially where my child is concerned.\"\n\n\"Mommy, you do realize that it has been more than thirty-five years since Daddy dated Rosalyn? It's pretty safe to say you've won.\"\n\n\"Never let your guard down, Julesea. You know, she lives in the States now. Just last week Aunt Helen told me she saw her sometime back. Big as a house she is\u2014big as a house.\"\n\nI couldn't bring myself to confess to her that Keith and I had unprotected sex once at the beginning of the relationship and that I was, in fact, going to be tested as soon as possible. Cora Madeline Augustus-Sinclair may be poised and sturdy, but she is also hot-tempered and irrational. To even hint that I was concerned at this point about anything other than his sleeping with men would have her hopping a plane to New York right now with poor Dad in tow, demanding to see the doctor's credentials and have a proper sit-down with Keith. No, thank you.\n\n\"Mommy, it is nearly six o'clock, and I need to try to get some sleep. Thanks for listening.\"\n\n\"That's what I am here for.\"\n\nBefore hanging up, I remembered something. \"Oh, I haven't used cold cream since college, Mommy. I use Leaf & Rusher Green Tea Cleanser. It is amazing. I will have Jacklyn send you some later today.\"\n\nSucking her teeth in resignation: \"Tsk. And that one! Girl scared of her own shadow, she is,\" said Cora.\n\n\"No, she is scared of you. Treating her like a slave, Mommy. Umph, I wonder.\"\n\n\"Don't be nasty about the Dutch, dear. Unfortunate incident, it was, without which we would not be here,\" responded Cora.\n\n\"Incredible,\" I say.\n\n\"I know. I love you, Julesea. I do.\"\n\n\"I know. Thanks, Mommy.\"\n\n## 21\n\n* * *\n\n## NEW LEASES AND RELEASES\n\nJULES, YOU'RE HERE early. I haven't had a chance to get your coffee yet.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about it, Jacklyn. I picked one up on the way in. Just bring me a copy of my schedule for the week, an updated phone sheet, and then come in so we can go over it.\"\n\n\"There is one from Friday night already on your desk. I'll check the voice mails from the weekend for updates.\"\n\nAfter hanging up with Cora, I tried to go back to sleep, but it was impossible, so I got dressed and walked.\n\n\"Jacklyn, why am I meeting with Michael this afternoon?\" I yelled from the interior of my office after a quick glance at the calendar.\n\n\"Simone said it's some kind of investor meeting.\"\n\n\"But you're not sure?\" I asked, irritated.\n\n\"Not really,\" Jacklyn responded in a casual, resigned manner.\n\n\"So you just put it on my calendar? You need to find out. Also, I need you to call Dr. Katz first thing and get me an appointment for today . . . I haven't been feeling well since the weekend . . . Might be coming down with something.\"\n\n\"Jules, I checked the voice mail and applied all the updates to this phone sheet,\" said Jacklyn, replacing the old phone log on my desk with the new one. \"Nancy from Dr. Katz's office called to confirm your eleven thirty appointment today. Do you need me to change it? Your mom called and said to call your father.\"\n\n\"No, I'll do it myself.\" Despite how slowly events were registering for me this morning, I knew that the osmosis gods had not miraculously gotten me an appointment with Dr. Katz. \"Change my dinner with Keith until the end of the week and get Richard on the phone for me.\"\n\n\"He called too. It's also on your phone sheet . . . in your hands,\" said Jacklyn.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Keith . . . and Richard.\"\n\n\"Well, what did he, Keith, say?\" I asked impatiently.\n\n\"The meeting went well. He's sorry but has to cancel. He has to leave for Tokyo tomorrow and will call you when he returns. I already took him off the phone sheet.\"\n\nA slight agitation was evident in Jacklyn's voice and, try as I might, instead of overlooking it, it just incited me enough to push back from my desk. Suddenly I saw Barcelona shades of red.\n\n\"Am I disturbing you? Or is it no longer your job to assist me?!\" I said, staring at her with an intensity that dared not be contradicted. \"Well, what did Richard say?\"\n\n\"He just called to say that he will see you today at eleven thirty.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, partially scanning my schedule. \"This week will be insane, so we should try to . . . change my Wednesday with Gillian to her next avail. I need to be on-site all day. On second thought, keep Gillian on. Just have her come here so she can see Jill's rehearsal. We need that review in the Post this week. Why is my Thursday evening still blocked? I thought you took Keith off?\"\n\n\"Yes, but Simone just told me to lock it in for a dinner with Michael and the financial team.\"\n\n\"Listen to me. Why am I in that meeting? I don't even know their names. What am I supposed to do\u2014take notes?\"\n\nShrugging her shoulders, she replied, \"Dunno.\"\n\n\"Did you not ask?\"\n\n\"Yes, but Simone just dismissed me, so I figured I\u2014\"\n\n\"You figured what? That you didn't need to get all the information?\" Not bothering to wait for her response, I continued, \"I know that Simone can be a bit brisk\"\u2014off her look\u2014\"Okay, downright rude sometimes, but she does her job at all times and protects Michael's ass. She never sends him into anything unprepared. You have to do that for me as well. That is why you are seated out there, not to look pretty and flirt with Michael. Understand? Your job is to be my gatekeeper, to protect me and keep me organized. Right now I just need every fucking thing to be okay. You are supposed to protect me, get it?!\" Midtirade I became aware of Jacklyn flinching and thought it best to quiet myself. Leaning forward slightly to relieve the pressure on my temples, I feel my eyes burning, but I refuse to cry under the weight of things. \"Go back to your desk.\"\n\nThe air in the office was thick, almost stifling. To stop my hands from shaking, I continued to rest my head in them and took some deep breaths. I was wrong for yelling at her, but I needed not to apologize right now. I needed to own the rage and sense of helplessness that had built up inside me. How could I possibly be expected to focus\u2014much less care\u2014about a group of wealthy, overprivileged bankers with a hard-on to see their names in print now that Carly's was a bona fide hit, even if they are ultimately the ones who pay my salary? My life is in the balance, and I swear as I sit here I can feel my glands swelling, accompanied by an onset of fever. When I did look up, Jacklyn was still standing before me like a deer in the headlights. Thinking it better than to try to defend herself against my verbal thrashing, Jacklyn said the first thing that came to mind and neutralized me.\n\n\"I'm sorry. I don't know, but I will find out.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Jules, are you sure everything is all right?\" she asked. \"You're reminding me of Mrs. Sinclair.\"\n\n\"I hope so. Go back to your desk. We'll finish this up later . . . Oh, Jack, order me a car for an eleven o'clock pickup and have them wait for me until I am done.\"\n\nIt didn't take a genius to know that something was more pressing than a bout of not feeling well over the weekend. The doctor had already phoned. Richard was meeting me there, and to top it off, Cora had called as well. Since day one, Mom had clearly positioned herself as the unofficial horrible boss in Jacklyn's postcollegiate career. To me, she is my assistant, efficient and moldable, but to Cora, Jacklyn is the docile child who answers the phone with no spirit, takes only partial messages, shipper of things, and reservations sorter that she could easily do without but will tolerate. Early on I had thought to intervene but reasoned that she could use the stiff real-world training that only Cora could give her. Since she just completed NYU and was fortunate enough to work for a mostly relaxed boss, like me, it seemed only right that I allow her the opportunity to earn her stripes as I did through the Academy of Cora, otherwise known as the \"Jamaican hazing fury!\"\n\nI wouldn't classify staring out the window or surfing the Internet on all things HIV\/AIDS-related as working, but it's how I spent the next few hours until the car arrived. Exiting the office, Jacklyn attempted to give me a dossier on the investors.\n\n\"I can't look at this right now. Highlight the key points of interest and put it on the desk. I'll look at it when I return.\"\n\nMy ability to focus on anything other than the immediate prognosis of my health would be heavily skewed over the next couple of hours. Within the fifteen minutes or so that it took to go up Eighth Avenue to Dr. Katz's office on Sixty-fifth Street, psychosomatic or not, I swear that I could hear my T cells decreasing, screaming, \"Save me,\" accompanied by a spontaneous inflammation in my throat and sporadic bouts of nausea. That night with Keith was several months ago, so if there was anything to be detected, it should be as clear as the Great Wall from space.\n\n## 22\n\n* * *\n\n## AND YOU ARE?\n\nSTANDING IN FRONT of the cream-colored four-story brownstone of Dr. Katz's office, in his uniformed wool overcoat, blue Brooks Brothers blazer, striped dress shirt with cashmere sweater vest, and crisp camel-colored khakis, was Richard. The sight of him always makes me smile. Even in the most formal of settings, he always appears to be more composed than the rest, which is to say nothing of how we first met: years ago in the private room of Lot 61, surrounded by club kids, happy pills, and high-finance mergers of a different kind. Richard was with the new face of Versace, a dear friend of his whom I only dared to drool over, much less believed I would meet one day. Through my girlfriend Emily, a fierce club promoter from Philly, we found ourselves at the same table. For one reason (too many drinks) or another (nerves that were soothed with drinks) I couldn't speak. Richard took pity on me and the rest, as they say, is history.\n\n\"Darling, love the look. Did you pick out this smashing ensemble or did the old girl from across the hall come over to save you?\"\n\n\"His name is Gary and noooo! I put it together myself. The turtleneck is new, Bergdorf sale last week. I've been dying to wear it, and the pencil skirt, oh well, it is . . .\" Instantly aware of what I had just said, I added, \"Well, not dying to wear it. I mean I can very well not. I can actually live to wear it?\"\n\n\"Oh dear, you sound like that little anxious pixie of an assistant of yours. Breathe.\"\n\nBefore I nervously rambled anymore off the deep end, Richard took me by the arm to usher me inside.\n\n\"Hello, Nance. We have an eleven thirty with Gerald.\"\n\n\"Hi, Richard. Come on back. I didn't know you were coming in until this morning, when Dr. Katz told me to make the time work. Hello, Jules, I'm Nancy. You have a concerned friend here,\" she said, gesturing at Richard. \"I'm going to put you guys in Room Seven. Remove your top and put this on. The doctor will be right with you.\"\n\nArguably the loveliest courtroom in the world, the inpatient suite was appointed in warm marshmallow and ecru shades of rattan furnishings from Kreis, with Ansel Adams framed landscapes decorating the walls. Had the examination table not been in the center of the room, or the official apparatus lining the countertops been absent, I could have forgotten where I was\u2014but they were there and I was acutely aware of why I was, a fact that I had tried poorly to shield when seeing Richard outside earlier.\n\n\"Are you scared?\" I asked Richard, as I continued to search every bit of square footage for a sign of hope. The silence in the room was deafening, so I had to say something. Why not ask the obvious?\n\nHe replied, \"Not at all. Are you?\"\n\n\"A bit. I wasn't yesterday when we spoke but somewhere in the night I became afraid about the real possibility that doesn't seem like it belongs to me, which is dumb because I am sure no one thinks that they should have this death sentence.\"\n\n\"We are not going to speak about this disease like you have it until we know. You hear me, Jules?! In the late eighties I lost some dear friends to this disease, and I don't relish going through it again with you . . . If anything, this is just a wake-up call in your otherwise long and youthful life,\" said Richard, who was cupping my face like my dad used to when I was little and troubled by a problem.\n\nAnd, as I had with my dad many times before, I willed myself to believe, in that moment, that the world just might bend to his will, on the strength of nothing more than his love for and belief in me. Since our first \"real talk,\" Richard had claimed never to want children, but I believed different. He is one of the most instinctively loving individuals I know. I always held it to be true that, as he said, he didn't want kids because adopting them as a single gay man, even in today's world, was nearly impossible, even when importing them from a Third World country. Feeling all the fatherly love he had given me over the years, I wanted so much to be a big girl for him always, but especially now.\n\n\"When did they stop using the fabric gowns? These paper things are vulgar,\" I said, to introduce some levity into the moment.\n\n\"Vulgar, honey, but far more sanitary.\"\n\nWith a soft knock on the door, Dr. Katz entered. He was not as old as I had expected, mid-forties or so, and much cuter, though not dreamworthy. By now Richard was seated in the chair to my left, mumbling something to himself about the mind-numbing nature of the weekly magazines available to read.\n\n\"How can anyone expect to focus on anything other than the obvious when all they give you is garbage to read? I must speak to the good doctor about this.\"\n\n\"Richard. Good to see you. Hi, Jules, I'm Dr. Gerald Katz. How are you?\"\n\nWith a bit of nervous laughter, I said, \"I hope much better than the last forty-eight hours of mind games tells me I am.\"\n\n\"Yes, Richard told me you had a scare,\" he said, nodding in Richard's direction. \"Why don't you tell me about it?\"\n\n\"I guess you could say that.\" The moment itself just felt so overwhelming that I could not help but get flustered and tear up a bit.\n\n\"It's okay. Take your time,\" Dr. Katz implored, taking firm hold of my hand.\n\nMy voice noticeably quivering, I said, \"I met someone about three months ago and allowed myself to get swept up in a moment. A stupid moment, you know, because I didn't really know him at all and now, as of Saturday, I learn that he is not entirely who I thought he was and I just don't want to be sick. I don't want to be one of those statistics.\" The tears were now falling freely. Richard, usually averse to extreme displays of emotion of any kind, had positioned himself at my side and was holding me around the shoulders.\n\n\"I understand. You are worried you may have been exposed to HIV. Is that correct?\"\n\n\"Yes. The guy, Keith, told me over the weekend that he is bisexual, and it's just sent my head into a tailspin. I mean, he's very hetero and healthy . . . not that I'm saying AIDS is a gay disease because it's not . . . I know that, but to be confronted with this . . . you know, so I never thought, but with that lifestyle the possibility suddenly seems real in a way that it never did before . . . I just don't want to be sick,\" I blurted out in one extemporaneous thought.\n\n\"First, I want you to breathe,\" said Dr. Katz. \"It was good that he told you about his sexual identity. Now you can make the best decision for you. Jules, the fastest-growing demographic for new HIV infections is the heterosexual community; specifically, women thirty-five years of age and younger. Falsely, many people still think on some level that AIDS is a disease reserved for the gay community or drug-addicted\u2014it's not. It is a human disease. It doesn't discriminate by sex, income, race, or education.\" Studying my eyes for any sign of recognition, Dr. Katz continued, \"You had unprotected sex with him about three months ago. Have you engaged in any other risky sexual practices before or after this? Have you been tested for AIDS before?\"\n\n\"No, we were safe after. About two years ago, I was tested, but there's been no reason to since then\u2014until now.\"\n\n\"Bad breakup,\" Richard chimed in, the disapproval of Tony still obvious in his tone.\n\n\"Yeah, bad breakup. He, Tony, cheated.\" The Kleenex in my hand had been properly torn to smaller pieces with each nervous twitch, so that it fell to the floor in noticeable chunks like the imitation snow displays that lined department store windows. \"I got tested then and was fine.\"\n\n\"That's good. Since you have been tested before, then you know that it takes about twenty-five days for HIV antibodies to appear in the blood.\"\n\nI nodded in agreement but was still as foggy today as I was then about what that part of that statement meant. Dr. Katz continued, \"When the body is introduced to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), it produces specific antibodies in response. These are the antigens that we look for in order to determine if a patient is positive or negative. Now, since your last test, there have been great advances to expedite the results and accuracy. Results can now be determined from blood and saliva. Blood tests of course are still preferred unless you have an aversion to needles.\"\n\n\"No, I'm fine with that,\" I said.\n\n\"To be doubly clear, we will do both tests today. I'd also like to do a pregnancy test, while we're at it. Okay?\"\n\n\"Okay. How soon will I know?\"\n\n\"Within an hour or less. Doesn't that sound better than the week it used to take?\"\n\nWords failed me, so I just nodded and squeezed my eyes closed, still trying to wake up from this nightmarish moment. Feeling a hand on my upper arm, I opened my eyes to see the nurse who brought us in from the waiting room standing by the counter, preparing the syringe for Dr. Katz, who was applying an alcohol swab to the crease of my right arm. I couldn't bear the moment, to see my potential liquid death being extracted, so I turned to the left to look at Richard. For the first time I saw the fear of \"what if?\" in his eyes that hurt more than the needle's prick breaking my skin. Without thought I found a bit of strength and mouthed, \"It's okay,\" smiling weakly.\n\nWithin a minute or so, Dr. Katz had given the crimson vial over to her. \"All right, that's it. We will know in a little while. You are both welcome to stay in here. Go out, grab some coffee, and come back, or we can call you when the results are in. Whatever you would like to do.\"\n\nKnowing that Richard would take my lead, I spoke up: \"We'll stay here, as long as someone can bring Richard some less offensive reading material. I mean, it is bad enough having to do this, but worse is doing this and hearing him complain about the rotting of American values that you are perpetuating with these weeklies.\"\n\nDirecting his response now firmly at Richard, the doctor said, \"Touch\u00e9. I'll send in my private stash.\"\n\n\"Dr. Katz, thank you for allowing me to tell you about me instead of just looking at the chart. It makes this all better in some way.\"\n\nWith a smile and a tender pat on my shoulder before exiting the room, he replied, \"We try. If you need anything, ring the front.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMy head was still throbbing, but I dared not ask for aspirin. Instead, I positioned myself near the window and watched as people went about their lives, completely unaware that mine was in purgatory. When Dr. Katz and the nurse came into the room together, about forty-five minutes later, I thought I was going to pass out.\n\n\"Jules, we ran both tests and there are no antibodies present in your system,\" Dr. Katz began.\n\nThe sight of both of them spoke volumes of dreams deferred and lifetimes limited, or so I thought, still standing there immobilized in the same position, arms wrapped protectively across my stomach, not daring to breathe. And while I heard everything that was being said, the accompanying emotions boiling inside were too much to express, so I just focused on the one that I had been withholding for the past hour.\n\n\"My head is splitting, can I have an aspirin?\"\n\n\"Jules, did you hear what I said? You're negative. Given the incubation period, if there was an infection, there would be some indication by now, and there is none. I can't say if you are in great health in all areas because we have not done a full work-up, but I can tell you that you don't have HIV. As a precaution, however, I would like you to come back in a few months for another round of tests. Nancy will contact you with date options. Jules?\"\n\nThe last thing I remember was nodding before everything went out of focus and then dark. I awoke some time later to see Richard hovering above me.\n\n\"Honestly, did I teach you to be this dramatic? I don't think so,\" he said.\n\nWearily, I replied, \"I'm okay, right?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear. You are fine. Now promise, let's not do any part of this again. You know I'm old.\"\n\n\"Deal!\"\n\nDr. Katz reentered just as Richard was about to help me off the examination bed to stand up.\n\n\"Here, let me give you a hand. Glad to see you on your feet, Jules. Don't be alarmed by the fainting. Given the considerable amount of stress you have been under the past few days, it's to be expected. Thankfully, Richard caught you before your head hit anything or else we would be running a different set of tests.\"\n\nTeasingly, I said, \"Who knew the old man's reflexes were so good?\" Despite the jab, Richard knew the admiration was implied, so he opted not to protest. Dr. Katz continued, \"I am happy the news is great. Let this be a lesson about the choices you make and their potential impact. No more is it just an unexpected pregnancy that can derail a life.\" Reaching into his pocket, Dr. Katz's left hand displayed a rainbow of surprise that was the gold-seal confirmation that all was healthy in my world. \"Normally, I reserve these for my younger patients.\"\n\n\"And me,\" Richard said incredulously, tapping into his inner child.\n\n\". . . and Richard, but I think you deserve one today for being so brave. Don't choose the orange; it tastes like medicine. The green is my favorite but don't tell Nurse Nancy.\"\n\n\"I hope it's sour apple and not that fake apple,\" I said triumphantly.\n\n\"Young lady, what kind of operation do you think I am running here? Of course it is.\"\n\nFor the lollipop and for the green light on my life, I threw my arms around Dr. Katz. \"I'll see you in a few months for follow-up.\"\n\nOutside on the sidewalk with Richard, everything was justifiably better than before. The sun had broken through the clouds enough to create pockets of \"warmer than over there.\" There was scattered movement in the streets but without the blare of horns and erratic energy. In total, the whole scene was cinematic. I was not entirely sure of how to express my gratitude to him for being the one to endure all this with me. Slipping my gloved hand in his, I asked, \"Do you want to sit in the park for a minute?\"\n\n\"Only if that park is Caf\u00e9 Luxembourg and the bar has an unlimited pour. After the morning you have put me through, I must implore that it is after five p.m. somewhere on the planet and therefore perfectly fine for me to have a drink or three,\" he said, his laugh breaking the calm of the bustling street and seemingly igniting the sound of horns and life that was all around.\n\nIn fact, it was barely 1:15 p.m., but I had to agree.\n\n\"Martini? My treat.\"\n\n\"Honey, after the gray hairs you have given me, you will be buying for the next year. And you know I only drink top shelf, so you get your checkbook ready.\"\n\n\"Richard, you do know checks are so pass\u00e9, don't you? I have an expense account, you know.\"\n\n\"Don't make fun of the old, dear.\"\n\n## 23\n\n* * *\n\n## BATTLE LINES\n\nEN ROUTE BACK to the office, I stopped at Magnolia Bakery on Ninth Avenue to pick up a much-needed peace offering for Jacklyn. From the elevator I could hear her fielding a persistent caller. Her day had obviously not improved,\n\n\"For you,\" I said, presenting her with the box of sweet treats. \"I am sooo sorry for being rough on you earlier today. I was in a foul mood but all better now.\"\n\n\"It's okay, Jules, I guess,\" Jacklyn replied, quickly dismissing any residual skepticism that may have existed in favor of sinking her teeth into a vanilla cupcake. Mouth filled with cake and icing, she said, \"All in all, you're awesome. My girlfriend Elisa is over at Sui and she gets yelled at all the time for looking Anna in the face. I mean, how could you not look someone in the face when you're passing them in the hall or they are asking you a question? That's just weird, right! You being mean to me because of your situation is totally expected. I mean, I would be completely freaked out if I thought I was knocked up and\u2014\"\n\n\"Whoa whoa whoa, rambling sister! Lower your voice. Who said anything about being knocked up? I'm not pregnant. In fact I am one hundred percent fine.\"\n\n\"Well, you had to see the doctor, and then Cora kept calling and asking about Keith, and well, I just assumed.\"\n\n\"First, stop listening to Cora. That woman will have you believing that she is the result of The Immaculate Conception. Secondly, you know what happens when you assume, don't you?\" We nodded in unison. \"That's right, you make an ass out of u and me, so knock it off. Now, if you would like to apologize for your gross mischaracterization, one of those vanilla cupcakes will do just fine!\"\n\n\"Indian giver,\" said Jacklyn. \"I knew you were going to take one.\"\n\n\"Hey, hey, simmer down, little Jackie. That is Native American giver to you!\"\n\n\"Well, look who decided to stroll in today and grace us with her presence,\" said Michael, standing on the opposite side of Jacklyn's desk, nosily leafing through the papers strewn about Jacklyn's in-box, a stark contrast to the paper-free workspace of Simone's always immaculate desk. \"Is someone having a birthday or something?\"\n\n\"Good morning, Michael,\" I said. \"No.\"\n\n\"Correction, Jules, good afternoon.\"\n\n\"For the record I was here at eight thirty this morning. I had to leave for a doctor's appointment that ran longer than expected.\"\n\n\"Everything okay?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Jacklyn's voice shouted, causing Michael to do a double take as if he hadn't noticed her sitting there\u2014next to the cupcakes.\n\n\"Jacklyn\"\u2014he nodded, then indicated he would like to speak to me in private\u2014\"you are aware that we have a meeting today at four thirty, correct?\" And I was ushered into the office.\n\n\"Yes, I was just about to review some notes on the partners before calling you. Just curious, though, why do you want me in there? With the exception of Carly, I don't know your partners.\"\n\nOnce inside the office, Michael and I occupied opposite ends of the sofa, enabling me to sit in the lotus position and him to recline, extending his legs onto the coffee table. Our formality had long since given way to a casual ease in private. I had the Carly upheaval to thank for that. It wasn't the same brotherhood relationship he shared with Raymond, and it wasn't the same Obi-Wan\/Papa Bear one that I shared with Richard, but enough so that I was no longer inexplicably self-conscious or overly eager to please the Big Boss every time I was in his presence. I really like Michael and never want to disappoint him.\n\n\"I want to expand the restaurant into some other territories starting next fall. Been looking into London\u2014your old stomping ground\u2014and a few others. They, the investors, don't, not right now. I need you to provide impartial evidence reinforcing my position,\" said Michael.\n\n\"So you're thinking a brand strategy and maybe a comparative analysis as to the benefits.\"\n\n\"Exactly. The market is ripe, and if we don't dive in now, we're going to miss out. I can't have my hands tied right now. Carly's is my baby as much as Kaylin is. I know what's best to keep her sexy. These dudes are just money guys who were supposed to be silent, but now that shit is hopping and we have some momentum, they want to flip it like they know. I can't let that happen. Not right now.\"\n\n\"Am I wrong in thinking that you and Mrs. Kipps held the majority interest?\"\n\n\"Collectively, yes, but one of the investors has the largest single share and is a close friend of the family. I don't trust him. He has been leading her, so to speak, for some time. Got her to thinking that the best decisions for the business are the ones that keep me close by, like keeping Carly's New York\u2013bound, under her watchful eye. So he's dangling the platinum gift\u2014freeing me up to spend more time at home with her. Well, you know how that translates. Not happening,\" said Michael, shrugging off the possibility of being ready to stay home and live a quiet life. \"We're about to do something epic here, and that requires vision,\" Michael continued, patting his pockets for a match to spark his cigar. Although I didn't want him to light up in my office, it seemed best to let this one slide. I could just open the windows and air the space out as soon as he left.\n\n\"With all due respect\u2014are you certain that's her intention? Maybe, if given the chance, she'd want you to spread your wings. I mean, after all, it is your dream and no one wants to be a dream killer,\" I said. Lord knows what calamities could be avoided if only Michael would include her in parts of his professional life instead of leaving her home alone to rattle about, orchestrating havoc in other folks' lives.\n\n\"After how she has infiltrated your life, can you ask that question with a straight face?\" asked Michael, erupting into one of his big laughs. \"All in all, mixing business and home is never a good idea\u2014that is, if you want to keep your personal life intact, and I do. Besides, it's not time to play that card yet.\" Michael's gaze was now steely, fixed on me with a determination that suddenly made me feel as if we were in NATO talks, the couch having been transformed into a small island. He was now the Dominican Republic and the investors were Haiti. Unwittingly, I had the responsibility of holding the title, as it were, to the land in the center that both sides wanted. \"When the time comes I will handle Carly, but until then I need those cats to be tempered down long enough for me to figure out what it's worth to them. If I need to, I'll cut the head off the damn dragon before I let someone come into my house and tell me what it is that I can do with it.\"\n\nAs stimulating as it was to see Michael going all General Custer, it was also a bit disturbing. I can't shake the feeling that there is far more to this story. Not only was he asking me to side with him against his partners, he was asking me to align myself with him in a potential battle that would surely pit me against Carly, and that is not a fight I was looking forward to. If the encounter at her home confirmed anything, it was that you don't get to be the legendary society gatekeeper Carly Spencer Falles without being formidable. I just wasn't sure if I was ready to take her on so quickly. Judging by the resolute look on Michael's face, I would say, ready or not, it was time to start shining up my sword and shield.\n\n\"I understand,\" I said, rising to retrieve the dossier off the desk. \"Okay, let's see who we have here. There is Simon Kleinman of Barrett, Browning & Fisher.\"\n\n\"Good ole Simon. He isn't much of a concern. A conservative securities investor with a diversified personal portfolio. For clients, he isn't risk averse. With his own money, however, he prefers to err on the side of caution.\"\n\n\"Okay, then there is Marcus Crawford of Chimera Capital. Wait, isn't this\u2014\"\n\nWatching Michael move about the room, I could see him running the catalog of what history between the two he wanted to reveal, given that I already had a frame of reference, far more than he knew but enough: \"I forgot you two met here. He's the key, Wall Street's boy wonder. You'd think he has more to do than telling me how and what I can do with this place. I guess that's what too much success early on does\u2014deprives these upstarts the opportunity to learn humility and respect. You know what they say, Jules, it's not the enemy you have to watch out for, it's the pupil.\"\n\n\"Is that right? I'm just wondering who named their firm Chimera,\" I said.\n\n\"Ha! Me. I gave him the name\u2014seemed like a good one at the time,\" said Michael, now seemingly lost in thought, standing at the window and speaking more to the history of a relationship that preceded me. \"I know this dude all too well. Hell, that was me about twenty years ago, an overly accomplished, unapologetic thirtysomething badass. Everything about him is strategic. The expansion of Carly's isn't his endgame; it's the means to an end that I don't know yet, and that is the mind fuck. Marcus is not going to put one over on me.\"\n\n\"Michael, if we are going in within the hour, then I need to get busy.\"\n\nStumping out the final drag of his cigar in the vintage crystal ashtray on my desk\u2014purely for decorative purposes\u2014he said, \"So it is. You know what I need. Make me proud, Dorothy. This shit ain't Kansas.\"\n\nAs if the scenario were not heavy enough. I felt as if I were being thrown into the middle of an old Western shootout right before someone yells \"Draw!\" Time permitting, I want to know more about Marcus, because clearly there is far more to him than being a Super Blond Amazon modelizer and random morning walking companion, which in and of itself is in conflict, but given the constraints, that would have to wait until I could get Michael all that he needs. It was most important in the immediate time frame to know the published business about our competitors who had succeeded and failed. Picking up the line and dialing, I said, \"Jacklyn, give me a search report on the top-niche restaurants launched in the past five years and then whatever information is available on members-only clubs, \u00e0 la the Supper Club, Soho House, the Groucho Club, et cetera. Also, time permitting, pull up some information on Marcus Crawford of Chimera Capital and don't ask Simone, just show me what is available online.\"\n\nAfter a few minutes she came in with printouts. \"I glimpsed at this but didn't get a chance to proof everything. Also, do Fashion Caf\u00e9 and Planet Hollywood count? They are niche, have entertainment aspects, and are expanding rapidly. I added a few facts about them as well.\"\n\n\"Actually, yes, they're good examples of what not to do. This is good. Listen, I also need information on the Rainbow Room and Cipriani. Also, get me the actual investment numbers here and the annual operational costs. For those you will need to go to Simone, sorry.\"\n\n\"Okay, I'll try.\" The regret for the blas\u00e9 response showed on her face before it settled. \"She hates me, you know.\"\n\n\"Don't try, Jacklyn, do. One last thing, what is the name of that restaurant on Forty-second in Hell's Kitchen, a few doors down from Chez Josephine's? They occasionally have musical performances.\"\n\n\"You mean Soul Caf\u00e9. They opened about a year or so ago. I go there all the time. They have this roasted chicken with sweet potato mash that is crazy good.\"\n\n\"As if I care. Forget it. They haven't been around long enough to help my case.\"\n\nMinutes later, after exhaustive speed-reading, I gathered my red-leather-bound Smithsonian notebook and headed off to the conference room. Just as I reached the door, Jacklyn came running down the hall.\n\n\"Simone is on the line for you. She said the meeting has been canceled,\" said Jacklyn, out of breath.\n\n\"What do you mean canceled? It's supposed to start in less than ten minutes. How can it be canceled?\" I turned abruptly on my heels toward the direction of Michael's office.\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\nAnnoyed, I barked, \"Learn to ask better questions, Jacklyn,\" and I marched off to find the battle.\n\nUtterly defeated with the course of events, she exclaimed, \"I did, promise! Simone wouldn't answer me.\"\n\nArriving at Simone's desk slightly winded, I wanted answers. \"Simone, what's going on? Why is it canceled? I just sat with Michael about this.\"\n\n\"An emergency came up with one of the partners, so it is being rescheduled.\"\n\n\"And you couldn't tell Jacklyn this?\" I said, eyeing her skeptically. \"Come on, what's the real story?\"\n\n\"Shhh,\" she said, frantically waving me to be silent. \"Lower your voice. Michael is inside talking to Carly.\" Leaning over in order to speak as low as possible, she added, \"From what I can gather, Mr. Crawford is not going to be in the meeting.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, involuntarily grimacing at the possibility of having to come face-to-face with Carly sans the benefits of a boardroom table and witnesses.\n\n\"No, there's more. Carly is here to convey his wishes.\"\n\n\"You mean like his proxy,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, can you imagine?\" responded Simone.\n\n\"Shit. This is sooo Dynasty.\"\n\n\"Shit is right. Michael hit the roof. I have never heard him lose it like that, especially with her.\"\n\n\"What about Simon?\"\n\n\"Redirected. Mr. Kleinman's office called to say he was running a few minutes late, so I told her not to bother. He has already called to speak with Michael.\"\n\n\"Shit.\"\n\n\"Jules, you already said that. Say something else.\"\n\n\"I know, but this is some crazy . . . ish. I mean, it's like having Blake, Alexis, and Dex live-action figures\u2014insane!\" From behind the closed doors I could hear loud muffled voices climbing in varying degrees of intensity, with the most irate one clearly belonging to Michael. \"So what am I supposed to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know. What do you normally do with yourself?\"\n\n\"Stop being snippy, Simone. It doesn't suit you.\"\n\n\"Touch\u00e9,\" she countered.\n\n\"I'll be in my office if Michael needs me. Okay?\"\n\nJacklyn was away from her desk when I returned, most likely downstairs with Raymond complaining about me. I couldn't blame her for not wanting to be in the line of unnecessary fire. Next time I'll get her cupcakes and a kickboxing certificate.\n\nNothing would please me more than to know that this day would soon be coming to an end. I desperately needed to recharge. My plan had been to leave the office immediately after the meeting and have a decadently decompressed night at home cooking, having some wine, and watching a flick. Now, however, I was not certain what time that was going to be possible. On the off chance that Michael would want to speak with me after expelling Carly, or if he decided to pop into the office, I needed to be there. Looking around, surely there was work to be done to pass the time. None, however, seemed more pressing than reorganizing the neat piles on my desk. After two hours or so, I was nearly stir-crazy and had to ring Simone.\n\n\"Oy! What time is Michael leaving? They can't still be arguing. Sadat brokered peace with Israel in less time.\"\n\n\"You are odd, Jules. Michael left over an hour ago.\"\n\n\"What?! Why didn't you call me?\"\n\n\"Was I supposed to?\" asked Simone.\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"You didn't say anything.\"\n\n\"It was implied,\" I said.\n\nI could have wasted my time engaging her in a fruitless war of words, but why? Hanging up, I logged off the computer and gathered my already packed bag, complete with grocery and movie rental lists. Yelling from the interior of my office, I said, \"Jacklyn, go home.\"\n\n\"About time! I thought this day would never end.\"\n\n\"You're telling me. Why don't you come in tomorrow at eleven a.m.\"\n\n\"Boy, you must really feel awful. Cupcakes and now this.\"\n\nStopping in front of her desk, I conceded, \"Yeah yeah yeah, only because it wasn't your fault, but you rode it out. Good job.\"\n\n\"Here, don't forget this.\"\n\n\"What's this?\" I asked.\n\n\"The information on Marcus Crawford that you requested.\"\n\n\"I'll never read it tonight. Put it on my desk. I'll look at it in the morning.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSeeing me approach the apartment building, Ivan stepped forward to open the entrance door.\n\n\"Evening, Ivan.\"\n\n\"Miss Sinclair. No delivery tonight?\" he asked, eyeing the grocery bags in my hands.\n\n\"I know! It seemed like a good idea to give them the night off, at least from me.\"\n\n\"Cooking is a lost art today. My Elizabeth is a great cook. It's why I married her.\"\n\n\"Really?\" I said. \"In that case your wife may have to give me lessons. My skills are limited. And by limited I mean three or four key dishes.\" He shook his head, more in recognition of the mass exodus my generation has taken away from the kitchen. \"Don't laugh. I'm serious.\"\n\n\"At least you try. It's better than most.\"\n\n\"Ivan, do you mind if I put these down somewhere for a moment? I need to check the mail.\"\n\n\"Of course!\" he said, reaching to take them, \"Where is my head? I'll take those.\"\n\nWalking toward the postal boxes, I said, \"It's been a few days.\" Off his look, I relented. \"Okay, a week or more.\"\n\n\"I'm not judging, ma'am.\" Placing his hand across his chest to emphasize his point, he added, \"It's my job to notice is all.\"\n\n\"Of course, Ivan. I can only imagine what you don't notice.\"\n\nTrashing the circulars and junk mail, I walked back over to the doorman's stand to get my bags filled with pasta, salmon, wine, cheese, fruit, flowers, ice cream, and vegetables.\n\n\"Anything important?\" Ivan asked.\n\n\"No, just the usual\u2014bills, magazines, bills, and more bills.\"\n\n\"That is capitalism. You pay in this country just to breathe the air.\"\n\n\"Isn't that the truth.\"\n\n\"Would you like some assistance upstairs?\"\n\n\"No, I should be fine. The hard part was the five blocks getting here. I can manage if you place them in my hands.\"\n\n\"You should get yourself one of the carts. They're convenient,\" said Ivan.\n\n\"Yes, I should, and I would if they weren't so gawd-awful-looking. Besides, could you imagine me pushing a cart in this outfit?\" I said. \"Exactly. Travesty.\"\n\nWalking to the elevator, I realized that I did not have a free hand to press the call button. Without looking back, I called to Ivan over my shoulder.\n\n\"Ivan, can you get the elevator, please?\"\n\n\"Here, let me do that.\" Nice voice, definitely not Ivan's heavily accented German, and he smelled good. Seriously, I must stop fixating so much on smell.\n\nStepping aside so that I could enter first, he held the doors at bay. Feeling the bags slip a bit, I thanked him while trying to readjust them without looking up to see the owner of the voice.\n\n\"What floor?\" he asked.\n\n\"Eight, please,\" I said. Nice shoes.\n\nEntering, I moved aside, allowing room for the nice-smelling gentleman, only to come face-to-face with Marcus! If I had a free hand it would have been used to pick up my face.\n\n\"You've got to be kidding me. What are you doing here?!\" I said.\n\n\"I was wondering when we would meet again.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Heard you the first time,\" he said, winking and turning his gaze up to the level indicators. \"I live here, unless you know something I don't.\" Leaning closer to me: \"Did Mitzy Bloomfield have me voted out of the building?\"\n\n\"You live here?!\"\n\n\"Yes, Seven A, and you\"\u2014he scanned the bags in my hand\u2014\"you're cooking me a well-deserved welcome home dinner, I see.\"\n\n\"And why would I do that? We are not friends.\"\n\n\"Not yet, but we should be. I knew it from the moment I saw you\u2014that we would be friends. What's on the menu?\"\n\nShaking my head to reorganize my thoughts, I said, \"Spaghetti vongole with a pear and arugula salad . . . Ugh! Why am I telling you this?\"\n\n\"Because I asked,\" he said.\n\n\"Nothing for you. I've had an impossibly long day. Started as the worst day actually and . . . wait, YOU LIVE HERE!\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Laughing while clearly amused at my discomfort, he continued, \"Why is this such a point of confusion for you?\"\n\n\"Because I live here.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" he said, smiling. \"We've established that. You're in Eight A.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"The walls talk here, didn't you know?\" Holding his stare to determine if the line was sufficient, he continued, \"Besides, Carly told me. Earlier this year I wanted to purchase the unit from her and have it connected to mine, but I couldn't because Michael gave it to you\u2014his new hire.\"\n\nThe elevator doors opened right on time, because there was not much left to say after Marcus's revelation. \"Well, this is my stop,\" he said.\n\n\"And so it is,\" I heard myself reaffirming, as he turned to leave, \"Officially, the worst day.\"\n\nPlacing his hand on the door sensor before fully exiting, Marcus said, \"The worst day can often be the best day in disguise. Remember that.\"\n\n## 24\n\n* * *\n\n## WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN\n\nPresent day\u20142001\n\nTHE WORST DAY did become the best day,\" I say to myself softly.\n\n\"Excuse me, ma'am. Were you saying something?\" asks the driver.\n\n\"Oh, nothing. Just remembering something is all.\"\n\nLooking out the window at the random oil rigs lining the Ladera section of La Cienega told me we still had a ways to go before reaching West Hollywood.\n\n\"Shoot, we passed Starbucks, huh? I could really use a coffee,\" I say.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, but there is another one coming up just after Rodeo. Should I stop there?\" asks the driver.\n\n\"Yes, please.\"\n\nAt this hour, the ordering line was short although the store itself was filled with people at tables on their computers or in the oversize chairs reading the newspaper.\n\n\"Welcome to Starbucks. What can I get started for you?\" asks the barista.\n\n\"A grande nonfat vanilla latte, a tall Americano, and a slice of zucchini loaf, please.\"\n\n\"What's the name?\" Seeing that I was distracted, the cashier repeats himself. \"Miss, what name can I put on the drinks?\"\n\n\"Sorry. Jules. My name is Jules.\"\n\nIn the metal wire stand by the counter lay copies of the Los Angeles Times and USA Today, each with ghastly images of the 9\/11 World Trade Center attacks from last week. The entire world outside me, as within, was in upheaval, leaving no place for the mind to rest. On the morning of September 9, after a horrible fight with Marcus, I left L.A. on a flight bound for London after he stormed out. My schedule called for a day's stopover in New York before continuing to London on the morning of September 11. It wasn't until I landed at Heathrow that I learned of the attacks. Walking through the terminal, although it was packed with thousands of people, I was overcome by a feeling of quiet morbidity and despair. It felt as if the life-force had been separated from oxygen. Knowing my state of mind, I chalked it up to a myopic vision of things and emotional despair over the row with Marcus and the anger I felt at him, at me. Not until I settled in the car and turned on my phone to retrieve my voice messages did I learn of the attacks, giving me another reason to cry.\n\n\"Julesea, this is Cora. They done blew up the World Trade. Lawd, what is dis world comin' to, child? Call your father, he is worried about you.\"\n\n\"Jules, honey, it's Richard. What a dark day for the world. Don't be alarmed, we are all as good as can be expected. Joy was not in the office yet. She was on the ferry from Jersey when the first plane hit. Poor dear, saw both collisions. Pray for everyone. Call me when you are settled.\"\n\n\"Jules, Daddy here. Have a safe flight and call me when you are settledt at the 'otel.\"\n\n\"Hi, young lady. Didn't you fly out today? I hope it was not on United. Call me. I'm fine. I'm worried\u2014can't find some of my friends. Love you. It's Joy. Please call me.\"\n\n\"Julesea, it's Mommy again. Your father is worried. I keep telling him that you are fine and that you were on Virgin Airlines. You were on Virgin, right? I like that Richard Branson. Lawd knows why anyone would fly United, such ugly interiors they have. Call your father.\"\n\n\"Hi, Jules, your driver will await you at baggage claim on landing and take you to the Sofitel St. James. I was able to upgrade your room to a junior suite. Everyone, your mom twice, Richard, Marcus, Joy, and Michael, have called. No worries. I'm on it.\"\n\n\"Jules, it's me. I spoke to Jacklyn, so I know you're okay.\" My hands began to shake hearing his voice; I replayed it three times before pressing Save.\n\nHearing Marcus's voice broke me down. I didn't have the energy to battle the contents of my purse for my sunglasses. Nor did I care that the stranger at the wheel saw me openly sobbing into my sleeve. It required only a small leap of faith on his part to deduce the nobility of my tears, being for the victims and not for the selfish concerns of my relationship. The emotional distance in his voice, where days before there existed such closeness, chilled me to the core. I tried to rationalize that, because he called, he still felt something more significant for me than obligation, but the absence of subsequent communication made it very clear that our relationship remained in a kind of peril that even a tragedy such as this could not repair.\n\nAt the hotel my television was set to BBC news in order to see the coverage of the attacks. Each time they showed the unfathomable images of the first and second plane crashing into the towers, I saw our life together crumbling into the great rubble that was left; our happy memories heavily shrouded like the soot that cloaked everything in the immediate radius. To say that my heart was heavy was an understatement. To say that I wished all of this to be another bad dream was accurate. That night I dropped to my knees and prayed the most heartfelt prayer possible for us, for all of those who had lost their lives to this war that we didn't start, and for all of those loved ones left behind to pick up the pieces. No one should know such tragedy. Marcus and I should not know such despair.\n\nDespite the World Trade attacks, the business at hand did not come to a grinding halt. It just continued with more suspicion. I remained in London as planned for the week to oversee the media rollout for Carly's UK, each day starting and ending seemingly the same, eyes closed. I would awake with morning amnesia and instinctively reach for Marcus to my right, only to find the bed empty. Initially, when I returned in the evenings, I would either go to the front desk to retrieve my messages or check the hotel phone when I came into the room. In the absence of a blinking light, I would phone the front desk just to make sure that no oversight or phone malfunction had occurred.\n\n\"Hi, this is Ms. Sinclair in 704. Are there any messages for me?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am, there are not.\" After putting this charge to the same night clerk a couple of times, he inquired dutifully, \"Is there a specific call that you are expecting?\"\n\n\"Oh, just the rest of my life is all.\"\n\nBut my life was an ocean away, and if I knew how to stop looking outside myself for answers, I could tell him that and get out of my own way. A few times I did pick up the phone to call but always hung up before completing the number. What would I say? I'm sorry. I'm scared. I thought I knew more about me. I'm learning. Please don't leave me? I wanted to say those things but just could not. I would sound so pathetic, and besides, after everything that I now knew, I didn't want to be that girl. I should have said those words during our fight, but I felt cornered, so I pushed back, because it was easier and less intrusive. Each solitary moment found me reliving fragments of that fateful night.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nLos Angeles\n\nSeptember 9, 2001\n\n\"What do you want from me, Marcus? You want me to say I'm sorry? Well, I am!\"\n\n\"That would be the least,\" he said, stomping off toward the kitchen.\n\n\"Don't walk away from me,\" I said, giving chase after him. \"Tell me what you want. You said it was okay! I'm trying to understand everything.\"\n\n\"Well, it's not, but what was I supposed to say? No, Jules, you can't go? Okay, you want the truth? I don't want you to go. I want you here with me, not half a world away or physically here, subconsciously waiting for an excuse for us to not work.\"\n\n\"I'm not. I haven't been. I'm here! What do you think I have been doing for the past year zipping back and forth? I have been here for you as much as I can, in a place where I don't know anyone and the women treat me like crap but you pretend not to notice. I have been here at your side, event after event, smiling like some mute as everyone tries to figure me out.\"\n\n\"That's what you think?\" Marcus asked incredulously. \"Is that what you call spending more time at dinner on your BlackBerry than socializing? Being downright prickly to our friends? Leaving an outing to take a call . . .\"\n\nThat's the thing about arguments\u2014no one listens, feeling in the heat of the moment that the only option is to talk over the other. Arguments like this never follow a logical order but always guarantee to reveal all holdover irritations that lie beneath in the most ugly and desperate way possible.\n\n\"I can't believe this. I put my life on hold for you,\" I railed back at his blatant indifference to my sacrifice. \"Without any assurance, do you know how scary that is for me?\"\n\n\"Appearing less emotionally invested in this than anything back East.\"\n\n\"I don't see my friends at all in order to be here whenever possible, and it's still not enough . . . I should have listened to Cora.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to do us on Cora's timetable or anybody else's for that matter! What does she\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't you dare,\" I said, feeling protective of her more as a point of contention against Marcus than as actual defense of Cora's meddling.\n\n\"There are two lives I care about right now, and you are controlling both of them, or don't you see that?\" asked Marcus fiercely. \"And now you are off to London for God knows how long!\"\n\n\"It's my job, Marcus, so yes,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, I guess that makes it all right now, doesn't it? Your job is publicity, not being someone's patsy, Jules. You can't possibly be serious. Try, just once, having the same reverence for my well-being and what I am offering as you do for Mike's. How about that?\"\n\n\"This is not Michael's fault, Marcus. This is about me making the right decisions for my future. This is about you keeping secrets, lying to me.\"\n\n\"That's where you're wrong. This whole situation has been orchestrated by Mike, yet you refuse to see it. Damn it! You asked that I leave him with something. I gave him London, and this is how the son of a bitch repays me, by trying to take what's important to me?!\" said Marcus, erupting with anger unlike any I had imagined him capable of. Sensing himself dangerously close to being uncontrollable, he abruptly stopped in an attempt to contain his burgeoning rage. \"How else would you have known about her situation, if not for Mike? If you had just come to me immediately, asked me, I would have\u2014\"\n\n\"You would have what, finally told me what you should've volunteered? That she was carrying your child?\"\n\n\"My God, Jules. It's not my baby! Do you want to see the damn test? It's impossible. How many times do I have to tell you that? How can I make you understand that I was blindsided and needed to figure things out before I could tell you so I knew what we were up against?\" pleaded Marcus, unclenching his fists and walking over to me. \"Why is it you find it so difficult to just trust me, to rest in me\u2014especially about this?\"\n\n\"How can I . . . ?\" I knew the words without full completion\u2014when try as I might I still have battle scars of Tony and Angie doing a number on my head and it's overriding the life with you that is right in front of me\u2014and knew they were wrong as soon as I heard them stumble out of my mouth, but I couldn't swallow them up and back away from the road they led down. Using all his strength, Marcus slammed down the nearest object he could find into the granite countertop, causing me to jump.\n\n\"Look at me! I'm not Tony,\" he said angrily, roughly taking hold of my face and forcing me to see the details of him as clearly as possible. Eyes inflamed and exhausted, he said, \"Jules, you are the love of my life and I am trying harder than I ever have not to fuck us up. I know you better than anyone ever will. I know what you think. I know what scares you. I know what makes you happy. I would never . . . You shouldn't need a piece of paper to know my intentions. If they aren't clear by now, then I don't know what the hell to tell you.\"\n\n\"Make me believe you,\" I said, my voice reduced to a whisper from the screaming and crying moments earlier. \"Make me believe that this is real, that I don't need a backup plan, that I can trust you forever. That I won't wake up one day alone in this to find you gone\u2014emotionally at first and then physically\u2014like him.\"\n\n\"Are you serious? I have been as transparent as possible with the good and bad of me. It's the most valuable thing I have to give,\" said Marcus, with more tenderness in his words than my heart could stand. \"What more do you need to get out of your own way, baby, and let us grow? What more do you need?\" he asked, before resigning himself to the gravity of our predicament. \"Julesea, we share a home. Was I crazy to think that we were building a life?\" Words escaped me, so I shrugged and averted my eyes, prompting him to release me but not before saying, \"If it's that difficult for you, then why are we here fighting this hard for this? Better yet, why am I here?\" he asked, and walked away toward the door.\n\n\"Where are you going, Marcus?! Come back here,\" I screamed, overcome by inconsolable grief as I watched him grab his keys off the corridor table and walk out the door. Wait! Wait! I didn't mean that I couldn't trust you. I just don't know how to confront the bullshit in my head and fight for us. PLEASE wait. But all of this was in my head. I continued standing there stunned, defiant, desperately praying that he would storm back in to resolve things\u2014but he didn't. When 5:45 a.m. came, I awoke alone to find his side of the bed untouched, as were the guest room, his office, and the living room. His cell phone went straight to voice mail. I didn't dare leave word. What would I say? So at 6:30, I snapped the locks closed on my last bag and got into the waiting car for transport to the airport, all the while convincing myself that the momentary indifference I felt was real, that I could let go of the trapdoors in my head and move on with my life, with or, if need be, without him.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBack to Present Day\n\n2001 Los Angeles\n\nWalking back to the car, I was very much aware of my failings and the courage it would take just to be present in the life I covet. Giving the driver his Americano, I debate asking him to detour through Hancock Park. I feel the need to see its tree-lined streets with beautifully manicured lawns and kids playing a game of tag as a reminder of the future Marcus and I had discussed before everything got so out of focus, anything to delay knowing our fate.\n\n\"Here's your coffee,\" I say. \"How long do you think?\"\n\n\"Not too bad now. You should be home in about fifteen or twenty minutes.\"\n\n\"Some people can live a lifetime in fifteen or twenty minutes, you know,\" I say.\n\nEvaluating the merits of that statement, the driver replies solidly, \"I guess they can.\"\n\nLeaving me alone again with only my thoughts, trying to uncover the definitive moment my short-sightedness mucked everything up.\n\n## 25\n\n* * *\n\n## THE PAWN\n\n1999\n\nHOW'S MY SOLDIER?\" asked Michael from behind the hostess stand the next morning.\n\n\"Save it, Kipps!\" I seethed. \"Why didn't you tell me that Marcus Crawford, your partner and nemesis, lives in my building?\"\n\nStaring at me blankly, as if the location of Marcus's residence was common knowledge, before deciding whether to be dismissive or defensive, Michael selected the former. \"You've been in the building long enough. What have you been doing if not getting to know your neighbors? I know you met Mitzy already. She's a pill.\"\n\n\"Well, I didn't know, so to run into him last night after the day I had . . .\" Immediately remembering that Michael had no knowledge of my health scare\u2014and never would\u2014I said, \"I meant we had, and you going all last stand on me.\"\n\n\"And?\" he asked, not understanding the great injury. \"What is the deal with you and these Confederate references?\"\n\n\"I wasn't prepared is all,\" I say, partially reenacting the carrying of the bags scene. \"I mean, I walk in bags in hand. There he is all smiley and flirty and\u2014\"\n\n\"And what? Did he ask you out?\" he said, a sudden sense of interest piquing in his tone.\n\n\"No, of course not, but\u2014\"\n\n\"But nothing. Remember what I said, Jules,\" Michael admonished, using his index finger to drive home his point.\n\n\"Michael, you said a lot and I am still trying to process half of it.\"\n\n\"All you need to remember is that he is the key and not to be trusted.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, that part I remember. I just don't want anything to be complicated,\" I said. \"I mean, not only do we have the meeting coming up, but now I have to worry about potentially dodging him afterward once you push him out the sandbox.\"\n\nWalking from behind the podium and taking me under his arm, Michael responded, \"Who says it has to be complicated? Just do your job. Got it?\"\n\n\"Yes. Although that hand is making me curious about my 'job' description,\" I said, fixated on his hand now resting sinisterly on my right shoulder.\n\n\"I like you, Jules. You're quick,\" said Michael over his shoulder as he began to walk down the stairs into the dining area of the restaurant.\n\n\"Apparently not quick enough. What the hell?\" I murmured under my breath, purposefully loud enough for him to hear.\n\n\"Never what the hell, Jules. Always what the heaven! Just when you think the deck is stacked against you, you get an ace.\" His declaration stopped me in my tracks. Had there been eyes in the back of my head, I would have clearly seen the wheels churning in Michael's. With two days until D-day, I definitely needed to plan accordingly for the partners' dinner on Thursday. Undoubtedly the wolves would have their teeth sharpened, and I was determined not to be the lamb.\n\nThe elevator doors opened to reveal Simone. \"Morning, Jules. Have you seen Michael?\"\n\n\"That's Ace to you.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"Nothing. He's in the restaurant.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nHaving given Jacklyn permission to come in late earlier in the week, I decided to reward myself in kind on D-day, Thursday morning. I knew the day itself was going to be excruciatingly long. My look needed to be flawless, and yet, try as I might, fashion inspiration was eluding me, so I did the next best thing to having Tom Ford on speed dial.\n\n\"Gary, I need you.\"\n\n\"If only you had a cock, that would be the news.\"\n\n\"Once again, too much information. Seriously, woman, down! Can you come over?\"\n\nLiving across the hall has its advantages. Less than two minutes after hanging up the phone, Gary was ringing my doorbell. While discarding elements of another poor outfit choice, I nearly tripped over my own feet rushing to let him in after the second extended bell. \"Why didn't you let yourself in?\" I asked, out of breath.\n\n\"Left the key with Jean Pierre.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, tilting my head to the side to take in his modest sleep attire. \"Interesting. Not what I envisioned. Good, though.\"\n\n\"What did you expect, a silk kimono with a big butterfly and velvet slippers?\" Gary asked.\n\nConceding that his description was spot-on accurate, I nodded with an affirmative yenta shrug-sigh combination.\n\n\"Are you sure you're not Jewish? That was unnerving. The head nod, the judgmental eye squint, and concave shoulder. Reminds me of home.\"\n\n\"Ha! You want coffee? I picked up an amazing kona from Dean & DeLuca the other day,\" I said, leading him into the kitchen. \"So how is the boy?\"\n\n\"Yesterday's news, honey! I was looking for a yacht and he was more of a schooner, if you catch my drift.\"\n\n\"Ewh! I do and TM motherfucking I. TMI,\" I said, playfully pinching him. For a split second I thought of asking Gary about how best to exit my relationship with Keith\u2014but opted not to, for once heeding the warning that Cora had given me years ago about not sharing too much with people. \"Scone?\"\n\n\"Well, aren't you a chipper little Brit. Is there clotted cream as well?\"\n\nTurning my head to the side in faux modesty and pleased with the association, I said, \"I did pick up a few charming habits and phrases across the pond. The clotted cream, however, was not one of them, nor was the blood sausage. Some good old American butter is just fine for me.\"\n\n\"Such a shame . . . passing on a nice long big sausage,\" Gary said salaciously, half submerged in the refrigerator. \"Where's the ice cream, J?\"\n\n\"Middle shelf, praline and rum raisin. I polished off the rocky road on Monday.\"\n\n\"You're better than Baskin-Robbins,\" said Gary. \"Ah, this is what I'm looking for.\"\n\n\"Are you seriously having ice cream and scones for breakfast?\"\n\n\"Ice cream, butter. All the same; creamy and it goes down smooth. If you catch my\u2014\"\n\n\"Once again, drift has been thrown and caught, so let's please end the erotica portion on this segment of 'Breakfast with a Gay.' \"\n\n\"Boring little lass you are this morning. How can I make it better?\"\n\n\"What was that, Irish?\" I asked. \"Obviously dress distress. Tonight I am having dinner with Michael and his investment partners inclusive of the missus.\"\n\nClutching his invisible pearls, he said, \"Oh, honey. If your last romp with Lady Kipps was any indication, you're gonna need more than just a hot outfit. You need a shield and sword to survive.\"\n\n\"Obviously,\" I said, throwing myself across the counter in feigned defeat, \"but it's not just Carly who I have to deal with. Michael has this partner who thinks that\u2014wait, correction, who knows he is hot shit. A Wall Streeter with a penchant for supermodel accessories and Italian fineries.\"\n\n\"Hmmm, sounds like a contender for yours truly.\"\n\n\"Fan club, maybe.\"\n\n\"Meow,\" said Gary, fake clawing at me as we entered the bedroom. \"You better save some of that side-eyed kitty mix for later tonight with Carly.\"\n\n\"Seriously, this guy has her ear, which is most inconvenient for Michael, since he has specific views about the direction of the restaurant,\" I said, standing before the mirror, evaluating the merits of the charcoal Calvin Klein suit.\n\n\"Sounds like a player.\"\n\n\"Understatement. The first time I met him was during my interview. When I arrived, Michael was not there and this guy starts hitting on me hard, asking to buy me a drink\u2014flirt, you know. Eventually Michael comes, they talk, and the guy leaves,\" I said, turning away from my reflection to face Gary, \"without even saying good-bye to me.\"\n\n\"Sounds like someone made an impression,\" said Gary.\n\n\"Noooo, I just thought he was rude is all. Besides, I am not even close to being his type.\"\n\nNow standing behind me to see the mirror's truth, Gary reached for the suit with his left hand and replaced it with a denim trousers, dress shirt, and blazer combination. \"And how do you know that? Has he seen the gold coast yet?\"\n\nGiggling. \"Why do you always do that? You know being gay does not give you free rein to fondle me, at least not the way you're doing it.\"\n\n\"Maybe not, but being your resident man-of-style does.\" He switched out the dress shirt for a purple silk camisole. Admired his work. \"Much better. Put that on,\" he instructed.\n\n\"I ran into him and his token Eastern Bloc model girlfriend at Pastis last year when I moved in,\" I said, tugging to raise the straps on the camisole to minimize the revealing neckline. \"You don't think this is a bit too casual?\"\n\n\"Jules, you work in a supper club, for Christ's sake, not an accounting office,\" retorted Gary, slapping my hand away to loosen the straps so that the front revealed a bit more. \"There we go. If Miss Thing is going to hate you, let's give her a reason. At least you will have the boys on your side.\" Admiring his work: \"Stop squirming. So he was with Nadja Auermann . . .\"\n\n\"More like Esther Canadas,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, girl, mommy is fierce\u2014talk about lips made for sucking,\" exclaimed Gary.\n\n\"Which was beyond annoying.\"\n\n\"If I didn't know better\u2014\"\n\n\"But you do,\" I said, narrowing my gaze on Gary's reflection to discourage what we both knew he was about to say.\n\n\"Jealousy,\" sang Gary under his breath. \"Try those shoes on.\"\n\n\"Focus. The point is, he lives in the building. A little detail no one bothered to tell me until I ran into him a couple of days ago in the lobby.\"\n\n\"Wait, he lives here in this building?\" I could see Gary's photographic mind taking inventory of all the residents. \"With the exception of yours truly and the Crypt Keeper, Mr. Sol, as eligibles, that leaves only Marcus Crawford. Nah nah, Ms. Thang, you have been holding out! Dish now.\"\n\n\"Ouch, stop poking me. There is nothing to dish about. He is . . . you know, and I am\u2014whatever. It's just incredibly odd, don't you think?\"\n\n\"I knew there was something wrong with you . . . You're odd, Jules. Marcus Crawford is one of New York's top bachelors and dare I say my future baby's daddy.\"\n\n\"Oh gawd, is he bisexual also? What the hell is going on in this place? It's like an epidemic of some kind. Maybe we should just rename the Big Apple the Big Rome.\" Only I found the humor in that remark.\n\n\"Umph, I wish he was. Trust! I have visions of how I can turn him, but he is strictly heterosexual,\" said Gary as he placed different purse options near me to determine which looked best. \"Poor thing, he has no idea what he is missing.\"\n\nFidgeting with the blazer, I said, \"Are you sure this isn't a bit too risqu\u00e9? I love the skinny jeans with the blazer, but the top just seems a bit too Garment District, don't you think? I look like one of those Betsey Johnson girls.\"\n\n\"Here's the thing, Jules. You're never going to win with Carly, so stop trying to dress for her and man up, so to speak. Besides, from what you have told me, I can't see how she is against you. I mean, in my humble opinion, if anything she's just a philandering relic who occupies her time meddling in other people's lives because her husband has yet to make her a priority despite the sacrifices she's made to raise his love child and finance his dream. You were just an unexpected distraction\u2014perk, if you will.\"\n\n\"You think all that, do you? Humbly, I mean?\" I ask, clutching my invisible pearls.\n\n\"Ignoring you\u2014yes I do! Take her out of the equation completely and just do you.\" Holding up the winning Ferragamo oversize clutch, he said, \"What you should do is focus your efforts on captivating that divine specimen of availability, Marcus Crawford, so you can give me all the details.\"\n\n\"Yeah, right. Are you not listening? I am totally not his type nor am I interested.\"\n\n\"Trust me, honey, you're interested, just too stubborn to admit it,\" said Gary, stepping back to take a final look at the outfit. \"Don't take yourself out of competition before the game is in play.\" Now turning his attention to my curly mane, pulling it back, then up and off my face in search of the right placement, he said, \"Hmmm, no . . . maybe, yes, we need to blow this hair out and put it up in a sleek ponytail with some oversize hoops.\"\n\n## 26\n\n* * *\n\n## D-DAY\n\nHEY, IT'S JULES,\" I said.\n\n\"Hi, Jacklyn, it's Simone. Is Jules around? Hold on. Yes, Michael, I am calling right now.\"\n\n\"Simone, stop multitasking, and focus. It's me,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, where's Jacklyn?\"\n\n\"On lunch break, so I am manning the phones.\"\n\n\"Well, that's a role reversal. Must be nice. Maybe I should work for you.\"\n\n\"Ha, that would be the other way around, Mrs. Phillips.\"\n\nI could hear Michael, barking orders in the background: \"Simone, I'm not paying either of you to be friendly. Has Davis arrived yet? I need to go.\"\n\n\"Hold on, Jules.\" Off receiver: \"Michael, he will be here in five minutes. I am preparing your bag right now. Kaylin is aware that you will get to her in twenty minutes or so. I spoke to the nurse myself. Sorry about that, Jules.\"\n\n\"Hey, is everything okay?\" I ask, getting a quick overview of the source of Simone's distraction.\n\n\"I really wish you would stop using the word hey. It's very unattractive, dear.\"\n\n\"Lordy, have you been speaking to my mother?\" I asked. Sensing that now was not the time for cheekiness, I quickly interjected, \"What do you need?\"\n\n\"Hold on again.\" Simone off receiver: \"Yes, Michael, yes. Correct, it will be there. I put those numbers in your bag. I'm getting it right now. Jules, you still there? Hold on.\"\n\nPet peeve\u2014boss or not, I find idling on the phone just plain boring and a waste of perfectly good time. Talk about improper. \"Simone, it's still me, holding.\"\n\nWhy am I even trying? The sarcasm in my voice is completely lost on her. \"Sorry, Jules. Hold on one more\u2014 Michael, Davis is downstairs. Yes, I am on with her now.\"\n\n\"Simone! Obviously you are trying to tell me something, but between the incessant ringing of the phones and Michael barking, I'll never know.\"\n\n\"Jules, where is the research you compiled for the meeting tonight?\" Michael demanded, breaking onto the line.\n\n\"Michael, that is what I was asking her,\" Simone said in her most diplomatically efficient tone.\n\n\"And yet, I still don't have it,\" Michael bellowed from his office, forgetting that he had us both on the line.\n\nClearly he was on a rampage today and anyone within earshot was in the line of fire. Wanting to deflect this as soon as possible, I looked down to see the haphazardly written notes on the report I was reviewing, quickly determining that it was in my best interest to give him this set, scribbles, smudge marks, and all. \"Michael, I am on my way to you now.\" En route to his office I could organize them into something halfway presentable.\n\n\"Well, get a move on it,\" he said.\n\nBy the time I reached the end of the hallway, Michael was waiting impatiently at the elevator.\n\n\"Is everything okay?\" I asked, worried in the off chance that it would impact my duties.\n\nStroking his temple, indicating that awaiting Davis's arrival was not the only thing causing him pain, he said, \"Katy-kins is sick. I need to pick her up from school.\"\n\n\"Ah, so sorry. Sucks to be sick. Is Carly meeting you there?\"\n\n\"That's not her thing,\" he responded.\n\nThinking it best not to break the flow of conversation, I stepped inside the elevator when it arrived and accompanied Michael down to the lobby.\n\n\"Oh\"\u2014surely there was a better, less simplistically judgmental response I could offer up\u2014\"my mother isn't great with medical emergencies either.\" A total lie that I am sure Cora heard on some superhuman maternal level, despite being thousands of miles away. In truth, she was amazing in medical situations. It's one of the few times in my childhood that she was singularly focused on doing whatever was necessary to make things better entirely for me. My dad, on the other hand, tended to fall apart, which was unnerving considering he is always so strong and assured in day-to-day affairs so that my mother and I don't have to be. After one rather unsightly wrist fracture in junior high school and witnessing him faint at the sight of a needle, I stopped leaning on him in matters of illness.\n\n\"Um. How is she, your mom, at the mothering?\" Michael asked rather intensely.\n\nBeaming with pride, I confess, \"Relatively great, in her own way, but I'll never tell her that. She has a special way of showing it but she does.\" Our relationship has never been transparent. If I am to believe Freud, then I accept that it never will be\u2014such is the case with mothers and daughters, I guess.\n\n\"Well, that would seem to be the minimum expectation, now wouldn't it?\" Michael responded.\n\nKnowing firsthand of Carly's deign to accept Kaylin's presence in their lives, I knew exactly what Michael was insinuating. More important, I knew that it was a door that I did not want to open. So I quickly rebelled against the uncomfortable moment by thrusting the papers I held toward him: \"Here are the comparable restaurants in the U.S. and Europe. It is primarily made up of supper clubs and theme restaurants in the U.S. and private members only clubs in England. Also, you should pay close attention to the expansion rate of each\u2014that seems to be the key. The ones that have forgone mass expansions seem to fare the best. I've already started putting some notes in the margins but\u2014\"\n\nShoving the papers into his leather attach\u00e9, he said, \"Got it. Thanks,\" just as he got into the car and signaled Davis to drive on. Walking back into the building, I saw Simone going in the direction of the dining room, so I followed.\n\n\"Whoa, what was all of that about?\" I asked, pretending to be oblivious to the overall specifics, but in reality, just wanting to gossip a bit.\n\n\"Kaylin has the mumps or something. Anyway, when she calls everything else takes a backseat for Michael, as you can see.\"\n\n\"Clearly an understatement. I have never heard him be so unglued and terse with you.\"\n\nSimone responded offhandedly, \"I've grown used to it. Carly gets to abdicate maternal responsibility and I get the wrath.\"\n\nGreat, another Carly-laced bomb for me to sidestep. \"I gave him a copy of the research I'm using for tonight, my copy actually. I'll get you\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, honey, that meeting is canceled,\" said Simone, between sips of black tea. \"You need to know that Michael Kipps will stop the world for only two things, Kaylin and this place. In the rare event, like now, that they decide to compete, the little princess always wins.\" So much for that number one\u2013selling book that Carly wrote about their storied love and family. By my calculations, that put her at a distant third. I guess fairy-tale endings, at least for her, are just that. \"I'll let you know when he puts it back on the books.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSatisfied with the knowledge that Michael's attention would be consumed by Kaylin, I decided to make it an even earlier day and leave at 5 p.m. Now I could make that meal I never got around to. In retrospect, the encounter with Marcus a few nights earlier had somehow overshadowed the gravity of all the preceding events; the negative AIDS test, a forgone conclusion to a well-heeded warning, deciding how to address matters with Keith sidelined until his return\u2014breaking up via e-mail even from a nonofficial relationship is bad form, preparing a meal\u2014shelved. I had even thought about Marcus in my dreams to some degree, although I can't recall exactly what he was doing or what I was doing for that matter, but I'm sure he was there nonetheless, because I awoke with a smile and hearing him in my head.\n\nWithin an hour of arriving home, I was fully immersed in domestic bliss. My very skinny jeans and barely-there cami replaced with baggy cargo pants and a basic white tank. The Tahitian vanilla and gardenia scented candles, which I purchased from the same Portobello apothecary as those in the office, were lit throughout the apartment to complement the Anita Baker CD playing. Wanting the experience of cooking but not that of being a slave to the kitchen, I opted to roast a chicken and finish it off with a simple pear and arugula salad.\n\n\"The perfect companion you are,\" I said admiringly to the glass of Chardonnay resting in my hand as I stood by a window in the living room, watching the traffic steadily move down Fifth Avenue. The lights from the cars made every night seem like a Christmas parade. The horns at times make it sound like the Puerto Rican Day parade. The unexpected ring of the doorbell startled me back into the present.\n\n\"Just a minute,\" I said, leaping off the sill and rushing to open the door without looking because I was certain it was Gary seeking a full recap. Instead it was Marcus, standing before me in dark gray jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt that revealed a thin silver chain with dog tags. \"What are you doing here?\" I asked. Honestly, it must be criminal to be this fine!\n\n\"Not exactly the greeting I was hoping for but better than before, so I'd say we're making progress. Hi, Jules,\" he said, mischievously smiling down at me.\n\nUnfazed, I responded, \"You fancy yourself quite a bit, you know?\"\n\n\"That has been brought to my attention before. Why don't we discuss it over dinner? And before you say that you're busy, remember we were supposed to have dinner tonight, so there should be no one else on your calendar,\" he said, trying to peek inside the doorway to make certain that his assumption was correct.\n\nStepping to the right to block his view inside, I ventured to correct his perception of the evening. \"You shouldn't be here. And for the record, we were not having that kind of dinner. I was meeting my boss and his partners, of which you are one\u2014apparently not a nice one, I might add, during which time food might have been served.\"\n\n\"Character assassination aside\u2014exactly, dinner. Obviously not the way I would have preferred our first date to be, with onlookers and such, I'm quite private myself, but if you prefer chaperones\u2014it's a start.\"\n\nI shook my head in disbelief. Clearly, reasserting the specifics was futile. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I thought I just answered that,\" said Marcus. \"Are you going to invite me in?\"\n\n\"No.\" You inside my apartment would only mean trouble and that is never happening.\n\n\"Well, that isn't very neighborly of you, now is it?\"\n\n\"The same could be said for you, stopping by uninvited and without a gift. I mean, who comes to a person's home for the first time empty-handed? Not very neighborly, Mr. Crawford,\" I said.\n\nLooking down at his bare hands as if they had betrayed him by not spontaneously producing a gift, Marcus conceded his faux pas: \"I'm sorry.\"\n\nTotally forgiven is what I was thinking but not what I was saying.\n\n\"Well, well, it looks like your meeting went far better than expected.\" I didn't notice Gary coming down the hall. \"Marcus,\" Gary said with innuendo dripping all over his former comment.\n\nI can't be certain if Marcus was purposefully ignoring Gary's comment, oblivious to it, or just plain indifferent. In either case, Marcus turned to shake his hand and engage in small talk as neighbors often do. \"Gary, it's been a while. How are things at the magazine?\"\n\n\"Too long. When are you going to let me profile your Bridgehampton home? I heard from Edward and Cecilia that it is amazing.\" I wanted to interrupt and find out the social relevance of \"Edward and Cecilia,\" but Gary was now firmly in pitch mode. Gone were the exaggerated gestures of femininity that accompanied my fashion makeover this morning. In their place now were decisively more masculine movements that mimicked Marcus's own.\n\n\"Soon, soon. I didn't get a chance to spend as much time there as I would have liked this summer, a weekend here and there. You know?\"\n\nGary nodded, \"Of course. I would think that a property of that size located on the water is beautiful year-round. A winter story would be magnificent\u2014'On Frozen Pond.' I could allocate a number of pages to it before the season passes.\"\n\n\"Good to know,\" said Marcus. Ah, now I see it. He is clearly indifferent, and poor Gary is working so hard to make him care.\n\n\"I would even go so far as to guarantee you the cover.\" By this time my presence was purely a matter of happenstance, at least for Gary. Marcus's nonchalant air prevailed despite Gary's refusal to acknowledge it. He was determined to seal the deal here and now. The reason for such urgency eluded me, but I was surely going to find out. \"Did you see the great coverage we did on Jules's apartment?\" Bingo! Gary, finally, said something that interested Marcus and annoyed me.\n\n\"Did you now? Somehow I missed that issue,\" replied Marcus, switching his gaze to me instead of Gary. \"Would love to see how the photography compares with the actual space.\"\n\n\"Say no more. I have an issue inside,\" said Gary, pointing in the direction of his apartment across the hall. \"I'll bring it over.\"\n\n\"Perfect,\" said Marcus, with an all-knowing grin that his pawn had captured my queen. \"We'll wait for you inside,\" he said, pushing past me into the foyer only to step aside and smile down at me with those piercing blue eyes. Checkmate\u2014king's pawn. \"You coming? I'd love a tour.\"\n\nDespite the masterful play, I was not ready to concede any ground to Marcus, at least not the kind he was looking for. Sure, he had managed to gain entry into my apartment\u2014so what? It means nothing.\n\nAs he followed me inside I could feel his eyes searching every inch of my body instead of the apartment's d\u00e9cor. I only need to prove a gracious host and provide Gary some time to wrangle Marcus. No big deal; this is not even about me. I'm just being neighborly. I'm not betraying Michael, just being a good neighbor is all!\n\nFrom behind Marcus asked, \"Should I ask you now what specific unflattering things our Michael has been saying?\"\n\n\"No, you should not. All deserved, I'm sure. Can I get you something to drink?\" I asked.\n\n\"I'll take that as a compliment. Whatever you have open is fine.\"\n\n\"Of course you would! I'm having wine. Is that what you want?\" I insisted.\n\n\"Not really. Been one of those days. I'd love a martini, but if you don't\u2014\"\n\n\"No problem. Gin or vodka?\"\n\n\"Bombay, if you have it.\"\n\n\"Okay, Bombay it is. Have a seat, I'll bring it out.\"\n\nFrom inside the kitchen I made a beeline for the telephone and called Gary. Marcus had been in my place less than ten minutes yet it felt like an eternity. My previously relaxed vibe was steadily being replaced by a subtle anxiety in knowing that he was there and not knowing what to do with him. At this moment he could possibly be looking at my photos and any manner of personal effects that I was not comfortable sharing with my colleagues, especially him. God, please don't let him venture into my bedroom. It was still nuclear from this morning.\n\nCupping the phone's receiver with both hands, I said in a rushed and desperate whisper, \"Gary, where the hell are you? Changing! For what? You're just showing the man a magazine, giving him a quick look about, and then getting the hell out so I can enjoy my evening. Get over here now.\"\n\n\"It smells great in there,\" Marcus said from the living room over the music. \"You have good taste.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I love candles, especially mixing scents to come up with something unique,\" I said, without being certain if he was talking about the aroma from the chicken or the room scents, so I opted for the latter. \"Do you want an olive or lemon?\"\n\n\"Lemon is perfect.\"\n\nWhoever invented martini glasses must never have had to carry one across a room. Coming in from the kitchen, gingerly balancing his drink and my newly refilled glass of wine, I found Marcus standing near the Bose system, going through my music collection. Since working at Carly's, I had come to appreciate great sound quality. Not nearly as much as a pair of Dior heels but enough so that I felt the need to invest in a good audio system.\n\n\"Here you go,\" I said.\n\n\"What do you know about Corcovado?\" Marcus asked, taking a cautionary sip, only to have his taste buds come alive with the perfect balance of vermouth, gin, and lemon, chilled to perfection. \"Cheers. Oh man. This is perfect.\"\n\n\"Fifteen shakes is the key,\" I said. \"I'm a music lover, Crawford, or hadn't you heard?\"\n\n\"So I see, Van Morrison, the Stones, Tribe, Grace, Miles. . . . whoa, is this the Upsetters? What do you know about Scratch Perry?\" I could tell he was impressed, but, like me earlier, not ready to concede too much ground. \"Nice selection, but I am not convinced. What is the best yet lesser-known Marvin song? If you know that I'll\u2014\"\n\n\"Too easy. Take a seat and prepare to be impressed,\" I said, stepping in front of him to locate the song in question. Once it was loaded in the player, I turned around to face Marcus and savor the moment. Hearing the first few bars of \"Funky Space Incarnation,\" he made a quick gesture, unexpectedly spilling a portion of his drink.\n\n\"So sorry. If you have something, I can\u2014\" he said, indicating that he wanted to clean up the small puddles of cocktail now on my wood floors and coffee table.\n\n\"I will take that as a sign that you are thoroughly impressed,\" I said, laughing. \"There are towels in the kitchen.\" Laughing felt good. I hadn't done that in a few days.\n\n\"Actually, I was referring to 'Symphony,' but this will do.\"\n\n\"You so were not!\" I said. \"What are you going to say next, you cry sometimes?\"\n\n\"No, I wasn't. Look at you, Jules Sinclair, audiophile. Does Michael know you're more than a pretty face yet or is he still seeing the world through his glory days?\" asked Marcus, kneeling to clean the spill.\n\n\"Not addressing that,\" I said. \"Come on into the kitchen, let's get you a refill.\"\n\n\"Don't say you weren't warned,\" said Marcus.\n\nWe spoke effortlessly about music, both of us harboring a secret love for Tim McGraw and Euro pop. Soon we were playing the music equivalent of Confession.\n\n\"No way, I have you beat. My most embarrassing song moment is Diana Ross's tribute to Marvin,\" I said.\n\n\" 'Missing You'? Come now, how is that worse than not understanding the meaning of 'Love Come Down'?\" asked Marcus. \"I was a ten-year-old kid in South Boston singing about female masturbation! You have any idea how embarrassing that was\u2014\"\n\nPutting a hand before him to signal \"wait for it,\" I took a courageous sip of wine. \"I can't believe I am telling you this. Okay! So obviously she is saying 'since you been away I've been down and lonely,' right? Because Marvin is dead, left her alone, and she misses him.\"\n\n\"Wait, wait, why are you closing your eyes?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because I don't want to see your reaction,\" I said, squeezing them extra tight.\n\n\"All right now.\"\n\n\"So I thought\u2014remember, youthful ears and I was in Catholic school at the time. I thought she was saying, 'Sister Benaway, I have been down and lonely. Sister Benaway, I've been thinking, 'bout you.' I thought the song was about having confession with her favorite nun. I was jealous that I didn't have a favorite.\"\n\nThe silence that greeted my confession made me open one eye to make sure Marcus was still in the room. He was there all right, face scrunched up, lips pursed tightly as if trying to decide whether to get up and hug me for my extreme na\u00efvet\u00e9 or allow the volcano of laughter to erupt. Within seconds, loud riotous laughter ensued. My injury clear, I was trying to pretend that it was more funny than thoroughly embarrassing, when I accidentally sprayed him with the wine in my mouth, sending us both into full-on uncontrollable hysterics. Any notions I had of being graceful quickly dissipated. By the time Gary arrived, we were somewhere between old friends and new prospects.\n\n\"Glad to see y'all didn't wait for me before getting your party on. What's so funny?\" he asked, looking from me to Marcus. \"Why is his face wet?\"\n\n\"Diana Ross and Catholicism,\" I offered, because Marcus was on the last wave of hysterics. Clearly the moment was too far gone to bring Gary up to speed and he had other matters to attend to.\n\n\"What are you cooking? It smells good in here,\" said Gary, looking in the fridge for grapes.\n\n\"Roasting a chicken.\"\n\n\"Great, I'm starving. What else is on the menu?\" asked Gary.\n\nTaken aback at the implication that I would now have dinner guests, I stammered, \"Um, I was just thinking to make something simple\u2014for one, but, um, we could do some sides, maybe an arugula salad to start.\"\n\n\"Sounds delicious,\" said Marcus. \"You got some potatoes and buttermilk? I'm pretty famous for my garlic mashed potatoes.\"\n\nSlapping him on the back, Gary said, \"Well, then, get on it, instead of sitting here watching me suck on these damn grapes.\"\n\nI took a seat at the island alongside Gary as Marcus went about procuring ingredients as if he had been in my kitchen a million times before and knew what was located in every cabinet and drawer.\n\n\"Marcus, where does a man like you find time to cook?\" asked Gary.\n\n\"College. You either starve, eat ramen, and risk getting high blood pressure, ration care packages from home, or learn to cook. I learned to cook. Calling my nan for simple recipes here and there. Soon I found I enjoyed being in the kitchen. The whole process seemed to free my mind up so I could think about exams and stuff.\"\n\n\"Where did you go to school?\" I asked.\n\n\"Brown,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Oh, Providence,\" I replied, as he affirmed some of what I thought upon first meeting him.\n\n\"Yes. You know it?\"\n\n\"No, but Cora, that's my mom, is hopelessly obsessed with Newport. So I know all things Rhode Island.\"\n\n\"So, Marcus, could we get some shots of you cooking in Bridgehampton? Our readers would love it, and for the people who know of your reputation, they would never think\u2014\" Gary said, gesturing to the kitchen. \"It would be an amazing give.\"\n\n\"And what is your reputation?\" I asked.\n\n\"Only one of the most enigmatic and stylish corporate raiders to emerge in recent years,\" said Gary in his eagerness to impress Marcus.\n\n\"Investment banker,\" corrected Marcus as he went about combining ingredients in a large bowl.\n\n\"Isn't that the same thing as a venture capitalist?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, but VC has an ugly connotation in today's market. IB is more PC than VC,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Whatever you call it, he is a wonder and everyone wants to know what's behind the transcontinental bravado,\" said Gary. \"I just hope one day to have enough money for him to play around with.\"\n\n\"For the love of heaven, please put this man out of his misery and allow him to shoot your house so we can enjoy dinner,\" I said, getting up to start the salad and asparagus. \"Or else he'll continue shining you on, and I in turn just might lose my appetite.\"\n\nRemoving the mixing blades from the potatoes and offering me a taste, Marcus said, \"Only if you agree to be there. Something tells me I need a team around me to protect my interest or Gary will have carte blanche.\"\n\n\"She'll be there,\" Gary insisted, shooting me a look that begged not to be contradicted.\n\nWith that out of the way, Gary allowed himself to relax and enjoy the evening. Marcus and I busied ourselves putting the final touches on dinner; Gary kept the glasses filled and the music pumping. Formality and duplicitous agendas had long since gone out the window, so no one made any steps to move to the dining room. Instead we settled nicely around the island, spoke freely, and ate heartily. Dessert, like dinner, was impromptu, so a store-bought peach cobbler with heaping scoops of ice cream finished the meal off. Without ever intending to, I had hosted my first dinner party in New York since my return, my first actually in three years or so. I forgot how much I enjoyed the easiness of great food, good people, and home comforts. Marcus was the first to leave. He had vowed to stay and help clean up, but the constant ringing of his cell phone made it apparent that he was expected elsewhere.\n\n\"See, dinner with me wasn't so bad after all, now was it?\" he said at the door.\n\n\"No, dinner with you and Gary was great.\"\n\n\"Maybe next time just you and me.\"\n\n\"You and I both know there are a million reasons that dinner will never happen. Chief among those is that you are my boss indirectly, and I'm dating someone\u2014remember?\"\n\n\"You don't have to be, you know. As for Carly's, it's just an investment,\" he said.\n\nRemembering the charge Michael had bestowed upon me, I said, \"It's much more than that, Marcus. There is something great there if it is allowed to grow and expand. You'd know that if you looked closer at the long term.\"\n\n\"We'll talk about it over dinner,\" he said.\n\nAs he reached down to raise his ringing phone (exhibit A), I said, \"Right?! We'll make it a lovely group event, you, me, and the woman who is not content with leaving a message or allowing time for a proper call-back. Good night, Mr. Crawford.\"\n\n\"Good night, Jules,\" he said as he backed away slowly down the hall to the elevator.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nUnbeknownst to me, Gary was standing on the other side of the door eavesdropping as I turned to close it.\n\n\"Holy shit!\" I screamed, clutching my chest.\n\n\"Shit is right,\" he said. \"You have been holding out.\"\n\n\"Have not,\" I protested.\n\n\"Oh, hells yes! That man wants you.\"\n\n\"Well, that is not going to happen.\"\n\n\"Listen, honey, you know I love you like a new sister from a wayward father, so let me tell you, be careful. Marcus Crawford is better than Midas. He always gets what he wants. The problem is that his attention span is legendary ADD, if you get my drift. Why do you think he is so good at financial raiding? He goes in, assesses the situation, manipulates control, and then destroys it before it becomes a fixture.\"\n\n\"That makes three times today, G, that you have 'thrown me a drift.' Loud and clear on all,\" I said, \"but you have nothing to worry about, I've been a fool already and irresponsible once, not again. I have no intentions there.\"\n\n\"Good girl,\" he said, crossing the hall to his apartment. \"Stupid girl . . . lonely girl.\"\n\nBefore his door closed fully, I playfully yelled, \"You know I can hear you, right?! Just know that you owe me, Mr. Editor, and I will collect later.\"\n\n\"As soon as it goes to print. I'll see you in the Hamptons, lonely girl.\"\n\nExhausted, I collapsed into bed, but not before replaying the evening in my head. I had such a great time and hoped for a redo\u2014in general, not necessarily with Marcus, although . . . and Gary. In the move back to New York and diving into things with Keith, I didn't realize that I had forsaken some simple, essential things\u2014like just being me with people. Nothing more, nothing less. After Tony, I built a wall around myself that even my closest friends had not been able to truly penetrate. Richard had even commented on it: \"Honey, at some point you will have to let it all down\"\u2014but he had not pushed the issue. Had tonight gone as planned, I would not have known what I was missing. Further indication that the transitional relationship with Keith, even without the scare, was not what I needed.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nKeith had been back from Tokyo for a few days by the time we actually saw each other. While away, we communicated via e-mail once or twice. The first was an e-mail he sent.\n\nSubject: What's the most coveted commodity in Japan?\n\nAttachment: Photo of Keith in all of his bronze, statuesque glory and a cipher of commuters blatantly checking him out.\n\nJ\u2014one of my coworkers took this. Who knew I was such a big deal just for being?\n\nMasters\n\nSubject: RE: What's the most coveted commodity in Japan?\n\nHere I was thinking it was Michael Jordan sans the mocha tan, of course;-) Glad to hear you arrived safely. See you when you return, would like to chat.\n\nx Jules\n\nAfter clicking Send, I read the e-mail a few times. Why on earth did I say \"Would like to chat\"? It is the relationship equivalent of a siren in the middle of the night\u2014you know there's trouble coming but are clueless as to what it is. Since that fateful brunch with Richard and Blake, I had accepted that we could not go on being a romantic item. What eluded me was the perfectly strung sequence of words that would convey this without making him feel judged for his lifestyle. More than anything I didn't want to hurt Keith in any conceivable way, and yet it was inevitable. Rejection never feels good, even when done with compassion and sincere regret. The thought crossed my mind more than a few times to seek advice from friends, but it always felt like a betrayal, so I did not. My expectation was that I would surely know what to say when the moment presented itself.\n\n\"Jules, Keith is on the line for you.\"\n\n\"Put him through, Jack.\"\n\nWell, I am about five minutes away from the moment and no closer to knowing the bottom of the third or fourth act of this production.\n\n\"What's the sexiest girl in Manhattan doing?\" said Keith.\n\n\"Honestly, where did you learn to talk like that? It's very Dirk Diggler, you know.\"\n\n\"I could be offended by that remark, but I am choosing to find the compliment, in a seventies porn kind of way. So, how have you been?\"\n\n\"Dodging grenades, as it were. Michael has found himself\u2014 Hold on a minute,\" I said, placing my hand over the receiver and yelling to Jacklyn. \"Hey, Jack, jump off this call if you are on.\" As a matter of security and a sometimes selective memory, I have Jacklyn listen in on some of my calls and take notes. The downside of this is the resulting paranoia that makes me think she now listens to every call, especially the personal ones, and transcribes everything I say. \"Okay, where was I?\"\n\n\"Michael, grenades,\" said Keith.\n\n\"Oh, yes. Michael is on the warpath, so I seem to spend my days in trepidation fearing the phone and smell of cigars.\"\n\n\"Sounds like my timing is perfect then.\"\n\n\"It's something,\" I replied.\n\n\"Go look out your window.\"\n\nWalking to the window half expecting to see John Cusack standing below with a large boom box above his head, instead there was Keith, or at least someone who bore a striking resemblance to him. He was standing near the streetlamp wearing a fitted dark blue wool dress coat, a camel houndstooth scarf knotted high on the neck\u2014and a dapper newsboy cap, talking on the phone.\n\n\"Just as I thought, you look good, lady,\" said Keith, looking up to the window and revealing his face.\n\n\"Obviously\u2014you know how I do,\" I said. \"When did you start wearing hats?\"\n\n\"You like it? I had a stopover in London and picked it up,\" Keith said, his hand tracing the parameter of the brim.\n\n\"Well, look at you,\" I said, overwhelmed at the sight of him, and the physical response it still conjured in spite of everything.\n\n\"If you come down from that ivory tower of yours and join me for a coffee, you could look much closer,\" he said. \"Before you look at that calendar and tell me that you can't, know that I only have about twenty minutes or so but wanted to see you.\"\n\n\"In that case, how could I not?\" Flirtation with Keith is easy. His come-what-may manner made me happy even when there was no cause for celebration\u2014like now.\n\n\"Jeez, it's colder out here than it looks. Were you standing out here the entire time?\"\n\n\"No, I had a meeting a few doors down and dialed you from there,\" he said, switching to the outer side of the walkway. \"Let's go to Petite Abeille. Do you mind?\"\n\n\"Not at all, but if you only have twenty minutes, then maybe not.\"\n\nSearching the immediate length of the cobblestone streets for an alternative, he said, \"You're right. In that case, let's do Pastis. It shouldn't be too bad at this hour.\"\n\nWith the exception of a few tables in back and two guys at the bar, Pastis was abnormally bare.\n\n\"You have a preference?\" asked Keith.\n\n\"No, you choose,\" I replied.\n\n\"We'll take that one-top by the window.\"\n\n\"Perfect, I normally sit in the back. It's the best for people-watching, you know,\" I said.\n\n\"So I've heard; however, I've always found that the best way to know people is to observe their habits and listen to what is left on the table, between the lines. You'll have enough for a novel,\" said Keith.\n\n\"Really, I've recently learned that sometimes observation can fail you. Sometimes it's the overt statement that tends to pull the rug right from under you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. I just have not ever heard anything from another person that I didn't observe beforehand.\"\n\n\"Then you're lucky, but I can't say that.\" Now fully engaged in the dance, I decided to just jump right in.\n\n\"Michael got to you that bad?\"\n\n\"No, not Michael,\" I said. Deep inhale, hold it . . . now go. \"You seriously threw me for a loop last time, Masters.\"\n\n\"I know, the whole Saturn in retrograde thing is a hard pill to swallow.\"\n\n\"True, but that came in a distant second to me hearing you like men as much as I do.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yes, really,\" I said, my eyes purposefully drifting to the intricate stitching on his lapel for a place to rest in order to avoid any conflict apparent in his eyes.\n\n\"Shit, Jules, I thought you knew.\"\n\nLeave your hand exactly where it is, J. Don't remove it from the table or else he will think you don't want to be touched by him.\n\n\"And how would I know that? You and I had never spoken of it before and I'm not a mind reader, so . . .\" I trailed off 'cause the landing destination was unknown, even to me at that point. Look at him, Jules. You need to see his face. More important, he needs to see yours. God, I'm going to miss those lips.\n\n\"Damn, Manhattan is small, you know, and I am anything but closeted or low-key for that matter. Besides, your friend Joy seemed to know a lot about me, so I just guessed that was inclusive of the girl talk. I'm sorry, baby. I had no idea you didn't know.\"\n\n\"If she knew, she didn't tell me, nor should she have been the one. You're the one I'm sleeping with.\" More of a statement than an accusation. Yes, a statement. Let's hope. \"Besides, I am not a fan of hearsay, even from friends.\"\n\n\"What can I say, J, I'm not disputing that if\u2014Listen, I am sorry. It was not my intent to deceive you. I would never. Please don't be mad. We can figure this out.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure we can. Keith, I'm not mad. I still don't know specifically what my entire position on all of this is. The two things I am absolutely clear on is: I want us to be okay no matter\u2014I've gotten used to talking to you, and second, that we can no longer have any kind of sexual relationship.\" Damn, those words just breezed out. I hope he heard the first part. \"I'm not saying that I am going all Terry McMillan or anything, but I'm just not sure I am that modern, you know? I mean, I'm still battling through a mountain of insecurities every day: Am I smart enough? Am I pretty enough, fit enough, engaging enough to keep my man's attention? Not to mention how difficult it is just to not feel constantly like somewhere along the way, in the big picture of things, I fucked something up royally as to the course of my life\u2014twenty-eight years old and still single, hello?! Keith, it's hard enough to be a woman in this world with the statistics that are drilled into our brains every single day about being more likely to be somebody's baby mama than a wife. Living under all of that and now having to watch my back with the next man, about his attraction to my man, is much more than I want to deal with right now, you know?\"\n\nLeaning back from the table, smoothing the invisible wrinkles on his herringbone twill trousers, he said, \"I hear what you're saying, Jules. I just don't like it. Can we discuss this later? I really have to . . .\" His eyes followed the dial on the Roger Dubuis timepiece far more closely than necessary, before searching the room without success for our waiter to bring the check.\n\n\"I know you have a meeting. Go, I'll get this,\" I said.\n\nStanding in front of a bistro in the Meatpacking District with a less-than-ten-minute conversation is not exactly how I envisioned everything coming to an end, but that was the case, life seldom provides a perfect moment. Had I even said what I needed to? Walking back to my office, I convinced myself that the warm hug Keith gave me before disappearing into his taxi was a sure sign that we would be more than ships passing. If, however, we were passing, I could stride much better with a new pair of shoes from Jefferies. Besides, it's not as if we were in a serious relationship or anything. He was just some guy I enjoyed sleeping with, talking to, e-mailing, laughing with, and texting. No big deal, right?\n\n## 27\n\n* * *\n\n## BOUNDARIES\n\nTURNS OUT KAYLIN'S mild fever was the precursor to a nasty case of bronchitis. For a week, Michael kept vigil over her. It was the first time in his life that he felt absolutely helpless, and Michael Thurmond Kipps did not do helpless well. If he could not will the infection out of his daughter's body, then he would shift his focus to the one thing he could control, his restaurant, even if from afar.\n\n\"Saddle up, baby girl. Mike is on the warpath and is looking for you,\" said Raymond as I took a seat at the bar.\n\n\"Again? I have been yelled at, hung up on, and blamed more in the past two weeks than I was in my entire adolescence when I actually was guilty of occasionally sneaking out the house and lifting money from my mom's purse.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know what to say about all that, but I can tell you that my man's looking for you, so be ready.\"\n\n\"Warning signal heeded. Pass me the phone.\" My day had been consumed doing media previews of the renovated upstairs recording studio that we were now opening up to certain musicians, i.e., those who Michael felt qualified as real musicians or those with insane recording budgets. Given all that was going on, I didn't think it necessary to send Michael my schedule. Normally Jacklyn would have been able to inform Simone of my whereabouts, but like Kaylin, she was home with a fever (thankfully not bronchitis) for a few days.\n\nSomewhere between yelling and near convulsion, Michael attacked on hearing my voice: \"Jules, what in the hell are you doing having dinner with Marcus behind my back? Do I need to be concerned about where your loyalty is? You know we are on opposing sides right now. Why would you do that and NOT tell me?\"\n\nMy intent had been to tell him about the dinner with Marcus\u2014innocent enough, right, but something inside told me not to. In the two weeks that had passed, I had not seen hide nor hair of Marcus, so I considered the encounter not worth mentioning. Michael's accusations came so quickly and were so venomous that I didn't have time to understand the complete root of his ire.\n\n\"Michael, I don't know what you heard, but Marcus and I did not have dinner.\"\n\n\"Are you saying that he is lying?\"\n\n\"No, of course not, but\u2014\"\n\n\"But what, Jules? No means what, yes, you did have dinner with him. You need to tell me something or else I need to evaluate who's on my team. It's like this slick motherfucker has Carly's ear and now yours. Who in the fuck has my back? I'm fighting for my family here.\"\n\nI could feel Raymond's eyes on me, watching my face go from pensive to defensive. If I tried to interrupt and argue back, my points would get lost and things would surely go from bad to worse, so I waited for Michael to settle down. \"Is there anything you have to say for yourself or do I need to consider making some changes?\"\n\nTaking a deep inhale, I closed my eyes to center myself before speaking. \"Michael, I am now and have always been on your side, never question that.\" I looked up to see Raymond nodding in the affirmative, indicating that I was responding appropriately, and continued, \"I should have told you about the dinner with Marcus and Gary, but Kaylin got sicker and I didn't want to burden you with superfluous information about nothing\u2014music and trivia.\"\n\n\"What? Who in the hell's Gary?\" he asked.\n\n\"My neighbor from across the hall. He is the editor in chief of Decor magazine. You've met him\u2014he did a piece on you and Carly years back.\" After hearing him grunt something inaudible that gave the impression this was information he did not have, I continued: \"If you recall the day Kaylin got sick, we were supposed to have the partners' meeting. With the meeting canceled, I went home. Marcus knocked on my door and asked me to dinner. I said no. While he was standing there, Gary came home and, upon seeing Marcus, began to pitch him heavily for a feature in Decor. One thing led to another, and the both of them ended up in my place talking about the feature and eating. Marcus left and then Gary.\"\n\n\"And that's it?\" Michael asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, having glossed over the fact we spoke all of five seconds about Carly's. \"We were never alone, so even if he wanted to speak of other things, he could not because of Gary.\" Jeez, I hate lying, I don't even know why I am right now, but did Michael really need to know about the fun we had when Gary was away or could I just keep that for me?\n\n\"And you didn't say anything about Carly's?\" The emphasis Michael put on the question felt more like an inquisition, so I quickly replayed the evening in my head before speaking.\n\n\"Um, when he was leaving he mentioned something about Carly's being an investment opportunity. I said that it was much more than that, that Carly's was something great, and if given time he would see it.\"\n\n\"And that's all you said? You didn't say anything else?\" repeated Michael.\n\nOf course there was more. I had not given him the full context for this line of dialogue, fearing it would serve only to falsely imply my disloyalty. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that Marcus had asked me out on a date (again), and that in declining (again), this conversation came to be. By this time Raymond had given up any pretense of polishing glasses and was firmly attuned to our conversation. Michael may have not been there in the flesh, but his spare eyes were clocking my every response.\n\n\"Yes, that's it,\" I said.\n\n\"Umph.\"\n\nNervously tapping my pen on the table, I needed more than \"umph.\" Am I cleaning out my office? On probation for withholding? Forgiven? In the most neutral, nonantagonistic tone I could muster, I asked, \"What does 'umph' mean, Michael?\"\n\n\"It means don't ever keep anything from me again, no matter how insignificant you think it is. You don't have that luxury\u2014especially when it has to do with Marcus. I deal enough with that at home. I look up and the same motherfucker who is rallying to change the direction at Carly's, who has been mysteriously out of the office for the past two weeks and not returning calls, is suddenly at my living room while my baby girl is upstairs.\"\n\n\"Oh, I didn't know.\"\n\n\" 'Oh' is right. Thankfully, I was well versed in trumping anything he and Carly had to say. There I am in my own home, at my own damn table, talking about there being something great here at Carly's\u2014in full fight mode. That's when he sucker punched me by saying you said the same thing over dinner.\"\n\n\"But didn't he say anything else? Didn't he give it context?\" I asked.\n\n\"Nothing. He didn't need to say anything else. His jab landed squarely where he intended. Here he is bending my wife's ear and now letting me know that he was making ends with one of my employees as well.\"\n\nWow, is this the same guy who sat at my table and laughed with me? Talk about me being na\u00efve. Well, I'd sort my feelings about that later. Right now, I need to save my job. \"He said it like that to get a rise out of you, Michael. You know that, right?\"\n\n\"Yes, and it would have worked had he not finished by agreeing there was potential there. It would just take a capital infusion that neither of us has to explore things.\"\n\n\"Wait, so this is a good thing,\" I said.\n\n\"In a manner of speaking, but it's far from over. That was a warning shot. He made it known that he can circumvent me\u2014a coup d'\u00e9tat. If he thinks that his carrot will stop me from moving ahead, he's got another thing coming. Not only will I expand Carly's but I'll find the purse strings to bankroll it, buy him, and hold on to what's mine.\"\n\n\"And you guys can't work together?\"\n\n\"It's about more than that, Jules. A man has to be in control of his destiny at all times\u2014can't let some other motherfucker that I showed the ropes to come in and start making the rules. Soon he'll run out of maneuvers, and I'll show him who he's dealing with. Marcus Crawford needs me far more than I need him. That's for damn sure.\"\n\nClearly no love lost between these two, but how could things seemingly go so bad in a year's time? For anyone to dig their heels in the way Michael was and react as he did screamed of far bigger issues than deciding when and where to open new locations. It's as if the pupil had now become the teacher\u2014only problem is that Michael wasn't ready for forced retirement. I understood more than Michael gave me credit for. True, I should have told him about the dinner, but my words and time spent had somehow influenced Marcus, which was good. Marcus's being invited to his home at a crisis moment by his spouse, whose attention should have been on their child, should have been the issue. Once again a glimpse into their dynamic that left more questions than answers\u2014at least in my mind.\n\nHearing him calm and knowing now exactly what he needed to hear, I said, \"I understand. You're right. It won't happen again.\"\n\nHanging up the phone, I vowed to speak with him about my presence at the impending Decor shoot when the time presented itself. Raymond, having observed the entire exchange, placed a single shot of tequila in front of me as soon as the receiver touched the cradle.\n\n\"You handled yourself well,\" he offered.\n\nFeeling more vilified than vindicated, I replied, \"Thanks, Raymond,\" and looked down at the cup. \"Wrong T, though. I'll take a chamomile tea instead of tequila.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"Michael is full of hot air, just fall back and let this partner drama fade, or next time you may have to let him touch more than your upper thigh to keep your job. As for Keith, cut your losses and kiss the sky instead of mourning something that was nothing more than a glorified booty call.\"\n\n\"Blakes, you can be incredibly crass at times. Correction, more times than not,\" I said between bites of salad. \"Remind me again why it is that I called you and not Joy.\"\n\n\"Because she will placate you and tell you a bunch of bullshit to continue the pity party you have going instead of helping you to live in the truth,\" said Blake.\n\n\"And what would that be, exactly?\" I inquired.\n\n\"The truth, little Julesea . . .\"\n\n\"Uh, really, you must stop that,\" I said. Once upon a time, maybe over cocktails or the sort, I told Blake my full name. To my dismay she actually has the ability to retain much more than credit card numbers, because whenever she needed to emphasize a point and silence me momentarily, it was total recall.\n\n\"Whatever.\" Blake was in full stride and not about to be deterred. \"Truth is, not every person who enters your life is supposed to be there for the long haul, even when they have the ability to make your toes curl. In reality, most of them are temporary transients. Keith was a 'jump-off' because you needed desperately to get lubed. Now that squeak has been properly knocked out and you can get back on the highway of life.\"\n\n\"Why is it I feel like a 1979 Volkswagen Beetle?\"\n\n\"It's better than the spider\/cobweb metaphor I was going to use.\" She snickered at her quip. \"Seriously, though, Jules. Don't create a problem where there is none. Listen, I have to jump, weekly staff meeting, but let's go out soon. We'll go to Life. You're always good Big Daddy bait for me. Who knows, maybe I'll even invite the old girl\u2014Richard could use some loosening up.\"\n\nHanging up the phone, I wondered if Blake was right about people and partners being transient. Sure, Keith and I had never spoken about our future, as a couple, but there was something\u2014feels like melancholy\u2014to be said for no longer having the option to explore \"What does this mean?\" Now, in spite of everything, all that's left are a few memories of \"What could have been if.\" Those are the worst; like little leprechauns, always filled with promise at the end of a fictitious rainbow that will never deliver a pot of gold. \"Mama knows,\" that's what Cora always says. She also says that bad things, like good things, come in threes, just at an accelerated pace. Maybe that is the feeling of discontent stirring inside.\n\nIt was a little after 6 p.m. when I exited the 6 train at Seventy-seventh and Lexington, but nightfall had yet to fully engulf the city, so I allowed myself to stroll and window-shop. The tips of the trees seemed fatter this evening, despite the mounds of dirty snow scattered about the sidewalk. A clear sign that warmer weather was around the corner. At least that was my hope. I wonder if anyone told that groundhog? Lazy ass. Approaching my building, I didn't expect to see Percy standing outside under the heat lamps placed discreetly along the awning above.\n\n\"Hi, Percy, when did you start working evenings?\"\n\nTipping his hat as he pulled the door open, he said, \"Miss Jules, I normally don't, but Ivan couldn't make it tonight, so here I am.\"\n\n\"You sure are. It's a cold one tonight. Hopefully there won't be much foot traffic that keeps you outside.\"\n\n\"I can only pray, but you know I don't mind. No, ma'am, I do what is needed to get the job done 'round here,\" said Percy.\n\n\"True. Well, take care,\" I said, escaping into the building before he started to run the laundry list of all that he does daily to make our lives easier. In the course of our regular interactions, I had come to realize that everyone has this incessant need to be a star in their contribution\u2014especially doormen.\n\nRounding the corridor from the mailboxes, I glimpsed Percy talking to Mitzy\u2014clearly strike one, and I didn't know which one to feel sorrier for on this eve. Definitely Percy. Time had not made Mitzy and me any closer as cordial neighbors go. And try as I might, the sound of her voice and her prissy mannerisms just brought out the worst in me. So much so that on the day I had the misfortune of running into her in the fragrance department at Saks, the image of fucking her husband in her bed was the only reprieve from a positively mind-numbing conversation. Obviously, I would have to be really drunk, popping E, and he would have to shed about fifty or so pounds.\n\n\"All right now, Mrs. Bloomfield, you have a good night and let me know how that is coming along,\" said Percy, to my chagrin.\n\nDarn it, where in the hell is this elevator? Seriously, all the freaking money in this building and it must have the slowest elevator on the island. Maybe she'll check the mail first and I can just avoid her . . . or maybe not.\n\n\"Well, hello, Jules. It has been forever. The girls and I were starting to think you had left us.\"\n\n\"No such luck, Mitzy. I'm here.\"\n\n\"So I see,\" she said, sizing me up as if it were the first time we had ever met. \"In that case, how are you settling in?\"\n\n\"Just fine,\" I respond, keeping my eyes fixed on the ascending lighted numbers of the elevator panel: 2 . . . 3 . . . 4.\n\n\"The girls and I saw the piece on your apartment in Decor. It was quaint, not exactly my taste, but seems fitting for you,\" said Mitzy. \"Was that Marcus Crawford I saw walking with you sometime back? There I was, out for my morning run through the park, and surprise\u2014you and Marcus. At first I wasn't certain, I mean, after all, I normally see him with the tall, glamorous girls, one after the other\u2014funny, isn't it? I can't believe I remembered such a thing after all this time.\"\n\nDamn, why does she try me every time? One day I will be mature enough to ignore her kind. Today, however, is not that day. \"Mitzy,\" I say, looking at her admiringly, \"what moisturizer are you using these days?\"\n\n\"Chantecaille, of course. It is the best! Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"Last time I saw you there were all of these lines around your eyes and mouth. Far more than there are now. I was just wondering. I thought it was La Mer. Stuff works wonders, wouldn't you say? Like spackle, it is.\" Ding, talk about perfect timing. Thank you, elevator. Stepping into the empty car, I turned to see Mitzy, still on the opposite side of the threshold\u2014mouth open and pearls clenched. I thought to reach down and hand her back her face but opted not to. Why try being a considerate person now? Let it stay on the floor. \"You coming? No? Have a good night then.\" Oh yeah, that was much better than envisioning sleeping with her chub of a husband. Much better.\n\n## 28\n\n* * *\n\n## A GIFT HORSE\n\nTo the woman who knows her way around a kitchen and a music catalog, you are full of surprises. Jules, I really enjoyed dinner (and the walk). Sorry it took so long for me to tell you.\n\nSoon,\n\nMarcus\n\n\"Well, he certainly has great taste in stationery and nice penmanship. What is this, Cartier?\"\n\nSnatching the note, I said, \"Richard, I need you to focus. Like he really wrote this! Who does this guy think he is? Like some candle and note will\u2014\n\n\"Not some candle. Diptyque, dear,\" Richard corrected, sniffing the contents of the box again.\n\n\"Focus, will you?\" I repeated. \"It's just some wax and a wick in a sixty-five-dollar box. A candle and a note\u2014\"\n\n\"Cartier, my dear, not a note. Will what? Make you accept his heartfelt thank-you and express his obvious good manners?\"\n\n\"You know, that is the problem with you, Boulton. You get caught in the gestures. Let's not forget this 'beacon of etiquette' almost cost me my job, and is a bully.\"\n\n\"Slightly exaggerated, don't you think?\" asked Richard. \"I assume that last bit was about Michael? You need to focus on how this man is with you and let Michael fight his own battles.\"\n\n\"Maybe, maybe not,\" I said.\n\n\"What did he have to say for himself?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I haven't seen him since. I come home a few nights ago and this package is sitting at the door,\" I say, raising the gardenia-scented Dipytque candle and note in each hand as exhibits A and B.\n\n\"So, basically, you are being irrational because what? Because you still have yet to decide how many shades of pissed-off to be. Or maybe you are flattered but too stubborn to admit it. And maybe, just maybe, you want a talking point. Where's the cornmeal?\"\n\n\"I reject all of the above. Cornmeal, left cabinet above the stove.\"\n\nAfter opening and closing just about every cabinet and drawer in my kitchen, only to come up empty, Richard pleaded, \"Please tell me you have a cast-iron skillet.\"\n\n\"Of course. They were on the list you sent Jacklyn, weren't they? Look in the oven.\"\n\n\"Gawd, you are from the islands\u2014your people. These haven't been seasoned,\" said Richard, removing the still-wrapped trio from the oven and placing them in front of me with a bottle of cooking oil. After a beat or two of me making no motion toward them, Richard instructed, \"Don't just sit there looking at me all lost. Get to rubbing oil in each. Those pans won't season themselves.\"\n\nFor years I have said that Richard is going to make a great wife when it is legally permissible to be such. Tonight was but another example of that, and I reaped the benefits of his nesting tendencies. As payback for accompanying him to some dreadful intellectual event at the Princeton Club, he had agreed to cook me a meal of braised short ribs, macaroni and cheese with cauliflower, green beans, and corn bread. Provided we were not in a food coma afterward, a tryst at Life with Blake was in order.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSince my time in London, Life had become the hottest nightclub in town, making the Village a nighttime haven once again. Word had spread throughout the boroughs that if you were about anything\u2014New Jack Swing, high fashion, or otherwise\u2014then you were a Tuesday or Thursday fixture. What was not discussed as much was the delineation of being \"in.\" Entrance was gained only through one source, Kane, the Pimp Daddy\u2013clad doorman. His eye for spotting supermodels and rock stars rivaled his awareness of less recognizable publishing and financial scions whose power was represented only by their title as seen in WSJ, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, and Forbes. When a patron made it to him, they were directed to one of two locations: the curtain on the right (for the majority) or the discreet staircase located behind the hostess (for the aforementioned models and scions). The rule of thumb was pretty simple: If you had to stand in the line that wrapped around Sullivan Street, then you went to the right. Although away for only a brief time, if it were not for Richard and Blake remaining fixtures on the scene, I might have found myself in that line. \"Out of sight, out of mind\" is the decree of New York club culture. If you walked directly to the front, never taking notice of the revelers in wait, shivering in their skivvies only to have Kane lift the ropes, kiss your cheeks, and stamp your hand, then it was down the stairs you went. Once during a rush to the loo I ventured upstairs wondering how crowded the line to the bathroom could be, considering everyone of note was smashed downstairs. Grossly mistaken! The vibe was decisively different, more pedestrian, with pop music, and packed, so I completed my business and headed back to the subterranean level.\n\nThose lucky enough to go downstairs found a dark, narrow maze of little alcoves that prohibited anyone from reminiscing about Studio 54. DJ Mark Ronson's lithe body behind the turntables\u2014or maybe his volume of crates loaded with vinyls\u2014was the first thing one saw at the base of the stairs. The dance floor and aisles always melded into one. For, in a city like NYC, \"those in the know\" could pack a hundred rooms of this size many times over, yet somehow they all made do with these cramped quarters. On this night, Blake had arrived before us and secured a prime table across from Mark, ensuring the best location to watch people arriving and be watched.\n\n\"Hi, kittens,\" she said, unlacing her supple limbs from the current big spender captivating her attention. And paying handsomely for it, I might add. Meow.\n\n\"Honey, I love it,\" exclaimed Richard at the sight of Blake in an emerald strapless silk jersey jumper accented with a chunky gold belt, earrings, and cuffs.\n\n\"I was worried you guys weren't coming out,\" said Blake.\n\n\"We almost didn't. Richard threw down in the kitchen. I couldn't stop eating,\" I said.\n\n\"No worries, though. I forcibly removed the fork from her hand to ensure she would fit into that dress,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Thank goodness, or all of this would not have been possible,\" I said, gesturing to my long-sleeved, black lace minidress with nude lining and black suede pumps. Not wanting to contend with deflating hair, I pinned it in a purposefully messy chignon, finishing the look off with a pair of diamond studs.\n\n\"Well, you look great,\" said Blake's date. I couldn't be sure if his compliment was genuine or as a point of entry, because more than five minutes or so had passed and Blake still hadn't made introductions. With Blake, whether it was purposeful game play or absentmindedness was anyone's guess.\n\n\"And you are?\" asked Richard, extending his hand.\n\n\"Peter Emmanuel, you?\" Nice. He has the right amount of salt and pepper that is clearly perfected by some overpriced stylist who only makes office visits because a man like this would never go to a salon unless it meant waiting out front in his chauffeur-driven car for his lady fair.\n\n\"Richard, and this one is Jules.\"\n\n\"Good to meet you, Blake has told me a lot about you both,\" said Peter.\n\n\"I bet she has,\" Richard said, cutting a side-eye in Blake's direction.\n\nLeaning over to Peter, I said, \"Don't mind them. It's their way, like vultures to each other they are. Consider it constant entertainment or an extreme example of bitches marking their territory.\"\n\nQuickly Peter established himself as the host of the evening, making certain that the bottles kept coming. He and Richard found themselves in talk of financial policy and fiscal responsibility that bored Blake and me no end. Thankfully, the initial bars of Michael Jackson's \"Baby Be Mine\" came to the rescue, transporting us out of our seats and to the dance floor.\n\n\"Peter seems nice,\" I say.\n\n\"Huh?\" said Blake, mid-two-step and finger pop.\n\nMoving closer to her ear and yelling, I said, \"Peeeter seems nice.\"\n\nNodding, she said, \"Oh yeah, he is nice enough, but you know\"\u2014she glanced in the direction of the table\u2014\"not perfect.\"\n\n\"Lord, Blakes, give him a chance,\" I implored.\n\n\"We'll see,\" she said, wrinkling her face before being overcome by the melody. \"I love this song. Wooo, baby-be-mine. Woooo.\"\n\nMark's masterful selection of songs made it impossible to leave the dance floor for the next thirty minutes or so. Had it not been for the beads of sweat forming on Blake's d\u00e9colletage, I would have remained, but public perspiration is a party foul of unforgivable magnitude for her. I'll never forget the first time she told me, \"Jules, the only time men want to envision a woman sweating is when she is on her back, comprende?\"\n\n\"Time to do a twirl around the room,\" she said, grabbing my hand. The purpose being to see who in the room was potentially more interesting than her date. Squeezing through tight groupings of partiers is like the game Operation. How close can you get to the edge of grazing a boob or an ass before the buzzer goes off and someone calls party foul? We stopped a few times to greet friends. On the final loop back to our table, Blake spotted a table of substantially more potential and gave the signal to say \"target identified\"\u2014two firm hand squeezes translates to \"stand in view of the target and mentally will him to approach.\" For Blake this normally happened within minutes of assuming the position. In this case, I could not be sure if the target was one specific person or the entire table, however big it was. With bodies everywhere, I only got a glimpse of a right shoulder and French cuffs.\n\n\"Is he looking?\" asked Blake.\n\n\"I can't tell. You're closer than me.\"\n\n\"Damn it. Okay, here goes,\" she said, spinning around.\n\n\"Ouch, watch the ponytail, sister. I am standing here,\" I said, after receiving a mouthful of hair.\n\nThrough clenched teeth, Blake mouthed, \"Sorry, J. He's watching, game on. Bingo. He's on the move.\"\n\nIn the moment that Mr. Potentially More or the representative approached and whispered the magic words that would bring us to his table, my eyes caught sight of Angie\u2014strike two\u2014standing less than six feet away. I had not seen her since the scene at Tony's apartment, when I discovered them together, and while I had made peace with his betrayal, I had not even begun to deal with hers. For what it's worth, Angie was a friend. Not a bestie but a friend . . . A friend who was fucking my man while smiling in my face, mind you, but a friend nonetheless\u2014or so I thought. Maybe not in the Richard, Blake, and Joy kind of way but a friend who was in the circle and expected to abide by the Code. Somehow she lost all meaning the moment Tony wrested the bottle from my hand, and yet in this very instant, the weight of her is too much to bear. She is all that I can see, all that I can feel. Unable to breathe, I need to get the hell out before she sees me and forces a situation beyond my control. Freeing my fingers from Blake's, I don't wait to explain. She would discover my absence soon enough, shake it off, and focus on her prey.\n\nForcibly pushing past people with abandon, I needed to make it to the surface. The dress prevented me from scaling the stairs two at a time. Richard called my name. I could not stop. Reaching the top, I was besieged by a large group awaiting entrance to the curtained room, providing enough time for him to reach me.\n\n\"Honey, is everything okay? I was calling your name,\" he said. When I turned to face him, my hands were shaking. Clearly I was far from all right. \"Oh, dear. What is wrong? Did something happen?\" For a minute or so I only nodded.\n\n\"She's here,\" I said, mistakenly expecting immediate recognition.\n\nSearching the room blindly, Richard asked, \"Who? Who's here?\"\n\n\"Angie. She's here. I saw her on the other side.\"\n\n\"Did she see you?\"\n\nI shook my head. \"No, I don't think so.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear.\"\n\n\"You said that already. Say something else.\"\n\n\"Do you want to leave?\" asked Richard.\n\n\"I don't know. I don't think so, but I don't know what I want to do to her. Do I cuss her out? Do I leave? Do I finish what I started two years ago and beat her ass?\"\n\n\"Definitely not the first or the last. You know how much I detest social scenes. Besides, penitentiaries give me hives. The uniforms are awful and the last thing this ole girl needs is to claw some tacky bitch.\" After a beat, Richard offered, \"But I will if that's what you want. You know what, I may even enjoy it. It has been a long time since I checked somebody.\" Fully taking him in, standing before me in a dark bow tie, checked shirt, and seersucker trousers, brought a smile to my face that was a precursor to sidesplitting laughter. \"What's so funny? I could scrap back in\u2014\"\n\nStill laughing, I helped him finish the sentence: \"\u2014the day. Ohhhhh baby, I bet you did, but not today. Not over that,\" I said. \"I'm okay. I promise. Just a little caught off guard and shaken is all. I'm okay.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"I promise. I'm great. How could I not be? I am here looking pretty good. You've got my back and that is my song!\"\n\nExtending his arm, Richard escorted me back down the stairs. I may have exited like Carrie but I reentered like the Homecoming Queen. \"Honey, where is Blake?\" he asked, steps away from the table where Peter now sat in the company of a baby-model creature. \"Her man is great but may not be hers for long.\"\n\n\"She's shopping but not to worry. It is Blake, after all.\"\n\nAt the table I guzzled a shot of Patr\u00f3n with urgency. As the lime splashed each taste bud, I lived in the awareness that Angie was never the problem. She was as much a by-product as I was a victim. Now thankfully a by-product whose Latina predilection for rice and beans and pastelitos de guava had transformed her once cute hourglass figure into something more science fiction, almost lava lamp\u2013esque. But I digress. The reason I forgot her immediately is because, whether or not she had slept with Tony, he and I still would have ended because we were never meant to be. She was just an excuse to prolong the hurt. I am sooooo damn done with hurting and done with running.\n\n\"And what do we have here?\" Blake said on returning to the table to find Peter fully engaged in a rather intimate conversation with the baby-model creature. Definitely not a man to be played, he threw Blake a look to say, \"I don't wait, ever.\" To which she pronounced \"Closure\" and sat on his lap, creating an awkward moment for all except her and Peter.\n\nToward night's end Blake confessed that she was not worried about Peter in the least because true to form she had found Mr. Potentially More at that table and he was even the right age to go half on a few babies. After which she would have a surgeon repair whatever childbirth stretched or lowered. Saying our good-byes out front, Richard was the first to stumble off, vowing to catch the late crowd at Raoul's before calling it a night. Peter's car was in front.\n\n\"Jules, would you like us to drop you home?\" he asked.\n\n\"Thank you, but no. I'm going uptown and you're just down the street. Don't worry, I'll take a taxi.\"\n\n\"In that case, allow me,\" said Peter, stepping into the street and stopping the only available taxi in the cluster of cars cruising Bleecker Street. \"Here we go.\"\n\n\"Perfect. I do hope that I will see you again, Peter,\" I said, giving both him and Blake the same amount of intensity, as they were truly birds of a feather.\n\n\"Of course,\" Blake said, hugging me tightly but not releasing until she whispered in my ear, \"Maybe\u2014we'll see.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nExiting the taxi put me face-to-face with the third strike, Marcus. It was too late for him to be leaving, so I assumed that, like me, he was just getting in as well from who knows where. He was standing at the doors in conversation with Ivan, who was now back on night duty. Seeing them, I debated hailing another cab and heading to Raoul's, where Richard was, but I feared it would draw too much attention, as Ivan was preconditioned for yellow. Then I thought it might be better to walk around the block, giving Marcus ample time to wrap up his conversation and go inside. That is, until the wind swept down Fifth Avenue through my barely there dress, making my final inebriated option seem most plausible: rush past them, in the hope that they would be so engrossed in conversation I could make it into the building onto a waiting elevator and into the safety of my apartment without having to engage Marcus. Hmmm, it's possible. Head down, shoes off, direct my energy elsewhere\u2014anyplace other than on them\u2014and walk softly yet briskly. Nice, a few more steps and you're inside. Yes, quiet mind, focus. Yes\u2014damn doorman! \"Evening, Ms. Sinclair,\" said Ivan. I'm going to remember this come Christmas when you are looking for a gift.\n\nShit, I am so busted. Makes no never mind, just mumble something, nod, and keep walking. Maybe I can make it to the elevator before\u2014\n\n\"Ivan, I'll catch you later. Jules, hold on,\" said Marcus. Quickening his pace to fall in step with me, he said, \"Jules, did you hear me?\"\n\n\"I heard you. I just wish you would stop speaking and saying my name is all.\"\n\n\"Whoa, not sure what I did to deserve that, but okay . . . I guess. Did you get my note? I know it's a couple of weeks late but\u2014\"\n\nStopping abruptly to face him, I said, \"Seriously, you have no clue? I pegged you for a lot, Marcus Crawford: narcissistic, indulgent, arrogant clearly, but clueless? Not so much.\"\n\nTrying to make sense of my attack and clear his head from earlier festivities, he said, \"Okay, I'll bite. Whatever it is that you think I did, I apologize.\" The seductive whiskey notes of spice and vanilla still lingered on his breath. Ivan was now standing inside the lobby by the door fully within earshot of our conversation, although he was pretending not to listen.\n\n\"You know exactly what you did. I expected more from you. Much more,\" I said emphatically. \"Was that part of your plan all along?\" I continued not leaving the space for him to respond or defend himself. \"To come into my home, gain my confidence, pretend to be my friend, and then use whatever little crumbs of information you had to hurt me. Oh wait! What am I talking about? Hurt me? You don't even know me and could care two cents about me. Hell, I'm just a pawn for you to get one over on Michael. I'm shocked you didn't tell him about our walk or running into each other at Pastis while you were at it.\" I could see the intoxicated clouds in his mind parting in order to allow the light of recognition for misgivings to become solvent. \"It doesn't matter that I could have lost my job over nothing, an innocent freaking dinner. It doesn't even matter to you that my boss now questions my loyalty.\"\n\nReaching out to quiet me down, he said, \"Jules, shhh, shhh, my bad. It's not what I meant to happen. Honestly, you have to believe me.\"\n\n\"Did you just shush me? Don't touch me. I don't believe anything you say,\" I shouted, now drawing the overt attention of Ivan, as I pounded the elevator call button again. \"Who do you think you are anyway\u2014shushing me like that? You can't just go around\u2014\"\n\n\"I did shush you, I was wrong. I'm sorry truly. Forgive me? I didn't think it would impact you like that,\" said Marcus, lowering his head as the full weight of my situation washed over him. \"Mike is just so damn smug sometimes and I thought\u2014\"\n\n\"Next time keep me out of your thoughts, okay?\" Stepping into the elevator with the expectation of watching the doors close in his pompous face, I turned to find Marcus within inches of me. For a moment I was overcome by the sheer magnitude of his presence towering above me, and the all-consuming fragrance it created, rendering my senses temporarily inoperable. I think this is what they call chemistry. If you kissed me right now, I would let you. No! N-o!! This guy is not . . .\n\n\"That's hard to do, Jules. I've thought about you since the day we met\u2014been thinking about you even more so of late.\"\n\n\"Like I said, I believe nothing you say,\" I said, moving to the opposite side of the elevator car.\n\n\"Well, it seems I will have to work harder on that.\"\n\n\"Don't trouble yourself on my behalf. Trust me, I'm not that important to the games that you men play.\"\n\nThe elevator doors opening on the seventh floor signaled the much-needed end to our conversation. \"But you are. You'll see,\" said Marcus, placing his body between the doors, freezing time until he was certain his overture was clear.\n\nLater, as I was lying in bed drunk and alone, clad only in a bra and panties, my heart was beating far faster than the swirl of questions running through my mind. It's just the culmination of the three strikes, I told myself. Problem is, when it comes to the last, to Marcus, my head and my emotions are sending mixed signals. The incessant blinking on the answering machine proved a much-needed distraction, sort of.\n\n\"Julesea, it's Cora. Call your father. He would like to come and visit you on his vacation this year.\" Worst timing ever that woman has.\n\nThe clock on the nightstand said 2:51 a.m., far too late to phone her back. Just as well, I was so freaking tired. Reaching over to turn out the lights, I felt my phone vibrate under me\u2014clearly a cosmic joke. The caller ID said Blake.\n\n\"Shouldn't you be having sex or something of the like so I can live vicariously through you?\" I asked.\n\n\"Not tonight. Peter could have got some if he played his cards right but the baby-model creature changed all that.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I forgot how territorial you can be. Poor guy has no clue what he is in for.\"\n\n\"Poor him? Poor me! I met the most amazing guy tonight and couldn't even thoroughly enjoy it because of Peter. I mean really, what gives with that?\"\n\n\"You can't be serious, Blake.\"\n\n\"Oh, am I ever,\" she cooed. \"He's not like the guys I normally go out with.\"\n\nSarcastically, I said, \"In what way? He's not in the midst of divorcing his second wife and replacing his current paramour with you?\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"Seriously, Blakesy, you are a piece of work.\"\n\n\"And you are spending far too much time with Richard. Being snide is becoming far too easy for you, Julesy. So the thing is, this guy didn't immediately fall over me, although I could tell he was interested. He made me work for it. He didn't even ask for my phone number. I had to give it to the representative who came over initially and do the ole bait-and-switch . . . I'm intrigued.\"\n\n\"Wow, I would have paid money to see that,\" I said. \"Maybe you've met your match.\"\n\n\"Speaking of which, where in the hell did you dip off to? I turned for backup and you were gone. I really needed you to engage the friend, who was far too eager in the details of me but clearly standing on a slimmer wallet. What gives?\"\n\n\"Oh, my. That is definitely not a conversation for the phone, especially at this hour. I have an early day tomorrow, so I need to get some shut-eye. Allow me to get through this kick-off, and we'll discuss,\" I said.\n\n## 29\n\n* * *\n\n## PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY\n\nWHAT KIND OF name is Punxsutawney Phil, anyway? He saw his shadow all right, and took me right back into the burrow with him. It's as if I went to bed last night, in the dead of winter, only to awake and find myself in the midst of New York's emotional prespring alert but oblivious to the details in between\u2014with the exception of work and home. Sad as it might be, the most consistent man in my life of late has been Michael (and Daddy, of course, but he's perfect for the most part), for whom I have much respect but had caused great injury to. I wanted nothing more than to repair things with him, even if it meant an entire chunk of my life had gone missing. So, as a show of solidarity, I lived and breathed Carly's.\n\nThe holiday music series had been a smashing hit. We made a profit and got amazing press out of it despite the diva demands of some of the performers\u2014or should I say their handlers, who were oftentimes far worse than the artists themselves. As a result, Michael had a \"life is too short\" epiphany, as I like to call them. Sure, being sold out every night with a wait list was fantastic, but the headaches and erratic energy that resulted underscored the elusive magic that was Carly's. In return, Michael charged me with the task of securing a single performer to do residency. To paraphrase him: \"It's not enough that she can sing or has sold some records. I need a motherfucker who can keep this place packed, bring in some special guests, and impress me enough to sit and watch every night for the next four months like it was the first time.\" It was the latter that I feared would prove my undoing. Was he insane? We were in the midst of a hip-hop revolution. He was describing the Spice Girls\u2014not a jazz or soul singer. The way I saw it, the only game in town that had accomplished this was the Carlyle, and they already had Bobby and Eartha with a decisively older crowd and much smaller room. Carly's was hipper and less antiquated. Its crowd wasn't still living in the heyday of Jackie O, Warhol, and Maria Callas. The Carly's patron was living for Kate Moss, Keith Haring, and Russell Simmons, so who was out there with enough swagger and gravitas?\n\nThe answer actually found me one night, thanks to Cora. After much debate, she and Dad had come up from Virginia to spend the week with me. Daddy, who seldom takes a holiday, had wanted\u2014as I learned\u2014to return to Jamaica to spend some time with friends. Cora, as I had thought, was not having it. New York held the lure of endless shopping, Broadway shows, and an up close and personal look at my life, emphasis being on pointing out all that is lacking. In typical Cora fashion, she had their entire stay planned to the smallest detail. The only saving grace for me\u2014poor Daddy\u2014was that my days were consumed with work, so lunch at Tavern on the Green, with all those camera-happy tourists, and walks through Times Square, bobbing and weaving through more camera-happy tourists and TRL audience members, was out for me. My nights, however, were a different story indeed.\n\n\"How much work can a woman do?\" asked Cora, when I thought to use it as an excuse for why I would not be available a couple of evenings. \"This is exactly why you girls today are single. You work far too hard for nothing and have no time to focus on finding a husband.\" One of her favorite tirades when it benefited her. Daddy sat across from me with the same compassionate look that he has given me since I became old enough to be Cora's reflection. More for him than for myself, I felt sad. Normally he was the one with work to escape to, but this week\u2014his only week of rest\u2014it was either him or me in the crosshairs of the Santa Ana wind known as Cora Madeline Augustus-Sinclair, aka Mommy. When viewed from that vantage point, it seemed only fitting that with him taking day duty, being pulled around the city like a poodle to look at a whole manner of things he could care less about and nothing he was actually interested in, I would make myself available as much as possible.\n\nOn this particular evening Cora had music on her mind and made plans for us to see Nancy Wilson at the Blue Note. Everything about Nancy, from her voice to her command over men, pleased Cora, and had for more than thirty-five years. To hear her tell it, Nancy was the first great love of her life \"in a respectable, decent way,\" and then came Daddy. For it was by Nancy's example that she was able to lure him in the first place. Being a child in Jamaica, where the caste system still prevailed, it was rare to find images of beauty in a package that looked like hers. True, Cora may have been half Dutch, but that was relegated to her bluish gray eyes and \"good hair,\" which made a striking contrast to her molasses-colored skin.\n\nI grew up hearing stories about the first time she saw Nancy on television with Sammy Davis Jr. It was magical. Any woman who could hold her own with the Sammy and not be billed as a bimbo was someone to admire. Tonight, however, was Cora's opportunity to live her dream and be in the same room, breathing the same air, with her hero. Earlier in the day, following one of my uncontrollable nuisance spats with Cora, Daddy made it known that tonight was hers, so we (I) was to play nice, at least for the evening. My, how I love the way he loves this woman and makes the way for her easier, even when she thinks she is driving.\n\n\"Julesea, stop fidgeting, you'll mess up your hair,\" said Cora.\n\n\"Would that be so bad?\" I asked, having been reduced to childlike tendencies days earlier\u2014a record, really.\n\n\"Not if you would prefer to look like one of those hooligans off the street, no,\" she insisted.\n\nCatching a glimpse of myself in the mirror near the entrance of the Blue Note, I found that particular leap impossible. Heeding Daddy's plea for peace, I had allowed Cora to dress me for the evening. And while she resisted the urge to turn me into her clone, she could not resist cleaning me up properly in a manner she thought befitted the occasion. Feeling much more like we were attending Easter Sunday service than a jazz club, I chose to engage in an all too apparent battle with my clothes, as children often do when being forced to be presentable. When did Escada become appropriate for a twentysomething\u2014albeit a late twentysomething\u2014to wear? Maybe I missed that memo.\n\n\"The hatpins in this thing are sticking me,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, go to the ladies' room and adjust it, but don't ruin your chignon. Took me forever to get it right. We must get you a deep condition before I leave . . . The girl's hair is unruly, Charles. Always has been. She gets it from your side.\"\n\nExiting the bathroom, giving one last tug to my skirt, I ran into Marcus\u2014or should I say, crashed into him.\n\n\"Research or going over to the other side?\" he asked.\n\nOur last encounter aside, out of mind, I had to admit I was happy to see him\u2014a familiar face to endure the torture. \"You wish. Neither, I'm here to see Nancy, just because.\"\n\n\"Really?! I didn't know you were a fan. I don't recall seeing her music in your little collection,\" he said.\n\n\"Still hating on my musical stylings, I see. You know you were impressed,\" I said. I pointed in the direction of the table where my parents sat. \"I confess. I'm a total novice. My mother is the biggest Nancy fan on the planet.\"\n\n\"Cora, right?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, flattered that he remembered her name from that one dinner so long ago. I can barely remember the name of a person I met five minutes ago.\n\n\"Nancy is something. I try never to miss her when she's in town.\" I found myself smiling easily with Marcus, and for a brief moment it was as if there were no one else around. All that existed was now, a dimly lit room filled with the smell of cigarette smoke, chicken, and ghosts of music past. Not exactly the most storied of images but accurate nonetheless, and it was nice just like that\u2014no bells, no whistles.\n\n\"Really?\" I admit, I hadn't pegged him for the type.\n\n\"Oh, yeah. I think she was my first great love. With my friends I was drooling over Sheena Easton or Janet Jackson. Secretly, I was lovin' hard on some Nancy Wilson.\"\n\n\"Good Times Janet, Diff'rent Strokes Janet, or Fame Janet?\"\n\n\"Diff'rent Strokes, of course. Charlene was the most,\" replied Marcus incredulously.\n\n\"Well, I hate to tell you this, but my mother beat you to the punch, albeit from afar.\"\n\n\"You don't say,\" he said, looking over my shoulder in the direction of our table.\n\n\"Yep, she's been crushing on Nancy from back in the day in Negril.\"\n\n\"Well, I have never minded sharing, especially with a beautiful woman.\"\n\n\"I'll keep that in mind,\" I said, inadvertently flirting. Had I time to think beforehand or prepare myself for seeing him, surely my responses would have been more measured.\n\n\"I was hoping you would.\" The musicians' appearance onstage signaled the imminent start of the show and an abrupt end to our conversation.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"And who was that nice-looking man you were talking to, Julesea?\" asked Cora when I returned to the table. \"Him look like Paul New-man.\"\n\n\"Oh, Marcus. That's just my boss . . . sort of. I mean, he is an investor in Carly's is all, so he's like my boss but not really, whatever.\" Clearly I'm rambling\u2014why? I can hear myself and it sounds peculiar. Just stop talking, Jules. Stop talking.\n\n\"Don't look like any boss I have ever seen,\" said Cora, taking one last inventory of Marcus before turning her attention back to the stage.\n\n\"Well, that might be because you have never actually had one, Mommy dearest. Bosses, you know, are reserved for people with jobs,\" I said, unable to resist the open door. Even Daddy had to break character and laugh at that.\n\n\"Oh, hush up, Charles. You know I work. I have worked for the past thirty-one years keeping you together,\" she said, placing her hand on my forearm. Then, loud enough for Daddy to hear: \"The man would be lost if it weren't for me.\"\n\n\"Of course I would, dear. Of course. Who knows where I would be now, probably living in Delaware marriedt to Rosalyn wit a couple of . . .\" Daddy trailed off.\n\n\"A couple of delinquent children who are a menace to society. That is exactly where you would be if you were with that . . .\" replied Cora, sending them both into full-on hysterical laughter.\n\nTheir dynamic never ceased to amaze me. I used to think that her jealous cries were just for show but have come to know much better; they are part of the romantic dramedy that makes them the ultimate couple. From any distance it is clear to see that Daddy loves her from here to infinity. Her behavior, on the other hand, requires closer observation and analysis. But when you get it, Eureka! You realize that her love for him is her very essence\u2014without it there would be no reason to exist. Charles was the one before even she knew there was a choice.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe lights dimmed to reveal a single spotlight, in which Nancy stood. Having been familiar with her music did not prepare me for seeing Nancy. Mind you, I am not a fan of velvet and am often hard-pressed to acknowledge it ever works, in any construction, but this night, on her, it was magic: a bordeaux mermaid-cut gown with an open back, and it draped her body like silk. Her hair, short and layered with enhanced silver streaks throughout the black mane, created the perfect frame\u2014or halo as it were\u2014around her face, of which I am a major fan. This woman owned the room and every person in it with her sultry style and melodic voice. The way she glided around the stage as if she were entertaining at home and not to a room filled with fans mesmerized me.\n\nThe whole scene felt voyeuristic, especially regarding Cora and Charles, who, like Nancy, I felt like I was seeing for the first time. In the dim club light, Cora's eyes sparkled like diamonds transfixed on Nancy, but her heart was firmly in Charles's hand. With tender discretion, he was stroking her leg under the table, and she leaned in to kiss the side of his face, eliciting a secret smile whose meaning was only for them. If wearing this sorbet-colored knit suit and matching pillbox hat was the price to be paid for a front-row seat to true love, then so be it. As the evening progressed, Nancy transitioned from song to song with the fluidity of the greatest storyteller, even making loss beautiful, almost enviable.\n\n\"As many of you know, last year was extremely difficult. I found myself to be a child of the world without the two pillars of my world. Tonight is one of my first performances in a long time, so to tell you that I am overwhelmed with gratitude is, well . . .\" An explosion of applause and whistles drowned out whatever was to come next. \"Indeed, tonight is about firsts, first loves and first times, so I would like to dedicate the next song to Cora for the first time, '(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am' that you are here tonight. Thank you.\"\n\nThe force of Cora's nails digging into my flesh for stability caused enough pain to tell me that I was not having an out-of-body experience. Nancy Wilson had just said my mother's name and dedicated a song to her. Cora screamed, drawing the attention of the room, and then she went into some type of catatonic state that only melted as tears rolled down her cheeks, streaking the immaculate face that took an hour to put on. At that moment the entire world may not have existed for her, but I was quite curious to know the identity of Santa. Instinctively, I looked to my father, trying to read his mind and determine how he made this all possible. His eyes still bulging in bewilderment said to look elsewhere\u2014but where and how? Turning, instinctively, to my right, I found the answer. My eyes locked on Marcus's. There was no excessive grandeur in his presence, just immense sincerity. Overcome with emotion, I tried to mouth \"thank you\" but feared it was too little consolation to express what I truly felt, so I smiled, cupped my heart, and tried to keep the mass in my throat from spilling out. Thank you for the candle. Thank you for making my mom's reality surpass the dream. Thank you a million zillion times over. I'm sorry for being such a pain\u2014honest.\n\nAt night's end, once the lights came up, I searched for Marcus but couldn't find him, a fact that did not sit well with Cora. She wanted to see him, thank him properly. Unable to deliver him in person, I caved under the pressure from both of them and shared that he lived directly below me, should she want to thank him in person. Clearly, I was not lucid. Giving Cora this type of information, no matter how innocent, was like giving Kim Jung-Il a partial (and by \"partial\" I mean a completed) blueprint, sans physicist, with all the details of our nuclear program.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nFriday was their last night in town before returning to Virginia, so Daddy could finally get some rest before going back to work. Cora found it hard to believe that he felt he had not rested the entire time they were there. \"Something must be wrong with that man. All we have done is relax. We have gone to the Met, the Whitney, Central Park, SoHo, Saks, Bendel's, had tea at the Plaza, seen four plays, Alvin Ailey at Lincoln Center\u2014Revelations is just the best, Julesea\u2014and taken a boat around the island. How can he possibly be tired? And we didn't even get to see MoMA or go to the top of the Empire State Building.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding? I'm exhausted just listening to that list, much less being forced to do it all in only a few days, considering that many of them I haven't done in the entire time I have lived here,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, you know what I say,\" she began\u2014or, as I have come to call it, \"the answer portion of Cora Says\" during which I often remain quiet, knowing that every time she will respond before I can search for the answer. Selfish player she is. \"You only live once.\"\n\n\"Mom, I don't think you coined that phrase.\"\n\n\"Who cares, dear. It sounds best from my mouth. Get home early tonight. I am cooking all your favorites.\"\n\nSince I missed being home for the holidays over the past couple of years, this was indeed going to be a treat. Despite the fact that it is only for Dad and me, Cora has always cooked as if for a football team. From the foyer I could hear the familiar competition of the television and the music system. Some things never change. Cora always cooking to music, Dad transfixed by a continuous loop of sports. Independent of the space, they can have both systems going simultaneously at rather high levels without irritating each other. Odd as all hell it is, unless you grew up in it. Tonight, Stuart Scott and Lionel Ritchie were in a serious battle.\n\n\"Mom, Dad, I'm home.\"\n\n\"In here, Julesea.\" Placing my purse on the hall table, I followed Cora's voice into the kitchen. \"What took you so long?\"\n\n\"I know, sorry. I tried to get out earlier but couldn't. Michael has been on me to find a permanent act for the restaurant, which is proving difficult considering what he is offering. And of course, he is not the . . .\" My words trailed off as I realized that Cora had absolutely no interest in the minutiae of my work life. She seldom does, be it work, studies, friends, unless it relates to beauty, a current relationship, or the man who could be her future son-in-law\u2014she just zones out after two minutes or so, and that's being generous. I could force her attention by confessing that I made an offer to Nancy Wilson earlier, but why tempt fate? A premature confession of that kind would only set me up for ridicule of some sort in the event that I can't deliver.\n\n\"Everything looks so good. What can I do?\" I said.\n\n\"You can unload the dishwasher and put those in,\" she said, gesturing to the numerous pots and mixing bowls strewn about the counters, covering every available counter surface. There were trays of meat patties on the island, stews and beans brewing on the stove, tins of foil awaiting ackee and saltfish, fresh coco bread, and more, so much more. All that was missing was a steel-drum band playing \"One Love.\"\n\n\"Mommy, who do you think you are cooking for? I won't be able to finish all of this in a month, much less retain any hope of fitting into my clothes after.\"\n\n\"That's the idea. You're too skinny. You know me, I didn't want to say anything.\"\n\nSince when? I said, but only to myself.\n\n\"That time in London, with all that bad food, has you wasting away. Now, if you had been blessed with a curvy figure like the women from my side of the family, that would be fine, but you take after your father, lean and long with n' ass at t'all, really, so we have to be careful, don't we?\" That is always a statement more than a question. \"How will you ever be able to catch a man when you giving him nothing to hold on to? Thank goodness I'm here.\" Yes, thank goodness you are here, Cora, or else I just might start to feel a little too good about my entire day, a little too comfortable in my own skin. Thanks so much for reminding me of my genetic misfortunes.\n\n\"I guess looking like you counts for nothing, huh?\" I said sarcastically, hoping in vain that maybe, just maybe, she would suddenly develop the empathy to understand the power of her words, even after all these years riding on my psyche.\n\n\"I t'ank God for it every day,\" said Cora, raising her hands to the sky and looking up to give holy recognition of a prayer long answered. \"Heaven forbid you come into this world with a boy body, looking like your aunt Helen. Like I always say\"\u2014pause, wait for it, hold it\u2014\"a person walks forward not backward, so a beautiful face will get you farther in this world than having a big casaba melon for a booty. Remember that.\"\n\n\"Hence the problem, Cora. I remember too much, so it shocks me every day that I am able to wake up on my own, feeling good and somehow remembering that you do love me\u2014in your way.\"\n\n\"You're welcome.\" With her free hand, Cora grabbed my chin, admiring her greatest work. \"You are such an exceptional young woman, Jules. Mommy loves you every day, all day. Don't be nasty.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe music in the kitchen did little to drown out the heated conversation Daddy was having in the living room. \"Mom, who is Dad screaming at? Doesn't he know that Stuart Scott is broadcasting from a studio in Connecticut somewhere and cannot hear him?\"\n\n\"Oh, ignore him. He and Marcus have been going at it like that for over an hour now.\" Yes, I think this is when the room started spinning, but I'm not sure, entirely, because I temporarily lost my hearing. \"What?! Don't stand there looking at me like that. You heard me. Your Paul New-man boss-friend is here. He is in the\u2014\"\n\n\"Shhhhhhhhh . . .\" I said, creeping to the dining room door, attempting to peek outside so my eyes could confirm what my ears were hearing. From my vantage point, I could only see two half-empty beer bottles on the coffee table and the shadows of the TV screen, nothing else. I didn't see my dad or Marcus, although I could hear them. That is, until I turned around and there he stood in my kitchen, getting a spoonful preview of Cora's oxtail stew. To an outside person this whole scenario would seem completely plausible and wholesome, sweet even, but it's not. UGH . . . damn that Cora. I should go over there and shake the shit out of her, or at least until one eye rolls back. Why, why, WHY? Dad was the first to acknowledge me.\n\n\"Bunny, when did ya get in? Cora, why didn't ya tell me she was here?\" he asked, crossing over to kiss my cheek before opening the fridge for another beer. My eyes raced back and forth erratically between him, Cora, and Marcus, silently pleading with one of them to speak up and explain what in the hell happened to normal. Marcus, of course, was the one to break ranks.\n\n\"Jules, you didn't tell me your mom was such a wonderful cook. Now I know where you get it from,\" he said. Was that a flash of color? I think Cora's tail feathers just spread. Unreal, this woman!\n\n\"Apparently you are not the only one who is not told things,\" I said, cutting my eyes at Cora. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"What does it look like, chyle, he is havin' dinner,\" said Dad.\n\n\"Okay, but where?\"\n\n\"Here wit us. Is there a problem?\" asked Daddy.\n\n\"No, of course not, but um . . .\" I tried not to be an embarrassment to Daddy, who must be as mortified as I am at the imposition Cora has put us both in. \"I mean, I'm sure Marcus has other, better plans for the evening than to, you know, hang around . . . here . . . with us.\"\n\n\"You okay, bunny? Why you talkin' all funny and nervous-like?\" asked Dad. Not the response I was expecting, but let's ride with it.\n\nMarcus offered, \"True, I did . . . have other plans. That is, not better, just other, but I canceled them when your dad came down and asked me to join you guys.\"\n\n\"W-h-e-n my dad came down and asked you to join . . . us,\" I said, bobbing my head up and down with each word as if it would help the cerebral process. Cora stood off to one side with her arms folded, silently admonishing me for immediately placing the blame on her.\n\n\"Dear, what did I tell you about being repetitive?\" asked Cora.\n\n\"Good ting too. Did ya know he loves Jamaican food, even been to the Blue Mountains where my people's from? Small world it is, small world indeed,\" said Dad.\n\n\"Apparently,\" I said. My need for rescue thoroughly transparent, Cora ushered Marcus and Daddy from the kitchen, citing the need to put the finishing touches on dinner and leaving me free to scratch my head and wait for the ground below me to get firm.\n\n\"Mommy, how could you let him do this? Why would Daddy go to that man's apartment and force him to come to dinner? Did you send him?\" I'm sure my eyes pleaded with her in a manner that gave far too much away.\n\n\"Which question would you like me to answer?\" said Cora, returning to the stove.\n\n\"All of them! This makes no sense. It's like I can't escape this guy. I walk in the lobby, he's there. I come out of the bathroom, he's there. I come home, he's here. Whyyyy?\"\n\n\"Ummm. I see,\" said Cora, now giving me her full attention, which only made me feel more trapped, and needing desperately to push back, against anything.\n\n\"You see nothing, so don't start, woman.\"\n\n\"More than you, Julesea. I see everything. Now listen to me, pull yourself together and freshen up. I'll finish up things here. Go! Been laboring over this hot stove all day anyway.\"\n\nMy bed had been made from the morning, but was now covered with freshly washed and pressed clothes that Cora had collected. I collapse to the floor, staring at the ceiling, dazed and still confused\u2014surely the antithesis of what Cora had in mind when she said \"Pull yourself together,\" but that is what I am doing, and I plan on remaining here until someone tells me what in the hell is going on! The problem is not that I don't enjoy Marcus's company, because I do, in spite of myself. It's just that his presence in my life defies logical categorical placement, complicating things when what I need above all right now is easy, breezy, and uncomplicated. I need logic in the form of neat little bowed boxes with identifiable labels. In the beginning he was a cocky, well-coiffed guy I'd met out on a job interview, then he was a typical modelizer I ran into at lunch who, unbeknownst to me, is a partner in the company I now work for, and my neighbor and, while not so silent in his interest (in me and in the company), is in direct opposition to my boss and mentor. Then he goes and does that thing for my mom with Nancy. Most damaging of all, he is the first guy since Tony who makes me pit-of-the-stomach-near-faint nervous, to which the only defense is distance and total, complete avoidance.\n\nA quick shower to clear my head did assuage matters slightly. Although I did expect much more from the Holy Trinity\u2014maybe they were taking the night off. Putting on a pale pink cashmere sweater and white Hudson denims improved matters more. As Neon Deon Sanders always says, \"When you look good, you feel good, and when you feel good, you do good.\" But I needed to do more than good if I was to keep my wits about me tonight. Before leaving the room, I saw a message from Blake:\n\nDrinks tonight? Suddenly free\u2014don't ask. xo Blakes\n\nMore than you know but can't. Parents' last night in town. xJules\n\nLove THE Cora\u2014total riot!!! xo Blakes\n\nYou can have her. Seriously, take her and Daddy too! :-? xJules\n\nI must have details. TTFN. xo Blakes\n\n## 30\n\n* * *\n\n## A HEAP SEE BUT A FEW KNOW\n\nTHE GREATEST ABSURDITY of the evening had to be the moment Marcus and Daddy started singing 'Whatcha See Is What You Get.' I mean, they really thought they were the Dramatics or something. Insane.\"\n\n\"Darling, absurd is three adults, me being the most senior and knowing better, on a party-line call like it is 1986.\"\n\n\"Stop it, Richard. Three-way calls are the best. Don't listen to him, Jules. It sounds like a great evening. Keep going.\"\n\n\"Joy, I think I heard something drop on your line,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Huh, really? I wonder what,\" replied Joy.\n\n\"Your pom-poms, dear,\" said Richard.\n\n\"You are not as funny as you think.\"\n\n\"How would you know? We haven't seen you in forever,\" said Richard. \"Is that what happens when one leaves civilization and moves to Jersey? Now that is absurd.\"\n\n\"No. That is what happens when one has a full-time job, a husband, two children, PTA meetings, bake sales, and peewee football to contend with. Something that our Little Miss right here may be knowing soon enough,\" said Joy.\n\n\"Unless he is walking up to my door and ringing the bell, I don't see that happening anytime soon,\" I said.\n\n\"Darling, I hate to break it to you, but it sounds like he already did. As a matter of fact, not only has he rung twice and left a gift, your father invited him in and welcomed him to the table. I mean, unless I am misreading something . . .\" said Richard.\n\n\"Seriously, don't you have a speech or something to write? You know, utilizing that big brain of yours, less lip . . .\" I said.\n\n\"Play daft if you want, Julesea, but I find it all too interesting the way you and this young man are intersecting. Stop trying to fight the obvious.\"\n\n\"What is it with you? Have y'all been talking to Cora behind my back? Stop calling me that!\" I said, far from ready to have a direct \"What does this mean?\" conversation about my interaction-attraction to Marcus. \"We live in the same building, so that is bound to happen. Mystery solved.\"\n\n\"Joy, take over. Even if I didn't have to put the finishing touches on the finance speech, I am not in the mood to play 'hide and go get the truth from an emotionally stifled Jules Sinclair' tonight,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Would love to but can't right now. Jackson has taken off all his clothes again and is streaking through the house.\"\n\n\"Isn't that normal for a four-year-old?\" I asked.\n\n\"Who knows? And he is six,\" said Joy.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Jackson,\" replied Joy.\n\n\"Oh, definitely not normal!\" I said.\n\nEmotionally stifled seems a bit harsh, I believe. Emotionally reserved is fair; emotionally conservative much better and quite fiscal even. True, I was playing a game of cat and mouse with myself about this man and fooling no one who was aware of the situation. Thing is, my history tells me rather explicitly that falling in like, even in love, is the easy part when I meet someone who is the physical representation of everything I desire. Being acutely aware of how that actual manifestation impacts my life (voluntarily losing myself in the illusion of him as I do) is a far different matter. Right now I need a guaranteed leap of faith that I will not wake up one ominous day and realize I am exposed in this like-love that is unbearable alone. Besides, it was just dinner and dessert, at my home, with my parents, and it was . . . kinda glorious . . . nothing major, so why is it that I just can't go to bed and stop replaying the events of the other night?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"You know what your problem is, Julesea?\" asked Cora, once I finally sulked out of my room to help put the finishing touches on dinner.\n\n\"I love that you think I only have one, problem that is,\" I said. \"Give me ten minutes and surely I can rattle off a solid fifty or so, forty at minimum.\"\n\n\"You don't know how to live in the moment. I don't know where you got that from. Surely not me.\"\n\n\"Of course not. Nothing bad ever comes from your side, Mother.\"\n\nThinking it best not to encourage my dissent and remain on message, Cora continued, \"Look at you. Your father and I are here, a nice single handsome man is in the living room, who is obviously smitten with you. Daddy is happier at this moment than he has probably been the entire trip, but that seems to escape you, because you have decided, for some ungodly reason, to be unhappy. Well, I will not have it, you hear me? I didn't raise a child to be rude and inhospitable.\"\n\n\"This coming from the woman who dragged the poor man around the city like one of those purse dogs as she indulged herself. Of course he is having a good time. He's on estrogen overload, having mucked about with the two of us for the past week. Poor man'll latch on to any testosterone he can get.\"\n\n\"That, my dear, is the trade-off of marriage. It's in the fine print. If one day you are blessed to get out of your own way and actually live in the now, thereby gaining a husband and giving me some grandchildren\u2014trust me, you will do the same. Now, put these plates on the table and fetch Daddy and Marcus . . . ay ay\u2014with a smile, please.\"\n\nIt was much too early in the proceedings to do the quick shot of something I desperately needed in order to medicate myself into pleasantry. So I opted for a more acceptable approach. The way I figure it, whatever the wine doesn't soothe, the rum punch will. Dad led us in grace with one of his comically brief blessings that underscored the labor of love Cora had put into making each dish, forcing her to do a not-so-subtle sucking of the teeth. You know what they say, you can take the girl out of Jamaica but you can't take the Jamaica out of the girl, no matter how well coiffed her weekly blowout might make her.\n\n\"Mrs. Sinclair, everything looks so amazing. I don't know where to start,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Well, start wherever your eyes lead ya and your stomach will follow,\" said Daddy. \"My Cora is one of the finest cooks 'round, and that's no lie.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Charles. You know I do what I can,\" said Cora, badly feigning a truckload of modesty.\n\nI swear, even in replaying the whole evening from the comfort of my bed is like a scene from The Twilight Zone or some parallel universe: Cora pretending to be demure while silently commanding me, with laserlike glances, to speak up; Daddy and Marcus getting along as if they were old chums. What is it with this guy and his eerie ability to assimilate?\n\n\"So, Marcus, tell me,\" started Cora. Oh boy, that is never a good start to anything. \"Why is it you don't have someone special to cook for you at home?\"\n\n\"Mom!\" I shrieked in horror at her brazenness, causing me to cough uncontrollably and choke on my last bite. While recovering, I placed the napkin over my face and prayed for the quickest death possible.\n\n\"What, Julesea? I am asking him a simple question. Good-looking, successful young man like him. It makes no sense.\"\n\nLaughing and far from rattled at the inquest, Marcus said between bites, \"I hate to tell you this, but women today, at least in New York, don't cook like this. If they did, I'd be home.\"\n\n\"Sad but true, y'know. Girls today don't put a premium on family and making a good home. All they concerned wit is competin' in a man's world. Makes no sense,\" said Daddy. \"Never has.\"\n\n\"Daddy, how can you say such a thing? I work,\" I said.\n\n\"And I would prefer it if you didn't,\" he stated. \"Don't go lookin' at me like dis is the first tyme ya hearin' me say dis. You know why I work so hardt. So you and ya mother don't have to. Always have.\"\n\n\"And we appreciate it, Charles,\" said Cora, absentmindedly touching the new diamond-and-gold timepiece on her left wrist, which Daddy had purchased earlier in the week. \"Home triumphs over all when the commitment is there.\"\n\n\"I'm not saying I don't appreciate it, Daddy. I am just saying that one does not necessarily denote the other. I work and yet I can cook\u2014and will one day embrace balancing career and family.\"\n\n\"Ya listening to dis, Marcus? Balancing family,\" said Daddy. Having been out of the house for so long and for the most part having Cora as our intermediary, I forgot how chauvinistic Daddy could be about sex roles. I guess that is also a latent Marley trait.\n\n\"It's a fine line, sir. The values across the board on relationships have shifted. Men no longer seem to have the intrinsic desire to protect and provide for women as they once did,\" offered Marcus, to the complete surprise of Daddy, which made for an uncomfortable moment prompting a very pregnant pause before Marcus raced to do damage control. \"At least as far as I can see, sir.\"\n\n\"Is that all men or just you, Marcus?\" asked Cora, sounding more like a federal prosecutor than a housewife. Oh shit, I guarantee he is wishing that he didn't cancel those other plans.\n\nUnapologetically, Marcus said, \"My peer group, for certain, and myself. But you must understand that like anything else it is a matter of perspective.\"\n\n\"How can it be perspective when it is tradition?\" Cora asked impatiently.\n\n\"Well, in my defense, I have never experienced it, traditionally speaking,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Unless your mother was invisible, then I don't understand,\" said Cora.\n\n\"To the greatest degree she was. She left early enough for me not to remember anything specific about her other than her smile and perfume. My father and my nan raised me.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am sorry. I did not know,\" said Cora. \"I just assumed because you seem so well brought up . . .\"\n\n\"It's quite all right, really. My nan is a great woman. Between her and my pops, I wanted for nothing. If anything, my mom's absence motivated me to be the best. As a kid you think\u2014I thought\u2014if I was the best, then she'd come back. That kind of thing can give you fuel; did for me. Don't know why I said that.\"\n\nMoved by Marcus's revelation, I placed my hand atop his. \"I'm sorry too,\" I said, unaware of the unspoken exchange between my father and mother at witnessing the innocence of this gesture. Cora later commented that she perceived this as my first act of civility that evening.\n\n\"You know, last week I saw the same thing on Sally, but not Oprah,\" said Cora. Feeling the scrutiny off our blank stares, she said, \"What? I did. Sally could probably help is all I'm saying.\"\n\n\"Cora, what does ya' blasted daytime shows have ta do wit the boy never having a mother?\" asked Daddy, echoing the sentiment that was in my head. \"I swear, woman, sometimes I just don't know 'bout you.\"\n\nIll-timed or not, the table erupted in laughter. The tempo for the evening was now set. Marcus was no longer a visitor to be danced around or cajoled. As for my need to put him in a box, well, that too was of no importance. He was, at least for the duration of this dinner, a Sinclair and treated as such. That'll teach him.\n\nMaybe it was learning about his mother or my finally acknowledging my own inappropriateness, or maybe it was the second glass of rum punch, but all was good and no thoughts of \"what if\" or allegiance to Michael underscored the evening. There was more than enough laughter to be had at everyone's expense, which leveled the playing field considerably. Marcus learned quickly that Cora's flair for the dramatic extended far beyond tabloid television and that Daddy's Old World conservative sensibility made him risk-averse.\n\n\"I, for one, have never been comfortable playin' round wit my own money, much less having the responsibility for other people's,\" said Daddy.\n\n\"Yes, that can be daunting. However, it can also be an adrenaline rush all its own. To know that in one hour I can gain or lose more money than my ole man will make in his lifetime is lunacy. Temporarily, anyway. After a while, Charles, it becomes par for the course, and the amounts become ordinary, so you have to find the next rush.\"\n\n\"Marcus, that's easy ta say, when you are not the one on the losing end of a life savings, or an IRA,\" said Daddy.\n\n\"True, sir, but I have been, and knowing that feeling of grief, firsthand, is what makes me great at what I do. I know what it feels like to lose everything.\" Shaking his head in reflection of the amateur trap that the man he is today would never have fallen victim to. \"At the beginning, I invested all that I had, which wasn't much, mind you, into a sure thing, that was suppose to split. My intel being the best available so what looks crazy now seemed perfectly solid then,\" said Marcus, reaching for another serving of stew. \"Well, the stocks did split, more than tripling my investment, but I got greedy, stayed in, reinvested, and lost everything when they bottomed out just as quickly. From that moment on I said never again.\"\n\n\"See, so you don't even play the market.\"\n\n\"Hmm, not entirely true. I don't, from a personal position anymore, I do it only for strategic gain,\" said Marcus. \"I set clear long-term goals, remain objective and alert. The outcome is strictly business.\"\n\n\"Is that why you are in the restaurant business?\" asked Cora. \"People love good food and music, so that is always a money earner, yes.\"\n\n\"Actually, my business is about global acquisitions, and restructuring of companies with a more austere purpose, if you will. Of everything in my portfolio, Carly's holds the greatest risk because the decision at that time was not purely a business one. In general, restaurants are not very stable. They require an immense amount of start-up capital. Their success is subject to a number of factors, which only increase the potential rate of failure, and loss on capital put in.\"\n\n\"So, then, why would ya do such a thing when . . . I don't see it,\" said Daddy.\n\n\"When I just said, strategic gain and never again,\" Marcus said, shaking his head in recognition of the contradiction this posed to his earlier assertion. \"Let's just say, I owed a favor to a friend.\"\n\n\"Carly,\" I asked, feeling it was a query well within my right to ask, given the course of conversation and my relative silence until this point.\n\n\"No. Michael, actually,\" said Marcus, between mouthfuls of food.\n\n\"Really? I didn't know that,\" I said.\n\n\"After all the years that Mike kept me on track, it was the least I could do. Without him, this town would have gotten the best of me early on.\"\n\n\"Oh, I thought you were Carly's friend, not Michael's,\" I said, noticeably puzzled.\n\n\"Actually, Mike was the friend. Carly was and still is the client and, well, you know what they say about business and pleasure.\"\n\n\"Bad idea, never mix them,\" said Daddy.\n\n\"Right you are,\" responded Marcus. \"Learning that right now\u2014\"\n\n\"Surely there are exceptions to any rule,\" said Cora, looking from Marcus to me, and then back again, to make herself abundantly clear.\n\n\"Clearly, an exception is always possible given the proper motivation,\" said Marcus, taking the bait.\n\n\"Indeed,\" boasted Daddy.\n\n\"Okay, before the night gets any weirder, I am going to excuse myself and take a breather from this table while I can still walk and not roll away,\" I said, more concerned with the nonverbal covenant seemingly being forged.\n\n\"Good idea, bunny,\" said Daddy, patting his protruding, well-fed belly. \"Dat was some fine cooking, Cora. Fine indeed.\"\n\n\"I second and third that, Mrs. Sinclair,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Well, don't go getting all tired on me just yet. We still have dessert to look forward to,\" said Cora. \"Why don't you two go into the living room, Julesea and I will bring everything in.\"\n\nForever the gracious guest, Marcus began to clear some of the dishes from the table. \"Well, at least allow me to help.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, now. Put those tings down. Come have a cigar with me. Cora and Jules will handle that,\" said Daddy. I can't be entirely certain, because it rarely happens in my presence, but I could have sworn that Cora cut her eyes at Daddy briefly; definite side-eye. Making it all the more odd really, how when the night started, it was Cora whom I thought I would have to push down, muzzle, and lock in a closet, and yet here we are and it's Daddy\u2014or should I say \"Benedict Charles\"\u2014who is in serious need of a gag order and restraints.\n\nSafely secured in the kitchen and out of earshot, I hissed to Cora, \"What in the Hades has gotten into him?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Daddy, that's who! He's all women's role this and strutting about all broad-chested, not to mention is about to smoke in my house when he knows I have upper-respiratory issues. What gives? And don't tell me you didn't notice because I saw you throw him a side-eye.\"\n\n\"Dear, I hate to break it to you, but that has always been your father. He's a man,\" said Cora. \"Where do you keep the coffee again? I don't know how you find anything in here,\" she said absentmindedly, while rifling through the cabinets. \"Imagine how much worse he would be if left to his own devices. Like I always say\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, please, not another one of your\u2014\"\n\n\"A man needs a woman to tame the beast, otherwise they'd be eating their feet and smelling all over the place,\" said Cora, putting the finishing touches on dessert. \"How else can they grow? Now, what about that Marcus?!\"\n\n\"What about him?\"\n\n\"Don't play dumb with me, Julesea,\" said Cora, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. \"You like that man and he likes you. Why else would he be here putting up with the jibberish from your father and me? Get the berries out of the fridge.\"\n\n\"Trust me, Mom, I am not his type.\"\n\n\"How many times do I have to tell you that men don't have a type? They have ideas that are quickly dispelled when the right woman comes into the picture. You want him? Make it known, and like that,\" she said, snapping her still immaculate French manicured nails, \"you are his type, end of story. And, for the record, you might as well stop walking 'round this here kitchen acting like you aren't listening to me. I know you, Julesea Isabel Sinclair. I know every thought you have before you do, so hear this. You like this man but he scares you. Get over it.\"\n\n\"Mommy, stop. You're making my brain hurt.\"\n\n\"Your father likes him, you know.\"\n\nAnd so Benedict Charles does, as evidenced by their multiple sing-alongs. Another latent trait of Daddy's Marley gene is the desire to sing whenever the mood is right, wrong, or there just happens to be enough Red Stripe and some good music around. Who's to say what preconceived time notions Marcus may have had about joining a Sinclair family dinner, but if it was anything less than a full night's affair, then he was sadly mistaken. Whether Daddy schooled him on this fact earlier during their sports showdown or at the time of extending the invitation is anyone's guess, but not once did I see Marcus look at his watch or go over to the console table to check his phone. Yes, I was looking. I saw him notice when it lit up a few times, but he didn't advance be it with intent or discreetly mid-two-step as he and Daddy were pretending to be members of the Commodores (Lionel and the smiley one with the extra juicy curl) performing \"Brick House.\" Daddy's air bass-guitar stylings paired with Marcus's full-body commitment to the funky 1970s dance moves sent Cora and me into spasms of laughter. Had the hour not been approaching midnight, I have no doubt that a highly spirited game of cards or dominoes would have ensued.\n\n\"Whew, dat was good fun, baby, but these old bones are tired,\" said Daddy, feeling the repercussions of some of those earlier dance moves now in his lower back. \"Cora, why don't we turn in and leave these kids to talk?\"\n\nMarcus stood up from the sofa we had been sharing to embrace Daddy and kiss Cora good night after watching their finale performance of Elton John and Kiki Dee's \"Don't Go Breaking My Heart.\" \"I should be going as well. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair . . .\" He stopped, off Mommy's corrective look.\n\n\"What did I tell you about that Mrs. Sinclair nonsense?\"\n\nOne hand over his heart and the other cradled within hers, he said, \"Cora. I could not have wished for a better evening than this. Everything else pales in comparison. Thank you so much.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, son. You helped make the night something special,\" said Daddy. I did not need Cora's words from earlier to tell me that Daddy had developed a great affection for Marcus. It was evident. \"Now, remember what I told you.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I will,\" said Marcus, \"and I will call you soon to take you up on that.\"\n\n\"What secrets are you two keeping?\" I asked, knowing all the while that they would not say. Well, I'll be a #?!*! Daddy has known this guy less than five hours and already has his phone number and they have made plans for future outings. I have lived above him for nearly a year and don't even know what the inside of his apartment looks like, much less have his personal or office phone number, for that matter.\n\n\"Jules, ya gettin' more and more like ya motha every day, and I am not sure that's a good ting,\" said Daddy.\n\n\"It's a great thing, sir. A great thing, indeed,\" responded Marcus. Spoken like a man who doesn't know Cora. His arm was comfortably draped around my shoulders, and I instinctively returned the gesture, wrapping my arms around his waist throughout the conversation.\n\n\"Never say that in front of her!\" I teased. \"I'll walk you to the door.\" What a night! I wished for it never to end. I didn't want him to say good night to me because I didn't know if tomorrow would go beyond right now.\n\n\"Your parents are incredible, Jules,\" said Marcus. \"You are really lucky.\"\n\n\"So I have heard a few million times, from them no less.\"\n\n\"Well, they are . . . and so are you.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I know,\" I said, instantly feeling the need to clarify. \"I know that they are, and yes, I am lucky . . . not that I'm saying I know I am incredible, because that would just be, like, so completely obnoxious to say . . . wouldn't it?\" The appearance of a smile on his impossibly perfect mouth put an abrupt end to my babbling. Once again I just wanted to freeze time and capture the moment, but I stopped taking those kinds of photos a while ago. \"Was I babbling? I do that from time to time when I'm nervous.\"\n\n\"Do I make you nervous, Ms. Sinclair?\"\n\n\"Unquestionably so, Mr. Crawford.\" Snapshot . . . and the moment is gone.\n\n\"Marcus!\" screamed Cora from the foyer, forever shattering the perfection of our moment. \"Where are you? Oh, there you are. I thought you had left before I could pack you a little something.\" Briefly scanning the numerous containers in the bag she held, I silently questioned how much she cooked and if anything was left in the kitchen for me to eat later, although I wouldn't be opposed to having leftovers with him, if he offered. \"I packed you some rice and peas, yams, and a few patties. Now remember to eat the ackee by tomorrow, because it doesn't hold as long.\"\n\n\"Aw, Cora, you didn't have to,\" said Marcus, \"but I'm not complaining at all. Thank you. My fridge will be happy to see some home cooking.\"\n\n\"Let's just hope there's some left for me or else I'll be knocking on your door tomorrow,\" I said.\n\n\"In that case, let's hope that everything is in this bag,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Julesea, there is plenty left for you,\" said Cora. \"You have the stew, some jerk chicken, roti.\"\n\n\"The stew was amazing,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Then you will have to combine, now, won't you?\" said Cora, nodding yes before leaning over and kissing Marcus good night. As she did, I noticed how she held his face in the same way that I used to hold Tony's\u2014even at the end. It never occurred to me before that this gesture, which felt so natural to me, was learned from her. \"Julesea, come in and say good night to your father before you go to bed.\"\n\n\"My word, that woman is something. I can see where you get it,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"And you're not afraid,\" I said jokingly.\n\n\"No, actually just confirms what I already knew about you.\"\n\nI was lost for words again, or maybe the moment just didn't need them. So we both just allowed it to be hypnotic. The buzzing of his phone broke the trance. \"You should probably get that,\" I said.\n\n\"I will, later,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"What, why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?\" I asked, feeling self-conscious under his watchful gaze.\n\n\"The first time we met you smelled like Oriental spices and vanilla. The second time like gardenia. I always seem to remember you, Jules. What do you think that means?\"\n\nThat I could rest beautifully in you. From the moment I knew you lived here, I've hoped to see you whenever I enter, only to find myself crestfallen when I don't, and that scares me even more.\n\n\"You have a good nose, it seems,\" was all I could allow myself to say aloud.\n\n\"Okay, I'll take that for now,\" said Marcus, narrowing the space between us and softly kissing the corner of my mouth. \"Good night, Julesea.\"\n\n## 31\n\n* * *\n\n## RECAP\n\nIT'S NOT UNREASONABLE for me to think that after such an auspicious evening, he would have called or asked me out by now, is it?\"\n\n\"First of all, Julesy, who goes around saying words like 'auspicious' in everyday conversation? . . . Ah-ah,\" said Blake, raising a finger to quiet Richard before he objected. \"Clearly, you are not using the right bait. Let's rethink this whole 'unrequited love for the neighbor' thing. It has red light written all over it. Trust me. I mean, you date for a minute, the sex is good and easy, then what? You stop talking, and it makes for awkward encounters in the lobby, or you mistakenly getting off on his floor multiple times per week, walking past his door, conveniently dropping packages near his door, so of course you can't help but listen for inside noises, only to run down the hall when you hear the door starting to open.\"\n\n\"Stalker,\" sang Richard.\n\n\"Call it what you will, I'm just saying. Heed the warning,\" said Blake.\n\n\"I hear you, but I don't think this guy would do that,\" I said.\n\n\"Who was talking about him?\" said Blake, slapping high fives to Richard across the table at Cub Room. A month and some had passed since our dinner and no word from Marcus. If I were in any way keeping a record of his patterns, I would mention that he also disappeared after the first dinner with Gary. My parents' constant inquiries only underlined the fact that I had not seen him and that I wanted to.\n\nFatigued with my circumstance and realizing that I didn't want the scrutiny after all, I said, \"Whatever, let's talk about something else, please. Something happy.\"\n\n\"Great! Then let's talk about me,\" said Blake.\n\n\"Yes, that's always a crowd pleaser,\" said Richard, devoid of any modicum of enthusiasm.\n\n\"Ignoring you. Now, that guy from Life, 'Mr. Potentially More,' is definitely worthy of yours truly. Financially he checks all the right boxes, travels quite a bit, which will leave ample time for extracurricular activities, if you know what I mean, and he's ready to have someone to come home to. Me! Although I haven't actually been to his place yet,\" said Blake, accepting an imaginary crown. \"Oh, and the bonus is that he is sexy as hell. Usually, I am envisioning someone like him anyway to get through an evening, so this is a step in the right direction. My body is addicted to him, and he knows it.\"\n\n\"News flash, honey, it's your internal gold digger addicted to his wallet, not your body,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Simmer down there, ole girl. Don't be jealous.\"\n\n\"How is that possible? Blake, you have been leased by more than a quarter of the affluent men across the continental United States, and yet no one has opted to buy.\" Damn, player, was that a bit harsh or damn?!#? \"I, on the other hand, am still with the great love of my life. Count 'em, honey, thirteen years.\"\n\n\"Correction, you are still with the only gay fool of means on the seaboard who is as boring and insufferable as you are.\"\n\n\"Okay, you two. Play nice. My inner child is cringing again,\" I said. \"Accept it, you are both diggers. It just so happens that one of you reads books and the other enjoys looking at the pretty pictures.\"\n\n\"Meow, kitty. Has she always been like this?\" asked Blake.\n\n\"No, I think it was all that time in London. There is something fundamentally wrong with a culture that is averse to physical affection,\" responded Richard. \"I like it, though.\"\n\n\"Umph, I'm undecided,\" huffed Blake. \"Now, where was I? Oh yes, the guy. He doesn't need me and that is abundantly clear, which makes us absolutely perfect. I could give him what he wants and vice versa,\" confessed Blake.\n\n\"Maybe you have met your match,\" I said.\n\n\"Now, when do we get to meet your match?\" asked Richard, using a bread stick to point between us. \"This one has piqued my curiosity. Normally you flaunt them immediately. This one is shrouded in mystery.\"\n\n\"Stop calling him 'this one.' You sound like Lauren Bacall sans the allure.\"\n\n\"I've been called far worse.\"\n\n\"I bet you have,\" said Blake. \"I'm not hiding him. I just haven't had him . . . as available, that's all.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear. Now we must meet this one. A man who doesn't fall at the altar surely deserves a medal, or at the very least a parade,\" chuckled Richard as he emptied the last bit from his gin gimlet.\n\n\"Or something,\" I said.\n\n## 32\n\n* * *\n\n## AND I AM . . .\n\nSPRING WAS FINALLY in bloom in New York. I guess that groundhog knows what he's doing after all. From my living room window I could see that the once-frozen lagoon across the street now had inhabitants, mommy and baby ducks swimming about to the delight of a sea of toddlers running amuck along its perimeter, with nannies and au pairs in hot pursuit. The skyline was dominated by a prism of green trees wise enough to make way for the broad array of ivory, pink, and rouge cherry blossoms on display. My friends, like many of the building's residents, had vacated the city for the weekend by any means necessary\u2014car, jitney, or helicopter (if you were truly big money)\u2014in order to open their country homes in the Hamptons or on Fire Island, leaving the city wonderfully desolate. Hallelujah!\n\nSince the first day I arrived in New York, she has been to me like the Old Lady in the Shoe, with 18,976,456 too many children. For most of the year, I had the misfortune of being a middle child, eager to please and too often craving her undivided attention but seldom receiving it except for a few glorious spring and summer weekend months, when the elders and younguns frolicked along her coast or in the mountains. During that time, I had New York's undivided attention and could indulge in her simplest treasures without competition or distraction. Downstairs on the sidewalk, I found myself at odds momentarily with possibilities. If I turn right and walk toward Madison, I can enjoy an almond croissant with the best cappuccino on the island. Or I could walk left and cross the street into Central Park for a bagel with a smear and a black.\n\n\"Feel like some company?\"\n\nNow knowing the cadence of his voice like my own, I said, \"I'd love some,\" and turned to see Marcus standing behind me with enough mail in his hands to convey\u2014but not say\u2014that he hadn't retrieved it in weeks.\n\n\"Great, I was hoping you would say that,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Is that coming too?\" I asked, pointing to the jumbled overflow of envelopes, coupons, magazines, and flyers.\n\nAppearing slightly embarrassed at the accumulation, he said, \"Oh, one of the casualties of my life, as it were.\"\n\n\"Well, then, let's see what you have here,\" I said, reaching for the contents and scanning. \"GQ, yes, Wired boring and not a Saturday read. Business Weekly, still boring but okay, Visionaire, absolutely. Penthouse, really? Why?!\"\n\n\"Hey, it's not what you think. One of the guys got me a subscription as a gag gift. They have great articles.\" He removed it from the pile. \"Listen, we can call him, if you don't believe me.\"\n\n\"And unsubscribing was what, unconstitutional?\" I said, removing it from his hands and giving the undesirables to Percy, with instructions to keep until Marcus's return.\n\n\"I feel like you're judging me,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Oh, don't feel, Crawford, know that I am judging you.\"\n\n\"Why do I suddenly have this pressure to redeem myself?\" he asked. \"Let's say I give you the best cup of coffee you've ever had in your life and in return you keep this little incident between us.\"\n\n\"Intriguing. I've never had a platinum-and-diamond-laced cup of coffee before.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's like that?\"\n\n\"Oooooh yeah, Mr. Crawford, it's like that.\"\n\n\"And here you had me convinced that you were one of those independent 'I can get my own' women whose feminist sensibilities would be offended by such obvious gestures like expensive gifts.\"\n\n\"Only if you left it on the nightstand next to a 'Dear Jules' note saying 'Thanks for last night,' \" I said.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nExiting the building, we took a right. Under normal circumstances, seeing the tourist-laden line that extended out Via Quadronno's door would have put a cloud in my day, but Marcus's company was good, so I didn't mind the wait. Having to listen to the incessant chatter of outer-borough housewives and their spawn while my system was still caffeine-free, however, was another story entirely.\n\n\"My guess is Jersey,\" said Marcus in reference to the talkative foursome directly in front of us. \"Fort Lee. Hayworth, maybe. Even Oradell. The headbands are a dead giveaway.\"\n\n\"Really? I was going for White Plains. The matching mother-and-daughter ensembles scream Westchester County,\" I said.\n\n\"I can see how you would think that, but the color palette and overall styling are wrong; pastels and those scary big flowers like the women in our building wear are Westchester, even Connecticut. The fuchsia-colored bedazzled situation paired with denims currently at hand shouts Jersey refinement,\" he said.\n\n\"First, I commend you on your ability to be snarky. Second, and most important, should I be concerned that you know all that?\" I said, snapping my fingers in a Z formation like one of the Chelsea boys.\n\n\"Never! I'm all man, baby,\" asserted Marcus.\n\nMoments before reaching the counter I noticed that the couple outside on the solitary bench was preparing to leave and decided to make a dash for it. Giving Marcus instructions to surprise me, I pushed through the crowd to claim the seat before two fast-approaching Maclaren stroller\u2013pushing mothers could plunk down. Having the finish line, as it were, in sight and a foot or so separating us, it seemed only logical to cut left quickly to block their advance and make a strong lunge for the end zone. Seconds before my body flopped down on the bench, I locked eyes with one of the mother friends but turned away before being cast to stone for treachery.\n\n\"Here you go, something for the bones and for the belly,\" said Marcus. \"Why are you panting like that? Better question: Why are those two women giving us the death stare?\"\n\n\"Might have something to do with me stealing this bench from under them.\"\n\n\"You didn't,\" he pleaded, looking back and forth from them and their babies to me. Any remorse he expected to see was temporarily halted as I enjoyed the first few sips of my cappuccino, followed as always by a little seated two-steps-of-happiness dance.\n\n\"What?! It's a tough world out here. Besides, did you or did you not complain earlier about wanting to sit outside and could not because there is only one bench?\"\n\n\"It was an observation, and don't go dragging me into your sinister deeds,\" he said. \"I'm going to heaven. I'll try to get you an air conditioner.\"\n\n\"I saw that, you know,\" I said, jabbing him in the side.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You mouthing 'sorry' to the cradle pushers and pointing at me,\" I said. \"If you feel that bad you should buy them lunch.\"\n\n\"I could, but I won't. Did you see those ladies? One of them hasn't missed a meal in a while and I am not the one to . . .\" Marcus could not finish his callous remark before being overtaken by laughter.\n\n\"And you call me cruel,\" I said, sharing in this most inappropriate laughter. \"Thanks for the cappuccino, by the way. Did I tell you it was my favorite?\"\n\n\"No, but I promised you the best cup of coffee in town and that's it,\" he said.\n\n\"And yet, you are having tea? How very English of you.\"\n\n\"Yeah, something like that. Not too great for the teeth, but it is the way, I guess. I'll have a coffee after.\"\n\n\"Indoctrination?\"\n\n\"Completely. Each morning before school, my old man and I would have tea before he went off to work. It was our thing,\" he said, making invisible quotation marks in the air with his fingers, protecting the memory. \"As a result I can't seem to start my day without it.\"\n\n\"Hmmm, that's sweet . . .\" I said. \"I love it here.\"\n\n\"New York?\"\n\n\"No, this bench.\"\n\n\"Ah yes, the scene of the crime. Remind me to wipe it down before we leave. I don't want my fingerprints anywhere.\" Something tells me that Marcus makes it a point of wiping down everything he touches, especially women, as marks of emotional evidence may prove too messy.\n\n\"Call it what you will,\" I said, taking his dig in stride. \"I can come here, sit, and watch the world go by . . . albeit a considerably more affluent part of the world, but the world nonetheless. When I moved back, I was worried initially that it would take some time to find a little jewel like this, but here it is right on the corner.\" I felt quite satisfied with my discovery.\n\n\"My nan always watched the world at sundown out on our front stoop. Growing up, I used to think that she was just there to look out for me mucking about, making sure I stayed out of serious trouble, but then every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of her face right before the sun bowed to the horizon, and she would be a million miles away. I never knew where. Never asked, really . . . felt a bit intrusive.\"\n\n\"My, my, you are quite the observant one, aren't you?\"\n\n\"I guess you could say that,\" said Marcus, tilting his face to the sunshine. I could not decipher if he was doing it in remembrance of moments past or soaking it in right here, right now with me. Either way, I loved the way the rays of light made his eyes dance rapidly beneath closed lids, triggering a pulse in his concrete jawline. Snapshot. \"Necessity, I guess. Most things in our house went unsaid. But if I looked close enough, the truth was always there, like a member of the family no one spoke to but maneuvered around. At least most of the time.\"\n\n\"Ha, in my family his name is Uncle Barrington,\" I said. \"In all seriousness, I know what you mean. I learned that much later in life than you, and I don't think it was good. Growing up, I don't remember ever having the time or space to be in observance of others, much less myself. I was always surrounded or instructed in one way or the other. When it's all you know, it becomes a way of life until the day the rug is pulled from under you. Then the easy world you thought you knew shows its real self, and becomes a cold and scary place. I guess at some point, observation becomes mandatory in order to live.\"\n\n\"And so it does,\" said Marcus. \"Are you going to eat that entire thing?\" He was referring to the Miraggio sandwich he'd purchased for me.\n\n\"That was the plan,\" I said, admiring the slices of mortadella inside the toasted baguette. \"Would you like a bite?\"\n\n\"Well, if you are offering, then sure.\"\n\nI couldn't help but snicker. \"Honestly, you are not as charming as you think yourself to be,\" I said, raising the sandwich to his lips for a bite.\n\n\"Yes, I am,\" he replied with a wink.\n\nYes, you actually are, I thought, wiping the remnants of toasted crumbs from the baguette off his face.\n\nLong after the first round of coffee and sandwiches were but a memory, we remained at Quadronno. Mostly in comfortable silence, flipping through his overflow of magazines. At some point I suggested we make our way over to the park\u2014that is, if he didn't have something else to do. He didn't! \"Lead the way\" had been his charge, but I never could figure out what direction was up or down where Central Park was concerned. I have never actually found the stables that are said to be there, but I am confident that at some point, if we keep walking, we'll come upon it or the Great Lawn, or end up on Central Park West. Somewhere all scenic. So I suggested that we roll the dice and see where the sidewalk led, hoping that would be more than agreeable.\n\nAfter weaving our way through a seemingly endless flow of joggers, speed walkers, tourists, and horse-drawn carriages, we arrived at the Great Lawn. The details of how we got there or how long it took are anyone's guess. All I know is that by the time we arrived, my lips were an unnatural shade of radioactive blue, from the patriotic Popsicles purchased along the way from a street vendor.\n\n\"This is a good place,\" said Marcus, indicating a clear patch of unpopulated lawn in the sun among the sea of revelers. For every New Yorker who had escaped the city for the country, there seemed to be one sprawled about today on the lawn. They were either lying out tanning, chasing after their pets, or playing Frisbee, volleyball, or soccer. The air was abuzz with chatter and laughter from all directions. \"Do you mind?\"\n\n\"Mind what?\" I said, plopping myself down on the grass faster than he could get the words out.\n\n\"I was going to say squatting on the lawn, but I guess not. Do you want my jacket?\"\n\n\"Thanks, but I'm good. This is the first time all season that I get to feel earth under my toes. Why block the connection, right?\"\n\nStanding above me and smiling down, he said, \"That makes the second time today that you've said something that surprises me.\"\n\n\"Really, what was the first?\"\n\n\"Yes, to me barging in on your day.\"\n\n\"I didn't know you were keeping score,\" I said.\n\n\"Not score, just aware of how far I have to go,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"That depends. What's your destination?\"\n\n\"For you to go out with me.\"\n\n\"I guess we won't know until you ask, now will we?\"\n\n\"In that case, Jules, would you li\u2014\" Marcus began but was interrupted by a tall, sweat-laden player who had detached himself from the soccer game going on a few feet in front of us.\n\n\"Crawford, what the hell?\" said the swarthy man in a Barcelona jersey. \"When did you get back in town? I've been calling you.\"\n\n\"Last night. You know how it is, haven't even unpacked, much less checked messages.\"\n\n\"And that cute little assistant of yours didn't give you any of my messages?\" asked swarthy man (who had clearly never even bothered to commit the assistant's name to memory the way he had her measurements), stopping midsentence as he took notice of me.\n\n\"Paolo, this is Jules,\" said Marcus. \"Cori probably did but unless it was about the VHO acquisition, then I was not focusing.\"\n\n\"Heard about that. Congratulations, by the way. You got the regulatory approvals to complete that in record time. Normally the fucking Belgians are a pain in the ass. So, you playing or what?\"\n\n\"I hadn't planned on it. Jules and I were just . . .\"\n\n\"Come on, man. We need you out there.\"\n\n\"You guys look solid to me,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"You can't be serious. Bro, we're a man down and had to call Johnston.\"\n\n\"Blimey hell, he's awful,\" said Marcus, throwing his hands up in defeat.\n\n\"Bro, I know! They have already scored on him. Little prick can barely grab the balls in his own sack much less protect the ball on the field.\"\n\n\"Paolo, watch it,\" said Marcus, gesturing toward me.\n\nI said, \"Marcus, go on. You should play; it sounds like fun. Besides, if Johnston\"\u2014teasingly with invisible quotation marks\u2014\"loses this no one will play with him come Monday.\" Selfishly, I wanted some immediate distance between Paolo the Crass and my sunny day. Maybe, if things get hot enough on the field, I just might get to see Marcus strip down. Marcus, however, was not as quick to agree and apprehensively looked to me to make double, triple sure I was fine. \"Go, I will be okay. I promise. Just stay where I can see you and don't play rough with the other kids,\" I said, nudging him in the direction of the game.\n\n\"Okay, but let the record show, I would have much rather stayed here with you and made fun of Paolo,\" whispered Marcus as he bent down to place his sweatshirt and glasses next to me.\n\nOn the field he was a natural, athletic and lean with a superior agility for handling the ball. I was most impressed with his speed and ability to stop and strike in an instant, his control of the ball always purposeful and focused on scoring, not showboating. Whether you knew anything about soccer or not, it was easy to see that he was skilled. My knowledge of the game was passive at best from listening to Dad's childhood stories of playing in Jamaica or occasionally being awakened at 4 or 5 a.m. by loud noises from downstairs during a World Cup tournament, when Cora allowed him to have his friends over. However, while in London, I did learn enough about the game to differentiate between Chelsea and Manchester, and my allegiance increased from going to the club with the cutest players at the time, hence my fascination with Real Madrid always.\n\nWho's to say what regulation time is or was, but by the time the match finished, many of the sun worshippers had left.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"Who won?\" I asked, when Marcus ran over after saying the last wave of good-byes to his friends. \"Without cheerleaders or a scoreboard, the whole thing is just confusing.\"\n\n\"You do know there are no cheerleaders in f\u00fatbol, don't you?\"\n\n\"There should be. Everyone likes cheerleaders. So, did you win?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. We made a solid rally and came back to take it by one,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Good, I was concerned about Johnston.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have jokes! Might I remind you, you are supposed to be cheering for me?\"\n\n\"I thought about that but realized you didn't need it. Johnston, he needed me,\" I said.\n\n\"How do you figure that?\"\n\n\"Well, it's obvious that you are their leader, not in the Captain James T. Kirk kind of way but like in a Zinedine Zidane way . . . Oh my gawd, stop acting like I stabbed you. Even you must admit that Zidane is a-m-a-z-ing. Anyway, from the moment you stepped in to play, they all deferred to you and you knew it. Johnston's contribution, however piddly, was all but forgotten.\"\n\n\"Jules, do you even know who Johnston is?\" asked Marcus.\n\n\"No, which is why he needs me all the more, because no one else seemed to care after the crown prince arrived. Your sudden presence made him all but invisible. Can you imagine how that feels? No, you can't,\" I said.\n\n\"I bet you can't either.\"\n\n\"Not true. I have been invisible for the past two and a half years. The only reason you can see me now is that I'm back from the abyss of obscurity.\"\n\n\"Three,\" said Marcus, pushing aside a strand of hair that was interfering with my vision. \"The third thing today you have said to surprise me. I like the not knowing what comes with you. It throws a proper wrench into the entire script I expect to hear.\"\n\n\"From me?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, you and in general. You're so unrehearsed,\" said Marcus, placing his index finger softly under my chin to raise my gaze to eye level instead of the nondescript spot on the grass I was focusing on. \"Don't be alarmed. It's not a criticism. In fact, quite the opposite. It's refreshing.\"\n\nWholeheartedly, I accepted the words coming from Marcus. Trusting who he presented himself to be was natural. It's the Memorex replay of my mental state that makes for sheer and utter confusion. Like earlier, there was no need, no pressure to talk through the quiet moments. It felt good just to be.\n\n\"What do you say, shall we start to walk back?\" asked Marcus.\n\n\"I guess, but it is a shame to fold on the first perfect day. I can't believe people rush to leave every weekend, never experiencing the magnificence of New York.\"\n\n\"Couldn't agree with you more,\" said Marcus. \"I remember falling in love with her from a postcard that a friend of the family sent over when I was about nine or so. It was a view of the Chrysler Building. Something about the grandness of it and the eagles, oh man, those eagles, majestic like they're daring the sky . . . I knew that I would live here. I also said that I would own that building. When I finally did get here, I knew that I would never truly leave.\"\n\n\"Except for work and to frolic in the Hamptons,\" I said, surprised that it had not occurred to me earlier. \"Speaking of which, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be there with the other power brokers doing the whole 'opening of the house for the season and luxuriating' thing?\"\n\n\"Maybe, but it's not going anywhere. Normally, I go up when I have a reason to.\"\n\n\"I'm sure that Gary is up there right now casing your house.\"\n\n\"All the more reason for me to be here. Oh, and don't think you're not coming up whenever we do that shoot,\" said Marcus. \"I have not forgotten you owe me.\"\n\n\"Completely selective memory . . . but for conversation's sake, any idea of when that will be?\"\n\n\"Not sure, soon though. It's a rare moment I get to just have time here without meetings or preparing to fly off somewhere, so it will take some prying before I trade in a personal weekend so easily to do a publicity shoot.\"\n\n\"Seems like a waste, though. I mean, you have a home there, an amazing one from what Gary says, on the beach no less. I would think you'd spend volumes of time there unless you have an aversion to water, sun, and just being mellow.\"\n\n\"One would think, but I don't. You know what they say, 'power begets power.' Water is the most powerful force on earth, so we're good,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Did you just say that about yourself?\"\n\n\"Ha, that did sound brash, didn't it? I bought the house a couple of years ago because Sasha, my ex-fianc\u00e9e, thought it would be a good look. The whole process took some time to configure; finding the right house on the right lot, in the perfect enclave, getting the permits to build, acquiring the art et cetera, and once it was done I had a beachfront property in Bridgehampton but no Sasha, so . . . it is what it is, a lovely house, but not yet a home like my place here is.\"\n\n\"Oh, I didn't know . . . about Sash\u2014her.\" I didn't know is right, but how could I have? It's not as if over the course of our two or three supervised encounters, Marcus volunteered his dating history, nor had the opportunity presented itself for me to ask!!!!!! And I am not asking now. Talk about a crap way to end the day.\n\n\"Nothing to know really. Things happen. Priorities change.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a novel but for another day,\" I said.\n\n\"A vignette at best,\" said Marcus, \"so don't get your hopes up. Bugger. I forgot my mail. Listen, thanks for letting me crash your day, Jules. I knew we'd be great together.\"\n\n\"Should I wait for you?\" I asked, not entirely prepared to say good-bye just yet.\n\n\"No, no. The lift is here, you go on.\"\n\nAlong the way, all but unknowing, we had exited the park, passed the doorman, and arrived at the elevator, but I could not recall the path getting there. Had there been many people on the street and haphazard taxis speeding about? Yellow lights and crosswalks to be darted through? I can't recall. All I know is that the day started and there he was making it the best day. Now it is ending and he is still here. I could probably ask for more by way of violins, a fairy-tale kiss, and white doves, but I don't want us to arrive at happily ever after so soon because few are fortunate enough ever to discover what comes next.\n\nLater that night in bed, my adrenaline was still going. A warm-water soak earlier had removed the physical remnants of our day, but my mind refused to let them be washed away so easily. It raced from context and moderation to desperation. Today I had a carefree beautiful New York day with a nice man, no more no less, who makes me feel nervous-safe-pretty-funny-erratic all at the same time . . . I wonder if I'd make him a good wife . . . our children (Maximus and Isabel\u2014Issi for short) will have his eyes, my smile, and a curly mane of hair that is the combination of ours . . . What if he was just fucking about wasting a day and forgets about me . . . Did I have food in my teeth? . . . OMG, what about when I tripped? He thinks I am a klutz. The undeniable realization that I really liked Marcus sent me reeling from bed and into the kitchen for a snack. I loaded the audio player with a Funkmaster Flex mix tape and proceeded to dance myself into exhaustion. Side A was nearly done when my jam session began to lose its delusional luster.\n\nI needed to connect with someone and get an objective take on my day with Marcus, so I dialed Richard, only to be greeted by the housekeeper at his Mantoloking home, who advised that \"Mr. Boulton was entertaining at the moment but could be pulled away if paramount.\" Clearly it is . . . I mean, let's examine the facts: I can't sleep and am dancing around in my skivvies to remixes of Busta Rhymes and Super Cat\u2014clearly a matter of vast importance . . . to me. Hanging up the line, disappointed but not defeated, I phoned Blake but was greeted by her answering machine.\n\nOkay! Here is the downside to a single girl remaining in the city during the season. While the days are filled with possibility, the nights are quite desolate and solitary. Calling Cora was not an option, and besides, I was much too sober to fool myself into believing that she could have a sensible discussion about the prospect of Marcus and me without calling our minister to reserve a date. No, she was to be kept at bay until there was a serious development. Until such time I will just have to look for my objectivity in a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream.\n\nPassing through the main hall, I thought I heard a noise outside my door. I peered through the peephole and saw Marcus milling about. Before he could ring the bell, I opened the door, having completely forgotten that I was underdressed and cradling a container of ice cream. Total \"lonely girl\" moment\u2014all that was missing was a pack of powdered doughnuts and a Diet Coke!\n\n\"Wow, look at you,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Yeah, there goes the mystery . . . What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Would you believe me if I told you that I got off on the wrong floor?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, anything is possible, I guess,\" I said. \"What's that in your hand?\"\n\n\"The reason I can't claim getting off on the wrong floor,\" said Marcus, looking at the sealed envelope he was holding with my name written across it. \"I figured you were out, so I was going to leave this under your door.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, looking at the envelope with some skepticism. \"Should I open it now?\"\n\n\"Well, you could, but now that you are here\u2014and wearing . . . Doesn't really matter,\" said Marcus, placing his hand along the base of my camisole, interlacing the stitched edge with his fingers and proceeding to stroke the delicate space of my belly that peeked out just north of my pantyline.\n\n\"Charming. Focus, Crawford.\"\n\n\"I am, but you are making it hard,\" said Marcus, his hand now working its way up the front of my body, eliciting a current of electrical excitement. \"If memory serves, you were in the process of agreeing to go out with me before . . .\"\n\n\"Before Paolo the Crass\u2014purchaser of Penthouse subscriptions\u2014interrupted,\" I said.\n\n\"So you do believe me. Yes, before that.\"\n\n\"Selective memory you have. I don't recall you asking me out.\"\n\n\"Hence the note. Not having your number made it otherwise impossible to do so earlier, and I didn't want to wait until Monday to ring.\"\n\n\"Well, you have me now.\"\n\nStepping within inches of me, Marcus said, \"That I do, and so many things I'd like to do to you . . . Would you like to go out with me, Jules?\"\n\n\"Hmm, that sounds\u2014\"\n\n\"Like what?\" said Marcus, his lips hungrily meeting mine, forcing me against the door. After a few moments\u2014my hands having traveled under his shirt down his chest and reaching the washboard of his abs\u2014it was clear that we were walking the dangerously fine line. Mustering my last bit of strength, I pulled away.\n\n\"Stop, we can't,\" I said.\n\n\"I know. Not yet.\"\n\n\"Well, you're quite sure of yourself.\"\n\n\"That I am. I want to know you, Jules. When I take you, it will be because we both understand what it means, when you're mine,\" said Marcus. \"Until then, Tuesday, dinner? I'll sort the details provided you give me your numbers\u2014unless you prefer I continue to loiter about, but then you would have to invite.\"\n\n\"Of course, and Marcus, please try not to smell of another woman's perfume on Tuesday.\"\n\n\"Four,\" he said.\n\n## 33\n\n* * *\n\n## ARE YOU NEW?\n\nNO MATTER HOW great the weekend was or how blue the skies may be today, Mondays suck. They have to be the most dreadful of all the days on the calendar. It's as if people's mental rest on Sunday is all for the purpose of creating to-do lists that inevitably find me at the top of them. Nancy Wilson had been with us only a short time before an influx of calls from other jazz musicians, their record label execs, and reps, jockeying for them to do a limited engagement at Carly's when her residency was up. Since her debut with us, Michael had tasked me with making certain that a great volume of my media efforts went to positioning the rebirth of her career in direct correlation to her stint at Carly's.\n\n\"Put the fact that I like her aside,\" he said. \"Cats want to be in business with you anytime they feel that the association can work to their advantage. The trick is to make the short-term success theirs and the long-term payoff ours. Make her hot, Jules.\"\n\n\"Any suggestions on how I might go about doing that when, one, we are not her representatives; two, they are insanely territorial; and three, she is not Harry Connick Jr.?\"\n\n\"That's why you're in PR. You are in PR, right? Which means you know how to spin a point of view? Stop fretting, it's a small leap from the spin to the sell. You'll know we're onto something when Harry is seated at a table and my studio has a waiting list of booked sessions as long as the restaurant.\"\n\nGetting Harry at a table was indeed doable, but I had to lure him, not invite him. As for the state-of-the-art recording studio upstairs with private sleeping quarters and a meditation room, otherwise known as Michael's Lair, I was not privy to those books, so there was no way to be absolutely certain of what would constitute a profitable return. Off the top I knew that it rented out for more than $10,000 per day session, which would make any up-front fees we were paying a performer pale in comparison.\n\nNot endeavoring to try to rewrite the media relations book on how to successfully launch a brand in NYC, I did the next best thing and called Carly for access to her Rolodex. At her insistence our initial blow-up had transitioned from a pink elephant in the room to a camouflaged one. This, of course, pleased Michael no end. So much so that even when, against his micromanaging suggestions, I decided not to invest effort in pandering to the easy get that was established jazz lovers, in favor of some of Carly's society contacts who never ventured below Forty-second Street, he relented. My thought was that if you love Nancy, then you would find her, and they did, religiously. As a result of the buzz I had created, my Mondays had been taken over by a legion of pompous individuals who call me \"DAH-ling\" in lieu of my name, which they have not yet committed to memory, only to tell me what I need to do for them. Today they make up the entire first page of my phone sheet and, because each is one degree of separation or less related to Carly, I must endure. Agony.\n\n\"Jacklyn, what are you doing out there, dancing around the phone lines? Why is line two still blinking? Pick it up or take a message. It's driving me crazy,\" I said, sitting at my desk with full view of her across the doorway. I could see her doing a number of other things, but tending to the ever-ringing phone was not one of them.\n\n\"I tried, but he will only speak with you,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, that is not going to happen in the next ten minutes,\" I said, staring at the hypnotic blinking red light to my right. \"Who is it anyway? Can't you just get rid of them? Pretend to be me.\"\n\n\"I tried that. Let me see,\" she said, re-engaging the line. \"It's Marcus Crawford. Do you want him?\"\n\nThe sound of his name seemed to ring out like a morning bell at a Tibetan temple. A sudden appearance of moisture in my palms made the phone difficult to grasp. Luckily I caught it before it dropped on the desk, then mumbled something incoherent before placing my current call on hold and sprinting into the hall to Jacklyn's desk.\n\n\"What I want is for you to lower your voice!\" I said in a hushed whisper, looking up and down the hall to make certain that no one was approaching.\n\nMichael had complained many times before about our seeming inability to use the interoffice message computer system for calls instead of yelling to each other. \"Jules, why is it I can hear everything that goes on in your office when mine is on the opposite side of the building?\" he would ask. My hope is that this particular moment eluded office ears, especially his. I hadn't been true to my word with Michael, nor had I worked out how I was going to tell him that Marcus and I were spending time together.\n\n\"Put him through,\" I said, stealthy in my movements as I crossed the threshold into my office.\n\n\"Why are you looking around like that?\" asked Jacklyn suspiciously, also on high alert for matters unknown. \"You're making me nervous.\"\n\n\"Never mind about me, just you keep doing whatever you're not doing . . . hush . . . I'll explain later,\" I said, pulling the door shut behind me.\n\nSecure inside my office, I leaned against the closed door for support to quiet the strumming bass erupting from my chest. It seemed to be dictating that I skip to the phone despite my urge to keep him waiting for a few extra minutes. You know what I always say, \"Jump the first time a man calls and he'll expect you to tap-dance for life.\" At the most inopportune times, the Cora-isms of my upbringing often have the ability to supercede my own inner voice. This time, however, my nerves prevailed, and I dived right in.\n\n\"Hi!\"\n\n\"Did I catch you at a bad time?\" asked Marcus.\n\n\"No, well, kinda. No, not really,\" I said, stumbling over my words in search of a solid course. \"I was just surprised is all . . .\"\n\n\"Good. Let me preface by saying I know it's short notice and it's not Tuesday, but would you like to have dinner tonight?\"\n\nSearching the ceiling for an easy-spirited connection between my thoughts and my mouth before speaking, I finally asked, \"Did you really just sit on hold and refuse to speak to my assistant so you could ask me to dinner?\"\n\n\"Technically, no. Cori, my assistant, sat on hold awaiting you, which by the way took an unusually long time. You should consider apologizing to her. I, on the other hand, took a few other calls, brought peace to the Middle East and Southwest Asia, did a fitting with my tailor, and knitted a sweater before you actually came on the line.\"\n\n\"Funny, Crawford. I'm known for using the Middle East peace line myself.\"\n\n\"You know what they say about making a woman laugh, don't you?\" asked Marcus.\n\n\"Not particularly,\" I said, twisting the phone cord between my fingers. \"However, for the sake of this conversation, let's say I was curious. What do they say?\"\n\n\"Actually, they is a he, and he says a woman laughing is a woman conquered,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Aaah, is that your intent, to conquer me?\"\n\n\"Of course, I'm a man. That's what we do. Figuring out to what degree, now that is something we'll discuss in a few years.\"\n\n\"Years, you think we'll know each other that long?\"\n\n\"I'd put money on that,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Who said that 'woman conquered' thing? I hope it wasn't your friend Paolo.\"\n\n\"No, although it would be fitting. It was Napoleon,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Well, in that case, I must be more careful with my laughter,\" I said.\n\n\"When that happens I will try harder,\" he said.\n\n\"Honestly, you have to stop. All of this panache and savoir-faire stuff, I just don't know . . .\"\n\n\"So, we'll discuss it over dinner tonight, yes?\"\n\n\"Yes, okay.\"\n\nI hung up the phone still laughing, walked to the window, and found myself looking again across the street below at the very spot Keith stood months before. Like the weather that day, the memory of it all is gray and hollow now, in complete opposition to how I was feeling standing here. A warm, familiar burst of excitement I believed to be long gone had reappeared, taking root in the base of my stomach and blooming through the contours of my mouth like a lullaby. Until now, I hadn't realized how much I needed him to call me. The realization scared me. Truth is, I wanted that connection. I just couldn't imagine knowingly getting back on the all-encompassing roller coaster of emotional uncertainty it required, but Marcus made me wishful, and that is something to aspire to, right?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe hours leading up to our date seemed to be an eternity delivered on the back of a tortoise. When the blessed time did arrive, I met Marcus in the lobby as agreed, wearing a mostly new\u2014i.e., spontaneous purchase made weeks earlier on the off chance that I would have an event worthy of such a frock\u2014chocolate Donna Karan matte crepe jumper. It had been my first choice, but I needed to be certain, so a few alternates (five or so) were tried and discarded just to be sure. Finishing off the look with a pair of gold strappy stilettos and a perfume spritz behind the ears, between the breasts, on the wrists, and between the legs, I was ready to go. Judging by the looks of things, however, Marcus and I were going out all right, but to separate locations. The elevator doors opened to reveal him wearing a black leather jacket, dark denims, crisp white athletic shoes, and a Yankees baseball hat.\n\n\"Jules, you're a knockout,\" he said, drinking me in from freshly polished berry toes to nude, glossed lips. \"Are you sure you want to waste that outfit on bowling?\" he said.\n\n\"Excuse me, bowling?\" I said, the words stumbling out in my distress.\n\n\"Yes, bowling,\" he said, re-enacting a classic stance. \"Did I forget to mention that earlier?\"\n\n\"Yes, I would say so,\" I replied, embarrassed and uncertain. \"Bowling?! I thought we were going for dinner. You did say dinner, didn't you? Should I go and change?\"\n\n\"Indeed, I did say dinner,\" said Marcus, staring at me, amused at himself and my obvious discomfort and keenly aware of his omission. \"It seems I should have been more specific.\"\n\n\"Understatement. Please stop laughing,\" I said, trying to retain my composure but feeling quite warm under the collar, in a vastly different, less hospitable way than I had earlier. \"I should go back up and change. Give me a few minutes.\"\n\n\"If you think it will help your game, then by all means.\"\n\n\"Seriously, Marcus, this is not the time to challenge me. I am far from amused at the moment.\"\n\n\"Do I detect a temper?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes you do . . . I don't like being . . . and clearly you . . .\"\n\n\"My, you are mad at me! Kind of sexy on you,\" said Marcus.\n\nStanding before him, I didn't know whether to smack him in that delicious mouth that held such promise for the end of the night or to just storm off. \"Come on, don't be mad. I was having some fun is all, just trying to locate your buttons,\" he said, stepping in closer and caressing the length of my arm and stopping just parallel to my breast, allowing his thumb to linger on the contours.\n\n\"There are far better ways to do this, you know. Being a cad is not one of them.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said, reducing the space between us to that of a few molecules of air. \"Forgive me?\"\n\n\"Forgiven,\" I whispered.\n\n\"We don't have to go bowling. I just thought . . .\"\n\n\"No, let's do it,\" I said, regaining my composure and walking toward the door, where Percy had taken in the entire exchange. \"On the day we tell the story of how I kicked your butt all over the Bowlmor Lanes, I want to make certain it is noted that I did it in Donna Karan. Ain't that right, Percy?\"\n\n\"That's right, Ms. Sinclair. That's right,\" said Percy, directing his last comments to Marcus: \"Never disagree with a woman like that, Mr. Crawford, no sir.\"\n\n\"Famous last words, Percy,\" said Marcus.\n\nOn the drive down we spoke easily about all manner of things: his athletic pursuits throughout school, all of which he entered as a walk-on only to prove himself to be the best; his fascination with collecting rosaries because, like the scent of YSL's Opium, they are one of the few memories he had of his mom; and that if his soul could sing, it would sound like Otis Redding.\n\nIronically enough, in all that time, never once did he think to ask me if I even knew how to bowl. Truth is, not only did I know how, but I was pretty good and determined to show him just how good. On the Saturdays when Cora was having her weekly manicure or lunch with the girls, Dad and I went bowling. Some of our best laughs and my first stolen sips of beer were in a bowling alley. Lord knows it was needed, as the man took an eternity to align his body in the perfect position to take a shot. At some point after my twenty-first birthday, I recall Daddy preparing for a shot, and just before taking it turning around to say, \"Julesea, don't you tink it's tyme you order your own beer instead of drinking mine?\" Truly one of the best moments.\n\nNow I was about to have a similar evening with the absolute last person I would've expected to be into bowling, much less come equipped with a customized ball. In hindsight, that should have been a sign to proceed with caution, which is the exact opposite of what I did. At the beginning of the first game, I began with a serious round of trash talking, telling him that he bowled like my grandmother after he lost the first game. At the start of the second\u2014having won and feeling pretty confident\u2014I suggested we make it more interesting, say, ten dollars a strike. In the blink of an eye, he sank five consecutive strikes. That's when I knew that I'd been had!\n\n\"You're so not a gentleman, Crawford! You hustled me,\" I said.\n\n\"Hey, I was content to let you win a game, but then you had to go and get all big-time,\" chided Marcus. \"Come on now. I can't be having that.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you mention you were on a bowling team before?\"\n\n\"You didn't ask. Besides, it wasn't an official team, just my nan and a bunch of old ladies with tinted hair in matching shirts when I was younger,\" said Marcus, untying his shoes.\n\n\"Well, next time I'll ask you all manner of things,\" I said.\n\n\"Deal. What do you say we start the inquisition over a proper dinner? There's a nice little spot around the corner that is more appropriate for your outfit,\" he said.\n\nOnce outside, we found Carlos positioned in front across the street, leaning against the car and enjoying a drag on his cigarette. On seeing us, he put it out and went to open the passenger door until Marcus instructed him otherwise. Carlos opened the trunk, allowing Marcus to exchange his baseball cap and leather jacket for a blazer.\n\n\"Talk about hustling someone. Is it really that simple for men?\" I said after witnessing this quick change.\n\n\"It is, baby. The deck is always stacked in a man's favor. Thank goodness women have a more forgiving spirit, otherwise we could not apologize enough for the glaringly obvious inequities, you know.\"\n\n\"Would you repeat that into a tape recorder at a later date, so I can play it for my girls?\"\n\n\"Hell no. I like being in the men's club too much\u2014great perks. As a matter of fact, I don't even know what you're referring to,\" said Marcus.\n\nAfter walking a few blocks west we arrived at a restaurant on the north side of the street, where Marcus has a standing reservation. I made a mental note then and there that nothing in this man's world truly occurred on the fly. We were led to a corner booth in the back to a table adorned with freshly poured glasses of champagne and insalata mista.\n\n\"I hope you don't mind,\" Marcus said, gesturing to the carefully placed delights, \"but I had something special prepared.\"\n\nFeeling quite giddy and pampered, I shrugged no. The appearance of lobster, however, did elicit an interruption in his meal selections. \"I'm allergic to shellfish. I am so sorry, but it's either an Epipen or hospitalization for me.\"\n\n\"Now that's a compromise. Asking me to give up seafood is a lot. It's one of my favorites.\"\n\n\"I see. That could pose a huge problem. I guess the question to be answered sooner than later is if I'm worth the sacrifice,\" I said.\n\nMarcus signaled the waiter to come over and explained my situation. Within minutes the chef was tableside outlining a seafood-free feast. Approving the new menu, Marcus turned to me and said, \"You're worth it.\"\n\n\"You don't know that to be certain.\"\n\n\"I have a sixth sense about things.\"\n\n\"Do you now?\"\n\n\"I do,\" he said. \"Don't shake your head. You'll see. I'm always clear on what I want, Jules. I want you\u2014healthy and having eyes only for me.\"\n\n\"If you are trying to do a number on my head, it's working, so I beg you to stop. Marcus, I've been on the losing side of love before, and I just can't do it again.\"\n\n\"That's not my intent. I have a home in Bridgehampton to show for a failed leap. You have several voices in your head telling you not to trust me. I'm trying to tell you that you can, if you want to.\"\n\n\"Speaking of that, the voices . . . I would like to, but then little things happen like you calling the office today, and I wonder if this is all part of some play with Michael.\"\n\n\"Was that not the best place to reach you in the middle of the day? Have I given you any reason to distrust me?\" asked Marcus. My deadpan stare triggered his memory to our very first dinner, with Gary. \"Aside from the extremely poor judgment displayed earlier, for which I have already apologized . . . Jules, I don't need you to do my bidding with Mike. As for what demands he will make on you in the future, I can't say, so, see? I am actually the one at a disadvantage here. At some point you may have a choice to make, and there's a possibility that you won't select me.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you're not a lawyer?\" I asked, attempting to lighten the mood from the suspicious air I had created.\n\n\"Listen, business is what I do, but my passion is history. That alone tells me that many a great man has been brought down by only one thing,\" said Marcus. \"Love.\"\n\n\"What I love is that you already consider yourself great. I mean, can a person actually say that about themselves?\"\n\n\"I just did,\" said Marcus, looking me squarely in the face, our dining table feeling more like a boardroom to close a deal. \"Only question is, are you the kind of woman who can allow herself to be loved . . . or will you cut and run when things get uncomfortable?\"\n\nAlthough the comment was directed at me, I felt there was much more to it and hoped I wasn't wrong by saying, \"One day you'll tell me about her, your mom. Okay?\"\n\n\"Not tonight. I'm still trying, very hard, I might add, to impress you,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"You just did,\" I confessed. \"Like I said before, you are good . . . and dangerous in a Thomas Crown Affair sort of way.\"\n\n\"McQueen or Brosnan?\" asked Marcus, removing the glass of champagne from my hand and covering it with his.\n\n## 34\n\n* * *\n\n## TWO MONTHS, SEVEN DAYS, AND SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION\n\nWHAT I AM not understanding is why it's taken so long to get you on the phone, Boulton,\" I barked into my cell. Richard had called just as I entered the main doors at Carly's. \"Oh pish posh, secretary of defense, my arse, Richard. I's met a man, and he is fabulously unbelievable, so you have to help me not muck it up.\"\n\n\"Dear, haven't we been down this road before? Need I remind you of Keith?\"\n\n\"Low blow. Besides, Keith's wrapping was fabulous. It's the creamy center that just happened to be double-stuffed.\"\n\n\"Hence my point. What do we know about this man aside from the fact that he is a partner at Chimera Capital, an investor with your current employer, lives in your building, has received rave reviews from your folks, collects model creatures, and knows his way around your kitchen but not your kitchen?\"\n\n\"So you have been listening to my voice mails! Why in the hell haven't you phoned me back then? Those random e-mails were driving me crazy.\"\n\n\"Of course I was listening, so please don't go all pitchy on me. I just couldn't return in detail, but rest assured I am up to speed.\"\n\n\"Sorry about that. Your ears, I mean. You know how excited I get. So, I am not crazy then? It is odd that he and I have been dating for two months, seven days, and have yet to sleep together. I mean we have slept together in the 'Jack and Jill' sense of the word but not in the 'Tie me up! Tie me down!' way, you know what I am saying?\"\n\n\"Yes, that is odd,\" replied Richard. \"Maybe the equipment is broken or just does not work with your parts.\"\n\n\"Will you stop it with that?! I'll have you know that I've done the feel test numerous times and his member clearly responds to me. It's just the actual act of engaging that has proven elusive. Okay, before you ask, I'll confess that at first he tried, but I thought we should wait, which is elementary, I know. Now it's like he isn't even pressed to try again.\"\n\n\"Honey, when will you ever learn? Grown men don't respond to high school games.\"\n\n\"Old habits are hard to break, but I'm trying . . .\" I was suddenly distracted by Michael's reflection in the window, which meant that my conversation with Richard would have to end prematurely. I watched as Michael not so subtly lurked at the door saying something to Jacklyn, most probably trying to find out who I was talking to. Far from done talking to Richard but having no other choice, I turned around to face Michael just as he was walking in.\n\n\"Finish your call. I'll wait,\" he said.\n\n\"Richard, someone has come into the office. Can I ring you back? Oh, when will you be out of session? Okay. Then might I see you on Sunday? Perfect, eleven a.m. it is,\" I said, disconnecting and giving my full attention to Michael.\n\n\"I don't know why you did that. I told you I would wait,\" said Michael.\n\n\"Michael, I have seen your form of waiting,\" I said, swiveling my chair side to side. \"After a few seconds you'll start rummaging through my things, asking me numerous questions about what this is or why that is there, then if you still don't have my undivided attention, you'll either sit at the desk throwing those massive yet elegant feet on the corner while sucking on one of your cancer sticks or you'll walk around, only to lean over my shoulder and read my e-mails . . . sooo, basically what I am saying is, your version of waiting, Mr. Kipps, sucks.\"\n\n\"You know me all too well, Jules.\"\n\n\"I do watch you . . . like a hawk. Can't have you slipping on my watch.\"\n\n\"I know you do and I like that about you,\" said Michael, removing the aforementioned cigar from the interior pocket of his blazer.\n\n\"So what gives? Am I costing you too much money again today with my brilliant idea?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of, but you just might be. I'll let you know when I get to your e-mails. Don't give me that look like you're disappointed. You would never have known if I didn't say anything.\"\n\n\"Thank God for Simone,\" I said. \"At least she reads my e-mails.\"\n\n\"Yes, that woman covers up any number of sins for me, but she can't handle everything, which is why you'll be at my house on Saturday night. You have any plans?\"\n\n\"I'm guessing not, although if I did, it would probably be seeing the last Ailey performance of the season at Lincoln Center with Joy after weeks of planning, her agreeing to come in from Jersey, and hiring a babysitter,\" I said.\n\n\"Good. You're not missing anything. They perform Revelations at the end, same as last year and the fifteen before that,\" said Michael. \"I'll expect you at my house by seven thirty for a dinner with Nikolai Abramovich.\"\n\n\"What?! When did this happen? I mean, I know his party was a success and all, but I didn't know you two still talked.\"\n\n\"It wasn't your business to know, but if you look a little closely, you can learn something about building a bridge and creating allies.\"\n\n\"Don't you mean comrades?\"\n\n\"Humor is not your forte, Jules. Carly and I are throwing a dinner in his honor, an official welcome to NYC, if you will. I need a focused set of eyes and ears on Nikolai and Annya, his wife. Think you can handle that?\"\n\n\"Sure, I'll try,\" I said.\n\n\"Don't try, Jules. Do,\" said Michael between quick and short inhales to light his cigar. \"I need to make sure there are no flies on old Nikolai.\"\n\n\"What is that, like KGB-speak?\" I said. \"What's the attire?\"\n\n\"Cocktail but not black. I need you in something fetching and not so official.\"\n\n\"Do I get a tip at the end of the night?\"\n\n\"You keep your job. Does that count?\" said Michael.\n\n\"Fetching it is!\" Great, now I really do need to speak with Richard. I know absolutely nothing about global finance, Russia, and oligarchs. Talk about being a fish out of water, I might as well be a mullet in the Caspian Sea.\n\nAfter Michael left my office feeling quite full of himself, I immediately phoned Marcus. Undoubtedly he would be at the dinner, a potentially sticky situation. If he is going and I am going, then maybe we should go together, but were we ready to be outed? Was I ready? The few times Marcus had brought it up, I told him I wasn't ready. Selfishly, I just wanted to keep us quiet a bit longer, because I still wasn't sure we were real. He didn't agree, but reluctantly allowed me to take the lead.\n\nI called his private line to bypass speaking with his assistant. Our cloak-and-dagger had not afforded me the luxury of visiting his office yet. I envisioned a mysterious corner space, a combination of Old World antiquities and modern collectibles encased in floor-to-ceiling windows with breathtaking views of Lady Liberty. The Bat Phone, as it were, being one of those rotary BC (before cordless) variety, shiny black with the flat circular dial, sans the finger holes and numbers tucked away in the bottom drawer of a grand mahogany desk. The ring unlike a traditional phone so as not to elicit attention, should he be in a meeting, silently blinked a red light under the desk for only him to see.\n\nPicking up after a few rings, he said, \"Marcus here.\"\n\n\"Do my ears deceive me or are you a bit British today?\" I asked.\n\n\"Well, since Reaganomics, the pound is doing considerably better than the dollar . . . so, yes, yes I am.\"\n\n\"I heard. What a sad state for old George Washington,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, maybe you should call him and brighten his day like you do mine,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Look at you, so charming!\"\n\n\"Well, it's true, Veronica. You have this great way about you,\" said Marcus, his delivery being so natural and easy that I was not immediately certain of how to respond, so I just sat there holding the phone silently until he spoke again. \"Hello? Don't be like that. I was just playing.\"\n\n\"Honestly, you must believe me when I say you aren't nearly as funny as you think yourself to be, Marcus.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" he said. \"Cori laughs at all my jokes.\"\n\n\"Cori doesn't count. She's a paid employee, poor woman has no choice. I on the other hand am the realest thing in your life,\" I said.\n\n\"Which is why I'm strongly considering keeping you around, at least that is what my nan says I should do.\"\n\n\"Brilliant woman she is. Speaking of that, being around and all, not your nan, Michael just commandeered my Saturday. Apparently he is throwing a dinner for\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, for Nikolai Abramovich,\" said Marcus. \"You going to be there?\"\n\n\"So it seems. Don't act so surprised. Why are you taking Veronica instead of me?\" I asked jokingly, making light of the moment as we so often do.\n\n\"Well, not exactly. I am going, but not with her,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Oh, I see. Well, this is awkward, you not thinking to ask me, I mean.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute. Do you really want to open that up, Jules? I would gladly take you anywhere anytime, but remember it's you who doesn't want to be seen in public around familiar eyes.\"\n\n\"Was that a question or a statement? Never mind, it's besides the point,\" I said. \"Can I ask who you are taking? Are you like dating or something?\" I asked, my voice raising a noticeable decibel or two.\n\n\"You do realize that you just went from zero to sixty in less than two seconds. Remarkable, actually. Better than my Maserati.\"\n\n\"I'm not laughing, Marcus. Were you going to tell me if I didn't call?\"\n\n\"Probably not, although I did think about it, if that matters,\" admitted Marcus. \"Listen, you don't know her, just someone I met before you and see from time to time. Jules, you still there?\"\n\n\"I heard you, just thinking is all . . . What else have you not told me?\"\n\n\"Honestly, Jules, there are certain things that don't necessarily warrant a conversation until you are clear on what it is you want from this thing we are doing. Unless you would like to shed some light on matters now?\"\n\n\"I didn't know that you were seeing other people, publicly is all, but I guess you are. I mean, it's none of my business. It's not like we're sleeping together or something.\"\n\n\"Would it change things between us if we were?\" asked Marcus.\n\n\"It wouldn't be a declarative statement or anything, but it would clear up some lines regarding intention,\" I said.\n\n\"Jules, a lot of my work is social, you know that. I have never been reserved about my intentions toward you, Jules,\" said Marcus. \"I want to be with you in every way. Say the word and we will go together.\"\n\n\"I can't. Michael needs me.\" The words jumped off my tongue before my brain could do an appropriate edit. \"What I mean is, the entire purpose of me being there is to observe Nikolai and Annya. I can't very well do that if I am with you debuting, now can I? . . . Marcus?\"\n\n\"You don't have a monopoly on silence, Jules,\" he said in a tone that conveyed his agitation with me. \"Mike's a great guy, but I won't be in his shadow even for you.\"\n\n\"I know and I'm sorry. Truly I am, which is why I called. Not to say I'm sorry, because I didn't know I would be saying I'm sorry, but to tell you about Saturday. I guess I didn't do it the right way. Please don't be mad, okay?\"\n\n\"Delicate ground it is, Jules. I just hope you understand that,\" said Marcus. I understood that he was saying my twenty-something cute-craziness is wearing thin in his grown-man world. \"Moving on, we will both be in attendance on Saturday. What are the rules here, baby? What else do you need? I have another call waiting\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't say it like that, please. I need for you not to get exhausted with me, because I don't think I could bear it. Then I need for you to delete this chick's number from your phone sooner than later, although I know I have no right to ask . . . right now. Most important is I need you, okay?\" I said.\n\nFor some time I had been overanalyzing, about what I wanted\u2014what I needed from Marcus, to pacify the turbulent conditions in my head. Now, in the most roundabout way, I found my voice and was able to share it with him. My hope was that it would not be met with deafening silence.\n\n\"Okay, I will see you there,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Okay? . . . Good.\" I held my breath for his response, hoping for something more that would quiet the pangs of anxiety creeping into my soul.\n\n\"Jules . . . nothing . . . bye,\" he said.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen not overthinking Marcus, I managed to tap into my network and learn that Abramovich's wife, Annya, was a major patron of French haute couture and Italian fashion. He, on the other hand, appeared to be less inclined to anything that was not about creating additional wealth via oil, technology, communications, and multimedia throughout Russia, Asia, and blue chip holdings in the U.S., unless it measured 34-24-36, which is clearly why Michael wanted me to look \"less official.\"\n\nWith Gary's help (i.e., editorial discount) I acquired an Yves Saint Laurent dress for the evening featuring a slim black skirt and a voluminous white silk top with an exposed back. Despite the boatneck cut of the blouse, the fabrication made the contours of my ample bust quite visible\u2014another gift from Cora's side, of course. He finished the look off with oversize bone, gold, and onyx bangles and flowing hair.\n\n\"Honey, trust me, men like that love themselves some cascading hair, especially all this voluminousness you got going on,\" said Gary, running his fingers through my mane. \"You sure you're not part Indian?\"\n\n\"Shut up and fix my hair right, will you?\" I said, playfully slapping at Gary. \"Honestly, what would I do without you always coming to the fashion rescue?\"\n\n\"All right, Cinderella, remember to make sure that most of it falls over your shoulder, and when he is around, toss your head and throw it back like one of them Charlie's Angels girls from back in the day. It will drive him crazy! Trust,\" said Gary.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nArriving at Michael and Carly's building via a yellow cab to a line of waiting black sedans was a bit intimidating in itself without fixating on the fact that Marcus and his date were most likely already upstairs. When extending the invitation\u2014or sentence, as it were\u2014Michael never said how many people were coming. I envisioned fifty or so. Walking through the marbled entrance hall of their home and seeing the formally attired staff in tails carrying trays of champagne, wine, and hors d'oeuvres, I would say it was closer to two hundred, with the median age being north of forty-five . . . single solitary mullet in the Caspian, I am. The only thing missing in this swanky affair was an arrival announcement stating each guest's position and affiliation. I imagine mine might go something like, \"Ms. Jules Sinclair, dateless spinster daughter of Charles and Cora Sinclair of Virginia\" or \"Ms. Jules Sinclair, dead woman walking.\"\n\nNancy Wilson was the first familiar face I saw. Having been with us for some time now, she and I had become quite friendly, so upon learning I was alone, she clipped me to her skirt hem and made some beneficial introductions. My favorite by far was to Bourjois Cosmetics CEO and socialite Chantal Chapman. Talk about a self-made woman by way of a proper assist from a tycoon husband who was more than twenty years her senior. Chantal was indeed a force of 'UES by way of Arkansas' glamour. Everything about her was a statement, from her big auburn hair to the enormous emeralds and diamonds and deathly sharp fingernails lacquered the same flaming shade as her hair and lips. Immediately upon laying eyes on my YSL ensemble, she declared that she could never wear hers again (even though Yves himself had fitted her), to which I quipped, \"Thank God, 'cause I don't need the pressure!\" Chantal enjoyed the unfiltered retort and declared to Nancy that I was a gem. That's cute and all, as long as I could be the living equivalent of the 20 carats sitting on her finger. Honestly, where is security or a little person to hold her hand up?!\n\n\"That's why I hired her,\" said Michael, appearing between the two of them as if they were Heaven and Earth and he the stars; always meant to be there. \"Jules, you do look lovely tonight. Clearly I am paying you too much money.\"\n\n\"Or maybe it's not your money at all,\" said Chantal, \"that keeps a young woman in a certain comfort.\"\n\n\"Unless she, being me, has a fabulous gay with divine fashion access,\" I said, quickly squashing the \"kept woman\" direction of conversation.\n\n\"Clearly more fun, just less perks,\" said Chantal. \"Remember, it's always better to acquire, my dear, than lease.\"\n\nFollowing a few more pleasantries, Michael made our apologies and ushered me away to the far corner of the room, where Carly was holding court with Annya and Nikolai Abramovich. Against the nighttime skyline and the amber lighting created for the evening, Carly appeared warm and ever-present, unlike the cold, old, nosy coot I knew she could be. True, we had found a way to be cordial, even faux-friendly in the aftermath of her Tony confession, but my defenses were never down around her. Hell, if she looked close enough she would see my hand on the trigger just waiting for her to go left. Thankfully Cora taught me to play the civility game long ago. After initial exchanges and introductions, Michael and Nikolai made their exit, but not before Nikolai properly sized me up in a manner that was at once inappropriate and completely obvious to all present, including his wife. Her blas\u00e9 attitude, however, conveyed that it was expected and the least of her concerns\u2014unlike the meticulous application of her makeup, giving her skin the appearance of the finest porcelain bisque doll.\n\n\"Jules, you look very appropriate,\" said Carly. \"Remarkable, actually, for a woman of your age to dress so well. Your contemporaries are trotting around in little dresses that leave little to the imagination, baring their midriff. Positively gauche.\"\n\n\"In defense of my peer group, Carly, it's all trial and error. Fashion, as Coco said, fades, only style remains. Mrs. Abramovich, like Carly, you are quite the style icon,\" I said, paying specific attention to her dramatic, cobalt-blue, embellished Valentino couture gown. Far too dressy for such an affair, but then again my job is to charm and ingratiate, not to judge. \"Where do you find inspiration?\" I asked, not trusting whatever was to come from Carly's mouth next.\n\n\"Darling, when you spend as much as I do, season after season, they have no choice but to call you an icon,\" said Annya, so taken with herself that Carly's steely-eyed gaze escaped her. Ahhhh, when the rich and the nouveau riche clash\u2014what fun!\n\n\"Well, in that case I had better do as Chantal instructed and find myself a husband of means then,\" I said, garnering an affirmative nod from both.\n\nUnlike Carly, Annya is a natural beauty, brunette and buxom. She was born to extreme poverty in Slovenia the way Carly was born to extreme wealth. Legend and gossip circuits have it that she was the au pair to Nikolai's youngest child and lured him away from his wife of nearly twenty years in a matter of months. She is the stuff of gold-digging opportunistic legend and is unapologetic about it. I must introduce her to Blake someday.\n\n\"Jules, I had no idea you were looking to marry,\" said Carly, no more interested in my marriage prospects than in Annya's style status, but isn't that what polite conversation is all about, faking it? \"Why didn't you come to me? There are some stellar men about.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I said, more as a conversation point than anything else. \"I used to say that I wanted a man just like my father. I have since amended that to say I want a man who my father likes. Someone who personally checks all the right boxes and a few wrong ones, yet who is strong enough to withstand my ambition.\"\n\n\"Rubbish, darling. No such man has ever been created. Fathers only like the ones who are reflections of their best selves,\" said Carly. \"As for the strength, we women crafted a fable long ago to make men believe that is who they are. They are not and never will be.\"\n\n\"I must agree. The men themselves do not know what greatness they are truly capable of without our eyes and prowess,\" said Annya. \"The trickier part is to continue holding the reins without their knowledge in the face of excessive power.\"\n\n\"Which is why you must always be stronger, craftier, more cunning than they are, dear,\" said Carly.\n\n\"My goodness, you both make finding the right mate sound like an Ethan Hunt Mission Impossible,\" I said.\n\n\"It is, dear. The perfect man doesn't just appear. You make him,\" said Annya, \"but it takes far longer than five seconds.\"\n\n\"It takes a lifetime,\" said Carly.\n\n\"Okay, two questions. Is there a handbook, and whereabouts might one go to find such a man?\" I asked.\n\n\"Of course not. It's instinctual. You'll know when you cross him . . . unless . . .\" said Carly in a forced tone that reeked with disapproval, be it for the sentiment or the approaching guests who had captured her attention, prompting her to cross in front of me and Annya in order to greet them.\n\n\"Dah-ling, I am so glad you were able to join us. You look absolutely fabulous, so debonair. Come, come! You must meet Annya Abramovich. Annya, this is my everything, my confidant, the keeper of my world, Marcus Crawford.\"\n\nYou ever have that moment when time just stops and a split second transforms into an eternity? Well, if not, here's mine. Knowing that he was coming tonight did not prepare me for the actual moment. I had rehearsed a few times over how I would be poised and composed when we came face-to-face. Now here he stood before me but not seeing me, with Carly clinging to his left arm and Annya to the right, sizing him up like the main course. Forget the former script, anxiety was about to make me a sweaty mess, and that never reads well on silk. My breaths were coming in faster, shorter waves, a sure sign that I could not trust myself to be in such close proximity to Marcus and not reveal the true nature of our relationship.\n\nI was so focused on flight that I collided, champagne flute first, into another guest wearing an example of the garish outfits that Carly mentioned earlier\u2014rouching across the hips is no one's friend . . . even if you are a size 4 and have mile-long legs.\n\n\"What the . . . shit. Oh my gawd, Julesy!!!! What are you doing here?!\" said Blake.\n\n\"Holy shit, Blakes. I'm so sorry,\" I said, frantically trying to wipe droplets of champagne from her purple strapless dress before a stain set in, not daring to look behind me and see if our collision had elicited attention. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"You tell me. He said to put on something sexy, and I thought it was . . . well, forget what I thought. Anyway, here we are. OMG, here you are! You look so great! I am totally borrowing that,\" said Blake, eyeing my YSL. \"You know I am borrowing that, right?\"\n\nElated to see a friendly face that I could download to, I briefly forgot the immediate\u2014until, that is, the sound of Marcus's laugh echoed about. \"Thanks, boo, but I have to go,\" I said.\n\n\"Wait, not yet. I want you to meet my guy. Well, he's not my guy officially. That's what I thought this was about. Anyway, I'm working on it. You know Richard will absolutely die when he finds out that you met him first,\" said Blake. \"That is, if the old bat will dislodge her fangs.\"\n\n\"Would love to. Let's go,\" I said, grateful to have a legitimate reason to put as much distance as possible between myself, Marcus, and Carly. My efforts to continue forward proved futile as Blake stepped into me, forcing another collision that now elicited attention.\n\n\"There you are, dear. Marcus, you know Jules,\" said Carly, still glued to his side. Had I not been standing there to observe this surreal moment with my own eyes, I would not have considered Blake's depiction of \"the old bat with fangs\" to be true, but judging by the almost total color drain from Marcus's face on seeing me, Carly was indeed a well-fanged vampire, maybe even Nosferatu. Having no forewarning as I did, Marcus nodded a polite \"hello, yes, of course\" that belied his traditional charismatic demeanor and robbed me of any contact. \"And this is his friend . . . I'm sorry, dear. I seem to have forgotten again. What's your name?\" asked Carly.\n\n\"Blake. My name is Blake, Mrs. Kipps. I am also a friend of Michael's. We have met before, remember?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course, Blaaake,\" said Carly in an affected drawl that purposefully emphasized the lack of sincerity. \"This is Annya Abramovich and Jules Sinclair.\" Maybe if Blakes had added \"a friend of Michael's who has never slept with him and never will because his wallet is too short, but yours, on the other hand . . .\" Maybe if she said that, their dynamic would be less arctic.\n\nVisibly taking great pains to ignore the slight, Blake nodded hello to Annya and then proceeded to quicken the ground between Marcus and me. \"Good to meet you, Annya. Jules is one of my dearest friends,\" said Blake.\n\n\"My, isn't the world small,\" said Carly, turning to me with a disapproving glare.\n\n\"You could say that,\" Marcus, Blake, and I echoed in unison.\n\nI believe this is what they call a Texas Standoff. My eyes locked on Marcus, his ever so carefully on me, Carly and Blake sizing each other up. Save for the lights blinking on and off signaling that it was time to adjourn to the dining room, who's to say where the moment would go? With each step I tried to do the math. How the? When the? WTF! Of all the men on the entire island and in Jersey, how is it that Blake and I were dating the same one? Hold up, did she say \"again\" as in \"I have met you before\"? OH MY GOD, THEY'RE FUCKING!! Why have I never heard about him before? What in the hell happened to \"Mr. Potentially More\"? OMG, is Marcus Blake's Mr. Potentially More? If only I could turn to her and get the answers to the laundry list of questions in my head, but I can't. Not with Marcus at my side imploring ever so discreetly that we need to talk. UNDER-FUCKING-STATEMENT, MARCUS!!!! Keep the champagne. I need a bottle of Jack.\n\nOnce inside the dining room, we separated. Each guest's seat was designated by ivory textured place cards featuring their name in brushed gold script. Richard would approve. If the gods were crazy enough to concoct this evening, then surely they would take great pleasure in seating Marcus and me next to each other, but not if I could do a quick swap before anyone noticed. Michael was standing near the head of the table directing traffic as it were with Nikolai, who, despite being the single wealthiest person in the room, seemed to be salivating at the attention bestowed upon him far more than his wife.\n\n\"Jules, you're here,\" said Michael, signaling my seat, near where he and Nikolai were standing. The majority of the guests were still milling about and not yet crossed the threshold.\n\nAs Michael continued rattling on, as hosts are forced to do, about the merits of this approaching guest or that one, I was busy scouting the table for the task at hand. For, as much as I wanted to observe Marcus and Blake's dynamic, I didn't need them sitting right near me. For fear of having an uncontrollable desire to stab him, spill more champagne on her, or lose control of my vocals and yelling \"Are you fucking serious!\" at the top of my lungs to the universe before the amuse-bouche is served.\n\nCareful not to physically disengage from him and Nikolai, I took two steps in the direction of my seat to uncover the identity of my neighbors. Annya was to my left and some man with far too many names\u2014Sir Brandon Phillip Von Blah Blah Blah\u2014to my right. What ever happened to boy-girl-boy-girl? It would be difficult enough trying to focus on \"Operation Nikolai\" and entertain Annya while trying not to lament over Blake and Marcus, much less having to endure the musings of some old guy who in all probability would either have ripe breath or try to touch my leg under the table.\n\nWhile putting my purse down, I discreetly switched my seat for Annya's. Something tells me that as long as his title is right, she could overlook any number of olfactory sins. Marcus and Blake approached from the opposite side of the table to exchange pleasantries with Michael and Nikolai. I could not help but look up and notice how very New York Times Sunday Edition Wedding Section they were\u2014in spite of Blake's dress selection this evening. She so naturally fit into the space at his side I'd thought was mine alone a few days ago. Had it been a different man, I would have found extreme pleasure in her happiness, but this was not the case. It was not another man. She was standing there with my Marcus, and I was watching it alone, near sickness, without the protection of an all-knowing friend or an escort to hold my hair should I need to immediately release the emotions bubbling inside. Surely this must be one of Dante's levels of Hell or maybe part of a Kundera comedy. Fact is, I am here in this moment, but there is absolutely no laughter to be had, which makes it quite apropos, I guess.\n\n\"My my, I see your keen eye goes beyond fashion,\" Carly whispered from behind, catching me off guard. \"He is something, isn't he?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, what were you saying?\" I said, taken aback by her brazen intrusion into my thoughts.\n\n\"Marcus, of course. He is impressive . . . I sense you share my sentiment, do you not,\" said Carly. Definitely more of a statement than a question.\n\n\"I hadn't noticed,\" I said.\n\n\"I beg to differ, my dear. I would say you have noticed a lot, as you should,\" she said, locking eyes with me as if she were magically scanning my thoughts. \"Great potential that one has, provided it's honed properly. Wouldn't you agree?\" Fearing the release of highly sensitive data, I forcibly changed the direction of our conversation and commented about the beauty of the d\u00e9cor long enough for seats to be taken.\n\nMarcus and Blake were seated in the center on the opposite side of the table, close enough that I could bear full witness to their every gesture but far enough away that their words eluded me. Inevitably the moment came that she made him laugh, head tilted back, eyes closed, a slow-finish kind of laugh. The same one he has done with me many times before, so there was no question of its sincerity. I didn't have a monopoly on his laughter. The moment crystallized, forcing me from the table. Blakes is one of my besties, and if Marcus is her \"Mr. Potentially More,\" then what right do I have to him? She won't value him as I would, as I do. I know Blakes. She will use him until she is bored and then she will move on. She doesn't deserve him . . . but she is my friend.\n\nMy only familiarity with Michael and Carly's home being the observatory, I found the elevator and sought solace there. Above hung a full moon, temporarily shadowed by a ring of clouds. Its presence explained to my ill-tempered tears that tonight could not go any other way than how it was.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" asked Marcus, appearing minutes after I had arrived.\n\n\"I am not. I'm so not okay right now, so please leave.\"\n\n\"Jules, I had no idea that you and Blake were friends. This is . . . unfortunate.\"\n\n\"Well, that's one way to put it. A royal fuckup would be another. That is, if you were standing in my shoes or even cared, but . . .\"\n\n\"Don't go there, Jules. Of course I care. Why else would I be up here, instead of there?\"\n\n\"Are you sleeping with her?\" I asked.\n\n\"Listen, you're angry and you're hurt. Let's not compound the matter by going down a road that\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course you are, why wouldn't you be, everyone else has.\"\n\n\"Jules, I know this is all . . . Hell, I don't know what this is but let's not say anything to make things worse,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Please stop! There is absolutely nothing I can say that could possibly make tonight worse than it already is. Marcus, you are here with one of my best friends and clearly she is not a new acquaintance unless Carly was mistaken. Either way I lose.\"\n\n\"I prefer not to believe that,\" he said.\n\n\"Really, how do you figure that?\"\n\n\"Truly, I don't know in this moment, but I can tell you that the last thing I want is for you to look this lovely, up here, alone, crying tears over me,\" said Marcus, removing his neatly placed silk pocket square to catch the trails running down my cheeks.\n\n\"Great, that makes two of us,\" I said, moving away from his touch in search of some perspective. \"You had better go back downstairs. Your date\u2014Blake will be concerned.\"\n\n\"I'm concerned about you.\"\n\n\"Me too.\"\n\nOnce I was sure that Marcus had gone, I allowed myself a final outburst before forcibly pulling myself together. What was it about me and this room? Such misery it brings every time. In the future I must make a concerted effort never to be in it. Stepping into the hallway, to my dismay, the all-seeing eye stood in wait.\n\n\"Is everything okay? I noticed you left the table abruptly and was . . . concerned,\" said Carly.\n\n\"With all due respect, please use another word. I have more than enough 'concern' tonight, thank you,\" I said.\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"I felt a bit light-headed, dizzy, that's all, and needed some fresh air,\" I said, patting the last bit of moisture from my face.\n\n\"And Marcus as well? Did he need some fresh air also?\" asked Carly.\n\n\"I don't know, Carly. You'll have to ask him.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Carly, promptly switching gears in favor of a lighter approach\u2014her suspicion satisfied. \"Well, I hope there's not a problem with the food. We used a new caterer, from downtown no less, but I have been assured that they are stellar. Well, we'll see, won't we?\"\n\n## 35\n\n* * *\n\n## SUNDAY\n\nCAN YOU BELIEVE she said that to me? I mean, what is it with that woman?\"\n\n\"Darling, Carly is the least of your concerns . . . Sorry, wrong word,\" said Richard, perched in his usual Sunday position at Cub Room. The chaos of my life on this day superceded his need to start off the morning with a Bloody Mary, opting instead for the clarifying jolt that a double espresso might bring. \"What are you going to do about Blake and Marcus? You can't ignore the poor man forever.\"\n\n\"One evening does not constitute forever, Richard. Besides, I was in no position to speak last night. It's bad enough that I faked illness to excuse myself from after-dinner chatter. Addressing his ringing my bell incessantly to explain the unexplainable truly would have made me ill.\"\n\n\"You know, sometimes\u2014often, actually\u2014I think you like misery too much, dear.\"\n\n\"Almost as much as you like gin? Excuse me, let's not forget I'm the injured party here.\"\n\n\"No, you're not, Jules. You are the party with knowledge now of all the players, so therefore you have a choice! Did you hear me? There is a choice to be made, and it is yours. Question is, what are you going to do?\"\n\n\"I know you think I am weak and why shouldn't you? You're always coming to my rescue, but there is a code, you know, about this sort of thing. Girls don't do this to girls.\"\n\n\"Honey, grow up. Codes are for children and cadets. Women not only do it every day but some actually find great everlasting happiness in using their cunning to acquire the right prize. Trust me, Blake will recover,\" said Richard, finishing the last drop of coffee. \"Is he the right prize for the sacrifice?\"\n\n\"Yes, I think so, but will our friendship?\" I asked.\n\n\"That I don't know. Depends on how you handle it,\" said Richard.\n\n\"I wish I didn't have to. Can't you do this one little thing for me?\" I implored.\n\n\"As much as I would like to break Blake's face at times, this particular cut is yours and yours alone.\"\n\n\"Probably won't be so bad. I bet Marcus is just like the others,\" I said.\n\n\"For your sake, I hope so, but I doubt it. Blake is not the singularly focused, emotionally depraved creature you believe her to be. That's just her PR,\" said Richard. \"Quite the contrary, Blake wants desperately for one of these men to legitimize her, to show her through the front door to business associates instead of dark clubs and exotic vacations thousands of miles away from their respectable lives. Your Mr. Crawford may be more than just your ideal. He may very well be hers, also.\"\n\n\"Why are you telling me this?\"\n\n\"Because you need to know. This is a win-lose proposition no matter how you look at it. It's time to start living your life as an empowered woman full-time, Jules, and stop straddling the fence. Blood oaths and pinky swears are for elementary school. Don't you think it's time you graduated?\"\n\n## 36\n\n* * *\n\n## A DECLARATIVE STATEMENT\n\nIN THE WEEKS that followed my conversation with Richard, I did allow Marcus back in, because any thought of an immediate future without him seemed too much to bear. As a show of my commitment to being fully in the space of us, thereby eliminating the need for any decoy, Gary, Carly, Michael, Messy Mitzy, Percy, Jacklyn, Ivan, Cora, Daddy, and even his friend Paolo were along for the ride\u2014everyone but Blake, the one person who was calling to hang out and vent about Marcus dumping her. But I couldn't. I was a coward and I knew it. In my defense, I just wanted to hang on to her friendship as long as possible. I knew that ours would not survive this. I just needed a bit more time to come to terms with the choice I had made and with losing her. Following a near encounter at Barneys one Saturday with Marcus, I could no longer hide the truth.\n\nWe had just completed his selection of new Valextra travel cases and were rounding the corner to the jewelry section when I saw her standing there in oversize sunglasses and a hat, and next to her was a new Daddy Warbucks. I froze in my step, unsure what to do next. Marcus followed my gaze.\n\n\"Hey, isn't that Blake?\" he asked.\n\n\"Um-hmm.\"\n\n\"Well, no time like the present to say hello.\"\n\n\"Wait, not yet,\" I said.\n\n\"If not now, then when, Jules? We can't pretend forever that there is no history there.\"\n\n\"I know, but she doesn't know about our future, exactly.\"\n\n\"You can't be serious, Jules. It's been weeks now and you haven't told her?\"\n\n\"I didn't know how.\"\n\n\"Well, you'd better figure it out, otherwise we'll be ducking out of department stores all over town,\" said Marcus, taking hold of my hand and exiting out the Sixtieth Street entrance. \"Come on, my little puppy, tuck that tail. We can look at watches later.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"I was starting to wonder about you,\" said Blake as she settled into the booth next to me at L'express. \"When I called Richard, he was all cryptic and self-absorbed as usual. Something about adopting a baby and getting the house ready for social services . . . anyway.\"\n\n\"I know, I'm so happy for him and Edgar. It's about time. They'll make the best parents, don't you think?\" I said.\n\n\"I guess. How are you?\" asked Blake, indifferent to the whole situation.\n\n\"Well, that's a fully loaded question. Why don't we start with something easier? How are you?\"\n\n\"I'm amazing! Getting ready to spend a glorious holiday with Stavros aboard his yacht. We are going to fly over to Nice, where we will meet his crew, then set sail for the Amalfi Coast and then to Santorini. Can you imagine the sheer fierceness of yours truly gallivanting about the Riviera!\"\n\n\"I can, and I fear the damage you will do to his credit cards.\"\n\n\"Correction, already done! A girl does need travel gear, you know.\"\n\n\"Lordy. I have no words.\"\n\n\"I like this one, Jules,\" said Blake, \"I mean, he is not the ideal package, but I can work with it. He's a widower and a divorc\u00e9. He's good to me and needs me in total, not just as a trophy. Did I mention he is a widower? Hello!\"\n\n\"You did, twice,\" I said, anxious to pounce on any nugget of information that could potentially minimize what I was about to say. \"Good to know you're not pining over Marcus.\"\n\n\"Ugh, don't mention that name to me. Biggest waste of time.\"\n\n\"Oh, sorry,\" I said.\n\n\"J, don't be. It's not like you're the one who got dumped. I mean, technically, I wasn't dumped, per se. We just ran our course. Voil\u00e0!\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's a much better way to see it,\" I said. \"Besides, if you were still seeing Marcus, then you would have never met Stavros and would not be getting ready to sun and fun in the South of France.\"\n\n\"Exactly!! So let's only speak of beauty and yummies, since I have been starving myself for the past two weeks getting this body beach-ready,\" said Blake. \"What are you having? I know, let's do the Ni\u00e7oise and split the French toast for dessert like old times.\"\n\nAnd that was how it was for the majority of lunch. We talked about the incidentals of life and matters concerning her imminent adventure. I tried to erase Richard's observation of her from my thoughts, as it is easier to believe her isolated in some way. Stavros was her consolation prize, and only time would tell if he would be hers to keep.\n\n\"Blakes, I know you said not to speak of Marcus again, but you do know that we are neighbors, right? Which means we see one another. And we work together, so . . .\"\n\n\"Jules, correction, he is an investor, so you don't actually work together,\" said Blake. \"As for the neighbor part, well, there isn't much that can be done about that, now is there? Except maybe taking the stairs.\"\n\n\"Stop. He's not bad, you know. Actually, very kind and pretty great on the eyes,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, therein lies the problem. It's all peachy keen until his mystery is against you, and you find yourself waiting for his random phone calls too, for which there is no rhyme or reason. The only thing that man is consistent about is his work and his horizontal stroke. Not much room for anything else, which is fine. It's his right. All I'm saying is, don't go being all fabulous occasionally making me think we could be something while knowing all along that you have no intentions of being serious,\" said Blake, who by now was doing very little to mask the angst that encapsulated her relationship with Marcus.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Blake. I didn't know he hurt you like that,\" I said, without thinking that I was about to multiply that very pain.\n\n\"He didn't hurt me. I was just sharing. Besides, it not like it's anything you need to know.\"\n\nShit!!! It's so easy to just sit here and allow the moment to pass. What good will telling her do? In two days she'll be on an Air France flight to happiness. Why muck that up? Except the Marcus that Blake was speaking of is in direct contrast to the one who goes above and beyond to make himself available to me. The man who speaks about a future that prominently features us together. Her Marcus is not the very same Marcus who was away fishing in some remote stream with my dad days before. \"Well, um, see, the thing is . . . he asked me out,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh,\" replied Blake, visibly shaken but fighting to remain composed. \"What do I care if you go on a date with my leftovers? At least you have been warned.\"\n\n\"Well, it's not exactly your leftovers, Blake, which by the way sounds a bit insulting to me.\"\n\n\"Uh, you know what I meant. What do you mean by not exactly?\"\n\n\"Remember end of last year when you started dating Mr. Potentially More? Well, a short time after that I started dating someone as well. I didn't talk to you about it because . . . I don't know why, but the timing just never seemed to be right. If you must know, I didn't really speak to anyone about it because it was complicated. And you never gave a name to your guy. Even when Richard kept calling him 'this one,' you didn't say anything. Anyway, it wasn't until the dinner at Carly's that I realized that your guy and my guy were the same person. Which is why I pretended to be sick that night, so I could leave and think.\"\n\n\"Normally you give far more details, Jules. Why so short this time?\" asked Blake with a fire in her eyes that validated all my fears.\n\n\"Sometimes the details just don't matter,\" I said.\n\n\"So let me get this straight. It has been weeks since that dinner, and you and Marcus have known but neither of you saw fit to tell me. Hold up, were you the reason he broke up with me? What, so he chose you over me?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't put it that way,\" I said, but I could see Blake running the library of their conversations, whether he'd become distant or used the old standby \"It's not you it's me\" line.\n\n\"Are you the one that he has 'feelings for and wants to give it a go' so he can't continue to fuck me?\" said Blake. \"I don't believe this shit!\"\n\n\"Blake, I\u2014\"\n\n\"No, just shut up, Jules. How could you wait so long to tell me? Allow me to play myself over this guy? Walking around here like you're my friend and not the scandalous treacherous bitch you really are.\"\n\n\"Blake, I am your friend! I didn't know what this was and I needed to be sure it was something worth\u2014\"\n\n\"Worth what? Losing a friend over? Stabbing me in the back? You fucking cunt. Well, I hope it was worth it, because you are dead to me,\" said Blake, grabbing her bag and running to the door.\n\nRising to give chase, I left a loose wad of bills on the table and hoped it would be enough to cover the cost of our meal and the free show that spilled onto the sidewalk as she was hailing a cab.\n\n\"Blake, come on, we're not in the mob.\"\n\n\"You should count your blessings,\" said Blake as she closed the door. \"Oh, and since we're confessing today, I knew Tony was fucking Angie long before you found them.\"\n\nLater that night, after walking more than fifty blocks home to get some perspective, I called Cora and recounted the whole dreadful experience. I shared that I was not certain of Blake's confession about Tony and Angie. She was angry and said many things. No matter how awful a friend I had recently been to her, I just didn't believe that Blake had ever been as bad to me. Cora, on the other hand, ever the skeptic, ever my cheerleader, said she believed her and never liked her anyway\u2014something about Blake reminded Mommy of Rosalyn, her rival for Daddy's affections.\n\nBy the time Marcus let himself in, I was in bed, having a fitful time making peace between what I had lost and what I had gained. He allowed me to cry and volunteered to phone Blake, but we both knew it would only make matters worse for her, and that was the last thing I wanted. Before closing my eyes, I asked Marcus if he thought that our relationship would be cursed cosmically because of my actions. He said, \"True love always prevails, Jules. We just have to make a promise to be braver and more vigilant than most to make sure the cost was not in vain.\"\n\n## 37\n\n* * *\n\n## STRANGE BEDFELLOWS\n\nSINCE THE FALLING-OUT with Blake, the friendship lines had been drawn. In the divorce I kept Richard, albeit with a firm reprimand about how horribly I'd handled things despite his sage advice. She got Joy, which I understood, as Blake was the injured party and Joy's overly maternal instincts compelled her to try to make everything okay. Older than Blake and me, she lived solidly by the Code. Sometimes I think that Joy will die on that cross. Maybe if Richard gave her the speech, there would be room enough for us both, the saint and the sinner, but until then I had my man, my work, and a new ally in the trenches.\n\nNancy's residency ended and, surprise, Harry Connick Jr.'s is about to start, clearly a much better proposition than having him seated at a table. Even if Michael felt averse to me and Marcus being together because of their friction, he cannot deny that in relationship bliss I am all the more better at my job. I am happy, happier than I've ever been. That ever-present voice of doubt residing in my head of past mistakes is now less, and Jacklyn especially enjoys the perk of relationship bliss as it translates to earlier days and fewer weekend calls from me. I have a new motivation: my boyfriend, Marcus Crawford. We are a couple, and that means allowances are made, his being communication and mine being flexibility. Marcus's travel remains as it had always been, intense and international. I make certain that in the times he is home, I am there as well\u2014whenever possible.\n\nIn preparation for Harry's debut, there is a marathon of things to be completed. The slightest oversight would impact the much-delayed weekend Marcus and I have planned to spend in the Hamptons, so Jacklyn is working inside my office for the day so that we can focus with minimal distraction. Sitting opposite me at the desk, she continues to man the phones as we draft and approve an influx of media copy and interview requests.\n\n\"It's Mrs. Kipps,\" said Jacklyn. \"Do you want her?\"\n\n\"Yes. Thanks, Jacklyn. Why don't you go and do a run-through of Harry's dressing room? Make sure we aren't missing anything on his rider.\"\n\n\"Hi, Carly,\" I said, once I was certain we were alone.\n\n\"Jules, is everything all right? I hadn't heard from you, and it has been some time since Stavros and Blake left. Did you tell her?\"\n\n\"Yes, she hates me.\"\n\n\"In time she will come to thank you. After all, had you not come to me and shared the sordid mess, she would never have met Stavros and maybe finally gotten the life she desires.\"\n\n\"I hope you're right, but it doesn't change the fact that I am missing a friend.\"\n\n\"Choices, darling. We all have choices, and you made the only one there was to make. Marcus is quite a catch. It's quite rare to find them of his caliber at the time they are ready to get serious about things, if you know what I mean. Besides, Stavros is right for her, not Marcus. I saw him drinking her in at dinner.\"\n\n\"So it wasn't a coincidence that they met?\" I said.\n\n\"Heavens no, dear. If we left everything to chance, then her kind would rule the world, now wouldn't they?\" replied Carly.\n\n\"True, I guess. Any word on when Michael is going to blow or is that one for chance? I have seen him give me that look, but he hasn't said much of anything, which has me quite nervous.\"\n\n\"Good cause to be. Thankfully, he's been preoccupied. Just know that I have given the union my blessing, which may be enough. Let's see,\" said Carly.\n\nI heard the words clearly but did not have complete faith in Carly's sphere of influence as it related to Michael's territorial nature over his professional pursuits. He may not be addressing the matter directly with me but he was peripherally, which is exactly where I felt I had been pushed to\u2014the periphery. There was something major brewing, far more important than the opening of Harry Connick Jr., but that was all I knew. Whereas I used to be part of the inner-circle think tank with him, Raymond, and Simone, I was now pushed to the perimeter, skimming at the edge of the conversation but not yet knowing fully the topic of it.\n\n\"Carly, why did you help me?\" I asked.\n\n\"Preservation, dear, preservation.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" I said.\n\n\"In time you'll understand, and you'll thank me,\" said Carly.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe day of Harry's debut found Michael on cloud 999. He was buzzing about with more exuberance than normal for such an occasion. Earlier his tailor had come to put the final touches on a white dinner jacket he had commissioned for the evening. I recognized Mr. Vintorini in the hall as I made my way down to his office. For my part, I found it most useful to provide just enough cushion in our dynamic for Michael to seek me out instead of readily showing concern for his not addressing my relationship with Marcus. Of the many lessons that Michael had instructed me in over the past year, this was by far the most useful and easiest to incorporate.\n\n\"Come on in, Jules. Tonight's a big night. You feel it?\" asked Michael. He was standing before his interior full-length mirror admiring his reflection in the new jacket. \"Which do you prefer: the rose or the pocket square?\"\n\n\"Pocket square, more classic and understated. The whole town seems to be buzzing about Harry's performance. We even have people flying in,\" I said.\n\n\"That's what I wanna talk to you about. I need you to remove the people from my table. Don't cancel them, just find room elsewhere.\"\n\n\"Michael, that's impossible unless you want me to put them in the kitchen, and I don't think Jean would like that very much. We are above capacity for both performances, standing room only. We'll be lucky if the fire marshal doesn't make a surprise visit and shut us down.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a great problem to have, if you ask me. Make it work. Nikolai is coming into town.\"\n\n\"Okay, how many in his party? I'm sure if it's small I can reshuffle and put them somewhere.\"\n\n\"Just him and his second in command, Mikhail. I don't want them somewhere, I want them at my table . . . alone.\"\n\n\"Okay, just so I am clear . . . I'm moving five people from your table in order to make room for two?\"\n\n\"That's right. Also, I need you to draft a statement for morning release announcing my newly minted partnership with Nikolai toward the global expansion of Carly's.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, you're what?\"\n\n\"You heard me. Nikolai wants to be in the service business and is putting a cash infusion into Carly's that will allow me to do what I want to with the business.\"\n\n\"So you are still set on expanding, despite what the reports showed? What happened to wanting to keep the business private, nurturing its growth and image for a while longer? At least that's what you wanted to do when Marcus suggested expansion.\" I added the last bit under my breath.\n\n\"Your boyfriend doesn't run things around here,\" said Michael, tossing the pocket square to the floor near my feet and affixing the rose to his lapel. \"I brought him into this, so we take my lead. Now I want this on the local morning news show as well, so make . . . What, Jules? Is your hand broken? Do I need Simone to draft it?\"\n\n\"Of course not. I just . . . You just made it into this whole us against them\u2014against him thing that I completely supported. So much so that when you reamed me out for that innocent dinner with him and Gary, I felt like I had disappointed you, and even how I struggled against initially liking Marcus because I didn't want to be disloyal to you. And now . . .\"\n\n\"Now what? You realize that a game is always in play and interchangeable, is that it? Ain't that some shit,\" said Michael, removing the dinner jacket as he stepped away from the mirror. \"Listen, Jules, you can't ever expect to know completely what the full agenda of a man is. You just have to be buoyant and adapt. Can you do that? Of course you can. Now let's get started, unless there is something else?\"\n\n\"Yes, Marcus and me together. What about it? You said yourself that I watch you and know you better than most, so just let me have it. I know you don't like it. Do I need to be worried about my position here with you?\" I said, emboldened as I often am by Michael's unapologetic delivery after a few moments of being on the all-too-familiar receiving end.\n\n\"Transparency is not an everybody situation, I get that. You and Marcus, I'm not pleased, but I trust you until you give me a reason not to,\" replied Michael. \"I'm in a good mood today, Jules, so I will say this. Keep your eyes open, your mouth closed, and never forget family. We're family, Jules.\"\n\n\"Was there a Sicilian convention in town that I didn't know about?\" I asked.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Nothing, everyone's going mobster these days,\" I mumbled, and returned to my office for the remainder of the day to work with Jacklyn, adding the new partnership announcement to our already extensive list.\n\nMarcus was still out of town when the announcement hit, so I can't be sure if I was his first or second phone call, but I know I was at the top of the queue when I heard the short-tempered urgency in his secretary's voice as she put him through to me. And for the third time in as many months, my loyalty was called into question. Marcus felt that I should have given him prior notice: \"I'm not asking for insider information but you could have said something.\" When I tried to explain my actions and talk about my conflicts, trying to do my job and feeling caught in the middle, he said, \"Feelings are like the wind, Jules. They come and go, you'll get over this tantrum. This isn't about separation of church and state. Your oversight, as it were, could impact the business that I do.\" Later I would learn that the omission did impact Marcus's portfolio, though not in the way that I thought, as it was the principal piece in cementing a relationship with Nikolai that would soon put us in California and potentially cost Michael everything.\n\nIn the meantime we had the \"just us times,\" or JUTS; precious, suddenly available weekends, or evenings that originated from a last-minute cancellation. In those times, we would lose ourselves in the kitchen, on the sofa, in the bed, or anyplace that was only about us. Marcus would speak vividly about what it was like to grow up in Boston, attending Brown, Oxford, his dreams of creating a legacy to be passed on to his children so they never had to question whether he'd existed. We developed an affinity for late-night games of strip Trivial Pursuit, and we were so good at strip Twister, it could have been an Olympic competition. With each revelation and shared insight, my respect for Marcus grew, as did my commitment.\n\nAfter this blowup I make a point of being more mindful going forward, while still keeping fully focused on my work affairs. I embrace that \"I\" am now part of a \"we.\" The initial phase is seamless\u2014attending ballet and opera openings, baseball and basketball games, fund-raisers and auctions together\u2014I am now required to accompany Marcus to client dinners whenever girlfriends, fianc\u00e9es, and wives are encouraged to provide an air of civility. We even vacation\u2014or weekend, as it were\u2014with his corporate contacts from around the globe. It's what his lifestyle demands. It is a lot to be constantly \"on\" at that level.\n\nUnlike my experience with Tony, for the most part everyone in Marcus's New York scene took to me well enough. As Carly so aptly said, \"Dear, it would be poor form not to,\" when I expressed my surprise at how smoothly things seemed to be going. The part she left dripping on the floor was \"when your mate is as accomplished and connected as Marcus.\" All well and good, but the one thing I didn't account for was its restrictive nature, as his world frequently overshadowed any perceived needs I may have had.\n\nThe time I relish spending with my friends was reduced to a fraction and his commitments became infinitely higher priority. Every second or third week, I managed to see Richard or have lunch with Jessica, whose husband\u2014yes, the guy from my final interview who she wanted me to meet\u2014was in the financial trade as well. Richard, being in the final stages of adopting a Chinese baby, seemed to have very little time to play constant therapist to my life's predicaments. Apparently learning Mandarin and preparing for the arrival of little Ming Thuy Boulton Davis was getting the best of him. The one bright purely coincidental spot, however, was that Joy and I mended fences after Marcus and I ran into her one evening at 81\/2 as she was awaiting a dinner meeting that was unexpectedly canceled. Before coffee was served, she understood\u2014begrudgingly, mind you\u2014that we were much more than a fling.\n\nThen there were the like it or not downright inopportune times, like being pressured to cancel my plans, even a late night at the office, to accommodate a forgot-to-mention commitment on his calendar. His seeming detachment from or noninterest in some of my affairs often left me feeling displaced and exposed, sometimes missing the self-sufficient woman I had become in London. That woman in the later stages found great value in who she was and relished always being a priority, not having her identity lost in that of her companion. Desiring not to be consumed by these thoughts to the detriment of our relationship\u2014and feeling that I had no other recourse\u2014I shared them with Cora, who to my astonishment was quite empathetic, albeit antiquated. Ultimately, she told me that it is the required cost to be with a man who is fully in his person and of a certain stature: \"You don't want to be with some man who isn't rooted, Julesea. You want a man whose shadow looms much larger than yours but his heart beats for your well-being. Trust me, you'll have a much better life. Why you want to carry all that weight anyway?\" were her exact words. In looking at her and Daddy, I saw this to be true. I just don't know if I want to be Cora is all.\n\n## 38\n\n* * *\n\n## IN OUR FUTURE I SEE\n\nMARCUS'S COVER AND feature did not make the winter edition of Decor magazine as Gary originally planned. It did, however, make end-of-summer inclusive of a four-page spread, yours truly pictured on two of them, named and categorically identified, \"Marcus Crawford and mate Jules Sinclair.\" Cora, naturally, purchased every copy available in Virginia and demanded that Jacklyn comb the Manhattan newsstands as well for reserves. Undoubtedly one would find its way to every member of the Augustus-Sinclair family stateside and abroad within the coming days. Over dinner with Marcus one evening, she in absentia made us address the five-month-old elephant in the room.\n\n\"I was talking to your mother,\" started Marcus.\n\n\"When will you ever learn?\" I asked in jest.\n\n\"Seriously, J, she's not that bad.\"\n\n\"That's because she has ulterior motives where you are concerned,\" I said. \"Let me guess, she wants you to sign her copies of Decor for the girls at the club.\"\n\n\"Took care of that days ago. Actually, she wanted to know what my intentions are with you, seeing as we have yet to discuss them, at least to her satisfaction.\"\n\n\"Did she, now,\" I said, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. I too wanted to know what Marcus saw in the future for us but had decided some time ago not to press the matter. Raising my hands in defense, I said, \"I swear she's not doing my bidding.\"\n\n\"Thought never crossed my mind,\" he said with a wink to the contrary. \"But I do think she deserves an answer\u2014don't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. I just didn't want to be the one to bring it up\u2014in case you weren't ready to discuss it is all.\"\n\n\"So you have thought about it?\" asked Marcus.\n\n\"Of course I have. I am a woman, after all; it's part of the natural order of things. I thought about it from the moment you left Carly's without so much as my phone number. You, sir, should be counting your blessings that I've managed to keep the matter off my tongue for this long. Clearly, I'm teasing . . . sort of. I have thought about it, but only casually,\" I conceded.\n\n\"Really,\" said Marcus, placing his fork and knife down to sit upright in his chair before leaning toward me. One side of my brain immediately started to race with the possibility of oh my gawd is he going to ask me to marry him? I'm so unprepared. Totally should have worn the other dress\u2014photographs much better, while the other pleaded for neutrality. But he said, \"I'm not ready to get married. Maybe in a few years, but not now.\"\n\n\"Oh . . . is that in general or just to me?\" I said, crestfallen, feeling this the only logical next question.\n\n\"Well, I don't\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't do that. You know if you want to marry me, whether it's six months from now or four years from now, the same way you know every other important step in your life long before it happens. You're a decisive planner, Marcus, so don't dance around, just tell me. I can handle it.\"\n\n\"I know you can handle it, Jules. I just wonder if I can handle it if my terms are not accepted,\" said Marcus. \"Are you even ready to settle down?\"\n\nHis phrasing caused me to pause. This is not at all how I envisioned the evening going. Quite the contrary, when his driver Carlos arrived at the office to pick me up, I'd been pleasantly surprised when the door opened to see Marcus seated inside to greet me. My understanding had been that he might be delayed getting to the restaurant due to a last-minute meeting but would send the car for me. On the ride to Le Bernardin, we laughed and exchanged spirited tales about the day. He spoke of needing to make another trip out to L.A., even asking if I could find a few days to join him, as this visit would keep him there for about two weeks. I didn't know the specifics, only that there was a studio ripe for acquisition.\n\n\"I choose not to think of it as settling,\" I said. \"Yes, I can see myself married to you, but if you can't, then . . .\"\n\n\"I never said I couldn't see us married, Jules. I'm just not ready in the immediate future. There is so much on my plate right now that I have to be mindful of. Can you accept that . . . and wait?\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Truthfully, I don't know,\" I said, blatantly aware that those words could very well mean I'd leave this table a single woman once again, but I had to speak my heart. \"What do I do with feeling like a fool as the years go by and all that I was has been completely enveloped by your world, with no promise of anything more than being identified as Marcus Crawford's guest? Hell, Marcus, I already feel like that from time to time but I try not to show it.\"\n\n\"I would never ask that of you, Jules. If you choose to give it, then that is solely your decision, but it is not what I would want or expect. Your independence is one of the things I love most about you,\" he said. \"Jules, I know that right now you think me oblivious but I'm not. I'm aware of what I am asking of you. I know what it feels like to wait on someone only to be disappointed. I won't do that to you.\"\n\n\"I'm not Sasha, Marcus.\"\n\n\"I was referring to my mother,\" said Marcus. \"Is there an urgency in you that needs to get married within the next year, Jules?\"\n\n\"No, but there is something to be said for taking the option completely off the table. It changes the dynamic of you and me. Growing up I heard Cora and Aunt Helen talking about how no man is ever going to buy a cow when he can get the milk for free. Please don't laugh, I'm serious. Marcus, your stance is putting me in that position now, and if I am to believe you, then I must compromise myself in order for us to work, and I don't want to do that. You would not like me for doing that, how could you?\" I said, pushing my plate to the side, finally abandoning all pretense of still having an appetite, much less eating the meal.\n\n\"You know, it's been a while since I had to think of someone besides myself. Sasha was the last. In hindsight, that relationship was more about control and wanting to craft a life that perfectly fit into a frame than of focusing on the substance. I want to be smarter with you. Can you just hang in there with me?\"\n\n\"Why do men always ask that and expect a yes?\" I said. \"Tell me why I should.\"\n\n\"Because you will be my wife and the mother of my children one day if I have my way. Because I am on the brink of doing something big that I have never done before, and I need you with me. Because I\u2014\"\n\n\"Shhhh,\" I said, placing my index finger to his lips, stopping him from completing his thought. \"Don't say those three words now, please, because some part of me will never believe you, no matter how sincere. If you need me and can see me in your future, allow me to figure out what I can handle.\"\n\n\"It's true, you know,\" he said.\n\nThe air between us was noticeably strained on the ride home. I reasoned aloud that it might be better if I slept alone, just for tonight. When we began dating exclusively, Marcus and I exchanged keys to each other's apartments and had often alternated nights spent at each other's place, depending on who was the first to arrive home. I could count on one hand the number of times we had gone to bed unhappy with each other. This, however, was the first time that we may find ourselves in the same city and not sleeping together, so I resigned myself to just letting the moment breathe. Additional words could only complicate things, and the ice between us was thin enough. Inside the elevator I pressed the buttons for both floors and told him that I was tired. When we reached the seventh floor, he exited uncontested.\n\nThe darkness within my apartment felt heavy, like an old acquaintance I knew all too well and was not excited to come in contact with again. I sat by the windowsill with only the illumination from the streetlights and taxis below. Did I overreact? Was I too calm? Damn Cora and her meddling. I was not ready to have this conversation. Better yet, I wasn't ready to hear what I already knew in my heart to be true. One of the fundamental things that made Marcus and me great is the clarity I have in seeing him as a man and not the storied knight that had wrecked me previously. Despite what Blake imagined seeing when he was her Mr. Potentially More, nothing about the Marcus I knew said he was ready for marriage just yet. Hell, his dating a nonmodel civilian monogamously still took conscious effort, for which I respected him. Marriage, while a future possibility, was for now a far different story, hence me trying my best to not entertain anything other than what we have presently, but that was before tonight.\n\nThe past few hours made his position unquestionably clear, no longer a speculation, and forced me to confront the one hurdle I still had yet to conquer since Tony: trusting what I could not see. In order to be fully with Marcus, I had to trust him entirely with my heart and now my future, with no guarantee of the implied protection those vows before God and all of our friends would one day provide. Could I do that now, after my experiences in love? Could I guarantee myself that, whatever my relationship with love was in the past, I would be smarter, more realistic now? Normally, I would have called Cora to discuss my heart, but seeing as how nothing pleasant would roll off my tongue, I opted for a long, hot shower instead.\n\nTurning the faucet to the hottest setting my body could tolerate, I sat beneath the showerhead until a dense steam enveloped me. The beads of water falling invisibly through the mist hit my flesh hard and strong, and my body succumbed to its force, crumbling from the aggression trapped inside. This was not how tonight was supposed to go. We were to fall into bed intoxicated by the cuisine of Eric Ripert and tell some racy jokes before exploring our most intimate treasures, my legs spreading, allowing him to go deeper as I got wetter. Having waited nearly three months, I was overjoyed to discover that Marcus was a skilled and unselfish lover from the start of foreplay to the climax of orgasm and well into the afterglow. Sadly, the same can't be said for his domination of the covers whenever the time to sleep came, but that too he made up for in the middle of the night, awaking as he often did to find me only partially covered. In my mind's eye he stared at me intently, as one often does when debating the merits of a big purchase or tattoo, before tracing the contours of my face or shoulders with his hands, kissing me softly and then covering me. I know this to be true because sometimes I was awake only seconds before looking at him through the cast of the moonlight. Seeing him stir, I would rush to close my eyes, pretending to be sound asleep. Given the choice tonight, I would surely offer him every cover on the bed not to have this wall between us.\n\nThe heat from the water intensified my longing, making me want him more. After a few moments I stood to locate the shampoo, only to have my heart stop ever so briefly, at the sight of Marcus, \"Is there room for me in there?\" standing in the open door. Watching him undress my heart returned.\n\n\"Always,\" I said, inviting him in yet frozen in place.\n\n\"Here, let me do that,\" he said, reaching for the shampoo in my left hand.\n\nFor a few moments we stood face-to-face, both holding tight to the bottle before letting go and allowing our hands to express what words could not. My body pulsed under his touch, begging for more. His lips hungrily created a trail from the nape of my neck to the base of my stomach before traveling back up and taking my mouth. With one arm Marcus lifted me waist-high against the shower wall, holding my face with the other, and entered the deepest part of me that ached to receive him. Instinctively he thrust hard and forcefully, taking possession of my very soul, until I could no longer restrain myself from crying out his name, begging for more.\n\nTo me, morning was an intruder, but it was of no consequence to Marcus as he continued to sleep peacefully next to me, the bedlinens masking part of his body and my limbs covering the rest. Somewhere around twilight, the conflicts of my head and heart had returned. For what seemed like hours I gazed upon him longingly, in turmoil. My mind struggled to answer if he was worth the purchase of my heart for a season with no promise of a lifetime. My heart screamed loudly yes, but it had been wrong, very wrong, before, so I waited and looked admiringly at his high cheekbones and the way they converged into a well-proportioned nose; the fully defined lips that always seemed to be smiling, even in slumber.\n\n\"How much longer are you going to look at me before having your way with me?\" asked Marcus, his eyes still closed.\n\n\"Who says I'm looking at you?\"\n\n\"You are. I told you before I can feel you,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, then, feel this,\" I said, playfully taking his nipple between my teeth, eliciting a slow moan of satisfaction.\n\n\"Oooh, do that again,\" he pleaded.\n\n\"For the record, you said, 'I always remember you.' \"\n\n\"So I did,\" said Marcus, now fully awake and flipping me over so that he was on top.\n\n\"Hmmm, I love that,\" I said.\n\n\"What do you love?\" he whispered, lowering himself slowly onto me.\n\n\"Feeling the weight of you on top of me, holding me, inside of me. I never want to be without you.\"\n\n\"Good, 'cause I'm going to ask you something. Promise you'll say yes?\"\n\n\"Kiss me. Then ask me,\" I said.\n\n\"Do you love me?\"\n\n\"Yes, I love you, Marcus,\" I said, without hesitation.\n\n\"Good, 'cause I could never stand being in this lifetime\u2014in love with you as I am\u2014without you.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"Julesea, I don't like this one bit,\" said Cora. \"You just got to New York, now you're supposed to pick up and move to L.A. with Marcus without so much as an engagement. That's not how I raised you.\"\n\n\"Stop it, Mommy! I've been here nearly two years. You're overreacting. Besides, we're not moving there. Marcus has been back and forth a few times this year and may have to be there a few months or more. You know I've been out before for a weekend or two seeing him. Now I will come out for a week or so at a time, when I can. That's all.\"\n\n\"That's all? It's that simple, is it? What about your job?\"\n\n\"This is why I didn't tell you earlier. I knew you'd overreact.\"\n\n\"At least someone is. What about your job, Julesea?\"\n\n\"I can't win with you, Mommy\u2014one day it is family first, then it's career,\" I pleaded. \"I can do both. When the time comes, Marcus is going to sort it out with Michael. It's not like I leave tomorrow and am going to stay forever. I thought you liked Marcus.\"\n\n\"Liking Marcus is besides the point, child. Listen to me\u2014I did not raise you to have some man fight your battles. Did you learn nothing from the other one?\"\n\nKnowing better than to debate the merits and\/or shortcomings of Tony, I said, \"Daddy fights your battles.\"\n\n\"Daddy is also my husband, so he has earned the right. You understand the difference?\" asked Cora.\n\n\"This feels right, so you have to support me, okay? I don't want to lose him, Mommy.\"\n\n\"You can never keep anything worth having with fear, Julesea. Release that and make your decisions from a place of strength, otherwise you will be looking over your shoulder all the time making bad decisions.\"\n\n\"That's not what I'm doing. Do I want to get married? Yes. Trust me, if I start to feel that Marcus has no plans to marry me, I'll let go. Please try to understand. I didn't plan for it to be like this, and yet it is. I love him, Mommy, so I want to support him. And before you go there, Marcus is not Tony. He doesn't keep secrets from me.\"\n\n\"Every man keeps secrets, Julesea. Even your father,\" said Cora, still bursting with disapproval.\n\n\"You know what I mean,\" I said.\n\n\"And you heard what I said. I don't like this one bit.\" Then Cora's tone came softer, more hollow. \"Promise me this, you won't walk away from your career ever. A woman must have something of her own to ride out the tides of life.\" For the first and maybe the only time, Cora lowered the veil between faithful supporting wife and the desires of a woman with dreams deferred, giving me a glimpse into her personal regret for the road not taken. If I were brave enough, I would have dug deeper to find out why, at this particular time, the matter of self-reliance is of the utmost importance to her. If I didn't still need the illusions of childhood that had cast my parents as perfectly unblemished superhumans, I would have asked. \"The day may come, and I pray that it does not but it may, that you awake and don't recognize the man you are with. What will sustain you, Julesea? You can't run off across the world forever. You'll have to make a home sometime.\"\n\n\"I hear you. I do,\" I said. \"Let's not argue about this. I leave for L.A. tomorrow.\"\n\n## 39\n\n* * *\n\n## 1 NORTH WETHERLY DRIVE\n\nBABE, WHY IS there an oil field in the middle of L.A.?\" I asked Marcus on the ride up La Cienega from the airport. Unlike my last trip in, when he sent a car to fetch me, this time he met me at the gate looking quite SoCal, if I must say\u2014and I do. His requisite workday designer suit had been swapped for a dark blue button-down dress shirt with sleeves pushed up, dark denims, crisp white Pumas, and gold-frame aviators\u2014all of which seemed ideal complements to the new Aston Martin convertible that transported him there.\n\n\"It's always been there, baby. Maybe you didn't notice it before.\"\n\n\"Still doesn't tell me why it's there. Seems quite odd,\" I said.\n\n\"You're odd,\" said Marcus, affectionately squeezing the tip of my nose, \"and hopelessly beautiful. You hungry?\"\n\n\"Famished, actually. You know I never eat on domestic flights. Something about the whole process just seems unsanitary.\"\n\nHe laughed aloud. \"See? Odd! Can you hold tight for about an hour? Steven has two properties to show us. He says they're close to each other, so it shouldn't take long. Afterward I'll take you to this great restaurant off PCH, Geoffrey's I think it's called. The views are amazing. You're literally sitting right on the ocean.\"\n\n\"As long as I can grab a juice or something before, that's fine.\"\n\n\"I know the perfect place. Have you had a Jamba Juice before? Oh, Jules, it's good. Fresh fruit, sorbet, and you can get protein powder, immunity, energy . . . you'll love it. There is one further up, across from the Beverly Center Mall. We'll stop there.\"\n\n\"Sounds good,\" I said, tilting my head back to enjoy the warmth of the dry sun beaming down. Though my flight left JFK at nine forty-five this morning, New York had already felt like a sauna from the end-of-summer humidity. \"So what exactly are you looking for in a property?\"\n\n\"Correction, what are we looking for,\" said Marcus. \"This will be as much your place as mine, so I want to make sure you're happy, okay?\"\n\n\"Our place, I like the sound of that,\" I said with a triumphant smile. \"Nice. I guess that doesn't extend to cars, huh? An Aston Martin, really? I mean, who does that?\"\n\n\"Hey, I have to represent.\"\n\n\"That's the excuse you're using?\"\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" he said, looking straight ahead at the length of traffic coming into view as we descended the final hill into the basin of L.A. proper.\n\n\"And this has absolutely nothing to do with you living out some childhood fantasy you had at fifteen years old about one day moving to L.A., driving a convertible charcoal-gray DB9 with a tobacco interior down Pacific Coast Highway?\"\n\n\"Honestly, I must stop telling you things,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Never,\" I said.\n\nThe first property we saw was in a high-rise near UCLA in an area called Wilshire Corridor, enveloping both sides of a quarter-mile strip that felt more like Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The unit was spacious but lacked character. It was minimal in construction with expansive windows, as requested, but clearly factory-grade. We knew instantly that it was not a contender. The second unit located on the opposite side of the same street and closer to the Beverly Hilton hotel was older, with some personality, but quite small, prompting Marcus to ask if one of the bordering units was available so that he could combine them. Neither property was, so he requested to see something closer to Beverly Hills, preferably in a small-to-medium-size building that had substantial outdoor living space and a walkable neighborhood, unlike the busy Wilshire Boulevard that defined the Corridor.\n\nHaving spent his entire professional adult life with New York as home base, Marcus welcomed the time in L.A. but needed to replicate the Big Apple's conveniences as much as possible to alleviate the unsettling comparisons that plague so many East Coast transplants. Steven had a property in mind but had to check with his office to make certain that it was still on the market: a new limestone construction with about thirty units, located on Wetherly Drive near the Four Seasons Hotel, which Marcus had been calling home for the past few weeks. Without seeing the unit, I was immediately pleased with its location because the adjacent street was Doheny Drive. For some reason\u2014I think it was the palm trees bordering both sides\u2014the skyline was always perfect, powder blue, encapsulating my entire vision of what L.A. is supposed to be on any given day.\n\nIn order to reach Geoffrey's we had to take the Pacific Coast Highway into Malibu. The view was breathtakingly beautiful, with the pristine Pacific Ocean to the left and rough mountains to the right. Along the way Marcus maneuvered through surfers in wetsuits, darting without regard across the road, and caravans of weekend leather-clad motorbike clubs and uniformed cycling groups. After descending a major bluff past Pepperdine University, we reached Geoffrey's, sitting at the base of the mountain etched into the cliffside. There was not a bad view in the entire place, whether overlooking the water with various boats and surfers or to my right, where Marcus sat. On the drive back, Steven called to say the unit he had in mind to show us was no longer available but the penthouse was. The price was more than Marcus had wanted to spend, but we agreed to see it nonetheless.\n\n\"It's not a question of whether I can afford it, Jules. It's a matter of whether I want to pay that much for a property that is at best a transition home,\" he said as we pulled up to the building. From the outside it was pleasing, understated yet elegant with floor-to-ceiling windows and architectural balconies made of steel treated for an aged bronze or rust effect. I noticed that there were two grocery stores nearby, in addition to some galleries\u2014a promising start. When we entered, however, I felt the building's austere elegance, like one of those beyond-perfect living rooms I was never allowed to sit in as a child, or the good china that only leaves Cora's cabinet for Christmas, one of Daddy's business dinners, or to impress the girls from the club.\n\nInside the lobby was a security desk, positioned between two waterfalls. Every guest was required to sign in. Once inside, a key card was required to access the main floors. The two penthouse units, however, were only accessible via a personal code that was programmed specifically to the unit and then the key card. For Marcus the whole process was charming, as it became another gadget to play with. To me it was a bit pretentious, but I dared not say anything as I could tell instantly that he was smitten.\n\nOn level PH, the sliding doors opened to reveal a single corridor with bare walls, a convex skylight running the length of the hall, and two double-paneled doors to each side. The unit on the right had sold, leaving us the north-opening door, which was a good omen, or so I had been told once before\u2014although east is best. The entrance hall featured an abundance of wall space, perfect for his collection of contemporary art that always seemed ill-placed in the Manhattan home and overflowed the Bridgehampton one. After a few steps we were in the main room, with an open floor plan, chef's kitchen, and an entire rear wall of windows providing an unobstructed view of the hills from Hollywood to Beverly Hills. I won't lie\u2014that view alone hypnotized me before I was wowed by the bedrooms or Bali-inspired rooftop deck that covered nearly half of the 2,000-square-foot property. My only concern was how long it would take to make the place feel like our first home and not a faux interpretation created by an interior designer, especially with most of my time being spent in New York.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nLater that night, seated at the hotel bar, we talked about the unit. For his part Marcus said he didn't need to see anything else; he liked it. I confessed that something about it felt forced, like all the bad superficial stuff that I had ever read or heard about L.A.\n\n\"What if I give you the majority of the closet space?\" retorted Marcus with big, pleading eyes.\n\n\"Well, that's generous of you, considering the closet is larger than most people's bedrooms, so that is completely unnecessary, but thank you,\" I said. \"Listen, it's clear you really like this place. I don't hate it. Promise. It's just not what I envisioned in the whole sunny California dreamscape, is all.\"\n\n\"I know you want to be in the hills . . .\"\n\nCorrecting him, I said, \"Not necessarily the hills. Hancock Park is fabulous, all those big historic homes and picturesque lawns. Did you know that at Halloween they block off some of the streets, open all of the homes, and thousands of kids from everywhere come through to trick-or-treat? How cool is that?\"\n\n\"When we have kids, I promise. As for now, I am not one for mowing lawns, taking out the trash, and such nonsense.\"\n\n\"I know, which is why they have people for that now, but that is besides the point. You\"\u2014 I started, before being overwhelmed by his desire for me to love the Wetherly penthouse just as much\u2014\"we love it, so let's do it.\"\n\n\"Ahhh, that's my girl. You'll love it, you'll see,\" said Marcus, leaning over to nuzzle my neck. The smell of scotch emanating from his breath delighted my nose. \"Ms. Sinclair, can I take you upstairs?\"\n\n\"By all means. I thought you'd never ask.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe plushness of the Beverly Hills Hotel bed did nothing to help me fall asleep. Eventually my tossing and turning disturbed Marcus, forcing him awake.\n\n\"Do I need to ask or will you fall asleep soon?\" he said.\n\n\"Don't ask,\" I said, sleep-deprived and frustrated.\n\n\"Cora?\"\n\n\"How did you know?\" I asked.\n\n\"Isn't she always the voice in your head\u2014besides, your dad called.\"\n\nI sat up in bed and reached to turn on the bedside lamp. \"Really, when? I didn't know about that.\"\n\n\"Don't think you were supposed to. Man stuff. He called after you and Cora spoke about this\u2014coming to L.A., what it all means. He was worried.\"\n\n\"I told her not to be. I know what I'm doing.\"\n\n\"Do you?\" asked Marcus. \"I promised your dad I would never intentionally hurt you, Jules.\"\n\n\"Really, what else did you promise him? Because I know that could not have been enough for Daddy if he actually picked up the phone. And it wasn't about f\u00fatbol, dominoes, or fishing,\" I said.\n\n\"If you must know, I told him that I would never dishonor you or his family. I said that we are building something solid here,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Well, that sounds wonderfully promising!\"\n\nLying next to me, Marcus continued: \"In order not to do that, I must tell you something, and I'm not sure of how you will react.\"\n\n\"It can't be any worse than telling me you're not ready for marriage, so deal with it,\" I said, my tone laced with the bitter taste of the pill I was having difficulty swallowing. \"Obviously still adjusting.\"\n\n\"I'm not quite sure,\" said Marcus. \"Jules, you have this great personal inclination for the everyman that supersedes everything you do, including work. It's one of the reasons we fit so well. Together we balance the scales in some grand way. If given the choice to eliminate an opponent and see them go without, you would opt to find a compromise and spare them grief. I'm not like that, never have been. My inclination is always to identify a goal, win, and whenever possible, be the one to sink the shot. Whatever casualty is left behind is just a matter of bad planning or, worse, poor execution by the other guy\u2014it's intrinsic to who I am.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ, are you trying to make me nervous? 'Cause I'm getting there real quick.\"\n\n\"Jules, what do you think I'm doing here in L.A.?\" asked Marcus, now sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to me.\n\n\"Exploring the film business to invest in movies and stuff so I have something to watch, right?\"\n\n\"Something like that, baby,\" he said, inhaling deeply to decipher whether he truly was ready to part with the information being held so closely. Rising from the bed to put on his robe, Marcus walked over to the desk for perspective and context. \"Yeah, I'm here to invest in the film business, but not as a money guy. I'm taking over a studio, with a consortium, and I will run it.\"\n\n\"Okay, that doesn't sound too bad,\" I said with a slight smile, sensing there was more.\n\n\"In order to do that, I need some major capital support, the likes of which I have been brokering for years now. One of those is Nikolai Abramovich.\"\n\n\"Michael's Nikolai?\" I asked. \"Michael never mentioned anything to me, not that he should have.\"\n\n\"Not exactly Michael's Nikolai, baby,\" said Marcus, partially turning around to address me squarely, \"and this is where I need you to understand.\"\n\n\"Nikolai is a contact I have had since my days at Goldman. Unbeknownst to Michael, I put him on his radar in order to gain control of Carly's . . .\"\n\n\"Wait, I'm not sure I'm following you. Why would you do that? From what I know of Nikolai, Carly's doesn't fit his portfolio.\"\n\n\"It's a bit complicated, but the most basic version is this. The primary reason I got involved with Carly's was not entirely to help Michael. It was to help Nikolai. At the time he was my top client at Goldman and needed coverage for some holdings, so I used Carly's as the shell for those acquisitions\u2014acquisitions he could not directly access for reasons not important to this conversation. As a result Michael has\u2014correction\u2014the whole Carly's investment group now has a vote in the future of those properties. Which never should have been a problem, since I control the largest single stake. Michael, however, goes and marries Carly, which I didn't see as a problem until a year or so ago when it came time to transfer them over. All of a sudden Michael starts speaking about expanding. Together their shares outnumber mine, and Mike has gotten greedy, trying to lay claim to what was never his.\"\n\n\"So Michael knows about this property?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course, sort of. He knows it's earmarked for me, and in return the partners of Carly's have been paid handsomely to leave it be, if you will. Using it, building on it, was never an option. Some deregulatory events have occurred, making it possible for Nikolai to knowingly retain these territories. He's grown impatient and wants the holdings before activating his resources to move forward with the studio.\"\n\n\"But that makes no sense. In comparison, I would think a studio far more valuable than Carly's or some land it could sit on. I mean, it's just a restaurant in Manhattan sitting on less than half a block.\"\n\n\"On the surface it's just a restaurant in New York, but the portfolio, the sum of its parts, Jules, is quite valuable. That's the dispute. Over the years we purchased a sizable amount of real estate in Chicago, London, Brazil, Nigeria, and parts of the Baltic, all of which I oversaw. Those lands are worth a fortune, or should I say what's underneath them. Now Michael wants to feign amnesia and build, laying claim to something that was never rightfully his. To do so undermines the value, prohibiting Nikolai from getting the reserves on each. Hell, it's more valuable to leave as open lots, forests, and dry land.\"\n\n\"But what I don't understand is, why would Michael do business with Nikolai?\"\n\n\"Because he doesn't know about our relationship and can never find out, at least until everything is done,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"So then, you are not trying to kill Michael's dreams?\" I asked, thinking about that first revealing discourse with Michael in my office.\n\n\"Truth be told, I couldn't care less, as long as he's not expanding into one of those locations. Ridiculous, this all is. I've done what I could to force him and the board to do their own research in order to see that we would only lose money in expanding over some supper club that would never return even a quarter of the selling or licensing costs, for that matter. Initially, Carly, like Simon, vowed to vote her proxy with me. Unfortunately, that changed after Michael leaned on his position as her husband. Which is why I went there for dinner last year and, in a moment of admittedly poor judgment, allowed it to be known that you and I had dinner days before. It was not my intent, but Mike was being Mike, pushing my buttons, and I got careless.\n\n\"Anyway, with pressure from Nikolai mounting, I was left with no other recourse than to provide him entry and sway Michael. Even with Carly's support, Mike can't hold out forever. He needs the protection, he thinks, Nikolai will provide him to fulfill his dream; buying me out, take over Carly's and expand.\"\n\n\"So it was you who led Nikolai to me, so to speak,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, but that was a matter of circumstance, long before you and I were you and I. Planting seeds, you see.\"\n\n\"Got it. So these shares, I presume they are unrestricted, because Michael has no obvious reason to suspect Nikolai of anything other than being some wealthy man who is quite generous with his money and whom Michael has run a good pitch game on, I take it.\"\n\n\"Yes, something like that,\" said Marcus. \"And potentially these shares could be sold or voted anytime against Michael, making him lose everything,\" I said. \"So, are you going to push him out or just sit there and watch as Nikolai does?\" I asked.\n\n\"I haven't figured that out yet. I know what I would like to have happen,\" Marcus said matter-of-factly.\n\n\"Listen, I know you two aren't on the best of terms right now, but he is your friend. Is it really necessary? There must be another way to get what you want, give Nikolai what he is due, and leave Michael with his dream.\"\n\n\"I wish, baby, but it's not that simple. Mike won't budge, and I need the alliance that Nikolai's multimedia and communication businesses will give me in Hollywood.\" Marcus paused to take my temperature on this line of conversation, pouring a glass of Pellegrino. \"Jules, taking over a studio is a costly enterprise, and it can't be done with haste. The shares must be purchased over time. Alliances within that machine must be built with everyone from agents to producers and countless executives. In order to do that and not lose everything I have worked for, I need resources and even more extensive relationships or else these past years have been for naught.\"\n\nMy mind was still racing to properly assemble the complex puzzle unfolding before me, even more so to grasp this unscrupulously methodical and unflinching side of Marcus. \"And for this dream you would betray Michael, just to get what you want?\"\n\n\"Is that any different than what you did to Blake?\" asked Marcus, with discernible agitation in his tone. \"Did you not betray your precious Friend Code or whatever it is to get what you wanted?\"\n\n\"That's different,\" I said, stung by his words. \"How could you compare the two?\" Since that revealing night at Carly's, Marcus had never brought up my handling of the whole affair in a manner that placed blame or criticism at my doorstep. Quite the opposite, he provided a shoulder for me to cry on immediately after Blake unleashed her verbal rant on me and when I received her subsequent e-mail from abroad telling me that payback would be hell\u2014he just listened and said everything was all right.\n\n\"Listen, Jules, we're getting off track. I didn't say that to hurt you,\" said Marcus, placing his water on the bureau to embrace me around the waist. \"I am telling you all this because I don't want to lie to you. But you can't push back like this. I need to know that I can trust you.\"\n\n\"You'll destroy him. Do you understand that, Marcus? Do you even care? Michael has his faults, yes, but he has been good to you. Please, find a way to leave him with something. His life is that place.\"\n\n\"It matters that much to you?\" asked Marcus, now stepping back to survey my face. \"Why do you care so much?\"\n\n\"Because he's been good to me,\" I said.\n\n\"Then I will try,\" said Marcus.\n\n\"Don't try, do,\" I said. \"Now let's go back to bed, please. I want to dream this away.\"\n\nThe lights were off now, but my eyes were wide open, surveying the ceiling. It's not that I expect Marcus to be perfect, but this whole situation makes me wonder about what is at the root of this man. Had I explained away too much of his alpha drive, seeing only what I wanted to see? He must have sensed my restlessness, because he shared one last thought before we both said good night to this conversation. \"Jules, try not to judge me harshly as your inclination is to favor Mike in all of this. I know you don't think that given the chance Mike would do the same thing or worse to me in order to preserve his dreams, but he would. I know him far better than you do. I know what he is capable of. After all, he taught me how to play this game and to survive.\"\n\n\"I just don't want to be caught in the middle,\" I said, not turning to look in his direction.\n\n\"But you are, Jules. You have been since the moment we decided to make a go of things,\" he said, grabbing hold of my free hand that lay immobile between us.\n\n\"So I go back to NYC, work alongside him knowing that forces are conspiring behind his back, and pretend as if I know nothing?\"\n\n\"Yes, until I figure out how to leave him with something, as you asked.\"\n\nOf all the things that Marcus could have told me, of all the things I might have been better prepared to hear, this was not it. My last thought before falling asleep, and for days thereafter, was how I could have responded differently, if not supportively, then more neutrally, so as not to elicit the looks of doubt I saw every once and again in his eyes when addressing me during the remainder of my trip that week. At the very least, the gross miscalculations I made would never have provided the foundation for our blowup. \"Marcus, is there anything else I should know?\"\n\n\"No, my sweet.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"Darling, why do you always call me from the plane just as you are about to take off? You know I hate being rushed,\" complained Richard. \"I know what Marcus told you is troubling\u2014makes no never mind for a multitude. Just keep your head down and focus on doing only the job that Michael pays you for and protecting the relationship you are in with Mr. Crawford.\"\n\n\"Easier said than done, Boulton. I just wish I knew why this bothers me so. It's like this reveal has painted everything between us that came before in a totally different light. Before, when I looked at him, I was clear, good or bad, modelizer or not, about who I saw. Now, I don't know. You know?\"\n\n\"Do you want to hear the answer or shall we continue into round two of 'This Dysfunctional Life with Jules Sinclair'?\"\n\n\"You know I am always up for a good game of denial,\" I said in jest.\n\n\"Well, then, you are conditioned for self-sabotage, my love. You and every other girl like you who grew up watching Sabrina or Pretty Woman, swearing by a standing brunch appointment after your Saturday-morning mani-pedi. You want the fabled Linus Fairchild and Edward Lewis types for what they represent on a one-way screen, so you romanticize an ideal that is never possible, choosing instead to fast-forward through the uncomfortable bits. How much time do you actually spend in reality? I'll tell you. Zero. So when the complexities and motivations of a three-dimensional relationship with real emotions, messy motivations, and flawed human matter present themselves, you are unable to cope, leaving you no other recourse but to self-destruct.\"\n\n\"Well, that's grim,\" I said, casting my eyes downward, away from the flight attendant signaling me to turn off my phone now that the doors were closed and the plane was ready for takeoff.\n\n\"Honey, I'm a wise old gal. Shoot, I'm somebody's papa now, so I know. Step over and around, don't jump in. You've done that, it's lonely and unfulfilling. Make you a\u2014\"\n\n\"Bugger, I really have to go now. The flight nazi is giving me the evil eye.\"\n\n\"Of course you do,\" said Richard theatrically.\n\n\"Don't be like that. I have to go. Bye-bye, kiss the baby for me, bye,\" I said, hastily powering down my phone before the approaching attendant made an example of me.\n\n## 40\n\n* * *\n\n## DOMINOES\n\nTHERE IS SOMETHING frightening about knowing too much. Independent of how much time passes before the proverbial hammer drops, you are always on edge, testing out different physical reactions and tonal inflections to convey that you are just as shocked by the event(s) as the victim.\n\nI have been back (and forth) to New York for nearly four months now since the conversation with Marcus (and the one with Richard). In that time I've quietly observed the infiltration of Nikolai in and around the office, in the restaurant operations, around town, on the phone, and in e-mails setting up (oops, I mean cozying up to) Michael. I have seen Michael go from states of sheer elation with his chest poked out to pensive and measured in his movements and confidences, boxing mostly everyone out if their last name is not Abramovich or first name Raymond. And despite my best efforts to heed Richard's advice\/warning to remain Switzerland, I have found myself making frequent overtures to ensure all that is our dynamic extra pleasant and comfortable while being careful not to ask for details. However, I can't shake the feeling that I am also making myself a sacrificial lamb. For purely different reasons, I care about the well-being of both Marcus and Michael, and in my own way I have tried to split myself as best I can to appease both\u2014or at least give the appearance of it\u2014but coming up horribly short, I'm afraid.\n\nCarly's press had long been a well-oiled machine, not requiring the constant vigil it had before. Knowing this, and being preoccupied with other priorities, Michael was amenable to my taking a few days off twice a month in order to be in L.A.\n\n\"As long as your phone works and you're back Wednesday morning, do your thing\" had been his parting words.\n\nSunday mornings through Tuesday evenings I spent in L.A. with Marcus when he was not able to be in New York, but it was shaping up that the quantity of my physical presence substantially overshadowed the quality of our time together. Like clockwork, I would land, taxi on the tarmac, and turn my phone on. But instead of a sweet note from him to greet me, there was always a While You Are Here Schedule to review of luncheons, dinners, pool parties, and screenings requiring me at his side. Knowing full well why such attendance was necessary, I seldom questioned or complained. It seemed the least I could do given that my initial response was far from what he expected. I will, however, confess this\u2014my civility with some of the short, socially awkward, bad shirt\u2013wearing, grossly unattractive chubbies sitting on large wallets and their overly silicone-enhanced, botox-injected, bleached female company did wane from time to time, but not enough\u2014I thought\u2014to come off as rude or negatively impact Marcus. In the few moments daily that we found ourselves alone\u2014driving to something, coming from something, before bed or morning coffee\u2014we seemed to be extra polite. I can't dare speak for him, but I can say that for my part, I was too aware of my limitations to encourage a conversation. Everything was moving so fast, and I didn't want to know anything further than I did, so I began framing the little dialogue we did have. Soon there was no denying that the comfortable ease that resides in the silence of a naturally compatible relationship had become strained. Anytime I felt him preparing to share whatever was on his mind regarding Michael, Carly's, or Nikolai, I would speak of everything else\u2014my friends, their lives, their jobs, their opinions, the decorator we had hired since I conceded the reins of outfitting the L.A. condo after the first month. Eventually he stopped offering and, instead of shining a spotlight on the elephant in the room, he would skirt the matter.\n\n\"I miss being on the couch with you reading the paper, Jules.\"\n\n\"Me too.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWednesday morning through Saturday evening, I was in New York, living out of my office. For whatever strides the adult me had made, my apartment (or should I say my insane closet with a kitchen) spoke to disorderly collegiate days past and to my current emotional state in trying to appease two masters. Seeing how chaotic the first mornings back in New York were for me, Jacklyn got into the habit of going to my place and gathering a few items to store inside my office. This enabled me to go there directly from JFK and get a solid two hours or more of a disco nap before barreling into my workday. Her reward for going above and beyond the call of duty was various appreciation gifts from around town: Bliss Spa certificates, Bergdorf's or Saks's gift cards, a Crunch Fitness membership, a dinner or two on my expense account. From her twenty-three-year-old point of view, she was happy to do so, as I was living exactly the life she fantasized\u2014the very one that Richard had criticized on the plane. I was Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman sans the whole prostitute \"safety pin to hold up the boot\" thing. For her, everything was simple and free of baggage. I envied Jacklyn for that. How could it be possible that a mere seven-year age difference could render such vastly different perspectives? I bet, given the chance, Jacklyn would be clear to step over and around and leap!\n\n\"Hey, Jules. Welcome back. How was your Labor Day in L.A.? I bet fabulous. Did you see Brad Pitt? I love him,\" said Jacklyn as I emerged from my office after one such rest.\n\n\"No, but I did see John Taylor, still hot,\" I said.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"You can't be serious. John Taylor from Duran Duran . . . 'Hungry Like the Wolf,' 'Rio' . . . forget it,\" I said. Clearly, seven years accounts for more than I thought.\n\n\"Um, okay, Michael stopped by earlier and wants to see you. I knew you were still asleep, so I told him you were stuck in traffic on your way to the office.\"\n\n\"Rock star, Jacklyn, rock star! Did he say what he wanted?\"\n\n\"Nope, only to come see him when you get in.\"\n\n\"In that case,\" I said, reaching out for my double espresso that was waiting at the ready, \"I had better go see what the boss wants.\"\n\nMy watch showed the time to be 9:45, making the traffic alibi completely possible. Simone was away from her desk when I arrived, so I proceeded to Michael's door, knocking before letting myself in, and found him at his desk in the midst of a call. From the sound of things, he was either bored yet obligated to endure the caller or it was Carly\u2014like I said, bored yet obligated.\n\n\"Jet-setter, how's L.A.?\" asked Michael. \"Did you see anyone famous?\"\n\n\"What's the obsession with that? Jacklyn just asked me the same thing,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, what else is one supposed to do out there? It's a one-industry town.\"\n\n\"That is true. If people aren't looking for stars, they are trying to be one,\" I offered.\n\n\"Yeah, muthafuckers see them lights of Hollywood and get intoxicated. Speaking of getting caught up, how's our boy doing out there?\"\n\n\"He's good, adjusting but overall enjoying himself,\" I said, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.\n\n\"Good, good. Glad to hear it,\" said Michael, not taking his eyes off me. \"That Hollywood game is a different animal, I'll have you know. Still don't understand why he wants to explore the VC investment side of things out there.\"\n\n\"VC? Michael, you know they call themselves investment bankers now,\" I said, trying to mask my discomfort with the direction of the conversation. \" 'Venture capitalist' is taboo.\"\n\n\"So it seems. Everybody's trying to reinvent themselves these days, going from finance to studios. You know what I mean.\" Definitely a statement to be avoided and not a question.\n\n\"I guess. Are you?\" I countered, attempting to redirect the conversation away from Marcus.\n\n\"Me? Just trying to survive every day holding the vultures at bay and keeping my little part of the world running smoothly,\" he said.\n\n\"Effortless,\" I said, pretending to be oblivious to the targeted statements Michael had made. \"So what's on your mind, chief?\"\n\n\"A few things, actually. I'm doing London. Nikolai and I have been speaking about it for some time now. Been putting some things into play.\"\n\n\"Nikolai wants to open a location in London?\" I say skeptically. \"I thought he was a silent partner like Marcus and Simon.\"\n\n\"Like I said before, everybody with a dollar has a voice. I'm just glad this one is in favor of supporting me and not tearing me down. What do you think? You lived there for a while, worked at Conrad before I brought you in here.\"\n\n\"London's great, very metropolitan, as you know. Has a huge nightlife scene with theater, music, private clubs, et cetera. It's a financial capital with a diverse group of people, many of high net worth, desperately in need of marquee restaurants with good food. Nothing like Carly's is there.\"\n\n\"Exactly what I was thinking. Any drawbacks you can think of?\"\n\n\"Off the top I would say the temperament. If you're going to open there, design it with the spirit of a Londoner, that consumer, in mind. For example, they have a much stronger appreciation for vintage soul music than we do, so an adjustment to what talent we offer would need to happen. Don't just go and plunk a U.S. rendition there\u2014it won't work, and the Brits will tell you quickly.\"\n\n\"Good point, good point. I gotcha. What else?\"\n\n\"Location, something central and resurging, like here in the Meatpacking District.\"\n\n\"Okay, possibly Shoreditch, so let's say I did all of that, do you think it would work?\"\n\n\"I have no doubt,\" I said.\n\n\"Great, so if I were to tell you that I am looking to break ground in a matter of weeks, September seventeenth, to be exact, on a location, what would you say?\" asked Michael.\n\n\"I would first say that you are insane. Second, I would say there is the matter of local government support, permits, and union contractors to contend with, and a whole manner of other minute details that are equally as involved, requiring more than groundbreaking, especially the Michael Thurmond Kipps kind, with cameras and news outlets present. Last and most important, the time commitment. How are you going to split the time between London and here? Specifically, being away from Kaylin for such a long stretch of time? This is not something I could imagine you doing from afar.\"\n\n\"As to the first, maybe. To the second, all of that is long under way. Nikolai has some resources. Now, as to the last, well, that's where you come in. I want you to run point on London when I'm tied up here,\" said Michael.\n\n\"What?! I mean, why?\" I say, torn between being wildly elated at the opportunity and panicked about the impact it would have on my life.\n\n\"You know the terrain, Jules, and you know what appeals to me. I am not saying for you to be there full-time but for a few days every other week or so, to get a firsthand look at how everything is coming along. Some of the visits we'll do together. Think you can handle it?\"\n\n\"I already said you were insane, right? So I shouldn't repeat myself. Michael, are you absolutely certain about this?\" I asked at the risk of exposing that I knew far more than I let on. \"London is a very expensive city, and to do anything close to what you have created here is\u2014wow, I can't even imagine how expensive it would be, the type of financing needed to pull it off.\"\n\n\"You let me handle that. As I said before, I've got deeper pockets now. I'd need you there on the ground, ready to go, by September eleventh.\"\n\nMy mind was racing as I sat there before him, drumming my fingers along the desk. What an opportunity; overseeing the debut of a restaurant from the ground up would be a major enhancement to my career. Cora would be thrilled, but the explosion in my relationship? I had already put an unfathomable distance emotionally between Marcus and me, but now I would be putting a physical one there as well. Realistically, there was no way I could go to L.A. as often, and not at all until this project was completed. Hell, I was barely making the five-hour flight. There was no way I could handle the twelve hours from London to L.A. direct. I didn't need to consult anyone to know that the ramifications of this would mean the end of us, and there was one thing I was absolutely certain about: Losing Marcus as a result of a direct action on my part has never been an option.\n\n\"Can I get back to you about this?\" I said, getting out of my head and refocusing on Michael. \"I need to speak with Marcus first.\"\n\n\"Really? I didn't know things between you two were so serious, to the point of discussing the merits of smart career decisions,\" said Michael, rather snidely. \"I wonder how often he returns the courtesy?\"\n\n\"We are serious, I'll have you know. Why else would I be back and forth to L.A. as I have been?\" I said. \"Trust me, it's not for the smogged-out air and wheatgrass shots.\"\n\n\"Well, let's hope he knows that,\" said Michael with a detectable cut in his tone.\n\n\"Huh? Why would you say something like that?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Oh, nothing. Just guy stuff. You two talk and let me know. I'd like a decision sooner than later.\"\n\nGetting back to my office, I asked Jacklyn to ring Marcus. This was the kind of news I'd prefer to discuss in person, but that would mean keeping it to myself until week's end when I got to L.A., and that would be impossible to do. I'd go positively mad, so why risk it? As I waited for him to answer, my thoughts returned to Michael: how opening in London like this so soon seemed irrational and unlike a decision that he would make cavalierly, but then again maybe it is not, if he has the opportunity and deep-pocketed support. Problem is, I knew the motivations of that support, so I couldn't help but think Michael was being positioned to be in over his head real soon with what he would come to owe Nikolai if\u2014scratch that\u2014when he defaults on the only collateral he will have left: his interest in Carly's and its holdings. I knew for certain that if backed into a corner, Michael would readily sell his interest in the holdings before parting with Carly's.\n\nAn hour or so later, Marcus called back. He'd been in the midst of a morning tennis match and left his phone in the athletic club locker. Having played an energetic match and won, his spirits were high, so I jumped right in with my news, leaving no room for him to interject until I had completed all I needed to say and laced it with so much enthusiasm that he would find it hard to offer no support.\n\n\"Well, that is some news indeed,\" he said, his demeanor calm, giving nothing away and offering less. \"Is this what you want to do?\"\n\n\"Are you kidding me? It's a huge opportunity. I can't believe you didn't tell me that London was happening after everything,\" I said, bouncing in my chair. \"I am over the moon at the possibility of it. Aren't you?\"\n\n\"I can see how you would be. It just seems like a piss-poor time to be away, you know?\"\n\n\"I do, but Michael said it would not be permanent. Mostly when he is unable to be there, you know, for a visit here and there to make sure all is in line. I mean, I know this cuts into our L.A. time, but it's not forever. Besides, we are great at long distance,\" I said, my tone having lost its earlier excitement as I listened closely for any warning that Marcus's response might provide. Yet it still offered none. \"We can handle that, right? Of course we can!\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" he said. \"Listen, I have to get out of these clothes. I'm going to be late for my doctor's appointment.\"\n\n\"I didn't know you had a doctor out there. Is everything okay?\"\n\n\"Yes, just some routine stuff, a few tests, nothing serious. Let's you and I discuss this in person when you arrive. Okay?\"\n\n\"Sure. You'll let me know if there's a problem or anything with the doctor, right? I didn't know\u2014\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" he said, hanging up the phone.\n\n\"Okay, bye then. I love you,\" I said into the dead receiver.\n\n## 41\n\n* * *\n\n## DETONATION IN 3 . . . 2 . . . 1\n\nHERE'S THE THING with being on cloud nine\u2014it's not real and can never be sustained. It's a euphoric state of mind that can dissipate as quickly as it appeared, leaving the victim crashing down to earth, much the worse for wear. Marcus had not been as excited about the news as I'd hoped, but it was far better than it could've been, so that was something. On Saturday, we would discuss the slight adjustments to be made here and there. To me, it seemed only right that, given the amount of time I'd devoted to being with him in L.A., he could put himself in London when I am there or back in New York into our old life. Easy. But first I needed to tell Michael the good news.\n\nSimone was now at her desk, smartly dressed as usual in a black sheath dress and matching cardigan with her red-lined Prada reading glasses balanced on the bridge of her nose. In the years that I have been here, it is fair to say that the only speck of color the woman owns outwardly is those glasses. Although I am convinced that she wears racy pink, red, and animal-print lingerie under her work staples. I mean, she must, no woman can live by black, gray, brown, and dark blue alone\u2014not even a native New Yorker.\n\n\"Hi, stranger, is the boss in?\" I ask, making my way toward his door anyway.\n\n\"He is, but now is not a good time,\" she says, causing me to stop. From the interior I can hear Michael's raised voice, and it's explosive.\n\n\"Who is he yelling at?\"\n\n\"Not sure. He told me to jump off the line,\" says Simone.\n\n\"You're totally lying, Simone. I know you know. You had to put the call through, so come on, dish! Who is it? Last time I heard him like this, he was going in on Carly over Marcus.\"\n\n\"Well, this time he's going directly to the source. He is on with Marcus. You still want to go in?\"\n\n\"Hmmm, no,\" I said, feeling in my bones that something about this was far from coincidental. \"When Michael has had a chance to calm down, tell him I came by to discuss London.\" Better to make a hasty retreat and call Marcus. But no sooner did I turn to leave than Michael opened the door, obviously charged and ready for battle.\n\n\"Simone, get Nikolai on the phone,\" he said, before laying eyes on me. Then\u2014\"Jules, how long have you been out here?\" He looked suspiciously from Simone to me.\n\nBefore Simone could interject, I said, \"Just got here,\" shooting her a quick look to silence any commentary she might give to the contrary. \"Came by to let you know that I am on board for London.\"\n\n\"Really?\" asked Michael with a slight amount of disbelief. \"And Marcus is aware of this?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course. We spoke about an hour or so ago. He didn't have any objections. We just need to work out the details, you know, time together and stuff, when I get to L.A. in a few days.\"\n\n\"Ha, well, look at that shit. With you he's all calm and amenable. With me he is in hysterics, threatening shit like he is running things. I guess that's to be expected with everything he's dealing with right now,\" said Michael.\n\n\"That does not sound like Marcus at all. He's done a lot to make this possible\u2014what do you mean 'everything he's dealing with?' \" I asked, remembering that he was at the doctor's, a matter that seemed to have slipped his mind in earlier conversations. \"What do you know that I don't? It's the third time today that you have made some offhanded comment or other about him.\"\n\n\"Jules, it's not my place to say, but I can only imagine how difficult it is for Marcus to keep things straight, trying to take over Inception Studios, dealing with Blake and the baby. Now this. No wonder he was unglued with me on the phone. You going to London had to be the last straw.\"\n\n\"Wait, what are you talking about?\" I couldn't believe I had heard correctly. \"Blake and what baby?\"\n\n\"Michael,\" said Simone, rising from behind her desk, attempting to halt the impact of his words. \"Don't\u2014\"\n\n\"What, Simone? Jules is family. If I don't tell her, then who will? Clearly not Marcus.\"\n\n\"What baby, Michael?\" I yelled.\n\n\"Jules, lower your voice. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Blake has a baby and Marcus, well . . .\"\n\n\"You're lying,\" I said. \"Why would you say something like that, Michael? That's crazy. Blake and Marcus haven't seen each other in more than a year. You're mistaken. Take it back.\"\n\n\"Wish I could, baby girl. Shit, I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have used those words exactly,\" said Michael, \"but that seems about right. Her daughter is a couple of months old, so . . .\"\n\n\"Michael, STOP IT!\" yelled Simone, coming from behind her desk to my side. \"Jules, honey, are you okay? You don't look so good. Why don't we sit down?\"\n\nBrushing her off, I said, \"Simone, why is he saying that?\" But she had no words to offer, only her arms to hold me up with. \"Michael, why are you doing this?\"\n\n\"I don't want to see you throw your life away, Jules, on a guy like that. I told you I didn't like it when you started dating, but I remained silently supportive. Now, with Blake and the baby, I can't stand by and watch.\"\n\nGrabbing my stomach before retching, I said, \"I think I'm going to be sick.\" I broke away from Simone and ran down the hall to the restroom, throwing myself over the nearest vestibule and trying to empty my heart of the shards.\n\n\"Jules, you all right?\" said Michael from the other side of the stall.\n\n\"GO AWAY, Michael. I don't want to hear you anymore. Just go away.\"\n\n\"Listen, I know you're upset, but I am not the one you should be upset with. I am shocked as well.\" My sobbing turned into accelerated short breaths. \"Jules, it's going to be okay. You go home, rest, and just focus on London. It's exactly what you need to put all this behind you, you'll see. Okay? Jules, are you listening to me? Let me hear you.\"\n\n\"Yes, when do we leave?\" I asked.\n\n\"That's my girl. I'm bringing you in on Tuesday the eleventh, remember. You can rest up. I get in later in the week. We'll paint the town.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said weakly from a crouched position on the floor.\n\n\"A word of advice, write this whole situation off. Don't talk to him. Delete him from your life from this moment on. I told you he'd turn on you, didn't I? Forget him, he's not worth it.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"I'll send Simone in to check on you. Carly and I have plans for the theater tonight, so I have to go.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nNight had fallen by the time I awoke on the sofa in my office to persistent knocking at my door. The details of how I had gotten there were jumbled. My eyes swollen, nearly shut from a torrential cry, my heart shredded beyond recognition, I had nothing more to say, nothing to give, so I just lay there wishing whoever it was to go away and let me be. After a few lighter knocks, the door opened to reveal the shadow of an all-too-familiar figure who deserves far more from our friendship than the persistent drama I seem to consistently bring: Richard.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" he said, rushing to my side and kneeling to help me sit upright. \"How long have you been in here like this?\"\n\nMy voice hoarse and cracked, I said, \"I don't know. Simone brought me in, I think. I don't know. What are you . . . ?\"\n\n\"Jacklyn called. What happened?\" asked Richard.\n\n\"Marcus, he . . . I thought we, but he\u2014\" I stumbled over my words as the thoughts ran together. I couldn't bear to hear the truth come from me, so I just shook my head and closed my eyes.\n\n\"He what, dear? Is he okay? What happened?\" asked Richard, brushing the matted hair away from my face. \"Let's get some lights on in here.\" The harsh glare made me wince, forcing Richard to dim them to the glow of a candle. \"Do you want something to drink? Let me get you something.\"\n\n\"Blake has a baby, did you know?\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, poor child, and I do mean that, baby, but let's get to that later, under better conditions.\"\n\n\"It's Marcus's.\"\n\n\"You can't be serious,\" exclaimed Richard, standing at the bar, stunned. \"Why would you think such a thing? She has been abroad with her Greek traipsing the globe for nearly a year. There is no way.\"\n\n\"Yes but the baby\u2014\"\n\n\"With Stavros\u2014\"\n\n\"No! Michael said it's Marcus's. That it's a girl a couple of months old and it's Marcus's,\" I said, waiting for Richard to refute my words, but he didn't. Instead he said \"oh\" and went silent, quietly doing the calculations to determine if there was a possibility that maybe just maybe Marcus could be the father to Blake's baby. \"Have you seen them?\"\n\n\"Afraid not,\" he answered, sensing it best not to contradict the probability of events.\n\n\"So it's possible,\" I said, choking back fresh tears.\n\n\"Jules, anything is possible, I guess. What did Marcus have to say?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Haven't spoken to him. Not speaking to him,\" I fired back angrily. \"What could he say? It's unexplainable.\"\n\n\"Dear, I am not making an excuse for any of this because I don't know the facts, but at the risk of upsetting you further, and that is the last thing I want to do at a time like this, I just have to believe that there is an explanation.\"\n\n\"But I heard them arguing before Michael told me.\"\n\n\"I don't know what to say, but there is a certainty about the two of you, so I must believe that there is a logical\u2014oh dear,\" said Richard, looking at me crumbling under the weight of my despair. \"Tell you what, let's get you home, out of these clothes, and into a nice hot shower. Everything is better after a shower. I'll even make you something delicious to eat, maybe some soup and my famous grilled cheese,\" said Richard. \"You'll like that, won't you? Yes.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\nThe only thing the shower did was make me more tired. I had no energy to do anything, so Richard helped me into pajamas and put me to bed with a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese on a serving tray, which remained untouched. Before falling asleep, I asked Richard if he'd checked the machine just in case Marcus had called. He had not\u2014another sign. Richard pleaded with me to call him, but I refused. What would I say? How much more pathetic could I look than by calling him about something he didn't even deem necessary to tell me but confided to Michael? Tomorrow would be better.\n\nWhen tomorrow did arrive, I can't say it was better or worse as much as I willed it to be better. Yes, I wasn't crying, and I was dressed well in advance of Richard, sleeping on the left, the side of the bed that belongs to Marcus, but my spirit was parched and desolate. How much I love this man\u2014my best friend. The only person I can count on every time and yet here I am again making the same demands. Poor Jules, in a traumatic state with no regard for anything that may be happening in his world, always taking.\n\nWhen Richard awoke, I focused on rising to the occasion of being my best self in order not to bring on his looks full of sympathy and concern. I channeled the old Jules, surprising even myself with a genuine laugh over coffee when he confided that sleeping over was not the purely selfless act it appeared to be. Apparently, little Ms. Ming had a serious set of lungs and liked to raise the roof into the wee hours of the night, every night. Last night was the first time in the months since they had adopted her that he slept soundly.\n\n\"Honey, there is a reason the laws make it difficult for gays to adopt. I don't have the constitution for the upkeep. When can I just buy her a car and send her off to live in careless disregard for the privilege she has been brought up in?\"\n\nIndependent of how many off-color comments I may make about my folks, I know that I am lucky to have been brought up in a family like ours. Having this frame of reference, I felt for the first time in our long friendship that I had some valuable insight to offer Richard as he and Edgar went through their parenthood journey. We spoke about the balance and compromises that parents make willingly and the ones that they must never make, like finding personal time to keep the romance going. Lord knows I heard enough and saw the loving results of Cora and Daddy's \"couple time.\" Richard at one point brought me to laughing hysterics as he confessed to feeling that with Ming, he had unknowingly signed up for a lifetime of never winning the argument\u2014which was starting to make him question his professional competence. I did enjoy the image of Richard becoming frazzled, but the thought of a baby girl, any baby girl, infuriated me. Little Ming, by sheer association of gender and age, forced me to think about what Marcus and Blake's child could look like. What her name could be. Most important, it reminded me of how horribly cheated I felt not being the first, the only, to bare his offspring\u2014but I did not reveal any of this to Richard. I knew that had I given any hint of instability, Richard would have remained at my side until the next day's flight, which is exactly what I didn't want. I needed to be alone, and he needed now to be with those who needed him most: his partner and daughter.\n\nOnce alone, I allowed myself to own my anger. Yes, I was devastated at Marcus's betrayal, but unlike with Tony, where I felt sorry for myself for far too long, I didn't feel self-pity this time. I knew that I had done nothing wrong to warrant this. I was angry as hell, and with each moment and no phone call, my anger grew. This was not the man I knew. Did he change or did I make him over into someone he never was? Strangely, in the midst of it all, there was a strength brewing in my rage that I'd never felt before. No longer did I feel the need to run and hide in a story line or country foreign to me. Hiding was the last thing on my mind. Quite the contrary, my life was the main event. I needed to see him and understand how he could do this to me. And with that fire, I boarded what was intended to be my last flight to L.A. Prior to takeoff, I sent him a text to say that I was coming in earlier than normal and would just as well take a taxi from LAX. I gave no details as to which flight, because I didn't want to see him before I was ready, nor did I trust myself to leave a voice mail potentially alerting him that something was wrong. Looking back, I wonder if Marcus ever really stood a chance to explain himself after my ambush, as he would later call it.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nDuring our argument, he said that I'd made up my mind long ago of his guilt, so what was the point of continuing to go through all this? I said because it was the very least he owed me. And so we went the course, putting all our cards on the table. He told me that he was blindsided by Blake's pregnancy after learning about it one evening at dinner with Michael. To hear him tell it, it was innocent enough, and he thought no more of it until Michael made mention of the child's age, noting that he found it questionable that Stavros could be the father, given his advanced years and the timing. Taking this into account, Marcus attempted to contact Blake numerous times, to no avail.\n\nWhen they did speak, Blake was less than accommodating. Given how things had played out between the three of us, how could she be anything less? Marcus, unable to bear the thought of having an unclaimed child in the world because of the abandonment scars he will forever carry from his own mother's desertion, volunteered to take a paternity test. Blake apparently agreed, claiming it was the least he could do. And all this, says Marcus, snowballed into the most destructive storm when Michael, by way of Annya, who unwittingly spilled the beans, learned that Marcus and Nikolai had not only known each other for years but were business partners.\n\nWell, it didn't take Michael long\u2014not having the complete story and believing Marcus to be his adversary\u2014to determine that one way or the other, Nikolai was doing Marcus's bidding and trying to steal Carly's right from under him. Feeling duped and needing to act quickly, Michael committed to London, thereby securing something substantial. In the process, knowing what he knew of Blake's situation, he decided to leave a lasting calling card for Marcus: personal ruin.\n\nQuite rich in loftiness, I said, \"You should consider writing a screenplay instead of taking over a studio.\" I lashed out, fueled by pain and anger. He's lying. I remained unconvinced (unable to hear) that the victim in all of this was in fact Marcus. So when he stormed out, not to return, all I had were the fragments of our argument, his defense, our history, my baggage, and my love for him to replay.\n\nIndeed, it is a horrible thing for a woman to be left alone with only her thoughts at any time, but especially in a town like L.A., where there are no streets to walk and get lost in. So I returned to New York for a day, busying myself with all sorts of maintenance details to keep occupied, inflict pain, and force escape. There was the spinning class in SoHo, head-to-toe waxing with Ella, followed by a mani-pedi and threading on the East Side, a wash 'n' set uptown with the Dominican girls, and some quality time with a friend, who knows me better than most, in the Village that rendered me drunk enough to go blank but not enough to reduce me to a blubbering idiot\u2014I think.\n\n\"I see you've started without me,\" said Tony, strolling into Frank's Bar and sitting down.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, sprinkling salt on my hand in preparation for a tequila shot. I know it's odd, but he's the only person I wanted to talk to, that I could stand to be around. \"Something like that\u2014ugh! That's good,\" I said, biting into the tart slice of lime.\n\n\"How many up are you?\"\n\n\"I don't know, not many. Ask the bartender, he'd know,\" I said. Tony tapped the bar, indicating that he wanted to catch up.\n\n\"Damn, J\u2014you know tequila is not my drink, but here goes nothing,\" he said, quickly throwing back three shots. \"So you wanna tell me what's going on or should we just sit here?\"\n\nFighting back tears, I said, \"Can we just sit for a minute? Just need to be next to you for a bit, okay?\" In between drinks and water chasers, I recounted the sordid tale of Marcus and me. He listened to everything until he was certain I'd said all that was to be said.\n\nShaking his head, he said, \"You know, in my entire life I don't think I'll love someone more than I love you, Jules. That's real talk. I don't know which is worse, seeing you hurt like this and knowing that once I caused you similar pain or realizing that you are in love in a serious way, with someone else. Don't say it. I know it's selfish, but it's what's up.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I said, realizing how unfair it was for me to unload all this on him.\n\n\"Don't be,\" he said, signaling for another round. \"Love is a good thing and I want that for you\u2014always have. Just wish I could've . . . Never mind. So, this dude, Marcus, left, you left, and here we are.\"\n\n\"Yep,\" I said, looking him in the eye, toasting and downing. \"And I just feel lost\u2014empty, you know? Like there's a huge chunk of me that's just out there and I can't put my arms around it\u2014I can't find it. My heart\u2014it hurts, and I'm so scared that it won't stop this time.\"\n\n\"J, you know I chased you for a few days after the whole Angie thing but stopped when I thought about what it all meant for us, why I did it, what would happen if I got you back, and that whole shit was crazy, yo. I wasn't ready and I knew it. I wasn't ready to love you with that all-encompassing kind of love you expected. I still needed to do me, and I know that sounds fucked up, but that's the truth. I'm telling you this to say, go easy on yourself, baby, this is the first blow, your emotions are racing all over the place and your mind hasn't even had a chance to catch up and figure things out. Give it a few days. Then you'll know what you need to do. Just ride that shit out. Hell, love is the biggest wave we'll ever get, better than any I've found surfing,\" said Tony, pushing my hair away from my face to dry my tears. \"Damn, you're pretty.\"\n\n\"And you suck. I can't believe you stopped chasing after three days,\" I said, between laughter and tears.\n\n\"Hey, I didn't say it was three days, although that sounds 'bout right. I'm just joking\u2014see, you can still laugh. All's not lost. I did it because I love you just that much, Jules Isabel Sinclair\u2014I had to let you fly, knowing I'd never get you back,\" confessed Tony.\n\n\"Did that mean you had to go and tell Carly all about it?! My God, that woman!\"\n\nHe laughed uproariously. \"Ahhhh, shit! Yo, Carly is not a game! You hear what I'm saying? But her heart is in the right place.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I've learned that. She helped clear the way initially for Marcus and me.\"\n\nEverything else that evening was a blur. By the time I boarded my flight on Tuesday morning out of JFK, anyone looking at me could see that I was the human equivalent of rubble inside, but it didn't matter. My only thought being to sleep the full five and a half hours it would take to get to London and revisit some old healing haunts. Whatever sleep nature did not provide, Ambien would. An hour or so before landing, I awoke with a tear-streaked face after having a lovely dream of Marcus and me sitting at Via Quadronno, sipping cappuccinos and laughing. It seemed so real. I could touch him, feel the moisture of his skin, smell the Hanae Mori cologne we'd picked out at Fred Segal the week before.\n\nI was devastated to be awake and have to confront reality all over again.\n\n## 42\n\n* * *\n\n## LONDON CALLING . . . AGAIN\n\n2001\n\nBUT MY LIFE is an ocean away, and if I knew how to stop looking outside of myself for answers, I could tell him that and get out of my own way. What would I say? I'm sorry\u2014for what? For not believing you? How could I even go down that road when I didn't even know what the truth was? Michael says it's his child. Marcus says it's not, and under different circumstances, I would be inclined to believe Marcus, because that is what my heart wants so badly to do. Experience, however, had showed me the cost of blind faith, and while the time with Tony was good, it was also a reminder. I don't want to be that fool again, I said to Richard one evening later that week on the phone from the hotel when he called to check in on me. During which time I also recapped my time with Tony.\n\n\"Jules, please tell me you didn't do something irrational like sleeping with the ex to get over the . . . You know where I'm going with that, it's supposed to rhyme.\"\n\n\"Oooh, death to the great gay rapper once and for all,\" I joked. \"Relax, Richard. I know where you are trying to go, and it's unnecessary. Tony and I did not sleep together. Although I am sure I tried at some point. From what I can recall, I was wailing about Marcus, then I remember seeing Ivan or Percy, one of them, and that's it. When I awoke, we were both on the sofa fully clothed, all buttons and zippers intact. I put him in a cab, and that was it. He did smell nice, though!\"\n\n\"Oh, don't we all! Well, it seems people do grow up. Imagine that, there is hope for you yet, Jules,\" said Richard. As it stood, he was still the only person in my friendship\/family circle who knew that Marcus and I were having problems. \"Is that happening anytime soon?\"\n\n\"I'm trying.\"\n\n\"Stop trying Jules, and do! Honey, you can't keep doing this to yourself,\" said Richard. \"One way or the other, you have to know the truth. Marcus says that it is not his child. Do you believe him?\"\n\n\"Yes, I mean I want to, because I want to be happy, but it does not add up. Why would Michael say that it is? Why would Marcus not tell me unless he was hiding something?\"\n\n\"How would you have handled it if he had come to you?\" asked Richard.\n\n\"I would have listened. Together we would have figured it out,\" I said.\n\nWith extreme reserve Richard asked, \"Are you sure about that, dear? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he come to you before with a highly sensitive matter and you were not as accommodating?\"\n\n\"Entirely not the same thing,\" I said emphatically.\n\n\"I disagree. It is exactly the same thing, Jules. He trusted you once and you\u2014\"\n\n\"Stop, please don't say it. I know what I did . . . but this\u2014\" I paused, divorcing myself from the unjustifiable. \"Michael is not just my boss, you know that\u2014he's like a mentor. It all was just too much, like designer trail mix, it was . . . all wrong.\"\n\n\"I'm not saying that what he may or may not have done is right, but it is comparable.\"\n\n\"So what do I do? I can't go apologizing for something that I still don't have answers to,\" I said.\n\n\"Then do the only thing you can do. Go to the source and get your answer, honey.\"\n\n\"I told you. I'm not ready to talk to him.\"\n\n\"I'm not talking about Marcus. Call Blake. She is the only one who knows the truth.\"\n\n\"Are you insane?! I am the last person she wants to hear from after what I did to her. I mean, it's bad enough that I broke up the relationship she thought she had with him, but now I could potentially be standing in the way of her child's relationship with her father,\" I said. \"You're not mad, you're certifiable!\"\n\n\"It's the only way, and it's long overdue,\" said Richard. \"The fact that you two girls could not get past unknowingly dating the same guy is beside the point. True, you should have been more brave in your dealings with her, I have said it before. But you girls were best friends long before Marcus came into the picture. At the first onset of friction, you threw all of that away instead of dealing with it head-on. Aren't you tired of doing that, Jules, with every relationship in your life? What happens when the day comes that you elect to throw me away?\"\n\n\"I would never, Richard, never,\" I said. \"Besides, I haven't spoken to Blake in forever. I wouldn't know how to reach her.\"\n\n\"Easy, dear, you call her,\" said Richard. \"I just happen to have her number on hand, unless of course you would prefer to see her. That is possible too. She is in London right now, has been living there for some time, according to Joy.\"\n\n\"What would I do without you, Boulton?\" I said, chuckling aloud.\n\n\"Thankfully, we will never have to find that out, now, will we?\"\n\n\"Never,\" I said. \"Good night, my friend.\"\n\nI paced around the number Richard had given me for some time, staring it down like a fighter preparing for battle. I rehearsed what I would say and how I would say it many times over before picking up the piece of Sofitel stationery it was written on and going over to the phone. Independent of how she would respond to me, I would remain calm. There was no expectation of getting the friendship back, as I didn't believe that was due to me\u2014but I was entitled to hear the truth.\n\nAfter the first ring, a heavily accented Indian-British house voice greeted me\u2014\"Good evening, Giannakopoulos residence.\" Having thought the number I dialed was her direct line, I was taken aback, forcing the voice on the other end to repeat, \"Hello? Giannakopoulos residence. Is anyone there?\" After identifying myself and whom I was calling, I was placed on indefinite hold. At first I reasoned that Stavros's home was enormously large and for some reason not equipped with an intercom system, causing a delay in locating Blake. Then it occurred to me that, while I may want to speak with her, she may not want to speak with me, which was well within her rights. I was about to hang up when the voice returned, informing me that the lady of the house was putting baby Catherine down for the evening but would be available for tea tomorrow, if my schedule permitted. On hearing the name of my hotel, he confirmed that Blake knew the location of the Sofitel St. James, and would meet me there at 14:00. Hanging up the phone but still holding the receiver, I dialed Marcus's number, but was overwhelmed by a surge of panic in my chest that forced me to hang up before it rang.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nImpossible. Of all the days and times to be running late, this is most certainly not the one. On Saturday, the site manager from the new property location called first thing to do a last-minute run-through before Monday's ceremony with Michael and Nikolai. After he assured me that the meeting would take less than an hour, I agreed, believing I had more than enough time to return to the hotel for afternoon tea with Blake. What I did not anticipate was being stuck in a massive gridlock of traffic, rendering me nearly twenty-five minutes late. With no mobile number for her, I called the hotel after the first five to alert her to the delay. The young woman at reception delivered a return message to me of \"Not to worry, take your time,\" allowing me to breathe calmly until I realized how truly late I would be. My only hope was that Blake would still be sitting there some forty minutes later.\n\nNearing the roundabout at Piccadilly, I jumped out of the cab before it came to a full stop and sprinted against a traffic light into the hotel, looking from left to right. The girl at the front desk who'd fielded my earlier call saw my distress and directed me to the high tea room. Huffing and puffing, I ran into the parlor to find Blake alone, looking more refined than ever in a black puff-sleeve blazer, fitted indigo jeans, and drippy striped T-shirt. There was a stroller at her side with the opening covered, concealing baby Catherine's face and my answer. At seeing me, Blake rose awkwardly, smiling as I approached. Were we to hug, shake hands, or just nod? Uncertain of protocol, we did an awkward combination of all three.\n\n\"Wow, you look great,\" I said, \"but you always did.\"\n\n\"Thanks, you too,\" said Blake, giving me the once-over. \"Jules, you look amazing, but you were always fit. Your hair is still crazy beautiful. I always wanted those big curls.\"\n\n\"You're one to talk. I always wanted your perfect straight locks. Never satisfied with what we have, are we?\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Blake. \"Remember when you put that Japanese straightener in your hair\u2014talk about a big mistake. I think I cried more than you.\"\n\n\"Oh, I know! Remember how self-conscious I was about dating Tony because he had more hair than me, and you said, 'Honey, dreadlocks don't count as hair. They're more like spiritual ropes to grab on to.' \" We both said that last part in unison, clasping hands, losing ourselves in memories of great times past. \"Oh, Blake, hair wasn't my only mistake, you know. I was bloody awful to you, and I am so very sorry.\"\n\n\"You were once, I'll give you that. But you were amazing the other ninety-nine times, Jules, so there is nothing to forgive.\"\n\n\"You don't have to be kind,\" I said. \"You owe me nothing.\"\n\n\"I'm not being kind. I'm being honest. If it weren't for you, for us, for New York, and for Marcus, I would not be here, living the kind of life that I only dared dream about but never thought I might have one day. Not with the way I was going.\"\n\n\"Yeah, about that,\" I said, directing my comment toward the stroller. \"Catherine\u2014I mean. I didn't know, and then to find out from Michael. I was just blown away, you know?\"\n\n\"I know! Who would have imagined me, pregnant, a proper mum, living in England. Insane!\"\n\nPerplexed by her response, I was unsure of how to delve further, so I erred on the side of caution and followed her lead. \"Richard said the same thing.\"\n\n\"I bet he did, that old gay bag. How is he? I miss him. I miss you. Joy says he has a little girl around Catherine's age, God help that child. She'll be the only Barry Manilow\u2013loving, overly articulate preschooler on the Upper East Side with a strong affinity for bridge and bourbon. Clearly she will need friends that money can buy. I can only imagine what else the old girl had to say.\"\n\nInhaling deeply, I said, \"Well, in light of things, not much, as he's spent the majority of the past week consoling me.\" I stopped before feeling like a fraud. \"Oh, Blake, let's not do this! Let's not talk like old times and pretend that you don't know why I'm here. I know you do. You must! I need to know whether you think I deserve to or not. Catherine and Marcus.\"\n\n\"Oh, Jules, I am so sorry for that. I was just upset. The weight wasn't coming off, and you know how I am about the chub\u2014does a number on my head. My hormones were everywhere. I wanted to punish him for coming between us and I wanted to hurt you, although I missed you, because you were supposed to be there for me.\n\n\"Remember, we were going to raise our kids together\u2014then everything changed,\" said Blake. \"Knowing what I know now, I wish so very much that I could take it all back. The time I wasted feeling spiteful when everything I had ever wished for was right there with Stavros and here with Catherine.\" She pulled back the blanket and lifted the child into full view. Oh my goodness, what an angel, all chubby with big brown inquisitive eyes, rosy cheeks, and a few raven strands at the crown. There were things about her that seemed like Marcus\u2014her mouth, her nose maybe, but I couldn't be sure. His hair was dark blond, as was Blake's, but maybe there was some latent genetic thing manifesting in Catherine to produce her dark coloring. Who can tell anything about kids at this age?!\n\n\"Would you like to hold her?\" asked Blake, and she passed her over to me before I could object. \"Ahhh, look at that, she likes you.\" Witnessing my awkwardness, she added, \"You won't break her, I swear. Believe me! She won't bite as much as gnaw and drool.\"\n\n\"Am I holding her right?\" I asked, shifting to find the right position as Catherine squirmed in my arms. Sensing my discomfort, she took the lead and smiled a gummy saliva-filled grin that melted my heart and calmed my nerves. How could I ever\u2014no matter what\u2014how could I deny this angel from having the best, most loving of all, especially supportive parents like I had?\n\n\"Blake, she is heaven. Of course Stavros would accept her, how could he not with this little face. Yes, yes you are,\" I said, playfully bouncing her up and down.\n\n\"He'd better accept her. She's just as entitled to his fortune as his other kids. I don't care what his ex says. Why, what have you heard?\"\n\nCaught off guard by Blake's comment, my grip slipped. \"Oh shit, eek, sorry! What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about, Jules?\"\n\n\"Catherine, is she Marcus's child or not?\" I asked, clearly so there could be no mistake this time. \"Blake, I'm dying here.\"\n\n\"No, why would you ask that? Listen, I know I was wrong for allowing Marcus to take the paternity test, but I wanted to make him sweat a bit. Then Stavros found out and, well, let's just say he didn't approve. He said I was being childish. Maybe. Anyway, I thought to tell Marcus, but he forbade additional contact, so I told Michael before things went any further.\"\n\n\"I am so not following this,\" I said. \"Are you saying that Michael knows Catherine is not Marcus's baby?\"\n\n\"Of course he does. He and that old bat even received the birth announcement.\"\n\n\"I need you to start from the beginning\u2014and make it simple,\" I said.\n\n\"Let's see, a few months ago Stavros and I had dinner in Knightsbridge with Michael and those Russian friends of his, Nikolai\u2014don't trust him, by the way\u2014and Annya. She is fierce, I love her! I was big as a house\u2014you know, the unattractive stage of pregnancy\u2014and a little extra cranky about everything, Little Miss Thing holding my body hostage, did I mention that?\"\n\n\"Blake, focus,\" I said, having forgotten her predilection for unnecessary commentary when asked for specific information.\n\n\"So . . . Michael and I get to talking. He said something snippy about Marcus being slick and his blatant disregard for other people, yada yada, would serve him right. I didn't give it any thought again until Marcus started calling a few weeks ago demanding\u2014you know how entitled he can get\u2014to know about the baby. I didn't appreciate the intrusion or his tone, for that matter, so I told him if he wanted to be sure, then go ahead and get tested,\" said Blake, reciting the entire saga with all the salaciousness of a telenovela. \"You must believe me, Jules. I never thought he would take a paternity test, especially after I said the baby was not his, but he didn't believe me. So I called Michael to clear things up since they talk all the time. Uh-oh, what's wrong? You're twisting your hair. That always means trouble.\"\n\n\"Karma,\" I say, trying to suppress the dual desire to laugh and cry. \"Oh, Blake, this life thing is so not easy.\"\n\n\"You're telling me. I mean, what crazy universe would trust yours truly with raising a child? I just don't know,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, know two things, lady. I am so very sorry for not being more respectful of us. I should have mined this dynamic, especially when a complication arose. Second, and most important, be careful. Michael is not your friend\u2014nor mine, for that matter. He is only about self.\"\n\n\"We all are, Jules,\" said Blake with a laugh. \"That's the one thing I have come to know up close and personal. We all just want the best the world has to offer that we believe will make our lives the most. The only hope is that the pursuit leaves minimal carnage. If you remember that, most things are forgivable.\"\n\n\"What about broken trust?\" I responded, thinking about Marcus and myself.\n\n\"Just requires more work and a little bit of luck,\" said Blake. \"Look at us. We're back together.\"\n\nAmid a haze of cucumber sandwiches, scones, and a year's worth of delayed gossip, the afternoon zipped by. Blake and I had so much to catch up on. She and Stavros were planning to get married during the holidays in order to have Catherine baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church, despite very vocal objections\u2014to the religious conversion, not the marriage\u2014from her Mormon parents. London was not her ideal location, and she longed to return to New York, but would stay for now because it worked for Stavros's primarily Europe-anchored business. Within the next year or two, they planned to have another baby, bringing the Giannakopoulos brood to seven\u2014two expensive ex-wives and a future missus committed to making her predecessors look like bargain shoppers.\n\nOh, how we laughed and caught up. I told her about my splitting time between New York and L.A., the offer from Michael, and his sinister role in Marcus's storming out. The latter of which she did not see as a problem. Apparently a monthly walkout was par for the course for her and Stavros. She said he, like Marcus, will always find his way back home. How could they not with women like us!\n\nSoon the time had come for her to return home, as Stavros was adamant about having dinner together nightly. Before leaving, I promised to attend the wedding and she promised not to breathe a word of Michael's deception to anyone, allowing me space to deal with him in my own way, in my own time.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe feeling of laughing and crying\u2014otherwise known as being on the verge of a breakdown\u2014returned almost immediately after Blake and baby Catherine's departure, so I decided to take a walk for some fresh air. Starting on the desolate streets of Piccadilly, with its grand architecture, I found my way to Covent Garden, amid the hustle and bustle of shoppers, theatergoers, tourists, and schoolchildren. The noise and congestion were welcome accomplices to the matters in my head. With each step and sidestep to avoid colliding with a passerby, my life started to make sense, the comedy of errors abundantly clear.\n\nOn the one hand, I can accept that it was all worth it to see Blake beaming as she was, but then I think of my heart and the toll it all has taken. What cost is too much? Why is being a woman in today's world so hard? I have to believe that despite Cora's quiet longing for something proprietary, a career, given the choice she would not change her course because she has been loved abundantly and has lived happily, a comfortable, purposeful life. What has my purpose been? To be a pawn for others? Working toward their life's happiness while mine lies undefined?\n\nWhen I lived here, I came to know what I wanted, and then I went to New York to live it. Somewhere along the way I lost track. I got caught up. Michael's and Marcus's purposes became more important than mine. Michael's because he controlled my career. Marcus's because he holds my heart. So I gave everything away to both of them without holding firm to the things that are important to me. I gave away my power and caved to the fear of disappointing someone or getting hurt again, only to end up near ruin . . . and starving! But I'm going to get it back as soon as I get a bite to eat.\n\n## 43\n\n* * *\n\n## FATHER KNOWS BEST\n\nTHE PANGS OF hunger in my stomach intensified with each passing block until I looked up to find myself standing in front of Mr Jerk, a Jamaican restaurant located in the heart of Covent Garden on a busy side street just down from the Donmar Warehouse theater. This has to be a sign, I think to myself, so I enter and order some stew and coco bread at the counter. Normally this place is busy every hour of the day and night. This evening, business was only moderate, allowing me to slide into one of the orange plastic booths and eat comfortably before walking back to the hotel. Awaiting my food, I pulled out my phone to make the only call that mattered. It's just after lunchtime in Virginia, so he should be in the office.\n\n\" 'Ello, dis is Charles.\"\n\n\"Daddy,\" I say, instantly relieved at hearing his voice. \"I messed up.\"\n\n\"I was wonderin' when you was going to call me,\" he said. \"You ain't kill no one so da rest is fixable.\"\n\n\"How? What do you know?\"\n\n\"Marcus called me the night ya two had ya roar. I was just waitin' for ya to find yur footing and pick up the phone. Poor fella, dem crazies bombin' the towers didn't make it any betta.\"\n\n\"Is he okay?\" I ask, longing for any insight as to his well-being. We hadn't spoken in a week, and that was killing me.\n\n\"He's goin' to be fine, just like you if ya two kids can calm ya'selves down and take responsibility for one another. Makes no damn sense.\"\n\n\"That's easier said than done, Dad. Thank you,\" I said, looking up to find the waiter placing my order down.\n\n\"Where you at? Who ya talkin' to?\"\n\n\"I'm at Mr Jerk, Daddy, getting some food,\" I said. \"A lot of things were said and done beyond whatever he may have told you. I just don't know if we can get back to where we should be.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. You are exactly where you are supposed to be, at the fork in the road, faced with decidin' if this is the one love worth fightin' for. That's where you are. So which is it? What cha' gon' do?\" demanded Charles.\n\n\"I'm trying to figure that out now,\" I said.\n\n\"No, you're not. You already have, girl, so stop foolin' ya'self and delaying ya life. Nutin' is wrong wit lovin'. Above all, builds character. Look at what it did for me and your mother. You tink witout that woman I would work so hardt to be a success? No, I'd be right there back in Jamaica playing in some roots band content wit a spliff and a Stripe, but I'm not.\" Hearing me laugh, Daddy continued, \"That's my girl. Your spirit ain't broken if you can still laugh, and that is something to be grateful for. What do you want?\"\n\n\"I want to be with Marcus,\" I confess.\n\n\"Then what you doin' in London in dat fake Jamaican restaurant instead of Los Angeles with Marcus, where you belong? Jules, I don't know everything, but I know some tings were said or done to make ya both run. Marcus is a solid man\u2014a little light but a good fella nonetheless. I know he'll always provide and love you, if you allow him. The hardest ting for any man to do is lay hisself bare for anyone to see, especially the love of his life, but he'll do it for the right woman. It's scary as hell. Accept him. Stand by him. Don't try to change him.\"\n\n\"But what about me?\"\n\n\"That's the only thing you can control. Stop fightin' wit ya'self, expectin' someting that is against your spirit. There is nutin' in ya upbringin' ya need to rebel against. What's there to prove? I know how we raised you all sheltered, provided for, and with unending love. Most of dat is good, some of it wasn't. All of it was for you to know what 'the most' feels like and never do without it. Dat's yur birthright as a woman\u2014as my child. You've always had a choice, we madedt certain of that. Why you choosin' to work on two separate paintings for your life instead of focusing on one masterpiece?\"\n\n\"When did you get so smart?\" I said, smiling broadly.\n\n\"Happenedt the day you were born, bunny.\"\n\n\"I love you, Daddy,\" I said, choking back tears.\n\n\"Right back at you. Now get ya'self off dis phone and get home,\" he said. \"I'd feel real guilty about goin' on dat fishin' trip up to Oregon wit Marcus next month while you two like dis, but I will. You know how I love my fishin'.\"\n\nHe was right. Fathers often are, saying little but saying the most when needed. I know what I want, and that is to be with Marcus for as long as fate will allow. Placing our relationship above all else doesn't diminish me, and if it does, the only judge and jury that matters is me. The rest will fall into place\u2014it always does. Leap and the net will appear.\n\nArriving back at the hotel, I stop by the front desk to notify them that I would be checking out first thing in the morning, and if they could arrange transport to the airport, that would be great. Reviewing my reservation and seeing that I was leaving nearly a week early caused a moment of alarm for the desk manager.\n\n\"Ms. Sinclair, I do hope that nothing is wrong,\" he said, knowing that I was a New Yorker and thinking falsely that the World Trade attacks could be the cause.\n\nInhaling, I said, \"No. Everything is perfect, actually. It's just time to go home is all.\"\n\n\"In that case, we look forward to seeing you again on your next visit.\"\n\n## 44\n\n* * *\n\n## HEATHROW AND LAX\n\nSECURITY AT HEATHROW was something out of a George Orwell movie. In order to make the 8:20 a.m. flight, I was advised to be at the airport four hours prior to departure, given the additional security precautions and that I was flying international. The night before, I didn't sleep. After packing, I sat to write my resignation letter. In light of everything, whether Marcus and I work or not, there is no way I could continue working for Michael knowing what I know. It's one thing to be caught in the crosshairs of dueling fire. It is quite another to be walked up to and cut down in cold blood for the sake of sending a message. And that is what he did to me, ignoring the fact that I was not some nameless person but an employee, a friend, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9e. Over the years Michael had taught me many invaluable things. This, however, was not a lesson I wanted to incorporate into my life or business. True, I would again have to live off my savings, but thanks to his and Carly's generosity by way of salary and a rent-free apartment, I have time to find the next-best job, be it in New York or permanently in L.A., if Marcus will have me.\n\nTwo checkpoints before reaching the interior of the airport, only to stand in the security queue for a full hour and then some, before dashing down the causeway as my name is being announced over the loudspeaker, then reach the gate moments before the door closed\u2014no small feat. First class, as they say, does have its privileges.\n\nFinally secured in my seat, I started to unpack my purse of the in-flight reading selections I'd lifted from the hotel and pulled out the very envelope that was supposed to be given to the front desk at the time of checkout and delivered to Michael's room before he left for the groundbreaking this morning, which was to begin in about an hour. Oh well, serves him right.\n\nLeaning my head back into the seat to decompress, I was startled by the ringing of my phone. My instinct was to just turn it off without looking, until I glimpsed Michael's name flashing across the screen. Seems only fitting, I guess, for it to end this way. As Richard would say, \"the dramatics.\"\n\n\"Jules, you coming down? I'm waiting,\" asked Michael.\n\n\"Don't. I'm not coming, Michael,\" I said. \"Tell me this, did it give you pleasure to see me like that?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" he asked.\n\n\"Why did you lie to me about Marcus being the father of Blake's baby?\"\n\n\"I didn't lie, Jules. Never said it was Marcus's. I said\u2014\"\n\n\"But you led me to believe it was the truth. Right there in front of people for everyone to hear, and then you encouraged me to leave. I trusted you, Michael! Why? How could you do that to me?\"\n\n\"Jules, it's complicated,\" said Michael. \"I'll explain it later. What's that noise behind you? Where are you?\"\n\n\"I'm at the airport.\"\n\n\"This is not a game, Jules. What are you doing at the airport? Get in a car right now and make your way to the site. I'll meet you there.\"\n\n\"No. I'm out, Michael. I quit.\"\n\n\"You can't be serious. All this over Marcus? He's a big boy, Jules. He can handle himself, trust me. This little show of solidarity you're displaying isn't going to win you any favors. I should know. I was loyal to him for a long time, showed that kid the ropes, and he left me high and dry. You should be thanking me.\"\n\n\"You're wrong, Michael. Marcus didn't leave you empty as Nikolai plans to when he calls in that very sizable loan he's given you. The only reason you have New York and London is because of Marcus,\" I shot back. \"All of that land was never yours in the first place, and you knew it but you got greedy. You got greedy and you got played.\"\n\n\"I see, Boy Wonder has been talking after all,\" said Michael, regaining his composure to make a valiant show of things.\n\n\"Yes, that's what people in relationships do, Michael\u2014they talk. But we stopped doing that because of you. Because I gave you an importance you did not deserve. Marcus promised me that independent of what happened, he would protect you\u2014leave you with something,\" I said. \"And for what? Look at what you've done to him. Look at what you have done to me.\"\n\n\"Damn it, Jules, I didn't plan for things to go down like this, shit just happened. What can I say? I'll fix it after the ceremony, I promise.\"\n\n\"Is that all you have to say to me? Oh my gawd, what a fucking ego you have. I trusted you from day one. Why would you be so careless with that?\" I was so focused on Michael that I didn't notice we were ready for takeoff until the flight attendant approached.\n\n\"Ma'am, I must ask you to turn your phone off,\" she said, neatly attired in a red Virgin Atlantic flight suit.\n\n\"It's off,\" I said, snapping the phone shut and tossing it in the bag below. \"It's over.\"\n\nI once heard someone say, \"I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds it.\" Looking through the window as we taxied down the runway, I was secure for the first time in the answer: ME! I hold the keys to my future.\n\n## 45\n\n* * *\n\n## DEEP BREATH\n\nPresent Day\u2014September 17, 2001\n\nAS WE TURN off La Cienega onto Burton Way, the driver alerts me that we are minutes away from the condo. Looking out at the palm trees, thinking about where I've been as I enter this thirty-something journey of my life and how much I've grown, I know I have much to be proud of.\n\nI swear that woman has a sixth sense or else she has wired me with some type of tracking device. Two blocks before we reach Wetherly, Cora phones.\n\n\"Hi, Mommy, what's going on?\" I say in the most pleasant, peaceful tone I can muster as not to elicit any unsolicited commentary.\n\n\"Today was your groundbreaking, was it not?\" asks Cora. \"How did it go? You didn't call me.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't know. Wasn't there,\" I say, realizing that she was opting to engage in a different kind of fishing expedition instead of being direct.\n\n\"Umph. I heard that could be a possibility. So you are back in New York, I presume.\"\n\n\"No, Mommy, I'm in L.A. Is that a problem?\"\n\n\"I see. And you are sure about this?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am sure,\" I affirmed, my resolve giving way to the motivating feelings behind my admission. \"I probably will never be able to explain it in any way that will make you understand, so I won't even try but he . . . Marcus matters, and I want to be there if he'll have me.\"\n\n\"You sound sure of yourself.\"\n\n\"I am, Cora.\"\n\n\"Then go get him. I would have done the same thing for your father if that Rosalyn had\"\u2014she paused to laugh at her own repetitiveness\u2014\"you know the rest.\"\n\n\"Oh, I do,\" I say. \"Mommy, what if he's not there or doesn't want to hear what I have to say?\"\n\n\"Then you wait until he is. You wait until your heart tells you it's time to let go. That is the very least that true love deserves.\"\n\n\"Miss, we are here,\" interrupts the driver.\n\n\"Okay, I have to go now. Let me call you later. I love you.\"\n\n\"I'm proud of you, Julesea\u2014Jules.\"\n\n## 46\n\n* * *\n\n## OTIS REDDING\n\nMY INDIFFERENCE TOWARD this hallway since the first day Marcus and I walked in is magnified today. Like most things in L.A., it feels ostentatious\u2014boldly trying to be something it's not. (Kind of like me, I guess.) The overly modern furnishings encased in an I. M. Pei-esque (but not really) construction make it feel cold and austere rather than the luxury advertised, and today even more so. The clickity-clack of my heels on the marble floor sounds like a death march instead of a return to love. What if he is not here? What will I do? I mean, I'm ready, but what if he needs more time? Can I wait like Cora says? I hope so. I'm here, I'm here! I repeat the words to myself in front of the elevator, unable to actually step in. A cute couple and a single woman with a purse dog come up as I stand there. The doors open and I nod them off. I'm here, but I just can't get my feet to work. I can feel the security guard staring at me, which is kind of pissing me off. Can't he see that I'm also middecision here? Whatever, no big deal. I'll just walk over like so, press the button like this, and get in. See. No big deal.\n\nPutting the key in the door, however, is another thing entirely, so I stand again, awaiting divine intervention. Then I remember a mantra that served me well once before:\n\nI long to be the woman who is loved passionately and deeply by a successful man who can provide for me in all ways that matter in this life. A woman who realizes that happiness is not a choice between this or that but an accumulation of moments experienced and shared. I want to be the woman who knows when to let a love go that existed in rose-colored glasses and to walk into a true love that requires no special frames to be alluring. I want to be the woman he chooses to remain faithful to and committed to even when things aren't going smoothly. I want to be the woman whose eyes hold his future.\n\nI can tell from the stillness that greets me at the doorway that no one is home. There is, I think, a hint of his cologne in the air, but that could just be my imagination, so I go further in. Marcus's gym bag is not in the hallway where it normally is, but then again I can't remember if it was there on the night he stormed out. The living room offers me no clues, as it's clear the housekeeper has been in to sort the mess we made, as she does twice a week. Placing my purse on the chaise, I go into our bedroom, stopping by the bed to trace the outline of where he usually sleeps before going to the closet. Everything, as far as I can see, is in its place: his watches on the center island displayed next to his collection of sunglasses and readers. There are no noticeable gaps to say that clothing was once here but is now gone\u2014even his toothbrush and shavers are here. All is in place awaiting Marcus's return. Now all I had to do was join them\u2014and wait.\n\nThe flight and drive in were easy compared to this. Hours had passed since I arrived, bringing an end to the day, and still Marcus hadn't come home. Calling him would be of no consequence, because whatever it was that would be said deserved more than a faceless delivery. If there was convincing to be done, then he needed to see my face, see that he possessed my heart without question.\n\nThe time idling was doing a number on my head, every little noise making me jump with nervous anticipation, thinking it's his key in the lock. It's unbearable! I walk over to the audio system, press Play, and crank up the volume for company. Otis Redding's rich voice fills the house, and I am hearing Marcus's soul if it could sing. I allow myself to get swept away in the melody and the understanding that for him to have been listening to Otis, he must be breathing us, reliving us. That's something to hold on to. The song abruptly stops. He's here. Standing before me. He sees me. I open my mouth to speak\u2014but he motions to me to stop, and walks over.\n\n\"May I?\" Marcus asks, taking me by the hand, and leading me into a slow dance.\n\n\"Yes,\" I say, trying to swallow the knot in my throat. \"I was scared\u2014\"\n\n\"Shhhh, shhhh, listen,\" he says, pulling me to him tenderly as Otis starts to sing, \"I Love You For More Than Words Can Say.\" Reciting each line softly in my ear, Marcus sings tenderly as he holds me tight, until we melt into one. My heart overflows, begging never to let go.\n\nHoney living without you is so painful\n\nI was tempted to call it a day\n\nYou've got me in your hand, why can't you understand\n\nI love you baby, for more than words can say\n\nI bury my face into the warmth of his neck, and exhale for the first time in a week, knowing that I desire to be only where he is, that no one, and nothing will ever matter more than what we create together. I'm dancing with my purpose. Every other word from him battled the other to express all that is in his soul, while not betraying the man, he believes I need him to be. I feel the force of his heart, beating ferociously against my chest. I have no doubts. I trust this man and all that is to come between us. Tilting my head up taking my future into full view, I wipe Marcus's tears and meet him in song.\n\nYou've got me in your hand, why can't you understand\n\nI love you honey, for more than words can say\n\n\"If you'll have me,\" I say.\n\n\"I do,\" says Marcus.\n\nThe Beginning\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nTODD HUNTER\u2014MY EDITOR and Jules's champion. Thank you for providing the platform. Your support means a lot.\n\nAunts Ollie, Almetta, and Vivian\u2014you've championed me since '74. There are no words to convey how blessed I AM as a result!\n\nJoy Leton\u2014you, who always believes I can do anything. Reachin' kid, that's why I love you.\n\nRodrigo Santoro\u2014you and I, words can't express. You live in my heart, obviously. Really . . . Seriously, Dynasty!\n\nLisa Rudolph\u2014If asked to write about you I would start with \"You are woman phenomenally,\" but I think that's plagiarism and Ms. Maya ain't to be crossed!\n\nLeeya Myown\u2014Little Goddess, always remember that you are light and all things are for you, so dream with your entire being and enjoy.\n\nRichard Harris\u2014too many firsts were with you, my friend. I honor you the only way I know how\u2014everyday!\n\nNicole David\u2014How can one so small hold up so many? Very blessed am I to be among the lifted.\n\nShohreh Aghdashloo\u2014It's not right how very hard I crush on you, but I do. You, my dear, are grace, sophistication, and purpose.\n\nMikki Taylor\u2014for inspiring me from afar, to showing me how to be a commander in chic everyday. J'adore!\n\nStar Jones\u2014Lady, I've watched and learned. Thank you, for all.\n\nBrad Zeifman\u2014come on now, amazing (you are)! Thanks for always having a song ready. We'll work on pitch and tone soon.\n\nJanice, Bradley, and the Most Handsome Jerry Lewart\u2014you gave me Sag Harbor. Thank you!\n\nAmbassador Shabazz\u2014your friendship and counsel is prized. For all that is, and all that is to come, I celebrate you!\n\nThe village that keeps me together\u2014Tiffany Persons, Lakisha Bellamy, Jessica Teutonico, Bryce (OMG!) Wilson, Gino Columbo, Michael \"Who Me, I am French\" Sanka, Haydn Wright, Robert Marinelli, Ryan Tarpley, Shawn Howell, Judi McCreary, Brian Braff, Nancy Seltzer, Wes Carol, Adrienne Alexander, Robyn Price Pierre, Matt \"Chuck\" Davis, Tatiana Litvin, Arnold Robinson, Karen Earl, Jarrett Mason, Pat Green, Karen Cummings-Palmer, Claire Thomas, Amy Elisa Keith, Cheryl Francis Herrington, Michael Broussard, Kynderly Haskins, and Debra Langford (!).\n\nI LOVE YOU ALL, clearly!\nTAMARA N. HOUSTON is the founder and managing partner of ICON MANN and CODE RED (Carpet). Houston oversees the entertainment brand strategy and career development of professional athletes and of Academy Award\u2013nominated and Emmy-winning actors. Writing is the wonderfully cherished escape into her thoughts when the world outside gets too crowded.\n\nMEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT\n\nSimonandSchuster.com\n\n  Facebook.com\/AtriaBooks  \n  @AtriaBooks\nWe hope you enjoyed reading this Atria Books eBook.\n\n* * *\n\nJoin our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.\n\nCLICK HERE TO SIGN UP\n\nor visit us online to sign up at  \neBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com\n\nA Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.\n\n1230 Avenue of the Americas\n\nNew York, NY 10020\n\nwww.SimonandSchuster.com\n\nThis book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2013 by Roundtable Entertainment, Inc.\n\n\"More Than Words Can Say,\" words and music by Eddie Floyd and Booker T. Jones Jr.; copyright \u00a9 1955 IRVING MUSIC, INC.; all rights reserved, used by permission; reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.\n\nAll rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.\n\nFirst Atria Paperback edition August 2013\n\n  and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.\n\nThe Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.\n\nDesigned by Dana Sloan\n\nCover design and illustration by Richard Yoo\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nHouston, Tamara N.\n\nWaiting for Jules \/ Tamara N. Houston. \u2014 First Atria Books paperback edition.\n\np. cm\n\n1. Women in the mass media industry\u2014Fiction. 2. Public relations\u2014Fiction. 3. Women\u2014Fiction. 4. Ambition\u2014Fiction. 5. Divorce\u2014Fiction. 6. New York (State)\u2014New York\u2014Fiction. I. Title.\n\nPS3608.O877 2013\n\n813'.6\u2014dc23\n\n2012041013\n\nISBN 978-1-4516-9851-0\n\nISBN 978-1-4516-9853-4 (ebook)\n\n## Contents\n\nEpigraph\n\nAuthor's Note\n\nChapter 1: The Return\n\nChapter 2: Meeting Mr. Michael Thurmond Kipps?\n\nChapter 3: If it Looks Like a Duck\n\nChapter 4: The Magic of Rain\n\nChapter 5: Tony & Jules\n\nChapter 6: Closure\n\nChapter 7: Carly's\n\nChapter 8: Last Good-Byes\n\nChapter 9: And You Are?\n\nChapter 10: Holland Park\n\nChapter 11: Welcome Home--I'm Back\n\nChapter 12: Meeting the Natives\n\nChapter 13: Masters, the Man . . . Not the Tournament\n\nChapter 14: A New Attitude\n\nChapter 15: Encounters\n\nChapter 16: High Tea\n\nChapter 17: Refuge\n\nChapter 18: Emergence\n\nChapter 19: Switch Hitting\n\nChapter 20: The Voice in My Head\n\nChapter 21: New Leases and Releases\n\nChapter 22: And You Are?\n\nChapter 23: Battle Lines\n\nChapter 24: When It All Falls Down\n\nChapter 25: The Pawn\n\nChapter 26: D-Day\n\nChapter 27: Boundaries\n\nChapter 28: A Gift Horse\n\nChapter 29: Plausible Deniability\n\nChapter 30: A Heap See But a Few Know\n\nChapter 31: Recap\n\nChapter 32: And I Am . . .\n\nChapter 33: Are You New?\n\nChapter 34: Two Months, Seven Days, and Spontaneous Combustion\n\nChapter 35: Sunday\n\nChapter 36: A Declarative Statement\n\nChapter 37: Strange Bedfellows\n\nChapter 38: In Our Future I See\n\nChapter 39: 1 North Wetherly Drive\n\nChapter 40: Dominoes\n\nChapter 41: Detonation in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1\n\nChapter 42: London Calling . . . Again\n\nChapter 43: Father Knows Best\n\nChapter 44: Heathrow and Lax\n\nChapter 45: Deep Breath\n\nChapter 46: Otis Redding\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAbout Tamara N. Houston\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \nContents\n\nDEAD SURE, by Herbert Brean\n\nCOPYRIGHT INFORMATION\n\nALSO BY HERBERT BREAN\n\nPART ONE: THE C-NOTE\n\nCHAPTER 1\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nPART TWO: THE BIG NEWS\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\nCHAPTER 10\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nCHAPTER 13\n\nCHAPTER 14\n\nCHAPTER 15\n\nCHAPTER 16\n\nCHAPTER 17\n\nCHAPTER 18\n\nPART THREE: THE BLOW-OFF\n\nCHAPTER 19\n\nCHAPTER 20\n\nCHAPTER 21\n\nCHAPTER 22\n\nCHAPTER 23\n\nCHAPTER 24\n\nCHAPTER 25\n\nCHAPTER 26\n\nCHAPTER 27\nDEAD SURE, by Herbert Brean\n\nAlso published as A MATTER OF FACT\nCOPYRIGHT INFORMATION\n\nCopyright \u00a9 1956 by Herbert Brean.\nALSO BY HERBERT BREAN\n\nWilders Walk Away\n\nThe Darker the Night\n\nHardly a Man is Now Alive\n\nThe Clock Strikes Thirteen\n\nDead Sure (also published as A Matter of Fact)\n\nThe Traces of Brillhart\n\nThe Traces of Merrilee56DEDICATION\n\nFor Dorothy\u2014all by herself.\nPART ONE: THE C-NOTE\nCHAPTER 1\n\nThe Double Tail\n\nShadowy darkness and cold filled the street, the sudden bone-penetrating cold of early November that sends a man indoors and holds him there. Darkness was appropriate to this street as a black garment to a nocturnal thief, for it was a mean, shabby thoroughfare, walled in on either side by rows of high brownstone houses that frowned down on passers-by by day and menaced them by night, obscurely but perceptibly. Before the houses stood unbroken rows of automobiles, illegally parked as though their owners had left them there only long enough to snatch a few hours' sleep before driving away forever from this glowering neighborhood.\n\nMeanwhile the night-black windows of houses and cars reflected back the street lamps' murky light at either end of the block. Only an occasional rectangle of orange showed where someone still sat up, mesmerized by television or solitaire, or absorbed in the evening paper or a wrangle with the old woman. On the sidewalk dusty cans of ashes awaited next morning's sanitation truck, and in the middle of the block a small bulb burned over the Night Bell sign beside a garage's door.\n\nA tall man swung into the street from the Third Avenue end, moving with the long, confident strides of the hard-muscled. As he passed under the street light it showed him lean and high-shouldered, wearing a peaked cap like a hunter's and a heavy jacket of checkered wool. In his right hand he carried a brown paper sack that clunked in heavy rhythm to the crunch of his shoes. The street light spread a lengthening, writhing shadow of himself before him that merged with the other darkness and, as he progressed, finally vanished.\n\nWhen this man was midway down the block a second man appeared at the Third Avenue end. He snapped a quick glance after the first that was like a silent pistol shot and, having seen what he wanted, continued on across the lighted intersection, looking straight ahead without turning into the dark side street. When he reached the opposite curb, he turned quickly on silent feet and began paralleling the first man from the opposite sidewalk.\n\nHe walked rapidly and carefully, putting his weight on rubber heels so that he would not be heard above the faint, endless grinding that is the sound of Manhattan an hour before midnight. As he did he strained his eyes after the first man, for he knew there was a good chance that he was being ambushed. You were taught to guard against things like that in the police academy, and the second man, whose name was O'Neill Ryan and who was a probationary-detective, had completed his course there only two weeks before.\n\nBut if the man in the wool jacket knew that he was being followed, he disguised it very convincingly. Three quarters of the way down the block he turned unhurriedly, a flicker of black in the larger darkness, into one of the brownstones and took the tall steps two at a time. He whistled a snatch of jukebox song, opened the door into an ill-lit hall, and Ryan, moving almost soundlessly along the opposite sidewalk, caught the diminuendo of boots on a rugless stair before the door swung shut.\n\nThen the street was silent again. Ryan paused behind a parked station wagon.\n\nHe was uncertain and scared. He looked back along the way he had come for his partner, who was the senior member of the detective team. For the last fifteen minutes they had been double-tailing the man who had gone into the house. In double-tailing a detective follows a suspect while a second detective follows the first detective, out of sight of the quarry. After an agreed-on number of blocks or minutes the second moves up into the lead position while the first detective drops back and follows the second. It is complicated, requiring quick and cooperative intelligences, but a subject who is on guard against being followed is much less likely to notice this kind of tail.\n\nWhat bothered Ryan was that he wanted to let his partner, who was not yet in sight, know where their quarry had gone, which meant staying where he was. But he also knew that if the quarry had observed the tail he might have entered the house only to walk through it quickly and escape out the back. Logic indicated he should go to the rear, but that meant missing Jablonski, his partner. A rookie's agony of eagerness and uncertainty seized Ryan.\n\nA wedge-shaped silhouette appeared at the end of the street. Ryan relaxed. That was Jablonski\u2014thick, routine-minded, unimaginative, but solid and knowing. And in command.\n\nJablonski did just what Ryan had done. He crossed the intersection and then turned into the dark street, coming along softly, watchfully. Ryan whistled from the station wagon's shadow.\n\n\"Where is he?\" Jablonski whispered back.\n\n\"There. Where the light is in the hall.\"\n\n\"Did he make us?\"\n\n\"I didn't see him look back. But what can you see in this damned street?\"\n\n\"It don't figure,\" said Jablonski. His mouth made chewing movements as though he were rolling a cigar between his lips.\n\n\"Maybe it's a hideout.\"\n\n\"Hideout nothing! It don't figure. He's shakin' us. I'll hit the back.\"\n\nHe moved hurriedly out from between parked cars.\n\n\"What about help?\" Ryan whispered hoarsely into the darkness after him.\n\nJablonski only waved a hand in irritation behind him and went on across the street, a bulky, grizzled, worried man of fifty-three. Jablonski really did not want help. It would have been absurd for anyone to consider him brave for feeling that way, and Jablonski would have been the first to laugh at such an idea. He did not greatly venerate courage, regarding it as a quality usually reserved for rookies and saps. But Jablonski had personal, hardheaded reasons for not wanting, for very much not wanting, any help on this arrest.\n\nThat is why he walked quickly up to the door of a passageway between the two houses across the street, pushed it open and stepped into the dark passage which, he knew after years of working neighborhoods like this, would take him into whatever backyard or court lay behind the houses. He was lucky it was there\u2014but it would be a hell of a place to meet Derby.\n\nAfter a minute he flashed his light down the black passage. He saw only twin walls of eroded old brick, chalked with children's scribbling. He clicked out the flashlight and walked down the passage in cold darkness. Doing that he comforted himself with the somewhat specious reasoning that if Derby, a cop-hater, three-time loser and now a killer\u2014if Derby had spotted them, he was already out the back of this building and was gone. If not, then they had him. And at that Jablonski sucked in his breath, audibly, hopefully.\n\nHe reached the end of the passage. It opened into a small yard, faintly starlit and surrounded by the high old garden wall of another era. Above him a window suddenly rasped open, and his hand dove under his overcoat's left lapel. There came a harsh, strangling sound; someone spat out the window, and did not close it.\n\nPresently Jablonski moved across the yard to the wall. On top of it his exploring hands encountered pieces of broken glass, a futile deterrent to juvenile marauders. He picked the glass off, placing the pieces carefully on the ground, then took out his gun and, holding it, drew himself up and over the wall. He eased down into the yard of the house where Derby was. No light showed from the windows. Jablonski waited a few minutes to let his arms recover their strength so his hands would be steady if he needed them to be. As he did this his eyes adjusted to the yard's darkness, and he thought he saw a back porch with a door, and below the porch another door leading into the cellar.\n\nJablonski stole across the yard, went almost silently down some steps and tried the cellar door. He revolved the knob several times while he leaned his weight against it to see if the door was locked. Doing that he knew he was an unmissable target for anyone standing with a gun on the other side of the door. Nothing happened. Jablonski cautiously climbed the steps and tried the porch door in the same way with the same result. Then his thick, pursed lips relaxed in a complacent smile.\n\nThey had him.\n\nFor if Derby had spotted the tail and simply walked through the house to escape them he would have been in a hurry. He would not have bothered to lock any doors behind him. He was inside then and didn't know they were there at all. It was perfect!\n\nRyan and Jablonski had picked up Derby only twenty minutes before on Third Avenue, just as he had gone into a delicatessen to buy some beer, and Jablonski surmised that Derby planned to sit up for a while, drinking it. That was perfect, too. It's eleven-thirty now. Give him until one o'clock. The beer will make him sleepy.\n\nJablonski returned to the wall, wrapped his overcoat around himself and sat down in the shadow. He could assume Ryan would interpret no news as good news and would continue to watch the front. All they had to do now was to wait, and the only thing that could go wrong would be for Ryan somehow to manage to send back for help. Good strategy demanded that they call in for reinforcements, but Jablonski for urgent personal reasons wanted to make this arrest himself. He settled himself in his overcoat and wished for one of the cigars he had been about to buy when they had spotted Derby.\n\nTime passed. No lights appeared in the house's rear windows. An ambulance whined down Second Avenue. Jablonski waited. He rolled an imaginary cigar in his mouth and thought of Derby, sipping beer out of a can, getting heavy-eyed, sleepy, dull of wit...\n\nThat's what Jablonski was waiting for. He was good at waiting.\n\nTime passed.\n\n* * * *\n\nRyan stood beside the station wagon where Jablonski had left him, hunched over for warmth and concealment, eyes never leaving the front door across the street for more than a fleeting second. A feeling of imminent triumph filled him; Jablonski's silence was the best news in the world.\n\nYet Ryan was jittery. He was not afraid of Derby, even though Derby was the hottest guy in town tonight, a three-time loser who would get life at best but who far more likely was going to the chair. Ryan would never have become a cop and stayed a cop if he did not believe innately that he was smarter, faster and tougher than anyone he would ever go up against.\n\nWhat worried him was that through his own inexperience or overeagerness he would wreck the delicate, dangerous strategy that he and Jablonski had decided on earlier that night, casually and almost jokingly.\n\nFor as the evening wore on they had felt the mounting pressure\u2014on them and on the department of which they were but a unit. It wasn't merely the big type on the tabloids' early editions, nor the thick, indignant anger in the lieutenant's voice when they checked in at the precinct. Nor the unwonted quiet there or the knowledge that the commissioner had ordered direct reports to be telephoned to his home throughout the night. No, it was some deeper, policeman's instinct, born of experience and a feeling for the rhythm of the city's emotions, that told them both the Connors murder would be a heavy one. That was what had been in Jablonski's mind as their plain black sedan idled up one East Side street and down another. That was why he had casually remarked that if they happened to stumble on any trace of Derby, it sure wouldn't do them any harm to work it out on their own.\n\nRyan had braked the car gently to a stop for a red light at Madison Avenue and looked through the windshield. He had a boyish face and dark, round, long-lashed eyes that held a thoughtfully mischievous expression which women found attractive. It sure wouldn't do them any harm, Ryan had agreed.\n\nHe did not look at Jablonski; he did not have to. In that instant the pact was made, and they both understood it.\n\nEdmund Aloysius Jablonski was retiring in less than two weeks after a career of twenty-eight years in the police department. As his rank of Detective Third Grade suggested, Jablonski's had been a quiet, lackluster career. He was an uninspired man who had begun to realize as retirement neared that somewhere along the trail he must have missed opportunities. That was bitter, helpless knowledge.\n\nAnd now Harry Derby represented the greatest opportunity of them all.\n\nDerby was a bright chance for Ryan also. For four years Ryan had walked a beat to get this tryout as a detective. He had been paired with the older man, in accordance with departmental custom, to gain experience and also to be observed. He had been disappointed in the man he was paired with, recognizing Jablonski as plodding, tired and inept. But tonight Jabby was acting and sounding like an eager kid. It made Ryan feel hopeful, because to arrest someone like Derby would do him more good...\n\nAnd then\u2014it had seemed incredible, for Ryan was new at this end of the business\u2014then he had seen something.\n\nSwinging down Third, walking fast but not furtively, bathed briefly in the colors of the neon signs that he passed, a lean, hard-muscled man with a cold eye and a curt sneer\u2014that was Derby.\n\nSince their car was not a Radio Motor Patrol car and had no two-way radio, departmental routine dictated that they split up, one telephoning in for help while the other tailed Derby to wherever he was going and whomever he was meeting, for there had been an indication this afternoon that he had had an accomplice.\n\nBut Ryan and Jablonski had already made their decision. They would bring him in themselves. That dangerous decision was what was in Ryan's mind now as he stood minute after minute, feeling the cold creep up through the soles of his shoes and an ache grow in the small of his back. If it came to shooting and he shot recklessly or held his fire when\u2014Stop that! The hall light across the way blinked out.\n\nWas he coming out?\n\nRyan's right hand dove under overcoat and suit coat and gripped the warm, snub-nosed .38 holstered under his left arm. But no one came out of the house. Ryan concluded it was just the janitor turning out the lights.\n\nA car turned into the street. Ryan hoped it was not an RMP car for then he could have no reason for not asking for help. It was not an RMP car and he felt relieved, and was pleased at his own relief.\n\nBut why the hell didn't Jablonski\u2014!\n\nRyan arched his back and reminded himself that Jablonski was doing the same thing. His watch showed five minutes of one. They had him trapped.\n\nAll they had to do was take him cleanly.\nCHAPTER 2\n\nThe China Chip\n\nSome ten hours earlier a thin sixty-three-year-old woman named Thelma Connors had left the small gloomy apartment she shared with her daughter Elaine on East Sixty-first Street and walked to a branch bank on Lexington Avenue a few blocks away. There she drew out one hundred and twenty dollars from their joint savings account, leaving only twelve dollars to keep the account alive. A white-haired, pathetically proper woman with a slight limp that expensive surgery could have repaired, she confided to the teller that she and Elaine were leaving by interstate bus that night for Chicago and a visit with her son, and she specifically asked for a hundred dollar bill to pin to her clothing for safekeeping.\n\nLater, under the deluge of probing questions by detectives, the teller recalled that a tall man whom he did not remember ever seeing in the bank before, a man in some kind of wool jacket or shirt, had stood in the line with several others waiting for Mrs. Connors to complete her garrulous transaction. The teller could not recall definitely whether or not the man had come up to the window. If he had it had been only to get a bill changed.\n\nMrs. Connors stopped at a nearby grocery for some sandwich meat and then walked home in crystal November sunshine, a happily excited wisp of woman in a decent black cloth coat. A neighbor, one Mrs. Anders, who was sitting on the steps of a dingy apartment building, spoke to Mrs. Connors. A moment later Mrs. Anders saw a man walk up the steps and go into the vestibule. He seemed to study the mailboxes, and when she asked who he was looking for, he did not reply or look at her but went into the building. It was his incivility more than anything else that made her remember him later: a tall, thin man with a bitter face and wearing a checkered woolen jacket.\n\nThe wife of the building janitor, a Mrs. Lombardi, also glimpsed him. She was coming down from the fourth floor when she saw him standing before Mrs. Connors' apartment on the second. She heard him say something like, \"I'm from the office, ma'am,\" when the door opened and she saw him step quickly in.\n\nShe went on downstairs, noticed Mrs. Anders outside and paused to smoke a cigarette with her. They were t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate over a match when the first outcry came. They looked at each other over the burning match.\n\n\"Did you hear that?\"\n\n\"A kid maybe?\"\n\nThey paused, uneasily sensing something wrong yet unwilling to accept that anyone near them could be in such fearful distress as was expressed by that quick yell of terror.\n\nThere came a weaker cry and the faint vibrating sound of something falling and then a last, loud cry that was punctuated by a shot.\n\n\"My God!\" Mrs. Anders' hand went guiltily to her mouth. They knew they should have taken the meaning of the earlier scream and gone to someone's assistance.\n\nThey ran into the hall together and saw a tall, rangy man running toward the back door. Mrs. Lombardi yelled, \"Stop thief!\" and the man turned a snarling face at them as he ran. He shouted something which neither of them could even begin to describe later, and which might have been directed at someone ahead of him, a confederate perhaps. The door banged behind him.\n\nThe man was seen by someone else. A telephone company employee named Betty Leonard, who shared an apartment with another telephone operator on the second floor, had been preparing to leave for work. Hearing the scream and shot, she apprehensively opened her door a slit and saw the man in the wool jacket gallop downstairs.\n\nShe went to the Connors' door and called. Getting no reply and hearing Mrs. Lombardi's hail from below, she pushed her way, frightened, into the living room. It was darkly gloomy but one light bulb was shining oddly up at her from the carpet.\n\nThen she saw the rest of it and she too screamed.\n\n* * * *\n\nThe usual RMP car got there first. Its crew found Mrs. Connors lying face up near the living-room table, a bloody laceration on the right side of her forehead and blood running into her sightless eyes. The remains of a table lamp which apparently had been used as a bludgeon lay beside her, its cheap pottery base smashed into a thousand fragments, its bulb incongruously alight. In the right side of her head above the ear, black-haloing the thin silvery hair, was a bullet hole.\n\nOne of the RMP men called the precinct and the routine notifications began. The precinct sent two detective teams at once; one of them was Ryan and Jablonski, who when the call came in had been looking over the post condition on the bulletin board in the East Fifty-first Street station before starting the afternoon trick.\n\nThe radio car was still double-parked in front of the apartment when they got there. Going up the steps they took out gold, blue-centered badges and pinned them to their coats so cops from other squads and bureaus would know they were policemen and not reporters or the ever-present curious.\n\nThe deputy chief inspector who was commanding officer of Manhattan East detectives was already there, and his early presence was enormously significant. For several weeks there had been a mounting wave of assaults and muggings throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn; the newspapers had begun to get sharply critical. Ryan and Jablonski went into the apartment briefly to take a look and tacitly let the deputy chief know they were there. He gave them an angry look as though this somehow was their fault, and they went back into the hall to await orders and not clutter up the place. That was all routine.\n\nThe RMP man on the door repeated to them what the women had told him and his partner. The deputy inspector, a heavy-faced man with hair like springy black wire, looked out the door.\n\n\"Seventeenth Squad, sir,\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"Start on the tenants. The guy who did it was seen. It was a clumsy job\u2014he may have been an amateur. Ask about relatives. There's a daughter and we've sent down for her. She's at work.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThe Medical Examiner and his assistant came up the stairway, laden and puffing.\n\nIn thirty minutes Jablonski and Ryan and one of the other teams that arrived after them talked to all the tenants who were at home, learned who knew the Connors, and had located who had heard or seen anything of the intruder. Meanwhile the Medical Examiner reached a preliminary verdict: death by bullet wound, which had occurred at the time the other witnesses heard the shot. The men from the Picture Gallery made photographs, and then two serious-looking lab men took over, opened a heavy black kit and began dusting for fingerprints, making preliminary blood stain tests and examining the dead woman's clothing, hands and fingernails. It was routine.\n\nBut the crime wasn't. They all felt that. One of the picture men, packing away his camera and tripod, paused to study the slender figure crumpled on the floor like a dropped handkerchief and said, \"Jeez,\" softly.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said a detective next to him. \"This was a real son of a bitch.\"\n\n\"I can't wait to read the Telegram tonight,\" said the picture man sarcastically.\n\nThis was a heavy one. It had to be cleaned up fast, and whether it was depended on themselves\u2014on their pooled skills and brains, courage and tenacity, on the clues they found and how assiduously they ran them down, on the empirical soundness of the conclusions they drew, on the leads they developed and the patience with which those leads were proven and disproven.\n\nThe precinct relayed word that the team that had gone down for the daughter reported she said her mother had been going to the bank that day. Lieutenant Bauer who had come over from the precinct growled an order and two detectives ran downstairs and hurried to the bank. Jablonski in response to another order assembled the three principal witnesses in Miss Leonard's chintz-decorated apartment. When they had seated themselves expectantly, Jablonski began to talk earnestly, while Ryan leaned against the door and felt useless.\n\n\"My name's Jablonski,\" Jablonski began. \"This is my partner, Detective Ryan. A very serious crime was committed here an hour ago, ladies. A man followed your neighbor Mrs. Connors home from the bank, tried to rob her and hit her with a lamp. When that failed to...ah, render her unconscious, he killed her. You ladies saw him. You're the only persons who did.\"\n\nThey listened to what they already knew with hypnotized interest.\n\n\"It's likely,\" Jablonski went on, \"that, the killer was a known criminal, known to the police, that is. So if you ladies will cooperate, it may be possible for us to find out who he is right away and effect an arrest, ah, immediately.\"\n\nConfronted with an audience, Jablonski used phrases he hardly knew were in his lexicon.\n\n\"What do you want us to do?\" asked Miss Leonard.\n\n\"We'd like to drive you down to police headquarters,\" said Jablonski, \"and show you some pictures of muggers and robbers who answer this guy's description. It won't take long. All you do is look at the pictures and if you recognize him, tell us. We'll drive you back, of course. Okay, girls?\"\n\nEagerness made Jablonski grow too friendly, Ryan recognized. That made the women suspicious.\n\n\"I've got a switchboard to get to,\" said Miss Leonard determinedly. \"I'm late as it is.\"\n\n\"I'll call your supervisor for you, miss, and explain how things are,\" Ryan offered politely. He smiled diffidently at her, as though he thought she was pretty nice-looking.\n\nShe smiled back. He was nice-looking himself, she thought. \"Well, if you did that, Mr. Ryan,\" she said more cordially.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Mrs. Lombardi in another tone. \"But supposing we pick out this guy's picture and then his friends come looking for us, huh? How about that, mister?\"\n\nMrs. Anders looked frightened as the meaning struck her. \"Yes\u2014how about that? It's all right for you policemen\u2014\"\n\n\"Look, girls,\" said Jablonski anxiously. \"Is this too much to ask for the sake of your neighbor, Mrs. Connors, lying dead in there? Aren't you willing to even\u2014\" He gestured helplessly.\n\nThe women looked rebellious.\n\nRyan moved from the door.\n\n\"Look, ladies,\" he said. \"All you do is drive downtown with us and look at some pictures. If you recognize one, just point. Nobody knows who picked it out or anything else.\" His glance deliberately engaged Betty Leonard's. \"Won't you please help us?\" he said gently, and he knew that he had her.\n\nHe looked at the two older women. \"It's just a matter of our getting our hands on the man who did this before he can come back here or attack some other helpless woman in a building like this. Won't you please help do that?\"\n\nIt was an appeal Mrs. Lombardi could not resist. She rose. \"C'mon, Mary,\" she said.\n\nJablonski looked at his partner in surprised approval.\n\n* * * *\n\nThe rite in the Bureau of Criminal Identification did not take long, and to the women it even seemed rather casual. Each of them was handed a deck of small photographs and asked to leaf through them slowly. For a few minutes there was absorbed silence, broken by an occasional mutter from Mrs. Lombardi, while Ryan, Jablonski and a BCI man watched them. It was Mrs. Anders who first said. \"Well, this looks like him, I must say.\"\n\nThe BCI man took the picture and when she had finished with her stack of pictures, re-inserted it in a different position and gave the stack to Mrs. Lombardi. Minutes later she cried out, \"Oh, that's him! I'm sure that was him.\"\n\nIt was the same picture.\n\nNow the stack went to Miss Leonard. She had had the best look at the man. They watched her narrowly while pretending not to, and when suddenly she emitted a little frightened cry, Ryan and the BCI man breathed a sigh of relief. They knew what that meant.\n\nThe BCI man showed the women other pictures of the suspect, and those confirmed the identification. Then he took his record from a file:\n\nHarry Derby, 37 years old, male, white. Brown eyes; light brown hair; 6 feet 1\u00bd inches; 163 pounds. Longshoreman; North River and Brooklyn docks and bars.\n\nUnder \"Distinctive Marks\" it said: jagged scar on right shin, pockmarks on left shoulder and left neck, almost invisible knife scar leading from outer corner of left eye. The list of Derby's arrests took two cards clipped together; they were mostly for felonious assaults, carrying concealed weapons and robbery or suspicion of robbery.\n\nMinutes later the news that Harry Derby was wanted for murder and his description were being teletyped into the hundred and more New York City precinct stations as well as the police headquarters and state police barracks of thirteen Eastern seaboard states. The bulletin ended: \"Approach with caution. He is known to be armed.\"\n\nRyan and Jablonski drove the three women home through the clear, cold November twilight and the endless traffic jam of 5:30 p.m.\n\n* * * *\n\nThe cluster of photographers and reporters that had been held downstairs in the apartment building's front hall was gone but there was still a uniformed man on the door.\n\n\"Anyone up there?\" Jablonski asked.\n\n\"Ed Furtig,\" the uniformed man said. \"He's carrying it.\"\n\nIt was a curiously expressive bit of police slang, Ryan thought, not for the first time. He's carrying it. The homicide men, the lab men, the identification and picture gallery men all would do what their specialties demanded in avenging the murder of Thelma Connors. But it had been assigned especially to one man, a detective in the precinct in which the crime occurred. It was primarily his responsibility, his burden to carry until the murderer was brought to trial\u2014next week, next month, next year.\n\nEd Furtig sat on the arm of a deep upholstered chair near the window, arms folded, hat pushed back, smoke spiraling from the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.\n\n\"Hi, Jab. The desk said you guys should hit the street.\"\n\n\"Okay. All yours, huh?\"\n\n\"All mine,\" said Furtig. His lean flexible face grew sardonic. \"Naturally. I was starting a forty-eight at midnight.\" Furtig used the old police expression, even though the department \"week end\" was now fifty-six hours.\n\n\"They get any prints?\"\n\nFurtig shook his head. \"Too early to tell. One of the boys thought he got a couple partials.\"\n\nWhile Ryan listened, his eyes ranged over the room. This, was his first good look at it. A few cheap framed pictures decorated the walls, and immaculate doilies the tables and chairbacks. A large crucifix hung on one wall, a yellowed sprig of palm thrust behind it.\n\n\"The daughter have anything?\"\n\n\"God, no. She flipped. A doctor's with her now, down in the janitor's apartment. One thing she did say\u2014the old lady had some cuff links she wore with a shirtwaist. One was lying near her, but the other wasn't anywhere around. The killer may have carried it away unknowingly, if it caught in his clothes.\"\n\nJablonski said nothing. It was something to be remembered, but it would probably never turn up. Things did not happen that conveniently in real life. Ryan, listening, continued looking around.\n\nThere were little bursts of fingerprint powder, black and light gray, in unlikely places around doors and table edges. The smashed lamp was gone, taken to the lab for minute examination. The only real sign of violence left in this plain sitting room was their own presence\u2014uninvited strangers who would not be here at all had an old woman's life been permitted to continue its even way.\n\nNo\u2014there was one other sign of violence. Behind a chair leg there was a small yellow chip of china from the shattered lamp base. Ryan knew that it was no longer of evidential value, so he picked it up, studied it and then, reminding himself that this was the first murder in his four years on the force in which he had an active, investigative part he dropped it in his coat pocket on the universal impulse of the souvenir hunter.\n\n\"Well...here's hopin', Ed,\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\n\"We better roll, Neill.\"\n\nThey filed out. As he turned to close the door behind them Ryan saw Furtig still sitting hunched forward, smoke drifting up past squinting, unseeing eyes as he pondered what had happened, and the nature of the man who had caused it, and how he might best be overtaken. It was his to carry.\nCHAPTER 3\n\nThe Walk-In\n\nOne o'clock, the deadline that he had set himself, came and went but Jablonski did not move. Let it get late, he thought with Polish stolidity. The later the better. Then, the quiet location of Derby's room, the sudden break-in, the quick pinioning and blinding light, the quick hand under the pillow for a gun...\n\nIt was a familiar operation to Jablonski. Meanwhile he thought about a cozy little bar and grill near the New Haven Railroad station in New Rochelle in which he had a chance to buy a half-interest. It had a juke-box and a Puerto Rican chef who made hamburgers with onions and sour cream, the best you ever tasted, and a steady clientele. If they got Derby\u2014if, nothing!\u2014it might help swing the deal. Publicity wouldn't do him a bit of harm. People like a joint run by a guy with some background\u2014a fighter, or a former ball player, or a cop. Jablonski saw himself lounging behind the bar, chatting with the respectful customers and buying a drink every now and then. \"I mind the time we were looking for the Actor,\" he was telling his audience. Or, \"The D.A.? Well, I tell you how we always had to handle the D.A.'s office. The time I put a collar on Derby, for example...\"\n\nThat warm vision comforted Jablonski. It made the barbed remarks of superiors over the years, the times he was passed over for promotion, the envy and the failures, recede into their own limbo. The time passed quickly, even though he sat in darkness on cold ground and knew this might bring on another attack of rheumatism.\n\nBut at twenty minutes after one Jablonski decided it was time. Derby had had well over two hours in which to drink his beer, and besides if an RMP came through he was not sure Ryan might not hail it despite their agreement. Jablonski rose, stretched his legs a moment and went back over the wall. For one of his bulk he moved with surprising quietness.\n\nHe was halfway down the silent, pitch-black passageway on his return to the street when the alley door at the far end opened. A man was silhouetted against the dull light from the street.\n\nJablonski froze and took out his gun. He heard a scuffling noise and then a flashlight flooded the passage, blinding him and Ryan whispered, \"Jabby!\"\n\n\"Put out that damned light!\" He walked forward in blackness until he touched Ryan. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I just began to wonder, for Pete's sake\u2014\"\n\n\"Never mind. You didn't send word back?\"\n\n\"It's been quiet as a tomb.\"\n\nJablonski led the way to the street and then walked down it, out of range of the house's silent windows. The nocturnal wind was rising. It was getting colder.\n\n\"He's in there,\" he said. \"There's two back doors. Both are locked.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Again Jablonski wished for a cigar. Now the time had come, he felt nervous. It seemed all he had read in the last few years had been newspaper stories about cops killed on the eve of their retirement. Then he heard the blare of the jukebox in that bar, the hamburgers sizzling in onion sauce, saw the fat black bottles...\n\n\"What do you think, Neill?\" he said. He wanted to hear how Ryan might sound. He looked sidelong at him.\n\n\"Let's hit it,\" said Ryan. \"He must be sleeping by now. A guy can't take this long to drink four cans of beer.\"\n\nThat eagerness was what Jablonski wanted to hear. \"Okay,\" he said. \"Let's go. It'll be a nice break for you, kid.\"\n\nRyan recognized the hypocrisy but he disregarded it. His mind was on the job ahead. For if something went wrong or Derby got away from them...the mere possibility of it gave him a cold shiver.\n\nJablonski grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. \"Just one thing, Neill,\" he said. \"Don't forget who Derby is. Don't be afraid to shoot. Nobody cares if he gets hurt. But if we do, or if he gets away\u2014\"\n\nRyan tapped Jabby's restraining arm, heavy with fatty muscle. \"Right,\" he said. \"Let's go.\" He sounded confident.\n\nThey went quietly along the sidewalk. The cold night stretched far and wide over them and over all the city; the stars' reflections glittered in the oil-shiny water of its rivers and bays. Deep in subway tunnels the infrequent trains screeched wheel flanges against the cold satin rails, and in fetid nightclubs trumpets squawked to drum thumps. In skyscrapers' remote corridors old women flung gray mops across silent floors and in bright newspaper buildings, molten lead and electric teletype bubbled and clicked against deadlines, telling the latest news of the hunt for Harry Derby. In apartments young mothers rose from warm beds for the two o'clock feeding. But in flophouse or penthouse, most of the city slept. Ryan and Jablonski walked up the steps of what once had been a mansion and was now a musty rooming house.\n\nThere was a row of battered letter boxes, most of whose little metal doors hung askew and nameless. Mail did not mean much here. There was no bell or sign marked superintendent. That was bad.\n\n\"I think I heard him go up or down the stairs,\" said Ryan.\n\nJablonski pushed the door open, and they stepped into a high-ceilinged old hall heavy with the scent of cooking and rotting plaster. Jablonski flashed his light around. There was a massive, sagging staircase of dark wood at the end of the hall. He pulled a dangling string and the feeble hall light came on.\n\n\"You stay here. I'll try the basement.\"\n\n\"Isn't that light liable\u2014\"\n\n\"Anyone comin' in late could have turned it on,\" said Jablonski patiently. \"Now remember, them back doors are locked on the inside. If he breaks, they will slow him a few seconds when he tries to get out. We may need those seconds, so remember.\" He tiptoed to the back stairs and descended them.\n\nIt was cold in the house, a damp, unhealthy cold more chilling than the street's fresh gusts. Ryan's chest began to feel tight again. It was all right as long as they were moving or acting\u2014! Suddenly he realized that he could smoke in here. He lit a cigarette.\n\nJablonski reappeared at the top of the stairs, listened at two doors in the back of the hall and came forward. He looked troubled. \"There's one sort of room downstairs, but I don't think nobody's in it. Not a sound. Gimme one of your cheroots, will you?\"\n\nRyan handed him the pack and flicked his lighter. Jablonski bent over it, holding the cigarette awkwardly to unaccustomed lips. \"I'm goin' to try the second floor.\"\n\n\"Let me take the second floor.\"\n\n\"Me,\" said Jablonski. He continued smoking hurriedly in silence for a few minutes. \"Wish you'd carry cigars, Neill,\" he grinned, then ground the stub under his heel and started up the stairs.\n\nIn a minute he was back. \"The super is on the second floor,\" he whispered. \"There's a sign. And I can hear someone threshing around in there. No lights.\" His breath was flavored with the knackwurst he had had for supper.\n\n\"You think he's in there?\"\n\n\"Either he is or he ain't. If he ain't the super tells us what room he's in. And if that's how it is he might well have made for here after the job. It was a sudden job. He probably didn't have no hideout planned. Huh?\"\n\nRyan nodded. \"Let's go,\" he said. This was the finale. Suddenly he felt good, not nervous or anxious or tight in the chest, but clear, sure, quick. It was the feeling of being in danger and knowing you could handle it. It was wonderful.\n\nJablonski led the way to the big staircase. \"Me first,\" he whispered. \"If we go up together the stairs may creak.\"\n\nAgain Ryan nodded. He waited until Jablonski's portly back disappeared in the blackness above, then followed him. Little light filtered up here from the weak bulb below. Their feet made soft, sandy sounds in the grit of the hall's unswept floor. Jablonski stopped at a door near the end of the hall and leaned over the knob.\n\nAfter a time he twisted his bulky body close to Ryan for quiet communication. \"It ain't locked!\"\n\n\"Good. How do you want to do it?\"\n\n\"I'll swing the door open and you go in fast with your light. Keep low and get well into the room before you turn it on. I'll cover you from the door\u2014so for Christ's sake, keep down.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"And. Neill\u2014\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Remember, we don't know who's in there and we're going to surprise them. So whatever they do, don't start shooting until you're sure it's Derby.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nRyan held his flashlight in his left hand, his revolver in his right. He could feel the heavy throb of his heart. The back of his neck was cold. Jablonski swung the door back. It creaked.\n\nCrouching, Ryan moved quickly through the doorway, took three steps into the room's blackness and then one to the right. His thumb solidly found the flashlight button and clicked it. The first beam showed him the foot of an old iron bed, the white enamel generously chipped, then the frightened face of a middle-aged woman, red, puffy and framed by short, frizzled hair.\n\n\"What's that?\" She blinked in the light.\n\n\"Someone's in bed with her,\" warned Jablonski from the darkness.\n\nRyan flashed the light around.\n\n\"Who the hell is it?\" the woman demanded again, frightened.\n\nJablonski advanced into the room. Ryan's beam had caught a string with a little doll tied to it dangling from the ceiling. Jablonski pulled it and an ancient chandelier spread light around the frowsy bedroom. Beside the woman another figure lay in the bed, blankets pulled up tightly around its head. Jablonski stood over it. Ryan took his place on the other side of the bed.\n\n\"We're cops,\" he said. \"Who's that next to you?\"\n\nHate and fear burned in her look. \"Get out of here.\"\n\nJablonski dug his gun into the blanket cocoon, felt under its pillow, then spoke to the woman. \"Look,\" he said. \"Tell your boy friend to open up. If he's not a guy named Derby he has nothing to worry about\u2014we don't care what else is going on here. Get me?\"\n\nThere was a second of immobile silence.\n\nJablonski dug harder with the gun. \"If that's Derby,\" he said more loudly, \"he either opens up or he gets a bullet in the guts. If it ain't, he gets the bullet anyway if he don't show his face. One...\"\n\nThe woman reached over and seized the bedclothes. Two fine, thin hands appeared from beneath them and grabbed them desperately.\n\n\"...two,\" said Jablonski.\n\nA man's high forehead appeared, then a face, big-eyed, frightened, then a mustache that was like a hyphen over tight, pale lips. Ryan relaxed.\n\n\"Now will you get outta here?\" the woman cried.\n\n\"Shuddap!\" said Jablonski savagely. They had made a mistake, but what was worse, they had made too much noise. That worried him.\n\nFor the second time Ryan stepped in to the older man's rescue. He said, \"Look, lady. We're looking for a man named Derby\u2014Harry Derby.\"\n\n\"The guy they had on the radio tonight\u2014who killed the old lady?\"\n\n\"That's the guy.\"\n\n\"Well, there ain't nobody named Derby in this house. So you two crapheads\u2014\"\n\n\"Harry Derby,\" Ryan repeated patiently. \"Better listen, lady. I'd rather not have to take you in. But I will if you make me do it. We know he's in this house\u2014right now. He's tall. Thin. Brown-haired. Wearing a checked jacket. Might have moved in here this afternoon.\" His tone changed to angry urgency. \"Now where is he?\u2014and talk low!\"\n\nThe man was listening owlishly, only his head visible over the bedclothes.\n\n\"For God's sake, Maud, tell 'em what they want to know,\" he said.\n\nThe woman deliberately pulled covers over her wrinkled nightgown. On a chair beside her were cigarettes, glasses and a whisky bottle. She lit a cigarette. \"I don't think I remember anyone like that,\" she said.\n\nJablonski reached across the man and grabbed her bare shoulder. His fingers tightened until the knuckles stood out and he shook her so hard the smoldering cigarette fell from her fingers. Then he threw her back on the bed. There were little red arcs on her shoulder where his thick nails had dug in. They looked at each other.\n\n\"We're in a hurry,\" said Jablonski.\n\nShe retrieved the cigarette.\n\n\"For God's sake, Maud,\" the man said again.\n\nWhen the woman spoke it was as though every word hurt her. \"That'll be Mr. Quinn,\" she said. \"In thirty-three. The room just above this. Came in today.\"\n\nJablonski continued looking at her. \"I hope that's right,\" he said. \"Because if he gets away now, you go up for harboring, common adultery and breaking every housing ordinance in the book.\"\n\n\"Did anyone else come in with him?\" asked Ryan.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did he meet anyone here, or ask about someone?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThat took care of the accomplice, if there had been one.\n\n\"Let's go,\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" said Ryan. He had been studying the tall, old-fashioned door to the room. \"All your doors like this?\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said the woman.\n\nRyan pushed his hat back on his forehead. It revealed, that his black hair was threaded with a little premature gray. He looked boyish and serious. \"If he's locked in behind a door like that,\" he said, \"we're going to have to blast him out. They built these places. A door like that won't give with one heave.\"\n\nJablonski said, \"Yeah,\" dismayed. \"That'll sure give him time to go for his gun.\"\n\nThe man in bed whimpered, \"Oh, God.\"\n\nJablonski grinned humorlessly. \"I know what we'll do,\" he said. \"C'mon, Maud. You'll get him to open the door.\"\n\n\"You know what you can do,\" she said, and told him.\n\nRyan looked at her. \"You're the landlady,\" he said mildly. \"We're police officers making an arrest. You wouldn't want to obstruct justice, would you?\" It wasn't really a question.\n\nThe woman slowly swung gnarled legs out of the bed and took a dressing gown that hung from an old gas jet on the wall. She put it on leisurely and fluffed out her bobbed locks with both hands.\n\n\"Atta girl, Maud,\" said the man in bed.\n\nShe looked behind at him. \"You better not be here when I get back,\" she said. \"You know what I mean. Don't be here.\"\n\nThey went quietly out into the hall. Its air was fresh and sweet; now Ryan remembered that when they broke into the room he had smelled the scent of stale powder.\n\n\"Not so fast,\" Jablonski said. \"We ain't barefoot like you.\"\n\nOn the third floor she found a light and they gathered silently before a door bearing a card with 33 on it. And as they did from behind the door came the unmistakable sound of a beer can being punctured.\n\n\"Holy Mike,\" said Jablonski.\n\nThere came the lesser sound of the opener's wedge making the second puncture.\n\nSuddenly Ryan was scared.\n\nJablonski had his gun out. He waved it between the woman and the door. \"Make him open it,\" he whispered. \"I don't care how\u2014but get goin'.\"\n\nRyan found his own revolver in his hand without knowing he had drawn it. He wondered if this wasn't a mistake. They could still wait\u2014But it was too late. The woman's fingers beat a light tattoo on the door.\n\nFrom the other side of the door came a silence they could feel.\n\nThe woman rapped again. She smiled with an unexpected girlishness. She was playing a part, so that when she called. \"Mr. Quinn, honey?\" anyone could tell by the soft tone that she was smiling invitingly.\n\nA voice behind the door said, \"Who's that?\"\n\n\"It's just me, honey. Mrs. Daniels, the landlady. How's about that beer you mentioned when you came in? I can't seem to get to sleep tonight. Are you having trouble, too?\"\n\nThere was a pause. \"Who?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Daniels, honey. You know.\"\n\nThe voice said, \"Wait a minute,\" and the doorknob twisted and a key turned with a loud switching sound.\n\nRyan grabbed Mrs. Daniels by the shoulders and flung her powerfully back and to one side. The door opened and a tall man peered out. The first things he saw were the short barrels of two police revolvers.\n\nThe long lean face looked surprised and a little stupid.\n\n\"All right, Derby,\" said Jablonski. \"Don't jump or we'll blow your guts out.\"\nCHAPTER 4\n\nDerby's Dance\n\nHarry derby's hair was silkily long, the color of brown wrapping paper, and it came to a deep widow's peak on his pallid forehead. His gimlet eyes were fierce, uncomprehending appraisers of what he turned them on, his mouth a hard twist of petulance. Only the jaw, long and clean in its sweep, suggested something worthy.\n\nHe said, \"Who the hell\u2014\" out of a mouth still wet with beer.\n\nMrs. Daniels began walking away from them toward the staircase, not hurrying, not looking back.\n\n\"Put the hands up,\" said Jablonski.\n\nDerby looked at him a full moment. Then he dropped the beer can in his right hand. It clunked on the floor and rolled, purling beer. He raised his arms, then recognized Jablonski and said, \"Hi, cop.\"\n\n\"Over against the wall,\" said Jablonski. \"Hands against it and keep your head down.\"\n\nWhen Derby had taken his position, back to them, hands flattened against the paint-blistered wall, he said, \"What's all this about?\"\n\nRyan saw Jablonski dart quick glances around the room. Across one corner of it a piece of faded blue cloth had been tacked to make a kind of closet. It could conceal a man.\n\n\"What's behind that curtain?\" said Jablonski.\n\nRyan approached it, keeping his gun on it and taking care not to get between Jablonski and Derby. He tore the cloth aside. There were a few coat hangers suspended from wire hooks.\n\nJablonski said, \"Clean him. Watch his pants legs. He may have a shiv.\"\n\n\"What's this all about?\" Derby asked again, but he did not sound as though he expected any answer.\n\nRyan ran his hands roughly over the taller man, watching Derby's shoulder for the muscle-tightening that would signal he was about to try something.\n\n\"No gun,\" he said. \"No nothing.\"\n\n\"What'd you do with it?\" asked Jablonski.\n\nDerby's reply was two monosyllables.\n\nRyan emptied Derby's pockets, then went through the checkered jacket that was hanging on a chair. He strewed everything he found on a small wooden table that already held a pipe, a tobacco can and a half-played game of solitaire. The wallet held a small sheaf of greasy business cards bearing many names, a driver's license in Derby's name and a chauffeur's license made out to Harry Durward, and a membership card in the International Longshoreman's Union. There was a meal ticket with four ten-cent punches left. And there was a crisp, neatly folded one hundred dollar bill.\n\n\"Got anything?\" said Jablonski.\n\nDerby said, \"How about me turning around?\"\n\nJablonski gave him the same monosyllables.\n\nRyan was comparing the bill's serial number with a page in his notebook. \"I'll say I got something,\" he said. \"Here's the C-note. And the numbers check.\"\n\n\"Hah!\" yelled Jablonski. \"Now you can turn around! Want to see what's gonna send you up?\"\n\nDerby turned, straightening. He rubbed his long, thin-fingered hands nervously, like a pianist before sitting down to play. Ryan held up the bill.\n\n\"Farragut will have a tough time explaining that one for you,\" said Jablonski. Farragut was the first-class criminal lawyer occasionally retained by the union.\n\n\"He's also got nine dollars and twenty-four cents,\" Ryan said. \"Book of matches. Tie clip. Couple pipe cleaners.\"\n\nJablonski nodded. \"It figures perfectly,\" he said. \"He was almost broke. Eh, Harry? So he clips the old lady. That gives him a hundred and twenty. He buys the beer and maybe got some food before that. That leaves one ten-buck bill to be accounted\u2014Oh, the room rent. That's it! He rented the room. Give him a few dimes to begin with and it just figures. Eh, Harry?\"\n\n\"You're nuts,\" said Derby. But his eyes moved jerkily in his head like a defective doll's. He said, \"On the level you're wrong. I borrowed that dough.\"\n\n\"Who from?\"\n\n\"A shark. Guy on the dock.\"\n\n\"Which one?\"\n\n\"I don't remember his name. I just see him around. I'll remember it.\"\n\n\"What'd you need a hundred bucks for?\"\n\n\"I was broke,\" said Derby. \"Like you said.\"\n\n\"When you remember the guy's name,\" said Jablonski with ponderous politeness, \"you let me know. And you know how much good it'll do you. This is a chair rap.\"\n\n\"Let's call in,\" said Ryan.\n\nBut Derby was looking at Jablonski like a man in a trance, spellbound, waiting for the word that would enable him to move again. As he did his face grew red and his arms and hands, clenched in tight fists, began to tremble. A little scar that ran thin as a knife blade from his left eye began to show oddly white.\n\n\"Chair rap.\"\n\nRyan had a sense of something happening inside Derby.\n\n\"The old lady ain't dead,\" Derby breathed. \"You don't mean that.\"\n\n\"She's dead,\" said Jablonski. \"What's the matter?\u2014Haven't you seen a paper?\"\n\nDerby looked down at the floor. When he raised his head again, his face was a putty mask etched with despair. Only the eyes were alive, glittering, hopeless. Ryan incongruously remembered something he had heard a sergeant say long before: \"They can be tough as hell\u2014I don't care how tough. But when you've finally got them, and they know you've got them\u2014something happens. You can see it happen in their faces.\"\n\nIt was happening to Derby. Ryan did not feel sorry for Derby; he hated him with a deep, contemptuous hate. But in Derby's bent head and fallen shoulder, in the low voice and limp arms, he caught a glimpse of the ultimate human defeat, of the prey's realization that it at last has been run to earth.\n\nWhen Jablonski spoke, his voice was unexpectedly free of rancor. \"Where you made your big mistake was in letting yourself be seen, Harry. Three dames made you right away. And the bank teller will too.\" After a moment he corrected himself. \"That was your second big mistake. Your first one was using the gun on an old lady sixty years! Hardboiled Harry Derby\u2014wow!\"\n\n\"Look\u2014you don't understand,\" said Derby. He began speaking fast and earnestly, heedless of what he was saying, only hoping to convince them by sheer flood of words and emotion. \"You guys don't understand at all. It ain't like that at all. Honest. I didn't kill her. You gotta realize that. I didn't kill her. I know it looks bad\u2014I admit that. But you gotta realize\u2014Sure, I needed a little dough, but this afternoon I ran into this guy and\u2014\"\n\n\"Where?\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"Where? Oh...yeah. It was...ah...near the Java Street pier in Brooklyn.\"\n\n\"What time?\"\n\n\"What time? Oh, well, I guess it might have been around noon.\"\n\n\"Might have been, eh? And where were you around three twenty this afternoon?\"\n\nDerby stopped talking, and he looked like a man who did not want to talk.\n\n\"Where were you shortly before the banks closed?\" Derby was silent.\n\nRyan began to grow annoyed. He wanted to take Derby in; this bearbaiting bothered him. He looked to the half-open door.\n\nThat made him say, \"Jesus!\"\n\n\"What's the matter?\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"Look.\" Ryan reached up on the inside of the door frame. Hanging from a nail by its trigger ring, and exactly in the position where a tall man opening the door might naturally rest his hand was a .38 revolver. The hammer was cocked.\n\n'There's the gun,\" said Ryan. He could feel something in the pit of his stomach. That was how close it could be. \"Right caliber too.\"\n\n\"Good thing we didn't give this mother-raper a chance,\" said Jablonski feelingly. \"Take it down, Neill. Think Farragut can explain that, Derby\u2014especially after it checks with the slug? And how about the C-note? Still want to tell us it wasn't like that at all?\"\n\nDerby said, \"I don't know nothin' about no C-note. But you could take it. And get a couple more tomorrow besides.\"\n\nJablonski reached over dangerously close to Derby and slapped him across the face as hard as he could. It made an astonishingly loud crack.\n\nTears jolted to Derby's eyes. \"What'd you say, Harry?\" asked Jablonski.\n\nDerby began to curse Jablonski, meaningless obscenity gushing from his mouth like vomit.\n\nJablonski drew his hand back.\n\n\"Don't mark him,\" warned Ryan.\n\nJablonski took a backward step like a man getting control of himself. \"Go call in, Neill. Tell them we got him.\n\n\"Wait. Put cuffs on him. I'll cover you. And give me one of your cheroots before you do.\"\n\nRyan did. But when he had handcuffed Derby and reached the door he could not help pausing a second to look back. It was like picking up the little china chip. This was his first heavy one, and he and Jabby had pulled it off\u2014alone. This meant promotion and acclaim, but more than that it was what you lived for if you were a cop. He could not get enough of the feel of it.\n\nNot hearing the door close behind him, Jablonski looked around, puffing the cigarette. \"Hey\u2014what's the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Back in a minute.\"\n\nAs he pulled the door shut, he heard Derby say, \"Hey, cop, how about a smoke?\"\n\n* * * *\n\nMrs. Daniels answered his light knock wearing a house dress. Ryan said, \"You have a phone in this building?\"\n\n\"You got him, eh?\" she said.\n\n\"We got him. Where's the phone?\"\n\n\"Well, I just want you to understand I don't know nothing about him. Not a thing. In fact, I never, seen him\u2014before today.\"\n\n\"When'd you see him today?\"\n\n\"This afternoon. He checked in around four.\"\n\nThen he came here almost directly from the job.\n\n\"He went out again for a little while. Who's the woman he killed?\"\n\n\"An old lady. It's in the papers. How long'd he rent for?\"\n\n\"A week.\"\n\n\"Pay in advance?\"\n\n\"Everyone does. That room was ten bucks. C'mon in.\" She stepped back from the door and gestured toward the whisky bottle on the chair. \"Have a jolt.\"\n\n\"I can't now. You go ahead.\"\n\nShe poured a shot glass full.\n\n\"So he paid you ten bucks in advance. With a ten dollar bill, eh?\"\n\nToo late she realized the direction of these casual questions. She indignantly put the glass down untasted on the bureau. From overhead came the sound of someone walking.\n\n\"I didn't say it was a ten.\"\n\n\"Let's see it.\"\n\n\"I didn't say I still had it.\"\n\n\"Then who's got it?\"\n\nShe looked a quick calculation at him. \"I loaned it to a friend who was going to Chicago.\"\n\n\"Where was he going in Chicago? What's his name?\"\n\nShe said, \"I dunno,\" looked at him covertly and stopped.\n\n\"Look, lady. That bill is evidence in a murder case\u2014murder, get it? I won't take any malarkey about Chicago. Get it out.\"\n\nHer face grew sullen. The man upstairs walked back again fast across the floor. It registered only subconsciously with Ryan.\n\n\"He rented the room,\" she said doggedly. \"I got a right to it.\"\n\n\"You could get it back.\"\n\n\"Yeah!\"\n\n\"You could if it wasn't stolen. But first it will have to be used as evidence. Come on\u2014I haven't got all day.\"\n\nShe walked to the bureau in broken shoes, a resentful, helpless, middle-aged little girl. She took a small purse from a drawer, drew a bill from it and looked at the bill. Then she picked up the whisky, drank it effortlessly and extended the money to Ryan.\n\n\"That was going to buy me a new dress.\" Her eyes never left the bill.\n\nRyan thought of how his sister was with a new dress or skirt. That's how it would have been with Mrs. Daniels.\n\nHe took an envelope from his wallet, placed the ten dollar bill in it and replaced it carefully. Then he took out two fives of his own money. He defended himself to himself on the ground that he was tired and that it was late, and that it was better to keep the witnesses friendly.\n\n\"Look,\" he said. \"Long as you need this dough, I'll replace it out of my own pocket, see? This isn't exactly regulation, but after the trial when you may get the bill back I'll drop by and pick it up from you. Otherwise you owe me ten bucks. Okay?\"\n\nIt embarrassed him the way her face softened and unsuspected dimples appeared in her crepe-skinned cheeks. \"Well now, that's nice of you, it really is. Though of course why the God\u2014the cops...police, I mean\u2014\"\n\n\"Okay, okay. Now where's the phone?\"\n\nThe hoarse, enraged shout that came from the floor above was sheer guttural but he knew at once it was Jablonski's. There came a scurry of feet and a thump.\n\nRyan leaped for the door, grabbed his gun and ran recklessly up the stairs. The door to Derby's room was still closed. He flung it open cautiously and stepped backward out of reach.\n\nThen he looked into the room.\n\nDerby, his back to the wall again, seemed to be doing a kind of dance, while Jablonski stood in front of him, gun in hand, aiming deliberate kicks at his shins and thighs whenever opportunity presented. Then he realized that Derby's dance was an effort to avoid the kicks. At the same time a gurgle broke from Derby, and Ryan with horrible foreboding recognized that Derby was convulsed with laughter.\n\nRyan ran in and pulled Jablonski back.\n\nBut laughter made Derby helpless. No longer having to defend himself, he leaned against the wall, his gaunt face wrinkled weirdly, tears wetting his cheeks, high tremolos welling up from within him.\n\n\"For God's sake!\" gasped Ryan.\n\nRage made Jablonski's face black. \"The son of a bitch,\" he began. \"The dirty, sow-headed son of a bitch\u2014have you called in?\"\n\n\"Not yet. I was talking to the landlady. But what\u2014\"\n\nDerby's laugh became a snicker.\n\n\"The son of a bitch burned up that C-note,\" cried Jablonski, frenzied, and Derby went off into a new convulsion.\n\nHe must be crazy, was the first thing Ryan thought. Derby was still handcuffed. They've both gone nuts. But he turned toward the table.\n\nThe hundred dollar bill was gone.\n\nSo was Derby's pipe. That lay on the floor and near it was a still-smoking dottle of tobacco. Then he understood.\n\n\"How do you...like your murder case now, cop...copper?\" Derby struggled with laughter.\n\nJablonski did not look at Ryan. Ryan did not say anything.\n\n\"After you left he asked me for a cigarette,\" Jablonski said.\n\n\"He knew you didn't have any. You'd bummed one from me.\"\n\n\"So he said could he get his pipe on the table. I thought, what the hell? He was cuffed. Why shouldn't the slob smoke? I backed away and let him walk over to the table. He must have picked up the C-note with the pipe.\"\n\n\"And stuffed it in with the tobacco and lit it.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I noticed it sort of flared, but he'd had trouble packing it with the cuffs on and\u2014\"\n\nDerby whooped and started to laugh again.\n\n\"It wasn't until I went over to get a chair and set down that I look at the table and seen the bill was gone. At first I couldn't figure it. Then I thought of the pipe. I pulled it outta his mouth\u2014\" He made an impotent gesture with his hand.\n\nRyan picked up the tobacco dottle. It was hopeless. Perhaps the lab men could prove scientifically that some flakes of the ash had originally been government banknote paper. But as evidence that Harry Derby had possessed the identical bill of which Mrs. Connors had been robbed, it was useless. Derby had outwitted Jablonski even with Jablonski gloatingly watching over him. Ryan felt a hot surge of hatred for Jablonski, and for Derby.\n\nDerby watched him with the wise air of an old fox. \"Still gonna send me up?\" he chuckled.\n\n\"There's plenty of evidence.\" Ryan wouldn't flinch in the sight of the enemy. \"Plenty of evidence. You're in the chair right now, Derby.\" He wanted to jar Derby, to beat him down with naked fists, to make him feel the cold discouragement that was beginning to hurt himself. After all this...all they had done... Derby had beaten them.\n\n\"There's three dames made you this afternoon,\" he said with deliberate cruelty. \"They're the ones that will give you the chair. That C-note was just contributory evidence. You're dead, Derby.\"\n\nBut there was discouragement in the air. Everyone felt it and none more than Derby. Ryan took out his cigarettes. There were three left. He offered one to Jabby.\n\n\"How about a smoke for me?\" asked Derby impudently.\n\nJablonski walked over and kicked Derby's thin buttocks. Derby continued standing against the wall. He grinned determinedly but he did not laugh any more. The time for laughter was over. Now they were up to the next move.\n\nJablonski thumbed Ryan over toward the door and followed him. \"We're in trouble,\" he muttered. Ryan knew this was really Jablonski's trouble, but there was no point in thinking about that now.\n\nHe said, \"Well, we still got a case.\"\n\nJablonski looked old and tired, and it wasn't just the gray stubble sprouting from his jowls. \"Like hell we got a case.\"\n\n\"There's the gun.\"\n\n\"Maybe it checks and maybe not. The slug may have been smashed inside her head.\"\n\n\"Well, there's the women\u2014\"\n\n\"Those women won't be worth a damn by the time this guy goes to trial,\" growled Jablonski. \"Wait'll his friends start calling them up nights. Or dropping around and making cracks about their husbands and kids. They won't be nearly so sure as they were downtown.\"\n\n\"But jeez, Jabby\u2014\" Ryan had to try to keep his voice low.\n\n\"And he'll have an alibi a yard long. Half the longshoremen in New York will swear he was playing cards with them all afternoon. We know what he was doing. But who the hell will believe us?\"\n\n\"There's the bank clerk,\" said Ryan. \"And just now I got one of the tens.\"\n\nJablonski exploded. \"Banks don't keep no record of regular ten dollar bills! Ain't you ever been in a bank? And as for the teller\u2014he wasn't even sure the guy came up to the cage. What kind of identification will that make?\"\n\nHe was silent a moment and when he spoke again it was with the wistfulness of acknowledged defeat. \"We've lost him, kid. We can take him in\u2014and he'll go to trial. Least, if the D.A. is willing to take any kind of chance at all. But he'll never in God's world go up. And you can blame it on me\u2014all on me! Because I'm a dumb\u2014\"\n\nThe rest was bitter self-denunciation. But there were tears in Jablonski's eyes.\n\nDerby could not hear what they said but he could understand their postures. \"What's 'a matter?\" he mocked. \"Something wrong? Didn't I smack down the old dame? Huh? Ain't you got no case after all this? Huh? Hey, squarehead\u2014listen! I killed the broad. You hear that? You got a confession, Polack! What you gonna do with it? Let's see you prove I said it! Still wanna try to beat Farragut?\"\n\nJablonski turned, bent on destruction.\n\nAnd he paused. His sullen and morose face grew suddenly crafty. \"Hey,\" he said, looking around. \"Neill, what was that you picked up in that apartment this afternoon?\" Ryan flushed. He hadn't realized Jabby had noticed it.\n\n\"A little piece of the lamp?\" Jablonski insisted. \"Huh?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I guess it was that.\"\n\n\"Still got it?\"\n\n\"Ah...yes.\"\n\n\"Give it to me,\" said Jablonski. \"Come on. Come on! I got an idea.\"\nCHAPTER 5\n\nYou Can Be Thinking of Me\n\nJablonski pulled Ryan's head close to his own and whispered in husky, meat-flavored whispers. As he did, Ryan's expression lengthened.\n\n\"But that's\u2014well, manufacturing evidence,\" he said.\n\n\"Sure it is.\" Jablonski spoke airily but he was watching Ryan.\n\n\"It's\u2014well, it's like framing the guy.\" Ryan didn't like it. Fairness and respect for the letter of the law were implicit in him.\n\n\"Framing!\" Jablonski's scorn was boisterous. \"Framing a guy like Derby? You checked the numbers on that bill yourself, Neill. You heard him admit he killed her, didn't you? Framing, for God's sake! All we're doing is proving what we know. It ain't as if he was innocent.\"\n\n\"I know it's not as if he was innocent,\" Ryan muttered. \"It's just\u2014that tampering with evidence...\"\n\nHe felt weary and oddly numb. It was getting on towards three a.m.; this had been a tough night. It was no time to debate the subtler shades of justice. Still, he didn't like it.\n\n\"Look, Neill,\" Jablonski said. \"He killed her\u2014we know that. And when he hit her with the lamp he could have got a little of the dust on his jacket. So all we do now is\u2014well, just make sure he did.\"\n\n\"Sure, but...\"\n\n\"Look, Neill.\" For Jablonski necessity had become the mother of eloquence. \"I want this collar bad\u2014so do you. You know what it can do for both of us. And you know what happens to my retirement if it gets back to the desk that I let him burn that C-note. If we bring Derby in and then lose the case against him\u2014\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Ryan uncomfortably. \"Sure. I know. But when he rumbles that he was framed\u2014then where are you?\"\n\nJablonski snorted. \"Who the hell will believe him? Look, Neill. We got a case against him now\u2014of sorts. What we need is the clincher. That's what the hundred dollar bill was until we\u2014until I let him burn it. That's what your little piece of pottery will be, especially the way I'll do it. Jeez, can you imagine him getting on the stand and claiming that I\u2014well, you can see for yourself.\"\n\nRyan nodded. What Jablonski proposed doing was fantastic. That's what made it safe.\n\nDerby, straining his ears, sensed something going wrong. He chanced a quick squint over his shoulder. He did not like what he saw.\n\n\"We don't have anything to worry about.\" In reassuring Ryan, Jablonski was also reassuring himself. \"Matter of fact, our only real trouble would come from telling the truth.\" He saw that this was the wrong tack. \"Look, Neill, do you think you have any right to let this guy go free? What about all the women who are out nights working? What'll you say if he's turned loose and knocks off another dame? All you're doing is what you promised to do the day you took your oath.\"\n\nHe was right, of course. A more experienced cop wouldn't give it a second thought, Ryan thought, not when a guy like Derby was involved. It was just the idea of someone going to the chair, even when he was guilty, on the basis of manufactured evidence. But what was the alternative\u2014giving him a good chance to go free? They couldn't do that.\n\n\"Okay,\" he heard himself say. \"Go ahead. Here it is.\"\n\nJablonski took the little yellow-glazed button of china.\n\nRyan lit his last cigarette. Derby frowned suspiciously at the baseboard. Jablonski walked to the door, grinning craftily.\n\nThere was a crumpled brown paper sack in the wastebasket near it. Jablonski smoothed it out on the table and placed the little chip on it. He set a beer can on it and pressed down hard, grunting. The little fragment of china crumbled with a grating noise.\n\nDerby's mouth was a tight apprehensive slit. Something was going wrong.\n\nJablonski pressed the can on the china fragments again, grinding them down. Then he rolled the can on them like a rolling pin, reducing them to powder. He rolled steadily, looking up once to grin at Ryan. \"Get his jacket on him,\" he said.\n\n\"I'll have to take off the cuffs.\"\n\n\"Just unlock one of them.\"\n\nRyan did and threw Derby his jacket. \"Put it on.\"\n\n\"Where we goin'?\" asked Derby.\n\n\"Out,\" said Ryan. \"And we're not coming back.\" Derby put on the jacket.\n\nJablonski folded the brown paper bag to make a trough of it, and poured the fine, whitish-yellow dust into his left hand. He walked over to Derby. \"Cover me, Neill,\" he said.\n\n\"You get the hell away from me,\" said Derby.\n\nRyan took out his gun.\n\n\"Turn around,\" Jablonski told Derby.\n\n\"Go to hell,\" said Derby.\n\nJablonski pushed his foot against the back of Derby's knee. Derby buckled, partly turning, and Jablonski swung him around, half-falling, still farther. Then carefully, deliberately, he blew the powder in his left hand over the front of Derby's wool jacket. Derby swung a flailing blow at Jablonski's hand but it was more a gesture of protest than of attack. Jablonski laughed.\n\n\"What the hell is this?\" asked Derby, and began dusting himself off ineffectually.\n\n\"That fixes you,\" said Jablonski.\n\nThat fixed him. You always try to find any possible trace of the criminal at the scene, Ryan had been taught at the police academy. And you always try to find some trace of the scene or victim on the criminal. Either one can convict; getting both is ideal.\n\n\"What is that?\" Derby was saying anxiously, over and over. \"What was that? Was that junk? What was that?\"\n\n\"That,\" said Jablonski, \"was a little piece of plaster from the lamp you hit the old lady with, Harry. And now it's all over you, and it places you at the scene\u2014even better'n the C-note. And all the Farraguts in the world can't explain that dust in your jacket. You can't cross-examine a spectroscope, Harry.\"\n\nAs Derby frowned in concentration, his hands slowed their dusting movements. He had no idea of what a spectroscope was, but he had a sure sense of evidence and an animal's quick instinct for the moves of the enemy. He looked at the two of them. The older one was smiling sarcastically. The other bastard was wooden-faced, giving nothing to nobody. But he didn't have to. Derby got the general idea. They were framing him.\n\nFrustration had always produced only one reaction in Derby. Jablonski saw it coming in the swelling of his shoulders, but before his mouth could begin a warning, Derby charged, head down, fists hooking, one of them flapping a handcuff.\n\nJablonski had just reached his revolver when one knotty fist caught the side of his head and knocked him off balance and backward. Derby leaped after him and Ryan saw Derby's long bony knee drive up and catch Jablonski in the stomach. Jablonski uttered a loud wordless cry and his revolver slipped out from his coat and skittered across the floor toward Ryan.\n\nFor a second Ryan could not shoot; they were too close together. Jablonski swayed forward on unhinged legs, holding his stomach, his face ghastly. Derby stepped back to bring a roundhouse punch up from the floor. Ryan fired.\n\nThe shot missed Derby, but it stopped him because it reminded him of Ryan. With hardly a lost motion he wheeled, took a quick boxer's shuffle forward and swung at Ryan. Jablonski began sagging to the floor.\n\nRyan stepped backward; he had seen the punch coming, but the force of it spun Derby half around. Ryan coldly thumbed the hammer of his gun. The quiet click ended Derby's outbreak. He knew what it meant\u2014and the revolver just three feet away was pointed directly into his stomach. Ryan was looking at him.\n\n\"Start swinging again,\" he said. \"Come on. Give me an excuse.\"\n\nThey looked at each other while the tension went out of Derby. \"Face to the wall and hands up against it,\" said Ryan, and Derby obeyed. Ryan picked up Jablonski's gun.\n\nFrom Jablonski came a soft sigh.\n\n\"How is it, Jabby?\"\n\n\"'M okay...all right in a minute. He...got me with his knee...\"\n\nRyan had played football; he knew how long it would hurt and how much. Jablonski groaned, trying not to.\n\nThere was a knock and the door swung open timidly. Mrs. Daniels stood in the doorway, and behind her a stringy individual in gallus-draped pants and a woolen undershirt.\n\n\"Is\u2014is everything all right?\" She looked inquiringly toward Derby.\n\n\"You go to the telephone,\" Ryan began.\n\n\"There ain't one in this building. Did you shoot\u2014\"\n\n\"You with the pants on,\" said Ryan. \"You get over to Second Avenue to that all-night hamburger joint and call Spring seven three one hundred. Got that number?\"\n\n\"Listen, mister, I gotta get some sleep.\"\n\nJablonski was trying to get up.\n\n\"What's the matter with your friend?\" said Mrs. Daniels.\n\nRyan turned enough so they both could see the revolver in his hand.\n\n\"You call that number,\" he said. \"Right now!\" He spoke doggedly. \"Spring seven three one hundred. Tell them an officer is in trouble here. Get going.\"\n\nThe stringy man hitched up a gallus. \"Okay,\" he said. \"Okay,\" and left.\n\n\"You shoot your friend?\" asked Mrs. Daniels.\n\n\"Get him some of your whisky,\" said Ryan.\n\nShe went downstairs without a word.\n\nJablonski was rubbing his abdomen, methodically and painfully. \"Wipe off the beer can,\" he said, \"and get rid of that paper.\" His voice was a croak.\n\nYou nervy old son of a bitch, thought Ryan, as he pocketed the brown paper. Your guts must hurt like hell, but you still remember that Derby mustn't have a chance to prove what we've done.\n\n\"Right, Jabby.\" It was the first time he had ever felt genuine respect for Jablonski.\n\n\"Hey, Derby,\" Jablonski croaked. \"Listen. My belly hurts. See? But it'll stop after a while. And just think, Derby. Some night soon, you'll burn. Think of that. And you know what? That night it'll be me who's home drinkin' beer. And waitin' for that flash on the radio. What do you think of that, Derby?\"\n\nIt was a very silent room when he stopped.\n\n\"You can be thinking of me when you get that jolt, Derby. 'Cause I'll be thinking of you.\" His jaws moved unnaturally, and he retched.\n\nFrom outside and below came the onrushing sound of an automobile moving fast. Ryan heard the clump of heavy feet on the stairs and then there were two blue uniforms and silver shields and alert faces in the doorway.\n\nThey looked awfully good to Ryan.\nCHAPTER 6\n\nFresh-Made Tracks in the Snow\n\nThere was a small knot of men standing in front of the shadow-scrawled old precinct station when the radio car pulled up. Ryan paid no particular attention to them. He wanted only to get Derby inside and booked, and to find out how badly Jablonski was hurt. During their fast trip up the empty, late-looking avenue he had once asked, \"How is it, Jabby?\" and Jablonski had replied from the front seat, \"Oh, it's okay,\" carelessly, as though he had forgotten the whole thing. But his voice hadn't sounded right.\n\nJablonski got out of the car painfully, and was walking half-bent-over toward the stone steps when a flash of blue-white brilliance engulfed them. Another flash came. Ryan, walking with his hand on Derby's arm, felt him stiffen in terror. Ryan hadn't expected the news photographers to get there so fast; then he remembered that one of the prowl car crew had called the news in on the car radio.\n\nDerby held his handcuffed hands to his face. It made a fine, cringing picture. The flashes burst over them like waves again and again as they went up the time-scalloped steps of the precinct station. Ryan was not only blinded by them but oddly unnerved. He could almost feel the flashes against him, like wind blasts.\n\nLieutenant Paul Bauer stood outside the desk area at the foot of the stairs, his dark eyes watchful and jaw unyielding under grayed brows and bristle of pompadour. But Ryan sensed Bauer's held-in elation. And in the other men, the uniformed sergeant behind the high dark oak desk, the patrolman with him, and the detective coming down the old stairs, you didn't have to sense it at all. They looked at the tall shambling figure being led in and grinned jubilantly. This was one the department had won, and the whole precinct was filled with the clubhouse spirit of a winning ball team.\n\n\"Why'sat guy bent over?\" a photographer asked his reporter, and the reporter said, \"What's the matter, Jabby? You hurt?\"\n\nBauer shouldered into the little group of journalists that clotted around them. \"Take Derby upstairs,\" he told the prowl car crew. \"Chief inspector's on his way.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Derby's chin was touching his breastbone as they pushed him forward.\n\n\"You hurt, Jabby?\"\n\nJablonski did a good job of straightening up. \"No, sir. He\u2014he kicked me in the belly. It\u2014ah, hurt for a while. I'm all right now.\"\n\n\"We'll run you down to the hospital.\"\n\n\"It ain't that bad, Paul. Honest.\" Not for anything would Jablonski miss all this.\n\nSomeone plucked Ryan's sleeve, and a tubby young man with horn-rimmed glasses said, \"Holcomb\u2014the Mirror. You're Ryan, eh? Congrats\u2014great job! Hey, is it true he's admitted it?\"\n\nA twinge of nervousness assailed Ryan. This had to be done carefully. One intimation about that hundred dollar bill\u2014but the best thing always was to tell the truth as nearly as possible. \"Well, yes,\" he said hesitantly. \"He even sort of boasted about it.\"\n\n\"Boasted? And him already a three-time loser?\" And Ryan knew he should not have said that. Jablonski ought to be here to do the talking.\n\n\"How'd you happen to spot him?\"\n\nHe told the story in three scant sentences. The reporter kept looking at his watch because he had to call the city desk immediately. He said, \"And the loot\u2014you got the dough, huh?\"\n\nRyan started to say affirmatively, \"Oh, he had\u2014\" and stopped barely in time.\n\nBut Holcomb caught the meaning.\n\n\"He had the dough on him?\"\n\nFull-blown panic now. His thoughts flew like leaves in a gale.\n\nAnother reporter who had been listening repeated the question. \"Derby had the C-note on him?\"\n\n\"He had some of the dough.\" Ryan said wildly and pushed past them. \"I got to get upstairs.\"\n\nThe other reporter said, \"But wait\u2014\"\n\n\"Not now. Later.\" Ryan took the stairs two at a time. As he did, air fanned coldly against his moist brow.\n\nIn the squad room off the head of the stairs, Lieutenant Bauer sat at his scarred desk, Jablonski comfortably alongside him. Somewhere Jablonski had obtained a cigar and its blue fragrance fumed the room. Bauer pushed a rickety chair toward Ryan and continued his conversation. \"He admitted it, eh?\" he asked Jablonski.\n\n\"When we were alone he did,\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"Well, he sure ain't talkin' to McGonigle.\" The telephone at his elbow jingled. Bauer said, \"Seventeenth Squad Lieutenant Bauer\" into it in one breath, then, \"Yeah, Ed...yeah...yeah... Jabby and Ryan...right, kid,\" and hung up.\n\n\"Furtig,\" he said. \"He's been out with the others making the dock joints.\"\n\n\"He can go to bed now,\" said Jablonski magnanimously. But Ryan knew how Furtig must be feeling\u2014relieved, but envious.\n\nApparently Bauer knew too. \"Well, you know how it is,\" he said to Jablonski. For a man of his authority and background Bauer had a very mild voice. \"Besides, the papers have been making such a\u2014well, I guess you haven't had a chance to see them. You guys have really done a job in case you didn't know it.\"\n\nJablonski complacently licked a cigar leaf back into place. \"Listen to this,\" said Bauer and began reading from a paper he fished from the wastebasket.\n\n\"...out and out anarchy... Hoodlums have taken over... While the commissioner has said...responsible citizens will bear in mind...action by the Governor...election next year in which...\"\n\nBauer finished it and laughed. \"Well, what else should we do?\" he asked briskly. Ryan remembered that Bauer had been on duty for almost twenty-four hours. He said, \"Well, there's the delicatessen to check, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"We picked him up going into a delicatessen on Third to get some beer. He probably broke one of the tens there. He gave another to the landlady. I've got that.\"\n\n\"Good. Anything else?\"\n\n\"He said he got the dough from a loan shark but didn't know the guy's name. We better run that down before Farragut gets something arranged for him.\"\n\n\"Right. How much did he have on him?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Jablonski, and Ryan began, \"Well...\"\n\nJablonski said easily, \"We didn't have time to give him a complete frisk, Paul. Maybe it's in his shoe.\"\n\nBauer said, \"Yeah,\" and scratched his unshaven chin. \"McGonigle better know that right away.\" He got up.\n\n\"One other thing, Paul,\" said Jablonski. \"The lab oughtta go over that wool jacket of his very carefully. He hit the old dame with a lamp and it busted over her. That heavy wool would be perfect for picking up little bits of lamp plaster.\"\n\n\"Good deal.\"\n\nWhen Bauer had gone Jablonski looked sideways at Ryan and smiled a slow, satisfied smile. But Ryan could not smile back. In the last ten minutes something had changed. He did not feel friendly toward Jablonski, and he did not know why. He just wanted to get this over and get out of here.\n\nThere was the sound of many feet on the stairs and Ryan, looking over his shoulder, saw Betty Leonard and Mrs. Lombardi go down the hall with two detectives. \"The witnesses,\" he grunted.\n\n\"It's a hundred to one they make him,\" said Jablonski, and that made Ryan feel better. He took a cigarette from Bauer's pack and was lighting it when Jabby muttered, \"Hey!\" and got awkwardly to his feet. \"Good evening, sir,\" he said very respectfully.\n\nRyan turned around. A lean man of medium height with a red, knobby face and angry eyes stood in the doorway. His overcoat's velvet lapels framed a high, starched collar, a tasteless flowered necktie and a huge stickpin. He held his head and shoulders hunched forward aggressively as though he expected to encounter violence and expected to return it.\n\n\"You Jablonski?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"You're Ryan.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nRyan had not shaken hands with the chief inspector of the New York police department since the day four years before when he graduated as a rookie patrolman. Now the chief inspector's hand closed on his roughly, as on a nightstick, but the harsh eyes softened.\n\n\"You'll be hearing from the commissioner,\" said Patrick Pembroke. \"But I wanted to tell you to your faces what a fine bit of work you've done tonight, men. A fine bit of work.\" His voice became music. \"I thank you for it, and so does every man in the department.\"\n\nHe looked at both of them approvingly and Ryan, who knew that at the age of sixty-four the chief inspector had gotten out of bed and driven here simply to say those words to them, felt his throat close.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"It simply shows that heads-up police work can score every time. Have you got a case?\"\n\n\"We've got a case, sir,\" said Jablonski with unexpected mildness. \"This is the end of Derby.\"\n\n\"Good. The sooner he burns, the better.\" The matter-of-fact voice was indescribably cold. \"You've seen what the papers have said about us. You've given the commissioner the ammunition to answer them with. He'll make use of it later today, if I'm any judge.\"\n\nOnce again the ancient, bony hand shot forward to each of them. \"Thank you, Jablonski. Thank you, Ryan. A good job. Good night, men.\" He went out with slow, cold dignity.\n\nGolly, what a guy, Ryan thought, and out in the hall the chief inspector turned and came back so quickly that for a second he feared he had uttered the words aloud. He was tired and confused enough to do that.\n\nThe old man was looking at him. \"Ryan,\" he said reflectively, and the faintest brogue edged his words. \"Someone mentioned your name is O'Neill Ryan.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I once had a man under me named O'Neill Ryan. This would be years ago. Young sergeant, he was.\" The chief inspector spoke deliberately now. \"It was on the shoo\u2014on the confidential squad. He was a fine man or he'd never got there so young. Later some hoodlums\u2014\" the knobby face hardened\u2014\"some hoodlums met him one night in Carmine Street. They killed him.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThe chief inspector's eyes flickered. Then they measured Ryan. \"A relative perhaps?\" he said softly.\n\n\"My father,\" said Ryan, and all the events of the long night welled up in his throat and to his eyes.\n\nFor a long time the harsh angry gaze engaged Ryan's. \"Your father,\" said Patrick Pembroke. \"He was a good man. A good man. Good night, Ryan.\" He went out.\n\nRyan fumbled another cigarette out of Bauer's pack and kept his head down.\n\n\"Jeez, kid,\" said Jablonski. \"I didn't know your old man was a cop.\" There was a new respect in his voice.\n\n\"Forget it,\" said Ryan thickly, and had to wait a minute. Then he said, \"He's really quite a guy, isn't he?\" At that moment Ryan would have gone after a cityful of Derbys for the chief inspector.\n\nThey heard Bauer coming down the hall.\n\n\"Oh, Paddy's a right gee,\" said Jablonski carelessly. He breathed out a cloud of strong smoke. Then, \"What's he saying, Paul?\"\n\nBauer's face was lined with weariness. \"Nothing, as you might expect. But the gun looks good. It's a .38, and it was a .38 slug that killed the victim.\"\n\n\"How about the witnesses?\" said Ryan.\n\n\"They picked him like a flash.\"\n\nThat made Ryan feel even better.\n\n\"The young one asked about you, Ryan,\" Bauer grinned. \"I guess you made an impression.\"\n\nRyan grinned back. Bauer said, \"He hasn't got the bill on him, incidentally.\"\n\nJablonski said very casually, \"What's he say about it?\"\n\n\"Nothing. He never heard of it. He was home taking a nap all afternoon\u2014alone. And he says the loan shark's name is Morgan, or something like that.\" The lieutenant sighed wearily. \"I guess that's it. Oh\u2014don't either of you worry about court tomorrow\u2014today, rather. McGonigle can do that. You men get some sleep.\" He looked at them both. \"I guess I don't need to say\u2014well, you know. You did a great job, and it won't hurt either of you. There's reporters downstairs still. The order is to give them everything they want. We want all the publicity we can get on this one.\"\n\nAt any other time the alacrity with which Jablonski rose, and the bored resignation with which he said, \"Well, we may as well get it over with,\" would have made it funny. But the thought of facing more reporters alarmed Ryan. Going downstairs he said, \"Look. You do the talking.\"\n\nJablonski was glad to. While the reporters listened, jotted and occasionally broke in with a question he told the story in detail and with such flattering reference to Ryan that it was clear to everyone the veteran was trying to give every possible credit to the rookie, even though he himself had been in full command.\n\nRyan studied the reporters. All were dissimilar and yet alike: knowing, a little rumpled, of indeterminate age. But one, tall and heavy-eyed as though he had been newly routed from bed, wore a sports jacket of soft, expensive tweed and a gray sports shirt. His feet were unexpectedly clad in felt bedroom slippers. His black hair was thick With gray, but his square-jawed face was youthful and forceful.\n\n\"Telephone, Ryan,\" said the desk sergeant.\n\nWhen Ryan turned, the desk sergeant winked elaborately to the photographers and his lips formed \"The P.C.\" Ryan said, \"Detective Ryan,\" wearily into the telephone.\n\n\"Ryan?\" said the telephone voice in his ear. \"This is Johnson Drumm. I just wanted to congratulate you and your partner on...\"\n\nRyan's jaw dropped visibly. Johnson Drumm was the police commissioner. A flashbulb flared, and then a couple more before Ryan got his mouth closed. He finally said, \"Yes, sir...yes, sir,\" automatically. Then, \"Here, Jabby. Jeez, it's the P.C.\"\n\nThey did not shoot Jablonski's picture; he was too assured, grinning, easy. They asked Ryan a couple of questions and learned with excited interest that this was his first murder case. The photographers packed their bags of equipment and then left. It was that simple.\n\nThen Ryan noticed that the one in the sports jacket was still there, slouched silently against the desk sergeant's throne of dark oak, sleepy looking yet watchful. He shuffled forward in his slippers. \"Ryan?\" he said. \"'M Jack Sandalwood. Like to ask a couple questions.\"\n\nHis manner was lazy, but Ryan's hackles rose. Jack Sandalwood was the best-known reporter in the city, a Pulitzer Prize winner whose specialty for more than ten years had been the exposure of venality and crime in unpredictable places. In a sense his appearance was even more of a compliment than the chief inspector's, but it was infinitely more ominous. Sandalwood could ask questions that would never occur to an ordinary policeman, and he could demand the answers to them.\n\nOnce again Ryan looked around for Jablonski. \"Probably you should talk to my partner.\"\n\nBut Ed Furtig was coming up the station house steps and Jablonski had bustled out to meet him. And Sandalwood was looking curiously at Ryan.\n\n\"But you can answer this,\" he said. \"I understand from the Mirror man that you said Derby admitted killing the old lady. You were clever to trap him into admitting, that.\"\n\n\"Well...\" Ryan's mouth was dry. \"We just questioned him. That's all.\"\n\n\"And right away he admitted the murder\u2014just like that?\"\n\n\"Well...yes. Pretty much.\"\n\n\"Is that how the...ah...fight started?\"\n\nThen Ryan saw what he was driving at. \"Hell, no. Don't get that idea! We never laid a hand on him until he jumped Jabby.\"\n\n\"I see. Odd though, eh? I mean, he has everything to lose and nothing to gain by admitting it. Why, that puts him in the chair.\"\n\n\"He's denying it now.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but...\" Sandalwood squinted his disbelief through cigarette smoke.\n\n\"Sometimes guys just get tired of twisting and dodging,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"Yeah.\" Sandalwood weighed the idea. \"But I must say I've never seen a bird of that type break this easy before. Have you?\"\n\nRyan began to feel it would never end. He looked around at the familiar surroundings, the stairway, the patient heads at the desk lighted by dull lights, the plaques along the wall commemorating officers of the precinct lolled in line of duty. Suddenly it was filled with unforeseeable disaster.\n\n\"...eh?\" Sandalwood was asking insistently.\n\n\"Sorry. I didn't get that.\"\n\n\"As I understand it,\" Sandalwood patiently repeated, \"Derby didn't have much dough on him.\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"I've forgotten exactly\u2014Jablonski could tell you. I think he counted it up.\"\n\n\"I see. But he didn't have that big bill on him.\"\n\n\"That's right.\" This was going a little better.\n\n\"What had he done with it?\"\n\n\"He didn't say.\"\n\n\"You asked him?\"\n\n\"Naturally.\"\n\n\"You mean after admitting the murder itself he wouldn't tell you what he'd done with the proceeds? That's odd.\"\n\nRyan could hear Jablonski's complacent drawl from beyond the doorway. That was all he could think of, Jablonski's absence and Sandalwood's unanswerable questions.\n\n\"Didn't you try to get some explanation...?\"\n\nA telephone rang, a nearby clangor. He heard the timeworn salutation. \"Seventeeth Precinct. Sergeant Weiner.\" Then a listening silence. The whole world was silent, waiting, listening for his answer.\n\nAnd he had no answer. An eternity passed.\n\nBut helplessness was a thing Ryan could not long endure, and his temper came to his rescue. \"Look here,\" he snapped. \"When you're pinching a guy like Derby you don't think of all the smart questions some second-guesser can think up later. This guy jumped us. He hurt my partner. We didn't have time to... He's being gone over now by Sergeant McGonigle. Talk to McGonigle if\u2014\"\n\nSandalwood began to break in with \"I'm sorry. I'm sorry,\" before Ryan had finished. When he had, Sandalwood smiled pacifyingly and said with soft innocence, \"All I meant was that a hundred bucks is a lot of money to get lost so easy.\"\n\nOnce again the full force of Sandalwood's remark exploded belatedly in Ryan's mind, like a delayed-action bomb, which was just how Sandalwood intended it should. Sandalwood suspected he and Jablonski had taken the C-note for themselves. That was why he had been curious about Derby's admission of guilt. That was the weakness in their story.\n\nRyan's thoughts began following the pattern he knew Sandalwood's had taken; it was like following fresh-made tracks in the snow. Sandalwood could have drawn two conclusions from what he knew. One was that Derby had admitted killing Mrs. Connors but had given Ryan and Jablonski the hundred dollar bill in return for some favor. The other was that Derby had denied the murder and they had taken the money because he could not very well claim it. Either way Sandalwood had no inkling of the real truth. But he was suspicious, and therefore he was dangerous.\n\nRyan thrust his right hand with assumed nonchalance into his suitcoat pocket and it encountered the crumpled brown paper sack that Jablonski had used.\n\nThat almost panicked him; he withdrew his hand guiltily.\n\n\"We didn't thoroughly search Derby,\" he said. He spoke steadily. \"He may have the dough in his shoe or pinned to his underwear\u2014or he may have stashed it some place. Maybe Sergeant McGonigle will get that out of him. I don't' know.\" The steadiness he had to assume steadied him; he felt his powers of conviction growing as he spoke. \"But in any case neither Jablonski nor I have any idea where the bill is\u2014that's for sure.\"\n\nHe looked angrily at Sandalwood's intent face, and he knew Sandalwood understood he had caught the insinuation and was flinging it back. \"Maybe a hundred bucks means more to you than it does to me,\" he added.\n\n\"Oh, now wait a minute,\" said Sandalwood contritely.\n\n\"Hey, what goes on?\" Jablonski arrived.\n\nWhere were you when I needed you?\n\n\"I was just asking Ryan about that hundred buck bill.\" Sandalwood said. \"I guess he misunderstood what I meant.\"\n\nJablonski grew attentive. \"Yes? What did you want to know?\"\n\nGod, don't spoil it!\n\n\"I was just wondering,\" said Sandalwood, returning to the scent, \"why Derby admitted killing the old lady and yet wouldn't tell what he did with the money.\"\n\nJablonski looked quickly from one to the other. \"Well now, it wasn't exactly like that,\" he said. \"You see, we grabbed him pretty much by surprise and he said some things when he was excited that he probably won't repeat. Matter of fact, after he got his head again he buttoned up pretty much. That's when I asked him about the dough. Of course, we didn't really try to question him.\"\n\nIt was that easy when you were relaxed and experienced.\n\n\"I see,\" said Sandalwood. \"I see,\" and scribbled a note.\n\nThen he looked up and smiled. \"Thanks,\" he said to both of them. \"And congratulations.\" He nodded to the photographer waiting for him and they went out.\n\n\"Any time,\" Jablonski called.\n\nThe last Ryan saw of Sandalwood was a glimpse of that well-tailored back going down the steps.\n\n\"Whew!\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah. They can be nosy. But it's over\u2014all over! Wait here a minute 'til I check with Mac\u2014\" Jablonski grinned\u2014\"then I'm taking you out for the biggest slug of Canadian Club in New York.\"\n\nRyan grinned back. \"Sounds good\u2014but where do we go at this time of night?\"\n\nJabby punched his arm. \"It ain't this time of night where we're going.\"\n\n\"I need cigarettes. I'll meet you on the corner.\"\n\nAs he strolled indolently down the station house steps, a uniformed man came up to them. Ryan recognized him as a probationary patrolman. The young patrolman's eyes widened at the sight of Ryan and he altered his ascent of the steps to give Ryan plenty of room. \"Good morning,\" he said politely. Ryan responded with a careless hand.\n\nThat's how little time it takes, he thought.\n\nHe took off the expensive light gray hat he wore and re-crushed it into the original fancy crease that he liked to affect as a civilian. Working, he could not wear anything that would make him distinguishable in a crowd. That nightly gesture was an expression of his individuality, a symbol of release from departmental routine.\n\nBuying cigarettes in the all-night restaurant, Ryan began to feel relaxed and thoroughly happy. Sandalwood and the china chip seeped from his mind, and the tension of the last few hours dissolved in a warm awareness of accomplishment and praise. It was the way you felt trotting off the field after having played a good first half. It was the quiet, deep satisfaction of knowing you had come through a hard test well.\n\nHe didn't really want a drink or need one, he thought.\n\nBut at that moment Jablonski came hurrying along the sidewalk outside. Seeing a cruising taxi he put two fingers to his mouth and blew a piercing blast. The cab squealed to a stop. Jablonski waved to Ryan, coming out of the restaurant. \"Hurry up,\" he called. \"This is on me.\"\n\n\"Hell it is!\" Ryan laughed, and got in.\nCHAPTER 7\n\nC.C. and Soda\n\nThe cab carried them West of Broadway and stopped before another old house. To Ryan the comparison between this approach and the other one they had made earlier was startling, but Jablonski had no thought for subtleties. \"My girl's meeting us here,\" he exulted, and rang and then tapped impatiently on the door's frosted glass.\n\nThe announcement of Jablonski's girl surprised Ryan, who knew little about his partner but was aware that he was married. He grinned appreciatively. You had to hand it to this old goat at that.\n\nThe door opened stealthily on an almost dark hallway. \"Evenin', Fritz,\" said Jablonski, and pushed Ryan quickly inside.\n\n\"Evenin', Sarge,\" replied the thin, elderly waiter. \"Everything okay tonight, Sarge?\"\n\n\"Everything's copacetic, Fritz. Meet my friend, Neill Ryan. He's okay, Fritz. Treat him right when he comes around.\"\n\n\"You know me, Sarge. My pleasure, Mr. Ryan.\"\n\nJablonski had opened a door leading down to the basement. Piano music, smoke and snatches of talk and laughter drifted up the stairway. At the bottom of it Fritz look their hats and coats and led them to a corner table. \"Inez ain't here yet,\" said Jablonski.\n\nRyan looked around. Once this had been the old house's kitchen and servants' dining room. Now, bathed in blue light, there was a small bar of white patent leather and many bottles, attended by a white-jacketed barman. Near it a middle-aged man with unnaturally black hair and a purple complexion was playing \"Mood Indigo\" on a tiny piano, holding the chords down long. Two men stood at the bar and three tables were occupied. It all looked and sounded welcome.\n\n\"Double C.C. and soda for both of us,\" Jablonski told Fritz.\n\n\"Water for me,\" Ryan corrected.\n\n\"Water,\" said Fritz, and left. Ryan said. \"That guy Sandalwood still worries me.\"\n\n\"Forget it. We answered his questions.\"\n\n\"But he suspects something. Not the right things, but\u2014\"\n\n\"What the hell! What can he suspect? What can he prove? You don't understand the beauty of it, Neill. Derby can't say anything without tightening the case against himself. And who else is there but us who knows?\"\n\n\"Canadian Club with water,\" said Fritz. \"And soda.\" He put down two heavy water glasses, half-filled with whisky and ice cubes, a bottle of soda and a glass of water.\n\nJablonski chuckled. \"Two bucks a drink and worth it,\" he said. \"At least tonight. Eh, kid?\"\n\nRyan raised his glass. \"Here's to your new joint in Mount Vernon.\"\n\n\"New Rochelle. Thanks.\" Jablonski took a long pull at the whisky.\n\nRyan took a shorter one. Even with the liquor fumes in his nose he scented the cloud of perfume that enveloped him. A voice said, \"So here you are.\"\n\nA woman stood over their table. She wore a coat that somewhat resembled mink and her ash-blond head was hatless. The lips and eyebrows in her bright, smiling face were well-marked slashes of red and black respectively. Jablonski and Ryan got to their feet. \"Inez!\" said Jablonski. He kissed her cheek.\n\nOnly then did Ryan notice a girl standing behind the blond woman. Inez was forty-five trying to look thirty. The girl looked a couple of years over twenty and she didn't have to try. The brim of a simple felt hat was pulled low over her violet eyes and her hair was coppery and abundant at a time when it was fashionable for hair to be close-cut. Her coat of woolen-pile, cinched to a tiny waist by a leather belt, was inexpensive but chic. Looking from Jablonski to Inez with a faint smile, the girl seemed not to have noticed Ryan. At least, that is how it seemed to Ryan.\n\nHe began-speculating about what was under the coat.\n\nJablonski introduced them. The girl's name was Gee Gee Hawes. She sat down with demure self-possession, told Fritz, \"A chilled sherry, please,\" in a husky contralto and took out a cigarette. When Ryan held his lighter to it, she smiled at him from under the hat and it was like looking into spotlights. The pianist began \"The Beguine.\"\n\nJablonski said, \"This is an unexpected pleasure, Gee Gee.\"\n\nShe smiled at him, making the corners of her eyes crinkle. \"A date stood me up,\" she said candidly, \"and Inez was nice enough to ask me along.\"\n\n\"Thank God for Inez,\" said Ryan, his spirits already lifted by the whisky, and when she made a moue of appreciation at him he began wishing he had shaved recently and had on a new shirt. He wondered whether she lived alone or shared an apartment. He wanted to make conversation and said, \"Do you always drink your sherry chilled, Miss...ah...\"\n\n\"I'm Gee Gee,\" she said.\n\n\"Hey!\" yelled Jablonski. He had picked up the Daily Mirror Inez had brought in with her. Its front page, devoid of the usual picture, was given over to big type:\n\nCOPS NAB KILLER AFTER GUN FIGHT\u2014HARRY DERBY CAPTURED\n\nRyan said, \"Well, well.\" He did not want to seem impressed in front of this girl.\n\nJablonski turned to the story inside the paper. \"For gosh sakes! Didn't even use our names.\" He read: \"'Bulletin: Detectives of the East Fifty-first Street Station early today arrested Harry Derby, the hoodlum identified as the killer yesterday of Mrs. Thelma Connors in her East Sixty-first Street apartment. Derby was seized after a gun fight in an East Side rooming house. One officer was reported wounded critically.'\"\n\n\"All you ever think about is the crime news, Ed,\" said Inez fondly.\n\nJablonski gave her an indignant look. \"How do you like that?\" he demanded of Ryan. \"Who do you think they're talking about in that story?\"\n\n\"You and Mr. Ryan?\" Gee Gee asked. \"Really? You captured that man who\u2014\"\n\n\"We got Derby,\" said Jablonski.\n\n\"Really?\" When her eyes widened they were not violet but incredibly blue. Inez put both her hands admiringly on Jablonski's arm.\n\nA new tray of drinks arrived. Gee Gee said, \"The final News will be out soon. That may have more on it.\"\n\nJablonski said, \"Fritz, run out for the last edition of the News, will you? Get several of them.\"\n\n\"Soon's I get this other table, Sarge.\"\n\n\"No one was wounded really, were they, Ed?\" asked Inez.\n\nRyan and Jablonski exchanged looks. \"No,\" said Jablonski. \"Not really\u2014except Derby. He got roughed up a little. In fact\u2014\" he looked at Ryan and winked\u2014\"I would say we didn't do him a bit of good. Eh, Neill? We really fixed him.\"\n\nJablonski laughed with such obvious double meaning that Ryan wished he would shut up. No one could know what Jablonski meant. But it shouldn't be talked about anywhere, before anyone.\n\n\"What do you mean, Ed?\" Inez leaned yearningly toward him.\n\nSix ounces of whisky had thickened Jablonski's tongue. \"I mean that Neill and I managed to make a case against Derby that no defense lawyer is gonna\u2014\"\n\nRyan grew desperate. \"How about dancing?\" was all he could think of. \"Come on, Jabby\u2014while the music's going.\"\n\n\"Hell with it,\" said Jablonski. \"I'm no dancer. I'm a drinker. Where's that lousy Fritz got to?\"\n\nRyan looked at Gee Gee and she smiled at him.\n\nHe got up because he had to now, but he hadn't wanted it this way. He leaned over Jablonski. \"Keep your mouth shut,\" he whispered. Jablonski, slack-mouthed, gave him a wise wink.\n\nGee Gee drew out of her coat. She was wearing a plain dress of gray wool, and the figure beneath it had not been reconstructed into cones and spheres by the usual undergarments and did not need to be. It made Ryan forget even Jablonski.\n\nThe piano rippled into \"Just One of Those Things,\" and Ryan put his arm around her.\n\n\"You and Ed work together, I gather,\" she said after a moment. It was strange to hear Jabby called Ed.\n\n\"Yes. We've been partners about a week. And you and Inez?\"\n\n\"We work together too. Or did until tonight.\"\n\n\"What happened tonight?\"\n\n\"Well, you'll hear it sooner or later. The club where we work let out Inez. They've hired a new kid\u2014a cool singer.\"\n\n\"I didn't know Inez was a singer.\"\n\n\"That's, right. Blues. And you know what cool jazz has done to that.\"\n\n\"You sing too?\"\n\n\"No, I dance. As a matter of fact\u2014\" again the crinkly-eyed smile\u2014\"I'm what they call an exotic dancer. You know\u2014a stripper. Although in New York it's not quite stripping.\"\n\nThis was the first time Ryan had ever met a stripper. He said, \"I'll bet you're good at it,\" and then wondered if that had been tactful.\n\n\"I've only been doing it a few months. Before that I was in the chorus. Some people think it's indecent. But if you don't have to do anything dirty and you've got a good body, I can't see any harm in it. And the place we're in gets a nice crowd\u2014as clubs go.\"\n\n\"Why sure.\" But Ryan was off balance. This girl was not what he had thought when she first sat down at the table, and even the knowledge that she was an \"exotic dancer\" did not alter this new, growing opinion. She was unselfconscious and wholesome, and when her pliant dancing pressed her close to him and a coppery curl brushed his cheek, Ryan, far from considering certain opening gambits, felt embarrassed and respectful, and he could think of nothing to say.\n\n\"Well, anyway\u2014\" she looked up at him\u2014\"I'm not sorry my date had to work tonight.\"\n\n\"I'm mighty glad,\" and Ryan grinned at her with happy awkwardness. He whirled her around and she followed dexterously; she was really a marvelous dancer. \"What's he do\u2014is he an entertainer too?\"\n\n\"No, but his working hours are almost as bad. He called me at the club just before closing time to say he was on something really big and would be working the rest of the night. He's a newspaperman.\"\n\nEven mention of the word was enough to alarm Ryan momentarily. \"Oh really?\" he said. \"What's his name? I know a few.\" Which was an exaggeration.\n\n\"I guess he's working on some kind of big scoop,\" said Gee Gee. \"His name is Sandalwood\u2014Jack Sandalwood.\"\n\nAnd for Ryan all pleasure in the evening ended. He looked toward their table. Jabby and Inez were deep in conversation.\n\nKeep your drunken mouth shut!\n\nFresh drinks awaited them when they stopped dancing. Gee Gee excused herself to go upstairs, and for a second an absurd suspicion crossed Ryan's mind that she might be going to telephone her boy friend with what she might have learned from Jablonski's implications. He sat down at the table and picked up a new drink. But he told himself, You better watch this stuff.\n\nJablonski and Inez did not notice his presence. Inez was looking down at her glass; Jablonski, his face heavy with liquor and fatigue and white stubble, spun the rim of his glass with thick fingers.\n\n\"Well, that's how it is,\" said Jablonski. \"Sure, we've had fun together. But you always knew I'd retire sooner or later. And Sarah and I figure...\"\n\nRyan realized what he had walked in on. He wanted to leave, but he did not know what Jablonski might have told her while he and Gee Gee were dancing. And now Jablonski was ditching her.\n\n\"Sarah and I figure we'll try and make a go of it again. With this deal in New Rochelle...\"\n\nInez looked up suddenly. Her eyes were swimming and her face was a ghastly smile. \"I know, I know,\" she said. \"You never made any promises, Ed. And neither did I. But more than once, when you'd been drinking a little, maybe, you told me how one of these days you and Sarah would break permanent. And then you and I...\"\n\nShe broke off; she seemed about to begin to weep openly. Instead she gained strength from some inner source. She straightened up and her face grew hard and cynical, and even as a tear spilled over one eyelid and down a pale cheek she said, \"Hell with it,\" down in her throat and raised her glass and drained it and put it down with finality. She studied it and her low-held head was no longer ash-blond, but silver-threaded and old.\n\nGee Gee came back, sat down and, looking at Inez, misinterpreted what she saw.\n\n\"Aw, don't feel so bad about it, honey.\" She patted Inez's purple-taloned hand. \"There's plenty of better places you can work. Your agent\u2014\"\n\nInez smiled glassily at her. \"This is just my night,\" she said. \"Ed just told me he's retiring and moving out. That's nice too, eh, kid?\"\n\n\"Well, what else happened tonight?\" demanded Jablonski aggressively.\n\n\"They fired me,\" said Inez. \"Ol' Max fired me. After all these years. The joint's getting itself a new shouter.\"\n\nRyan picked his drink up again and, although he knew he shouldn't, he drank it down.\n\n* * * *\n\nAfter a time Fritz came in with a bundle of Daily News. The dawn cold had touched his pallid cheeks with scarlet. \"Hey,\" he called from the stairs. \"You guys are famous.\"\n\nHe distributed tabloids like a newsboy. They were cold and damp and on the front page, almost life size, there was a picture of a man with his hat pushed back over curly hair, holding a telephone to his ear, shrewd young eyes round and the mouth open with awe. It was Ryan, talking a few hours before to the commissioner.\n\n\"Holy God,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"Let's see,\" said Gee Gee. \"Oh, look. That's cute. See, Inez?\" She looked back to Ryan. \"But I don't think it does you justice.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" cried Jabby. \"Listen!\" He had opened his paper and read, \"Two fast-thinking detectives of the Seventeenth Squad\u2014one a veteran on the eve of retirement and the other a rookie on his first murder case\u2014fought and shot it out early today with Harry Derby, the dock hoodlum wanted for the murder of a grandmother, and they brought him in.\n\n\"'Derby allegedly confessed the brutal slaying yesterday afternoon of Mrs. Thelma Connors, 63, in her apartment at 585 East Sixty-first Street.\n\n\"'The two detectives, whose nervy work brought them the immediate commendation of Police Commissioner Drumm, are Detective Third Class Edmund A. Jablonski, 53, who retires from the force next week, and Probationary Detective O'Neill Ryan, 28, promoted from patrolman only four days ago. The two cops spotted Derby, a three-time loser for whom a 13-state alarm was out...'\"\n\nAs Jablonski read other customers gathered around their table, and when he had finished they broke into applause. Then there was much backslapping and many congratulations, which made Ryan feel a little ridiculous but also very happy that Gee Gee was there for it. Even Inez dabbed powder around her eyes, smiled and congratulated them both.\n\nThere were drinks bought for them, and Ryan decided the best way to silence Jablonski's babbling tongue was to let him get as drunk as possible.\n\nAfter a time he looked inquiringly at Gee Gee, wordlessly suggesting another dance. She nodded almost imperceptibly at Inez. Ryan understood and felt proud of his perception and at Gee Gee's asking a favor of him. With the elaborate gallantry of the half-drunk he asked Inez to dance. She looked pleased, and as they rose Gee Gee smiled warm appreciation.\n\nBut later, when the pianist began \"I Concentrate on You,\" which had always been a favorite of his, Ryan asked Gee Gee to dance again. This time he held her closer, and the fragrance of her hair and that lissome body all seemed to make her the most tender and desirable and beautiful thing in the world. Before the dance was over Ryan noticed an unnatural radiance around the window's heavy drape and after a time he realized that it was the light of morning. He didn't care.\n\n* * * *\n\nWhen they left he had to help Jablonski get to the cab, and early office-goers who passed them turned curious, sleep-wrapped faces to give them a second glance. Ryan took Gee Gee to her door (how incongruous that this ravishing girl should live in a slattern apartment building beyond Eighth Avenue), and at the door he tried suddenly and drunkenly to kiss her. She somehow turned away, it seemed by accident, but she did present a cheek...\n\nRyan went back to the cab in a daze.\n\nAfter they had ridden in silence for a few blocks he said, \"What the hell did you tell that dame about Derby?\" But Jablonski was asleep.\n\nThe cab let Ryan off at his home first, for Jablonski lived in Queens. Ryan gave the cab driver instructions.\n\nThe first-floor apartment where Ryan lived appeared empty. Then he gratefully remembered this was Friday; his sister worked and his mother would be at the Altar Society coffee to plan the Sunday altar flowers. That was a relief; he did not like coming home like this, and he did not want her to see him. Ryan had grown up in a neighborhood where drunkenness was common enough to be neither smart nor funny but a disgrace.\n\nBut as he took off hat and coat his mother came out of the kitchen. \"Why, where have you been, boy?\" she said anxiously.\n\nHe kissed her on the cheek. \"We had a heavy night, ma. You'll see about it in the papers.\" He did not want to tell it now.\n\n\"It's always a heavy night,\" she complained. Complaint did not become her; she was a tiny, merry woman. Ryan held her coat for her, bending over to get the sleeve holes right for her short arms. \"I really began to worry,\" she said.\n\n\"You ought to know better,\" he chided. \"You've lived with cops long enough.\"\n\nShe said nothing, but the words twisted a knife blade in her heart. The nights she had waited for his father. And there had been the night... \"I'm going to the Altar meeting. There's coffee simmering on the stove.\"\n\n\"Thanks, ma.\" He took a cup into his bedroom, pulled down the blind and undressed, swaying, while he sipped coffee. He switched on the bedside radio and then lay down, feeling the press of cool pajamas against his liquor-heated body.\n\nThe ceiling spun slightly. Ryan, sobering, felt depressed. The radio came on with a little roar.\n\n\"...teen minutes to nine, girls,\" a man's voice drawled.\n\n\"All I can say is,\" and Ryan recognized the familiar voice of Dorothy Kilgallen, \"that in spite of my years as a reporter in this town I never cease to marvel at the job New York's cops do.\"\n\n\"Honey, I agree with that completely. And I know what you mean.\"\n\n\"It's that story in the News. Just suppose it had been you or me who spotted that\u2014that tough man. Would you have liked to follow him into a dark street and into some old rooming house? And just walk in on him?\"\n\n\"Dear, I'm afraid not. I think that New York's finest are\u2014well, the greatest, that's all. And as you say, these two detectives\u2014what were their names?\"\n\n\"Jablonski. Edmund Jablonski. And O'Neill Ryan. Isn't that a wonderful name?\"\n\n\"Oh, for God's sake,\" Ryan muttered.\n\n\"...ought to take up a collection for them,\" the man's voice said.\n\n\"They couldn't accept it, honey. The department doesn't permit that.\"\n\n\"Just keep Sandalwood off my neck,\" growled Ryan and switched off the radio.\n\nHe fell back on the pillow. The ceiling spun again. He closed his eyes... That Gee Gee... He slept.\nPART TWO: THE BIG NEWS\nCHAPTER 8\n\nThe White Sheep\n\nA plea of not guilty was entered for Derby when he was arraigned, and since the murder had created so much public indignation his examination was scheduled for three days later. He was bound over to the grand jury and it held him for trial without bail. This was all predictable.\n\nWhen Ryan returned to work, it was as a hero. His routine and Jablonski's were disturbed for several days by newspaper reporters, Sunday feature writers, magazine researchers, photographers and true crime story authors. At first their questions alarmed him. But when he came to realize that these interrogations were directed less toward discovering anything than to proving an already-established point of view, he began to relax. Circumstances had conspired to make him a temporary public figure; Ryan accepted it and after the initial reluctance even entered in with quiet-mannered willingness. His mother and sister complained about the constant telephone calls at home, but he noticed that his mother was never too busy in the kitchen to dry her hands and come to the telephone, and that when a photographer was coming, Eleanor usually had on a new dress and fresh makeup.\n\nMeanwhile, the department had engaged in the usual tedious and vital routine. The bullet taken from the dead woman's head was found to have been shot from the revolver found in Derby's room. The money that Derby had spent at the delicatessen was recovered and as far as could be told might have been one of the tens that Mrs. Connors had obtained from the bank. The partial fingerprints found in the apartment did not check out; they were the dead woman's. But there were two loan sharks named Morgan who worked the docks; one hung around Pier Ninety in Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn. The first did not know Derby and was eager to testify that he had never loaned him money. The second did know Derby and had occasionally done business with him. But when two detectives found him he had been smoking opium in a Williamsburg flophouse for forty-eight hours, and was white and sweating. He was glad to admit that he had not loaned Harry Derby any money recently.\n\nFar more important, McGinnis and Minor went out to Derby's house and talked to his sister, a thin, blond-haired girl with the calm detachment of resignation. She worked as librarian for a midtown athletic club, and when they asked if she had seen her brother Harry on the afternoon of the Connors murder she said she had not because she developed a sick headache that day and had gone home early in the afternoon.\n\nMcGinnis asked whom she had seen there, and she said the house had been empty. Other careful questions elicited that she had arrived home before two p.m., and that she had been alone in the Derby apartment on East Seventy-third Street from that time until sometime between six-thirty and seven, when her younger brother had come home from work. That shattered Derby's alibi that he had been enjoying a nap there that afternoon.\n\nA child found a small black change purse a block from the Connors' apartment; it bore a faint smear of blood which the lab proved was Mrs. Connors'. A police scientist in the lab spent most of one day extracting tiny particles of plaster dust from the hairy wool of Derby's jacket. The spectroscope proved beyond doubt that the particles came from the lamp used to bludgeon Mrs. Connors.\n\nShortly before Jablonski retired he and Ryan went downtown to the district attorney's office and spent forty minutes with Assistant District Attorney Gil Tilbury. He proved to be an excessively thin young man in an expensively tailored suit, buttoned-collar shirt and casually correct striped tie. He laughed often and confidently, and lolled back in his chair until it creaked to show how supremely at ease he was. He told Ryan and Jablonski that he couldn't wait to try this case and that Derby was as good as in the death house. He twiddled a Phi Beta Kappa key.\n\nThat evening Ryan sat at home watching a fight on television before leaving for work; he was now on the late tour, midnight to eight a.m. His mother had gone to a card party and his sister was in her bedroom doing something intricate and time-consuming to her hair.\n\nRyan in sweatshirt and slippers felt lazy and relaxed after sleeping all day. It was a nice way to feel, lying on the couch watching two other guys over at St. Nick's Arena do the heavy work for a while. Occasionally the camera swept the ringsiders, and one of them was a girl who looked like Gee Gee. Probably he ought to call her again. But he'd called twice and missed her each time, and he didn't want to appear anxious. Maybe tomorrow it would be all right. The doorbell rang.\n\nRyan lifted himself off the couch and groped his way from the darkened living room to the hall. When he reached the front door he saw through its window that the caller standing outside on the porch was a man and that he was tall and lean.\n\nThen the man moved his head and Ryan caught his profile.\n\nIt was Derby.\n\nEven while Ryan watched incredulous, Derby turned and gave the bell an irritable double ring.\n\nRyan began taking long tiptoe strides back the way he came through the living room and into his own bedroom. He removed the pistol from the holster on the bureau. He cocked it and picked up a flashlight, then returned quietly to the hall. He could feel the beat of his heart.\n\nHe moved quickly through the short hall, holding light and gun behind him, shifting the light at the last moment to the crook of his right arm as he reached the door, then pressing the latch with a quick left-hand to throw the door open and bring the gun up as he grabbed the flashlight under his arm.\n\nDerby was wearing a neat bow tie of blue checks, a white shirt and a dark suit. A slouch hat of thin felt was pulled low over his right eye; he carried a trenchcoat and he looked young. He winked rapidly in the flashlight beam.\n\n\"What is this?\" he demanded in an unexpected voice. \"I want to see Mr. Ryan\u2014Detective Ryan, I mean. Isn't this where he lives?\"\n\nRyan kept light and gun on him. Derby could not see beyond the light. He blinked uncertainly.\n\n\"All right,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"Oh. My name's Derby, Mr. Ryan. Ken Derby. I'm Harry Derby's brother.\"\n\nThen Ryan understood\u2014and suddenly felt ashamed of the .38 and thrust it into his slacks. He said, \"What's on your mind?\"\n\n\"I just want to talk to you. Sort of off the record, as they say.\"\n\n\"You're talking to me.\" It annoyed Ryan to have been frightened.\n\n\"It would be better inside.\" Derby's brother raised his face to the light. \"This will take a little while.\"\n\n\"Come on in,\" said Ryan. He did not know exactly how to deal with this, and that annoyed him too. He followed the younger Derby into the living room, switched off the television in mid-commercial, said, \"Sit down,\" waved to the sofa and sank into the deep, worn, leather chair that had been his father's. When he raised his hands negligently behind his head the pocketed .38 made a hard knot against his thigh.\n\n\"I'm Ken Derby,\" said his visitor again. \"Harry's my\u2014my older brother.\"\n\n\"Quite a brother.\"\n\n\"Maybe. Anyway, that's why I'm here.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Ryan.\n\nKen Derby looked uneasy. \"I want to find out what's happened to Harry,\" he said with an air of dogged determination. \"I've been talking to his lawyer. I just don't get it.\"\n\n\"Don't get what?\"\n\n\"Look. You're a cop. I suppose that you figure anyone connected with Harry is a\u2014crook, or a heel.\"\n\nMeeting only with affirmative silence, he continued, \"We know what Harry's record is. My sister and me, I mean. Harry's like my father was. On the docks and\u2014well, a bum. Let's face it. But the rest of the family isn't like that. My sister isn't, and my mother wasn't. And I'm not.\"\n\nRyan kept staring at him.\n\n\"The hell with that. Here's what I came to say. And understand, I'm on the level. You can ask about me down at Triple-A. I drive a truck for them\u2014Triple-A Delivery on Varick Street. You ask if Kenny Derby's okay. And my sister. She\u2014\"\n\n\"You went into that.\" Ryan said it knowing it must anger Derby into saying more than he had come to say.\n\nAnd Derby took it that way. He got to his feet threateningly\u2014virtually as tall as his brother although not as muscular. Still, Ryan liked the feel of the .38 against his thigh.\n\n\"Okay,\" said Derby. \"Then I'll go into this.\"\n\n\"Before you do,\" said Ryan, interrupting in a way that he knew would not soothe Derby, \"just bear in mind that I'm a police witness against your brother. I can't discuss details of a case that is going to trial.\"\n\n\"You don't have to discuss anything,\" said Derby grittily. \"You've just got to answer one thing. Maybe you don't want to answer it. But I came here to ask it to your face, and I want to see your face when you answer.\"\n\nRyan looked up curiously.\n\n\"You got a case against my brother,\" said Derby. \"I know that. And he's got a bad record. But almost everything you've got against Harry could be coincidence. The witnesses, the ten dollar bills, all that. The one thing you've really got against him is that there's some kind of dust on his jacket that is supposed to prove he was in that old lady's apartment.\"\n\nRyan said, \"What gives you that idea?\"\n\n\"It was mentioned at the examination.\"\n\n\"So you've been talking to Harry's lawyer.\"\n\nDerby looked alarmed. \"Suppose I have? Is that against the rules?\"\n\n\"No. But do you want to argue with the scientists? They say that dust\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't want to argue with anyone,\" said Derby doggedly. \"If my brother is really guilty.\"\n\nRyan did not feel like answering that.\n\nA door opened behind him and he heard Eleanor say, \"Oh, I didn't know\u2014\" and concluded she had come out of her room without her dress on. He said evenly, \"You said your brother is guilty. Do you have any doubts?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Derby. \"I don't have any doubts. I don't have any doubts at all.\" Ryan caught a subtle meaning in that and tried to ignore it.\n\n\"Then I don't get you,\" he said. But a premonition had flared in his mind, swift and ominous as the darkening of an ocean sky before a storm. \"If you've talked to Farragut, you know that the scientific evidence\u2014that the dust the lab men found on your brother's jacket\u2014is unmistakable proof.\"\n\n\"That's just what I'm getting at,\" said Derby.\n\n\"What, for God's sake?\"\n\n\"Mr. Ryan, how did that dust get on my brother's jacket?\"\n\nDerby's thin, light-eyed face burned across the lamplit room into Ryan's mind, and time became endless. Ryan's body flickered with impulses\u2014to leap up, or kick over a chair or yell. Instead he must sit quietly and prepare to speak quietly.\n\n\"It got there,\" he said, \"when your brother smashed the lamp across that old woman's head.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Derby. \"It didn't.\"\n\n\"Then how?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Derby meekly. \"If I knew, I could save Harry.\"\n\nRyan snorted. \"That's only one part of the evidence against Harry. There were plenty of witnesses. There's a bank clerk\u2014\"\n\nDerby stood up, his lean frame drooping wearily.\n\n\"No.\" His voice was weary too. \"You don't understand, Mr. Ryan. And I know you can't discuss this and I didn't come here to\u2014to\u2014well, try to fix anything. But it's like I said. You have a case against Harry but a lot of it could be coincidence or mistaken identity or something. The one thing that's impossible to figure is that dust. I was hoping maybe you'd be\u2014be honest enough to tell me about that. But maybe you really don't know about it.\"\n\nRyan could stand this no longer. He too got to his feet. \"Why?\" he shouted. \"What the hell do you want explained to you? Your lousy hoodlum brother killed an old woman. He's guilty of murder. He deserves the chair and he'll get it.\"\n\nEleanor's door opened again. Ryan heard her say, \"Neill? Is there anything wrong?\"\n\n\"Maybe he'll get the chair,\" said Derby steadily. \"But he doesn't deserve it. Because he's not guilty of murder, Mr. Ryan... Harry did not kill that old woman. I know.\"\n\n\"Neill?\" called Eleanor anxiously.\n\nRyan could see only Ken Derby's pale, taut face. He was conscious of the rise and fall of his own chest. \"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Because Harry was with me that afternoon,\" said Derby; \"No one will ever believe it because nobody knows it but me and Harry. He went around on my truck route. I was supposed to have a helper that afternoon and the helper, he didn't show up\u2014he's a fellow that plays the horses and, well, you know. I had two big pieces to deliver way uptown that afternoon and I stopped off at the house and picked up Harry to help me. That's against the rules, but I didn't want to get Dom, that's the helper, in trouble. And I knew Harry could use the dough. He's been broke for quite a while.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\" Ryan could not get his thoughts together. He was afraid to say anything or do anything that would make it any worse than it already was. An inspiration came from somewhere. \"If he helped you make deliveries, then someone must have seen him.\"\n\n\"I doubt it. You're bonded on this job. If the company discovered I'd used an unbonded helper, let alone a guy with Harry's record, I'd get fired so fast it'd make your head spin. Harry stayed out of sight, mostly. Oh, he ran a few light pieces in on the way uptown. But I really needed him only for the heavy work. One heavy piece was a refrigerator to an apartment up in Harlem and no one saw us take that in at all. The other was way up in the Bronx and we just dropped this stove on the porch of a new house. There were some carpenters working there inside, but\u2014well, you know how much people notice something like that.\"\n\nThere was silence. \"That's why I wonder about that dust, Mr. Ryan.\"\n\n\"If he had an alibi,\" said Ryan harshly, \"why didn't he say so?\"\n\n\"I don't think he really believes he needs one. And he knows it would get me in trouble if it came out he'd been riding with me\u2014him especially with his criminal record. Harry's funny. He's sort of proud that I\u2014well, I've got a job and always gone straight. And he still thinks that he can't be convicted.\" He added irrelevantly, \"He wants to fight it through himself. He'd kill me if he knew I'd come here.\"\n\nThe full meaning of it began to sink to the bottom of Ryan's understanding. As it did he felt cold and shaky, and he knew Ken Derby was watching him.\n\nIgnored, Eleanor firmly closed her bedroom door.\n\nDerby turned and picked his hat off the sofa. Ryan's gaze remained fixed on the emptiness where Derby had been.\n\n\"I hope,\" said Derby, \"that if you hear anything about that dust business, you'll be honest.\"\n\nRyan followed him to the door, said, \"Good night,\" and closed the door after him, and wasn't aware of any of it.\n\nHe went back to the living room, lit a cigarette and inhaled it deeply. He snuffed it out, and then wished he had not snuffed it out and started to light another and then stopped. He had to pull himself together. He had to-think this straight through. He picked up a fresh cigarette and lit it.\n\nChrist!\n\nThe clock tolled ten-thirty. It was time to start getting ready for work.\n\nHe was in great shape for it.\nCHAPTER 9\n\nDom the Tailor\n\nA hunchback named Frank Yett ran an untidy candy store just off First Avenue in the fifties. He dealt in pop, comic books, ice cream and novelties, and he took horse race bets on the side. Since this was the kind of neighborhood in which the police liked to keep track of neighborhood gossip, they let Yett make book as long as he took bets from adults only and passed on to them whatever he learned of police interest. Recently he had reported that a teen-age gang war was about to break out.\n\nThere was also a man who dealt in used cardboard cartons, lived in East Sixty-third Street and had been missing for two days. His car had been identified as one that ran down a pedestrian and then sped on along Bruckner Boulevard. On this night Jablonski and Ryan had been told to cruise the area where the teen-age war might break out and also to drive past the carton-dealer's apartment occasionally.\n\nIt was not cold for November. But it was so foggily humid that the black asphalt was streaked with damp sheen under the street lights and the motor of the well-traveled police sedan responded under Ryan's foot with unwonted power and quiet. They had had a couple of minor runs, but by three-thirty they sensed this would be a quiet night and so they might as well eat leisurely. There was a place on Third near Fifty-eighth Street that served hot sandwiches made with Italian sausage fried in onions and peppers.\n\nAt a quarter of four Ryan emerged from it carrying three sandwiches and two cartons of coffee. They pulled into a side street, switched off the lights and with even the radio quiet ate in aromatic silence for a few minutes, sharing the third sandwich.\n\nJablonski sighed contentedly. Tomorrow night would be his last tour of duty. He did not feel any sentimental twinges. All he could think of was taking it easy for a couple weeks. But something Ryan had mentioned earlier still bothered him. He sloshed his coffee around in the cardboard cup to stir up the sugar in it, drank, made a switching sound with his tongue against a bad tooth and drew a cellophane-sheathed cigar from his vest pocket.\n\n\"Well, did this guy offer any proof his brother was riding around in that truck?\" he asked as though they had been talking about it for the last half hour.\n\nBut each knew what had been in the other's mind.\n\n\"No. He just said\u2014\"\n\n\"He didn't say why Harry'd do a thing like that?\"\n\n\"Well, he needed help with these two heavy pieces like I said, and Harry needed the dough. He got the helper's check, I guess.\"\n\n\"But he didn't say that anyone saw Harry in the truck\u2014anyone but himself, I mean?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nJablonski crumpled the cellophane and threw it contemptuously to the floor mat. \"He's not even a good liar.\"\n\n\"Why do you say that?\"\n\n\"He's just trying to help Harry, that's all.\" He lighted the cigar and growled through jets of smoke. \"Maybe that damned lawyer... I wouldn't put anything past Farragut.\"\n\n\"But why does this Ken Derby know so much about the dust on the jacket? If Harry didn't tell him\u2014well, why does Ken say if he knew how it got on the jacket he could prove Harry innocent? I don't get it, Jabby. He\u2014he sounded so damned sure.\" Ryan knew he was sounding like a rookie, but he couldn't help it.\n\nJablonski laughed a short, bitter laugh. \"I'll tell you why. Because he's trying to shake your testimony, that's why. Farragut put him up to that, I'll bet you anything. He's trying to make you less certain. Yup, the more I think of it...\"\n\n\"Yes, but...\"\n\n\"The Regal's closing.\"\n\nRyan started the car and drove it slowly, lights out, to the cross street and parked. The Regal, a bar and grill across the wide avenue, closed at four a.m. The proprietor usually locked up and left by himself with the night's receipts. Ryan and Jablonski could watch his block-long walk to the subway entrance from here.\n\nThe sedan filled with cigar smoke. Ryan twisted his window down a little.\n\n\"Don't forget these guys are brothers, Neill.\"\n\n\"Oh sure, I realize that.\"\n\n\"Probably Harry does ride with him occasionally in that truck,\" Jablonski mused. \"Probably cases joints that way.\"\n\n\"I don't know about that. I think Ken's honest. He wouldn't let\u2014\"\n\n\"You think, huh? Personally I wouldn't trust any Derby.\"\n\n\"The younger one hasn't any record,\" said Ryan. \"I checked.\"\n\n\"There he goes.\"\n\nThe interior of the Regal had gone dark. Now its big sign blinked out. A man came away from the doorway's shadow and walked hurriedly down the street. They waited until he disappeared down a subway kiosk.\n\nBut Ryan did not start the motor. He had been steeling himself. Now with his hand on the switch, looking straight ahead, he said, \"Jabby, do you think there's a chance he's innocent?\"\n\nJablonski removed the wet cigar from his mouth and turned his head to look at Ryan. Ryan uneasily stepped on the starter and slipped the transmission into first.\n\n\"Wasn't it you that took the C-note out of his wallet?\" asked Jablonski at length. \"Innocent, for God's sake!\"\n\n\"I know, but\u2014\" Ryan was doggedly determined to get it all out. \"Like his goddamned brother said. That dust is the one thing that convicts him for sure. And we know how that got there.\"\n\n\"God awmighty, Neill. You're getting nuts. If you're serious\u2014I can't believe it, but if you are, check on that alibi and see for yourself. Why, that's the most\u2014and don't forget Derby himself told us he was home sleeping. He didn't say nothing about a truck ride. If I ain't right, you can come out to my new place and\u2014and eat all you want on the house for a month.\"\n\nRyan grinned. For the moment at least, Jablonski's hearty disbelief reassured him. \"I'm glad the deal went through, Jabby. The Green Lantern Inn, eh?\"\n\n\"That's it, and you're welcome any time.\"\n\nThe radio said it was four ten a.m. Ryan wondered if he might catch Gee Gee if he called the club, but he did not like Jablonski to know he was calling her. Jablonski said. \"Coast back to Sixty-third Street again and see if the guy's come home.\"\n\nRyan complied. He felt better for having talked about it. But he still felt a little wordless uneasiness that was like the gnawing of a grave worm.\n\n* * * *\n\nThe office of the Triple-A Delivery Corporation was a glassed-in room in the corner of a grimy garage that by mid-morning contained only a few immaculate black vans. An old-fashioned iron stove kept the office overheated and the sagging chair in which the proprietor, a heavy man named Nichols, sat sprawled, scented the hot air with the stink of rotting leather. The wall behind Nichols was papered with calendars old and new, all depicting long-legged girls in advanced stages of undress. Ryan flipped the badge on his wallet toward Nichols.\n\n\"It's a routine matter,\" he said, \"so for the present we'd prefer that no one knows anything about it. Especially the people involved.\" He looked down at Nichols. \"That's important,\" he said.\n\nNichols' thyroid-bulged eyes, big as olives, looked up under thick lids. \"I understand.\"\n\n\"You have a driver named Kenneth Derby. On November seventh he's supposed to have had a run that required a helper.\"\n\n\"Could be.\"\n\n\"Do you keep any records that'd prove whether he did or not\u2014and would they show who the helper was?\"\n\n\"November seventh?\" Reaching behind him, Nichols took one of half a dozen clipboards hanging from worn brass hooks and began riffling the long yellow sheets on it with a wetted thumb.\n\nRyan looked up at the girls. One had flowing coppery hair. Nuts to that! She'd never pose that way.\n\n\"Derby,\" said Nichols. \"November seven. Sure. Here it is. Yeah, he had a helper. Dom. Dom the Tailor.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nNichols grinned a fat-lipped grin.\n\n\"Dominic D'Tela, his real name is,\" he said. \"Dom the Tailor, they call him. He's a little dago who part-times for me.\"\n\n\"You sure that's who it was? Is it possible someone else might have substituted for this Dom? Say Derby's brother Harry, who's a\u2014well, a sort of\u2014\"\n\n\"I know Harry.\" The heavy lids narrowed calculatingly. \"But Dom's the man I paid. I remember now\u2014and I remember Harry was around that night, too. They left together. Maybe he was waiting for Ken to come in. Anyway, I can tell from this, that Dom went out in the morning with Henderson\u2014he's my downtown man. And with Derby in the afternoon.\"\n\nBut Ryan's heart had suffered a sinking spell. Harry had been around that night, all right. Nichols remembered it.\n\nNichols was saying, \"Derby is usually my uptown east guy. And according to this, he drew a full day's check, fourteen fifty.\"\n\n\"Can you tell me where Dom lives?\"\n\n\"Sure. It's just off Houston Street.\" Like all downtowners Nichols pronounced it Howse-ton.\n\n\"Think he'd be home now?\"\n\n\"That's hard to say. He jobs around. He's a good strong man.\"\n\n\"Big? Tall?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. He's a little fellow. Big shoulders, though. Good-natured. And very reliable.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Nichols.\"\n\nOnce again outside in the bright cold street he paused. He was tired. But he was also tired of uncertainty.\n\nBetter finish it up. Then he'd know.\n\n* * * *\n\nDominic D'Tela's midday meal, lasagna, bread and coffee, lay spread before him on an oil-clothed table in the tenement parlor.\n\n\"Have some coffee?\" he asked cordially.\n\n\"No, thanks.\" But the cheese-laden steam from the lasagna made Ryan hungry.\n\nD'Tela turned a strong face to him and said, \"What's on your mind?\" then returned to his food.\n\n\"Do you remember last November seventh? It was a Friday.\"\n\n\"I'll say it was a Friday.\"\n\n\"You remember it?\"\n\n\"I'll say I remember it. That's the day Cannon Cracker came in at Jamaica and paid twenty-eight bucks\u2014twenty-eight eighty, to be exact.\"\n\n\"And you were on him?\"\n\n\"Was I on him!\" The memory made D'Tela stop eating. \"Ten bucks on the nose. I come home with over a hundred and fifty bucks that night. I worked that day too.\"\n\n\"What was the job?\"\n\nThe thick cup came down, revealing a suspicious frown. \"You checking on me or something?\"\n\n\"Not on you. On someone else. And it doesn't have anything to do with horse bets. All I want to know is what you did on the job that day.\"\n\n\"Well, let's see.\" He reverted to the lasagna and chewed thoughtfully. \"I was working for old man Nichols that day. Yeah, I remember. In the morning I went out with Henderson and in the afternoon with Derby. Kenny Derby.\"\n\n\"You were with Derby all afternoon?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Doing what?\"\n\n\"Well, let's see. Yeah, that was an easy afternoon\u2014lucky day all round.\" He grinned. \"There were only two big pieces he needed help with. Of course I jumped off with lots of the little ones, too, when we got to a neighborhood where there were quite a few deliveries. I always do my share on a job. Besides, Derby was feeling a little tough.\"\n\n\"What was his trouble?\"\n\n\"You know how it is. He said something about needing some dough for a friend of his, and he'd had a few drinks at lunch\u2014tell you the truth, I figured he had a broad in trouble. Of course, now I figure he wanted the dough for his brother. But it's odd, sort of.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Well, he needed money and I told him about this horse I was going to bet, see? He was interested, too. But when I called in to get down on the horse just before post time\u2014around five, if was\u2014he said the hell with it. I just wonder what it might have done for him if he'd given me a ten to bet for him. Maybe his brother wouldn't have bumped the old lady, huh?\"\n\n\"By that time she was dead,\" said Ryan shortly. \"Let's get back to what you did that day. You said there were two big pieces. Where'd you deliver them?\"\n\n\"Well, the reefer went to an address in Harlem. The gas range went to a new house up in the Bronx.\"\n\n\"Who'd you see at the new house?\"\n\n\"No one, especially. There were some painters or carpenters working inside. We just set the range down on the porch and left.\"\n\n\"I see. Now look. This is the important part\u2014this is why I'm here. Was there anyone else along on this trip? In other words was there another man on the truck that afternoon besides you and Derby?\"\n\n\"Of course not.\" D'Tela looked surprised.\n\n\"At no time did another man ride with you?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"And you were with the truck all the time?\"\n\n\"Sure\u2014except when I left it to run packages in. Oh, yes, and...uh...we made a stop so I could pick up that dough I won.\" He looked uneasily at Ryan.\n\nBut Ryan was not interested in handbooks at the moment. He said, \"Then you didn't see anything of Derby's brother Harry that day? On the truck or anywhere?\"\n\nSurprise opened D'Tela's eyes. \"Sure I did. Now that you mention it. He was around the office when we got back, after six. Surly and tough-looking as usual, too. Waiting for Ken. I guess.\"\n\n\"But at no time was he on the truck. You'd swear to that?\"\n\n\"Sure, for God's sake.\"\n\nRyan got up. He knew the truth when he heard it. \"Thanks, Mr. D'Tela. You'll probably never hear any more of this, and I'd appreciate it\u2014if you don't mention what you told me to anyone. Especially anyone around the Triple-A Delivery Company.\"\n\n\"Sure. Sure thing, you bet,\" said D'Tela good-humoredly.\n\nThe flights of tenement stairs were dark and noisome, but as Ryan went down them they looked as good as a red-carpeted movie set. That lousy lying Ken Derby! Jabby had been right, all right. They had just been trying to shake his nerve and his testimony. They knew what he and Jabby had done with the dust, of course, and they hoped to make a scared and uncertain witness out of him\u2014the rookie! And they had almost succeeded.\n\nWhen he thought of what a fool he had made of himself talking to Jablonski in the car Ryan felt his cheeks redden. But it was all right now. He could go home and sleep, and forget the whole thing. Tonight was the party. Everything was okay.\nCHAPTER 10\n\nThe Y-Shape\n\nMickey McGonigle was a slim, wiry man who at the age of fifty-four had somehow shrunk an inch under the five feet eight prescribed by the City of New York for its policemen. He had very curly red hair parted on one side over a hatchet face corded with belligerent muscularity. He also had an intuitive, wonderfully penetrative sense for truth, which was infinitely more effective than the popular conception of the \"third degree\" in questioning suspects or witnesses. Leaning against Manny's bar now, he said, \"A beefsteak! A beefsteak for that squarehead Jablonski. I gotta have a drink on that.\"\n\nHe pushed his glass across the broad mahogany. \"What are you having, Ryan?\"\n\nRyan was not sure. He did not know what you did on an occasion like this, surrounded by superiors and having to work in a few hours. He said, \"A beer.\"\n\nMcGonigle said, \"Give him the W\u00fcrzburger, Charlie.\" Then he looked down the bar to make sure the subject was out of earshot and said, \"You were sure luck for Jablonski.\"\n\n\"Why? He was just as much luck for me.\"\n\nThe thin, conflicting planes of McGonigle's face wrinkled skeptically. \"The way I got it, you spotted him, walked him into the house and, when Jablonski let Derby jump him, you pulled him off him.\"\n\n\"That's not exactly right.\"\n\n\"It's not exactly wrong,\" said McGonigle.\n\nRyan raised his seidel. \"In a pinch like that how do you decide who's responsible for what?\" He added quickly, \"This is good beer.\"\n\nLieutenant Bauer came in, dark-hatted, dark-coated, quick-eyed. \"Hi, Mick. Hi, Neill. A Manhattan, Charlie.\"\n\nBauer took off his coat, leaned cold hands across the bar, rubbed them and said, \"Neill, do me a favor.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Ryan. He knew Bauer too well to call him lieutenant, but not well enough to call him Paul.\n\n\"The Fifteenth Squad is getting some enlargements of a print the picture bureau got in a drugstore job a couple weeks back. I have a hunch it may be one of that Little Turk gang we had in. Will you and Lambert pick them up during the night and leave them for me?\"\n\n\"Sure thing.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" Bauer picked the cherry out of his drink and nibbled it by the stem. \"How're things going? I haven't seen much of you.\"\n\n\"Just fine, thanks.\"\n\n\"Lambert's a good operator. Quiet but smart. Smarter than Jabby.\"\n\nRyan had already discovered that about his new partner, but he was surprised and flattered by Bauer's candor. \"Could be,\" he said. McGonigle was talking Dodger talk with two others who had come in.\n\nBauer said, \"From what I hear they're going to push that Derby case into court as soon as possible. So if you have any special preparations to make or need extra time or anything, just let me know.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I don't think there's anything special, but I appreciate the offer.\"\n\nBauer waved that off and sipped his drink. \"By the way,\" he said, and Ryan recognized that the rest had been preliminary and that this was what Bauer really wanted to say.\n\n\"Jack Sandalwood called me today,\" said Bauer, and Ryan's nerves began to jangle.\n\nHe said, \"I see.\" Then, \"What'd he want?\" He took a deep draught of beer.\n\n\"Oh, he asked if we'd found that hundred dollar bill in the Derby case,\" said Bauer very unconcernedly, \"and he said something about having talked to Farragut. He\u2014he talked kind of odd.\" He looked idly down the bar. \"I don't know what he was driving at exactly,\" he finally went on. \"He was sort of vague, and that's not like Sandalwood. You have any ideas?\"\n\n\"No.\" And then, on a sudden gambler's impulse, he said, \"Of course, that night we brought in Derby he was asking a lot of questions, too. He was mainly interested in the C-note then. I think he figured Jabby and I had latched on to it.\"\n\nBauer sniffed skeptically and finished his drink. \"I don't think so,\" he said. \"I can't believe Jack'd bother with something like that. I think he's after something bigger. But I'm damned if I know what.\"\n\n\"Another, Lieutenant?\" asked the bartender.\n\n\"No, thanks, Charlie. Well, whatever it is I suppose we'll see it on the front page of his newspaper one of these days. Wonder how the beefsteaks are coming?\"\n\n\"I think they're about ready, Lieutenant,\" said Charlie.\n\n* * * *\n\nThey ate thick, juice-streaming slices of steak laid on juice-pink bread, and afterward deep-dish apple pie and coffee, and talked shop and kidded Jablonski about his bar and grill. Jablonski sat at the head of the table, wonderfully crisp in a starched white shirt and fresh haircut and shave, flushed with whisky and happiness at being the center of importance. Paul Bauer sat at the other end of the table, and when they had pushed the coffee cups aside and lighted tobacco he said a few words about how swell it had been working with Ed Jablonski and what a good cop he was and how he would be missed. Then he gave Jablonski a big package containing a bar apron as a joke, and a smaller package containing a toilet kit including a gold-plated razor; and everyone clapped and Ed Furtig yelled, \"Speech!\"\n\nNo one expected Jablonski to make a speech. But after accepting with unusual solemnity the toilet kit that was passed down the table to him he rose and stood looking at it for a moment. Then he said, \"Well, fellas, all I can say is...\" and stopped, and for the first time really, they understood that Jablonski was leaving and how it must feel to be going away from something you've lived with for twenty-eight years, and each of them got a quick, clairvoyant glimpse of what was coming to him some day.\n\nSuddenly Jablonski sat down, his eyes watery, his speech unsaid, but everyone at the table applauded, with a curious sense that he had said it anyway.\n\nThose who were not working that night had a farewell drink with him at the bar and Ryan, going out, punched his arm as he passed. But Jablonski was busy trying to buy that round of drinks and he did not feel it.\n\nIt was only ten-thirty. Ryan stopped in a lunch counter restaurant where he knew there was a phone booth, ordered coffee and dialed the number of the club where Gee Gee worked. He had called it only twice before but he did not have to look up the number. The phone was answered with a blast of music and he said to please tell Miss Hawes that Mr. Ryan was calling.\n\nThere was an interval during which the music stopped, and then a low, warm voice said, \"Hello, Mr. Ryan,\" and he heard the rush of her breath into the phone, soft and intimate as she held her mouth close to it, and he remembered the scent of her hair and how it had been dancing with her. For a second he did not have any words.\n\nHe said, \"My name's Neill,\" and grinned awkwardly in the phone booth's dimness. He heard her chuckle. \"I start a forty-eight tomorrow morning,\" he said, \"and I was thinking maybe we could work out a date.\"\n\n\"I think that would be lovely. What's a forty-eight?\"\n\n\"We work six tours\u2014six days, then get forty-eight hours off. It's really fifty-six hours, but anyway. I thought if you\u2014if the club was closed tomorrow, being Sunday, or on Monday, maybe we could get together in the evening or something.\"\n\n\"Monday evenings I'm free.\"\n\n\"Dinner maybe?\"\n\n\"I'd love it.\"\n\nRyan left the phone booth in a happy glow. He threw a quarter on the counter but left the coffee untouched. He did not want to spoil the way he felt with that coffee.\n\nLambert had not yet reported when Ryan got to the squad room; so he belatedly crushed his hat into its conventional version, lit a cigarette, propped his feet up on a desk and thought about Gee Gee and where they would go for dinner. Some theatrical sort of place probably. Lindy's or Dinty Moore's.\n\nAfter a time, mindful of what Bauer had said, he got out the file on Derby that Jablonski had left and began leafing through its slender contents. Notebook pages of names and dates, a couple of typed sheets, a photostat of Derby's police record, a copy of his fingerprints... Ryan stared at them for a long time out of sheer lassitude and a feeling of well-being. Then Lambert arrived.\n\nThey had a busy night. Saturday nights usually were busy, but in addition there were two fires, within blocks and minutes of each other, that the fire marshal concluded had been set by an arsonist. Ryan and Lambert spent most of the night on foot patrol, and it was not until after six a.m. that they could drive down to the Fifteenth Squad on East Thirty-fifth Street and pick up the envelope Bauer had asked for. They stopped for breakfast on the way back, each sitting in the car and listening to the radio while the other ate. Ryan idly examined the contents of the envelope over his sandwich. It consisted of big enlargements of some fingerprints and blurred carbon copy of a theft report.\n\nRyan read it. Several weeks before a man had walked into a small neighborhood drugstore just off First Avenue, handed the proprietor a bottle and asked that it be filled with castor oil. That took the proprietor to the prescription counter at the rear and while he was out of sight the customer dodged around a showcase to the cash register, grabbed its contents and ran out. The proprietor, who was seventy years old, had not noticed the thief especially, except that he wore a dark suit and had no overcoat, although the day was brisk. But the bottle had been oily when he brought it in and so the fingerprint men had found prints of a right thumb and forefinger perfectly delineated on the rim of the cash register drawer.\n\nThings like that were rare, despite what the public, educated by seeing and reading a hundred fictional criminal investigations, was led to believe. Still, they happened, and this was one. Ryan studied the fingerprint photographs while he sipped coffee. He saw something odd in the thumb print\u2014a little Y-shaped scar on the print's right perimeter. That was odd because he had recently seen the same thing somewhere else.\n\nAnd he knew where. There had been a scar like that in Derby's prints, which he had studied earlier waiting for Lambert. A thumb? What of it? It was coincidence, of course. But it was odd. Could Derby have done this one too? He looked again at the date on the smudged report.\n\nAnd when he did, Ryan felt a crushing weight sag his shoulders and a pervading chill enter his heart. The drugstore robbery had occurred on November 7, at 3:25 p.m., twenty blocks south of the apartment where at the very same time Thelma Connors was being murdered, presumably by Harry Derby.\n\nBut the thumb print of the drugstore thief remarkably resembled Derby's.\n\nIt must be coincidence. When he got back to the precinct he could compare them.\n\nBut the overpowering sureness, the growing conviction that is born of subconscious observation, began invading his mind. Ryan had a precognitive sense of what he would find when he got back to the precinct. The prints were going to be the same.\n\nHe knew it because of the way everything\u2014all the incongruous little things that had struck him as odd from the beginning\u2014fell into place with dreadful logic.\n\nDerby had been engaged in a comparatively harmless bit of sneak thievery at the very time Mrs. Connors was being mortally assaulted. That is why he had not told the truth about where he really was at the time. Derby was a three-time loser whom even the drugstore theft would send up for life\u2014but insofar as the murder was concerned he was innocent. He had the strongest possible sort of alibi, proved unwittingly by a police investigation, and now safeguarded unknowingly in the records of the department.\n\nBut no one knew about it except Ryan. No one could. For no one would ever think of comparing an odd thumb and forefinger print from a cheap smash-and-grab with the known prints of a tough, big time stevedore-hoodlum like Harry Derby. Not even in the Known Criminal File.\n\n* * * *\n\nRyan was very quiet during the rest of the tour, but Lambert did not comment on it for he himself was a self-contained man. After they checked in at the precinct Ryan took both prints into the lavatory where he could be undisturbed and compared them, using a flashlight and a magnifying glass in the toilet's dimness.\n\nAfter that there was no doubt. Derby was innocent. He had an unassailable alibi.\n\nRyan put Derby's records back in his own desk drawer and the new print from the Fifteenth Squad on Bauer's desk.\n\nThen he went home and tried to get to sleep.\nCHAPTER 11\n\nA Million Things Can Happen\n\nSunday afternoon was desolate. He wanted yearningly to talk to someone; the subject was forever at his tongue's tip, and instead, eating a late brunch, he had to listen to his mother's chatter about the church decorations and Eleanor's talk of the drama appreciation class she was taking one evening a week at Columbia. Eleanor had gone to Katherine Gibbs' and become a secretary after graduating from high school instead of going to college. Now she was working with dilettante interest toward an A.B. degree. She asked Ryan to pick up some volumes of Ibsen she needed the next time he was near the Columbia University library. Twice that day he had to ask her to repeat the name of the dramatist although it was not unfamiliar to him; the second time he wrote it down.\n\n* * * *\n\nAround four he went for a walk, stopping at the first drugstore to call Jablonski. Someone he took to be the bartender at the Green Lantern said Mr. Jablonski had gone to Jersey for the day with his wife to visit her folks. He'd be around tomorrow, the bartender said. Ryan left his name and said he was coming out tomorrow.\n\nHe walked thoughtfully toward Fifth Avenue. It was a sunny late afternoon; there were still many leisurely strollers. In Central Park he bought peanuts and fed ragged squirrels and watched a few hardy kids sail boats in the boat basin. The last dull orange gleams of the sun were dying in a striped violet sky and the lights had come on, circling the park, when he turned homeward. The onset of night's gloom depressed him, renewing the anxiety he had partly shaken off.\n\nTomorrow would be better. Jablonski would have advice to offer, and ideas\u2014just talking to him about it would help. And then tomorrow night, a bare twenty-four hours from now, after they had settled on something, there'd be Gee Gee to see.\n\nRyan began walking faster. It wasn't just the cold. He wanted to get everything over with as soon as possible\u2014supper and sleep and the trip to New Rochelle.\n\n* * * *\n\nIt originally had been a store building, and the first floor front still consisted chiefly of a kind of bayed-out show window that contained a big glass vessel filled with green liquid, the kind that old-fashioned druggists used to display. But across the window glass Green Lantern Inn was printed in gold letters and in one corner there appeared \"Walter Nowak.\" Under it in bright, newly applied gold leaf was \"Edmund A. Jablonski.\" That was Jablonski all right\u2014he wouldn't waste any time getting his name up!\n\nBut when Ryan pushed the door open and walked in there was no Jablonski. A portly bartender, bland-faced and immaculate in a fresh apron, was behind the bar, and from the end of the room an Oriental face under a chef's tall cap looked expectantly up over a gleaming grill. There were tables, neat with green checkered tablecloths and shiny bottles of catsup.\n\n\"Mr. Jablonski around?\"\n\n\"He's not in right now. He should be back about six. Any message?\"\n\n\"My name's Ryan. I'd phoned him that\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh sure, Mr. Ryan. He said to tell you to come on out to the house.\"\n\n\"The house?\"\n\n\"They're renting a house over on Devens Place and I guess the missus has got him doing some work.\" The bartender, distinguished-looking, smiled a bland, man-to-man smile. \"You know how it is.\"\n\n\"Oh, sure. How do I get out there?\"\n\n\"It isn't far. You take your first right up at the corner...\"\n\nHe found Jablonski in the unfurnished living room of an old-fashioned double house. He was on his knees in a corner touching up the varnish with a brush and a can of lacquer. From some unseen kitchen came clinking sounds and the rush of water as Mrs. Jablonski washed the glass globes from the lighting fixtures. Jablonski got up painfully but gratefully. \"Jeez, I'm glad you're here. My knees couldn't take much more. How you been?\"\n\n\"Good. And you?\"\n\n\"Great. Except we're moving in Friday and Sarah figures I can completely redecorate the joint before then. Say, I hear the brass still hasn't gotten over our collaring Derby. You're hotter'n a two dollar pistol, Neill. That's great.\" Jablonski sounded a little envious.\n\n\"You're pretty hot yourself with that bar and grill. That's a nice layout, Jabby. I'll bet you do a heck of a business.\"\n\n\"We're doin' all right. We'll drop by and have a drink there after a bit. Mind if I go on working while you tell me what you wanted to talk about?\"\n\n\"Go right ahead.\"\n\nJablonski picked up the brush, sank to his knees, groaned and went on dabbing.\n\n\"It's about Derby.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Yah. To give it to you straight...in a few words...he's innocent.\" Only the brush's steady pat-pat against the floor made any sound. Its rhythm did not vary.\n\n\"Yeah?\" Jablonski sounded surprised but nothing else. He went on brushing.\n\n\"You get what I said. The guy's innocent.\"\n\nJablonski said, \"Why do you say that?\"\n\n\"Because I know\u2014I know what his alibi is.\"\n\n\"Neill, you're nuts. You must be. Why, he even admitted killing her himself, after he burned the bill. You know that.\"\n\n\"He was boasting,\" said Ryan patiently. \"He was just trying to make us feel worse. You ought to know he'd do that.\"\n\n\"Oh, for God's sake\u2014\"\n\n\"You can't talk this down, Jabby. I know what I'm saying.\"\n\nThe brush's lacquer-slaps had finally stopped. \"I don't believe it.\" Then, \"How sure are you?\"\n\n\"Dead sure. He didn't kill the old lady. He couldn't have. He was doing a smash-and-run on a drugstore at the time, and he left a clear print there. It's only by a crazy coincidence that I happened to see it and recognize what it was. No one in the department knows, or can know. There's nothing to classify.\"\n\n\"Uh huh.\" Jablonski, supported by knees and one hand, was bent away from Ryan. He resumed stroking.\n\nRyan said, \"Well, what do you think?\"\n\nJablonski finished touching up the spot he was working on with great care. Then he turned over, to sit and look up at Ryan inquisitively. \"What am I supposed to think?\"\n\n\"Well, you know how you\u2014how we planted that dust on his jacket.\"\n\n\"I know Derby's a hood and a killer.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But now you also know he didn't kill the old lady.\"\n\n\"No, I don't. All I know, and all you know, is that a fingerprint looked just like another fingerprint\u2014to you. You're no fingerprint man. And someone says the time was the same. Maybe yes. Maybe no. I haven't seen any proof.\"\n\n\"As far as the time is concerned, I checked that myself this morning. A radio car got there less than two minutes after the drugstore was hit. And there's a million neighbors who heard the old man yell when he ran out into the street. That job was done just when the report said it was done. As for the prints, okay, I'm no fingerprint man. But I've looked at a few and so have you. Want to argue with these?\" The envelope he tossed struck Jablonski's shiny-serge knee.\n\nBut Jablonski did not pick it up. He was looking up at Ryan. Ryan had noticed before that his face was fresher looking and less lined. But now it became dark and vigorous with thought.\n\n\"The department,\" Ryan explained patiently; he did not like this or Jablonski's expression\u2014\"the department actually has Derby's alibi on record and doesn't know it. Nobody knows about it except me\u2014and now you.\"\n\nJablonski said coldly, \"Okay. So what?\"\n\nRyan knew what that meant. He had known it by Jablonski's face before Jablonski said it. But he had to go on, to carry the argument through until it arrived at whatever deadlock it would reach.\n\n\"So Derby's going to the chair,\" he said. \"And we're sending him there. And he's innocent.\"\n\nJablonski, throwing back his head, croaked brief laughter. \"For Christ's sake!\"\n\nRyan felt like an undressed child. It made him mad.\n\n\"Well, damn it, even a lousy hood is entitled to a square shake!\"\n\nJablonski put a finger to his lips. \"Not so loud. Sarah.\"\n\n\"To hell with Sarah!\"\n\n\"Look, Neill. You're young and you're inexperienced in the department, even though you've done great recently. And I don't want to see you hurt yourself now.\"\n\n\"Hurt who?\" Ryan had lived with it too long to be patient any longer. The time had come for anger and indignation and he unleashed them, unconsciously seeking to force the decision that would end it one way or another.\n\nBut Jablonski had spent his life handling anger and indignation. \"Neill, now listen a minute\u2014just a minute. Harry Derby's a hoodlum. He's crooked; it's what's inside him. You ought to know what I mean\u2014you were on the street long enough. He ain't like normal people, that believe in square shakes and giving other guys breaks and so on. He's got a record that\u2014well, he's done almost everything to anyone you can think of. And you know as well as I do that for every time he was arrested doing it, he had done the same thing twenty times more when he wasn't caught. He's an animal, Neill\u2014do you want to turn that loose?\"\n\n\"No, for God's sake.\" Ryan responded to emotion with emotion. \"For heisting the drugstore he should go up for life.\"\n\n\"He had that choice, Neill. He has it now. As you say, he has a perfect, tailor-made alibi. All he's gotta do any time he wants is to say that he was in the drugstore then. Right away he is out of the chair. Well, he made the choice. He's sayin' nothing about the drugstore. And why?\"\n\n\"'Cause he figures to beat the murder rap.\"\n\n\"Sure. He ain't crazy.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"But nothing! Look, Neill. What do you really think you're going to do about it? Let down all our witnesses? Ruin the case against a guy that should have gone up years ago? Give the newspapers another shot at making the department look silly? And what will something like this do to your career?\"\n\n\"I'm not thinking about my career,\" snapped Ryan. \"And God knows I'm no friend of Derby's or the newspapers. But I can't stand around and see a guy burn, no matter how much of a heel he is, when he doesn't have it coming to him.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you think it'll do to my career?\" Jablonski asked quietly. \"I'm on pension, Neill, and I need every nickel right now to swing that grill. That's why we're takin' this old house. But what's going to happen if the department finds out about our case against Derby? What happens to my pension, and my reputation and business? I'm in this as much as you. You ought to remember that. And I'm not as young as you.\"\n\nRyan lit a cigarette. He hadn't thought of it quite that way. But he said, \"Sure you're not as young. That's why I thought you might have the answer. You always said you'd been around a long time.\"\n\n\"Gimme one of them things\u2014my cigars are in my coat. Sure I got the answer. If you'll take it.\"\n\n\"So? What do we do?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"But I tell you\u2014\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Jablonski repeated firmly, and put the cigarette to his lips. \"Until after the trial. Neill, you're forgetting he isn't convicted yet. And he's going to be defended by one of the best criminal lawyers in the business. If he gets off\u2014and he's got a fair chance of that; they always have, what with hung juries and so on\u2014if he gets off, we can forget the whole thing, and nobody's hurt.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but...\"\n\n\"Look, kid. You got excited about this before\u2014remember? When that wild-haired brother of his came to see you? Then you found out for yourself what I told you all along\u2014that he was lying. Take my advice again, won't you? For my sake as well as your own? Wait and see, Neill. You won't gain anything by rushing this thing. And you may lose\u2014we both can lose\u2014a great deal.\"\n\nJablonski's tone was low and confidential, and it was convincing because Ryan half-wanted to believe it. He had outlined a solution that Ryan had hardly given a thought to.\n\n\"Well...yeah.\" Ryan knocked cigarette ashes into his trouser cuff. \"But supposing he's convicted?\"\n\n\"We cross that bridge when we come to it. Jeez, Neill, a million things can happen. You know that.\" Jablonski got to his feet. \"There's nothing you can do now that you can't do later. Hell with this floor. I want you to meet my wife. Let's drive down to the joint and have a beer.\"\n\nThe three of them drove to the Green Lantern in the bartender's car, which Jabby had borrowed. Sarah Jablonski, tall and black-haired, was a surprisingly youthful-looking woman with fierce bright eyes and quick good humor that made Ryan wonder why Jabby had ever bothered with Inez. He also wondered how much Sarah knew about Inez. Probably everything, he decided.\n\nOnce back at the restaurant he protested that he had to get back to Manhattan right away, insisted on walking to the station, and caught an express soon after.\n\nHe sat in the smoker and smoked all the way back to Grand Central. He felt relieved of most of the weight of responsibility that he had carried out to New Rochelle; the decision and the need to act had been postponed for a time at least by Jablonski's eloquence.\n\nBut not merely by his eloquence, Ryan told himself. After all, he did owe Jablonski something\u2014certainly he owed him the chance to let things straighten themselves out, without his own intervention. Jabby's twenty-eight years of plodding still deserved consideration; it was typical of himself to react hotheadedly to any injustice and try to right it. That was what he had done now. But actually that was often the way greater injustices were compounded.\n\nIt was a comforting thought and Ryan extinguished the last flickering anxiety by turning his thoughts deliberately to Gee Gee and the next six hours. What would she be like this time, alone with him? And what would he be like?\n\nRyan had always found girls fairly easy to get along with, except for those he fell in love with. Of those in his twenty-eight years of life there had not been too many, because he did not easily form attachments, although once they were formed they lasted. But Ryan had been almost old enough to vote before he came to realize that while there were some girls you wanted very much to sleep with and others that you fell respectfully in love with, the two were not incompatible but were indeed closely and rightfully associated. Even so, when he met a girl whom he really liked, tensions developed and he felt himself grow shy and awkward. When it was a girl he didn't deeply like, then things went very easily and surely. He felt he was going to be awkward with Gee Gee.\n\nFor not since he was sixteen had he met one like this, a girl whose name even was a honeyed fragrance in his mind. He must be crazy, he thought. He'd only met her once\u2014but she had sounded glad he called, hadn't she? And even dames like that don't want to kick around in nightclubs forever. If they have any sense at all, they want to settle down like everyone else, and have a little apartment and kids after a while...and she had sense all right. That was what he liked about her. Pretty girls were a dime a dozen in this town. But the kind that were also level-headed and could see farther than a mink coat and that somehow you knew were square shooters...\n\nRyan gazed out the window, looking into the tenements mounting above the train as it rushed down to the level of Park Avenue and the tunnel entrance. But those tenements and the dark, dangerously underprivileged hearts that lived there in the Twenty-fifth Precinct, one of the city's toughest, brought back Derby.\n\nAnd that brought back something that had occurred to him before but only tangentially, without real meaning. Now, as the train burst into the tunnel with a gasping roar, he thought of what he should have thought of in arguing with Jablonski. If Derby had committed the drugstore theft, then certainly he deserved to go up for life. But Derby was at least in custody and therefore still at the disposal of the law.\n\nBut the real Connors' murderer was at large and was not even being sought. He had gotten away with it.\n\nEverything in Ryan's policeman's soul shuddered at that. But what was he, the only working cop who knew this, doing about it?\nCHAPTER 12\n\nThe Puerto Rican\n\nRyan chose critically from the shirts his mother had ironed that day, and knotted his tie with precision. It was good to concentrate on unimportant things, and to have a reason for concentrating on them. Putting on his suit he tried not to disturb the creases pressed into it. Then, having arranged a breast-pocket handkerchief, he went into Eleanor's room (after first making sure she and his mother were in the kitchen) to survey the total effect in her long vanity mirror. Ryan decided he looked as good as he could and reminded himself that it was not the world's record.\n\nHe left the house giving his hat the fancy crush and resolving to put Derby out of his mind.\n\nWalking to the I.R.T. station took him past the church and the parish priest's house. Only a single dull light burning behind the Venetian blinds hinted at life inside. Ryan striding the frosty sidewalk passed within a yard of that uninviting window. An adviser on Derby, perhaps? A sanctuary to keep in mind, and rely on if need be? Ryan's mouth made a tight smile. No. Not likely.\n\nHe remembered the time that he and his mother had come here and were closeted with the priest behind that very window. Ryan hadn't been going to church and that troubled his mother. He had agreed to the interview and he still remembered the platitudes and tired admonitions, the meaningless, emotionless words that should have had meaning and emotion. Now he had not gone to church in a long time, and that had become accepted at home. But he and his problem wouldn't be welcome behind that reclusive window.\n\nAt the subway entrance he bought a tabloid and lost himself in the latest doings of caf\u00e9 society.\n\nThe name Hawes did not appear on any of the mailboxes in the hallway of Gee Gee's building. But Haas did. Ryan wisely pushed that button and was gruffly admitted to a second-floor front apartment by an elderly man who had removed the detachable collar from his shirt and the shoes from woolen-socked feet. He said Georgine should be ready in a minute, went back to his chair and continued to stare at a large television set which was portraying the adventures of Sid Caesar.\n\nIgnored, Ryan held his hat and pondered the ways of a world that changes Georgine Haas into Gee Gee Hawes. He did not particularly like Georgine as a name, just as he did not like the heavy scent of cooking in here, or the large oval family portraits that had been hung in Old World style high up near the ceiling, or this grizzled walrus who presumably was her father and didn't even have the courtesy\u2014\n\nThen she was standing there, in the same coat and carrying with her the same faint scent, a perfume of aromatic dryness, and pressing new gloves on over her fingers, smiling \"Sorry to keep you waiting,\" her eyes as deep and large and somehow inviting as he had remembered they were. He got up and dropped his hat and said, \"Hi.\"\n\nShe gestured to her father, \"Guess you've met\u2014'bye, Pops,\" and went to the door. Ryan followed, muttering, \"Good night.\" Only Sid Caesar answered him.\n\nIn the hall the cooking smell was strong. Gee Gee wrinkled her nose. \"I'd never have let you pick me up here if I didn't think you were a nice, sane guy,\" she said.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nA shinily gloved forefinger made a disdainful arc around the stairwell. \"Usually I meet dates somewhere else. There are a lot of people I don't want to have know that my old man's a night watchman, and that I support the family\u2014as much as I can.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's anything to bother about one way or the other.\"\n\n\"Neither do I. But some people do, especially in show business. You're supposed to live at the Waldorf and eat at Twenty One.\"\n\nThey had reached the street. \"Speaking of which,\" he said.\n\n\"Speaking of which.\" She laughed and took his arm with the ease of one accustomed to taking arms. \"I'm starved. You'll learn not to ask me out to dinner, Neill.\"\n\nRyan laughed too, and was emboldened. \"That'll take a long time. Where would you like to go? Pick one you really like.\" His wallet contained almost eighty dollars; he had counted it just before dressing.\n\n\"How about Chinese food?\"\n\nRyan did not especially like Chinese food. He said, \"Well, if that's what you'd like,\" without enthusiasm. It did not occur to him that she could have said that because she knew Chinese restaurants were inexpensive.\n\n\"I really don't care. Maybe chow mein isn't the thing at that. You name one.\"\n\nThey had reached the corner. Ryan named several, all of them expensive. That was how he felt.\n\nGee Gee looked her surprise. \"You must have got a bonus for catching that Derby,\" she said lightly.\n\nHe'd got a bonus all right.\n\nShe saw in his face that it had been the wrong thing to say. \"How do you like the Blue Ribbon?\" she asked quickly. \"I think their food is awfully good.\"\n\nThis time Ryan grinned, shrugged off his irritation and waved an approaching cab to the curb.\n\nThey ate oysters and roast duck and got to know each other better. Gee Gee paid an escort the compliment of being neither coy nor arch with him, nor yet determinedly the professional dancer. Instead she was forthright and relaxingly unassuming, as though she felt Ryan was the same sort of person. The effect on Ryan was overwhelming and happily narcotic.\n\nHe insisted she select something from the huge, tempting pastry tray over her protests about her figure and her job, and he told her she had nothing to worry about with such obvious sincerity that Gee Gee, who was used to compliments, was stirred. They got on well, and when she remarked idly that after such a meal there was nothing like an espresso Ryan instantly suggested taking a taxi down to one of the little Italian coffee shops in the Village. It was an extravagant gesture and Gee Gee, embarrassed because she had never intended to suggest that, protested again. But Ryan looked so disappointed that she gave in.\n\nIn the cab they sat quite close together and Gee Gee asked questions about his job, and Ryan answered them, meanwhile dismissing a temptation to try putting his arm even ever so lightly around her shoulders.\n\n\"What's it really like?\" she asked. \"Being a detective, I mean. I know it's not like in the movies and so on. You don't get cases like that Derby one often, do you?\"\n\n\"Not often,\" said Ryan, and knew he had let irony edge his voice. \"Most of the time it's routine, little things you run down day after day. A lot of it is taking over after a uniform man has made an arrest and developing information, motives and such to use in court. You don't run around with a magnifying glass making deductions.\" It made him a little bitter.\n\nBut she was genuinely interested. \"Then what do you use? Handcuffs and a gun?\"\n\n\"Mostly your feet,\" Ryan grinned. \"And sometimes your head. Handcuffs, sure, when you're making a collar\u2014arresting someone. Never your gun if you can avoid it. That's the last resort.\"\n\nShe said, \"Uh huh,\" understandingly in the cab's warm darkness but he knew she did not understand what that meant at all. How many civilians did? She went on, \"I guess it's like show business. Everybody who's not in it thinks it's glamorous and exciting every night. But it's routine, too. Except for the opening nights\u2014I guess they are like the nights when you arrest someone like Derby.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He could never get completely away from it. So why try? \"Derby's something special, all right.\"\n\n\"Derby is? Was, I'd say.\" She sensed this was dangerous ground from his voice, but she had the feminine impudence born of knowing she was liked. Anyway, what was eating him? \"Derby's all taken care of\u2014remember?\" she said.\n\nBut Ryan could not respond to her lightness.\n\nShe had not expected him to keep looking like that. She said contritely, \"I just remembered Ed emphasizing that night how you two had taken care of Derby.\"\n\nRyan recognized the need for getting away from this. \"Sure,\" he said. \"That's right. Derby's all washed up. And speaking of that let me tell you something that happened one night down on South Street.\"\n\nBut telling the oft-told anecdote, he could not help wondering if she was looking at him a little oddly, and just how friendly she was with Jack Sandalwood, and how often she saw him. And whether she ever had repeated what Jablonski had said that night.\n\n* * * *\n\nIn the coffee shop they sipped black, deliciously bitter coffee drawn from a monstrous hissing machine and sprayed with oil from a sliver of lemon zest. Afterward they went out into the cold black night and walked through Washington Square, past a few hardy oldsters still playing chess by lantern light, and other, darker benches with occupants silent or murmurous. They did not say much, but she took his arm and they walked through the shadowy park content with each other's company and with the awareness that the other was content too.\n\nThey walked a long time, past show windows filled with impossible lamps, best-sellers or copies of last month's Paris originals. Once she murmured, \"You know, Neill, you're an awfully restful guy to spend an evening with,\" and looking quickly, Ryan saw her eyes were closed even while walking and yet she was smiling.\n\nJeez, thought Ryan. He wasn't thinking of Derby now.\n\nThey walked a long time like that.\n\n* * * *\n\nHe knew the Village pretty well, but after an hour he found they were on one of those little side streets that angled-off another street, and he knew he had taken a wrong turn. It was dark and empty and Gee Gee said, \"Golly, where are we?\" Ryan said he had pulled a boner, but that at the next corner they should be able to see where...\n\nShe pressed a little closer to him in this dark uncertainty, and Ryan put his arm around her waist\u2014how slender, even encased in that thick coat!\u2014and doing that was not surprising to him at all, or remarkable, but natural, and he pulled her closer to him and she raised her face. He started to find her lips...\n\nHe saw the movement only as a flash of furtive white, a something on the left that instinctively pulled him from her, and then the man was there, crouched, menacing, barefoot, although not registering immediately in Ryan's consciousness despite the white shirt and snarling brown face, his left hand holding high a clean knife.\n\nIt was impossible.\n\nBut the little man, legs braced wide, knife high, screamed, \"Hello, whore man!\" and rushed at them, head down, knife reversed for an upward belly thrust.\n\nRyan pushed her behind him as the man leaped forward, head low like a tackier in football, knife wavering up. Ryan kicked hurriedly and his overcoat spoiled his aim. His toe grazed the other's thigh, and turned him but did not stop him.\n\nRyan grabbed for the knife as he came in, missed, grabbed wildly again, caught the man's wrist and twisted it. A knee pumped up and caught him, but his right arm lay across the man's upturned face and he pushed it down, bending the man's head back. Then he lost his balance and felt himself falling. He scraped desperately for footing and went over the curb, stumbled into the street and went down on a knee and saw something leaping. Gee Gee screamed; he did not hear her.\n\nHe rolled and made the knife-man almost miss with his leap. Ryan found his pistol even with the man partly on top of him. He pulled it out and shoved it into the brown, intent face and the knife-man incredibly opened a snarling mouth and bit down on the pistol's short barrel, yanking with his teeth. He's crazy, Ryan realized. You don't use your gun on a mental case.\n\nLight came from somewhere although Ryan would remember sensing that only later. Gee Gee screamed again. Ryan wondered if he would ultimately have to shoot, and if so how he might make sure of hitting the right shoulder.\n\nHe saw the knife flash suddenly and he gathered strength from somewhere (a taxi horn honked) to push up with arm and body and knees. The little man toppled sideways and for the first time Ryan managed a punch. It was only with his left hand, and it hit the man's face, still holding the gun in his mouth, but did not dislodge him. The knife started flashing again and he had to let go the gun to grab that arm. He didn't stop it entirely because he felt something graze his chin even though he was holding the man's arms while he wrestled like a maddened monkey, sitting on Ryan, holding the gun in his crazed mouth.\n\nA shape stood over them. \"Take the gun,\" Ryan gasped and she bent over and wrested the pistol from the man's jaws. Ryan arched his back and moved him a little, then in desperation let go one writhing wrist to swing at the vague face. The punch landed and the man went sideways and Ryan rolled over and kicked him and then, on his knees, punched him again. Someone said, \"Hey, for God's sake!\" and there was more light and the knife's blade glittered on the black asphalt. Ryan grabbed for it.\n\nSo did the little brown-faced man and she entreated, \"Here, here,\" and handed him his pistol. He put it on the man who still lunged forward on his knees, fingers clawing for the knife, and Ryan got up and kicked again and this time he caught the knife-man in the stomach which was what he had intended the first time and the man flew back.\n\nA voice said, \"Listen, Buster, that ain't no way to fight.\"\n\nFor the first time he looked beyond the range of his assailant. Two taxicabs had stopped in the street, their headlights illuminating the scene. A big, fat driver whose belly had burst his pants was looking outrage at Ryan.\n\nRyan pulled out his badge. \"Under arrest,\" he said with thick meaninglessness and went to the brown-faced man. He searched the man and found he was naked under his pants and bloodied shirt.\n\n\"You,\" said Ryan to the cab driver. \"There's a call box up on the corner. Tell them to send a radio car here right away.\"\n\nGee Gee looked at him, her face white and her eyes haunted. \"Jesus,\" she said. \"Your chin.\"\n\nIt was bleeding.\n\nOnly after the first radio car got there and dozens of neighbors had come down into the street did someone go up to the knife-man's apartment in the house opposite. They discovered his wife and two babies were dead, their throats slashed as they slept. He was a Puerto Rican busboy in an uptown hotel, the neighbors said, who had lost his job three days before.\n\nSeveral of them had seen the fight, or the latter part of it, from their windows, and had seen Gee Gee wrest the gun from the madman's jaws. When the reporters came they were eager to talk. When Ryan and Gee Gee, after his scratched chin had been treated in a nearby admitting room, appeared at the local precinct station, they were photographed together. Finally he took her home, apologizing for the melodrama, embarrassed by the evening's ending and still seeing the knife flashing down. He didn't try to kiss her.\n\nBut next day New York read the news, straight from the dark, greasy pavement of Barrow Street:\n\nHERO COP NABS BABY SLASHER\n\nAnd under its headline one paper added:\n\nDANCER HELPS MAKE ARREST\nCHAPTER 13\n\nThe Empty Passage\n\nThe capture of Derby had made Ryan a one-day hero, but when he returned to work now it was as a celebrity. To the newspapers the combination of show girl, young cop and maniacal killer was a perfect one, and they made the most of it. At a time when the department was under general opprobrium Ryan seemed to be proving singlehandedly that a policeman could be as capable, alert and humane as the most indignant Constant Reader could wish, and the very newspapers that had devoted lead editorials to the rising crime rate now spent flattering front-page space on the work of an unknown rookie. One editorial compared him to the almost legendary Johnny Broderick, and Winchell's Girl Friday column asked, \"Why don't they call rookie detective Ryan Rockie instead?\"\n\nRyan felt the difference among his associates. Technically, he was still a beginner, but only technically. Now in some subtle yet palpable way he had acquired importance and weight. Even the older men in the station house treated him with the grudging respect of envied prestige. That was pleasant, but to Ryan it sometimes seemed his progress had been too rapid to be healthy, a suspicion heightened by the haunting awareness of what would happen if the truth about Derby got out.\n\nAs the opening of Derby's trial drew near, Ryan found himself waking up nights in unrecallable fear, and his daytime thoughts turned often to his father.\n\nWhat would he have thought?\n\n* * * *\n\nLate one wintry afternoon Ryan found himself in Carmine Street.\n\nHe did not try to analyze what had led him there after a routine day's work; he simply knew he wanted to be there.\n\nBut after he turned into the thoroughfare his mind flooded with the remembered scent of carnations and roses that had filled their home then. And with the huge black case in the living room, his father motionless in it, and the ride to the church, his mother in unfamiliar black; a neighbor had kept Eleanor. And all the policemen who had been there that day in uniform.\n\n\"Do you remember him, Neill?\" his mother sometimes asked. \"Really remember him, I mean?\"\n\nA man so enormously tall that the silver shield on the heavy blue uniform was always out of your reach, even on tiptoe. A good-humored man who liked to play and swing you around and carried a rosary in his hip pocket. No, he couldn't really see him. The living memory of his father had been distorted by the photographs kept in honored places in the living room and on his mother's bureau. Yet he did remember him, and vividly. Not as a physical being but as a kindly benevolence, a refuge of understanding and admiration, who had been something to him that no one else could ever be.\n\n\"Of course,\" he would say. \"Of course I remember him.\"\n\nHe had come here before when he was sixteen. Rummaging through his mother's bureau for a handkerchief one day, he had come upon the envelope of old, crisp news clippings, and had read with sickening shock that pressed tight tears to his eyes what had happened to his father.\n\nSergeant O'Neill Ryan had been investigating collusion between a lieutenant in a downtown precinct and a gang of young burglars, and he had caused the arrest of three of them as well as suspension of the lieutenant. Some days later he had been lured\u2014how was never learned\u2014into a dark passage between buildings on Carmine Street at night, and two groups of hoodlums had started down it from either end.\n\nAs he lay dying on an operating table, drooling blood, one eye sightless, he had described or named five of the seven attackers. It had taken the department years to hunt them down. Two had died in the electric chair, two were in Dannemora and one was dead, shot in a holdup after serving his time. The other two were wanted to this day, and the revolver that Sergeant O'Neill Ryan had carried and fired three shots from that night was still preserved for ballistics tests in the police headquarters annex, in case one of the slugs ever turned up in a prisoner or in a corpse. The case would never be closed as long as there was a chance of one of them being alive.\n\nIt had been a warm, pale spring day when he was last here, a solemn boy of sixteen. Yet even with only the matter-of-fact words of the news clippings for clues, he had heard the foot scuffles of desperate defense, the thud of blows, the groans of the fallen man, the kicks and gouges and then the dying echo of coward feet. For months after he had daydreamed of meeting them, all of them, and beating them into bloody slime.\n\nNow the after-knowledge of twelve more mature years, four of them spent in police work, peopled that short passage with a more authentic cast. He knew how the snarls of vicious laughter had sounded to his father, and the eager curses; he felt the overwhelming strength of cowardice and sadism. That was the voice and posture of the other side, the gaudy, boastful, frightened army that every cop faced and fought not because a cop was innately heroic, but because he was instinctively the kind of person who likes order and fairness, and fights for them.\n\nNow he again found the old, thin wood door to the passage and swung it open. He stood a long time looking at where his father had been assaulted and at the new cement that paved the place. Formerly there had been bricks.\n\nHe could feel nothing, and the remembered twinges of old anguish were like the pinks of toy arrows. That disconcerted him. He did not know what he should feel or wanted to feel.\n\nBut certainly not this empty melancholy, this lack of meaning. What, he asked as he surveyed the scene, had his father's death accomplished\u2014for anyone, his father, the city, even the hoodlums who had caused it? He let the door swing to with a quiet hush. What had his father's death ever meant?\n\nAs he walked up Bleecker Street the storefronts and grocery trays were as unfamiliar as the slopes of another planet, cold, lifeless, dead, to which he had somehow been transported, a solitary inhabitant.\nCHAPTER 14\n\nFarragut\n\nA railing separated the spectators from the official part of the courtroom where the judge's bench, the clerks, press, bailiffs and counsel tables were, and just within the compound thus created a row of chairs ran from one side of the room to the other. Ryan sat in one of them, staring down at well-polished black shoes, aware of the blue-centered detective's shield he wore on his lapel as required, trying to forget the impatience that gnawed at him. The jury had been selected on Friday; yesterday had been devoted to motions and the opening statements of the assistant district attorney and defense counsel. None of these held anything unusual, although when the judge asked whether either side wanted the witnesses excluded from the courtroom, pending their turn on the stand, Assistant District Attorney Gil Tilbury said he didn't care and Farragut had said, \"No, your honor,\" rather emphatically. But no one paid particular attention to it at the time.\n\nBut that was why on Tuesday, the day on which Ryan had been told to be on hand, he and Jablonski could sit together in the courtroom, instead of lounging in the judge's chamber or a witness room. They were both to testify mainly about Derby's arrest and what he had said at the time and how they had found the murder gun. Ryan was desperately anxious to get it over with.\n\nBut Farragut was cross-examining with great leisureliness a medical witness who had testified about Mrs. Connors' injuries. Apparently he was trying to prove that the blow across her face could have been delivered by a woman as well as a man, and by either a right-or left-handed person. The courtroom was silent and bored as Farragut pursued his questions steadily, mechanically. He was dawdling, for a sound purpose perhaps, but still wasting time and Ryan hated him. He looked backward over his shoulder at the spectators.\n\nVacant stretches gaped among the long benches. Not much excitement was offered by the certain conviction of an habitual criminal. There was the usual assortment of housewives, some wearing glistening Christmas ornaments like corsages on cheap cloth coats, and shabby old men to whom the trial meant warmth and possibly entertainment, and a few teen-agers. These were The People on whose unknowing behalf the county in which they lived was moving with lethal intent against Harry Derby.\n\nIn the corridors outside The People lounged and talked, cursed and smoked, spat and hoped. But within this high, paneled, punctilious chamber that was the size of a gymnasium, their ordinary conduct wavered and died. Rules were observed and conventions honored in ignorant abstraction. A uniformed officer came forward occasionally to demand loudly, \"Quiet, please,\" or, \"Take off your hat!\" and the spectators withdrew into themselves and watched and waited without expression. Derby, in a plain blue suit and white shirt, sprawled leanly at the counsel table, frowned and played endlessly with a yellow pencil. Ryan, wishing it were over, tightened his jaws until little hollows appeared under his cheekbones. Jablonski came back from coffee, grinning, and sank beside Ryan with a sigh. Then Ryan's ranging, anxious gaze saw a newcomer settle himself at the little table that accommodated the reporters. He had a young face topped by short-cropped, prematurely gray hair. This time he wore a tie and brightly shined black loafers with tassels instead of bedroom slippers.\n\nSandalwood had arrived. Sandalwood was covering the trial.\n\nThe little hollows under his cheekbones made Ryan momentarily gaunt. Why was he here?\n\nThe scientist from the police laboratory who had performed the spectroscopic analysis of the dust on Derby's jacket was now on the stand, replying to Tilbury's direct examination with hands-in-lap composure. Farragut, frowning, lay in wait at the table. Derby balanced the yellow pencil on his finger. Sandalwood borrowed a few sheets of copy paper from another reporter, yawned and took out a ball-point pen. Ryan forced himself to think of Gee Gee and how she had looked last night.\n\nHe had dropped unannounced into the night club. Three girls' names were billed outside; hers was not one of them. He had stood at the bar, hoping to watch the show from there, but almost immediately someone he took to be the manager deferentially asked him to sit at a table and while he was refusing the cigarette girl came up and said Miss Hawes wanted to see him in the dressing room. There had been four girls there, one a dancer he had just watched finish her act. She was toweling sweat-caked powder from an almost bare body. The other three girls wore short smocks carelessly; one was Gee Gee, who put down a Mirror, opened to Winchell's column, rose, clutched her smock and said, \"Hi, Neill,\" with friendly cordiality. The smock showed Gee Gee's fine long legs; that, and the wise inquiring eyes of the other girl, black-edged with mascara, made Ryan self-conscious. He had seen his share of undressed girls but there was an impudent flaunting in this... He said something about going out between shows, and he was a little relieved when she said she could not leave the club and so gave him an excuse for an early departure.\n\nA ballistics man stepped down from the stand after testifying that his examination proved the bullet that had killed Mrs. Connors came from Derby's gun.\n\n\"Edmund Jablonski,\" a clerk bawled, and Ryan came back to reality. Jablonski got up, nudging him confidently.\n\nHe was on the stand only fifteen minutes. He told the story of how they had spotted Derby, tailed and arrested him, and identified the revolver and checked jacket. He testified that when they first seized him Derby had said something about \"killing the old dame\" or words like that, but had later turned sullen and finally attacked him. He gave copious credit to Ryan for coming to his rescue and said nothing about a hundred dollar bill. Then Tilbury said, \"Cross-examine,\" and looked at Farragut. But Farragut waved a thick hand carelessly.\n\n\"No questions,\" said Farragut, and Tilbury looked a little surprised.\n\nTo Ryan things looked brighter. Jablonski had told the main part of the story. His role obviously would be that of corroborating witness. When the clerk called \"Officer Ryan\" he stepped to the stand and placidly raised his right hand, confident he could forget about Sandalwood.\n\nWith careless ease Tilbury ran him through many of the same questions Jablonski had already answered and Ryan replied to them readily, keeping eyes and ears trained on the tall, elegant assistant district attorney. Tilbury concluded quickly. Then Farragut lumbered forward for cross-examination, and Ryan got his first close look at Derby's famous lawyer.\n\nAbsalom Farragut had a wide, graceless body which he draped in baggy, unassuming suits, high old-fashioned collars and string ties, especially designed according to courtroom legend to impress juries with his genial commonality. His face was a granite slab that could relax into a wide, homely smile or become a black pattern of outrage as Farragut chose, and the shock of hair above it was still more brown than gray at the age of sixty-two. Now he pulled back his coat to thrust a big thumb in the belt of his trousers and began addressing Ryan with the good nature of an old man dealing with a brash neophyte.\n\n\"You've been a detective less than a year, I believe, Mr. Ryan?\"\n\n'That is right.\"\n\n\"Less than six months perhaps?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Less even than three months?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nFarragut smiled benignly for the jury. \"You are in fact a rookie\u2014eh, Mr. Ryan?\"\n\nRyan felt rather than heard the courtroom's amusement. He flushed. \"Yes, sir.\" He looked around. At the press table Sandalwood was bent over a doodle.\n\n\"So when you and your partner, Mr. Jablonski, arrested Harry Derby it was Jablonski who was in charge of the...ah...detective team do you call it?\"\n\nRyan knew that Farragut was well aware of what they called it. He said, \"That is correct.\"\n\n\"And so during that operation you naturally did everything that Jablonski told you to do?\"\n\nOut of the corner of his mind Ryan barely sensed Tilbury springing volubly to his feet. He mumbled, \"No, not...\" but no one heard that, not even himself. A dreadful chasm had opened up before him. Farragut knew everything and was laying for him. That was why he had not wanted the witnesses excluded! He had wanted Ryan to see what an easy time Jablonski would have of it, and thus be lulled into a false security. But he was not going to have an easy time of it! He was the carefully-selected victim. Farragut was standing on the opposite side of the chasm that had suddenly opened up and was beckoning him on irresistibly.\n\nThere was a wrangle over Tilbury's objection while Ryan felt his neck grow damply cold within his shirt collar. Then Farragut pressed in again from a different angle, and Ryan began answering questions that brought out the physical layout of the room in which they had arrested Derby, and narrated how they had done it.\n\n\"Then you searched him?\"\n\n\"That is right.\"\n\n\"What did you find?\"\n\nRyan enumerated the list of belongings as he remembered it.\n\n\"How much money was that again, Mr. Ryan?\" A thick tongue circled Farragut's thick lips anticipatorily.\n\n\"He had around ten dollars in small bills and change in his pocket.\"\n\n\"And in his wallet? Did you examine his wallet?\"\n\nNow he was getting it. \"I did.\"\n\n\"And how much money did you find in it?\"\n\nUntil this instant Ryan had never, finally, decided what he was going to say if that question were asked him under oath. Now he answered it without deciding. \"It did not contain any money.\"\n\nFor the first time Sandalwood's head raised.\n\n\"You knew the loot in the robbery was one hundred and twenty dollars, did you not?\"\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"And you wanted to find that money?\"\n\n\"Naturally.\"\n\n\"Answer yes or no, please,\" ordered Farragut.\n\nThe judge interjected, \"And louder, witness. Raise your voice.\"\n\nRyan took a breath. \"Yes. I wanted to find the money.\"\n\nSandalwood's expression was quizzical.\n\n\"Did you ask the defendant what he had done with it?\" Farragut went on.\n\nHere it was again. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\n\"Objection.\" Tilbury rose again. \"I submit, your honor, that all this is irrelevant and immaterial. The people readily admit that the hundred dollar bill has not been found. The...ah...purpose of these questions\u2014\"\n\n\"Your honor,\" Farragut broke in ponderously, \"I should like to enlighten young Mister Tilbury if I may. These questions have a definite purpose. Because they help to lay the foundation of the defense's contention that the defendant, Harry Derby, was framed.\"\n\nRyan looked down. His palms were wet. His lungs could not get enough air. The chasm had become a bottomless pit, and he, teetering on the edge of it, was losing his balance.\n\nTilbury chuckled superciliously. The judge told Farragut to proceed.\n\n\"Mr. Ryan, what did my client say when you asked him about the hundred dollars?\"\n\n\"He didn't say anything.\"\n\n\"He didn't answer your question?\"\n\n\"That is right.\"\n\nWhat could he say?\n\n\"Louder, witness!\"\u2014from above.\n\nRyan was near panic.\n\n\"Both you and your partner,\" said Farragut, his voice rising to thunder, \"have testified that Harry Derby admitted he had killed Mrs. Connors\u2014'killed the old lady' or 'old dame' or some such phrase. Now do you say that he refused to tell you what he did with the proceeds of that robbery?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nBut the words came out better than he could have hoped, and somewhere in his subconscious there sounded a welcome echo of another conversation about this. \"I think you should realize,\" Said Ryan, looking up, and for a moment his eyes met Sandalwood's, \"that we were arresting an armed criminal who in a minute or two jumped\u2014attacked my partner. We\u2014we didn't have time to\u2014well, stage a debate with him. Our main idea was to get him into the station.\"\n\nEven before he finished speaking he felt he was saving himself, that his words had the simple ring of truth.\n\nThe veteran Farragut recognized it too. He waved the answer aside carelessly as though it were of no importance. But in a courtroom everything Farragut said or did was of importance.\n\n\"You referred to Derby just now as an armed criminal. Was he armed, Mr. Ryan?\"\n\n\"His gun was hanging on a nail near the door. That's the gun that ballistics\u2014\"\n\n\"Never mind, Mr. Ryan. Just answer the questions I ask, please. Derby did not have a revolver or any other weapon on his person when you broke into his room.\"\n\n\"We didn't break in.\"\n\nFarragut gave the jury his cracked-granite smile. \"He certainly didn't invite you in.\" Again he waved the subject into inconsequence. \"In any case, Derby\u2014so you say\u2014attacked your partner.\"\n\n\"That is right.\"\n\n\"Why, Mr. Ryan? Why? Why did an unarmed man charge into two men he knew were armed? Were you taunting him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Were you giving him the so-called third degree?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"By that, of course, I mean torturing him, to make him\u2014\"\n\nTilbury cried, \"Objection!\" and Ryan said, \"You know that's not so.\"\n\nFarragut did not even wait for the judge to uphold the objection.\n\n\"Then I can only conclude,\" he said smoothly, \"that the reason my client allegedly attacked Jablonski is because Jablonski got too close to him, and in some way or other goaded Harry Derby unbearably to attack him. Right?\"\n\n\"There was no goading, aside from the kind of talk that goes on when you arrest a hoodlum,\" said Ryan. \"Perhaps Jablonski got close\u2014but remember your client, as you call him, knew that this arrest meant the electric chair.\"\n\n\"Never mind that, witness,\" said Farragut sharply. \"In any case when Derby leaped for Jablonski they closed with each other and wrestled. Right?\"\n\n\"If you call kicking a man in the stomach wrestling. That's what your client did to Jablonski.\"\n\n\"But you had a gun, eh? Yet you didn't fire?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because for a second they were too close together.\"\n\n\"They were too close together.\" Farragut relished the words and looked down the jury's rows. \"Too close together. They were in fact locked in a hand-to-hand struggle, were they not, Mr. Ryan?\"\n\n\"Well, for a second or so.\"\n\n\"So. For a second or so, you say. Very good. Now then, Mr. Ryan.\" Farragut spoke rapidly, like a man in a state of unnatural excitement, and Ryan recognized that he was approaching some goal. \"Both you and Jablonski were on hand at the scene of the murder earlier. And of course you handled the smashed lamp.\"\n\n\"Of course we did not.\"\n\n\"You did not handle pieces of the lamp?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Nor Jablonski?\"\n\n\"Objection\u2014\" from Tilbury. \"Mr. Jablonski is on hand to testify for himself.\"\n\n\"Sustained.\"\n\n\"But you did not handle the lamp, Ryan?\" No polite \"mister\" now; Farragut's quick, low voice was beginning to cut and tear.\n\n\"Objection, please the court. The witness has answered the question once. Besides, Mr. Farragut's questions have no real bearing\u2014\"\n\n\"Mr. Farragut's questions,\" Farragut thundered impressively, \"are going to show that the dust from the lamp which was presumably found on my client's work-jacket could actually have been placed there artificially.\"\n\nHe was addressing the court. But for a fleet second he fastened triumphant, squinting green eyes on Ryan.\n\nRyan's face went hot.\n\nThis was how it really was. Farragut knew everything, and had purposely passed up Jablonski as too experienced, gambling on Ryan, the rookie, to be more easily tripped. Farragut was betting his client's life that he could make Ryan stumble into the chasm.\n\n\"What does counsel mean by 'artificially'?\" asked the judge with interest.\n\n\"Well, since both these officers were at the scene, and might be presumed to have handled the physical evidence there even if they do not recall having done so, it is the contention of the defense, your honor, that their clothing might have received some of the dust in question\u2014become impregnated, so to speak. And if so, it is not impossible that during a hand-to-hand struggle such as has been described between Harry Derby and Detective Jablonski it is also possible that minute quantities of dust might have been transferred from Jablonski's clothing to my client's. I should like to remind your honor that the spectroscope is an extraordinarily sensitive instrument\u2014\"\n\n\"Counsel will confine himself to proper cross-examination.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, your honor,\" said Farragut contritely, but he was a cat with cream on its face. The idea had been implanted in the jury's minds.\n\n\"I asked a moment ago, Mr. Ryan, if you had handled the lamp or any pieces of it,\" he went on. \"Of course, I realize that in the excitement and tension of a murder investigation\u2014your first, I believe\u2014I realize it is possible you might do something and forget having done so later. Consequently, I am going to ask you whether it is not possible that you might have, say, picked up a fragment or two of the broken lamp and forgotten it afterwards?\"\n\nHe looked brightly at Ryan, smiling a pursed-lip knowing smile.\n\nRyan had to look away. In the rush of fear that engulfed him like turbulent surf he could not think consecutively. He felt physically off balance as though he might pitch out of the witness chair, and he sensed Sandalwood's gaze on him like a hot, probing lance. He groped wildly for escape.\n\n\"Will you search your memory, please?\" Farragut went on with smooth rapidity. \"Don't you feel it is possible that you might have\u2014\"\n\nRyan shook his head. He looked toward Tilbury for help, as a boxer looks to his corner. But Tilbury was not looking at him. In the front row of spectators there was a patrician blond girl in a lavish mink coat, smiling brightly and making little finger motions at Tilbury, and he, lounging back in his chair, was nodding understanding at her. His socks and tie were both of the same blue and white checks.\n\n\"Why are you sure neither you nor Jablonski handled any piece of the lamp? How can you\u2014\"\n\nIt was almost impossible to pull himself back to Farragut's truculent face, the eyes pinched 'round with tight wrinkles of flesh.\n\nWhy didn't Tilbury...?\n\n\"No,\" he said lowly.\n\n\"What did you say, Ryan?\"\n\n\"Louder, witness.\"\n\nAgain he ranged the courtroom. Sandalwood was frowning intently at him. Jablonski's face was a black-and-white scrawl of fear, a caricature of terror.\n\n\"No!\"\n\nFarragut leaped in with tiger quickness. \"Supposing I were to tell you that a beer can was found in the room which also had traces of dust\u2014dust from the lamp. Would you say\u2014\"\n\nRyan did not hear the rest of it.\n\nThis was the end. Farragut had him.\n\nHe looked beseechingly toward Tilbury. The court was also looking at Tilbury, expecting an objection.\n\n\"Answer, witness,\" cried Farragut, and Ryan brought his white face up to confront the green-eyed sneer. Tilbury turned suddenly, uncomprehendingly, back to the cross-examination.\n\nA low whistle sounded in the courtroom. Ryan knew what it meant. He was dead; there were other sounds, a rising murmur like a boxing audience makes when one of the fighters begins to lurch into unconsciousness.\n\nThere came another whistle. The judge's gavel banged; he had to answer. Ryan's wet hands twisted. He looked up; the murmur was louder. And then, dumbfounded, he finally realized that no one in the courtroom was looking at him except Farragut. And Sandalwood.\n\nFor a tall, marvelously shapely girl with a wealth of auburn hair under a chic low-brimmed hat was coming down the center aisle, followed by a short, slick-haired man in a bright blue suit who carried a polo coat and seemed trying not to smile. The girl's expression was grave until she saw Ryan; then she smiled and waved at him. Her lips were masterpieces of curved lipstick and when she loosened her tightly cinched coat, before seating herself on a front bench, it was with an intimate, revealing air that drew another wolf whistle. The gavel banged ineffectually, two reporters hurried out the side door to telephone the city desk for photographers, and half the courtroom immediately recognized Gee Gee Hawes. Sandalwood smiled indolently at her across the intervening space.\n\nIt had taken less than twenty seconds for her to enter and be seated with the nightclub manager who accompanied her. But that was enough to save Ryan and to ruin Farragut.\n\n\"I had asked you,\" said Farragut loudly, trying to recapture the spell he had woven, \"if you were aware\u2014\" But the court interrupted. \"I must remind you, Mr. Farragut, that your question is completely unsupported by any testimony and therefore improper. I will ask the witness and especially the jury to disregard it and its implications.\"\n\nRyan was a drowning man finding dry earth under his feet.\n\nGee Gee smiled at him. The nightclub manager, whose idea this visit had been, tried to appear nonchalant when a reporter asked them to hang around after for an interview. Presently they went out to be photographed, while Farragut returned to the attack with all the irritation of one who knows his chance has slipped. He had led carefully and dramatically up to that last question, hoping it would force a confused, damaging admission. Gee Gee's entrance had wrecked his effect. Now Ryan answered his questions cagily and steadily.\n\nAfter a dozen more Farragut gave up.\n\nTilbury quickly paraded the three women witnesses to the stand and all three, with just enough uncertainty to make their testimony convincing, identified Derby. Court adjourned.\n\nThe girl in mink rose at once, beaming, and flung herself at Tilbury. \"Oh, darling, you were wonderful.\"\n\nHe petted her affectionately. \"Wonderful, nothing,\" he said. \"If they were all as easy as this I'd be ashamed to accept my salary.\"\n\n* * * *\n\nFlashbulbs were still firing in the corridor when Ryan and Jablonski reached it and people were looking at Gee Gee and asking \"Who's that? Who is she?\" as she stood amid the reporters. Her eyes were bright and she was smiling.\n\nSandalwood was at one side talking to the nightclub manager. As he and Jablonski passed Ryan heard Sandalwood joking, \"Max, you really ought to be ashamed of yourself. Anything for publicity, eh?\" Ryan did not look at Sandalwood.\n\nThen Gee Gee caught sight of him and waved and blew Ryan a kiss, and a photographer asked her to do that again. Ryan waved back and pointed to his wrist watch, meaning he had to go; he did not want to get mixed up in that, or have to answer Sandalwood's questions. \"I'll call you,\" he yelled, and she nodded and blew the kiss the photographer asked for. She did it several times.\n\n\"Boy, what a dame,\" said Jablonski as they went down the stairs. \"You know what I think? I think you're darned lucky, Neill.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what I think,\" said Ryan bitterly. \"I think this guy's going to be convicted.\"\n\n\"Wait and see, Neill, wait and see,\" said Jablonski. \"That's all I ask.\"\n\n* * * *\n\nBut when court resumed next day it was not Farragut but his bespectacled young assistant, McCormick, who took over the defense of Harry Derby. Farragut, it was announced, had suffered a heart attack the previous evening and must rest for at least two months. Courtroom veterans smiled. This was Farragut's surrender. It was his boast that no Farragut client had ever been executed in his thirty years of practice, and he knew he could not save Derby. So instead he had had a heart attack, and now it was a McCormick client that would go to the chair.\n\nThree days later after an almost pathetically weak defense the case went to the jury, which deliberated forty-five minutes and then returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree without recommendation of mercy. That made a death sentence mandatory.\nCHAPTER 15\n\nThe Phone Call\n\nRyan had the day tour on the day Derby was sentenced so he could not get downtown to hear it, even if he'd wanted to. But he read about it after work, standing at a bar bustling with the hurly-burly of day's end. He had ordered a whisky before he opened the pink sports final, and he drank it straight. The paper did not devote much space to the Derby story, but Ryan was able to reconstruct it in his mind's eye as he sipped the chaser.\n\nThere was the loosening of the handcuffs, the leading of the tall, thin man around in front of the judge, the dry recital of the facts and reading of probation reports. \"I therefore direct that you, Harry Derby, be transported to the slate prison of New York at Ossining and there be executed in accordance with the laws of the State and at the discretion of the warden some time during the week of February 23. And may God have mercy on your soul.\" Then he would have been cuffed again and led away, the lean, sinewy back still surly with defiance. But desperately frightened inside.\n\nRyan ordered and drank another whisky. Then he stuffed the paper into his overcoat, went out and walked down Lexington Avenue.\n\nWhen he reached Grand Central Station he went in and found a large telephone headquarters containing booths and operators to get long-distance numbers. He called Jablonski at his home. When he answered, Jablonski asked how Ryan was with great heartiness.\n\n\"You see tonight's papers yet?\"\n\n\"No. I been home with a cold all day, Neill. Anything I should have seen?\"\n\nRyan took a breath. \"Our boy got the chair.\"\n\n\"You mean Derby?\"\n\n\"So what do we do now?\"\n\n\"Well,\" gently, \"what do you think we do, Neill?\"\n\n\"For Christ's sake!\" Desperation tore his throat. \"If we don't do something, the guy burns.\"\n\nFrom the other end came a long, fully rounded silence. \"Well,\" said Jablonski, \"don't you really think he ought to?\"\n\nRyan began to have the helpless, nightmare feeling of being pursued and menaced and not being able to run.\n\nBut he said, \"God damn it,\" steadily, \"it's not for us to decide that. This is a\u2014\" he started to say \"human life\" and knew how weak that would sound. \"This is a guy's life. Even if he is the kind who\u2014\"\n\n\"Now wait a minute, Neill.\"\n\n\"Wait, hell! We agreed to wait until the trial was over because maybe he'd never be convicted. Okay. We waited. Now he's convicted. And sentenced. And he didn't kill that old woman.\"\n\n\"Where you calling from?\" Jablonski's voice had grown cold.\n\n\"Grand Central.\"\n\n\"Pay phone?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nBut he realized he must be talking loud. The operator outside who had put the call through was looking in at him.\n\nJablonski said, \"Listen, Neill. Take it easy and don't start yelling your head off. You know what I told you when you first got in an uproar about this, and I'm going to tell it to you again for your own good. And mine. You got a great future in the department, kid. You're going to go a long way. I wish I was in your shoes. I mean it.\"\n\nRyan knew he did.\n\n\"I told you before the trial to keep your mouth shut because I knew this slob might get off and you would only wreck everything if you opened up. And if he didn't get off and got sent up, why that'd be all right too, because it would be too late for anyone to do anything. And Neill, that's just how it is.\"\n\n\"Just how is it?\"\n\n\"Derby's convicted\u2014he's put away. And Farragut's licked\u2014he wouldn't touch the case now for fifty G's. Derby is going to the chair and that's where he belongs. You're sitting pretty. So am I. And why not\u2014? Don't you think cops are entitled to a break occasionally?\"\n\nRyan did not answer.\n\n\"So maybe he didn't kill that old lady, like you claim,\" Jablonski went on. \"Although I sure as hell doubt it. But anyway\u2014he was one of the guys in the Moriarity murder in 'fifty-one. You know that.\"\n\n\"I don't know it.\"\n\n\"Maybe it was before your time.\"\n\n\"Was he ever convicted?\"\n\n\"Of course not. He was brought in but we never had enough to hold him on. Then there was another killing, an old man named Trimble.\"\n\n\"Was he tried for that?\"\n\n\"No. Derby was never tried for\u2014\"\n\n\"Was he arrested?\"\n\n\"No\u2014I'm trying to tell you! We always had a hunch\u2014\"\n\n\"For God's sake, Jabby, you can't sentence a guy to death just because you suspect something.\"\n\n\"I ain't just suspecting, Neill. I know darned well\u2014\"\n\n\"You know nothing. And furthermore you lied and stalled before and you're doing it now. What the hell kind of cop were you, anyway?\"\n\nThe other end of the line went silent. The words echoed, and Ryan knew that he had finally hit Jablonski where it hurt.\n\nWhen he spoke it was with the cold deliberation of mortal anger. \"I'll tell you what kind of cop,\" said Jablonski. \"I'm an ex-cop now. But I put in my time, twenty-eight years of it. And I learned a few things in my time. And one was that when you get one of them\u2014a guy like Derby\u2014in a spot where you can give it to him, then by God you give it to him. And you sure as hell don't wreck your whole life and your partner's life by trying to give the son of a bitch a break. I'm loyal to the department, that's the kind of cop I am. And I got my own little place out here, and I and Sarah are getting along fine and I want it to go on.\" There was a pause. \"I don't want that changed. You shouldn't either.\"\n\nAgain there was a pause. \"But if you try to do anything about it, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. You go ahead and tell your story\u2014and I'll swear to God you are lying. You come in with your fingerprint from the drugstore heist or whatever it was and I'll say that you came to me a while back with a plan to get Derby off, for a payoff. And that you said something about planting or switching a fingerprint. That'll put you and Derby on the same side of the fence, standing against the whole damn department. I wouldn't want that, Neill, and I wouldn't want to do it. But if you force me to I will. You want it?\"\n\nRyan looked out the booth's glass door. The girl was not watching him now. She wrote something on a little pad and then thrust the pencil into her thick coil of dark hair.\n\n\"And another thing, Neill. You swore under oath that Derby didn't have the big bill on him. Now if you come in with a different story, who's going to believe you? Once you've admitted you're a liar, you never carry much weight again, you know. It's like an expert witness who gets knocked down in court.\"\n\nRyan's hand began moving the telephone instrument from his ear toward the prong that should receive it. He continued looking at that glossy coil of hair. Now she was writing something else.\n\nSomewhere in the telephone booth a tiny metallic voice said, \"Well, what do you say? Neill?... Neill?\"\n\nRyan kicked at the door. \"Go to hell,\" he said. The telephone girl looked up. He had taken a step out of the booth before he remembered that he was still holding the phone. He latched it into place.\n\nIn the wide, murmurous corridor outside he almost ran into a hurrying young couple. The man carried a big valise, the girl a lighter one. \"Let me take it, honey,\" the man said. \"Come on. Give it to me.\"\n\n\"You can't carry them both,\" she protested. But she relinquished the bag.\n\n\"Of course I can,\" he laughed. \"They balance.\" As he took the bag his eye caught Ryan's. Something in Ryan's face made him look again.\n\n\"It's all yours,\" Ryan told him. \"All yours. Carry it.\"\n\nThey looked at him, then hurried on. Ryan walked out toward Forty-second Street.\nCHAPTER 16\n\nThe Long Way Home\n\nHe walked fast, through homing commuters and shouting newsboys, slipping past traffic-halted ranks at the curbs to dodge narrowly between taxi bumpers and keep going. At Madison, forgetting he was crossing a two-way street, he would have been run down had a cab driver not seen him walking against the light. The cab squealed to a halt and Ryan looked up; the driver laid his arms over the wheel and rubbed his face in them in an elaborate gesture of patience.\n\nAnother time Ryan would have grinned apologetically; now he hurried on, only belatedly aware. He was gripped by a compulsion to get some place in a hurry, to move and keep moving without thinking. He had no real goal. Getting home was as good an excuse as any, so when he came to Fifth Avenue he turned north and walked fast past the glossy, lighted windows of the big stores and the little shops. He wanted to walk, not think.\n\nWhen he had crossed Fifty-seventh Street and was swinging up the avenue's wide sidewalk, that was almost like broad, scented velvet under the lights of the apartment entrances and canopies, the silent trees and mystery of Central Park on the other side, he did not bear east toward home as he should have done. After a time he remembered Eleanor's request for picking up the Ibsen book at the Columbia library and he seized the excuse to continue walking, fast and anonymous, through the night's cold air, and think only of his errand, knowing his absence would cause no alarm at home, and above all determined not to think about what he could not help thinking about.\n\nHe was standing in line in the familiarly stuffy library when something poked his back. A thin, chicken-necked man with the gleam of discovery in his eye was looking at him, tapping finger still extended. \"Aren't you O'Neill Ryan?\"\n\n\"That's right.\" It sounded surly. Then Ryan recognized the thin man. It was the hair that was deceptive.\n\n\"Professor Montagne!\" He had not been nearly so bald when he taught Ryan Greek philosophy eight years ago.\n\nWhen Professor Montagne shook hands his glasses gleamed even more brightly. \"I knew it was you,\" he said. \"At first I told myself it was just because I had read about you lately.\"\n\n\"Next,\" said the woman charging out books. Ryan handed her the book and Eleanor's card, then waited in the corridor for the teacher.\n\n\"This is amazing,\" said Mr. Montagne, and took Ryan's arm. \"Do you realize I was going to telephone you within a few days?\u2014here, this way, eh? I know a room.\"\n\nRyan permitted himself to be led down a corridor and finally into a small reading room containing a single absorbed girl, student.\n\nMr. Montagne whispered. \"We can talk as long as we keep our voices down.\" He beamed. \"Well, O'Neill, how have you been, as though I needed to ask?\"\n\n\"Fine, Professor,\" said Ryan. He still had an undergraduate's respect for a member of the faculty.\n\n\"You look well,\" said Montagne. \"And I know you are doing well. You cannot imagine how good it is to learn that a boy from Philosophy 508 is putting into everyday practice some of the Socratic definitions that I\u2014\" His laugh deprecated the idea. \"But that is not why I intended calling you, O'Neill. Frankly, I have a problem.\n\n\"For two years I've been director of the Men Students' Forum. You appreciate what that means\u2014a meeting and a speaker once a month. You are\u2014well, as the students say, let's face it. You are a celebrity. And you certainly must have much to say about the application of your education to the problems of life. If you could come up some Sunday evening and give us a plain, heart-to-heart talk, say thirty to forty minutes, about\u2014\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Ryan. He was suddenly oppressed by time's brevity. He knew what Montagne wanted. But he wanted something, too.\n\n\"You'll do it? O'Neill? Really? I can't tell you how happy I\u2014that I\u2014that we ran into each other.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" said Ryan. He spoke aloud and the girl student looked up.\n\n\"Of course,\" Montagne smiled slyly, \"if you were to work in a few references about how Phil 508 helped in your career\u2014in case it did. What I mean is, you are an officer of the law and I hope you remember the time we spent on the Platonic concept of the well-ordered state.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ryan. \"Sure. And that's something I'd like to ask you about. You see, since becoming a cop I've thought about that philosophy course. Occasionally in my work you run into problems that\u2014that make you think about justice and virtue.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you do.\" Professor Montagne's head bobbed happily.\n\nDared he? Hell!\u2014why not?\n\n\"I guess you've been reading about this guy Derby who was sentenced today.\"\n\n\"I certainly have, O'Neill, and how it was you who arrested him.\"\n\n\"Well, I've been wondering, just as a sort of problem, like one of those abstract problems in ethics you used to give us.\" He watched anxiously for suspicion in the smiling face. \"Supposing I happened to find out now, after helping to convict him, that this guy Derby, this hoodlum, was not guilty of the murder he's charged with?\"\n\nIt was out. Only in the abstract, of course, but even that had frightened him to say. Yet it obviously had not aroused Professor Montagne. Then he recognized that as a teacher he had dealt for years with the caprices of students. What was one more hypothetical question?\n\nMontagne looked down his nose at Ryan. \"Do? There is only one thing you could do. As a virtuous man you know what that is. For a moment I thought you had a poser.\"\n\n\"Well, what? Tell the truth?\"\n\n\"What else? Can a just man see another punished unjustly\u2014for a crime he never committed\u2014and remain silent?\"\n\n\"But think of the crimes he did commit,\" Ryan argued, \"and never was punished for. Derby himself is certainly no just man.\"\n\n\"That has nothing to do with the case. The just deal justly even with the unjust. It is implicit in the common law\u2014\"\n\n\"Common law nothing!\" said Ryan. \"Would you turn loose a known rapist and robber, a no-good\u2014\"\n\nThe girl student made a meaningful rustle with her book. Montagne bowed apologetically.\n\n\"We must be quieter,\" he said. \"Remember, you presented a hypothetical case. I gave you the only possible answer.\"\n\n\"The only hypothetical answer.\"\n\n\"Quite. Quite.\"\n\n\"But\u2014if you were a cop as I am, and this was a real problem\u2014\" He smiled to show he knew the absurdity of it.\n\nMontagne raised a restraining hand. \"My dear O'Neill, I will not let you lure me into arguing theory versus practice\u2014real-life practice\u2014on an empty stomach. I have no doubt that as a policeman I might have to\u2014to compromise. If this fellow is the scoundrel you say, I might not be able to turn him loose quite so readily as I can hypothetically. But I give you the answer of a philosopher. Well! Sorry, I must get on. My wife\u2014\"\n\nHe rose, still talking. \"How about the second Sunday in February? We still meet in the music room. I'll ring you in advance, of course. We could discuss this further then, with the students. Eh?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Ryan. \"We'll do that. In February.\"\n\nRyan walked head down, a purposeless night voyager, past murmurous blocks to Central Park and then along a winding park path. When he raised his eyes he saw neat rectangles of lights rimming the park's black quiet; they were not human habitations but remote glitters against eternal darkness.\n\nWhy didn't he just forget Derby? He did not have to be concerned about such animals, did he? Of course he didn't. Then why... For a moment Ryan saw himself objectively, as though he were outside himself, skirting the path he was walking; he saw a tired, anxious, hollow-eyed man of twenty-eight who just wanted this to be over with. Even Professor Montagne had said...\n\nHe came to Fifth Avenue. Home was not far away.\n\nNo. Not that, now. Keep walking.\n\nAt the genteel curbs women in bright evening dress and furs stood with men in sober black, waiting for limousines to take them to theater or opera. Ryan strode on, numbly aware he was walking toward a decision and meanwhile numbly ignoring it.\n\nAfter a time he found he wanted a drink.\nCHAPTER 17\n\nRosemary\n\nRyan stopped in a corner bar at Lexington Avenue and drank a whisky, fast and straight. The dinner hour had grown into evening and the men at the bar were beer-drinking philosophers. Ryan walked on to the next bar and again ordered straight rye and put it down fast. He did not consciously desire to get drunk; he had never desired that in his life. Yet as he worked gradually east and south he made repeated stops, to feel raw liquor fire his throat and explode gently in his stomach, barely tasting the water chaser. After a time the alcohol reduced the urgency of his flight and enabled his slowing brain to engage the problem again.\n\nHe must not let himself be confused by Jablonski's threats. This was an issue to be decided on its merits. But what were they? By what practical criterion could he justify going to his superiors and revealing that Derby had been framed? What kind of a reception would that get\u2014and what kind should it get? The police department's function was safeguarding the city, not debating the subtlest shades of justice.\n\nYet all the time Ryan knew he was only torturing himself. He could never accept the practical, easy way out. He could never let Derby die, even if Derby himself desired that. Why was rooted deeply in him, below the level of understanding. It was not noble; it was automatic and terribly uncomfortable. Right now whisky made it a little easier.\n\nHe was standing looking at a drink he had just ordered when he spoke without knowing that he was going to speak. \"This is getting deep.\"\n\nThe bartender, arranging glasses in pyramids, looked around. \"How's that?\"\n\n\"I can't touch,\" said Ryan, trying to explain what he had just heard himself say. \"Bottom. Can't touch bottom.\" He picked up the small heavy glass, spilled a part, and drank the rest.\n\n\"You better take it easy, Mac.\"\n\nRyan re-buttoned his coat. He did not like criticism at a time like this, but he must not get into arguments at a time like this, either. He went out, and looked up at the corner street sign. He was on First Avenue in the seventies. He had almost walked home.\n\nIn the next block was a small pizza restaurant where he ate often when he was late. That was it. One more drink, then a big pie and coffee, because he did not want to arrive home feeling unsteady.\n\nIt was a tiny place, with a counter and white tile pizza oven in the back. There were only four booths and a couple of tables in the middle of the floor; one of the booths was occupied by a wrangling couple. The oven man came from behind the counter to serve him with brawny, floured arms.\n\n\"Rye,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"No liquor here, mister. Wine and beer.\"\n\nHe'd forgotten. Heck with it. \"Gimme a pie. Fish.\"\n\nThe oven man went back behind the counter and began to spin out the cap of dough. When Ryan thought to take off his overcoat, he found Eleanor's book bulging the pocket. He opened it at random, read a few lines, decided it was dull and closed it. He felt the warmth and breathed the fragrance of baking dough. Finally the great, wide pie was slid in front of him, littered with anchovies.\n\n\"Coffee?\"\n\n\"Coffee.\"\n\nHe ate in silence, and the conversational mutter continued from the booth ahead. He could not make out all the words, although the man sounded indignant. Then the woman said with impatient clarity, \"Oh, finish your beer and come on home. We can't go back there tonight. It's almost ten.\"\n\n\"Sure, finish your beer and go home.\" The man welcomed the excuse for new indignation. \"Your own brother gets framed by the cops and double-crossed by his own stinking lawyer and on the day he's sentenced all you're supposed to do's drink your beer and go home.\"\n\nRyan's sodden mind began pulling itself into awareness.\n\n\"Oh, come on,\" said the woman. She was tired and querulous. \"He's out and there's no telling when he'll get back. Detectives don't work regular hours.\"\n\nRyan could not believe his ears. Was he right?\n\n\"You wanna go home? You go on home.\"\n\n\"Not alone with this pay in my purse. Not in this neighborhood.\"\n\n\"I'll say not in this neighborhood. Cops don't much get around neighborhoods like this, where the ordinary people live. They're too busy.\"\n\nWhere do cops live, buster?\n\n\"They're too busy out framing guys. They\u2014\" He spilled loud, obscene hatred of cops.\n\nRyan sipped his coffee and held in his feelings, thinking slowly because of the whisky. This must be Ken Derby and his wife; they had visited his home.\n\n\"Come on, Ken,\" the woman said.\n\nThey got up. Ken Derby wore the black whipcord of a deliveryman; he looked thin and fit in it. The woman was a girl of indeterminate age and in a slighter, feminine way she somewhat resembled him. She had dark-blond hair and a slender face with a wide, patient mouth and dark, observant eyes that seemed not to want to see as much as they did. Rising, she dropped a scarf and when she stooped to pick it up and the neckline of her dress opened, Ryan saw small, immature breasts only half-held by a ribbon of bra. Her eyes met his impersonally and she shrugged into her coat without her escort's help.\n\n\"How about a beer on the house?\" Ken Derby called to the oven man, and turned.\n\nAnd looked squarely at Ryan.\n\nThey looked at each other a long time. \"Come on, Ken,\" the girl said. \"Please.\"\n\nDerby exhaled a long breath.\n\n\"There he is now,\" he said, and threw off the visored cap he had just put on.\n\nRyan pushed the table away and got up. His legs felt shaky. It wasn't fear; he always felt that way when a fight threatened. He was glad the overcoat was off.\n\nThe girl, without understanding what was causing this, said, \"Oh, for the love of God\u2014\" and pressed her angular thinness against Derby restrainingly.\n\nDerby pushed her away and came forward, extending a long right arm, holding his left curled against his chest. That was a disadvantage, for Ryan was accustomed to right-handed fighters.\n\n\"Hey, what goes on?\" came from the counter.\n\n\"Oh, stop it!\" the girl cried despairingly and for a perilous second Ryan looked at her, and saw large, fear-widened brown eyes, and a mouth quirked to cry.\n\nDerby feinted twice with the right, not even coming close, and then swung his left with heavy certainty. But Ryan stepped inside it, crouched and dug both fists twice into Derby's thin, muscled belly. Derby grunted and clinched awkwardly, and moved sideways. His thigh lifted the table and Ryan's pizza and coffee cascaded to the floor. Ryan wrestled his way up inside the other man's guard, knowing what he was going to do when the clinch broke.\n\nHis head was clear; the whisky's lingering effect only made him confident and strong. Over Derby's shoulder he saw the girl shrink desolately against the booth.\n\nDerby heaved at him to get out of the clinch, and he felt a hand grab him from behind but it did nothing. He took a half step, starting the punch from near his ribs, pivoting his body as he brought it up and it caught Derby's jaw, but on the side instead of the jaw-point. Still, he slumped. Ryan straightened him with a quick left and started another hook, pivoting...\n\nAs he did he again saw the hopeless girl against the booth. He pulled the punch just enough so that it thumped harmlessly against Derby's slow left hand. The oven man, who had a toy baseball bat out, grabbed Derby from behind\u2014and found he had to hold him up. The fight was over.\n\n\"What the hell?\" the oven man demanded.\n\n\"Sit him down on the bench,\" said Ryan. He sucked a knuckle and looked at the girl. She had turned away from them.\n\n\"Sit him down,\" said the oven man sarcastically. \"For Chrissake, Mac. He won't sit. He's out.\"\n\nRyan considered several things, then brought out his badge. \"This is a police matter,\" he told the man with floured arms, and the baseball bat went into a hip pocket.\n\n\"Oh. You pinching him?\"\n\nThe girl turned around. \"No,\" Ryan told the oven man, but he was speaking to the girl. \"I'm not pinching him.\"\n\n\"Well, what do we do with him?\"\n\n\"I said sit him down,\" said Ryan, and when Derby had been eased into a corner of one of the booths he felt the slackened pulse and lifted an eyelid. \"He'll be all right. Give him a few minutes. And bring us some coffee. Or maybe some wine for you, ma'am?\"\n\nShe shook her head no.\n\n\"You look like you could use it.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Two coffees.\"\n\nHe sat down at a table, but the girl continued to stand, rebellious and helpless. He said, \"I'm sorry about this. Why don't you sit down?\"\n\n\"You don't have to be sorry. You couldn't help it. He\u2014he gets like that when he's been drinking.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" He pulled a chair around for her, a tacit invitation, and she finally accepted. She was tired and worn and respectable, cheaply dressed\u2014like a million other women in New York that night. Derby sighed and settled in the booth's corner.\n\n\"I gather you're a policeman.\"\n\n\"And you're Mrs. Derby.\"\n\n\"I'm Ken's sister.\"\n\nThat explained the resemblance. \"I'm sorry I hit him so hard.\" Saying that surprised him because he was not accustomed to apologizing under such circumstances.\n\nThe oven man brought two cups of coffee, picked up the spilled food and locked the front door. \"We close at ten,\" he said.\n\nRyan did not like using his authority for personal advantage but there were times when it was justified. The oven man caught his look. \"Oh, take all the time you want, loo-tenant,\" he said hastily.\n\nRyan said, \"That makes you Harry Derby's sister too.\"\n\nThe brown eyes trained a steady sadness on him, and he knew she was refusing to say anything of what she had to say. \"I'm Harry Derby's sister.\"\n\nRyan burned his mouth with a long sip of coffee. It did not occur to him that there was no necessity for him to make explanations to the sister of Harry Derby. That would occur long after, when he thought about her thin body and patience and gentle eyes. And lack of the obvious prettinesses.\n\nHe said, \"I'm Neill Ryan, one of the officers who arrested your brother and helped send him up. You were over at my house tonight?\"\n\n\"Ken wanted to talk to you. We stopped by twice. But\u2014\" She looked over her shoulder, and Derby breathed deeply as though in reply to her glance. \"But perhaps you can understand how Ken feels.\"\n\nRyan said, \"Sure.\"\n\n\"Not that we have any illusions about Harry. But Ken\u2014well, don't misjudge him. He doesn't drink often. And he was fond of Harry.\"\n\n\"He sure was.\" Ryan could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Your brother came to my home some time back to alibi Harry. He claimed Harry was with him on the day of the Connors murder.\"\n\n\"Ken told you that?\"\n\n\"He said they delivered some big appliances together that day.\"\n\nWhen he saw how it made her look he wished he had not said it.\n\n\"He's sort of crazy sometimes,\" she said slowly, \"and impulsive. But he should not have done that. That's\u2014that's obstructing justice or something, isn't it?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter. I proved to my own satisfaction that he had lied.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" She eyed him oddly and for the first time she sipped her coffee. \"Tell me something...ah...look here, Mr. Ryan. Ken was telling me tonight that the word has been out along the docks for quite a while that the cops finally got Harry. Is that true?\"\n\n\"Got him?\"\n\n\"You understand me, I think. What Ken meant was that you had not gotten Harry fairly or honestly or on the basis of real evidence. The idea is Harry was framed, that the evidence was manufactured against him. And that the union didn't put up much money and when that lawyer, Farragut, could not immediately disprove the evidence, he simply gave up. Is that true?\"\n\nThe steadiness of her gaze had attracted him before. Now it disconcerted him. He looked away, feeling again the familiar stab of alarm.\n\n\"Wait a minute. I have no idea what they are saying on the docks. But if you think your brother was framed\u2014\" to say it was an effort\u2014\"you're crazy. Holy God, the evidence against him\u2014\"\n\n\"I read the papers.\"\n\n\"Then you know\u2014\"\n\n\"I know Ken was present once when Farragut visited Harry in jail. He says Harry told Farragut that one of the cops blew some dust on his jacket to make the case stronger. I don't understand that, exactly. But did you do it, Mr. Ryan?\"\n\nThat marshaled Ryan's wits. He looked amused. \"Do you believe that?\"\n\n\"I don't know what to believe!\" she cried. The oven man looked up from the Italian newspaper he was reading.\n\n\"Well, it's ridiculous on the face of it,\" said Ryan. \"The evidence against your brother was overwhelming, as you know if you followed the case.\"\n\n\"I know.\" She sounded uncertain. \"And I wouldn't believe it if Harry said it.\" Her raised voice was near hysteria. \"But I believe Ken! And don't think I have many illusions about the police, either. We haven't had a very easy time of it from them\u2014between Harry and my father, when he was alive.\"\n\nAnd your brother and father didn't make things very easy for the cops.\n\nInstead, \"That's how it goes,\" he said softly. \"Some people go wrong. I saw it happen to kids I grew up with\u2014kids from decent homes and all that. It's nothing for you to be ashamed of.\"\n\n\"I'm not ashamed. I can't help what my father was, or what he helped my older brother to become.\n\n\"But I don't know what to think. I don't know what to believe. Did you ever hear a bigger clich\u00e9?\" Her smile was unnaturally bright; her voice cracked. \"Listen!\" In the intensity of her gesturing she struck her coffee cup and spilled some across the table. \"Listen. I lost my job today. I was fired. That's why I've got two weeks' pay in my pocket\u2014from the Fortunatus Club. You know it? It's very exclusive. I was their librarian. When Harry was arrested they found out for the first time who I was. And they were very nice. They said, after all he wasn't guilty until proven\u2014nobody's guilty until proven. You know? AH that. But he was proven. So today Mr. Murchison came around and very nicely told me I would have to leave. He said, 'We feel terrible about this, Rosemary.' And he did. But how many librarian's jobs do you think there are in the city, Mr. Ryan?\"\n\nShe got to her feet. Her voice was shrill. Ken Derby opened vacant eyes. His sister gestured toward him.\n\n\"And you know what, Mr. Ryan? I believe Harry is innocent. By God, I do! I believe what Ken said is the truth and that you framed Harry. You know why I believe it? Because I've talked to you, and seen your face. You're a liar, Mister Ryan. You're a cheap liar\u2014\"\n\nSuddenly she began to cry, and she continued talking and crying, disregarding her tears and the saliva that thickened her voice. \"That's justice, what you are! No truth, or honesty. Justice is what you make people believe. Sure, Harry was no good. But to send him to prison you had to make yourself worse. You had to lie and cheat in the name of decency. That's how the law is upheld! Oh, dear Jesus, I hate\u2014\"\n\nShe threw herself at him, sobbing, beating down on his chest with her fists, kicking, crying...\n\n\"Hey for Pete's sake,\" said the oven man, alarmed.\n\nRyan caught her arms. \"Call a cab,\" he said.\n\nThe oven man rushed to the front door and unlocked it. The girl was weeping uncontrollably. Ryan waited, holding her thin shoulders and feeling them shake, knowing this would take time.\n\nKen Derby got up on unsteady legs. \"What's now?\" he said. \"Whatsa matter, Rosie?\"\n\nThen brakes squealed outside. Ryan led the girl. \"Come on,\" he flung over his shoulder.\n\nHe put them both in the cab, got the address from Derby and repeated it to the driver as he handed him a dollar. \"See that your sister gets home all right,\" he said.\n\nHe watched the cab pull away, then went back inside and paid the bill. It was only after he had done that and stood outside again, breathing deeply and seeing the little restaurant's lights blink out, that he really felt what she had said to him.\nCHAPTER 18\n\nThe Homecoming\n\nAs she herself occasionally said, Agnes Ryan had never looked at another man after her husband was killed\u2014and at very few before she met him. She had been a plump little Dresden doll of a girl with the Irish gift of merriment and a fierce streak of possessiveness that was dramatic in one so otherwise kind and docile. When she lost her husband, Mrs. Ryan turned her long-lashed eyes inward on herself and her memories, on her family and her God. She devoted herself to bringing up Eleanor and O'Neill, to working at the church and to making ends meet on a slain policeman's pension and insurance, with occasional help from her brother who had an insurance agency in Worcester. At fifty-five she was a prematurely white-haired little woman with china blue eyes, patience and good cheer. She prayed regularly and lived in the serene faith that her man was watching her from heaven where ultimately they would be reunited forever.\n\nWhen Ryan let himself in with his key, she was sitting in the living room before a radio turned low, listening to the eleven o'clock news and sewing the hem on a new dress of Eleanor's. After sewing each section she pulled the basting threads out with tiny stubby fingers.\n\nRyan bent over and kissed her, \"Hi, ma,\" and she caught the reek of whisky and heavy food. It reminded her of his father. Her son reminded her of his father in many ways, although he was shorter and slighter and\u2014it seemed to her these days\u2014quieter and less aggressive. \"You're late,\" she said.\n\n\"Yeah. Something came up.\"\n\nShe would not ask what it was although she looked searchingly at his bloodshot eyes and haggard cheeks.\n\n\"Some people were here.\"\n\n\"I saw them.\"\n\n\"They came twice.\"\n\n\"They would. It's not important.\"\n\n\"You've eaten?\"\n\n\"I\u2014I had a bite.\"\n\n\"Let me fix you a sandwich. We had a nice meat loaf.\"\n\nHe really didn't want it but he knew she wanted to fix it. And what difference did it make in a world that had fallen apart?\n\n\"Well, maybe a thin one.\"\n\nWhile she bustled in the kitchen he leaned back in his father's chair and closed his eyes, and despair flooded in like the sea through a dissolving dike. He did not know where to turn next and he was oppressed with the urgency of doing something now\u2014yet what could he do? He thought of the time when he was thirteen and they had hit a baseball through the plate-glass window of Mr. Brodt's butcher shop. Once again he had that hopeless feeling of having done something enormous and frightful, beyond repair or recall. What could he do\u2014what was there to do?\n\nGo to Lieutenant Bauer and tell him that the real murderer of Mrs. Connors had been permitted to escape clean and unpursued? Ruin Jablonski's retirement-in-honor\u2014even forgetting Jablonski's threat? Blast his own hopes and chances that were now so bright? And yet...\n\nEverything in Ryan's nature, everything instilled in him as a boy about honor and fair play, his staunch belief in the ultimate supremacy of right, all that he had come to admire and respect as he grew into a man, stood inexorably over and against what he had done. And he had done it, he told himself brutally. There was no use blaming Jablonski or Derby or anyone else. They had had a part in it, sure. But he had let himself drift into what was now\u2014as Jablonski had so bluntly told him\u2014an impossible situation. There was nothing he could do. There was no way out. Ryan's closed eyes tightened spasmodically.\n\n\"Here, Neill,\" said a voice and he opened them to see his mother standing over him with a plate and a glass of milk. She was looking at him worriedly. \"Is everything all right?\"\n\nRyan munched the sandwich. \"It's great.\"\n\nShe picked up the dress and resumed work. After a moment she said, \"That's not what I meant. I meant\u2014is everything all right with you?\"\n\nRyan knew what she meant. He went on eating the sandwich, looking at his mother's white head bent over the dress, tiny fingers busy with little stitches, and all that he had felt about her as a boy surged into his mind. Suddenly he had to say it.\n\n\"Ma.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" She went on working, because she knew something was coming.\n\n\"Everything's all right\u2014it's fine. I'm just tired. But...something I been thinking of asking you.\"\n\n\"It's about that girl, isn't it? That red-haired dancer?\" She forced herself to smile at him. \"She looked pretty in the paper, Neill. I'd like to meet her.\" Her head bent again over her sewing.\n\n\"Oh. Gee Gee? No. I wasn't thinking of her. I'd like you to meet her, though. The next Monday night I'm home, I'll ask her up.\" He put down the empty, milk-clouded glass.\n\n\"Good. And so, what then?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing much. It's just this\u2014this guy Derby that we sent up. Jablonski and me.\" He didn't know what he was going to say. He just had to talk to someone\u2014someone he could trust.\n\n\"Oh. Well, he surely shouldn't bother you, Neill.\"\n\n\"Well, he does. Suppose\u2014ma, suppose I told you that today I learned something that makes it look as if Derby wasn't guilty after all?\"\n\nFor the first time she looked fully at him.\n\n\"O'Neill Ryan,\" she said. \"Have you lost your mind? Of course he's guilty. By the Holy Mother do you think I didn't read every word of it in the papers, and my own boy in it?\"\n\n\"Sure. But...\"\n\nCarefully she pulled out the basting stitches. \"This is the first man you've ever helped send to the electric chair, isn't it, Neill?\"\n\n\"Yes. That's right.\"\n\n\"I mind the time your father was home on the night a stickup artist was to die in Sing Sing. He'd helped send him there and the man had almost killed the two officers who had arrested him. Yet your father could not stand it, and as it got close to midnight he went out and over to Martin's speakeasy and had some drinks. He told me about it later. And do you know what he did then? The drinks didn't help either, and he left there and began walking and he walked all the way down to St. Pat's and he went in and spent the night on his knees\u2014praying for the man he had helped to electrocute.\" Her voice suddenly caught and Ryan knew his mother inwardly was crying.\n\n\"You're like him, Neill,\" she went on. \"And you worry like him, even over people like this Derby. But you needn't, believe me. For if ever there was justice served to one of them thieving scum\u2014\"\n\n\"But\u2014\" He couldn't let it go on. \"But, ma\u2014suppose Derby wasn't guilty!\"\n\n\"Wasn't guilty! Wasn't guilty of what, in heaven's name?\"\n\n\"Well\u2014suppose he didn't kill the old woman?\"\n\nShe switched off the radio's indistinct murmur. \"Well,\" she said, \"didn't he kill her?\"\n\nRyan was silent. Could he tell her?\n\nNo.\n\n\"I didn't say that. I just said, suppose he didn't. And I found it out now. What could I do?\"\n\n\"O'Neill Ryan, if that's the sort of thing that's bothering you, you had better get to bed and get a good night's rest.\" Petulantly she resumed her sewing. \"You're just the kind to lean over backwards about things like that, you certainly are. But let me tell you this. Even if that Derby had not killed the old woman, he has done so many other evil things, and well you know it, that the electric chair is no more than he deserves. Think of your father, boy, and what they did to him. That man Derby is that kind\u2014if he hasn't killed some decent, brave officer it is only because he hasn't had the sneaking chance to. Why, Neill, of course he's guilty.\"\n\nIt was getting beyond his control. \"But, ma,\" he cried out, \"supposing\u2014suppose I have to go to the department and tell them that\u2014that we've got to set Derby free?\"\n\nHe was on his feet. He had not been aware of getting up.\n\nWonder filled her face. \"Tell them he must be set free,\" she repeated. \"Have you had too many drinks, son? God in heaven, you're\u2014you're having a nervous fit, I think. Neill! How can you say such a thing\u2014how can you? A crook like Derby? Think of what you stand for, and what your father stood for.\" She waved to the large framed photograph on the table and Sergeant O'Neill Ryan in uniform stared at his son with expressionless, retouched eyes. \"He felt bad about the man he sent up too, Neill. But it didn't swerve him from his duty. He didn't flinch\u2014he prayed for strength. And he got it. He knew when it was time to force himself to be\u2014to be steel.\"\n\n\"But a man's life\u2014\"\n\n\"And what was your father's life?\" she asked. She was being steel too; the blue eyes were night-dark. \"What's the matter with you\u2014you're not that new at the business. Don't you have the courage to put a\u2014something like Derby where he belongs? A decent citizen must be treated with respect until he's proved guilty, anyone knows that. But a crook like Derby\u2014what's come over you?\"\n\nThe front door opened. Eleanor came in laughing, pink cheeked, followed by her date. \"Hi, ma. Hi, Neill. Come on in, Jerry.\"\n\nRyan rubbed his hand over his face and nodded to Jerry. \"I got your book,\" he said, and went into his room.\n\nHe undressed slowly. Was he having some kind of nervous fit? Was he crazy? After all, what was Derby to him\u2014or to the world? Nothing. Less than nothing. As Jablonski had said, Derby himself knew where he had been at the time of the Connors murder. If he didn't want to say, why should O'Neill Ryan interfere?\n\nBut it wasn't that, and he knew it wasn't that. Maybe Derby was better off to the world dead than alive. Maybe he deserved extinction, like some deadly reptile. But something else was involved here. It was the basic acceptance of right and order toward which mankind had been moving for aeons, the faith in a well-ordered society that had led Ryan, and his father before him, to make themselves society's instruments for preserving what was good and decent. Ryan could not put it clearly into words, but he felt it.\n\nThat was what was being violated. That was what had given Rosemary Derby's face its desolate look. If Harry Derby were executed Ryan knew he could never tolerate himself again, nor pleasurably accept praise or kindness from others, or even accept their company. Then what must he do?\n\nSuddenly he flung himself out of the bed and sliding to his knees beside it tried to pray. But he could not; what was there to say? That he was sorry for having made a mistake? That he would not do it again? That had made it right when he was a child. That had made everything right then.\n\nSuddenly, from deep inside himself he started to cry, silently, face pillowed against the sheeted mattress, his tears wetting it, shoulders twisting and belly wracked spasmodically with sobs. For a long time he wept, not trying to halt it, sensing that this was something that had to be gotten over with.\n\nThen he dried his face with a clean handkerchief and groping for it his hands grazed the pistol and holster on the bureau. That was another easy way out, he told himself contemptuously. But a thought struck like a bullet from the gun. If he were to be killed in the days to come, Harry Derby would go to the chair as surely as if Ryan himself had sentenced him.\n\nThere was one thing he could do. In the student's desk he had used as an undergraduate he found paper and pen. He wrote:\n\nTo whom it may concern:\n\nIn event of my unexpected death I want it to be known that when Ed Jablonski and I arrested Harry Derby we applied some dust made from a part of the lamp at the Connors murder to his jacket. Subsequently I learned that at the time of the murder Derby was holding up a drugstore on East Thirty-first Street, as a fingerprint obtained there and now in the file on the case will show. I swear before God this is all true.\n\nHe signed his name and shield number, put the letter in an envelope and addressed it to the judge who had tried Derby. Then he put the envelope in the little tin box in which he kept his insurance policy and his few other papers of importance.\n\nHe lay down again on the bed. He felt cold and exhausted and yet calm. He had the sense of something being about to happen, of his being about to go away, like on his last night at home before going to Uncle Frank's summer camp near Worcester as a kid. He was passing some kind of turning point. A new time was coming in.\n\nHe began to breathe normally, and as he did he began to think logically about the real killer of Mrs. Connors. That was still a way out, of sorts: if he could get the real killer then they would have both him and Derby. It had fleetingly crossed his mind before, but he had dismissed it as impractical. Now he faced it squarely and fully.\n\nThat would take some of the curse off as far as the department was concerned. And even Jablonski might be saved, he thought in this spell of new clarity, for there was always Farragut's explanation that the telltale dust had been transferred by accident during the fight.\n\nHe thought of the truculent, snarling man for whom he was considering undertaking this alone, without the usual help of the department, and he smiled bitterly. Still, it was an honest, satisfying bitterness, born of growing certainty of the direction he would take. Thinking on it, after a time he fell asleep.\n\nHe slept well.\nPART THREE: THE BLOW-OFF\nCHAPTER 19\n\nThe Things That Really Happen\n\nHe and Lambert had agreed to begin afternoon tours next day to spell another team, one of whose members had a daughter who was getting married. But Ryan dropped into the station house at twelve-thirty when he knew Bauer would be at lunch, telephoned downtown, and without explaining his purpose quietly set in motion the identification machinery that would give him the names and records of all known criminals in the metropolitan area who had two vital characteristics: a physical resemblance to Harry Derby and a working method of robbing women as Mrs. Connors had been robbed.\n\nThen, since it was still early, he walked to the apartment where the murder had occurred. The afternoon was bright and warm; north of the city snow was melting among Westchester's hills, wetting the sunny rocks and making rivulets for children to play in on their way home from school. But amid Manhattan's concrete and steel geometry there was no snow except where a taller building cast, in this brightness, a blue shadow across lower rooftops. Even so, you felt the catch of distant spring in your throat.\n\nMrs. Lombardi sat on the steps, a heavy shawl over her shoulders, a cigarette between her lips. \"How are you?\" she said.\n\nRyan asked about Mrs. Anders and Betty Leonard and learned that Mrs. Anders had since moved to Tulsa. Gloria Connors still had the apartment but was living with friends and was moving out the first of the month\u2014maybe sooner if she could arrange about the furniture. Meanwhile, it was being shown. Ryan asked if he could borrow the key and Mrs. Lombardi said she didn't know why not and took it off a large key ring she fished from her pocket.\n\n\"Thanks. Oh, one other thing I wanted to ask you. Remember you identified this guy Derby without any trouble? You picked his picture out right away, and then again that night at the precinct and so on?\"\n\n\"Sure I did.\"\n\n\"Well, there's one thing I'm curious about. Was there anything about that guy when you saw him, either at the precinct or later in court, that made you think he might not be the right one after all? I mean, maybe just one little point that might have made you wonder?\"\n\nA landlady's perpetual suspicion squinted at him through her half-closed eyes.\n\nRyan smiled easily. \"I guess it sounds nuts, now he's convicted and all that. But I'm making a\u2014a sort of study of witnesses' observation, Mrs. Lombardi. I was just wondering how the whole process of identification struck you.\"\n\n\"It struck me,\" she said, \"that you fellows did a pretty good job of locating him fast. When I looked at that picture there wasn't any doubt. And then when I saw him...\" Her forefinger skillfully flicked the cigarette butt into the street. \"But I'll tell you one thing. Maybe it was having seen the picture that did it. But I sort of got the feeling when I saw him in court that I'd seen him before\u2014I mean some place else. You know what I mean?\"\n\n\"Did you ever live near the piers? Or have anything to do with stevedores?\"\n\n\"No. My sister's husband's cousin is a steward on the Roma, though. We go down and visit with him when the ship's in sometimes.\"\n\nRyan shook his head. \"Did you and the other ladies talk about this afterwards\u2014Mrs. Anders and Miss Leonard, I mean?\"\n\n\"Well, you think something like that happens every day around here?\"\n\n\"I just meant, did either Mrs. Anders or Miss Leonard say anything that might suggest they weren't as sure about the identification as they might have been? In other words did they notice any single point that didn't quite correspond\u2014that they remembered later, as sort of out of key?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of.\"\n\n\"Did the man's voice sound the same in the courtroom? Did he wear his clothes the same way? Did the way he walked correspond with what you remembered?\"\n\nShe shook her head continuously to the questions.\n\n\"Or did any of the others say\u2014\"\n\n\"Listen, why don't you ask them? You're a detective.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Ryan. \"Thanks, Mrs. Lombardi.\"\n\nHe went into the building. A girl he had never seen before answered the door of Betty Leonard's apartment and explained she was Betty's roommate. Ryan told who he was, and the girl said Betty was working days now and would be for the next couple months. Betty would be very sorry she missed him, the girl added, and Ryan recognized that he had been the subject of sororal discussions. He said he'd be sure to drop back a few evenings from now.\n\nWhen she had closed the door he let himself in the Connors apartment as quietly as he could, although the front door stuck a little at the bottom. This was the beginning, he told himself.\n\nIt hadn't really changed since he was last here. Someone had cleaned up the living room and straightened the chairs, and now it was simply a gloomy, overheated living room, furnished cheaply and in need of airing\u2014hardly the appropriate background for murder.\n\nRyan sat down in a chair, pushed his hat back on his head and lighted a cigarette. He could not really expect to find anything. The lab boys and the various squads who had been here were good, and at the time they had worked under the stimulating pressure of having to crack the case in a hurry. He could not easily imagine finding anything that had been overlooked, here or elsewhere. Yet he had to.\n\nWhen he had smoked a few minutes he rose and began examining everything in the room, touching things gingerly. He tried to imagine how it had happened, how the man would have pushed his way in and how the old woman would have backed up, crying anxious, unfinished questions. The invader would have shut the door. And then... He went over every physical action that could have happened in the handful of seconds in which it all did happen.\n\nThen he sat down again and looked around, breathing in smoke from the cigarette hanging between his lips. He thought of Ed Furtig and how Ed had sat here in this same chair, smoking and wondering. Then it had been Ed's to carry.\n\nRyan got up. This was getting nowhere.\n\nWell, he could always come back. He yanked at the door knob angrily and the door gave and then stuck. He remembered it sticking when he came in and he yanked harder. The door stuck at the bottom near the threshold. Ryan lifted on the knob and it opened. He went into the hall, slamming it behind\u2014Before it could slam he wheeled and held it open. Suddenly things were whirling in his head. There was a closet door at home that stuck often, especially in winter. To open it he always...\n\nRyan went back in and closed the door firmly, hearing its lower edge grate on the threshold. He was a murderer now and in his imagination in the next few seconds he had killed an old woman. He took a deep breath, then he grabbed the knob fast like a man in a hurry and yanked, and again the door partly opened and stuck at the bottom, an inch of it wedged tight. Ryan's hand went automatically up to the top corner that was free to pull on it as he lifted the knob, just as he did at home when the closet door stuck. Just, he thought, as any man would do naturally and unthinkingly. And especially one set on escape.\n\nHe stood looking at the door a long minute. He could not dare to hope that much. Yet thoughts of how doors stuck only at certain seasons and at certain temperatures and humidities thronged his mind; this was a warm day, possibly the warmest since Mrs. Connors died.\n\nRyan opened the door carefully, got a chair and stood on it to examine the upper corner with his small flashlight. On the inner surface there were only smudged streaks that could have been made by anything. And on the other side there was only dull green paint.\n\nThe vital part was the door's top edge. Where a man's fingertips would naturally grab and press. He raised up on his toes and pressed the flashlight's tiny button.\n\nIts beam revealed grimy, worn wood innocent of any mark.\n\nRyan put the chair away dispiritedly, too let down to care about anything. Somehow he had felt so sure, so intuitively certain...\n\nHe pulled his hat down over his eyes and yanked the door doubly hard. He almost ran into a woman standing before him on the threshold.\n\n\"Why, what are you doing?\" she demanded. Her sallow face went yellow around the cheek bones. She held a key.\n\nRyan said, \"Who are you?\"\n\nShe turned, frightened, seeking help.\n\n\"Wait a minute. Miss. I'm the police department.\"\n\nShe turned back.\n\n\"I'm Detective Ryan. I'm\u2014I'm just rechecking some of the evidence.\"\n\n\"But...I thought the man was all sentenced and everything.\"\n\n\"Oh, he is. But there's always a chance of an appeal at the last minute. We want to be ready for it. I got the landlady to let me in.\"\n\n\"I see. Well, you didn't find anything new, did you?\"\n\n\"That's right. But as long as you're here I'd like to ask a few questions.\"\n\nShe walked rapidly past the spot where her mother had lain and threw up the window as though fresh air would clean the room of its cruel memories. She said, \"Know anyone who wants to buy some bedroom furniture?\"\n\n\"Not at the moment, but I'll keep it in mind, Miss Connors. Tell me something. You saw this Harry Derby in court, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Did it occur to you that you had seen him before?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did he remind you of anyone?\"\n\n\"No. No, he was a complete stranger.\"\n\n\"There was just you and your mother in the family?\"\n\n\"And my brother Philip in Chicago.\"\n\n\"Miss Connors, this will strike you as an odd question, but did any of you have any enemies?\"\n\nShe shook her head mutely.\n\n\"Your mother especially\u2014she hadn't had any trouble with anyone shortly before she was attacked? Think back, please.\"\n\n\"Who could have had trouble with my ma?\" she asked sadly, and Ryan felt a pang of sorrow for her.\n\n\"How long had you lived here?\"\n\n\"Six years going on seven.\"\n\n\"No one ever broke in before\u2014into your apartment or somebody else's?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"After\u2014after the murder, you didn't hear from anyone, or find anything around the house that in any way might have had anything to do with what happened?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nIt was hopeless. At best these were the routine questions you asked as a last resort. Anyway he was simply going over ground that had been covered before when the trail was fresh and memories keener.\n\n\"Well...\" Ryan twirled his hat in his hand. \"Thanks, Miss Connors. If anything does occur to you I wish you would call me. At the Seventeenth Squad. Plaza 3-4483. The name is Ryan.\"\n\nShe got up too, but as Ryan moved toward the door she walked into a bedroom without answering. I suppose she feels pretty bad, he thought.\n\nThe door was about to close on him once again and finally, when he heard her say from inside, \"Wait a minute, detective. Maybe you can explain\u2014\" She was holding something in her hand, something that glittered.\n\n\"You may remember that the cops\u2014the officers, who were here at the time, found a cuff link near my\u2014near mother's body.\"\n\n\"I remember. It was one of hers.\"\n\n\"That's right. One of the officers said that the other one might have been carried away by the murderer\u2014that it might have caught in his clothes or something.\"\n\n\"That's possible. But it never turned up, Miss Connors.\"\n\n\"That always puzzled me a little. You see, Phil had given those links to ma with a shirtwaist. It was a birthday present. She had packed the shirtwaist and I always figured she wanted to wear it with the links when we visited him\u2014you know, to show she liked them. I thought she probably had the links in her hand when that Derby came in. And then in the struggle\u2014well, you know.\"\n\n\"That's probably what happened.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"I don't think it is. Look.\" She held up something for him to see. It was a cuff link. \"See this?\"\n\n\"Sure. That's what was returned to you after the trial, eh?\"\n\n\"That's right. But look at this.\"\n\nShe spoke tartly, as though she expected him to understand something he clearly did not understand. She held out her other hand, thin and weedy, clenched tight. Then she opened it.\n\nHe saw two links in one hand\u2014and one still held in the other. All three were of the same little silver scimitar design.\n\n\"I found these two in ma's jewel box a week ago,\" she said. \"Just by accident. What do you think of that, detective?\" It was a triumph for a vinegarish woman of lean, dark-browed homeliness, happy to discomfit a member of the sex that had long refused her.\n\nWhat the hell! Ryan thought. \"Miss Connors, are you sure you found those two links where they ought to be?\"\n\n\"I told you I did. Ma had never gotten them out that day at all.\"\n\n\"But why didn't you ever find them before?\"\n\n\"I simply never went through her things. I\u2014I didn't want to stay here and a friend of mine in Jersey asked me to stay with her. It was only the other night when I came by to\u2014to sort of get ready to close up the apartment that I found this. But it doesn't make any sense, does it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nBut Ryan was paying no attention to the explanation. \"Look. You're sure this is the cuff link you got back from us? You didn't mix the three of them up?\"\n\n\"Yes. Of course I'm sure.\"\n\nShe was an insurance clerk, probably good on details. She could be sure of something like that.\n\n\"And can you be sure that this set of cuff links didn't contain an extra one\u2014a spare, so to speak?\"\n\n\"Of course. I remember when she opened the package on her birthday. Anyway, did you ever hear of a spare cuff link?\"\n\nRyan was wordless. He looked at the three links. God! he thought again. Things like this didn't really happen. And yet they did. He knew they did. That is how things really happened. The most unlikely, farfetched, one-in-a-million chance, that is what happened, even though you could not believe it when you saw it face-to-face.\n\n\"It doesn't make any sense, does it?\" she asked again with acid triumph.\n\n\"Maybe it does,\" said Ryan. \"May I borrow these, Miss Connors?\"\n\n\"Are you sure I'll get them back?\"\nCHAPTER 20\n\nThe Scarlatti Sonata\n\nIt was still too early to show up for work and Derby's home lay only a dozen blocks north and east. Why not? He had something to do there. He would not try now to determine what the cuff link might mean, although he sensed the possibilities. And Rosemary Derby might be able to help there. Ryan walked uptown, energetic and buoyant.\n\nIt was an old, dingy apartment building\u2014but an apartment, not a cold-water flat as he had thought. He rang the bell under a hand-lettered Derby and the door buzzed without any challenge from the speaking tube.\n\nShe stood at a third-floor door, slim in black slacks and black sweater and some sort of thin-soled slippers that made her seem smaller and more girlish. She did not see him clearly until he came abreast of the door which streamed sunlight into the dark hall. She said, \"Oh.\" Her hair, tied with a wisp of ribbon, looked more tawnily blond than it had last night. Her level-browed face was calm.\n\n\"Can I come in a minute?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nShe stood aside and he walked down a short hall into a small living room that seemed to contain a lot of books, on tables and in painted wooden bookcases. On one wall were several reproductions of paintings which he suspected were by Picasso, one of the few names in modern art he knew. An odd pattern of tinkling music that sounded like a guitar came from a table phonograph.\n\n\"Sit down,\" she said noncommittally, and turned the phonograph to a whisper but did not turn it off. Ryan felt like an intruder.\n\nShe sat down on a couch and extended slender black legs before her. Ryan took out his cigarette package and offered it and she shook her head.\n\n\"Mind if I do?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThese were the stiff formalities before a duel.\n\n\"Ken's not here?\"\n\n\"He's at work.\"\n\n\"There are a few things I didn't get a chance to say last night.\"\n\nShe waited, not making it easier.\n\n\"My sister is a secretary in an ad agency. They always need secretaries. I could talk to her about a job\u2014a job for you. Can you do typing and shorthand?\"\n\n\"Theoretically. But my shorthand's rusty. Anyway, I'm not interested.\"\n\n\"I thought you needed a job.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you don't understand the difference, Mr. Ryan, betwixt\u2014between library work and stenography.\" She bit her lip and Ryan could not know it was because his unexpected appearance had trapped her into using an archaic word.\n\n\"Maybe I don't. But this job would pay seventy-five bucks a week. Is that so far under a librarian's pay?\"\n\nShe did not say anything. To Ryan she looked clean and well scrubbed\u2014not pretty in any glamorous sense, but level-headed, willing to accept things on their own terms. It was a quality hard to define, but he liked it in a girl. The music that Scarlatti had written three centuries before stopped momentarily and then started again, an intricate twanging in the mid-afternoon quiet.\n\n\"Why this?\"\n\n\"Why what?\"\n\n\"Is the police department running an employment agency?\"\n\nRyan pulled slowly on his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs, extended the cigarette to an ashtray on the little table before him and very carefully dumped the ash, making a gesture of it. He did not want to get mad, or even show irritation. What he was about to say had been on his mind since last night, yet he had never analyzed it or arranged it logically. He just wanted to say it.\n\nHe leaned back and exhaled the smoke. When it was gone, \"I owe you and your family a debt,\" he said. \"I plan to repay it.\"\n\nHer calm gaze was a triumphant challenge.\n\n\"You were right,\" said Ryan. \"Last night. We framed your brother.\"\n\nIt was out. She was the first person he had ever said it to. He had a wild sense of relief.\n\n\"I knew you did.\" She reached to a box and took out a cigarette. \"I could tell it last night.\" She flicked a lighter at the cigarette.\n\n\"Don't misunderstand me,\" said Ryan. \"Your brother's a no-good bastard.\" He liked using the word to her. \"And if he died it wouldn't hurt anyone in the world.\" He stopped and looked at the smoke spiraling up evenly from his cigarette. That was how it was\u2014justice, evenness, balance. Things had to go straight up and down, and no other way. He went on.\n\n\"He's a rat. But that doesn't mean he should suffer for something he didn't do.\"\n\nShe looked at the baseboard across the room. Then she talked through thick smoke.\n\n\"And taking care of his sister and getting her another job will fix everything? Make everything even?\"\n\nThat did something to Ryan and he had to knock the ashes off again, this time impatiently.\n\n\"That's not the idea. I said that he shouldn't suffer for something he didn't do. I don't think he should. And he won't.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do about it?\"\n\n\"I've already done one thing. I've written a letter that will be found immediately in case anything happens to me. It will free Harry.\"\n\n\"And in the meantime?\"\n\n\"You'll have to leave that to me.\" He got up. \"I'm not going to let him get the chair, I promise you that. I hope to vindicate him. By bringing in the guy who really committed the murder.\" He laughed, masochistically. \"Probably the chances of that are not good. But that's what I'm going to try to do. Anyway\u2014\" he spun the light fedora in his hand\u2014\"there's one thing I can guarantee, Miss Derby. Your brother won't burn. I'll see to that, no matter what else happens. But there are other people involved here, and other people's rights. I'm going to protect those too. So for the present Harry stays in Sing Sing. He belongs there, you know.\"\n\nShe was looking at him steadily and, the sun outside being temporarily darkened by a cloud, her cigarette made a firefly glow in the twilit room.\n\n\"In the meantime,\" Ryan said, \"well, you've suffered on account of this, losing your job. There was something I thought I could do that might help and so I mentioned it.\" He pulled on his hat. \"But forget it. If you have something else to do, fine.\" He had said what he had come to say. The heck with her.\n\nHe turned and remembered something. \"One other thing. What I've been saying is between ourselves. I really didn't have to say it. I thought you might feel better if you knew. But if you tell anyone else what I said just now, I'll swear you're a liar and I never said it. You couldn't get anyone to believe it anyway. Take it or leave it, Miss Derby. That goes for the job offer, too.\"\n\nHe started down the hall, and she said, \"Oh now, please!\" but so quietly he could not believe it had reached him. Yet when he opened the door she was beside him. \"Please don't go like that.\" The size of her eyes and the solemnity of her mouth surprised him.\n\n\"I've got to get to work.\"\n\n\"But you\u2014please take a moment. I want to ask you\u2014\" A shrill whistle came from somewhere. \"Oh! I was making tea. Every day at the library we had tea. Please\u2014\"\n\nHe allowed himself to be led back and when the tea had properly steeped during a few minutes of strained politeness he found himself sitting with a cup and a little cookie, undergoing thoughtful inspection. He sipped and readied himself.\n\n\"You're an honest man,\" she said with crashing frankness, and Ryan flushed.\n\n\"An honest cop,\" she reflected.\n\nThat graveled him. But he remembered the principles that the department had ingrained in him: you could not do your job effectively if you treated the public as enemies. You had to make friends of them, even those who regarded you as an enemy. This level-eyed girl was a part of the public.\n\n\"I think you're too well educated to believe that policemen are generally dishonest, Miss Derby.\"\n\n\"I don't say that. I'm sure some\u2014most are\u2014are honest. You are, certainly.\"\n\nBut her skepticism was an acid eating into his mind, filling it with cynicism. This was the public for which you worked late hours for small pay, and took chances, this dark-blond, small-breasted dame with the tight lips and critical air. He owed her something of course, but he was paying it off\u2014suddenly it burst out.\n\n\"Where the hell do people like you get off? You and your lousy brother? And your old man! You're a great family to be squealing about cops! The Derbys! The lousy, crooked, mugging Derbys!\"\n\nHe paused, surprised at himself. But he went on in a vibrant tone that was even more emotional.\n\n\"Let me tell you something, Miss Derby. One of the greatest things that could be done to make this country more\u2014more law abiding, and a better place for decent people, would be to make a rule that everyone\u2014everyone\u2014at some point in his life should put on a police uniform and walk the streets for eight hours.\"\n\n\"And what would that accomplish, aside from giving him a little taste of power?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you. It would make people realize what it is to be a cop. Because the instant you step out in that uniform you realize that whatever happens that's rough or unpleasant or dangerous along your beat in the next eight hours, you have to settle it. You're the one everyone will turn to. If some donkey comes home drunk and starts beating up his wife, you're the guy who has to walk up and cool him off. If some hoodlum tries to stick up the corner liquor store, that blue uniform of yours is the first thing he's looking for when he comes running out. If some teen-age kids get goofed on tea and go hunting trouble, you're their best target, because you're a cop. They won't go up against you openly. The first thing you know is a scuffle behind and then a baseball bat across the skull. That's how hoodlums begin. Later of course they graduate to be big shots\u2014like your brother Harry.\" He looked bold hatred at her.\n\n\"Try directing traffic, Miss Derby, and discover how some truck drivers like to see how close they can come to you. Or there's the so-called honest citizen, who parks overtime and flies into a rage if you give him a summons, and threatens to get your job. Cops are human beings, Miss Derby, and sometimes we wish the people we serve would at least give us a minimum of cooperation, instead of thinking we're all bribe-takers or sadists or boneheads.\"\n\nShe had watched him throughout what he said and Ryan stared back, bitter and angry and waiting. He was not prepared for what she did say.\n\n\"I guess I had that coming. I'm sorry, Mr... Mr. Ryan. Sometimes when...well, when a girl has two brothers like Harry and Ken...what I want to say is this. If you mean what you said, and I know you did, I'd like to help you. And I know Ken will, when I tell him what you told me. Not all Derbys are\u2014well, antisocial.\"\n\n\"I told you that if you mentioned this\u2014\"\n\n\"I understand. I completely understand, and you needn't worry. You can trust me, and you can trust Ken. He'll want to help, because he is fond of Harry. Do you know, on the morning of the day Harry was arrested they quarreled? It was about that jacket of Harry's that Ken wanted to borrow because his uniform was at the cleaner's. Harry wouldn't let him. Ken called him cheap or tight\u2014you know. Then, when Harry was arrested and charged with that murder Kenny sat where you are and cried like a baby because of the quarrel. But tell me this. How did you\u2014why did you come to frame Harry?\"\n\nHow far should he go? How much dare he trust her? But if he did not trust anyone, how would he ever get at what he had to get at?\n\n\"It wasn't exactly my idea. Not that I'm not as much to blame as anyone.\" He looked at his wrist watch. \"I'd like to tell you about it, Miss Derby\u2014\"\n\n\"My name's Rosemary.\"\n\n\"Okay, Rosemary. I'd like to tell you about it.\" It was true. He suddenly realized how much he wanted to tell every detail of how and why it happened. \"But I'm due at work. Maybe I could come back sometime.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow afternoon?\"\n\n\"I'll try to.\"\n\n\"And\u2014Mr. Ryan?\"\n\n\"People call me Neill.\"\n\nShe smiled shyly. \"Neill. I think it's wonderful, what you're doing. Not because it's my brother. Because you have honesty and decency, and it's nice to know there are people like you around. I'm sorry about what I said about the police.\"\n\n\"Forget it,\" said Ryan. But he couldn't help adding, \"We hear it all the time.\"\n\n* * * *\n\nWhen he and Lee Lambert came in that night, a Manila envelope was in his mail slot near the stairs. It contained copies of the police records of four men, all of whom from their description resembled Harry Derby, were at liberty and were known to have robbed women in the past. Two usually operated in and around Brooklyn and one far up in the Bronx. But one, a man named James Mackie and known as \"Big Mackie,\" ran a small Turkish bath and athletic club in the east fifties and lived over it. He was a former prize fighter, he had been arrested a half dozen times in the past decade although not recently and he had twice been convicted of crimes against women.\n\nRyan studied the photograph. Mackie looked darker than Derby and had bushier eyebrows. But his dimensions were the same, and the address made it look good. If it turned out that Mackie had some connection with Harry Derby that would explain Derby's possession of the bill...\n\nA note had been clipped to the records. It was from the IB man who had compiled the information. It said, \"For your information this same description was given one of the boys here for checking a couple days ago by Jack Sandalwood, the reporter.\"\nCHAPTER 21\n\nThere's a Story in It\n\nNext morning rain, thick and gray as a twinkling theater curtain, made a steady beat on cars and pavement; it would last all day. Ryan took off his raincoat and sat down to doughnuts and coffee before the restaurant's lighted windows. He unfurled the Herald Tribune, turned to Red Smith's column and sipped black, sweetened coffee. It was in between times, late for the crowd that got to work at eight-thirty, but early for the nine o'clockers. You felt those things when you had worked all hours long enough. Ryan bit into crisp doughnuts and savored the wry humor of good sports writing. For a while he forgot where he was and what lay ahead of him, and how little time he had.\n\nBut when the coffee was finished and the sports page read, he paid his check, stood at the restaurant door yanking his raincoat tight against the weather and thought of Gee Gee. She'd be in bed at this hour, sound asleep, her body sweetly scenting the warm bedclothes... Ryan went out into the rain. Forget it. There was work to do.\n\nMrs. Daniels was in a faded housecoat when he knocked at her door. She said, \"Oh, it's you?\" apprehensively.\n\n\"Anyone in that room where we arrested Derby?\"\n\n\"No. It's empty.\"\n\n\"I'd like to look around it, if you don't mind.\"\n\n\"Help yourself. The door's open.\" She was waiting for him to say something else.\n\n\"And I'll take ten bucks, if it's convenient.\"\n\nShe sighed\u2014of course he wouldn't forget that.\n\n\"Can I give you five now and send you the rest on Saturday? Honest, most of my roomers have been slow this week. And I never got the other ten back, you know.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Ryan. It was as good as you could expect. She'd never have sent the money voluntarily, of course.\n\nHe mounted the stairs they had crept up so cautiously that night. No need for silence now. Even so he walked quietly. He had a surreptitious feeling about what he was doing. There were a lot of people he would not want to meet here, nor would want to know that he was still concerned with the place where Harry Derby was arrested. Lieutenant Bauer, for example, or anyone from the precinct station.\n\nHe pushed the door open, took off his coat, draped it over a chair and sat down. Rain whispered fitfully at the windows; otherwise the old house was gloomily quiet.\n\nNothing had changed since the last time; he almost expected to see Derby's long back against the wall, arms spread-eagled upward. Ryan tried to remember exactly what Derby had looked like and exactly what he had said. That was the only purpose of this visit, if it had one: to strain for every possible hint he could get. For Derby must have had some guilty knowledge of the murder; otherwise how had he come to possess the hundred dollar bill?\n\nHe got up and walked around the bare and chilly chamber, remembering where he had stood, and Jablonski's chagrin, and Derby's taunts... He took his place at the wall where Derby had stood, put his hands up against it like a prisoner. Then he turned and moved forward into the room, imagining for a moment he was confronting two cops...\n\n\"What the devil are you up to? Re-enacting the crime?\"\n\nEven in his first start of guilty fear Ryan recognized the voice.\n\nA man stood in the doorway. Under his open trenchcoat a gray tweed jacket was visible. His confident, good-looking face wore a mocking smile.\n\nIt was Sandalwood.\n\nRyan stared, then tried to pull himself together. Clinch\u2014play for time.\n\n\"Where did you come from?\" he asked with intentional na\u00efvet\u00e9.\n\nSandalwood grinned and came in.\n\n\"Supposing I tell you I've been following you for a while?\" he said. \"What are you up to, Ryan? Derby's up the river\u2014you're certainly not still building a case against him. Do you just like this place?\"\n\nAnd when Ryan remained silent, he drawled, \"Or are you looking for something\u2014say a hundred dollar bill that got lost one night?\"\n\nRyan cursed him and Sandalwood laughed. He was trying to overpower Ryan with his confidence and his reputation and his tactical position, and he was doing it.\n\n\"Yesterday you dropped in on the Derbys. What's the attraction there\u2014the sister?\" Sandalwood's eyes bugged out impudently; he was trying to lure Ryan into rage.\n\n\"And now you're here. Why don't you get it off your chest? I can give you a break, you know, if you cooperate. Let me tell you something, Ryan. Give it to me straight and then I'll tell you whether you are telling the truth or not. Want to know something? I always figured you guys were up to something that night. So before Derby went up the river I talked to him. And he leveled. I've known Derby a long time. He told me pretty much what it was all about.\"\n\nWas he lying? Was it a bluff, intended to trap him into admitting something? Or did Sandalwood know? He clearly had been following him.\n\nRyan had to make a move. He seized on the first inspiration that came.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said steadily. \"I'll tell you the truth. Not many people know this. But Harry Derby is the greatest slide trombone player you've ever heard. He really is.\" Sandalwood's jaw sucked turtle-like into his neck.\n\n\"His tone is clear as a bell,\" Ryan went on. \"What Jablonski and I were trying to do that night was to recruit him into a little jazz band we're forming.\"\n\nSandalwood's face darkened. Ryan knew he had turned the tables. \"You know how it is,\" he went on. \"There's just never enough good trombone players.\"\n\nAnger was making Sandalwood's eyes kindle.\n\nRyan grinned. \"What's the matter? Aren't I telling you the truth? Suppose you tell me.\"\n\nSlowly, visibly, Sandalwood swallowed his rage. It took time. But he was too skillful to let himself be twitted into further error. He had attempted a well-timed bluff, but Ryan had called it.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"You can't blame me for trying. I played a hunch, that's all. But on the level, Ryan\u2014what the hell are you doing?\"\n\n\"Just call downtown to the deputy commissioner,\" said Ryan, \"and get permission. Then I'll be glad to give you an interview.\"\n\nCarelessly Sandalwood threw a porkpie rain hat over an unruffled brow. \"Okay.\"\n\nHe went to the door. \"I was bluffing and you called it. I haven't talked to Derby. But I will now. Know why? Because now I know I'm right. Something went on here that night\u2014I can feel it. Maybe it wasn't a hundred dollar bill. Maybe it was something else. But whatever it was, there's a story in it, and I'm going to get it.\"\n\nOver his shoulder Sandalwood smiled deliberately. He did not feel like smiling, and he knew that Ryan knew that. Then he paused, going out, and the smile was replaced by calculated malice.\n\n\"By the way, seen Gee Gee Hawes lately?\"\n\nRyan could not think of an adequate reply that would not involve the swinging of fists.\n\nWhen Sandalwood had ambled down the stairs whistling with studied loudness, Ryan lighted a cigarette and noticed his hands were trembly. He inhaled deeply. Sandalwood had been following him! It couldn't have been for long, and it was probably the result of luck more than intent\u2014maybe Sandalwood had happened to see him on the street yesterday and had tagged along hopefully. Ryan was certain he would have sensed it if anyone had been following him for any length of time.\n\nEven so, the thought was alarming, and Sandalwood's threat was more than alarming. He crushed out the cigarette in a rush of desperate helplessness and jogged down the stairs. Twice on the way home he checked to make sure no one was behind him. He had not intended returning home, but in this new uneasiness he wanted to be doubly certain no one could overhear the telephone calls he would make.\n\nThe house was still. Ryan heated coffee, poured a cup, lighted another cigarette and then dialed the number of a stool to whom Lee Lambert had introduced him. \"He's a barber over on Third,\" Lambert had explained afterward. \"Slip him a fin occasionally but never go in the shop. Though you can call him there.\" When the barber whose name was Connie answered, Ryan told him what he wanted to know\u2014everything he could get about Big Mackie, and fast.\n\n\"It won't be much. That party's out of town.\"\n\n\"What do you mean? When did he go?\"\n\n\"Oh, some weeks. Quite a few weeks,\" said the barber in the cryptic locution of one who is being overheard.\n\n\"I want to know when he left town,\" said Ryan. \"The exact date. And where he is now. Check it hard.\"\n\n\"Okay. Sure, Mr. Johnson. I'll call you in a few days.\"\n\n\"Call by tonight. I said I needed it fast. Call my home and leave a message\u2014here's the number. Make damned sure I hear from you. This is a big one.\"\n\n\"Well...okay. You gonna drop around for that scalp treatment?\"\n\n\"Let me hear from you and you'll hear from me.\"\n\nHe gulped coffee and dialed a Brooklyn precinct where a sergeant who had helped break him in as a rookie was still stationed. He was working on a little hunch of his own, he lied glibly, involving a Manhattan job some time back that might have been done by either of two Brooklyn muggers with records. What could Oley tell him of either?\n\n\"Ferris you can forget about,\" Oley said promptly. \"He ran into someone a little tougher than he is last summer in a bar and got badly mauled. He lost one eye and the other's just about gone I understand. Anyway, he was in the hospital all fall, and now he has to be led around. Who's your other guy\u2014the Drummer Boy?\"\n\n\"Vince Van Loan. Thirty-one. Five feet\u2014\"\n\n\"Sure. Drummer Boy Van Loan. He's always been nuts about playing snare drums. I think you can write him off too, Neill, though I'll check further if you like.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"My missus was telling me\u2014she went to school with the Van Loan girls\u2014that last summer Vince met some broad who sang with a little band out Nassau County way. Well, this singer gets Vince a job drumming with the band and damned if he's not going straight. He's nuts about drums and he likes the dame, and I guess it's working out. I'll ask Mary about it again tonight, but I think you can forget him. Got any others over our way?\"\n\n\"That's all, Oley. Thanks a lot.\"\n\nHe hung up the phone thoughtfully. The Bronx guy would have to wait until he could sound out Lambert on their contacts up there. Meanwhile, pending word from Connie what else could he do?\n\nHe looked at his watch\u2014twelve-thirty. He was hungry, and he'd be getting to work before long. But something Sandalwood said came back and he dialed another number, and as he did his tight mouth relaxed in a smile for the first time that day.\n\nA sleep-husky voice said, \"Hullo?\" and Ryan, instantly contrite, said, \"If I woke you up, I'll kill myself.\"\n\n\"You didn't wake me up,\" Gee Gee said. \"Hello, Neill. Good morning,\" and he could tell from the way she sounded that she was smiling at the recognition of his voice. Ryan took a deep breath and forgot Derby.\n\n\"I haven't seen you for a long time\u2014six days, to be exact. I was wondering if you'd like to have brunch or something.\"\n\n\"I think that would be lovely. Just give me time for a shower.\"\n\n\"I did wake you up.\"\n\n\"Oh, now stop! But wait\u2014is it raining?\"\n\n\"Cats and dogs. So what?\"\n\n\"Then why don't you come here for lunch? I blew myself to a coat\u2014a real fur coat. Neill, wait'll you see it! I can't wear that lovely thing out in the rain.\"\n\n\"You could wear your old one.\"\n\n\"With a new one? Never! You come here. I'll make you plintzen.\"\n\n\"What is plintzen?\"\n\n\"They're a German pancake like cr\u00eapes suzette. But simpler.\"\n\nWaiting on the subway platform Ryan inspected himself in a gum machine's speckled mirror. Under his eyes were blue shadows. He didn't like that. Weariness shamed him. He hoped she wouldn't notice.\n\n* * * *\n\n\"I don't know why I'm so good to you,\" she said as he reached the top of the stairs. \"Cooking lunch and everything.\" She was wearing a small apron over a simple blue skirt and sweater. He had never seen her dressed so plainly.\n\nRyan took both sweatered arms and kissed her warm, unresisting lips. He had been kissing her since the third date. \"Now what have I done?\"\n\n\"Where have you been?\" But he knew he was welcome. \"I feel neglected\u2014and I have a right to feel neglected.\" She took his wet hat and raincoat.\n\n\"I'm sorry. But you knew I was on the day tour last week. And when I work days and you work nights what can you expect? Besides, something came up.\"\n\n\"What came up?\"\n\n\"I can't go into it, Gee.\"\n\nShe was tempted to say, \"I know what came up\u2014something with baby blue eyes and blond hair,\" but she gave him a look of quick inspection and was glad she had not. Something was wrong, obviously. Still\u2014he had neglected her!\n\n\"Oh! You wait a minute.\"\n\nShe ran out of the room. \"Close your eyes,\" she called. He closed them. Something sweet-smelling was cooking in the kitchen. \"Now you can open them,\" she said from close at hand.\n\nShe stood before him swathed in a coat of dark, long, glossy fur. The big collar stood luxuriously up around her smiling, sparkling face, and its close-held skirt hugged her thighs. Ryan thought of mink and sable and some of the other furs that wealthy dames were always being robbed of. He was quite sure it was not one of those, but it was pretty close.\n\n\"Like it?\"\n\n\"Sure. It's\u2014it's terrific.\"\n\nShe turned, modeling it. It was hard to tell whether the coat made her look better, or whether she made the coat look as opulent and chic as it did, but whichever it was the effect was overwhelming. She had always looked too pretty or too...too big-time for him, he thought in sudden dispirit. A guy with a lot of flash, like Sandalwood, was more her style. Ryan would have been stunned to learn that Gee Gee felt hurt because he had not called her, and because he now was not being as enthusiastic as she had hoped.\n\nShe slipped out of the coat. \"That's all of the fashion show,\" she said lightly; \"I just thought you might want to see it. It's\u2014it's the first good coat I've ever owned.\"\n\n\"It's great.\"\n\nAt the door she turned, holding the coat, and said. \"You don't know what it's like, growing up in neighborhoods like this, wanting a fur coat\u2014and finally getting it.\"\n\nShe went out.\n\nYou'll never get a coat like that on a cop's salary, cookie. But why assume she would ever be dependent on a cop's salary? Still, the idea, and the day's rain, and his anxiety and weariness all helped make him bitter and defeated. When Gee Gee reappeared and said, \"Oh, it's silly, but you know in show business you have to put up a front, and a coat like that helps,\" it did not help at all because Ryan innately disliked people who put up fronts.\n\nWhen she said, \"Will you excuse me a minute?\" he said, \"Sure,\" and left alone, had a feeling of guilt, of having been mean without knowing precisely how, and certainly not understanding why.\n\nThe plintzen were warm, tender egg pancakes with sugar and cinnamon rolled inside them. The coffee was fresh and fragrant. As they ate, she said, \"That reminds me. Will you be through at midnight?\"\n\n\"Far as I know. Why?\"\n\n\"Because you're invited to a party.\"\n\n\"A party?\"\n\n\"At the club. This is Max's birthday, and after the last show tonight he's giving a party for the whole staff and their husbands and boyfriends and so on. I thought if you didn't have anything better to do\u2014\"\n\n\"Sounds wonderful.\" Then he remembered he'd have to be up early tomorrow morning. There was the guy in the Bronx to work on. And Betty Leonard to see. And the cuff link distributor to locate and question. \"Gee whiz. I don't know.\"\n\n\"Don't know what?\" Very casually.\n\n\"Whether I can make the party. I don't think I can.\"\n\n\"Another girl, Neill?\" Quietly.\n\n\"Don't be silly. It's\u2014it's business:\"\n\n\"Police business?\"\n\n\"Well. In a way. I'm sorry, Gee.\"\n\n\"It's perfectly all right. Don't give it another thought.\"\n\n\"Now don't be like that. I honestly can't help it.\"\n\n\"Of course. I think I can find someone else to invite.\"\n\nRyan looked at the table, at its cotton cloth and old-fashioned cruet set, at his plate that was bare except for a few sugar crumbs, and his freshly filled coffee cup. He felt helpless and tortured. He didn't like this; she was getting away from him somehow. Not that she had ever really been his. Yet he was losing her.\n\n\"Gee Gee?\"\n\nNow it was she who was looking at the cruet set.\n\n\"Maybe I better tell you something.\" But dared he? No. She was a friend of Sandalwood. He said, \"I'm in a little jam at the moment. Not too serious. But I've got to work it out. It's\u2014it's about Harry Derby.\"\n\n\"Derby? Why, he's all put away and done with.\"\n\nRyan frowned over the cigarette he was lighting. \"Well...yes. But still...I can't tell you about it, Gee.\"\n\nBut somehow that relieved her. If it was Derby then it wasn't another girl. Things added up, in a way.\n\n\"Neill, I remember that night we met and Ed Jablonski got sort of high and began talking about how you and he had fixed Derby. Is it that?\"\n\n\"I said, I can't tell you about it.\"\n\n\"I remember Ed saying that you two had made a case or something against Derby that no one could break. Is that what's gone wrong?\"\n\n\"Oh, for God's sake!\" The torture suddenly strained his voice. \"Listen, forget anything that\u2014that drunken idiot said that night. You hear me? Forget it! And don't repeat it!\"\n\nIt was the violence more than what he said that hurt her. And his refusal to confide in her. It made her think of overheard parental quarrels. Why did things always have to go like this with someone you really liked?\n\n\"So anyway, I can't go to your party,\" he went on. \"You can get somebody else, all right. How about your friend, Sandalwood?\"\n\nShe was silent.\n\n\"Seen him lately?\" He spoke mildly, trying to bring the conversation and himself back to normal.\n\n\"No.\" She shook out and lit her own cigarette. \"He's been busy, too. He's writing a new series of articles.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Something about famous miscarriages of justice.\"\n\nThere it was, once more. He would never escape it.\n\n\"Oh, fine.\" He added, \"Maybe I'll get in the papers again,\" before he thought.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe shouldn't have said that. \"Do you like him. Gee?\"\n\n\"Not especially. But he's not too bad. And he's press, you know. That's important in show business.\"\n\n\"Another part of the front to keep up?\"\n\nShe flushed. \"So what? I want to get somewhere in my business, just as you do in yours. Soon as that coat's paid for, I'm starting dramatic lessons with one of the best coaches on Broadway.\"\n\nBut the coat came first, he thought bitterly. He got up, knowing that somehow he had been cutting his own throat, and feeling helpless about how it might have been avoided. \"The pancakes were wonderful.\"\n\n\"Glad you liked them.\" From a cool distance.\n\n\"I really would like to be there tonight.\"\n\n\"Well, come if you can make it.\" The distance did not diminish.\n\nHe knew he wouldn't get there, and he knew that a breach of unfriendliness was deepening between them. Walking toward Eighth Avenue he felt the rain's thousand prods on his damp shoulders. They did not make him feel worse.\n\nIn the apartment that he had left the telephone rang and Gee Gee, busy clearing the table, stopped to answer it.\n\n\"Baby?\" said a sleepy voice. \"This is Jack. Look. I've been working my head off all week on that lousy series. I feel like coming up for air. How about a long lunch at the Harwyn?\"\n\nWell, why not? What did she owe Neill Ryan? And when would she see him again? And when did she want to?\n\n\"Sounds lovely,\" she said into the phone.\n\nEven so, she felt a little guilty about putting the film-like plastic rain cape over her new coat. And going out in it.\n\n* * * *\n\n\"On a day like this?\" said Sandalwood. \"Of course you must have another. I'm going to.\" He signaled to the waiter standing at alert attention just out of earshot. \"Two more Martinis on the rocks. We'll look at a menu after that.\"\n\nWhy not? Gee Gee thought. What was there to do until dinner? And maybe she could learn something for Neill. Instantly she asked herself: why should she bother?\n\n\"But you have work to do. My day doesn't begin until evening.\"\n\n\"I beat that typewriter for four hours this morning,\" said Sandalwood. \"That's enough for one day. From here in I coast.\" He grinned lazily at her.\n\n\"How's the series coming?\"\n\n\"Oh, all right. I could write it in my sleep. They are old cases that everyone should remember but doesn't\u2014I hope. People who were executed and later proven innocent, guys who served twenty years and then someone else confessed to the crime. You know.\"\n\nThe waiter put down two enormous glasses.\n\n\"They are all old cases? No\u2014no recent ones?\" She tried to speak inconsequentially.\n\nSandalwood, sprawled in his chair, liked this expensive place and the gin's warm comfort, and the looks of the girl across from him. He felt luxurious and relaxed. But for years he had made his living by catching nuances in what people said to him, by daring to guess at what they meant and by probing imaginatively for more. It was a kind of intellectual short-circuiting and was one of the reasons Sandalwood was a great reporter. Now he had caught something.\n\n\"Oh, there'll be a few modern ones,\" he said, although it wasn't true. The Derby case was something apart, a private interest of his own.\n\nHe was too old a hand to look up and watch how Gee Gee took that. Instead he studied his new drink and added significantly, \"There'll be one or two quite recent ones, in fact,\" and saw her fingers tighten on her glass.\n\nSuddenly she was afraid of him\u2014for Ryan's sake. He was too wise, too able, too knowing.\n\nAnd Sandalwood had caught her alarm. But what was she scared of, he asked himself. What was on her mind? He rehearsed the calendar of recent crime; there hadn't been anything of importance involving nightclubs or entertainers. But she was a friend of Neill Ryan.\n\nSandalwood raised his glass to her, said \"Here's to us,\" and looked at her over the rim. \"One of the recent cases in the series will be the Harry Derby case,\" he said, watching.\n\nGee Gee raised her glass hurriedly. \"The Derby case?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nThat was it. It was cat-and-mouse now.\n\n\"But\u2014Derby was guilty. He's been convicted.\"\n\n\"Oh sure.\" He smiled superiorly.\n\n\"You mean\u2014what do you mean? There's more to it?\"\n\n\"I'll say there is.\" And he was sure he was right, although he did not know where this was leading him. But he was on the right track.\n\n\"And you know all about it?\"\n\nSandalwood gave no sign that he appreciated the emphasis on that \"you.\"\n\n\"I'm a reporter, cutie.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" she said helplessly, \"you know.\"\n\nWhat would this do to Neill? For even in her moment of alarm she felt a surge of warmth for him. He had had something on his mind, after all. He way in trouble. It hadn't been another girl.\n\nWhat was he supposed to know, Sandalwood wondered. And, equally important at the moment, where did her sympathies lie? He said, \"This could cause a lot of trouble for your friend Ryan.\"\n\n\"Well, whatever it is,\" she said instantly, \"you can be darned sure it wasn't Neill's fault.\"\n\n\"'Whatever it is,'\" he repeated. \"Don't you know what it is?\"\n\n\"No, I don't, but I know this. It was all that damned Ed Jablonski. I remember the night they arrested Derby, he was boasting afterward about how they'd fixed Derby good. I know that Neill is not the kind to...\"\n\nSandalwood wasn't listening. Fix him good. That didn't sound like taking a little money from a prisoner. But he had never put much stock in that idea, anyway. What was it, then? Some kind of frame?\n\nHe remembered Ryan's guilty start when he came on him up in the old brownstone's bedroom.\n\n\"...and if anything happens it will be poor Neill who'll suffer,\" Gee Gee was spying. \"It's not fair.\" She looked meltingly at Sandalwood. \"Unless you give him a break in your story. That could help, couldn't it?\"\n\n\"Sure, it could,\" he said. He had enough for now. He had a lead. Don't press, Jackie boy. And there was no doubt about where she stood. But maybe there was a way to make her open up a little more next time, in case she should learn more from Ryan.\n\n\"You seem to think a lot of Ryan,\" he smiled at her. \"It sort of surprises me\u2014the way he's been seeing Harry Derby's sister lately.\"\n\n\"What?\" said Gee Gee. \"Derby's sister?\"\n\n\"Care to order now, sir?\" the waiter asked.\n\n\"Why not?\" said Sandalwood.\n\nHe felt good, and very wide-awake. And voraciously hungry.\nCHAPTER 22\n\nThe Girl in the White Jaguar\n\nSomeone who knew what a chisel was made for had been prying open automobile windows in the east fifties, mostly near hotels where out-of-town visitors parked on arrival and left their bags. It sounded like a team of three, two to get into the car quickly and a third in another car to pick up the loot. Bauer mentioned it when the afternoon tour gathered in the squad room.\n\n\"They haven't hit for five days and they're about due. They may figure the rain'll help them. Lee, you and Neill cruise as far up as Fifty-seventh. Take your meal period after nine, because they haven't been doing anything after nine o'clock. Harry, you and Al do the same about Fifty-seventh until you get a call.\"\n\nFor the next hour Lambert and Ryan shuttled back and forth in a well-worn Plymouth sedan through wet, shiny side streets from Fifth Avenue to Third, saying little, listening whenever the hoarse radio rasped into communication. They had worked together long enough so that they did not have to say much. Lambert was driving, inching and stopping and inching again through the dense traffic of a gloomy, rainy afternoon. They both scanned the parked cars for luggage that would attract thieves.\n\nA frustratingly long line of cars had halted them in Fifty-second Street when Lambert touched Ryan's arm. Twenty-five yards ahead of them two men in dark overcoats were standing, hardly sheltered from the rain, against the wall of a building. In front of the two men a yellow Cadillac convertible was parked. One of them kept looking down the street in the direction from which Ryan and Lambert had come.\n\nLambert said mildly, \"They seem to like it in the rain.\"\n\nRyan unlatched his door. \"Probably their car's behind us,\" he said, and slipped out of the Plymouth. He walked back a few car lengths, then reached the sidewalk. From here he could not see the men so well; a restaurant's well-lighted canopy over the street interfered with his vision.\n\nThe traffic in the street began to crawl again, taking Lambert with it. Ryan studied the cars coming up behind. Two cabs, then a glossy Buick fresh from a garage, then a small white sports car\u2014it would be none of those.\n\nBut behind the white Jaguar were two nondescript sedans. Ryan strolled toward the bright canopy and the two men beyond it. The Jaguar had pulled up before the restaurant canopy and the garage attendant who had delivered it took the parking slip from the doorman on duty. Ryan looked again for the two men; one had walked over near the Cadillac and was still looking west down Fifty-second Street. The first sedan had gone past, but the second one blinked its lights.\n\nThis looked good. And by now Lambert must be at the corner.\n\nRyan moved forward\u2014and collided with the doorman coming out of the restaurant, hurrying with an open umbrella. \"Watch it, Mac,\" said the doorman. Immediately behind him came a copper-haired girl in a new, glossy fur coat with a film-like rain cape over it. She was followed by a hatless man in a gray sport jacket. He was laughing. \"Thanks, Joe,\" he said to the doorman. A dollar bill appeared between their hands.\n\nThe doorman opened the Jaguar's door and held the umbrella over it. Ryan forced his mind away from the fact that she was the girl who had just told him she hadn't seen Sandalwood lately. He made himself look ahead. The two men were near the Cadillac.\n\nHe hurried across the bright canopy. She was getting into the little car's jewel-like interior. The second sedan that had blinked its lights had stopped alongside the Cadillac. The two men walked around the Cadillac without touching it and started to get into the sedan. Ryan came up behind them.\n\n\"Where you been?\" said one.\n\n\"Ethel made me drive her to the employees' entrance,\" said the driver. The door closed on them.\n\nRyan walked up to the corner where Lambert had pulled in near a hydrant.\n\n\"False alarm.\" He got back into the car.\n\n\"Next time lucky,\" said Lambert.\n\nSo she couldn't wear that coat out in the rain, huh?\n\n* * * *\n\nRyan called in at nine to say that everything was quiet and that they were taking their meal period at the Polish sausage restaurant. All evening he had fought the thought of Gee Gee and Sandalwood being together. Sergeant Weiner said, \"Wait a minute. Your mother phoned and said to tell you Connie called.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Connie. She said you had called her earlier.\"\n\n\"I get it.\"\n\n\"Call her at this number.\"\n\nHe kept Lambert waiting while he called the barber. \"Connie? This is Ryan.\"\n\n\"Yeah. About that party you were asking about. He left town in November. Quite sudden.\"\n\nRyan's worry and weariness left him. \"What date was that?\"\n\n\"I can't get it exactly, not so far. I'll keep tryin'. But it was well before Thanksgiving. Because he paid a\u2014a person I been talkin' to some money he had owed him a long time. This person says it was about two weeks before Thanksgiving. I looked that up on a calendar. Thanksgiving came on a Thursday.\"\n\n\"It usually does.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Well, this one was Thursday the twenty-fifth.\"\n\nThat could figure. If Mackie had done it and had heard of Derby's immediate arrest he would feel relieved. Naturally. But after a few days he would start worrying. He would wonder if the cops weren't putting out a newspaper phony to lull the real killer... Then he might worry himself right out of town.\n\n\"How much did he owe this person?\"\n\n\"Two hundred bucks. He paid him only a hundred, though.\"\n\nGod! This was coming too fast. Derby had still had the hundred dollar bill.\n\n\"You know this Mackie?\"\n\n\"A little. I used to box at his place.\"\n\n\"Box?\"\n\n\"His joint is part Turkish bath and part health club. Or it used to be. A few fighters trained there, prelim boys and like that.\"\n\n\"Remember any of them? Or do you know anyone who might have heard from him recently?\"\n\n\"I dunno who'd of heard from him. The old man who helps him. Or that screwy kid who gives out the towels, maybe. I dunno who else. I hear when he left, Mackie said he was going to visit his mother in Chicago.\" Connie sniggered. \"I'll bet she lives in a kennel.\"\n\n\"Who else did he know?\"\n\n\"I'm telling you, boss, I don't know. I ain't seen Mackie in three years myself. Maybe five. Today\u2014hey, I know one. And you do too. That guy who's gonna burn in Sing Sing.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"That guy Derby,\" said Connie. \"What's his name\u2014Harry Derby? The one who killed the old lady. Sure. He wanted to be a fighter. I've gone more than a few rounds with him at Mackie's. Mean, he was. But Mackie always thought he'd make a fighter.\"\n\nRyan said, \"Can you think of anyone else?\" but it was only habit. He didn't listen to the answer.\n\nWhen he climbed into the car, Lambert said, \"They had something for us, huh?\" disappointedly. He was hungry.\n\n\"No. I had to call home. Sorry.\"\n\nBut when they were both seated in the restaurant, Ryan could not think of food. All he could think of was Sandalwood and Gee Gee, and how little time he must have left, and the facts Connie had given him that twirled and flittered in his mind like a deck of cards in a gale.\n\n\"Lee, do me a favor? I'm not hungry. And I've got an errand to run.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Lambert. Ryan had had a phone call. He was a nice-looking kid and unmarried. \"Better gimme an address.\"\n\nRyan knew what Lambert thought, but it didn't matter. He gave an address twelve numbers away from the Derby apartment. \"Blow two long and two short if we get a call.\" He would be able to hear it from that close.\n\n\"I won't unless I have to,\" Lambert grinned.\n\n* * * *\n\nShe said, \"What I don't understand is why the fingerprint at the drugstore didn't tell the police right away that Harry committed the\u2014that robbery.\" She was sprawled back on the day bed in the tight slacks. Her hair was pulled tight in a pony tail. She looked young and thoughtful.\n\n\"Everyone thinks fingerprints are a big thing,\" said Ryan. \"Actually they're valuable mostly after you've made the collar. If even a partial print is found at the scene, and then you make an arrest, you can tell fast whether the suspect is your man. But what good is one fingerprint in itself? Individual prints are not classified by themselves. The whole system of fingerprint identification is based on getting a complete set\u2014it's only the habitual criminal or specialist whose individual fingers are classified. Say you go over a safe job and find one left thumbprint. You look at the file of left thumbprints of habitual box men. Then maybe you make it.\n\n\"But we can't file and classify all ten prints of every guy who ever hit a drugstore. If Harry had been arrested in the drugstore job, then that print would have helped us make him fast. But no one could go through all the sets of prints on file downtown to find one that matched. It would take forever. Don't put your trust in fingerprints. For one thing we don't often find them, no matter what you see on television.\"\n\nHe sipped the Coke she had insisted he take, and which he had accepted because he knew she wanted to be a thoughtful hostess. Ken would be home soon, she had said. Ryan was glad he wasn't there now.\n\n\"What I really wanted to ask you about,\" he said, \"was what you might remember of the day that\u2014that Mrs. Connors was murdered. And also about a guy named Mackie.\"\n\n\"Mackie?\"\n\n\"Big Mackie, he's usually called. He runs some kind of athletic club near Fifth Avenue. Ever hear Harry mention him?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. Harry tried boxing once, though, ten years ago or so. Maybe Ken would know. He'll be along any minute.\"\n\n\"I can't stay much longer.\" He looked at his wrist. \"One other thing. I wish you would tell me everything you can remember that happened here the day of the murder.\"\n\n\"Happened? Here?\"\n\n\"I won't try to explain. Please.\" He was oppressed by time's swift passing.\n\n\"Well.\" She drew on her cigarette and considered. \"Harry was staying with us then.\"\n\n\"Didn't he always?\"\n\n\"Harry came and went. Sometimes he roomed alone. Sometimes he\u2014he stayed with a friend.\" Ryan caught the intonation's meaning. \"When he was broke he often came here for a few days or a week at a time. He slept on this couch.\"\n\nRyan listened to a car braying outside. It wasn't a Plymouth.\n\n\"That's how it was that day. I remember Ken woke Harry up when he was getting ready to go to work, and Harry got mad. I remember him swearing he'd find some other place to stay where he could get a night's sleep. But they'd been arguing the night before; this was just a continuation.\"\n\n\"What about?\"\n\n\"The night before? They'd argued about money. Harry had some sort of chance to buy into a little gum vending machine business. He could have swung it with five hundred dollars. He wanted Ken to lend it to him.\"\n\n\"And Ken wouldn't?\"\n\n\"Ken didn't have it. He helps keep this place going. And he's got a girl who\u2014who likes to go out and spend money.\"\n\nHow about you? Ryan wondered. Don't you ever want to go out and spend money? Or is your whole life just looking clean and working in a library?\n\nShe misinterpreted his look. \"Really, I know Ken didn't have it,\" she said emphatically. \"If he had, he'd have loaned it to Harry. He was awfully anxious for Harry to go straight. It\u2014they had a strange relationship, Ken and Harry. They liked each other and sometimes I've thought each one took a kind of vicarious pleasure in the other's goodness or badness. Harry was proud of Ken, I know. He used to kid him about looking like a traffic cop in his uniform. And I suppose Ken sometimes admired Harry's wildness.\"\n\n\"Yeah. What else happened that day?\"\n\n\"Well, I straightened the house and got breakfast\u2014Ken leaves a lot earlier than I do\u2014than I did. I didn't get to work until ten. So I made breakfast for Harry and me, and Harry was still here when I left. That's the last I saw of him. You\u2014you arrested him that night.\"\n\n\"Did he get any phone calls that morning? Or the night before?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Or have any visitors?\"\n\n\"No. He and Ken just argued.\" She said it matter-of-factly, but in that monotone Ryan heard the shouts and curses that had echoed in these quiet walls.\n\n\"That's how they always were. Emotional. Pulling and tearing and yanking at each other. And liking each other underneath. Ken wanted to borrow Harry's jacket that day\u2014his uniform was at the cleaner's. Harry told him to\u2014to go to the dickens.\" Ryan could imagine what Harry had said.\n\n\"The checkered jacket?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nHell, thought Ryan. What was he getting\u2014a stronger case against Harry? In these few minutes he had confirmation that Harry had needed money that day, was in an ugly mood and had his telltale jacket. \"Tell me this. Did you ever see a cuff link like this?\" He took it from his wallet.\n\nShe looked long and carefully. \"No. I never did.\"\n\n\"Harry never had cuff links like that?\"\n\n\"No. I don't ever remember seeing them.\"\n\nOutside a Plymouth honked, then honked again. The apartment door opened.\n\n\"Ken?\"\n\n\"Hi, kid. How's tricks. I just got a big\u2014\" He caught sight of Ryan. \"Well, well.\" He grinned and held out a hand. \"Hi. I'm sorry about the other night. Any hard feelings?\"\n\n\"No hard feelings.\"\n\nKen Derby pulled off the black whipcord jacket, unclipped the shiny leather bow tie from his shirt collar, and unbuttoned the collar. Then he rubbed his jaw. \"That's quite a right you got,\" he said amiably. \"Quite a right.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I was lucky, too.\"\n\n\"How about food, Rosie? Listen, I know a good right when I see one. I used to box. I still follow the fights on television.\"\n\n\"Where'd you box?\"\n\n\"Down at Mackie's. With Harry.\"\n\nRyan had a sense of things falling exactly into place.\n\nRosemary said, \"There's liver and bacon.\"\n\n\"Mackie's?\"\n\n\"That'll be fine.\" Ken looked at Ryan. \"This'd be a long time back.\"\n\nThe Plymouth honked again.\n\n\"You familiar with Mackie's?\"\n\n\"Sure. Why not?\"\n\nSomething began taking shape in Ryan's mind. \"I'm working to try to clear your brother.\"\n\n\"So Rosie told me. If I can help...\"\n\n\"Can you keep your mouth shut?\"\n\n\"If it'll help Harry,\" said Ken doggedly, \"I can keep my mouth so damned shut\u2014\"\n\n\"Good. Because there's a chance\u2014just a bare chance, according to some information I have\u2014that this guy Mackie killed the old lady Harry got sent up for.\"\n\nKen's expression was eloquent. \"Listen. If that's so and I can help prove it\u2014\"\n\n\"It's a long shot, and besides I've still got a lot of things to check.\" He waited for another bleat from the car below. \"I understand Mackie has living quarters above his joint, right?\"\n\n\"He used to have an apartment on the third floor.\"\n\n\"Could you draw me a plan? And show me how to get into the living quarters?\"\n\nKen Derby put hands on knees and leaned forward earnestly. \"Listen. I know the joint and I'll draw all the plans you want. If you're trying to spring Harry, there's nothing you can't ask me.\"\n\nFinally it came, a loud impatient entreaty.\n\nRyan jumped guiltily. \"I've got to go. Listen, draw that plan. Although I can't get back for it until after midnight.\"\n\n\"You come any time you want,\" said Derby. He held out a hand. \"It'll be ready and so will I. If getting into Mackie's joint will help, you're as good as in.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Ryan. \"I just want to frisk it. Okay. But keep your mouth shut.\"\n\nWhen he reached the street a tawny Plymouth convertible was panting at the curb across the way. The boy in it leaned impatiently on the horn. Lambert was nowhere in sight. Ryan grinned. This half hour had been better than food.\nCHAPTER 23\n\nLiniment Scent\n\nThey were drinking coffee around a dining-room table, late. Ken Derby gestured toward the sheets of paper before him, each bearing a neatly drawn diagram. \"I haven't been there for quite a few years, you understand,\" he said. \"But that's how it was when I hung there.\"\n\nRyan sipped the coffee Rosemary had made. It was one-thirty. She had talked a few minutes and then gone to bed because she had a job interview coming up in the morning. Ryan said, \"But you don't know anything about the top floor?\"\n\n\"The building was originally a laundry. That was on the street floor, of course. The top floor ought to be basically like the second. We can find our way.\"\n\n\"We?\"\n\nDetermination made Ken Derby's face almost as thinly mean as his brother's. \"I want to go,\" he said. \"If I can't help, at least I can't do any harm. I know the place, and you're going to be operating alone. And I'll tell you this.\" He looked up suddenly, levelly, at Ryan, and Ryan heard the emotion in Derby's throat. \"If there's anything I can do to save my brother, I want to do it. Believe me.\"\n\n\"The chances,\" said Ryan, \"of Mackie being our guy are probably one in a hundred thousand. All I know at the moment is that he looks something like Harry, and\u2014but there's another guy in the Bronx\u2014\"\n\nKen Derby's face narrowed with earnestness.\n\n\"Wait a minute. Maybe the odds aren't quite one in a hundred thousand.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"This Mackie could look like Harry. Sure. But what I was thinking was, he's a tough guy, in a queer way.\"\n\n\"A fag?\"\n\n\"No. Well, I dunno, now that you ask. He hates women, that's for sure.\"\n\n\"He's got a record along that line.\"\n\n\"I guess he has been pinched for mugging women at that. But what I mean is, Mackie's always been against dames. He used to tell jokes about dames, jokes where they got beat up, or something. Tell you something else. Nobody ever saw Mackie with a broad.\"\n\n\"But right now he's out of town.\"\n\n\"He is?\"\n\n\"He left soon after Mrs. Connors was killed.\"\n\nKen Derby whistled softly. \"Hey, if you could extra\u2014What is it? Extradite him? Get him back here. And\u2014\"\n\n\"From where?\"\n\n\"From where, for God's sake! From wherever he is.\"\n\n\"That may be Chicago,\" said Ryan, \"but I doubt it.\"\n\n\"You don't know?\"\n\n\"That's one reason I want to frisk his joint.\" He rose. It was almost two a.m. He was dead tired and the days were growing fewer.\n\nKen Derby got up. \"I'll go with you.\"\n\n\"No, you won't,\" said Ryan. \"This is police business.\"\n\nDerby looked malevolent. \"Yeah? Like hell it is. The police department isn't doing anything for Harry. You're swinging it, all alone. Like I said, maybe I can help and maybe I can't. But he's my brother. And you're my friend.\"\n\nRyan was ashamed to find he wanted company. \"Okay,\" he said.\n\nThe cab dropped them in front of a bar two blocks away from Mackie's place. Derby suggested a quick drink but Ryan curtly told him no. They walked down the shadowy street to a point opposite the narrow, inconspicuous building that housed Mackie's business and home. It was dark and so were the taller buildings on either side.\n\n\"Funny,\" said Derby. \"He used to stay open all night.\"\n\n\"Subway rides used to cost a nickel,\" said Ryan. \"I thought you knew this place.\"\n\n\"I do. But Mackie or somebody was always here this time of night. Maybe the kid who helps him has been goofing off. Or the old man.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" Ryan strained his eyes across the dark street. \"An old man?\"\n\n\"An old white-haired coot.\" He sounded anxious. \"The sign was always on nights!\"\n\nNuts with it. Either you hit or you quit.\n\n\"You sure about that back door?\"\n\n\"Dead sure.\"\n\n\"Then stay here. I'll call you.\"\n\nRyan walked boldly across the street. There was no one in sight, but he knew well that the chance of his being observed was not a small one. He got to the other sidewalk, found a space between the buildings, moved into it\u2014and saw a light moving up behind him. He wheeled and crouched in the shadow. A white-marked police car rolled by. For the first time in his life he knew how it felt to be on the other side.\n\nThe RMP car went on and Ryan looked around. Ken Derby was nowhere in sight. He had ducked fast and expertly. It must run in the family, Ryan thought contemptuously, then remembered Rosemary. That hadn't been fair.\n\nHe got around to the back, walking boldly in blackness. There was a cellar door, as Derby had said. He found the old-fashioned knob, then felt the key plate and keyhole. Above them he fingered the cold circle of a barrel lock. Ryan took out a thin-bladed Swiss knife that his father had carried and made sure the old bolt was not in place. Then he took some wrinkled wires from his wallet and worked on the barrel lock. The third wire made a click and the door knob twisted open. Wet, heavy air poured out, hot with steam.\n\nRyan advanced into it, closed the door and listened. There was a hissing noise and a steady, rhythmic dripping. And the tropic, humid heat of the equator at noon, and the strong scent of liniment and cheap soap. After a few minutes of uncertain silence, he flashed his pencil light around. This was the boiler room; there was a furnace and a boiler with gauges. And this was breaking and entering in the night time, a felony for anyone. A disaster for a cop.\n\nHe silently retraced his steps and when he found the sidewalk empty, he whistled softly. Derby ducked swiftly across the street and followed him to the back door.\n\n\"We're in. Maybe there's no one here. Maybe not. I want the upper rooms where Mackie lives.\"\n\n\"I can find 'em.\"\n\nRyan closed the door silently. Steam and soap-scent warmly enveloped them.\n\nThe second floor stank of stale liniment. Ryan's small light showed boxing gloves, tied in pairs on nails along a wall, a sandbag and two punching bags, and an elevated ring with little stools below at one corner. Beyond were doors that would lead to sleeping and dressing rooms and showers.\n\n\"How about the third floor?\"\n\n\"We go back to the stairs,\" said Derby. \"I never been up there.\"\n\n\"Lead the way.\"\n\nThey went up narrow stairs. There was a door at the top of a small landing. It had no barrel lock, and when Ryan used his knife blade for a minute along the frame, it opened. Once inside, he listened carefully, then felt for a light switch and flipped it. They saw a small, dark living room, heavily draped and massively furnished, and illuminated with big lamps whose shades dripped thick gold fringe. In corners large bronze statues gleamed; all portrayed naked athletes.\n\n\"Aren't you taking a chance with that light?\"\n\nRyan went to the room's two windows, pulled down the shades and drew the drapes. \"I'm taking a chance being here at all,\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah. What should I do?\"\n\n\"Stand by the door and listen in case someone starts poking around.\"\n\nRyan pushed his hat back on his head characteristically. There were two doors at the back. One led into a kitchen, the other into a bathroom. Where did the guy sleep? Then he saw another door.\n\nBut he took the kitchen first. The cupboards, half empty, held only a few dishes and the usual staples. The refrigerator contained a half bottle of milk turned to moldy cheese, a can of tomato juice and some eggs. He looked over the stove, into its oven, and pulled it out from the wall.\n\nIn the bathroom he examined the contents of the medicine chest and then flashed his light in the toilet tank box. He felt around the back and underneath surfaces of the washbowl and tub for anything stuck or hidden there.\n\nThere was a scraping noise from the other room. Ryan froze. He waited to hear from Derby.\n\nHe did not hear. He waited.\n\nHe did not hear anything.\n\nHe went to the door, flicked out the light so as not to be silhouetted, decided against drawing his gun, and peered into the living room. Derby stood still at the door, looking out into the hall.\n\nWas someone holding a gun on him?\n\nRyan waited another moment. Then he whispered, \"Derby!\"\n\nSilence.\n\nRyan took out his gun. He reminded himself that a gun was the worst thing he could use here. He walked into the living room.\n\nDerby wheeled nervously.\n\nRyan said, \"What was that?\"\n\n\"I thought I heard something.\" Derby's whisper was husky.\n\n\"It came from out there?\"\n\n\"It came from somewhere!\"\n\nRyan went to the living-room door that was still open, and flashed his light out. There was nothing on the stairs.\n\n\"Maybe the bedroom,\" said Derby. Ryan looked around.\n\n\"I heard something,\" Derby insisted.\n\nRyan had heard it too. He went, gingerly, silently, to the bedroom, gun ready, and switched on the light beside the door. It was a small, pale-blue room with a single bed. Ryan studied it, then searched it. There was a small desk slanted across one corner with a telephone and old magazines on it.\n\nThat might be where he'd find what he needed. But first... Derby peered in.\n\n\"Watch that door!\"\n\nDerby straightened, said \"Check,\" and went back.\n\nRyan felt behind the pictures on the walls. He got under the bed and explored its springs with his light. He looked at the hair brush and the other toilet articles on the bureau, and shook out the magazines on a small table. He up-ended a floor lamp, looked at its base, then critically examined its shade. Finally he lifted all the drawers out of the bureau carefully, and slowly and inspected their contents: several shirts and socks rolled into balls, a couple big sweaters, a sheaf of physical culture magazines, some blankets.\n\nAnd, with the blankets, a heavy woolen; black-and-white checked lumberjack shirt.\n\nThe checks were not as big as those on Harry Derby's jacket, as he well remembered. And it was a shirt, not a jacket. But witnesses in the excitement of the moment could have made that mistake. Ryan fingered it unbelievingly.\n\nThe telephone rang.\n\nRyan looked to the desk. The phone rang again. He glanced out the door at Derby. Derby was watching him and looked scared. The phone rang again.\n\nRyan went to the desk and picked it up. \"Hello?\" He held his voice low and indistinct.\n\n\"St. Louis calling\u2014one moment please.\" Then, \"Ready with New York, sir.\"\n\n\"Hello,\" said Ryan.\n\nA man's voice rasped in the receiver. \"Damn it, Bobbie, how many times do I have to tell you how to answer the phone?\"\n\nRyan waited.\n\n\"'Mackie's Baths!'\" the voice quoted testily. \"If I've told you once, I've told you a million times how I want the phone answered.\"\n\nRyan took a chance. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"How's business?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"That's good. Bob?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"How's everything?\" The tone grew guarded.\n\n\"Everything's good,\" said Ryan. He held the mouthpiece away from his face, so he could not be heard well. \"Everything's okey doke.\" He took a chance. \"You in St. Louis?\"\n\nDerby watched wondering from the door.\n\n\"Yeah. But I may fly into town tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"You sure you don't hear anything?\"\n\n\"Everything's quiet as all hell,\" said Ryan. \"Come on home.\"\n\n\"I got it all paid off but the one, and that'll be arranged this week. But meanwhile I don't want the big man on my neck.\"\n\n\"Come on home,\" said Ryan tensely. \"You'll be okay. I heard today the big man ain't\u2014ain't mad at nobody.\" It was taking a chance.\n\nBut the other end of the line chuckled with appreciation. \"You're a good kid, Bobby. But where were you earlier? There was no answer.\"\n\n\"I went out for a little while. I felt like a beer.\"\n\n\"A beer!\" said the other incredulously. Ryan knew that had been a mistake.\n\n\"When'll you get in?\" he asked quickly.\n\n\"After dinner tomorrow night,\" the other replied angrily. \"See that you're there! When did you start drinking beer?\"\n\nHe had to take the real chance. He had to know who he was talking to. \"I was kidding, Mister Mackie,\" he said. \"I'll be here.\"\n\nThe telephone chuckled more happily. \"Don't hand me any Mister business.\"\n\nThey rang off. Ryan turned from the phone. He could not believe it had happened. Derby was still watching from the door. \"Huh?\" he said.\n\n\"God,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"Who was that?\"\n\n\"Mackie. He's in St. Louis. But he's flying in tomorrow. Or today. Or whatever the hell time it is.\"\n\nDerby's wide eyes fixed on Ryan. Then his face lighted up. \"Jesus!\" he yelled. \"We got him!\"\n\n\"Shut up,\" said Ryan. \"That kid may be back any minute.\"\n\nThe bureau drawers were still on the floor. He began to lift them back into the bureau. Habit and training reminded him to run his hands around their bottoms and backs. That's how he felt the little Scotch-taped protuberance on the back of one.\n\nHe turned the drawer around. Then from its rear panel he yanked the small object taped to it.\n\nIt was a cuff link. Ryan recognized its miniature scimitar pattern instantly. But he looked a long time at it. All he could think of was that this is what comes of living right.\n\n\"Let's go,\" said Derby. \"Want some help?\"\n\nRyan did not answer. He re-taped the link into place and restored the drawers after inspecting each one. There was nothing taped to the others.\n\nHe went through the desk. It was full of letters tied in ribboned bundles, to Lester Mackie from his mother. And old receipted bills. And boxes of nails, and pins and loops of string. Mackie was a saver.\n\nThank God for that, he thought, recalling the cuff link.\n\nThey went down the narrow, liniment-smelling stairs in silence. As they groped through the boiler room, Derby said, \"You think he'll show up?\"\n\n\"He's got to,\" said Ryan. And the way things were going, it was true. Maybe things were going too good. Still, he was filled with the glow of imminent triumph.\n\nRyan insisted on walking several blocks south and west before hailing a cab. He dropped Derby at his home, noticed it was almost three-thirty and realized he was famished. After all he'd been moving at high speed for almost twenty-four hours\u2014and getting places! He was entitled to a sandwich and maybe a beer. But where could he go? Then he thought of Gee Gee's party.\n\nIt shocked him to realize how long she had been out of his mind, especially considering the circumstances in which he last saw her. He'd told her to get someone else for the party, and he had a pretty good idea who that would be. And this was the girl he had almost told about Derby! What might she have told Sandalwood?\n\nWell, why not go to the party, and find out? It would sure surprise her. Ryan grinned without humor.\n\n\"I want to go to a joint between Fifth and Sixth,\" he told the cab driver. \"On Fifty-second.\"\n\n\"One of the strip joints?\" said the driver. \"We gotta hurry, Jack. It's almost closing time.\"\nCHAPTER 24\n\nThe End of That\n\nRyan was led to a tiny table while a raucous band crashed and tub-thumped its way to the end of a song. He was barely seated when an unseen voice told the customers, in sibilant confidence through a public address system, \"And now, friends, the concluding number...the star of our show... Maxie's Rendezvous is proud to present for your enjoyment...that titian-haired temptress of the dance...lovely Gee Gee Hawes!\"\n\nShe appeared from somewhere near the bandstand, looking tall in a gown of long white pleats that was like a negligee. Not only her hair but her eyelids sparkled with sequins and her lips were parted expectantly. She wasn't the lissome, natural girl in the brown coat now, but self-consciously glittery and sure, enameled and eager. Ryan sipped beer as she undulated around the dance floor. He had not expected her to be so professional. She slipped unexpectedly out of part of her dress and her jeweled bra was small and revealing.\n\nA man at the next table said, \"Jeez, Lili can take a night off any time she wants.\" He saw Ryan looking at him. \"Lili St. Cyr's sick tonight,\" he explained. \"This dame's a substitute. Not bad, huh?\"\n\n\"Not bad,\" said Ryan.\n\nThe music increased in volume and tempo, slowly. Gee Gee glided around the floor, gradually freeing or losing garments. The spotlight grew deeper blue, until it was hard to tell whether what was visible was cloth or shadow. Then men at the next table made comments. Ryan tried to disregard them.\n\nFinally, in a flare-up of music she disappeared near the bandstand, and there was a jet roar of applause. She reappeared briefly, the white dress held in front of her. She took several bows. Even the musicians grinned. The show was over.\n\n\"Chef's left, Mac,\" the waiter said to Ryan. \"No steak sandwich. I can get you a nice ham on rye.\"\n\n\"I'll take it. And another Prior's dark.\"\n\nThe orchestra played a final number, then went back stage. The lights went up. Ryan looked around. No Sandalwood. Was he back stage? The customers finished drinks and began leaving. The waiter brought the sandwich and Ryan munched hungrily. His eyes were on the door near the bandstand. Other girls came through it dressed for the street, but instead of leaving they sat down at tables. Finally Gee Gee appeared. She walked slowly, the new coat draped with affected casualness over her shoulders. Then she saw Ryan.\n\n\"Neill!\" She came over quickly, smiling. \"You made it! I'm so glad.\"\n\nRyan grinned and he didn't want to. But seeing her always made him feel like that. Besides\u2014as his weary brain reminded him\u2014he had to find out what had happened. This wasn't a pleasure trip. She should think it was, though, he told himself cynically. \"Sit down and have a drink. You must feel like it after all\u2014after your dance.\"\n\nShe looked at him. \"You were here for the show?\"\n\n\"Your part of it. It was terrific.\"\n\n\"You're sweet. But what did you really think?\"\n\n\"I said. Terrific.\" He looked around. A few people had straggled in and were hailed by those at tables. No Sandalwood. Yet.\n\nHer cool, long-fingered hand closed over his knuckles. \"Okay,\" she said. \"Neill, you've got to remember that in this business you don't always do what you want. Maybe in any business.\"\n\nA waiter came up and Gee Gee said she would take tomato juice. \"I gained a pound and a half this week.\"\n\nRyan said his beer would do for a while, then brought up the subject on his mind. But a little regretfully. It would have been nice to just sit and talk. \"I thought I'd run into Sandalwood. I figured he'd be the one you'd ask to the party.\"\n\n\"He was,\" she said right back. She thought of what Sandalwood said about Derby's sister. \"He had to go up the river today. Tonight, I mean.\"\n\nRyan flinched. Up the river could mean many things. But to a policeman and to a police reporter it meant one thing. Up the Hudson River was Sing Sing.\n\nGee Gee misunderstood his expression. \"Oh, honey, why think of him? I don't feel that way about him at all. And maybe there's something I could get mad about too, if I wanted. But there's something I really must tell you that Jack said.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nThe waiter came with the tomato juice. \"Have a drink, Neill. You look like you need it. Bring a big Scotch, eh, Benny?\"\n\n\"Sure, Miss Hawes. You were terrific tonight, Miss Hawes. You killed 'em. You shoulda heard what they said onna way out.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Benny.\"\n\n\"I mean it. When Lili leaves. Max doesn't give you the spot he's crazy.\"\n\n\"Thanks. Benny. You're sweet.\" The waiter left. \"See? I have a public.\"\n\n\"Everybody's sweet tonight.\"\n\n\"Now, Neill, don't be like that. I don't want to quarrel with anyone. Not tonight. This is a big night. Do you know what happened? Lili St. Cyr is the headliner here now. So tonight her manager phoned in that she was sick and Max had to rebuild the show. And who did he put in the top spot?\" She was radiant.\n\n\"Congratulations.\" He appreciated her excitement. But he hadn't liked seeing her dance like that, or the artificial sweetness she seemed to be showing everyone. And she'd been talking to Sandalwood.\n\n\"There are girls here who've been in the business over three years,\" Gee Gee went on. \"And I'm just getting started. But Max\u2014well, Max!\"\n\nA man stood over their table, short and purple-suited and dominant. Ryan recognized him from the day in court.\n\n\"You were sensational, doll,\" he said. \"Sensational.\" Pudgy fingers with big rings squeezed her shoulder. \"Some people been saying when Lili leaves Saturday night you oughtta replace her.\" Gee Gee looked up hopefully. He saw the look. \"I'm thinking about it.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Max.\"\n\n\"Have your friend stay for the party.\" Max walked away.\n\n\"Thanks, Max,\" she called after him.\n\n\"You forgot to tell him he is sweet.\"\n\n\"Now, lover, don't act that way. This might be my chance. Max isn't so bad.\"\n\n\"What was it you wanted to tell me?\"\n\nBut waiters began moving the tables around, including theirs, to make one long table.\n\nApparently everyone had read about Ryan. When Gee Gee introduced him they were very nice, with that combination of friendliness and respect for even a minor public figure that characterizes the stage. They sat at the long table and drank toasts to Max and ate turkey slices and listened to the music. It wasn't the raucous thumping of before; the pianist's fingers had acquired a melancholy delicacy and the trumpet a beautifully timed sadness. Gee Gee raised her face to the horn's golden bell, listening, chin and neck white in the smoky light, and the trumpet player saw her and played straight to her while her red nails tapped rhythm on the tablecloth. The band rambled slowly through \"Confessin',\" yearned into' \"After I Say I'm Sorry,\" and mourned with \"When Your Lover Has Gone.\" Ryan found his arm around Gee Gee's shoulders.\n\nAfter a time she sighed and nestled. \"What's with you, baby?\"\n\n\"I'm fine.\"\n\n\"Sure? Not mad?\" She was anxious about it.\n\n\"Sure,\" said Ryan. \"Not mad.\" It was almost true. Then Sandalwood's taunting face, the Harwyn's canopy, the white dress held before her at the end of the dance, swam through his mind, and it was a lie.\n\nHer glass was empty and she sipped contentedly from his, which he had not touched. She had to tell him about what Sandalwood had said, but she didn't want to right now; this night was too perfect to spoil. He had come to the party, after all. Everyone had told her how well her act had gone. And she knew it had; she had felt the crowd's electric reaction.\n\n\"Baby.\" She had never called him that before. \"You don't like Harry Derby's sister better'n me, do you?\" It was a rhetorical question, asked in drowsy confidence that the answer would be the right one.\n\nBehind them the unmuted trumpet took up \"Dream,\" huskily, sweetly.\n\nBut raw gasoline had been poured on smoldering coals.\n\n\"What else,\" Ryan demanded, taking his arm away, \"did Sandalwood mention today?\"\n\nHe had never seen her eyes so round. \"Why, Neill. Don't get the idea\u2014\"\n\n\"I've got the idea. Incidentally, Rosemary Derby is a very decent sort of girl. But what did Sandalwood say about her\u2014or me? Today. At the Harwyn Club.\"\n\nThat hit. \"How\u2014how did you know that?\"\n\n\"I'm a cop, you know,\" said Ryan bitterly. \"Just a cop.\"\n\nShe was silent a second. Then, quietly, \"Neill? That night you and Ed Jablonski arrested Derby\u2014what really went on?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Ryan demanded truculently. But it alarmed him.\n\n\"Because whatever it was, Jack Sandalwood knows about it. And he's going to publish it in his series. He said so. What happened, Neill? Is Derby's sister in it?\"\n\nRyan made a snorting sound. \"What'd he tell you?\" he asked thickly.\n\n\"He didn't tell me anything\u2014and I didn't tell him anything. Except that I knew, whatever it was, that you were not to blame, and that the night we met that damned Jablonski had boasted of fixing Derby and all that.\"\n\nOh, God! He could hear it all, just as though he had been there. He knew how Sandalwood had got it out of her, and what he was figuring on, and why he had gone up the river. It was very, very late and the night had grown old and the fatigue was back. And he was beaten.\n\nAfter many highballs the man sitting across from them had arranged matches in a geometrical pattern on the tablecloth. Now he lit the first match and waited for the next one to ignite. So did Ryan. And there was Sandalwood, all the time. Always ahead of him.\n\n\"What does it mean, Neill?\"\n\n\"Mean? To whom?\"\n\n\"To you\u2014and me. To us.\"\n\n\"Us,\" Ryan repeated. \"You're not mixed up in it.\"\n\nShe did not answer. The man across the way got his chain of matches burning. They made successive brown spots on the tablecloth.\n\nRyan reached some obscure conclusion. She had fixed him up, too. The cute kid in the big fur coat. \"The hell with it,\" he said.\n\nIt was hardly lucid but she knew what she meant. And even before he could enlarge on it, she answered understanding.\n\n\"Sure. The hell with it. You know what, Neill? The night that we met\u2014well, I've been thinking. That night, I got to looking at Inez when she was crying about that slob of a partner of yours. And I remember later, when you tried to kiss me, I thought, 'What's with hanging in clubs?' I thought to myself, 'You fool around joints like this'\"\u2014she waved\u2014\"'where do you wind up?' And I believed it. But suppose I go along with you, pal?\"\n\nThe s's were coming out slurred and the \"pal\" was too loud. Ryan, who had been studiously refusing drinks, realized that Gee Gee had had several. He had never seen her like that.\n\n\"Then where do I wind up?\" she asked. \"With some guy who's never around when you want him, and gets jammed up in some jerky way and won't talk about it, even when you try to help him and everyone else will be reading about it in the paper in a few days. And two-times you with some gangster's sister, and...\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Ryan. It would still take Sandalwood a few days to get the story together and print it. So if he had any chance left at all, he'd better get going. That meant getting some sleep, not the kind that was a luxury or comfort, but the raw commodity that kept you going and thinking straight, and alive. Fit for duty was the departmental expression.\n\nWhy had he ever thought she was for him?\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"I never could have taken you to fancy joints like the Harwyn Club. If we'd hooked up, you'd have wound up in Queens, buying groceries at Bohacks and having a baby. Two or three, after a while. No strips. No daiquiris on the ice, or frozen or whatever you call them. No Max.\" He looked at her. \"No Max. And I'll say this. I don't go for dames that let every slob who hires them get cozy\u2014\"\n\nThe chain of matches had burned out on the tablecloth. The man who had lit it, finding their conversation more interesting, was listening attentively. The pianist drifted into \"Avalon.\"\n\n\"Go to hell,\" said Gee Gee a little hoarsely. \"You heard me, buster. You go to hell. No one talks to me like that. I'll work for Max. I'll go to the Harwyn Club if I please. And I'll tell any spying, sneaky son of a bitch cop who thinks he's going to tell me\u2014\" She flung her glass's contents, backhand, in his direction.\n\nRyan jumped up to avoid its ice cubes.\n\nBut being up, there was no reason to sit down. \"I was going to take you home,\" he said. \"I guess I needn't have bothered. Max'll be glad to.\" There was another full glass near Gee Gee.\n\nThe man across was listening so intently that when she picked it up and threw it wildly he did not react quickly enough to dodge this second shower of ice cubes.\n\nRyan got his hat and stalked out. There was a cab stopped at the Sixth Avenue corner and he got in it.\n\nThat ended that.\nCHAPTER 25\n\nYou Get to Waiting for It\n\nThere were gaudy placards on the newsstand where he bought his morning paper a few hours later. They announced the beginning of \"Prosecution of the Innocents,\" a new series by Jack Sandalwood. Ryan apprehensively read the first article over toast and coffee in Grand Central waiting for the Ossining train. In it Sandalwood referred to half a dozen historic miscarriages of justice and to several familiar recent ones, and explained his purpose: to reveal how the courts and the law are less than completely omniscient and just. The name of Harry Derby did not appear. But, Sandalwood concluded, the series would also include some new, unsuspected cases of gross injustice that would stun the reader.\n\nHaving hardly touched the toast, Ryan left a tip, paid his check and walked toward the train gate. As he did he felt his burden sag his shoulders and bend his head. If he felt that way now, how would it be this afternoon? And tonight? And tomorrow? Tonight and the possibility it offered seemed remote and hopeless. But Sandalwood was near and overpowering and inescapable. Sandalwood knew all, or certainly most of what he needed to know.\n\nPresently the sun glittered like strewn diamonds on the Hudson, and the landscape that rolled past the train window looked newly raked and tidied. But to Ryan the day was at midnight.\n\nSince Ryan was an official visitor ostensibly on police business, he was to see Derby in one of the second floor attorney's rooms in the death house. In the center of the room was a table with a pad of white paper and some chairs. On the sterile walls were framed etchings. Ryan heard a voice say, \"In here!\" and Derby came in. The guard remained just outside the door.\n\nDerby looked even leaner, and his face and hands were pale. Yet he also looked healthy and well-knit, and the gray denim shirt and pants were almost dapper. He stared at Ryan a moment, then slouched in one of the chairs. He clasped his hands before him. He did not say anything.\n\nRyan waited. When there was no sound in the room or outside, he spoke very softly. \"I'm not here on police business. This is personal. We framed you a while back. Now I'm going to spring you. I thought you ought to know.\"\n\nDerby watched his own hands twist.\n\n\"You heard me?\"\n\nThe breath went out of Derby's lungs, but Derby did not look up or speak up.\n\n\"Ask your sister. Rosemary.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because she knows all about it.\"\n\n\"I mean, why are you doing it?\"\n\n\"Because you're innocent, for God's sake. I won't let an innocent man go to the chair.\"\n\nDerby looked up, wary but interested. \"How do you know I'm innocent?\"\n\n\"I know where you were at the time of the crime.\"\n\n\"Like hell you do.\"\n\n\"Think I don't?\"\n\n\"I know you don't.\"\n\n\"All right. I'll tell you. And if I'm right, you'll tell me.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you nothing.\"\n\n\"Your eyes will.\" He lit a cigarette. \"On the day and at the time Mrs. Connors was murdered you were cracking a drugstore down in the Thirties near First Avenue. You needed dough. You had hoped to buy into a gum-machine business; maybe you thought you'd get part of it that way. You went into this joint, sent the old guy who runs it into the back, then you grabbed what was in the cash register. You ran out, and you made it\u2014easy.\"\n\nDerby's lynx eyes were still trained on his hands. \"Where'd you get all this?\"\n\n\"What's it matter, if it's wrong?\"\n\nDerby said nothing.\n\n\"But it's not wrong. Because you left a thumb print on the drawer. And of all the people in the department I'm the only one who could recognize that print if he saw it. I saw it.\"\n\nDerby was silent.\n\nRyan said, \"Look, Derby. I didn't come up here for a joyride. I came to tell you I realize now what happened.\"\n\nDerby's glance ranged nervously over the floor's waxed linoleum. Ryan knew what he was thinking: this was a trick. Derby could not readily interpret something like this in any other way. He said, \"And the other reason I came was to find out if you could give me any leads on someone who might look like you, or wear a checked jacket, or might have been operating in that neighborhood.\" Ryan took the last drag on his cigarette and snuffed it out against his shoe sole. \"I don't have all day. Let's go.\"\n\n\"What the hell is this?\" said Derby. \"First the reporter. And now you.\"\n\n\"What reporter?\"\n\n\"Some mutt named Sandalwood,\" said Derby, and Ryan's empty stomach spasmed. \"He was up here late yesterday. What goes on?\"\n\nHow much did he know now? \"What did you tell him?\"\n\nDerby's lips twisted their habitual contempt. \"I didn't tell him nothing. I told him to come back later, I'd think over his proposition.\"\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\nDerby looked at Ryan with cold insolence. \"I'll tell you one thing, copper,\" he said. \"That guy knows something. How much, I don't know. But he's not shooting in the dark. Somebody filled him in. He talked about getting me out. Everybody's going to get me out. You\u2014him\u2014even the damn union.\"\n\n\"What does the union say?\"\n\n\"They had some jerk up here last week. And I got a letter. Everyone says, 'Don't worry, Derby\u2014you'll never burn. We're workin' on new evidence.' Not that I believe the slobs.\" Derby's laugh was unnatural.\n\nRyan said, \"Why do you think I'm here?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you. I want to get any lead I can as to who killed the old lady. And one of the suspects is a guy named Big Mackie. You know him\u2014the guy who runs the boxing joint.\"\n\nAgain Derby looked at his hands. Then he looked up. \"Let me tell you something. I been living with this a long time. Ever since that verdict come in, sure. But longer than that. You know me, cop, and I know you. Maybe every now and then I've did something could get me in real trouble. Maybe once or twice it did. Maybe sometimes I was lucky.\" For a second he glanced at the wall's etchings.\n\n\"But after a while you get to waiting for it. And when it happens, you're almost\u2014well, relieved or something. You know what I mean? So don't get too friggin' gay. I ain't too unhappy.\" Derby's voice had raised momentarily to normal volume.\n\nThe guard at the door looked in. \"Everything okay?\"\n\n\"Everything's okay,\" Ryan said. Then, \"Tell me something, Harry. Why'd you take the rap? Even though you didn't know about the fingerprint, you knew there was a chance that the old guy who runs the drugstore could identify you.\"\n\nDerby laughed. \"Gimme a cigarette. And next time bring a carton. You crazy or something? Look at my record. I'm three times gone. If I got tagged for that drugstore thing, I go for life. What difference does it make when you die, if you're gonna die in prison? You think I want thirty years in this can? Besides, that Farragut is pretty good, you know. They're still workin' on it for me.\"\n\nThey've sold you down the river and you don't know it. You'll still be expecting a miracle when they shave your head. \"Yeah. Sure,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"Anyway, I ain't as dumb as I look. You think I believe this hero play you're making?\"\n\n\"What are you driving at?\"\n\n\"You think I didn't read the papers? Think I don't know where framing me got you? Why would you kick all that in the face?\"\n\n\"Look, Derby, before I'll let you go to the chair I'll tell everything that happened the night we pinched you.\"\n\nThe Adam's apple in Derby's throat rolled as he laughed.\n\n\"You think they'd believe you? You think they'd let you talk about that? When they got Derby all buttoned up and another murder written off? You meathead!\"\n\nHunger and weariness and most of all defeat began again. Why had he bothered? Why had he started it?\n\nThe guard put his head in the door. \"About finished?\" he asked.\n\n\"Big Mackie, for the love of God!\" said Derby contemptuously. \"How's that screwball mixed up in it? He couldn't hurt anyone but dames.\"\n\n\"Dames?\"\n\n\"He used to collect pictures of broads being whipped.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said the guard, coming in.\n\n\"Gimme your cigarettes, if you want to really do something,\" said Derby.\nCHAPTER 26\n\nSteam\n\nThat night Ryan and Lambert, among others, were loaned to a Bronx precinct that was anticipating a triangular war between three teen-age gangs. Nothing happened and so after driving and walking unfamiliar streets until one a.m. they were able to return to Fifty-first Street and check in. There was a message for Ryan in Sergeant Weiner's legible scrawl: \"Ken called and said your boy is back. Ken is at home.\"\n\nIn the cab that he took simply to save energy Ryan tried to relax. He could not. He kept thinking that luck never lasted forever. They'd been lucky taking Derby. He'd had luck with the Puerto Rican.\n\nAnd now?\n\nWhen Rosemary let him in she smiled cheerfully, then her face grew anxious again. Ken sat at the dining-room table, a gin rummy game before him. At sight of Ryan, he swept the cards away. \"Let's go.\"\n\n\"Not so fast. What do you know for sure?\"\n\n\"He got back around seven. I saw him drive up in a cab. I was in the beanery across the street, drinking my fourth coffee.\" He grinned. \"I'd been there since I got through work.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"He went out around eight for an hour or so. Then he came back. That's when I called the precinct.\"\n\n\"He's still there?\"\n\n\"He was there when I checked at eleven-thirty. At least, lights were on in the apartment.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Yet he could not help hesitating. Might there not be a better way?\u2014this was a long gamble. Either they shocked a confession out of Mackie, or else he himself could be in the worst jam a cop could get in. But time was running out, with the special assistance of Sandalwood. And Ryan was tired of tiredness and anxiety. He wanted something to end. \"Let's hit it.\"\n\nRosemary was watching him. \"I don't think you'd better.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I don't feel good about it.\"\n\n\"Nuts,\" said Ryan. He had hesitated too long already. \"But I'll do this one alone.\"\n\n\"No, you won't,\" growled Ken. \"We're in it together now.\"\n\nAt the door as they went out Rosemary rose on tiptoes to kiss her brother. He went on into the hall.\n\nAnd then, quite unexpectedly, she kissed Ryan. Her lips were cool and fragrant. It was nice.\n\n* * * *\n\nThe lights were still on, and the red sign over the door brightly announced, Mackie's Baths. \"We'll go in as customers.\" Ryan had decided that earlier. \"It'll be simpler.\"\n\n\"The old man will remember us later.\"\n\n\"What he remembers later,\" said Ryan, \"either won't matter at all, or it'll be just a drop in the bucket to everything else.\"\n\nThe old man looked up from a racing form, made his appraisal of them, then lowered his feet from the counter and stood up. \"You gentlemen will want beds?\" He smiled. His lips were purple from the indelible pencil he had been wetting.\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nHe put down paper and pencil and led them upstairs into a side room containing two blanketed cots. \"There's plenty of steam up.\" He gave them bath sheets and brown envelopes for their valuables. \"That'll be seven dollars for the night.\"\n\n\"We'll give it to you when we check our valuables,\" said Ryan. He made a pretense of taking off his suit coat. The old man went out and downstairs.\n\n\"We're the only ones in the joint,\" said Derby.\n\n\"Then let's move before someone else comes in, or that kid that Mackie thought he was talking to.\" Ryan put his coat on again and examined his gun. \"You haven't a gun on you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThey crept across the gym and up the stairs to the door of Mackie's apartment. Ryan turned the knob stealthily and the door swung open; it had not been locked. They went in and locked it behind them. Ryan waited a moment, then switched on a lamp. \"The bedroom,\" he said.\n\nThey entered it quietly. Light from the living room dimly showed the bed and the desk. From the bed came the regular sighs of deep sleep. Ryan moved to it and took out his flashlight. \"Now,\" he said. He shone the light in the sleeper's face.\n\nIt showed a narrow-eyed face, harshly lined and topped by white hair. Blinded by light, the eyes opened to panic. \"Who's that?\"\n\nRyan's hand swept under the pillow for a weapon. There was none.\n\n\"Police,\" he said. \"You're under arrest for murder, Mackie.\"\n\nMackie tried to see beyond the glare of light that Ryan kept in his eyes.\n\n\"Did Beef send you?\" he demanded. \"Is that you, Beef? This is a hell of a way to collect.\"\n\n\"This is the law, Mackie. I'm pinching you for killing the old lady last November. Want to tell me about it and make it easy for everyone?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about? Lemme see you!\" He started to throw the covers aside. Ken Derby reached across Ryan to push Mackie back and when he did Ryan felt a gun bulging Derby's hip pocket. \"Start talkin', you,\" growled Derby.\n\nBut Mackie had nerve. He found the chain to his bedlight, pulled it and saw them better.\n\n\"What the hell is this?\"\n\n\"Why'd you leave town last November?\" said Ryan.\n\n\"What's it to you?\"\n\n\"Why'd you do it?\"\n\n\"Are you really law?\"\n\nRyan showed his badge.\n\nMackie said, \"I drop a little dough on some races about that time.\" He sat up. The white hair made him look old, but Ryan could tell it was prematurely white. \"Some bookmakers were getting tough. I thought it'd be simpler to get out of town until I could get the dough together to pay them off.\"\n\n\"Did you?\"\n\n\"They're taken care of now, except Beef Wurtz. I sent word to him tonight I'd be square in a week. That's why I thought\u2014\"\n\nDerby pushed Mackie's shoulder contemptuously. \"Don't try to hand us that. You killed the old lady to help pay your debts.\"\n\n\"Stop that,\" Ryan told him. \"Get out of bed, you.\"\n\nMackie complied slowly. Ryan switched on the room's center light and studied Mackie, a tall, thin figure in pale blue pajamas. But a muscular sinuousness belied the white hair; Mackie probably could punch. His appearance bothered Ryan.\n\n\"Why'd you dye your hair?\"\n\nMackie looked indignant. He said, \"That's a fathead cop question if I ever heard one. My hair changed two years ago. It just happened. Ask anybody who knows me.\"\n\n\"Walk over to the bureau.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Walk.\"\n\n\"Get going!\" Derby shoved him.\n\n\"I told you to lay off,\" said Ryan. \"I'm running this.\"\n\nMackie stood at the bureau. \"Take out the middle drawer,\" Ryan said.\n\nMackie looked puzzled, but he yanked at the drawer. It made an odd scraping noise.\n\n\"Put it down on the floor. Now reach around behind it and give me what's stuck there.\"\n\nKneeling, Mackie felt around the drawer and encountered the taped link. He pulled it off and looked at it curiously. Then he extended it to Ryan. His eyes were blank.\n\n\"This what you meant?\"\n\n\"That's it.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Mackie.\n\n\"You know damn well what it is,\" said Ken Derby. \"You dropped it the day you killed the old lady on Sixty-first Street.\"\n\n\"Just a minute, sonny,\" said Mackie. His eyes became gimlets; for the first time Ryan saw the resemblance between him and Harry Derby. \"Maybe this guy's a cop\"\u2014he gestured toward Ryan\u2014\"I don't know. But I know damned well you're not. You're young Derby.\"\n\n\"So what?\" Derby moved ominously forward. Ryan moved with him. He had it now. He had it all.\n\nMackie crouched, his hands moving to a boxer's defense. Derby's left hand went for his gun.\n\n\"Put that away, Derby!\" Ryan started for his own gun.\n\n\"You're not going to frame me to save your brother,\" said Mackie.\n\nDerby's gun came up and Ryan hit his arm; the gun exploded and its slug tore the ceiling. Derby swung the gun around. To Ryan the barrel's opening looked like a tunnel entrance.\n\n\"Put it away.\"\n\nDerby's jaw was set. \"I'm going to get a confession out of this guy, whether you like it or not.\"\n\n\"No, you're not. Because he's innocent. All you had to do was to see his face when he found the cuff link. And there's his hair. In the police records, that are four or five years old at least, his description might sound like Harry's. But not since his hair has turned white. No witness would mistake one for the other. And anyway, it sounds like he can prove an alibi for having left town.\"\n\nJust out of Derby's range of vision Mackie was edging toward the door. Ryan kept talking loudly.\n\n\"Last night when I was searching the bathroom. I heard a scraping noise. By the time I looked out, you were over by the door. You said you heard the noise too. But as a matter of fact, maybe you made that noise. Eh, Derby? The same noise that Mackie made when he yanked the drawer out just now? He's right. You were framing him.\"\n\nMackie was out the door and forgotten by Derby. Ryan said. \"Just one question. Where'd you get the cuff link?\"\n\nDerby took a breath. \"I found it in the truck,\" he said.\n\n\"A pair of them?\" asked Ryan. And answered his own question. \"Of course, a pair of them. You dropped the other one in the Connors' apartment.\"\n\nRealization of what Ryan had said swept Derby. He turned and discovered Mackie gone. He moved to the door, turned again and Ryan saw in his face that he knew. So now he would start shooting.\n\nAs Ryan simultaneously jumped and crouched to one side, he thought incongruously that he had been right. The luck had run out. He hurled himself forward in a flying tackle and felt a hot sear along his neck even as fire flashed in his face. Then darkness.\n\nHad he been blinded?\n\nOn the floor he pulled out his gun, then there was light\u2014a little\u2014from the doorway, and he saw Derby plunge through it.\n\nRyan jumped up, ran to the door and leveled his gun. But not in time. Derby was making a clatter down the stairs.\n\nRyan went more quietly after him, his mind working as fast as his body. He had fallen, so Derby might think he was dead or at least unconscious. Now Derby was going for Mackie. If Derby got them both, it would be perfect\u2014for Derby. He could tell the entire story as they had reconstructed it. Mackie, the supposed murderer, would be dead; so would Ryan. Harry could be freed and Ken unsuspected.\n\nThat was the one thing he must not let happen.\n\nHe leaped down the last few steps. The second floor was empty. From below he heard Derby bellow, \"Get away from that phone,\" and then a shot. He hoped he had won Mackie enough time to get the call through. But he hadn't.\n\nThere came the unnatural, animal scream of a man in agony.\n\nRyan went on. The first floor was hot with vapor. He heard the hiss of steam.\n\nThe old man who had admitted them sat on the floor near the telephone, looking puzzled. Blood spilled over the fingers he held to his throat. The telephone instrument dangled from its pay box, and the door beyond, leading into the steam baths, showed no light. But white vapor floated out through it. The hissing became a high keening.\n\nGetting through the door was the critical thing. The light would be behind him. Ryan gathered himself and burst into steaming darkness. He heard the hiss come toward him like a snake and ducked; a searing stream passed above his head. One of them was playing the live steam hose around the room. A second later there came another scream, close. Its horror penetrated his nerve fibers. A gun fired repeatedly and the blasts made a steady, echoing roar in that confined, heavy-aired space. Ryan moved toward the leaping flashes but did not dare shoot. Mackie was nearby, too.\n\nSomeone fell to the wet floor heavily, and the hissing became erratic. Whoever had been holding the hose had been hit and now it was free to writhe.\n\nBlinding pain sprayed his ankles; he jumped in agony and cried out.\n\nHe bumped a body. A pistol barrel dug his side\u2014and fired. The sound came to him muffled by his own clothing.\n\nSomething he had never felt before attacked Ryan's belly; it was nauseated and prickly hot, and cold, all at once.\n\nDeliberately he reached out and felt the jacket Derby was wearing, brought his own gun up, pushed it into Derby's side and pulled the trigger. This was all that he had to do now and he wanted to do it well. He felt himself falling, and as he fired again he aimed upward, to allow for that. He heard Derby's knees hit the floor. He did not hear himself go down. He aimed lower and fired again.\n\nHe knew he was dying. He heard a sound and he aimed his pistol in darkness toward the sound and fired its last shots.\n\nHaving done all he could, he sank into unconsciousness.\nCHAPTER 27\n\nA Word With The Chief Inspector\n\nFor an endless time there were white shapes and indistinct voices, and blurs of sound and feeling, and medicated smells. When he became conscious it was so slow and weak a process that he was not conscious of consciousness, or that there had been a change. During the period of a long morning he became gradually aware of a bed and sheets and of a ceiling, of nurses who came frequently and a male voice that called him \"old kid\" with accented heartiness. Then time separated itself into periods and brought awareness, and Ryan knew he was in a hospital, and that his chest hurt, and sometimes his mother was there, and Eleanor. There seemed to be a great deal of concern about his temperature.\n\nOnce he caught the flick of a brown coat out in the hall, and he hoped with sudden illogicality that it was Gee Gee; she must have missed the number on the door and would come back. But she did not, and even while he waited for her to, he realized how ridiculous it was. That was over.\n\nThen one day the doorway darkened and a man in a blue overcoat said, \"Neill? Can I come in?\" and it was Lieutenant Bauer.\n\nBauer shook hands and took off his coat, and said in his soft way, \"The doctor said we could talk a little. But if you're not up to it, just say so.\"\n\n\"I'm fine.\"\n\nBauer sat down. \"It's about Derby. Both Derbys.\"\n\n\"Both?\"\n\n\"Well, mainly Ken. The district attorney's office is anxious that nothing goes wrong with the case. Harry's out on bail.\"\n\n\"On bail?\"\n\n\"Well, Farragut put in quite a plea, and I guess after he spent time in the death house, the court figured maybe he was entitled to a little freedom. You know judges. But he's going up eventually, no doubt about it.\"\n\n\"Paul, tell me something. How'd I get here?\"\n\nBauer looked stunned. \"Hasn't anyone told you?\"\n\n\"This is the first chance I've had to think about it. Yesterday I was kind of groggy.\"\n\n\"Yesterday? You've been here nine days, Neill. This is just the first day you've been thinking straight.\"\n\nRyan said, \"I have?\" Then, \"I guess Mackie got the call through to the department, eh?\"\n\n\"No. Mackie never called us. It was an RMP that hauled you out. The boys were cruising the street when they heard the shooting. When they got inside\u2014well, I guess you know better than anyone what they found.\"\n\nRyan felt the hot steam on his ankles.\n\n\"It's funny you don't remember,\" said Bauer. \"Because after they got you out, you were lucid as anything. You explained the whole case against Ken Derby to one of the uniformed men. Then you conked out.\"\n\nHe shot a quick look at Ryan. \"They found the three of you in the steam room with the hose jumping around. Apparently that daffy Mackie had got it out. The old man on the desk was dying of a bullet through the Adam's apple. Mackie was wounded, but not seriously\u2014there were two slugs in him, both from Derby's gun. Your gun was empty. You'd hit Derby twice. Once right through the mouth, and once near the heart. It's a wonder he's alive. Could you see in there, Neill?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You shoot real good by ear.\"\n\n\"An RMP crew?\"\n\n\"Sure. Derby fired at them, then gave up. They shut off the steam and carried you out.\"\n\nRyan felt a wave of gratitude. It had been a department operation after all. He had tried to carry it by himself, but in the end it had taken the department, the alert, ever-present department, that was always ready for trouble and knew how to meet it. Ryan's eyes stung, and he knew from that how weak he was. He hoped Bauer did not notice.\n\nIf Bauer noticed he was tactful.\n\n\"Under Derby's bed\u2014Ken Derby, that is\u2014we found his bag packed and a ticket to Montreal, and a letter that he was going to mail if the frame against Mackie didn't work.\"\n\n\"He wasn't going to let Harry burn then.\"\n\n\"No. The letter admitted everything. He really liked Harry.\"\n\n\"Sure he did,\" said Ryan. \"You know he came to my house after we pinched Harry and tried to tell me Harry was making deliveries with him on the day of the murder? What a bluff!\"\n\nBauer smiled crookedly. \"I don't know. By alibiing Harry he alibied himself, and if the lie was detected, it would always be explained on the grounds of brother loyalty.\"\n\nA nurse came in and made Ryan drink something cloudy and bitter through a tube. \"Only a few minutes more,\" she warned.\n\n\"I better get down to business,\" said Bauer. \"What have you got on it\u2014what first tipped you off?\"\n\nWeak as he was, Ryan grinned faintly at how ridiculous it was. \"The scraping sound that a drawer made,\" he said. \"That's what did it. All the other indications had been there all the time; I suppose I'd noticed them subconsciously. But it was when I heard the scraping sound again that I realized Ken might have made it scrape the first night we were in Mackie's. And if he had, then he had framed Mackie. Why? To help his brother, of course. And then\u2014it was like a spark jumping a spark gap\u2014why couldn't he have done it to help himself? Why couldn't he be the killer?\n\n\"He'd been in the neighborhood that day, as D'Tela had made clear. He looked a lot like Harry and could be mistaken for him. He wanted money\u2014for Harry perhaps, but also perhaps for an expensive girl friend his sister mentioned. He was left-handed, a characteristic of the killer, if you'll remember how all Mrs. Connors' injuries were on the right side of her head. Harry was right-handed of course as I know. I saw them both fight. And he certainly might have Harry's jacket and his gun available to him.\"\n\nBauer nodded. \"His sister threw some light on that.\"\n\n\"You questioned Rosemary?\"\n\n\"She came to us. She said she had misled you, unknowingly.\"\n\n\"Yes, although it was an honest mistake. The two brothers had argued about the jacket that morning and Harry had refused to loan it to Ken. So she assumed Ken had not taken it. But, as she said, she left the apartment before Harry did, and so before he might discover it was missing. Later, when he robbed the drugstore, Harry was described by the druggist as wearing dark clothes. If he'd seen it, the druggist couldn't have missed noticing that jacket. If Harry didn't have it, where was it? And once you conceive of the possibility of Ken having the jacket, like any brother who dresses first in the morning, and presumably finding the gun in it, you don't have to go much further. D'Tela had supplied the motive: Ken needed dough and D'Tela had talked of a tip he had on a horse that was running that day and would pay long odds. If Ken could pick up a little quick money, bet it and win, he'd wind up with big quick money.\"\n\n\"Yes. We'd figured it as a chancy, spur-of-the-moment job from the start.\"\n\n\"Sure. Who cases an old lady in advance? And it was even chancier than you think. He took the jacket, found the weapon and had the motive. He had a few drinks at lunch, D'Tela said, and I can testify he gets out of hand when he's had a few drinks. Everything combined.\n\n\"I figure he went into the bank to get change like a deliveryman often has to do. He saw the old lady and the hundred buck bill. Perhaps it was only chance he spotted her again, going into the apartment. In any case he saw his opportunity to follow her in, put the gun on her\u2014and escape out the back through the building behind. Remember, he worked that part of town regularly, as his boss told me, and could know these buildings pretty well. And D'Tela was busy running bundles, too. Derby had only to circle around and get back on the truck, which was the perfect escape vehicle. Who'd suspect a delivery man of an armed heist? Of course, after what happened he was afraid to flash that C-note on D'Tela.\"\n\n\"Was D'Tela in on it?\"\n\n\"No. Why need he have been? He was on and off the truck a lot that day. Ken would not have told him anything. Another thing: look how Harry's peculiar behavior confirms it. He'd found himself a new place to stay for a while\u2014he had left home determined to find one. And he wanted his jacket and gun back, naturally enough. So he came to the place where he knew he would be sure to meet Ken at the end of the day's run\u2014the trucking office. And of course he got them. He looked surly and tough, D'Tela mentioned. Why wouldn't he\u2014he was mad at Ken. And the\u2014\"\n\nHe had been about to say, \"And the C-note I figure was in the jacket pocket. Or else maybe he borrowed money from Ken and got it that way.\" But he caught that before it got out. Instead, he said, \"And the two brothers must have talked things over a little; for when we arrested him Harry showed from what he said that he knew an old woman had been robbed. He didn't know she was dead\u2014maybe Ken himself didn't know or wasn't sure when they met. But that's why Harry was walking the streets so openly later on\u2014he had no idea a murder rap was involved, or that he had been identified in it. He hadn't seen the early tabloids. When he found out, he clammed up to protect himself and his brother.\"\n\n\"Do you think he'd have gone to the chair for Ken?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe it sounds nuts, but if you'd talked to Harry in Sing Sing\u2014well, he knew he was trapped one way or the other. And they sure were devoted, as Rosemary said. Look how fast Ken moved and the chances he took to frame Mackie, as soon as he learned about the cuff link. I should never have mentioned that to Rosemary but I guess Ken was so close to the whole thing I never dreamt... And Mackie looked hot.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir,\" said the nurse firmly.\n\n\"Okay, Miss.\" Bauer got up. \"One other thing. Ken said he knew that you could never be interested in his sister now, and he felt bad about it.\" Bauer looked down at Ryan. \"Whatever that means. She told me she's taking a job out in Milwaukee next month. Well, don't worry about a thing.\"\n\nRyan grinned. \"I don't. I'll be up in few days.\"\n\n\"Sure you will,\" said Bauer hastily. It was not until he left that Ryan realized Bauer had not been referring to his convalescence.\n\nNext day his mother visited him, proudly bearing a new scrapbook, in which she had pasted the newspaper accounts of the gun battle at Mackie's. All the stories explained that even after Harry Derby's conviction Ryan had not been satisfied with the result and had continued working on the case in his spare time, with the result that Harry would now be tried for the drugstore robbery and Ken for the Connors murder. One of the most laudatory stories was bylined \"By Jack Sandalwood.\" None of them mentioned anything about planted evidence.\n\nOne item in the scrapbook was a Walter Winchell gossip column, in which one line was ringed in ink:\n\n\"Gee Gee Hawes, the star attraction, is holding hands with what star reporter?\"\n\nOn his last day in the hospital Ryan received a new Faulkner novel in which was a note. \"Good-by and thanks. I'm getting away from here. Too many people know too many things. And now there's only me left, anyway. A girl in Milwaukee has invited me to stay with her. I'm leaving the middle of next month.\" It was signed \"R.\"\n\nHe returned to the precinct on an unseasonably warm afternoon that made people think of things to come, like flower peddlers' wagons and three weeks on the Cape, and cotton dresses and seersucker suits. He walked up the steps and inside the old, cool building, and Sergeant Weiner said, \"How you feeling, boy?\" and put out a hand of welcome. \"Paul wants to see you when you got a moment.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Al.\"\n\nLee Lambert came down the stairs. \"Hi, Lee,\" said Ryan, and Lambert looked at him and said, \"Hi,\" and went on out. Lambert was in a hurry.\n\nRyan started up the stairs. He still had to take these easy. A young patrolman started down at the same time; Ryan recognized him as the rookie who had begun here about the same time he did. The rookie passed him without a glance and without even giving him half the stairs. Everyone seemed in a hurry.\n\nBauer and a stranger were going over papers at Bauer's desk. Bauer said, \"Lieutenant Zimmer, this is Neill Ryan.\" Zimmer said, \"Hello.\" Bauer shook hands and asked how he felt. Ryan said fine.\n\n\"Jerry and I are going over everything because I pull out next week, and he's taking over,\" said Bauer. \"I'm going downtown.\"\n\n\"I'm glad for you,\" said Ryan. \"But I'm sorry you're leaving, Lieutenant.\" Zimmer's presence made the formal salutation necessary.\n\n\"He's Acting Captain now, Ryan,\" said Zimmer, and added, \"Don't feel too badly. You won't be here much longer either.\" For the first time Zimmer smiled.\n\nSo did Bauer, but his expression was pleasant. \"It came through yesterday, Neill. You're going up to Harlem.\"\n\nRyan looked at them. Harlem?\n\n\"I never asked for duty there,\" he said. \"Or even for a transfer. How come?\"\n\n\"You've done a hell of a job, Neill,\" said Bauer. \"Don't let anyone tell you different.\" He looked at Zimmer. \"They need good men up there. You know what the Twenty-fifth is like. Something doing every minute. It's a compliment.\"\n\nRyan's knees felt shaky. Things were coming too fast. Three months ago he would have killed himself to win words like that from Paul Bauer. Now they didn't sit right. Maybe it was Zimmer, coldly watching him. Zimmer picked up a piece of paper from his desk and tossed it to him. \"Here's something else.\" Ryan knew he would not like it.\n\nIt was a teletype. Patrolmen Arne Sieger and T. di Paolo at ten-twenty a.m. that day, driving a patrol car along Amsterdam Avenue, had seen a man run from a liquor store and had challenged him. The man ran and then fired back at the police car. One of his shots hit di Paolo's pistol, knocking it from his hand and spraining his wrist. Sieger had driven abreast of the gunman, called on him to drop his gun and then shot him through the head. The dead bandit had been identified as Harry Derby, thirty-seven years old, out on bail pending trial for a drugstore holdup.\n\n\"Your boy friend,\" said Zimmer. He rose suddenly as though he could stand this no longer. \"I'll put these back in the file, Paul.\" He went out, walking on hard heels.\n\nIt had taken a while but Ryan got it now.\n\nBauer saw that in his face. \"Relax,\" he said. \"They'll get over this. You know how it is. Everyone gets edgy when a cop gets hit.\"\n\n\"Like hell,\" said Ryan. \"The one thing everyone remembers is I sprung Derby. If he'd been in the death house he'd never have shot anyone.\"\n\n\"He didn't hurt anyone,\" said Bauer. \"What's a sprained wrist?\"\n\n\"Tell that to the guy he shot at,\" said Ryan. \"And why am I being transferred?\"\n\n\"Look, Neill. You couldn't expect to say here forever. You got to move around, see the job at different levels, in different areas. A year in Harlem, a year 'way downtown, a couple years with one of the specials\u2014you'll be learning all the time. Don't think everyone feels like Zimmer. Most people feel like I do. You'll see.\"\n\nRyan's heart was pounding. What the hell were they doing to him?\n\n\"I mean it, Neill.\" Bauer spoke sharply, making Ryan look at him. \"Any time I have a chance to have you working for me, I want you. Know why? Because you're level. I don't mean the others aren't. Zimmer's honest, too, according to his lights. But you've proven what you are by what you did for Derby, and his being killed has nothing to do with it. Zimmer don't understand that, but you do and you've got to allow for the Zimmers. If you don't like that, and can't stand it, this place isn't for you. Otherwise\u2014get the hell up to Harlem.\"\n\nBauer had never raised his voice. But when he put out his hand. Ryan took it.\n\nWhen Ryan went back downstairs a familiar figure\u2014incredible!\u2014was leaning against the desk, talking to Weiner with loud confidence. Time had turned backward.\n\n\"For the love of mike\u2014Jabby!\"\n\nJablonski swung around. His gray sports jacket had Jabby embroidered in white silk across the left pocket. \"Neill! I was just askin' about you.\"\n\nRyan was genuinely glad to see Jablonski, and Jablonski was so stirred he replaced his half-smoked cigar with a new one.\n\n\"I dropped in to pick up a picture,\" he said. \"How long you out of the hospital?\"\n\n\"A week. A picture?\"\n\n\"Yeah. One of the guys on the Teley got a good shot of us that night we came in with Derby. I thought I'd put it up in my joint. People are interested in things like that.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Ryan looked at the photograph Jabby pulled from its envelope. It showed a confusion of uniforms and reporters in this very entrance. Jabby was a hat and a half-face in the background.\n\n\"If you're going uptown I'll give you a lift,\" said Jablonski. \"I got the station wagon.\"\n\nWeiner and Ryan looked at each other.\n\n\"Who drove in, Jab?\" asked Al Weiner. \"You or your man?\"\n\n\"Oh, shut up,\" said Jablonski. \"A secondhand station wagon don't cost no more than any other car. And it's handy for groceries and things.\"\n\nThe station wagon was in the parking lot next door. Jabby started it, relit his cigar, and said,\n\n\"Hey, you know something? That guy Sandalwood was around here earlier. I guess he doesn't know I'm retired.\" Jablonski swelled importantly. \"He saw me and he says, 'Hey, give your partner Ryan a message for me.' So I say, 'What?' He says, 'Tell Ryan that Derby's getting killed this morning is the luckiest thing that ever happened\u2014to Ryan. Now no one can bother him.' What do you suppose that meant?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Nothing much.\"\n\nJablonski drew comfortably on the new cigar. \"Well, I can tell you what it could have meant\u2014if that jerk Sandalwood knew anything. It could mean that with Harry dead, no one in the department need ever find anything out at all. Eh, Neill? Whatever Ken could say would be only hearsay testimony, and from a confessed murderer at that. Eh?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said. He did not want to talk about it.\n\nBut Jabby was busy turning expertly in front of a cab. \"The other night I pick up a little talk,\" he said. \"One of the boys was out. He said you'd been playin' around with Derby's sister.\"\n\n\"Who was this?\"\n\n\"Look, Neill. You know I've always figured you as my\u2014what do you call at, prodigy? You've done great. I'm proud of you. But for God's sake get away from those Derbys. You mess with that dame, what'll they think of you downtown\u2014a cop married to the sister of two heist guys? You fool around, you'll be transferred out of this precinct. And this is the place to be.\"\n\nThat decided Ryan.\n\n* * * *\n\nAt ten o'clock next morning in the stiff-chaired anteroom to the chief inspector's office in New York's police headquarters a buzzer sounded. The uniformed sergeant at a desk told Ryan, \"He'll see you now.\"\n\nPatrick Pembroke's knobby face looked its usual angry inquiry. \"I wanted to ask a question, sir,\" said Ryan.\n\n\"Go ahead.\"\n\n\"Before I arrested Ken Derby I saw a little bit of his sister. She's a decent girl. Not like her brothers. But I've been told if I continued to see her, or if by any chance I should marry her, it wouldn't sit well with the department.\"\n\nPembroke paused. \"We don't usually tell a man whom he should marry.\"\n\n\"One other thing I'd like to ask, sir. I've been transferred from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-fifth Squad. I gather from hints various people have dropped that they feel I was demoted because I\u2014I went out of my way to prove Harry Derby innocent. Which he was.\"\n\nPembroke leaned back and laced bony fingers over his midriff. \"So that's it. Listen, Ryan. No man in my department ever has to be afraid of honesty. You're not being demoted. We're transferring four teams into Twenty-five\u2014all of them picked for ability and guts. You were picked. Tell that to the first son of a bitch who suggests different. As for the girl, marry whoever you please. And if anyone doesn't like it, take a poke at him.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Thank you.\" He stood up.\n\nPembroke said, \"By the way. What were you going to do if I had said anything else?\"\n\n\"Well, sir, it was just that I had to get something straight. And I preferred to get it straight from the top.\"\n\n\"I asked, 'What were you going to do?'\"\n\nRyan looked levelly at him. \"I was going to send in my papers.\"\n\nRed-lashed eyes stared unfriendliness at him. \"You mind what I said about honesty before you think again of resigning,\" he said. \"And remember me to your mother. I think I've not seen her since her wedding day.\"\n\n* * * *\n\nIt was only an inexpensive ring but Ryan bought it in a Fifth Avenue store because he did not want her to be ashamed of it. Then he took a cab to the dingy building. It was warm and sunny; the front door was open. Ryan went slowly up the flights of stairs and when he got to her floor, he found the door open. She was sitting in a dark blue flannel dressing gown, sipping breakfast coffee and reading the Mirror.\n\nShe glanced up. \"Look who's here!\"\n\nShe was alone. He was glad of that. \"Can I come in?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Catch,\" he said and threw the little cube-shaped package.\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\n\"I picked it up on my way. I had to go down to headquarters before\u2014before buying it. I had to straighten something out. It's straightened out. I picked this up on my way back.\"\n\nHe looked at her a long moment. He had been deciding a lot of things, and he knew he had made the right decisions. \"It's an engagement ring. Take it or leave it.\"\n\n\"An engagement\u2014\"\n\nHe knew that for once at least he had really surprised her. \"Neill!\"\n\n\"The last time I saw you,\" Ryan said, \"I did a lot of talking about apartments in Queens and having babies and so on. I still think that's a good idea. But in the hospital I had time to do a lot more thinking. You were what I thought of most, Gee Gee. I want to marry you more than anything in the world. If you want to go on dancing and so on, I guess it'll have to be all right with me, at least for a while. But on the other hand, I've got to tell you that if another one of these Derby deals come up, I'll decide it the same way. Because that's the way I am. And also you better remember what I've told you about a cop's pay before you make any decisions and think of the things I won't be able to give you\u2014\"\n\nShe was bent over the ring, putting it on, the coppery hair hiding her face. Now she held her hand up for him and Ryan saw that there were tears on Gee Gee's cheeks.\n\n\"That's not much of a rock,\" he said. \"It probably doesn't fit anyway.\"\n\n\"It fits perfectly,\" she said tremulously. \"And now it's on, it's never coming off. Never.\"\n\nSuddenly she was in his arms and their mouths found each other's. \"You think I'm going to give up the only guy that's ever treated me like a\u2014like a girl, instead of just something to grab?\"\n\nAfter a long time Ryan said huskily, \"I think we better get married this afternoon.\"\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \nIn His Own (w)Rite\n\nBy Michael R. Poll\n\nCopyright \u00a9 Michael R. Poll 2011\n\nAll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.\n\nSmashwords License Statement\n\nThis ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.\n\nSmashwords Edition\n\nCornerstone Book Publishers\n\nNew Orleans, LA\n\nFirst Cornerstone Edition - 2011\n\nwww.cornerstonepublishers.com\n\nE-Book Edition ISBN: 1613420420\n\nISBN-13: 978-1-61342-042-3\n\nPrint Edition ISBN: 1-61342-019-6\n\nISBN-13: 978-1-61342-019-5\n\nMADE IN THE USA\n\nTable of Contents\n\nIntroduction\n\nFluid Masonry: The Art of Change\n\nAlbert Pike's Address Before The Grand Conmsistory of Louisiana\n\nThe Grand Constitutions of 1786\n\nThe \"White Cap\"\n\nIntegrity in Masonry\n\nWriting Masonic History\n\nThe Dwellers on the Threshold\n\nDown the Path of Proper Research\n\nDyslexia: The Gift in Disguise\n\nJames Foulhouze: A biographical study\n\nQuantity or Quality?\n\nWho Am I?\n\nWhat is Truth?\n\nDeadly Apathy\n\nIntroduction\n\nWhat's Freemasonry? Well, it pretty much depends on who you ask. In the 35+ years that I have been a Mason I have visited quite a few lodges. No two have been exactly alike. Lodges seem to develop personalities of their own, much like people. Some are relaxed and laid back, some are more formal. Some are very healthy with work going on all the time and some, sadly, are on life support. But, in each lodge when I've talked to the individual members, they have expressed a true caring about their membership. Sure, it does not mean the same thing to each one of them. The one in the kaki pants and bright Hawaiian shirt with the donut in his hand might view the reason for his membership differently than the one in the tux with the white gloves and a glass of wine, but, so what? Who said Masonry has to mean the same thing to everyone?\n\nThe common denominator in all lodges is that Masonry lifts Masons up a bit more from where they started. Not everyone is a philosopher and not everyone will draw the deeper meanings from the Masonic ritual, but we all can benefit from being told to try and be better than we are today. Sure, few (if any) live up to the deepest teachings of Freemasonry, but is our goal perfection or the striving for it? I believe that if we just try to live as Masonry teaches, recognizing that we all fail from time to time, then we are doing what is expected of us. Masonry is not for everyone and we can not expect that it will, in any way, satisfy someone who is just not Masonic material. But, for those who are touched by Masonry, no matter what they are wearing, eating or the state of their lodge, they feel very deeply about being a Mason. It is important to them and no matter how much or little they know of the ritual or its deeper teachings, it is of value to them.\n\nOur Masonic history is important to us. It is important that we know who we are and from where we come. But, this is not really a Masonic history book. I have, however, a deep interest in the early history of the Scottish Rite. I have this interest because we have such sketchy accounts of the early days of it. While this is not a Masonic history book, I have included some history papers exploring aspects of Scottish Rite history that we might not see explored too often. This is, also, not a book of philosophy. But, I do feel that we can all benefit from the life lessons Masonry teaches. I try to teach Masonry in a way that applies to everyone, so that we all can see and experience its lessons. With this in mind, I've included some of these basic philosophical lectures and papers.\n\nSo, that's what we have here; a collection of history and philosophical papers - with some other bits I find useful or noteworthy. If this book gives you just a moment to think about yourself, your role in Masonry or gives you any cause to think of ways to improve yourself, then I consider this book a worthwhile endeavor.\n\nBe happy, enjoy life and make each beautiful moment count.\n\nMichael R. Poll\n\nFall, 2011\n\nIn His Own (w)Rite\n\nFluid Masonry: The Art of Change\n\nThe Journal of the Masonic Society, Issue 7, 2010\n\nWHEN WE BOIL FREEMASONRY DOWN to its most basic element, we find a very simple message: \"make yourself better.\" Such a statement can, however, be likened to the phrase \"be happy.\" It sounds easy enough, but how do you do it? How do you know when you are \"better?\" What is \"better?\" What seems to be an uncomplicated message becomes difficult to put into practice, even to understand. Such is the nature of symbolism.\n\nWe can start on the path of symbolic understanding by looking at nature. If you look at a beautiful mountain stream, you can find more than beauty. You can find illusion (often, the guardian of symbolism). Flowing water goes around a large rock in the stream. The illusion is that the rock is the master. What we believe to be truth is the sight of the water yielding to the rock and being forced to flow around it. We see this and accept it as truth. Our error is that we determined \"the truth\" before we gathered all the facts. In time, gentle, flowing water can reduce the largest stone to a pebble. The rock is not the master. One lesson to learn is that what we see, hear, feel and believe might well prove to be something other than fact. We must train ourselves to withhold judgment.\n\nIn Freemasonry, a subtle lesson is taught early on by putting us in a position where we cannot depend on what we can see. We are forced to depend on others for guidance. We are also forced to use senses other than those we would normally rely upon. We must change in order to adapt to this new situation. The illusion is that we have been handicapped and deprived of receiving the full benefit that would have been afforded us if we had complete use of all of our senses. But the illusion masks the fact that we are forced to adapt to our condition precisely because we have been placed in such a state. We simply can't act or perform on our own. We need guidance.\n\nThe three degrees in Craft Masonry are often said to represent the three stages of human life: youth, adulthood and old age. How do we progress through these stages? We change. As children, we play, grow and learn. As adults, we put into practice what we have learned, and in old age we impart to others what we have learned. In each stage, we change in body and mind. It is the normal way of life. What would be abnormal is if no change took place.\n\nLet's look again at the water and the rock. The gentle, flowing water cannot and does not break the rock by direct force. Water changes its direction and flows around the rock; in doing so, it also gradually affects change in the rock. The gentle pressures of the water force the rock to give way and reduce itself in size. The rock is not the master after all. Change is one of the unavoidable facts of all existence. Any attempt to avoid change only results in unnatural waste of energy.\n\nThe lessons of Masonry are such that we must study them with a child's open and willing mind. In certain aspects of our teachings, we might remember we are told that it is not acceptable to bring \"innovations\" into the body of Masonry. An innovation is change. Are we being told that we cannot or should not change? Not at all.\n\nAs individuals, we change every day of our lives. We grow older, which brings physical and mental changes. We have no choice in these types of changes. We also have the option to make free-will choices in our lives. We might opt to eat a more healthful diet, to exercise, or in some way improve our lives. There are countless changes that we can choose. We also might make the decision not to make any free-will changes. It is our choice as individuals.\n\nBut when we speak of innovations in Masonry, we are speaking of something quite different. The innovations that are made in Masonry should never be the choice of any single individual. Changes should be the collective will of the membership. In Masonry it is the lodge, not the Worshipful Master, who decides the direction to be taken. The Worshipful Master only steers the ship in the desired direction.\n\nIn our Grand Lodges, we see change every year. We see resolutions presented and voted on. It is rare that a Grand Lodge will see no change whatsoever in its nature after a Grand Lodge session. Change is normal. Change is expected.\n\nIn Masonry, the changes we see in its nature often mirror the changes we see in wider society. Freemasons are part of society and we interact with others on a daily basis. It would be unnatural for us to be social outcasts. If we look back at Masonry 50 or 100 years ago, or even longer, we see that the nature of Masonry matched that of society in both simple matters of dress and deep social or philosophical issues. Even today, we see social difference in Masonry depending on the location of the lodge and its membership. In a large city, you might see lodge members dressing in a different manner than you would see in a small town. One is not right and the other wrong, they are just simple differences in the social norms of the areas.\n\nWhen we look at society and speak of a large nation, it would be uninformed to not realize that society's concepts of what is acceptable and unacceptable vary from community to community. The overall social structure of a large area allows for change and variations within smaller areas. Speed limits might change from one place to another, as well as many other community-based laws, but where will you find murder legal? Society as a whole has limits as to what are acceptable standards.\n\nBecause Grand Lodges are sovereign and free to pass the rules and laws of their liking, it would seem highly improbable that you would find two Grand Lodges with exactly the same set of governing laws. If one Grand Lodge changed its laws to require all members to wear tuxedos to lodge, it might draw a level of interest from some other Grand Lodges, but that would be about it. If the same Grand Lodge removed the Volume of Sacred Law from its altars, then not only would this attract the attention of other Grand Lodges, but they would view this Grand Lodge as moving outside of what is considered acceptable, and the breaking of fraternal relations with this jurisdiction might follow. By the same turn, if most Grand Lodges adopted a particular policy which they felt was extremely important, then those few Grand Lodges not adopting the policy might also be viewed as unacceptable or out of step.\n\nChange is not the enemy of Masonry. Just as the water in a stream changes direction as it flows in and around various obstacles, so should we recognize that change is not only inevitable, but is in our best interest. In a storm, it is the strong, unyielding tree, not the flexible blade of grass, that is in most danger of breaking.\n\n***\n\nAlbert Pike's Address Before\n\nThe Grand Consistory of Louisiana\n\nI believe readily that you did not want the office, but the office wanted you.\n\n\\- Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat to Albert Pike 1\n\nTHE PASSAGE OF YEARS can sometimes elevate a historical figure into a legend. This is not always beneficial when a study of the individual is desired. A historical figure can be examined and their actions understood from a human perspective. A legend, however, can take on near supernatural qualities and the whole of their activities are sometimes not expected to be understood, explained or completely recounted. Such is, at times, the case with Albert Pike. It is often difficult to imagine Albert Pike as a player (rather than as the player) in American Scottish Rite events of the 1800s. The monumental mark that Pike left on the Southern Jurisdiction can mask the fact that his influence was not always as profound as it was in his later years. Regardless of his many accomplishments, there was a time when Illustrious Brother Pike was but an inexperienced, yet promising, Mason with a blank book before him upon which it was unknown exactly what would be written.\n\nThis address, the first ever given by Pike as the presiding officer of a Scottish Rite body, gives us a rare look at the early Albert Pike. While in his later years, Pike was viewed by many as a true Master of the Scottish Rite, this address clearly calls into notice his immaturity in the Rite, and he asks for \"lenient judgment\" upon his \"short-comings\". In his address Pike is clearly humble and seems sincerely appreciative of his election. He also notes that his election to the position of Commander in Chief was politic in nature and due to \"circumstances that surround us\". What could have caused a political election of the untried Albert Pike as the presiding officer of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana? Let's look at the \"circumstances\".\n\nThe Turmoil that was Louisiana Masonry\n\nJust seven years prior to Pike's assuming the leadership of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana, the whole of Louisiana Masonry underwent a dramatic shift in direction, leadership, and character. The once French dominated Grand Lodge of Louisiana became \"American\" in nature. This shift mirrored the cultural changes taking place in New Orleans and other French areas of the state. Louisiana was founded as a French colony. Even after the territory became a state in 1812, the French influence was the dominate force, especially in the city of New Orleans. Not only was the Grand Lodge of Louisiana a French-speaking body, but so were the five lodges that created it. Louisiana was the most \"foreign\" Grand Lodge (as well as state) in the U.S. Over time, many did not view this as an acceptable situation. There was a desire to \"be like everyone else.\"\n\nBy the 1830s, Louisiana Masonry, as well as the whole of the Louisiana culture, began feeling intense pressure to become \"more American\". With many, this was not a welcome change. Bitter disputes and unyielding divisions developed that culminated in actual violent clashes between the \"Creoles\" and \"Americans\" in the downtown New Orleans streets. The Grand Lodge was not immune to these cultural divisions which often manifested themselves in the different rites worked by the Louisiana craft lodges. Unlike the other U.S. Grand Loges, the craft lodges in Louisiana did not only work in the Preston-Webb (York Rite) craft ritual, but also in the French or Modern Rite and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite craft rituals. For the most part, the French interests were championed by the lodges working the French or Modern and A.&A.S.R. Rites and the American interests by the York Rite lodges. The 1844 Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was the last straw for many York Rite craft Masons. The new constitution officially recognized the, then, three rites working in Louisiana and sanctioned the creation of a \"Chamber of Rites\" to supervise the work of the lodges. The York position was that there should be only one recognized rite for Louisiana craft lodges (York Rite ) and that the Grand Lodge should be made to conform to the same system as worked by the other U.S. Grand Lodges.\n\nA committee of English-speaking York Rite Masons, frustrated by the lack of accommodation they perceived in the Grand Lodge, approached the Grand Lodge of Mississippi and submitted a letter of grievance on January 23, 1845.2 They charged the Grand Lodge of Louisiana with irregularity due to its practice and acknowledgment of various craft lodge rituals. After debate, the Grand Lodge of Mississippi agreed with the charges, declared the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana as \"open territory\" and, by 1848, chartered seven lodges in Louisiana.3 On March 8, 1848 these seven lodges formed a second Grand Lodge within Louisiana. John Gedge, who had spearheaded the \"rebellion\" was elected Grand Master of the \"Louisiana Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons\". While this new Grand Lodge received recognition from only the Grand Lodge of Mississippi, its future was not nearly as bleak as it might seem.\n\nThe Grand Lodge of Louisiana was created in a manner to accommodate the needs of the lodges which organized it. The Grand Lodge was created French in nature because this was the culture of the vast majority of those living in the area of the Grand Lodge at that time. Over the years that followed, the Grand Lodge continued to exist and operate in the manner in which it was created. The majority of the membership of the lodges under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge, however, changed from French to American. The Grand Lodge was then viewed, by the majority, as not accommodating their wants and needs.\n\nThe Grand Lodge of Mississippi received admonitions from most U.S. Grand Lodges for their actions in Louisiana, with the majority openly condemning its activities.4 With the exception of the Grand Lodge of Mississippi, no U.S. Grand Lodge entered into relations with the new Louisiana Grand Lodge. Regardless of their seemingly advantageous position, the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was in serious trouble.\n\nOutside of New Orleans, there were a few pockets where the French culture was strong, but the majority of the state was already (or was becoming) Americanized. The events surrounding the creation of the Louisiana Grand Lodge buckled the knees of the Grand Lodge because most of the lodges under this new Grand Lodge were located in the New Orleans area -perceived to be the largest stronghold of the French culture within the state as well as the home of the Grand Lodge. The fact that the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was overwhelmingly considered to be the \"regular\" Grand Lodge in Louisiana was not sufficient to overcome the internal problems stemming from the cultural divisions in New Orleans. By mid 1849, it was realized that the English-speaking lodges that had remained loyal to the Grand Lodge were showing signs that continued loyalty would, most likely, not happen. Contributing to the dilemma was divisions between the French-speaking New Orleans Masons.\n\nObviously realizing that the total collapse of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was a very real possibility, the Grand Lodge and the Louisiana Grand Lodge, A. Y.M. entered into discussions in 1849 designed to merge the two bodies.5 That merger took place in June of 1850 with the approval of a new Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana of Free and Accepted Masons. Under the terms of the agreement of the merger, the Louisiana Grand Lodge, A. Y.M. members declared irregular would be healed by the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, F.&A.M.. All Lodges chartered by the Louisiana Grand Lodge, A. Y.M. (or by the Grand Lodge of Mississippi in Louisiana) would, also, pass under the jurisdiction of the new Grand Lodge of Louisiana, F.&A.M. John Gedge, who had served as Grand Master of the Louisiana Grand Lodge, A. Y.M., was elected Grand Master of the new Grand Lodge of Louisiana, F.&A.M. for 1851.\n\nWhile this new constitution seemed to merge the two Grand Lodges, the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was, in reality, replaced by the Louisiana Grand Lodge, A. Y.M.. All that actually remained of the old Grand Lodge was the name, organizational date of 1812, and the list of Past Grand Masters. The nature of the new Grand Lodge of Louisiana, F.&A.M. changed to match the Louisiana Grand Lodge, A. Y.M.. The \"Americans\" were in power.\n\nThe old Grand Lodge of Louisiana officially accommodated lodges working in the York, French, or Modern, and A.&A.S.R. craft rituals. The French-speaking Masons believed that the two Grand Lodge merger would result in the continued recognition of lodges working in all three rites. They were horrified and outraged when the new Grand Lodge instructed all non-York Rite lodges to turn in their charters so that York Rite charters could be issued.6 Charges of trickery abounded. Three A.&A.S.R. craft lodges (Etoile Polaire, Disciples of the Masonic Senate, and Los Amigos del Orden) applied to the Supreme Council of Louisiana for relief. The Supreme Council announced that since an 1833 concordat between the Grand Lodge of Louisiana and the Grand Consistory of Louisiana (at that time the highest ranking Scottish Rite body in the State) to assure that the Grand Lodge would provide a home for the Scottish Rite craft lodges had been violated by the new Grand Lodge, the Supreme Council would issue charters to these lodges and allow them to pass under its jurisdiction.7\n\nThe French Rite Masons did not have a Grand Body from which to seek relief. The Grand Lodge had been the home of the French Rite. With no superior body for the government of the French Rite lodges, they would, ultimately, disappear from Louisiana Masonry as an identifiable force.8\n\nThe Setting for More Change\n\nWhen we step back and attempt to look at the situation through the eyes of the participants, we can see that the Supreme Council of Louisiana taking jurisdiction over the three A.&A.S.R. Craft Lodges must have been just as jarring to the new Grand Lodge of Louisiana as the action of the Grand Lodge of Mississippi was to the old Grand Lodge. No one could see or know the future. The Grand Lodge of Mississippi had been a body in full fraternal relations with the old Grand Lodge, as was the Supreme Council of Louisiana. While the Grand Lodge of Mississippi was a sister Grand Lodge, the Supreme Council of Louisiana was composed of members who were nearly all Grand Lodge officers, a good number of whom were Past Grand Masters. The Supreme Council of Louisiana was not an insignificant body. The actions of the Grand Lodge of Mississippi set into motion a series of events that led to the downfall of the old Grand Lodge of Louisiana. It was not unfeasible for the actions of the Supreme Council of Louisiana to result in the same fate for the new Grand Lodge of Louisiana. Clearly this situation needed to be addressed by the new Grand Lodge.\n\nAt the invitation of Grand Master John Gedge, Albert Mackey came to New Orleans in late 1851\/early 1852 and established, for the Charleston Supreme Council, a Consistory of the 32\u00b0. Gedge was appointed Commander in Chief of this new consistory. Obviously, the Supreme Council of Louisiana charged that this was an outrageous invasion of territory.\n\nNot only was it the fact that the Consistory was organized in New Orleans, but the manner in which it was created was the subject of severe criticism. In 1853, Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat wrote about the events concerning the new Grand Lodge, the Supreme Council of Louisiana and the new Charleston Consistory in New Orleans.\n\n\"In presence of such despotic, anti-masonic conduct, the Scotch BB:. resisted as men, as Masons, and formed an independent corporation under the only M:. authority existing in Louisiana dejure et defacto. The balance remained with the new Grand Lodge, swore obedience to her, through indifference rather than from conviction. Soon after this, the very same Sectarian, in his restlessness, caused Br:. Albert G. Mackey to come from Charleston, in order to establish a Grand Consistory, exactly as if there never had existed a Supreme Council of the Scotch Rite in Louisiana. Our sectarian, after abolishing the Scotch Rite, wished to re-establish it in order to be at the head of it. This Consistory has been inaugurated, you know it M:. W..., for you were admitted into it for proper causes. The manner in which the degrees were conferred in this spurious Consistory is and will be an eternal shame to the Br :. who has conferred them.\"9\n\nWhile we can only speculate as to the events which might have caused this \"eternal shame\" statement, it is evident that the creation of the Charleston consistory in New Orleans fanned the flames of emotion and deeply angered the already frustrated New Orleans Scottish Rite Masons. But what could be done?\n\nThe cultural variances within New Orleans societies during the 1800s are far too complex to be explained from only a French and\/or American viewpoint. New Orleans was a cosmopolitan city with layers of cultures and subcultures. The lodges under the Grand Lodge of Louisiana were not only French and English speaking, but there were also lodges working in German, Italian, and Spanish. Like the many New Orleans neighborhoods, Masonic lodges often reflected the culture of the members of the lodge. Prior to 1850, the Grand Lodge maintained but a minimal supervision of the lodges under its jurisdiction. As long as a lodge worked within a general Masonic framework, as defined by the Grand Lodge, the lodge was left effectively alone. For some lodges (especially in rural areas) the only contact they had with the Grand Lodge was when they sent in their yearly returns. Lodges were free to develop their own cultural \"stamp\" on both their lodge and the ritual they used. Germania Lodge No.46 was created as a German-speaking lodge receiving a York Rite charter from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana in 1844. Their 1844 ritual shows that they originally worked an eclectic ritual which may well have derived from all three rites worked in Louisiana (as well as rituals from outside the state). 10 It is very possible that the unknown author(s) of this ritual simply sat down with a number of rituals and created a unique ritual to his (or their) liking. Such independent activity was not uncommon.\n\nThe freedom extended to the lodges by the Grand Lodge may have ultimately contributed to the downfall of the French interests in Louisiana. The York Rite English-speaking Masons were, by then, in the majority, but it was not a large majority. The non-York Rite Masons might have been able to overturn the actions of the new Grand Lodge, but they could not unify themselves and were split into unyielding factions with their own goals and agendas.\n\nRegardless of the influence the Supreme Council of Louisiana once had in Louisiana, the creation of the Charleston Consistory created a split that led to the demise of the Supreme Council of Louisiana as a true Masonic power. Not only was the Supreme Council of Louisiana locked in battle with the new Grand Lodge, it was also facing perplexing (in New Orleans) charges of irregularity - charges that it was not prepared to answer. The rapid fire changes involving the whole of Louisiana Masonry left most of the French Masons flabbergasted and hopelessly divided as to which direction to take. It was at this time that a new \"solution\" was introduced that cut the divisions even deeper.\n\nThe Concordat of 1855\n\nThe Scottish Rite in New Orleans existed in what might be described as a parallel universe with the rest of the U.S. A.&A.S.R. Given the cultural difference between the whole of Louisiana Masonry and the rest of the U.S., the differences and detached nature of the Scottish Rite in New Orleans is understandable. With the \"American invasion\" of Louisiana Masonry came a forced realization that changes would have to be made in the nature of all Louisiana Masonic bodies. Exactly what changes would be necessary was the subject of heated debate.\n\nThe creation of the Mackey\/Charleston Consistory in New Orleans triggered intense emotion in an already explosive environment. It was during this time and in this setting, that a plan to \"merge\" the Charleston Council and Supreme Council of Louisiana was born. For those who viewed the Supreme Council of Louisiana as the only hope of preserving the French interests in New Orleans, the idea of such a plan was wholly unacceptable. The more moderate French Masons saw such a blending of the two councils as, quite possibly, the only option left. In 1860, Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat wrote to Albert Pike about the Concordat and explained his position of it.\n\n\"My resolution of retiring from active practice is 5 years old & more. Hear what I wrote to Mackey January 31,1855: \"When the work will be accomplished, when every thing will be in proper order & well understood, I will retire willingly & leave the management of all to more competent, but not more devoted hands\". We know that the foreign influence will & must be superseded by the American element. Now the time has come & I believe that, even in Masonry, Americans must rule in America. I, a frenchman, must retire -in due time.\"11\n\nNot all of the French Masons were willing to turn over what they viewed as their \"possession\" to others with different ideas, plans, and goals. When the Concordat between the two councils seemed to be inevitable, the officers and nearly half of the Active Members of the Supreme Council of Louisiana resigned or refused to take part in what they viewed as an illegal action. On January 7, 1854, the remaining Members of the council elected Charles Claiborne as the new Grand Commander, Claude Pierre Samory as Lt. Grand Commander, and Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat was appointed Grand Secretary. The Concordat between the Charleston and New Orleans Supreme Councils was signed in New Orleans on February 16, 1855. The Supreme Council of Louisiana downgraded itself downward into the Grand Consistory of Louisiana and the Grand Consistory absorbed the \"Mackey\" Consistory.\n\nWith the Concordat of 1855, the elimination of the French control of Louisiana Masonry was complete. The unrest, dissatisfaction, and ill feelings, however, continued to fester. James Foulhouze was the Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Louisiana who, along with the other officers, resigned from the council rather than participate in the Concordat. Claude Samory and Albert Mackey approached Foulhouze in the summer of 1856 to enlist his aid in healing the old wounds and to, hopefully, rebuild the A.&A.S.R. in New Orleans. Foulhouze was offered the office of Commander in Chief of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana and Active Membership in the Charleston Supreme Council if he would join in the rebuilding. Foulhouze declined the offers and began his efforts to reorganize the Supreme Council of Louisiana with its former officers.12\n\nWith James Foulhouze out of consideration, a new leader for the troubled New Orleans Scottish Rite had to be found. The choice would prove to be inspired.\n\nEnter Albert Pike\n\nAlbert Pike was an attorney by profession and a Mason of only five years when he moved his law practice to New Orleans in 1855.13 Three years earlier, Pike received the Scottish Rite degrees up to the 32\u00b0 from Albert Mackey in Charleston. Mackey saw a unique quality in Pike and recruited him to be on the ritual committee of the Charleston Supreme Council. Mackey lent Pike a collection of Scottish Rite rituals for his review and study. It was through the examination and transcription of these rituals that Pike received his first understanding of the A.&A.S.R. Busy with setting up his law practice and studying the rituals lent to him by Mackey, Pike did not concern himself with the momentous developments taking place in New Orleans at the time of his arrival.\n\nOne of Pike's earliest Masonic acquaintances in New Orleans was Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat. Over the years (even after Pike became Grand Comman-der) these two would maintain a \"love\/hate\" relationship that was founded on a basic respect for each other. Lad\u00e9bat was made a 33\u00b0 by James Foulhouze in the Supreme Council of Louisiana on February 11, 1852, and served as its Grand Secretary at the time of the Concordat of 1855. Lad\u00e9bat would later be elected an Active Member of the Charleston Supreme Council in 1859. Pike's time in New Orleans put him in close contact with many competent New Orleans 33rds who were quite capable of completing Pike's education and understanding of the A.&A.S.R. Lad\u00e9bat was, clearly, one of Pike's early mentors.\n\nJust as he had done with Albert Mackey, Pike greatly impressed the New Orleans Scottish Rite Masons. Pike's talent and raw abilities clearly made him a candidate for any Masonic office. The fact that Pike played no part whatsoever in the Concordat of 1855 may have made Pike even more attractive and a prime candidate for leading the Grand Consistory of Louisiana. Pike did not carry baggage with him from the Louisiana Masonic turmoil. While he was under the jurisdiction of the Charleston Supreme Council at the time of the concordat, he was not an Active Member and played no part in any of the decisions concerning the Concordat. No one could blame Pike for any of the events. Albert Pike was the only serious candidate for leading the Grand Consistory who could be seen as potentially objective as well as extraordinarily promising. Next to James Foulhouze, no one had a better chance of appeasing the French Masons and unifying all the factions. Once the Supreme Council of Louisiana was re-organized, Pike's value to the Charleston cause was even more evident.\n\nThis address, given by Pike only four days after he received the 33\u00b0,14 is valuable to all Scottish Rite researchers not only because it is an extremely rare piece of early Pike literature, but also because of significant information provided in it. From this address we not only get a better feel of the early Albert Pike, but also have the opportunity to develop a more detailed understanding of the momentous events that were taking place at the time Albert Pike arrived on the Scottish Rite stage. Within just two years from the time of this address, Pike would be elected an Active Member of the Southern Jurisdiction (over the apparent objections of the Grand Commander and Lt. Grand Commander)15 and then on January 2, 1859, with the very first S.J. election of officers (a dramatic change in practice), be elected to the position of Sovereign Grand Commander.\n\nPike's address was ordered to be recorded in the handwritten Minutes of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana. A typed transcript of this address was made by an unknown Brother sometime between the 1940s and 1950s and a copy of this transcript acquired by this writer. The accuracy of the transcript was verified by this writer by a comparison of the transcript with the original Minutes located in the Scottish Rite Bodies of New Orleans.\n\nADDRESS BEFORE THE\n\nGRAND CONSISTORY OF LOUISIANA\n\nALBERT PIKE\n\nApri1 29 1857\n\nTh :. Ill:. Bros :. and Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret:\n\nI PRAY YOU TO ACCEPT my most sincere thanks and profoundest gratitude for the great and unexpected honor which you conferred upon me, when, in my absence, you selected me to fill the most honorable and very responsible station of Grand Commander of this Grand Consistory and for your present ratification of that choice. I will earnestly endeavor to have myself not wholly undeserving of your good opinion; so that, although it must now be said that when elected I was not worthy either by service or qualification, it may not hereafter be said that when I cease to serve, you repented of your selection.\n\nI can bring to your service, Princes, little more than good intentions, kind feelings, and a zealous devotion to the interest of Masonry of all Rites -when you find me deficient (and wherein shall I not, alas, be found, Bro :. ? ) I entreat of you in advance lenient judgment upon my short-comings, and that you will kindly aid me with your sympathy, support and advice. For I must be ever embarrassed by the reflection that I have been by your too favorable judgment preferred to many eminent and distinguished Brethren, whose longer service and greater familiarity with the work gave them far higher claims than any I could have preferred to the post of honor and command. If I supposed that personal consideration or a belief in my superior fitness and capacity had led you to this choice, I should sink under a sense of my feebleness, not ever have succeeded in overcoming my repugnance to accept a post where so much was to be expected. But, amass that there were other reasons, which acted upon you, and made your selection seem politic and for the interest of Masonry in this Valley, reasons not personal to me, but growing out of the conditions of things and the circumstances that surrounded us. I am encouraged to hope that I may in some degree aid in attaining the result which you all desire, and that your just expectations may not be disappointed.\n\nI have accordingly accepted tile post which you have tendered me, and will endeavor to perform its duties. Most important private business will compel my absence for some months. I shall return as soon as practicable, and remain thereafter permanently in the city.16\n\nShould the interest of the Order at any time be likely to suffer by my temporary absence, I shall be prepared at once to surrender up my office, faintly imitating the lofty magnanimity, of which so beautiful an example has been set me by an Ill:. Bro:. whose genius and labors have done so much to restore the splendors of the Ancient and Accepted Rite 17 in this Valley, and whose name will not be forgotten among us, while the order of Knights Rose Croix continues to exist, or the Kadosh to war against tyranny and usurpation.\n\nBut I shall most sensibly feel how great will be the contrast between myself, with my slender experience, and the Th:. Ill:. Prince and Sovereign whose place I come to take, but not fill. 18 Eminent in Masonic learning and more illustrious by long and faithful service than even by his high rank and lofty station, the new and supreme dignity recently conferred upon him was a most just and appropriate acknowledgment of his worth. This Consistory must most sensibly feel its loss, as he, Ill:. Gr :. Commander, crowned and laureled with the highest honor, and with the grateful thanks and recollections of his brethren, most gracefully retires from this distinguished post, to yield it of his own choice to another. I beseech him not to withdraw from me his counsel and advice, and I pray him and our Ill:. Bro:. Laffon,19 and the other eminent brethren who surround me, to aid me, to advise me, to support me in my inexperience, that, guided by them I may not despair of rendering some little service to the cause of humanity, to the cause of truth, of liberty, of philosophy, and of Masonic progress.\n\nMy brethren, I see around me the representatives of more than one race, 20 and the disciples of more than one Masonic Rite - I rejoice at this reunion, and it gives me happy augury of the prosperity, health, and continuance of Masonry in this Valley. I am especially glad that here and in other bodies of this Rite, I see by the side of the children of the first generous and gallant settlers of Louisiana, many of another land, and who not long since for the first time passed beyond the boundaries of the York Rite.\n\nWe are all aware, my brethren, how little among Masons of the latter Rite is known of the Ancient & Accepted Rite, and how great and general a prejudice has obtained those against it. It has been imagined that there was antagonism between the two: Scottish Masonry has been deemed almost spurious, and its degrees, at the best, no more than mere side degrees; and the York Mason who has entered into our sanctuaries has been regarded in the estimation of many, as untrue to his allegiance and disloyal.\n\nThose of you, my brethren, who lately have known only the York Rite, are already aware how unfounded is this prejudice, how erroneous this opinion, how chimerical these apprehensions and alarms. It shall be my study to make you more fully to know this hereafter.\n\nThe Ancient and Accepted Rite is, when itself fully developed and understood, when itself what it should be and can be, a great, harmonious and connected system, all the degrees and lessons, embody the philosophy, the history, the morality and the essential meaning of Masonry, and are to us what the Ancient mysteries were to the initiate of Eleusis, of Egypt, and of Samothrace.\n\nThe degrees of this Rite are commentaries on the Master's Degree, which itself is essentially the same in all Rites. They interpret instead of being at variance with that degree. They ultimately make it known to the Initiate the true word and the true meaning and inner sense of the True Word of a Mason. They teach the great doctrines that God taught the Patriarchs, and which are the foundations on which all religions repose.\n\nWe do not undervalue symbolic Masonry, nor love it the less because we also love the Ancient & Accepted Rite, we but learn justly to value the Master's degree, by coming to understand its full meaning and to appreciate the sublime and lofty lessons which it teaches. Masonry is one everywhere and in all its Temples of whatever Rite; as it has been one in all times. Everywhere it teaches the same great lessons of morality and philosophy, or should do so, if faithful to its mission, and if its apostles are properly informed and true to the duties which it imposes on them. If anywhere it has excluded from even the inmost Sanctuaries of its Temples men of any faith who believe in Our Supreme God, Creator and Preserver of all things that become, and in the immortality of the Soul-if it has anywhere assumed the garb of religious exclusion and intolerance, of Jesuitism, of political vengeance, of Hermetic Mysticism, there most assuredly it has ceased to be Masonry.\n\nIt would not be true to say, however, that even Scottish Masonry has adequately fulfilled or been equal to its missions. While by the irresistible influence of time, by innovations and by mutilations and corruptions of ignorance, the degrees of the York Rite have long since ceased to be what they should be, and what they were in the beginning, when they succeeded to those ancient academies of science, philosophy and morality, the mysteries; while the practice of confirming everything contained in them to the memory has by the silent lapse of time caused more and more both of ceremony and substance to be forgotten, much to be intentionally dropped, and the field of each degree to be made more and more narrow; while the true meaning of very many of their most valuable symbols have faded away and disappeared, and been replaced by commonplace, and the inventions of ignorance, and the lofty science and profound teachings, of the Ancients have too much given way to unimpressive phrases and valueless formulas, - the Scottish Rite also has not enjoyed immunity from the ravages of the biting tooth of time, universal destroyer of all human beings.\n\nFor even here, where over the Temples of our Degrees stood perfect and complete in all the splendor and Majesty of their beautiful and harmonious proportions, we are like strangers from a far land who wander amid the shattered columns and wrecked glories of Thebes and Palmyra, and union over the ruins that track the steps of time, and over the instability of all earthly things. From many of our degrees everything has dropped out except the signs and words, and they remain half effaced and corrupted. From more, all is lost except these and some unimportant formulas; in still more, useless repetition arrives at impressiveness, but cannot renunciate us for the old science and the noble philosophy whose place it endeavors to supply. Those huge chasms have been created in the work, and the connections between the degrees have been broken; so that each has become a fragment instead of being, as at first part of one consistent, regularly progressive and harmonious whole.\n\nThus it has come that of the degrees from the fourth to the thirty-second inclusive, which we retain and apply to ourselves the sounding titles, four only are habitually conferred, which all the residue remain in a great measure, and part of them altogether unknown.\n\nIt had become so obvious that this Rite needed reformation, and that either its degrees should all be made worthy to be conferred and of value to be attained, or else those which were not so ought to be abandoned and their titles disused, that more than two years ago the Supreme Council at Charleston appointed a Committee of five Brethren to revise the whole ritual of the degrees; on which Committee I had the distinguished honor to be placed. While my Brother Laffon, both before and after he was also placed there in the stead of my Brother Samory, who to the general regret found himself compelled to decline the act.21 While my Brother Laffon labored, more particularly on the 18th Degree, but not alone on that, I also, undertaking at first a few degrees, continued my labors during two years, until I completed a revision of all; which that it may be thoroughly examined and sanctioned, I have printed in a volume and submitted to the Supreme Council. Whether that August Body will stamp it or any part of it with its approval, is wholly unknown to me. I have endeavored to restore the effaced or faded lineament of many of the degrees to develop and elaborate the great leading idea of each, to correct the whole together as a regular series, and to make of them our harmonious and systematic whole, ascending by regular graduations to the highest moral and philosophical truth - I have endeavored to prime away all commonplaces and puerility's, all unmeaning forms and ceremonies, all absurd interpretations, and everything useless or injurious with which time and ignorance had overloaded the degrees. I have endeavored so to restore, to retouch and to supply, retaining all that was valuable and working up all the old material, as to make every degree worth to be conferred: that there should be no longer any empty tile, or barren honors in the Ancient & Accepted Rite.\n\nThis I have attempted; but I am only too well aware that the undertaking was too great for my furios; and that what I have done will be found full of imperfections, as the work of the painter, the sculpture, the creator, and the poet ever falls short of his own ideal.\n\nStill I have endeavored to do somewhat; and it is my desire, at some appropriate future time, and with your consent and assistance, to confer upon some suitable candidate such of the degrees, as I have revised them, as have not been already revised by other and more competent hands.\n\nI congratulate you, my brethren, on the advancement and progress of the Ancient & Accepted Rite in this Valley: The Concordat by which the Supreme Jurisdiction of the Supreme Council at Charleston was acknowledged and under which the two Consistories then existing became one, laid broad and deep the strong foundations of the prosperity of our Rite. The walls of our Temple, solidly and squarely built, bid defiance to the storms of faction; and if we are true to ourselves, peace will dwell within our gates.\n\nAnd in the Realm of Masonry, if anywhere on earth, there ought to be peace and quiet and harmony. No where are schism and faction, and disunion and discontent so lamentably out of place as here. Here there should be no lust for power and no eagerness for rank or distinction. If discontented men should in this valley have established, or if any shall hereafter establish, under a foreign authority which has no jurisdiction here and act only by usurpation, any body or bodies, claiming to administer the Ancient & Accepted Rite, we shall, I think, be prepared to show that the Supreme Council at Charleston, to which we owe allegiance, is the only legitimate authority in the Rite that can exist in our country south of the River Potomac; and that the Grand Orient of France and the Supreme Council within its bosom offered against Masonic Law and Masonic Comity where they made another jurisdiction and erect their banners on the soil of Louisiana.\n\nIt is time that this question should be receive the fullest consideration; and that the authentic history of the creation of the Grand Orient itself and of that of the Supreme Council of France, of the disputes between those two bodies and their temporary alliance should be made known to the order in the United States. Supplied with the emissary documents on both sides, it is every intention to translate them and make them public, that all may judge where is the right and where the usurpation.\n\nThe time when fables would pass for history has gone by; and that has come when criticism and investigation will deal with the history of Masonry as with other histories, separating the truth from the error, and after reducing great pretensions to the narrowest proportions. Let us examine the history the Ancient & Accepted Rite and the Grand Orient in that spirit and by the rules and canons of sound criticism, never forgetting that courtesy, moderation, and kindness ought to inspire all Masonic discussions, hoping to find a like tone and spirit on the other side, and that those who may array themselves against us will, if Right and Truth be found with us, candidly admit it, and uniting with us acknowledge the same allegiance and so cause peace ever and ever to reign in this valley.\n\nMy Brethren, let me impress it upon you, that there is much to do, if we would have Masonry adequately fulfill its mission. It is not sufficient merely to receive three or four of the degrees, and then, imagining the rest, to live in contented indolence, without an effort to know the high science and philosophy of the system. The time has come when one who would be truly and really be a Scottish Rite Mason must study and reflect. It shall be my earnest endeavor to aid you in penetrating to the inmost heart of Masonry and in unveiling its profound secrets, which are that light towards which all Masons at least profess to struggle, that knowledge of the True Work which is the great remuneration of a Mason's labor. But if I should fall short of the performance of this duty, be not you, my brethren, disheartened nor discouraged. Masonry must be true to itself, or it will find in numbers weakness only, and its walls will be crushed to the ground with its own might. In this intellectual and practical age. Masonry must it from merited disaster and dissolution.\n\nIt is time for it to assume a higher ground; and here, if any where, the effort to elevate it must be made. Here, I believe, we can commence and successfully carry onward the indispensable work of reformation, that shall in time end the reign of puerility's and trivialities, and make masonry what it should be. The great teacher of moral and philosophical truth; the teacher of the primitive religion known to the first men that lived; the defender of the right of free thought, free conscience and free speech; the apostle of rational and well regulated liberty; the protector of the oppressed, the defender of the common people, the asserter of the dignity of labor and the right of the laboring man; the enemy of intolerance, fanaticism and uncharitable opinion, and of all idle and pernicious theories that arraign providence for its dispensations, and endeavor to set their notions of an abstract justice and equality above the laws by which God chooses to rule all human affairs.\n\nIn this great work I wish your co-operation, and I ask, for myself and for those eminent brethren who are to act with me and in my place, your countenance, your assistance, and your encouragement. I am sure my brethren that I shall not ask this in vain; and that grateful, deeply grateful as I now am for your confidence and kindness, I shall be far more so, and with far greater reason, when I am allowed to surrender into your hands the trust which you have so generously confided to me.\n\nNotes:\n\n1. Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat to Albert Pike, June 24, 1860. Archives of the Supreme Council, 33\u00b0, S.I., Washington. Photocopy in possession of the author.\n\n2. Report of the Committee on Foreign Correspondence of the Louisiana Grand Lodge of York Masons (New Orleans: Cook, Young & Co., 1949), p. 5.\n\n3. George Washington, Lafayette, Warren, Marion, Crescent City, Hiram, and Eureka.\n\n4. Grand Lodge of the State of Louisiana Report and Exposition (New Orleans: I. L. Sollee, 1849), pp. 5-34.\n\n5. James B. Scot, Outline of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Louisiana (1873; reprint, New Orleans: Cornerstone Book Publishers, 2008), pp. 78-80.\n\n6. Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat, The Schism between the Scotch & York Rites (1853; reprint, New Orleans: Cornerstone Book Publishers, 2008), pp. 7-8.\n\n7. Scot, Outline, pp. 86-87.\n\n8. An attempt was made in the late 1800s to revive the French Rite in New Orleans through the short lived Grand Orient of Louisiana. This body was created in 1879, but, possibly due to little support, did not last longer than ten years. See: The Grand Orient Of Louisiana: A Short History And Catechism Of A Lost French Rite Masonic Body (1886; reprint, New Orleans: Cornerstone Book Publishers, 2008).\n\n9. Lad\u00e9bat, The Schism, pp. 7-8.\n\n10. Art de Hoyos, Introduction, The Liturgy of Germania Lodge No.46, F&A.M. (New Orleans: Michael R Poll, 1993).\n\n11. Lad\u00e9bat to Pike, Jun. 24,1860.\n\n12. See: Michael R. Poll, In His Own (w)Rite, (New Orleans, LA Cornerstone Book Publishers, 2011), \"James Foulhouze: A Biographical Study\" pp. 91-137.\n\n13. Pike's law office was located in downtown New Orleans in a building on the riverside of Camp Street one block from Canal Street. The building no longer exists. New Orleans City Directory, 1856.\n\n14. After the Concordat of 1855, the Active Members of the New Orleans Supreme Council were brought in as Honorary Members of the Charleston Supreme Council. As with all Honorary Members of a Supreme Council, they held the 33\u00b0 but not the active office of Sovereign Grand Inspector General (S.G.I.G.). It was at this time that the Charleston Supreme Council began elevating 32\u00b0 Masons to the 33\u00b0 but not including the office of S.G.I.G. in their elevation. Albert Pike was one of the first 32\u00b0 in the S.J. elevated to the 33\u00b0 without being invested with the office of S.G.I.G. Pike would be elected an Active Member (S.G.I.G.) of the Charleston Supreme Council on March 20,1858.\n\n15. \". ..I was not the last to devise the means of placing you at the head of the order, 1st by making you a 33rd against the will of Messrs. Furman & Honour: 2nd by vacating my office of Deputy in your favor, & twice you got in the S.C. & especially twice you were unanimously elected to the Presidency, I consider myself as having done my duty, all I could do. The lifeless council of Charleston was revived; it lives now! Only now tho!\" Lad\u00e9bat to Pike, Jun. 24,1860.\n\n16. The New Orleans City Directories from 1856 unti1 1859 show that while Pike had opened a law office in New Orleans, he did not have more than a temporary home in the city. The Minutes of the Grand Consistory also reveal that he was absent for many of the meetings of the Grand Consistory. There is no record that Pike ever moved his family to New Orleans, and it is probable that he traveled between his home in Little Rock and New Orleans. One of the many boarding houses in New Orleans would have likely been his residence during his stays in the city. Despite Pike's statement, New Orleans would never be his permanent home.\n\n17. At the time of this address, the term Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was not in common use in the U.S. This accounts for Pike's repeated use of the older (in the U.S.) term Ancient and Accepted Rite.\n\n18. Pike refers to Claude Pierre Samory. Samory was elected an Active Member of the Charleston Supreme Council on Nov. 20, 1856.\n\n19. Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat.\n\n20. Freemasonry in pre-Civil War New Orleans was reflective of the New Orleans culture of the time. Pierre Roup was the son-in-law of New Orleans Mason and Battle of New Orleans hero Dominique Youx. Roup was a member of Perseverance Lodge No.4 and sat on the lodge's building committee. He was a black Creole. While it is clear that there were more than a few black Creoles who were members of New Orleans lodges, identifying them is difficult, as ones' race was not a question asked or recorded except in notable situations. It is quite possible that there were black Creole members of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana present at the time of Pike's address. It is, likewise, possible that Pike used the word \"race\" in reference to the French Masons who were often considered part of the \"Latin race\".\n\n21. On p. 249 of his History of the Supreme Council 33\u00b0, A.&A.S.R. S.J., U:S.A (1801- 1864) (Washington: Supreme Council, 33\u00b0, 1964) Ray Baker Harris, 33\u00b0, reproduces a letter sent by Albert Mackey to Claude Samory dated Mar. 21, 1855. The letter concerns the Southern Jurisdiction's Ritual Committee and lists its members. Claude Samory is listed as the member from New Orleans and Albert Pike the member from Little Rock. Ill. Harris writes: \"From all indications, the 'preparation of new copies' was in the hands of Albert Pike. He was then in New Orleans, and may have conferred with Samory in this work, but neither of them ever mentioned such a collaboration in their numerous letters written in this period\". Until this address by Pike was rediscovered, it was assumed by most A.&A.S.R. scholars that Samory was on this committee with Pike for a substantial period of time. Bro. Harris, assuming that Samory remained on the committee, logically wondered about the absence of communications between Pike and Samory concerning ritual matters. This address brings to light the fact that Samory retired from the committee shortly after his appointment to be replaced by Lad\u00e9bat. The collaboration was not between Pike and Samory, but between Pike and Lad\u00e9bat and renders the degrees written by the two and their ritual communications understandable.\n\n***\n\nThe Grand Constitutions of 1786\n\nThe Journal of the Masonic Society, Issue 8, 2010\n\nFEW MASONIC DOCUMENTS have been debated, praised, maligned, studied and misunderstand more than the collection known as the Grand Constitutions of 1786. There are actually two collections with that name, one known as the French version and the other as the Latin version. But what are they, why are they important, and why all the fuss about them?\n\nThe Grand Constitutions of 1786 are directly associated with the 33-degree Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and are its original rules and regulations. The first Scottish Rite Supreme Council was created in Charleston, South Carolina on May 31, 1801 and used the Grand Constitutions both as authority to exist and laws for governance. The Grand Constitutions of 1786 provided the first Supreme Council with a blueprint, and it gave them guidance in the organization, structure and management of the new system.\n\nIn the early days of the Scottish Rite, the Grand Constitutions were perceived to be of great importance to the young Supreme Council, but were of no value to Grand Lodges who often viewed the new system as mere side degrees. For the Scottish Rite, they were not only central to the government of the system, but could also be used as evidence of legitimacy. In fact, the original Charleston Supreme Council (today officially known as \"The Supreme Council [Mother Council of the World] of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the Thirty-third degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America\" \u2013 but more commonly known simply as the \"Southern Jurisdiction\") did use the Grand Constitutions as evidence of legitimacy in what would become a \"Scottish Rite war\" spanning most of the 19th century.\n\nJohn Mitchell was the first Grand Commander of the Charleston Council (i.e., the \"Southern Jurisdiction\"). Mitchell had been a Deputy Inspector General (25\u00ba) of an older Masonic system known as the Order of the Royal Secret, more commonly known as the Rite of Perfection. In 1807, when Joseph Cerneau, another Deputy Inspector General of the Order of the Royal Secret, created bodies in New York that would evolve into a second Supreme Council in the United States, the young Charleston Council used the Grand Constitutions to argue that this second council was unauthorized and irregular. In 1813, Emanuel de la Motta, an Active Member of the Charleston Council, traveled to New York and \u2013 with or without the knowledge or approval of the Charleston Council \u2013 created a second Supreme Council in New York on August 23, 1813, to usurp the Cerneau creation. This council would become the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction known today as the partner to the Southern Jurisdiction.\n\nInterestingly enough, the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction (NMJ) and the Southern Jurisdiction (SJ) have historically disagreed over which version of the Grand Constitutions of 1786 they accept. The NMJ accepts the French version, and the SJ the Latin version. But why should there be different versions of a document that would seem to be crucial to the Scottish Rite? What and where is the original?\n\nThe Grand Constitutions of 1786 contain 18 Articles, or laws, and it was reported to be approved and signed in Berlin by Frederic the Great on May 1, 1786. Unfortunately, the original document is not known to exist. When the Charleston Council demanded the Cerneau Council produce documen-tation showing it was authorized to exist, the Cerneau Council produced nothing. The Charleston Council labeled Cerneau unauthorized and irregular. When the Cerneau Council demanded that the Charleston Council prove that they were authorized to exist, the Charleston Council pointed to its copy of the Grand Constitutions of 1786. The Cerneau Council dismissed this document as a forgery and accused the rival group of hypocrisy. The Cerneau Council claimed it had the same right and authority to exist as did the Charleston Council, and that the standards of legitimacy should be the same for both.\n\nAnother claim made by the Charleston Council was that any additional Supreme Council created in the United States needed its approval, which it did not give to Cerneau.\n\nSo, who, if anyone, was correct? Is it possible that the Grand Constitutions of 1786 are a forgery and they were never approved by Frederic? Let's have a look at the two versions of the Grand Constitutions of 1786. Of the French version, Albert Pike tells us:\n\n\"If I were satisfied that there never were any other Constitutions than those contained in the French version, I should not hesitate to admit that they were a clumsy forgery, and that there was nothing in the world to prove them authentic.\" 1\n\nThose are very strong words! But why would Pike write such a strong denunciation of this French version? Past SJ Sovereign Grand Commander Henry Clausen explains:\n\n\"Pike's [Latin] version is obviously a truer copy of the original because it supplies omissions and corrections that were apparent in the French version.\"\n\nClausen continues:\n\n\"Following are a few examples from Pike's pen showing the disparity between the French and the Latin versions:\n\nThe French Constitutions neither provide for nor describe any Jewel or Cordon of the Degree. The Seal is described as 'a large BLACK Eagle with two heads, the beak of gold, the wings displayed, and holding in its claws a naked sword; upon a ribbon displayed below is written DUES MEUMQUE JUS, and above the Eagle, SUPREME COUNCIL OF THE 33rd DEGREE. [Official Bulletin, Vol. V, No.2, p. 548]\n\nThe French Constitutions provide for one Council of the Degree in each Nation or Kingdom in Europe; for two in the United States of America; for one in the British West Indies; and one in the French West India Islands. But none is provided for Canada; none for the Province of Louisiana, or the Spanish Possessions in North America; and none for South America. [Official Bulletin, Vol. VII, No. 1, p. 486]\n\nTheir Article VI provides that 'the power of the Supreme Council does not interfere in any Degree below the 17th;' and Article VII that only Councils or individuals above the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem may bring their appeal to the Supreme Council. This was necessary, in 1801, at Charleston, to prevent hostility on the part of the Grand Lodge of Perfection and Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem, then and theretofore existing in South Carolina. Why was it necessary in 1786, in Prussia, where no Lodge of Perfection or Council of Princes of Jerusalem existed? [Ibid., p.487]\n\nThe fees for the 33rd Degree and for the Patent of it are expressed to be payable, not in German, but in French coin. [Ibid., p.487] 2\n\nPike's rational and categorical reproof of the French version makes it difficult to understand how one could, with any understanding of Pike's argument and its implications, reasonably defend the French version. Yet, this is the very version that the NMJ accepts. Why? Even more interesting is the fact that Pike himself used the French version to support his position in a Masonic debate. In the 1860s, the Supreme Councils of the NMJ and SJ entered into a debate over territory. Josiah Drummond, the Grand Commander of the NMJ, and Albert Pike, the Grand Commander of the SJ, debated jurisdictional questions over certain states. Drummond wrote to Pike in 1868:\n\n\"I hold that under the Constitutions of 1786, the Northern Jurisdiction and the Southern Jurisdiction are, in every respect and for all purposes, as distinct as if they were separate nations: that we, as well as you, derive our rights of jurisdiction from those Constitutions; that those Constitutions create two separate Jurisdictions. On the other hand, I perceive, that you have held that your Supreme Council had jurisdiction throughout North America, and that we get our territory by cession from you; and if by cession, consequently we get only such territory as you choose to cede: and as necessary, that there could have been no Supreme Council in this Jurisdiction unless you had chosen to cede us territory.\" 3\n\nHow did Pike answer Drummond? He wrote (arguing the meaning of certain phrases in the French version):\n\n\"I do not agree that the Constitutions created the two Jurisdictions. For the United States composed a single Jurisdiction until 1813 or 1815, and might have continued to be as such until today. The provision is restrictive \u2014 that there shall not be more than two Supreme Councils established in the United States. That is the real meaning of it; not that there shall be two. But the point is of no practical importance, and I pass it.... If Illustrious Brother Drummond were right in holding that the Northern part of the United States did not belong to the Jurisdiction of the Southern Council, prior to 1813 or 1815, but was to vest, whether it willed it or not, in a Northern Council, whenever one should be created there, a consequence which he does not foresee might follow. That hypothesis would make the Northern states to have been unoccupied territory, in which any Inspector General could establish a Supreme Council; and it might thus make legitimate the Cerneau Council, and annihilate that created in 1813 or 1815 by De la Motta. It certainly would destroy the principal ground on which the legitimacy of Cerneau's Council was always impeached; to-wit, that the Council at Charleston had jurisdiction over the whole United States, and that no other Council could be created any where in them, except with its consent.\" 4\n\nPike and Drummond were debating the meaning of Article Five of the French version, which determined the number of Supreme Councils allowed in the US. This debate resulted in Pike producing quite lengthy arguments concerning French and English grammar and the reasons for his position concerning the meaning of Article Five of the French version. Pike even changed a portion of the English translation in his Grand Constitutions to reflect his opinion of the rendition.5 In his 1868 Allocution, Pike very skillfully debated this interpretation of Article Five of the French version at length and he did likewise in his Grand Constitutions. But why should Pike bother to painstakingly argue a point concerning a document that he had dismissed as a \"clumsy forgery\"? Pike should have, for the sake of clearly articulating his true position, debated the Latin version \u2014 which he claimed to be legitimate. Why didn't he? Simply put, Pike could not debate this portion of the Latin version. The same portion of Article Five of the Latin version (the version Pike refers to as the \"law of the Rite\" 6) reads:\n\n\"In each great nation of Europe, and in each Kingdom or Empire, there shall be but one single Supreme Council of this Degree. In all those States and Provinces, as well of the mainland as of the islands, whereof North America is composed, there shall be two Councils, one at as great a distance as may be from the other.\" 7\n\nPike strongly contended that the meaning of Article Five (French version) was that the US was not required to be divided into two jurisdictions, yet that is exactly the meaning of the Latin version, which Pike himself had translated in 1859. Pike used the French version in his debate with Drummond simply because it was more open to interpretation. The \"consequence\" that Pike claimed would follow if Drummond's interpretation was accepted, is clearly present in the Latin version \u2014 Cerneau, it seems, might have had reason, based on the version of the Grand Constitutions accepted by the SJ, to believe that he had rightfully established his Council.\n\nThe problem for Drummond was that Pike had skillfully painted him into a corner with his masterful use of Drummond's preferred French version. The territorial debate ended with Drummond yielding to Pike's demands. The view held by Drummond, however, was not only based on his interpretation of Article Five of the French version, but also on the \"birth certificate\" of the Northern Council itself, which reads in part:\n\n\"And whereas the Grand Constitutions of the 33\u00ba specifies particularly, that there shall be two Grand & Supreme Councils of the 33d Degree for the Jurisdiction of the United States of America, one for the South and the other for the North.\" 8\n\nIt is obvious why Drummond interpreted Article V of the French version as he did. The NMJ was created on the premise that the constitutions provided for two councils in the United States. Its only contention could have been if Cerneau was not a legitimate Sovereign Grand Inspector General; after all, if he was legitimate, the Cerneau Council was perfectly legal and the NMJ was \u2013 by its own stated reason for being created \u2013 unauthorized! Pike's opinions concerning the meaning of the original French interpretation were clearly not shared by Emanuel de la Motta, who created the NMJ and was an active Member of the original Charleston Council. It is, likewise, evident why Pike's \"threats\" might well have been taken seriously. Clearly the only available attack that could reasonably be made on Cerneau, from the NMJ perspective, was to discredit his legitimacy as a SGIG \u2013 but great care had to be taken in this course of action as there is no reason to believe Cerneau and John Mitchell obtained the degree in any different manner.9 To discredit Cerneau's 33rd might also discredit Mitchell's.\n\nIt would seem apparent that Pike was unaware of the existence of a handwritten copy of the French version of the Grand Constitutions that had been made by Frederick Dalcho, the first Lt. Grand Commander of the Charleston Council and its second Grand Commander following John Mitchell; the document was not discovered until the 20th century.10 (This copy now resides in the Kloss Collection in the Grand Lodge Library, The Netherlands, which also includes a manuscript of the Ritual of the Thirty-third Degree.) Pike boldly proclaimed the French version a fraud, and offered very lucid support for his position, while clearly having no idea of the pernicious wording of the \"birth certificate\" of the NMJ. An additional problem for Pike was that the Latin version was unknown before 1832. To make matters worse, it was none other than a Cerneau Council that made the Latin version available to the world.11\n\nCustomarily, papers discussing Joseph Cerneau include arguments concerning the Grand Constitutions of 1786. Cerneau is routinely accused of acting in violation of these Constitutions. Nineteenth-century defenders of Cerneau typically argued the lack of authenticity of the Grand Constitutions, with the apparent belief that if the Grand Constitutions could be discredited then all charges against Cerneau would likewise be dismissed. One claim that was often made was that Frederic the Great had been in very poor heath at the time the Constitutions were said to be approved, and that he was physically unable to have given them consent. Albert Pike went to great lengths to examine the charge that Frederic was not physically able to have executed such a document. Pike meticulously traced the reported events and laid out a detailed report on his position that it was possible for Frederic to have executed the Grand Constitutions. Scottish Rite historian Samuel Baynard of the NMJ writes of Pike's conclusions:\n\n\"Though we admit that our Illustrious Brother did in a masterly manner fully convince us that Frederick on May 1, 1786, was physically able and mentally capable of drafting, signing and promulgating these Grand Constitutions, we have utterly failed to find that he discovered or pointed out to us one scintilla of evidence that Frederick actually did have aught to do with them.\"12\n\nPike was obviously aware that his lengthy account did not answer the actual question of whether Frederic signed or approved the Grand Constitutions. Addressing this point in a most interesting manner, Pike writes:\n\n\"There is not one particle of proof, of any sort, circumstantial or historical or by argument from improbability, that they are not genuine and authentic.\"13\n\nAs remarkable as it sounds, Pike is actually asking us to prove a negative. Regardless of Pike's request, Baynard goes on to write:\n\n\"We conclude therefore:\n\n1. That the Grand Constitutions were not promulgated by Frederic the Great;\n\n2. That they were not framed, drawn up or signed in Berlin;\n\n3. That there did not exist in Berlin or even France in 1786, any \"Grand Supreme Universal Inspectors, in constituted Supreme Council\";\n\n4. That the real date of the Constitutions is subsequent to 1786.\" 14\n\nBut if the Grand Constitutions are a forgery, then who forged them? The question did not escape Baynard:\n\n\"It is only natural that the next question should be, Well, then, who did frame them? We do not know. Neither are we unduly disturbed because we do not know. We have our opinion, but it is not substantiated by any evidence that we can call positive or direct, and, therefore, we do not express it as a conclusion.\" 15\n\nTo summarize the situation, Pike had already proclaimed the French version of the Grand Constitutions a forgery. He was debating the merits of why the Latin version should be considered legitimate. Baynard rejected both versions of the Grand Constitutions. Regarding the possibility that the Latin version might also be a forgery, Pike tells us:\n\n\"The odious charge has been again and again repeated, that these Latin Constitutions were forged at Charleston. It is quite certain that this is not true, because the Supreme Council at Charleston never had them, until it received copies of the editions published by the Grand Commander. If they were forged anywhere, it was not at Charleston: and if anything was forged there, it was the French copy, as it afterwards appeared in the Recueil des Actes.\" 16\n\nAnd elsewhere:\n\n\"The gentlemen of South Carolina, in that day, did not commit forgery. Whatever the origin of the Grand Constitutions, they came from Europe to Charleston, and were accepted and received by the honorable gentlemen and clergymen who were of the first Supreme Council, in perfect good faith\" 17\n\nIf the Grand Constitutions are forged documents, but the original Charleston Council did not forge them, then how did they come into possession of them? Pike theorizes:\n\n\"This very imperfect French copy, which consists merely of so many Articles, without preface, formality of enactment by any body in Power, or authentication of any sort, contains no list of the degrees, nor even the name of the Rite. It is most probable that de Grasse procured it, in or from Europe, and created the Supreme Council. By Article V of these Constitutions, it requires three persons to constitute a quorum and compose a Supreme Council; and therefore Colonel Mitchell and Dr. Dalcho alone could not have been, by themselves, such a body. Brother de Grasse intended establishing a Supreme Council at Santo Domingo for the French West India Islands; and no other person had any interest to make the Constitutions read so as to allow such a Council, except his father-in-law, Jean Baptiste Delahogue, who also resided in Charleston in 1796, 1799 and 1801, and was also a 33rd, and appointed to be Lieutenant Grand Commander for the French West Indies. It was for this reason, evidently, that neither of them was placed on the roll of members of the body at Charleston.\" 18\n\nWe now have enough material to analyze. Baynard held the opinion that the entire story of the Grand Constitutions was a fabrication. He based his opinion on the total lack of factual evidence supporting the account and the improbability of the reported events. Pike soundly denounced the French version as a fraud, but held to the possibility of legitimacy for the Latin version. Pike pointed out that the original Charleston Council did not have possession or knowledge of the Latin version and had based their actions on the fraudulent French version. Pike also stated that it was Alexander de Grasse-Tilly who had brought the forged French version to Charleston, and implied that it was de Grasse-Tilly who might actually have forged them. Pike, with some indignation, rejected the possibility that Mitchell or Dalcho might have had anything to do with forgery.\n\nThere are two logical scenarios that we can explore: The first would be that Mitchell and Dalcho received the Grand Constitutions sincerely believing they were legitimate; the second would be that Mitchell and Dalcho took part in the creation of the Grand Constitutions or knew that they were a forgery.\n\nIf Mitchell and Dalcho believed that the Grand Constitutions were legitimate, we can look at the series of events with this mind-set. If Mitchell and Dalcho believed that they were propagating a European system created some 15 years prior to the creation of the Charleston Council, then they could have reasonably assumed that other Supreme Councils of the 33\u00ba existed in Europe. Clearly, the Grand Constitutions speak of such a Council in Berlin.\n\nOn August 23, 1813 John Mitchell and Frederick Dalcho wrote to Emanuel de la Motta concerning de la Motta's report to them of Cerneau. Mitchell wrote in part:\n\n\"I am truly surprised and astonished at the conduct of the man you say is called Mr. Joseph Cerneau. No person ever had the degree but the Count de Grasse, and perhaps, but I am not sure, Mr. Delahogue.\" 19\n\nWe must stop for a moment to try and understand this comment by Mitchell. If Mitchell received a copy of the Grand Constitutions and he accepted them as legitimate and authoritative, how could he be so sure that no one else \"had the degree\"? What of the Supreme Council in Berlin mentioned in the Grand Constitutions? The copy of the Grand Constitutions of 1786 that Mitchell had available to him opens as follows:\n\n\"Made and approved in the Supreme Council of the 33rd duly and lawfully established and Congregated in the Grand East of Berlin on the 1st of May Anno Lucis 5786 and of the Christian Era 1786. At which Council was present in person \u2013 His Most August Majesty, Frederic 2nd, King of Prussia, Sovereign Grand Commander.\"\n\nWas the \"Supreme Council of the 33rd\" in Berlin composed of members who did not have the 33rd degree? If no one else had the degree, who gave it to Mitchell \u2013 someone who did not possess it himself? Mitchell writes that de Grasse was the only other person whom he was certain \"had\" the degree. (This is possibly where Pike conceived the theory that de Grasse was the one who brought the forged copy to the United States.) If no one else had the degree before de Grasse, then who gave it to de Grasse? If de Grasse gave Mitchell the 33rd at some time earlier than the creation of the Charleston Council in 1801, why does the \"1802 Manifesto\" (the \"birth certificate\" of the SJ) state that de Grasse received the 33\u00ba from Mitchell on the \"21st of February, 5802\" [1802]? 20\n\nLet's now look at part of the letter Frederick Dalcho wrote to de la Motta on the same day as Mitchell's letter and also concerning the new Cerneau creation. It again should be noted that the date of Dalcho's letter was August 23, 1813. Emanuel de la Motta established the Supreme Council for the Northern Jurisdiction 13 days earlier on August 10, 1813, and he certainly would have been reported this fact to Mitchell and Dalcho in the letter that prompted their response. Dalcho wrote:\n\n\"It is well known to those who have lawfully received the 33rd degree, that there can be but one Council in a nation or kingdom; and that the Council for the U.S. was lawfully established in this City, May 31st, 1801; consequently any other assuming its prerogatives must be surreptitious.\"21\n\nWhat does Dalcho mean by this statement? The copy of the Grand Constitutions of 1786 which exists in his own hand says that there \"shall\" be two in the United States. And what of de la Motta's creation? Is there some suggestion that Dalcho might not have approved of the de la Motta Council any more than the Cerneau one? The \"birth certificate\" of the NMJ, created by de la Motta, states that \"there shall be two Grand & Supreme Councils of the 33d Degree for the Jurisdiction of the United States of America, one for the South and the other for the North.\"\n\nPike stated that the earliest known copy of the Grand Constitutions was the \"forged\" French version as appeared in a French Masonic publication titled Recueil des Actes in 1817. 22 Pike stated that Mitchell and Dalcho could not have forged the Constitutions because they were both \"honorable\" men and neither \"the kind of man to put his hand to that kind of work.\" Pike also stated that it was not \"probable that either of them could write Latin or French.\" 23 Pike theorized that de Grasse along with his father-in-law, Jean Baptiste Delahogue, acquired or forged the French version and then, presumably, translated it into English so that Mitchell and Dalcho could understand it. Pike did not know of the handwritten Dalcho copy, but could have, by this line of reasoning, assumed that Dalcho copied it from a de Grasse or Delahogue copy which they had translated from French into English.\n\nCould this be the copy that was used to fool Mitchell and Dalcho? We learn from past SJ Grand Historian Ray Baker Harris that the Delahogue documents in the Kloss Collection are \"an undoubted copy of the Thirty-Third Degree and the Constitution, Statutes and Regulations, in use in Charleston in 1801-1802 when the Supreme Council was established.\"24\n\nHarris also tells us:\n\n\"This assumption is further confirmed by a manuscript copy of the same in English, entirely in the handwriting of Frederick Dalcho. It is the English equivalent of Delahogue's French copy. It is believed to have been the Charleston copy from which Delahogue made his translation into French.\"25\n\nDelahogue made his translation into French? But Pike said that the oldest known copy of the Grand Constitutions was the forged French version. In a reproof of this version, Pike rigidly defended Mitchell and Dalcho based on his position that this forged copy came into their hands, presumably through de Grasse and\/or Delahouge, and they simply accepted it as legitimate. The \"French version\" would have had to have been translated from French into English, not the other way around for Pike's argument to be sound. Is there some support for Harris' position that the French Delahouge copy was made from the English Dalcho copy? Yes. Harris tells us that the Delahogue copy of the Grand Constitutions carries the note: \"translated from the English by me [Delahogue].\"26\n\nFor Pike's theory to be correct, de Grasse would have translated his forged French Constitutions into English for Mitchell and Dalcho. Dalcho would then have copied that English translation into his own hand. Then, we are asked to believe that de Grasse's father-in-law did not make a French-to-French copy of the Constitutions from de Grasse's copy, but instead used Dalcho's English copy to translate it back into French for his own personal copy. That makes no sense at all! Why would Delahogue go to all that trouble if his son-in-law possessed the original French version?\n\nThis writer is wholly in agreement with Samuel Baynard in his rejection of the legitimacy of the Grand Constitutions. Likewise, there is little room to argue the perfectly logical assessment that Albert Pike made of the French version of the Grand Constitutions. Pike clearly did not realize that what he so soundly proved to be a \"clumsy forgery\" came directly from the hand of Frederick Dalcho.\n\nIn the absence of any other reasonable explanation, we must conclude that John Mitchell and Frederick Dalcho fabricated the story of the Grand Constitutions of 1786, either in whole or in part. We cannot, as Pike suggested, attempt to prove or disprove a negative. We also cannot embrace fanciful theories that make the story end as we might wish. The course of events simply does not make sense if we take the position that Mitchell and Dalcho received the Grand Constitutions, accepted them as legitimate, and created the Charleston Council. The known facts simply do not support such conclusions.\n\nThis writer holds the opinion that Mitchell, Dalcho, and possibly a few others held reasonable concern in regard to the failing and chaotic state of the \"Scottish Rite\" order (Order of the Royal Secret or Rite of Perfection). \"To bring \"order\" to the \"chaos,\" the new 33-degree AASR system was created. The \"cream of the crop\" of the degrees and rituals were selected for this new system, an inspired creation for which, one can imagine, a concern developed over whether it would be accepted by Freemasonry. A royal endorsement would add value to any new Masonic system, and one attached to a set of governing laws might bestow greater value.\n\nIf we examine the situation from the standpoint that the Charleston Council received the constitutions and accepted them as legitimate, then we arrive at one contradiction after another. If, however, we consider the entire story and creation came from the Charleston Council, a very logical scenario develops. It is this writer's conclusion that the original Charleston Council was created alongside a set of governing laws attributed to Frederic II. This writer has not seen one scrap of sound evidence to support the position that Frederic actually approved \u2013 or even knew of \u2013 any Grand Constitutions in Berlin on May 1, 1786. There is, however, abundant evidence to attribute the creation of the constitutions to the original members of the Charleston Council.\n\nIt has been more than 200 years since the creation of the Charleston Council. The value and worth of the AASR is well proven. It is clear this Masonic system is of tremendous importance to the whole of Masonry, and it is not a disservice to acknowledge all of its history. The creators of the AASR were human, after all, and humans sometimes make mistakes in judgment.\n\nNotes:\n\n1. Albert Pike, The Grand Constitutions of Freemasonry (New York: The Supreme Council, 33\u00ba Southern Jurisdiction, USA, 1872), 282-283.\n\n2. Henry C. Clausen, Authentics of Fundamental Law for Scottish Rite Freemasonry (San Diego: The Supreme Council, 33\u00ba Southern Jurisdiction, USA, 1979), 9-10.\n\n3. Transactions of the Supreme Council of the 33D for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States (New York: Masonic Publishing Company, 1869), 19.\n\n4. Ibid., 22-23.\n\n5. Pike, The Grand Constitutions of Freemasonry 289. Pike altered the English translation of the French version of Article five to: \"...but two in the United States of America...\" in order to emphasize his point concerning his interpretation of the meaning of this phrase.\n\n6. Ibid., 283.\n\n7. Albert Pike, The True Secret Institutes and Fundamental Bases of the Order of Ancient Free and Associated Masons and the Grand Constitutions of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Year 1786. (New Orleans: The Supreme Council, 33\u00ba Southern Jurisdiction, USA 1859), 163-165. In Pike's 1872 (A.M. 5632) The Grand Constitutions of Freemasonry, he altered the original translation of the Latin version to read as follows: \"In each great nation of Europe, and in each Kingdom or Empire, there shall be a single Council of the said degree. In the States and Provinces, as well on the Continent as in the Islands, whereof North America consists, there will be two Councils, one at as great a distance from the other as may be possible.\" Pike, the master linguist, replaced the word \"shall\" with \"will\" in his 1872 edition, which, while having the same meaning, was not such an obvious problem to inattentive readers. The edited edition carries the note, \"Re-translated from the Latin by Albert Pike, 33\u00ba, Sov. Gr. Commander. A.M., 5632\" p. 213. Pike maintained the accuracy of his 1859 translation, at least, until 1868, as the questioned portion of Article Five is reproduced in the 1868 Transactions of the SC SJ exactly as they appeared in the 1859 translation on page 28.\n\n8. Samuel Harrison Baynard, Jr., History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States of America and its Antecedents (Boston: The Supreme Council, 33\u00ba Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA, 1938), Vol. I, 175-179. This quotation is taken from the facsimile reproduction of the 1813 \"birth certificate\" for the Northern Jurisdiction (reproduced on page 176). In addition to the facsimile is a printed transcript of the \"birth certificate\" provided to us by Ill. Brother Baynard. Interestingly, the printed transcription omits a number of words and phrases that appear in the facsimile. The phrase, for example, \"one for the South and one for the North\" (line 26 of the facsimile), does not appear in the printed transcription.\n\n9. The question of where and when John Mitchell and Joseph Cerneau received their 33rd degrees has not escaped the notice of Masonic researchers. In the case of Cerneau, he is usually dismissed quickly due to the total lack of evidence that anyone ever actually gave him the 33rd degree. Emanuel de la Motta, upon first meeting Cerneau, attempted to obtain certain information about Cerneau's 33rd including having a look at his Patent, but was unable to satisfy himself in any way (see: Charles S. Lobingier, The Supreme Council 33\u00ba [Louisville, Kentucky: The Supreme Council, 33\u00ba, SJ., 1964], p. 102.). But what of John Mitchell? There has never been a Patent discovered showing that Mitchell received the 33rd from anyone. We know that Mitchell gave Dalcho the 33rd as a Patent for this event exists. Mitchell was the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the SJ, so how did he receive the 33rd? Who gave it to him? Prior to Mitchell's role in the creation of the AASR, he was a Deputy Inspector General (25\u00ba) of the so-called \"Rite of Perfection\". We often see those senior to Mitchell in this system being credited with giving him the 33rd (usually Barend Spitzer). How could a 25th degree Mason from another system give the 33rd degree of the AASR to someone? We can also see an account of some \"unknown\" Prussian or German giving him the degree with Mitchell signing an obligation for it in French. (See: Baynard, History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba, Vol. 1, p. 89.) If someone gave Mitchell the 33rd, who gave it to him? Why didn't this unknown SGIG play a role in the creation of the Charleston Council? Since this unknown SGIG was senior to Mitchell, why wasn't he the first Charleston Sovereign Grand Commander? The questions can go on forever.\n\nOne thing we must never do is judge past events by today's standards. How we do things today, may not have been the norm in the past. We can find evidence of an old practice that might shed some light on the Mitchell\/Cerneau 33rd degree question. Evidence exists (see: Henry Wilson Coil, Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia [New York: Macoy Pub. & Masonic Supply Co., 1961], p. 121 and Pike, The Grand Constitutions of Freemasonry, p. 117.) that a Deputy Inspector General of the old so-called \"Rite of Perfection\" (as were both Mitchell and Cerneau) could \"slide over\" to the 32nd degree of the new 33 degree AASR. In addition, if a 32nd of the AASR was the senior (or only) 32nd in an unoccupied area, he could advance himself to the 33rd degree of the AASR in order to give the degree to others and create a Supreme Council. Both Mitchell and Cerneau gave the 33rd to others and created supreme councils.\n\nRegardless of the historic disapproval of Cerneau, it is possible that according to the custom of that time, he received the 33rd degree in the same manner as did Mitchell. A sound argument could be made that he was just as legitimate a SGIG as was Mitchell.\n\n10. See: R. Baker Harris and James D. Carter, History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba (1801-1861) (Washington, D.C.: The Supreme Council, 33\u00ba Southern Jurisdiction, USA, 1964), 98.\n\n11. Ibid., 216.\n\n12. Baynard, History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba, 101.\n\n13. Pike, The Grand Constitutions of Freemasonry, 170.\n\n14. Baynard, History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba, 115.\n\n15. Ibid., 116.\n\n16. Pike, The Grand Constitutions of Freemasonry 126.\n\n17. Ibid., 195.\n\n18. Ibid., 134.\n\n19. Harris\/Carter, History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba (1801-1861), 117.\n\n20. Ibid., 323.\n\n21. Ibid., 118.\n\n22. Pike, The Grand Constitutions of Freemasonry, 126.\n\n23. Ibid., 134.\n\n24. Harris\/Carter, History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba (1801-1861), 92.\n\n25. Ibid., 92.\n\n26. Ibid., 92.\n\n***\n\nThe \"White Cap\"\n\nEVER HEAR THE EXPRESSION, \"He's an honorary 33rd\"? It's not uncommon to hear, but... it's just not correct.\n\nThere are two \"parts\" to the 33rd degree - the office (SGIG) and the degree (33rd). A \"White Cap\" has received the 33rd and final degree of the AASR, but they are honorary Sovereign Grand Inspectors General. A \"White Cap\" is not an Active Member of a supreme council.\n\nConfusing? Let's look at some of the history.\n\nWhen our 33rd degree system was created, the final degree was patterned upon the final degree of the old \"Order of the Royal Secret\" (aka: \"Rite of Perfection\"). This means that the final degree was not only a degree, but also an office held by the one receiving the degree. Those who received the degree performed certain duties which could only be performed by those who held both the degree and the office.\n\nThe early AASR was governed by a set of rules as laid down in a collection of documents known as the \"Grand Constitutions of 1786.\" These Constitutions (the history of which is not exactly relevant for this discussion) were accepted as the law of the Rite by the early Charleston Supreme Council. These constitutions gave specific instructions on the organization and membership of a supreme council. A supreme council would consist of 9 Members who held the 33rd degree (in the SJ, that number would expand to 33 Members under the administration of Albert Pike). The degree name as well as the name of this office was, \"Sovereign Grand Inspector General.\" In the very early days, all those who held the 33rd Degree were also Active Members (voting members) of a supreme council.\n\nIt was not too long after the creation of the U.S. supreme councils, that Members of one jurisdiction began moving their residence into the jurisdiction of other supreme councils. We can find cases of these \"sojourning\" 33rds being received in other supreme councils and also cases of some being made \"Honorary\" Members of their host supreme council. These honorary memberships were more of a \"tip of the hat\" and recognition of rank, but carried no voting privileges or official duties.\n\nIn the 1850's, a dramatic innovation took place in the SJ. Albert Pike was one of the first 32nds to be elevated to the 33rd degree, but not receive the office of Sovereign Grand Inspector General. The office and degree became split. It was required that for one to hold the office to have received the degree, but no longer would receiving the degree automatically mean that the office was also held.\n\nThe Supreme Council under Albert Pike created two honor investitures. One was for 32nds and commonly known as \"Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH)\" and the second was for 33rds, (IGH) and became known as \"Grand Cross Court of Honor (GC)\". Pike had become aware of an older honor investiture in the Scottish Rite bodies in New Orleans for both 32nds and 33rds by the name of the \"Ceremony of the Fiery Heart.\" It is possible that this older ceremony provided the inspiration for the KCCH and GC investitures.\n\nIt is unfortunate that we so often see the \"White Cap\" included with the honor investitures of the AASR. The \"Knight Commander Court of Honor\" and the \"Grand Cross Court of Honor\" are honor investitures given to 32nd or 33rd. These two honor investitures are not degrees and including the 33rd in with them might be one source of confusion as to the nature of the 33rd degree itself.\n\nThe 33rd degree is the final degree of the AASR. It is certainly an honor to be found worthy of receiving the degree (most do not receive it) but it is a mistake to believe that \"honor\" is the proper word for how you should view receiving it. It would be far more appropriate to view it as a \"responsibility\" as 33rds are to be the teachers and models for all other members of the AASR.\n\n***\n\nIntegrity in Masonry\n\nLecture given at the 18th District Lodge, New Orleans, Louisiana\n\nAugust 22, 2011\n\nTHANK YOU FOR INVITING ME to talk this evening. As the Worshipful Master mentioned, I had the pleasure of serving the 18th District as District Grand Lecturer during the mid to late 1980's. My final year was in 1990. That opportunity to serve put me in contact with a some extraordinary brothers, some of them, sadly, are no longer with us. One such brother was Worshipful Brother Irl Fergerson. At that time, Bro. Fergerson was the Chairman of the Permanent Committee on Work. In my early days of Masonry, I would go to the old Masonic Temple Building and enjoy afternoons listening to him and learning the work. He was, without doubt, one of the finest ritualists I had ever met. He not only knew the ritual forward and backwards, but also inside and out. But, it was his style of teaching that most impressed me. I well remember him tapping loudly on his chair after he would ask a question and saying, \"If I wanted a tape recorder, I would go to the store and buy one! I don't want you to just give me back words properly strung together, I want you to tell me what those words mean!\" Brother Fergerson was not satisfied with anyone just correctly knowing the ritual, he wanted them to understand the philosophy being taught. It was in this manner of teaching that new doors began to open for me in my Masonic education. I could find in our ritual something of a blueprint for living a virtuous life; a plan for inner growth and development. It was here that the true beauty of Freemasonry began to shine for me.\n\nLearning the ritual from Brother Fergerson gave me the opportunity to learn of the deep moral philosophy that is embedded in our teachings. I learned symbolic lessons that not only gave me assistance in my Masonic life, but all of my life \u2013 inside or out of Masonry. I learned how to treat others, how to properly look at and examine my own life, my flaws and positive points, how to properly interact with others and what is truly the most important aspects of life. I learned life lessons. One of those lessons, integrity, is the subject of tonight's talk.\n\nAround the world, there are many different types of Freemasonry. By that, I mean the rituals that are used and practiced. While the words and activities of the craft degrees in the different rites vary, sometimes quite a bit, one common thread that runs through all of the various rites and rituals is the legend of Hiram. Now, before I say anything else, I have to throw in a disclaimer of sorts. Some time back I heard that a jurisdiction was thinking about removing the legend of Hiram from their ritual. As surprising as that information was, the reason behind their idea was even more remarkable. I was told that the reason for their wanting to remove this aspect of the ritual was because they could not establish that the legend of Hiram was a factual historical event. I was stunned. It is a symbolic story; a lesson. It is completely irrelevant if the story of Hiram is fact or fiction. We are not teaching a history class. The story is used as a vehicle to deliver lessons of virtue and morality. The lessons that are taught are what is important, not the factual nature of the story used to present the lessons.\n\nSo, with the disclaimer that I make no statement of historical fact, I'll continue with the story. The story takes place at the time of the building of King Solomon's Temple. We are taught that a great many operative Masons worked on the construction of the Temple. These Masons were guided in their work by three Grand Masters: King Solomon, King Hiram of Tyre and the lead architect, Hiram Abif. At some point, the three Grand Masters realized that a number of the craftsmen were performing their duties at such a high level of skill that it entitled them to special recognition. These craftsmen would be elevated to Master craftsmen.\n\nNow, in today's Freemasonry, if we receive a degree, an office or position of importance, we're honored by that advancement. But, in reality, it means very little outside of our Masonic life. Our Freemasonry is Speculative Freemasonry, and it is something we do outside of our family life and livelihood. This was not the same with the old Operative Freemasons. Freemasonry was their livelihood. It was how they fed their family and paid their bills. Being advanced to the rank of Master was a major accomplishment. Not only did it mean an elevation in their social status, it meant a considerable pay increase. This advancement was a very important event in their life.\n\nWhen the news of the pending advancements was made known, we can assume that considerable excitement and interest developed. It is because of the importance of these advancements to the lives of those receiving them that some concern among the Grand Masters developed. It seemed reasonable to put into place some sort of security measure so that individuals of low moral character could not assume rank for which they were not entitled. It was decided that a secret word would be given to all new Masters of the Craft so that they could prove their rank by the possession of this word. As a further security measure, it was decided that this word would not be given out to anyone unless all three Grand Masters were present and agreed to the investiture.\n\nThe story goes on that three crafts-men obviously real-ized that they would likely not be elevated to a higher rank and were unhappy about it. They wanted this advancement \\- badly. So much did they want this advancement that they hatched a plan to steal this \"secret word,\" move to another area and live their lives pretending to hold a rank they did not earn. They caught one of the Grand Masters alone and demanded that he tell them the secret word. When he refused, they roughed him up a bit. When the Grand Master still refused to give them the word, they became desperate. They made it clear to him that they were going to leave with either the word or him dead. At this point, the Grand Master had a choice. He could give them what they wanted, or he could risk death. Clearly he took them seriously as his final words reflect acknowledgment of what he knew would happen, \"Of my life you may deprive me; of my integrity, never!\"\n\nThink about what happened for a minute. There is something that I have been taught since childhood, and, most likely, you have also been taught. It is that if I am ever in a situation where someone threatens my life in a robbery attempt, I should give them whatever they want. Why didn't he? I was taught that nothing I have on me is worth risking my life. Why didn't he just give them this word and then he could live and go on with his life?\n\nThe lesson of integrity is involved not because of a robbery attempt, but because of an agreement that was made. This Grand Master agreed that he would not give the secret word to anyone unless certain conditions were met. Had these craftsmen attempted to simply rob him of some coins, then it is reasonable that he would have freely exchanged whatever he had on him for his life. But, what these men wanted was something completely different. They demanded that he violate an agreement, his word.\n\nThe Grand Master's final words need closer attention. He said, \"Of my life you may deprive me...\" What does that mean? He clearly recognized that he was not in control of their actions. He could not make them spare his life or do anything at all. Taking his life was something that they would either do or not do and he had no control whatsoever over their actions. The only thing in which he had total control was his actions. They could take his life, but they could not take this word from him. He could only give it and that would be by his choice.\n\nThe Grand Master needed to determine what was of true value to him. He knew that we all live and die, but he also knew that how we live is up to us. To be robbed of some coins is no dishonor, but what of violating his word? What was that worth to him? He did not agree to only give the word when certain conditions were met unless his life was threatened or only on the third Tuesday of the month if there was a full Moon. He agreed to not give it unless these conditions were met. Period. If he gave the word to anyone and those conditions were not met then he would be violating his word. It did not matter if they offered him money, threatened him or anything else. He would either keep his word or break it.\n\nIn life we can gain or lose material things. Because of the twists and turns in life we can amass great wealth or lose everything we own. Many things can happen to us because we were either in the right place or the wrong place. But either we have integrity and honor, or we do not. We have it because it is our choice and we lose it by the same choice. Material things can be taken away from us and we might have no choice in the matter. But, not our integrity. We are the only ones who have the power to give our integrity away.\n\nThe Grand Master knew that we all live and die. He also knew that all of the mag-nificent structures that he helped create would mean nothing if his moral foundation was made of sand \u2013 void of integrity or honor. These men had the power to take his life, but they were powerless to make him live a life without integrity. This was the point of the story \u2013 to teach a life lesson of virtue and morality, not to simply provide a historical account.\n\nBut, we should not believe that the story ends here. The nature of symbolism is layered and often requires second and third looks to find deeper meanings. Just because we believe that we are acting with honor or integrity does not mean that this is actually the case. Let me give you an example.\n\nA story from New Orleans in the early 1800's come to mind. There were two men who were standing outside the St. Louis Cathedral having a friendly conversation. The two men were facing each other. One of the men felt a bit uncomfortable in his position and moved just a bit to the left to reposition himself. When the man moved over, the other man winced in pain and looked shocked. In a sharp tone he demanded that the man return to his original position. The man who moved had no idea of what the other man was talking, or understood his strange actions or demand, but did not like his tone of voice. What neither man realized or considered was that the man who moved was considerably taller than the other man. In the position he was in, (unnoticed by either man) he was standing right in a place where he was blocking the sun. When he moved a bit over, the sunlight hit the shorter man right in the eyes causing his painful reaction.\n\nNeither man was of a mind to explain himself or ask too many questions of the other. Hot tempers took over and the friendly conversation was replaced by a very heated, nonsensical argument. And then it happened... one man exclaimed that his \"honor\" had become compromised and \"integrity\" demanded satisfaction. A challenge to a duel was issued.\n\nIt was fortunate that neither man died in the duel, but one of them was shot in the arm. For the rest of this man's life, he lived with a useless arm as the result of the injury suffered in that duel. And for what? Honor? Integrity? One man moved a bit and the other man had sun in his eyes. For that you shoot at each other?\n\nWhat these men mistook for honor and integrity was pride, arrogance and vanity. These vices were disguised as or mistaken for virtues. There was no loss of honor in what happened and integrity demanded nothing in the way of a duel.\n\nWe must live our lives with honor and integrity. But, we must know what is a virtue and what is a vice disguised as virtue. It's not always as clear as we think. If anyone has ever told us that being a Mason is easy, then they misled us. There will be times when we find it most difficult to live up to our teachings. But, as we are so often told, it is the journey that is most important, not the final goal.\n\n***\n\nWriting Masonic History\n\n\"History [is] a distillation of rumour.\"\n\n-Thomas Carlyle\n\nRECENTLY, I READ SOMETHING that I found quite interesting. A Mason wrote, \"Masonic history is fact and can not be changed.\" I studied that line for a time and could not decide if I agreed with him. Before I could form any opinion of his thought, I would have to understand his meaning of the word \"history.\" If he used that word to mean the actual events of the past, then I would, of course, agree with him. How could I not? Everything that any of us did yesterday is over and can not be changed. Period. My problem was that this Mason might have used the word \"history\" to mean the published accounts of past events (Masonic history books or papers). If this is what he meant, then I very much disagree with him.\n\nPublished accounts of Masonic history can only be considered as fact when they are so proven (and even then can be questioned). Errors of accuracy and assumptions abound in our Masonic literature. Learned historians often dramatically disagree on the \"correct\" interpretation of events in history when facts are lacking and opinions are obligatory. How \"history\" is discovered, analyzed and drafted is often the telltale mark of identifying a serious, objective researcher from an amateur or a political salesman with a particular Masonic organizational bias.\n\nTypographical errors occur because we are human. Errors in dates, names and events occur in the finest of publications and are made by the most serious and capable historians. I certainly have had my share of misspelled names, twisted dates and various other typos, which seem to be invisible until published. When an error of fact is discovered, it should be corrected and we should move on. Those with fragile egos or with an aversion to correction should find safer ways to spend their time. The job of a Masonic researcher is to work toward discovering and publishing the accurate history of Masonry. It is an on-going process and no Masonic work of history should be considered as definitive. We must welcome corrections and encourage close examination of all published accounts of Masonic history. Our work can only be accepted as valid if it is capable of standing up under close examination or criticism.\n\nSerious historians must, also, be ever cautious of \"history with a bias.\" Our job is to allow the documents to \"speak for themselves\" and not interject personal or organizational bias into any historical study. Has this ever been done? Sadly, yes.\n\nWhen we explore or write Masonic history we must recognize the fact that many of the large, powerful and very influential Masonic Bodies of today were quite small and fragile 100 or 200 years ago. As an example, for the first 50 to 75 years of its existence the Supreme Council, SJUSA existed in what can only be considered a most unstable condition. In fact, the Southern Jurisdiction ceased to exist for a period (arguably) of about 10 to 20 years (late 1820's to mid 1840's). Much of the reported creation and early history of the SJ is accepted as fact with little to no evidence to substantiate the claims. In many areas we are left with only the unsupported opinions and conjecture of officers of the SJ to answer many of the reasonable questions regarding its early history.\n\nConsider, also, Joseph Cerneau, the first adversary of the SJ. Was he the \"villain\" that he was (and is) portrayed to be? In just one example, Mackey labels him a \"Masonic charlatan.\"1 Cerneau's reputation, motives and qualifications have been denounced by the SJ from the 1800's to the present. Even Cerneau's name is today equated with \"fraud.\" 2 Yet there is only the opinion of officers and supporters of the SJ to support such brutal charges against this Brother. Such unfounded character assassination is wholly unfitting Masonic works of history.\n\nThere is no evidence to show that: a) Cerneau became a 33rd in any manner different than the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the SJ; b) had less right than the SJ to establish his Supreme Council as provide by the Grand Constitutions of 1786, or c) that the \"problem\" with the Cerneau Council was anything other than the SJ simply not wanting it to exist. 3\n\nMasonry has no need and can support nothing but objectivity and truth in our history. We are big enough and strong enough to stand up to whatever truth there is and face that truth as Masons. We have a lot of re-writing to do with our Masonic history and we must weed out the \"political historians.\" We must never again place the \"good\" of any Masonic organization ahead of the good of Masonry itself. The standards of sorting fact from opinion must be uniformed and apply to everyone.\n\nIt is a new day and a new time. It will be an interesting 10 or so years ... and it is only beginning.\n\nNotes:\n\n1. Albert G. Mackey and Charles T. McClenachan, \"Encyclopedia of Freemasonry\" (New York: The Masonic History Company, 1915) 139.\n\n2. \"Cerneauism: This term is applied to the particular type of clandestinism and fraud which characterized the bodies set up by Joseph Cerneau and his followers beginning in 1807.\" Henry Wilson Coil, \"Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia\" (New York: Macoy Publishing & Masonic Supply Company, 1995) 125.\n\n3. See: Michael R. Poll, The Controversy of Joseph Cerneau: A Brief Examination Heredom Vol. 4 (Washington, D.C.: The Scottish Rite Research Society 1995) 47-61.\n\n***\n\nThe Dwellers on the Threshold\n\nThe Journal of the Masonic Society, Issue 12, 2011\n\nA GOOD NUMBER OF YEARS AGO I was walking through the French Quarter of New Orleans engaged in one of my favorite pastimes \u2013 exploring used book shops. In one old shop, I stumbled upon a treasure. It was three large boxes filled with old The New Age magazines (today, it's called, The Scottish Rite Journal) from around 1907 through the 1970's. It was an almost completely intact collection. They were selling the lot for $40.00! I tried to hide my excitement out of fear that they would quadruple the price, paid the man and loaded up my car. When I returned home, I began to wade through my acquisition. What a haul! I laughed at the very early editions with piano, shotgun, and even insurance company ads. What great period pieces! Over the next few weeks I studied and examined all aspects of the publications.\n\nIn my collection of old The New Age magazines, I could see something of a snap shot of the times and changes that took place. The publication itself changed over time from colorful cover images with each issue having a unique cover to standard covers of one design for each issue. The size of the publication changed as well from large format to a smaller, almost pocket format. What was also interesting was to see the changes in the types of articles published. The WWI and WWII issues, of course, reflected news of the terrible war years and contained a number of patriotic articles. But, it was the years from around 1915 to the early 1920's that really caught my attention. These were the true esoteric years of The New Age. These editions stand out from all of the other years (even to the present) by the nature of the articles published. The Rosicrucian, alchemical, and metaphysical aspects were all represented in force in these editions. For those interested in the deeper Mystic Arts of Freemasonry, it was a dream comes true. And, like many who are workers in these Arts, a number of the authors employed pseudonyms. One such author was \"Mysticus.\" His papers were of a nature that deeply impressed me. I began to search through each edition to discover and drink in his words. This was an enlightened Brother.\n\nIn the June, 1920 edition of The New Age magazine, I came upon an article by \"Mysticus\" that especially caught my attention. It was not exactly the main subject of the article that caught me, but by what seemed to be more of \"side\" information. The article was part of a series that \"Mysticus\" had written entitled \"A Corner of the Library.\" This segment was, \"Collectors of Occult and Magical Books.\" In his article, \"Mysticus\" tells of a little group that existed in Washington, D.C. He writes:\n\n\"Washington city is a well-known center of scientific and philosophical inquiry. Some twenty-one years ago there existed in the capital a little band of independent thinkers of which I was a member. We were students of philosophy, folk-lore, symbolism, occultism and psychic research, and we called ourselves, jokingly, \"Dwellers on the Threshold,\" a title borrowed from Bulwer-Lytton's strange Rosicrucian story, \"Zanoni.\" Some of us were professed idealists, followers of Plato and his school, while others bordered on materialism, and offered up their devotions at the shrines of Spencer, Comte, and Haeckel. But, all of us, I think, were earnest seekers after truth and open to conviction on any question. The leader of this group was Dr. [Leroy M.] Taylor, a man of wealth and a prodigious collector of occult literature. We met at his house every Saturday night to discuss problems in philosophy and religion, particularly those bordering on the mystical, for which the doctor had a decided penchant.\"\n\nOther members of this little group included, Dr. Saram R. Ellison, 33\u00ba, Frank H. Cushing, Judge Thomas H. Caswell, 33\u00ba, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, SJUSA and even Harry Houdini. What I would personally give to have been able to sit in on one of these meetings!\n\nBut, who was this \"Mysticus\"? I had to find out. I sent letters to the then editor of \"The Scottish Rite Journal,\" Bro. John Boettjer, as well as others at the House of the Temple who I had the pleasure of knowing - the Grand Historian, Bill Fox, Sr., the Grand Archivist, Dick Matthews and the extremely helpful and knowledgeable Librarian, Mrs. Inge Baum. All searched their records and compared notes on the possible identity of this prolific and mysterious writer. No one could turn up anything. Mrs. Baum was particularly taken with this mystery and we exchanged a number of mails on the subject. She had located all of his writings published in The New Age, but had no clue who might have been the man behind the name. Then, all at once, the mystery seemed to be solved... in a mysterious way.\n\nOne evening, I was reading a copy of Manly Hall's, The Phoenix. In a section he had written on Albert Pike there was a quote that hit me right between the eyes. I knew I had read those words before. I knew it was from one of the pieces written by \"Mysticus\" and published in The New Age. To be sure, I pulled out the edition with the story and compared the two. It was the exact quote. But, credit for the quote was not given to \"Mysticus;\" it was given to \"Henry R. Evans.\" BINGO! Was this the real name of \"Mysticus\"? I began looking through my copies of The New Age and found the name \"Henry R. Evans\" on quite a few pieces, in fact (and to my great surprise!), Henry R. Evans was the Editor of The New Age. I sent all this information to Mrs. Baum and in no time she answered me with even more information. She sent me the whole file on Bro. Evans from the House of the Temple archives and included a letter Evans wrote to the then Sovereign Grand Commander admitting that he was \"Mysticus.\" Mystery solved. Or, did it only lead to more mysteries? How did Manly P. Hall know that \"Mysticus\" was Henry R. Evans?\n\nIn looking through my collection of books by Manly P. Hall (I had quite a collection of them) I saw credit given to Evans a number of times, including in the Hall classic, The Secret Teachings of All Ages. But, I was able to find no information at all as to how they knew each other. It could not have been a case of Hall simply reading something he liked written by Evans in some publication and using it. He had to have known that Evans was \"Mysticus\" (apparently, not everyone did) in order to give credit to Evans and not \"Mysticus.\" Could Hall have been a very young member of \"The Dwellers on the Threshold\"? Who knows? How long did this group exist and meet? Who knows? We can guess all day.\n\nThere is an old thought that water seeks its own level. Enlightened spirits bump into each other because they are going in the same direction. Little groups of Masons meet in private \"clubs\" like the \"Dwellers on the Threshold\" because their interests draw them together. If we look around we might see such groups meeting today in many more areas than we realize - maybe not all discussing the same thing, but matters of interest to them. And, I'm sure we will find at the core of each group a Masonic spark that feeds the perpetual search for knowledge and Light.\n\nI'm glad that I found those old boxes of The New Age magazines. I'm glad that I was able to learn of \"Mysticus\" and explore his thoughts, ideas and his mystery. I'm also very glad to continually discover the cord connecting Masons in their journey to enlightenment.\n\n***\n\nDown the Path of Proper Research\n\nThe Journal of the Masonic Society, Issue 9, 2010\n\nA YOUNG MAN DECIDED TO WRITE a family history and began the task of putting all of the family members into their historical places. Two long-deceased brothers, who had been his much older cousins, presented him with an interesting dilemma. The younger brother was the type of man that anyone would want in their family history. He was a wealthy attorney and a pillar of his community. He sat on the board of directors of the local bank and the art museum too. He was a leading figure in local politics, having served as a City Councilman, and was deeply involved with a number of local charitable organizations. His older brother, on the other hand, was uneducated, dirt poor, and something of the town drunk, having even spent time in the local jail for stealing chickens.\n\nThe young man pondered on the two brothers and decided that the older brother might present something of an embarrassment to the family. He decided to concentrate on the younger brother, giving as many details of his successful life as possible. The older brother was only noted in passing as the elder brother of the source of the family pride. The young man made his decision based on what he knew of the brothers and his belief that the best interests of his entire family were served by giving as little information as possible about the elder sibling.\n\nAn elderly aunt read the story of the two brothers and strongly protested the account. She told the young man that the father of the two brothers had died when both boys were very young. Their mother had been sick and in no condition to properly provide for the family. Fearing the boys may be taken from their mother and the family split up, the elder of the boys quit school at a very young age and began doing whatever he could to provide for the family \u2013 including, at times, stealing chickens when they had no other way of obtaining food. The elder brother, still a boy himself, assumed the role of the father and not only provided for the family however he could, but required his younger brother to remain in school to receive a proper education. Yes, the elder brother was poor, uneducated and a chicken thief, but at his funeral the younger brother delivered a tearful eulogy declaring that, without the sacrifices and efforts of his elder brother, he might have achieved only a fraction of his successes in life.\n\nThe young historian's account was hardly complete or accurate. In his attempt to edit history \u2013 and because he prejudged the events and family members \u2013 he deprived those who would read his work of a beautiful, factual part of family history.\n\nMasonry has many players in its history but not all of them have been friendly toward each other or clearly understandable in modern contexts. When a historian assumes the role of editor and chooses the relevant facts about a Mason or a body of Masons, he assumes an enormous responsibility. If one does not have a complete understanding of all events surrounding a person, place or time, then rendering judgments without the benefit of all the facts will result not only in inaccuracies, but also unfair accounts. We must recognize that some write as Masonic politicians rather than as historians, and their goal is often to deliver a pleasing Masonic mes-sage rather than a historically accurate account.\n\nThe problems for our young historian were two-fold: He did not possess all the needed information, and he prejudged his subjects based on incomplete facts. The task of a serious historian or researcher is often long, tedious and unrewarding. One might spend countless hours reading dusty manuscripts in dimly lit basements with the sole hope of obtaining the smallest of details. It might be far easier to grab a previously published account of a subject and paraphrase what is offered, but that ties our work to any possible errors in the previous work. We must do this work ourselves.\n\nOf course, there are those who believe that are no new Masonic discoveries to be made. Such naysayers are sadly mistaken. It is precisely because so much of our Masonic history is filled with incorrect assumptions \u2013 or facts based on missing information, incorrect readings or simple typographical errors \u2013 that the serious Masonic researcher has great opportunities for many, many new finds. We simply need to take up the cause and follow the proper path.\n\n***\n\nDyslexia: The Gift in Disguise\n\n\"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.\"\n\n\\- Albert Einstein\n\nREAD A GOOD BOOK LATELY? My wife has a true passion for reading. I often find her curled up in a lounge chair wholly immersed in a popular or classic novel. When we first started dating, she once asked me, \"Don't you enjoy reading a good book?\" She looked surprised when I told her, \"No, I don't enjoy reading at all.\" She laughed and said that I must be joking as I could almost open a public library sub-station with my collection of books. She could not believe me when I told her that not once in my life have I ever read a book for the sake of enjoyment. I was telling her the absolute truth. There is no enjoyment in reading for me. I read to learn something. If I want to enjoy myself, I will listen to music or watch a movie. For most of my life I did not attempt to understand why this was the case, I simply accepted it as part of being me.\n\nAbout 20 or so years ago, my doctor put me through a series of tests and gave me a perplexing diagnosis. He said that I had dyslexia. I had never heard of dyslexia and had no idea what to expect. The doctor told me that since I was an adult I would probably not even notice it, but that the knowledge of my dyslexia might help explain some of my growing up years. I really didn't understand what that might mean, and since he did not elaborate, I filed the information away for possible later use. That \"later use\" came a little over 10 years ago when my, then, seven-year-old son was also identified as having dyslexia. I had noticed traits in him, as well as his manner of interacting with others and methods of problem solving, that were eerily familiar. I began a study of dyslexia. It was then that the good doctor's words, and much of my painful childhood, started to become clear.\n\nThe only time during my school years that was not incredibly frustrating for me was kindergarten. I imagine that this was because pretty much all that was expected was to say \"please\" & \"thank you,\" not make noise in class or beat anyone up at recess. Trouble began when more was expected. The whole of my school experience can best be summed up as a battle of wits where my teachers seemed to want something from me, but I could never fully get hold of exactly what it was that they wanted. The vast majority of things that were quickly understood by the class were, for the most part, nearly impossible for me to master. In contrast, the very few times that material was presented that seemed to stump the class, I was able to understand nearly before the words came out of the teacher's mouth. I could not understand why I seemed to be so very different... and being different had to be bad.\n\nRon Davis is the author of The Gift of Dyslexia. It is a book that has helped me greatly in understanding dyslexia and has also provided valuable help for my son. As a child, Mr. Davis (a dyslexic) was labeled \"mentally retarded\" and was functionally illiterate until the age of 38. It was then that he developed a system that enabled him to teach himself to read. He went back to school and ended up earning a degree in Engineering. He was hardly retarded. In 1982, Mr. Davis and Dr. Fatima Ali, Ph.D., opened the Reading Research Council Dyslexia Correction Center in California, achieving great success in helping dyslexics overcome their reading difficulties.\n\nIn addition to helping dyslexics properly deal with dyslexia, Mr. Davis' work has contributed in helping the general population arrive at a better understanding of dyslexia. It has been the long-standing misunderstandings, misdiagnoses, mistreatments and preconceived opinions of dyslexics that have caused such hardships for those with dyslexia. Regardless of how it is perceived, being dyslexic does not have to be any more of a handicap or disability than is being left-handed \u2013 unless it is made so. Being left-handed is, in fact, only a difference, a different way of operating. When allowed to operate in their natural manner, left-handed students function like all other students \u2013 just using their left hands. The same is true of those with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a different way of mentally processing information. When a dyslexic child is unidentified, they can be labeled as slow, having learning\/mental disabilities or just being lazy. The child will know that something is wrong, both in their performance and the evaluations of them. They will not, however, be able to identify the actual problem and the result will be great frustration and loss of self-esteem.\n\nThe most common form of dyslexia is visual dyslexia. The exact manifestations of dyslexia, however, can differ from dyslexic to dyslexic. It is rare that dyslexia will manifest itself exactly the same in two individuals. A general trait of the visual dyslexic is that the thought process will be in images. Visual dyslexics mentally manipulate images to create ideas, concepts and thoughts. The written language is comprised of letters formed into words, which are symbols of concepts or ideas. A writer communicates his thoughts on a subject by use of letters formed into words so that the reader will understand those thoughts. Since a dyslexic thinks in images, a symbol for an image (a word) must be translated into the image it represents before the dyslexic can possess the idea. When a dyslexic reads the word \"ball,\" they must mentally translate that symbol into an image of a ball before the symbol (word) can be understood. When dyslexia is undiagnosed, reading will be very difficult and most frustrating for a dyslexic child. Even so, most dyslexics will find methods or work-arounds to their reading difficulties by the time they are adults. No dyslexic will ever enjoy reading for the sake of reading, but most will find ways to function in this medium that seems so annoying to them.\n\nHaving a dyslexic child read out loud in class presents a classic opportunity for misevaluation. Let's say that a dyslexic child is asked to read the sentence, \"The ambulance has a loud siren.\" The dyslexic student will likely stumble at the very beginning of the sentence. The assumption will likely be made that the word \"ambulance\" was a problem for the child. If the word \"ambulance\" is considered to be a word that should be in his or her vocabulary, then the child could be evaluated as having a limited vocabulary and\/or having learning disabilities. Such an evaluation fails to take into account how dyslexics process information. Written words must be mentally translated into images for a dyslexic to process them. When no image can be created for a word, a mental \"blank card\" is replaced for the troublesome word. When reading out loud, a \"blank card\" will cause a stumble for a dyslexic reader.\n\nLet's look again at the sentence that the child was asked to read. \"The ambulance has a loud siren.\" The entire sentence creates an exciting image for most any child. Most children are thrilled at the sight of an emergency vehicle rushing down the road with lights flashing and sirens blasting. A dyslexic child should have no problem at all creating an image for an ambulance. But what image can you create for the word \"the\"? It was the very first word of the sentence that caused the stumble for the child, not the word \"ambulance.\" Articles and pronouns are some of the \"land mine words\" for dyslexics because there are no images that can be readily created for them. Because of the manner in which non-dyslexics process information, teachers untrained in dyslexia often completely ignore words like \"the\" or \"that,\" not even considering that they could be the problem. They will focus on the larger words which, based on their personal experience, are problematic for \"slow\" students. The teacher will make an incorrect assumption that will lead to an incorrect evaluation of the child. The child, having no idea as to how the teacher arrived at her conclusion, will realize that they have no problem with the words they are accused of not understanding, but will be unable to defend himself or explain the stumble. Frustration follows.\n\nUndiagnosed dyslexic children, being clueless as to the nature of dyslexia or that they even have it, will not only have to figure out how to translate words, but they will have to deal with words that are untranslatable. They will also be required to solve all of these problems with no assistance whatsoever and while having to deal with the false labels of being \"slow\" or \"lazy.\" And this is only when we consider the reading challenges dyslexics face. Spelling, math and a host of other school subjects present equal problems for the dyslexic child. It is small wonder that most all dyslexics have extremely low self-esteem. The \"battle wounds\" and lifelong scars received when undiagnosed dyslexics begin down the path of learning by \"standard methods\" come normally at an age when a child's self-esteem is developing. Dyslexics often feel that their problem is \"their problem\" and most have no idea that they are far from alone.\n\nDyslexia affects far more individuals, at varying levels, than many realize. Some of our most noted artists, scientists, businessmen and world leaders have had dyslexia. Most dyslexics who \"rise to the top\" in their field do so by unconventional methods stemming from their unconventional manner of learning \u2013 learning which often takes place in spite of, rather than because of formal education. A few famous dyslexics include: Pablo Picasso, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Tom Cruise, Danny Glover, John Lennon, Winston Churchill, Nelson Rockefeller & Walt Disney.\n\nRon Davis writes:\n\n\"Once as a guest on a television show, I was asked about the \"positive\" side of dyslexia. As part of my answer, I listed a dozen or so famous dyslexics. The hostess of the show then commented, 'Isn't it amazing that all those people could be geniuses in spite of having dyslexia.'\n\n\"She missed the point. Their genius didn't occur in spite of their dyslexia, but because of it!\n\n\"Having dyslexia won't make every dyslexic a genius, but it is good for the self-esteem of all dyslexics to know their minds work in exactly the same way as the minds of great geniuses. It is also important for them to know that having a problem with reading, writing, spelling, or math doesn't mean they are dumb or stupid. The same mental function that produces a genius can also produce those problems.\"\n\nAn interesting characteristic of dyslexia is that while many of the common school lessons presented to students will be extremely difficult for the dyslexic student to master, they will excel at many of the more abstract concepts or abilities that seem to be problematic for the non-dyslexic student. It is here that the gift of dyslexia manifests itself. Most dyslexics are very analytical, creative and capable of multi-dimensional thinking. If these gifts are not suppressed during the standard educational process, dyslexics can sometimes use the very process that gives such trouble in school to achieve what may seem to be surprising successes.\n\nIn my own case, one \"surprising success\" came as a result of Freemasonry. I joined right after my 21st birthday, with the \"school experience\" fresh in my mind. My EA initiation was, without doubt, one of the most moving and profound experiences of my life. But after my initiation, I received news that made me wonder if my short Masonic career was over. I was told that I would be assigned an instructor who would teach me what was needed to pass an exam in open Lodge. I was told that this was necessary for me to advance to the next degree. This was about the last thing that I expected or wanted to hear. My entire school experience was a nightmare. I could not see myself passing any sort of exam. After many delays, I finally met with my instructor. I was incredibly surprised. Had my instructor handed me a printed version of all of the work and told me that it was necessary for me to read it and then memorize it, I would likely be an EA today. The manner of \"mouth to ear\" verbal instruction was, however, something that was not only was possible for me to do, but something at which I excelled. I flew through the work, asking and answering my own questions for my FC and MM exams. I became a certified Lodge Instructor shortly after my MM degree and, in just a few years later, a District Grand Lecturer. It was not hard work that resulted in these achievements; it was the gift of my dyslexia. I simply had a gift for the memorization of things verbally presented to me.\n\nDyslexia is not an illness in need of cure nor is it a handicap that will forever deny a dyslexic the chance of living a full and rewarding life. Great advances are being made in the understanding of dyslexia as well in providing the proper tools to educators so that dyslexic children will be able to fully realize and benefit from the educational process. In addition, a number of organizations, including the Scottish Rite, have taken on the research and proper education of dyslexia as one of their target projects.\n\nFor additional on-line information about dyslexia, please visit the below websites. You can also call The International Dyslexia Association at: 410-296-0232, the Davis Dyslexia Association International at: 1-888-999-3324 or your local Scottish Rite body.\n\nhttp:\/\/www.dyslexia.com\n\nhttp:\/\/www.interdys.org\n\nhttp:\/\/scottishrite.org\/about\/philanthropy-scholarships\/ritecare\n\n***\n\nJames Foulhouze\n\nA Biographical Study\n\nMr. Pike is altogether unknown to me, and I have never seen him, which is perhaps to be regretted, because in the event he spoke to me pursuant to the information which he has received from ill- disposed individuals, I suppose that he will be sorry for having allowed his pen to write what is neither correct nor rational.\n\n- James Foulhouze, 1858.1\n\nJAMES FOULHOUZE was, unquestionably, the arch-nemesis of Albert Pike in Pike's early days as Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, USA. Judge James Foulhouze, former Roman Catholic priest, Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Grand Orient of France and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Louisiana in the pre-Concordat of 1855 period along with some of the leading New Orleans Masons, including the very respected Judge T. Wharton Collens and the powerful United States Senator Pierre Soul\u00e9, may have nearly destroyed the concordat between the New Orleans and Charleston Supreme Councils - a concordat which was the breath of life to the newly reorganized Charleston Supreme Council. Who was this man who could have caused such a disturbance ? Did he cause the disturbance or was he, himself, swept along in a tidal wave of events?\n\nThe following is a glimpse into the life and tumultuous Masonic times of a most significant, but highly controversial, figure in the history of the US Scottish Rite. It is to be regretted that no photograph or likeness of Foulhouze is known to exist. It is, also, unfortunate that some areas of his life are simply lost in the mists of time.\n\nOn 1 October 1800,2 Jacques Foulhouze was born to Michel and Jeanne Cronier Foulhouze in Riom, France. The young Foulhouze received a Catholic education at the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris culminating in his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. The Reverend James Foulhouze traveled to the United States and labored in the Diocese of Philadelphia in 1834 and 35.3 The next found record concerning Foulhouze in the US comes in 1835 when his name appears in a Philadelphia court records book of aliens declaring their intention to take the oath of allegiance to the United States.4 Foulhouze would not long remain a priest nor keep his domicile in Philadelphia. An 1858 New Orleans publication contains interesting comments about Foulhouze and his possible reasons for leaving the priesthood. The comments were written by Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat, a leading figure in mid 19th century New Orleans Scottish Rite Masonry, who will be discussed further later in this paper. Lad\u00e9bat says that Foulhouze might have remained a priest had not, \"Mr. (now bishop) Hughes been appointed, in his stead, to the important rector ship of a northern parish, to which Mr. Foulhouze was, for his long service, justly entitled.\"5\n\nJohn Hughes (1797-1864) was the fourth bishop and first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of New York. Hughes served with Foulhouze in the Diocese of Philadelphia and founded there the Catholic Herald newspaper. Hughes was consecrated coadjutor to Bishop John Dubois of New York in 1838. He succeeded Dubois in 1842 and became archbishop of New York in 1850.6 Foulhouze, regardless of Lad\u00e9bat's comments, could not have been affected by the 1838 Hughes appointment as the Journal Notes of Philadelphia Bishop Francis Kenrick record Foulhouze's faculties being suspended on 5 February 1836.7 As with many areas of Foulhouze's life, it is unclear what could have taken place causing his separation from the priesthood. Foulhouze was a graduate of the highly respected Seminary of St. Sulpice. Many Catholic dioceses consider such graduates to be a highly desirable prize. The accounts of Foulhouze for that time, however, tell a different story. The records of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia,8 while confirming that Foulhouze was, indeed, a priest assigned to them, show had he had \"no specific assignment.\"9 This is an interesting situation. Why would the Diocese of Philadelphia not take advantage of the quality education that Foulhouze received by putting his abilities and education to use? Foulhouze, himself, may provide the answer. In 1843 Foulhouze was asked if he had taken the vows of the priesthood, he replied: \"No, but it is true that they were given to me, against my will.\"10 Regardless of the philosophical point Foulhouze was trying to make, his statement reflects that he may not have ever wholly embraced the priesthood. If Foulhouze's work reflected the same lack of interest, then it is very likely that regardless of what seminary he attended, he would not have been given assignments nor appointments to higher positions. All conjecture aside, Foulhouze did leave the priesthood, pursue a career in law and move to New Orleans.\n\nFoulhouze began his law career in Philadelphia after leaving the priesthood. In 1842, he published a book in Philadelphia that reflected the same interest in philosophy that was maintained throughout his life. The 200 page work was titled, A Philosophical Inquiry Respecting the Abolition of Capital Punishment.11 It is possible that Foulhouze was in New Orleans when this book was released, but it is clear that he was in New Orleans the following year. Philadelphia Bishop Francis Kenrick (Foulhouze's former superior) writes in a 1843 letter:\n\nHere affairs go on smoothly but at New Orleans an infidel faction are struggling to destroy or subjugate the Episcopal authority. A fallen French priest, Foulhouze, is the editor of an impious paper,12 the organ of the Marguillers. [...] The leaders in disorder are Freemasons, and they contrived to set apart a lot in the Cemetery for their Masonic brethren, and had it dedicated by a speech from their Grand Master who is a Marguiller.13\n\nThe Marguillers were the wardens of the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The Grand Master that Kenrick spoke of was E. A. Canon, who was not only a Marguiller, but the President of the Marguillers. The Marguillers (many of whom were Freemasons) controlled the appointments of the priests for the St. Louis Cathedral during the early to mid 1800's. There was, of course, a great division within the congregation over Freemasons having a say in the appointment of their parish priests (regardless of the fact that these Freemasons were, themselves, Roman Catholic and members of the parish). In New Orleans, Masonry and the Roman Catholic faith were tightly intertwined for a number of years in a love\/hate relationship. It was a situation not without some hostile conflicts. An event that took place in 1842 is worth mentioning:\n\nOn the feast of All Saints, an incident took place in the Cathedral which was in itself trivial, but which shows to what lengths the two factions14 would go. While Father Jamey was preaching, E. A. Canon, the president of the Marguillers, entered the sanctuary by way of the choir entrance, and made a tour of the altar towards that place assigned to the president of the wardens (side opposite the door of the sacristy by which he entered). He remained there for a few minutes, but not being able to hear very well, he advanced to the balustrade of a neighboring chapel, in order to hear better. He had only heard a few words, and then decided to retire by the way he had come in, that is, behind the altar. As he was going out he was greeted by Octave de Armas, a parishioner loyal to [Bishop] Blanc, (who was also seated in the sanctuary) with the words, \"Get out; you are not in your place...\" Canon answered this with apparent sharp disdain and was preparing to leave when he was pushed. He was near the door of the sacristy and fell on the steps. On getting up he heard Armas distinctly cry, \"I, I alone will get rid of the wardens.\" The services were interrupted for about five minutes, but the Mass was soon continued and all ended calmly.15\n\nThe event may have ended \"calmly\" at that time, but the incident was far from over. As a result of his being pushed in the St. Louis Cathedral, Canon, following typical Creole custom, sought satisfaction from Armas by means of challenging him to a duel. Armas, however, refused the challenge on the grounds that he was a Roman Catholic.16 Friends of Canon would not let the matter drop and charges were filed against Armas with the City Recorder. Armas was found guilty of assault. The incident is reflective of the growing tensions between the factions within the New Orleans Catholic community. It was in this atmosphere and, likely, through the contacts with the Marguillers that Foulhouze was introduced to Louisiana Masonry. It obviously attracted him and he sought to be a member.\n\nFrom Priest to Freemason\n\nThe Marguillers might have introduced James Foulhouze to Louisiana Masonry, but it was not his first exposure to Freemasonry itself. Foulhouze stated in 1857:\n\n\"Being a Grandson of Free-masons, I, in my early years, conceived and entertained a desire to enter the fraternity ...\" 17\n\nFoulhouze fulfilled that early desire by becoming a member of Los Amigos del Orden, a Spanish speaking, New Orleans Scottish Rite Lodge.18 Foulhouze also stated:\n\n\"Within a year from my initiation I was made a Master Mason in the same Lodge.\"19\n\nThere are, unfortunately, no known records of the initiation of Foulhouze nor can an exact date be placed on his initiating, passing or raising. Foulhouze did state in his Historical Inquiry that he was initiated by Antonio Costa. 20 Costa was Worshipful Master of Los Amigos del Orden in 1843. An 1843 initiation followed by an 1844 raising meant rapid advancement for Foulhouze. Foulhouze was, apparently, viewed as a Mason of promise. On 14 February 1845 he was appointed Grand Translator by the Grand Lodge. The office of Grand Translator did not exist prior to Foulhouze receiving the appointment. The office was created due to the growing need for French to English and English to French translations in Grand Lodge records and documents.\n\nIn the summer of 1845 (about a year after Foulhouze became a Master Mason) Foulhouze traveled to France carrying a letter of introduction from Robert Preaux, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana and Active Member of the Supreme Council of Louisiana. During his stay in Paris, Foulhouze received all of the degrees of the A.A.S.R. culminating in the 33rd degree on 27 September from the Grand College of Rites of the Grand Orient of France. The speed in which Foulhouze received the degrees is extraordinary and certainly was not normal procedure for the Grand Orient. There is no explanation to be found as to why this very rare honor was given to such a young Master Mason nor has the contents of the letter from Preaux ever been revealed. Regardless of what activities Foulhouze later engaged in, he was, in the eyes of the U.S. Masonic community, a legitimate Sovereign Grand Inspector General. Of this event, Foulhouze comments:\n\nThe Scotch Rite [...] pleased me on account of its truly philosophical principles, and the more I studied it, the more I felt anxious to take its superior degrees, when a fair opportunity so to do offered itself to me in 1845.\n\nI was in France, and on the recommendations and letters of my Scotch brothers here, the worshipful Lodge \"Cl\u00e9mente Amiti\u00e9\" opened its door to me, and after a short stay among them I was made a Knight R:. + and a Knight Kadosh, which I am bound to say, rendered still clearer to my eyes and intellect the views which I had long entertained on the merits of the Scotch Rite, and for ever attached me to its admirable and useful tenets.\n\nThe favors thus bestowed on me, were unexpected, and I certainly desired no others, when on a special and unasked resolution of the Supreme Council in the Grand Orient, I was called and raised in that body to the thirty third degree.21\n\nFollowing the death of Sovereign Grand Commander Jean-Jacques Conte, New Orleans Judge Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Canonge, an influential Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, became the Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Louisiana on 20 September 1845. 22 Foulhouze said of Canonge:\n\nAs long as he lived, I had but little to do, and contented myself with studying the rite ... 23\n\nFoulhouze, who had affiliated with the Supreme Council of Louisiana in 1846, was, regardless of his comments, not idle during this period. Foulhouze was appointed Grand Secretary of the Supreme Council of Louisiana in 1847.24 He, also, advanced through the chairs of Los Amigos del Orden serving as its Worshipful Master in 1847. Once serving his term as Worshipful Master, he was elected a life member of the Grand Lodge. It must also be pointed out that the invasion of the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana by the Grand Lodge of Mississippi and the creation of the Louisiana Grand Lodge in 1848 would, surely, have occupied a considerable amount of time with all the Worshipful Masters of New Orleans Lodges.\n\nThe Grand Lodge of Mississippi and the Union of 1850\n\nA faction within the New Orleans English-speaking York Rite Masons felt that the 1844 Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana sanctioning the cumulation of the three rites worked by lodges in Louisiana (French, Scottish & York) altered the Grand Lodge into a body that was no longer a true York Rite Grand Lodge.25 The decision was made by these Masons to sever their association with the Grand Lodge and organize themselves into what they felt was proper York Rite Masonry. A committee was formed and a letter of grievance was brought before the Grand Lodge of Mississippi on 23 January 1845.26 The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mississippi was Mexican War hero and former governor of Mississippi, John Anthony Quitman. The Grand Lodge of Mississippi appointed a committee to go to New Orleans in order to examine the situation. On 21 January 1846, the committee from the Grand Lodge of Mississippi appointed to examine the charges presented by the York Masons from New Orleans presented three reports concerning the events. The first report was presented on behalf of the majority of the committee and concluded that there was \"no Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons within the limits of the State of Louisiana\" and that the Grand Lodge of Mississippi had \"the power, and it is its duty on proper application, to issue Dispensations and Charters to bodies of Ancient York Masons within the limits of the State of Louisiana, until the constitution of a Grand Lodge within that State.\"27 Two \"counter\" reports were then presented which advised against the Grand Lodge of Mississippi issuing charters within the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. The outcome of the events of 21 January (despite the efforts of the two \"counter\" reports) was the chartering of George Washington Lodge in New Orleans and Lafayette Lodge in Lafayette28 by the Grand Lodge of Mississippi on 22 February. Relations were severed between the Grand Lodges of Louisiana and Mississippi. The Louisiana Lodges chartered by the Grand Lodge of Mississippi were declared irregular by the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. In total, the Grand Lodge of Mississippi chartered seven Lodges in the New Orleans area by 1848.29 These seven Lodges united to form the \"Louisiana Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons\" on 8 March 1848. The Grand Lodge of Mississippi received admonishment from most U.S. Grand Lodges and the majority openly condemned its action.30 While the future for this splinter group of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana may have looked bleak, several events took place to not only strengthen the position of the English-speaking New Orleans Masons, but to assure them of total victory by the loss of French control over most all forms of Louisiana Masonry.\n\nOne of the last official acts of Grand Commander Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Canonge was a speech made on 3 November 1847 in Baton Rouge in which he is reported as stating that a circular issued by the Mississippi lodges in New Orleans was \"unworthy of notice.\"31 Canonge died on 19 January 1848. On 31 January 1848 James Foulhouze was elected Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Louisiana. The Foulhouze election bypassed a number of senior members of the Council and, clearly, established the popularity of Foulhouze with the Council. Foulhouze had brought with him various rituals from France32 which he edited for the New Orleans Council.33 During the same month as the death of Canonge and the election of Foulhouze, the Charleston Council was talking an action that greatly strengthened its own position and further weakened the hold of the French-speaking New Orleans Masons. Albert Mackey (the Grand Secretary of the Charleston Council) sent a notice to the Freemason's Monthly Magazine 34 (Boston) which read:\n\n\"At a special session of the Supreme Council ... for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America, our Illustrious Brother, John A. Quitman ... Major General in the Army of the United States, was elected to fill a vacancy in this Supreme Council, and was duly and formally inaugurated a Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the 33d. All Consistories, Councils, Chapters and Lodges under this jurisdiction are hereby ordered to obey and respect him accordingly.\"35\n\nOn 29 January 1849 the Grand Lodge of Louisiana published a report that Foulhouze wrote for them concerning the cumulation of the rites practiced by the Grand Lodge and on 26 February the Grand Lodge published Foulhouze's report on the 1833 Concordat. Both reports upheld the positions of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana and encouraged the continued practice of the cumulation of the rites in Louisiana.\n\nOn 14 September 1849 Foulhouze, along with a several other New Orleans Masons, were honored by Friends of Harmony Lodge (whose Worshipful Master was elder Past Grand Master and New Orleans Supreme Council Member John Henry Holland) by being made honorary members of the lodge. An excerpt from the Minutes of the Lodge reads:\n\n\"Whereas by their great ability and impartiality our well beloved Brethren Joseph Walker, Jas. Foulhouze, P. Willman, John D. Kemper & R. Preaux have earned the destination of Honorary Membership, their services in the Masonic vineyard entitling them to some suitable token or tribute of appreciation of their worth, and of the high respect entertained for their estimable personal and Masonic character - they being Brethren to whom a burdened may pour out his sorrows, to whom distress may prefer its suit; Brethren whose hands are guided by justice and whose hearts are expanded by benevolence.\n\nTherefore be it now decreed, that the aforesaid distinguished Brethren be and they are hereby created Honorary Members of the Friends of Harmony Lodge of F & A Masons, this as a testimony of regard for the inestimable services as Masons, and their courtesy, affability and kindness as men - well worthy of initiation and the foregoing preamble and resolution being seconded and put is carried unanimously. 36\n\nThe Union of 1850\n\nThe 1848 Louisiana Grand Lodge obtained recognition from only one other Grand Lodge \u2014 the Grand Lodge of Mississippi. In 1849 John Gedge, a New Orleans attorney, was elected Grand Master of the Louisiana Grand Lodge. Despite what would seem to be the irregularity of the Louisiana Grand Lodge and the lack of support for this new Grand Lodge within the Masonic community, the Grand Lodge of Louisiana entered into negotiations and finally merged with this body in 1850. The Grand Lodge of Louisiana was left with little choice in this matter. The fact that the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was overwhelmingly considered the \"regular\" Grand Lodge was not sufficient to overcome the internal problems stemming from the cultural divisions in New Orleans. By mid 1849, it was likely realized that the English-speaking lodges which had remained loyal to the Grand Lodge were showing signs that continued loyalty would, most likely, not happen. Obviously realizing that the total collapse of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was a very real possibility, the Grand Lodge of Louisiana and the Louisiana Grand Lodge entered into talks designed to merge the two bodies.37 That merger took place in June of 1850 with the approval of a new Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana of Free and Accepted Masons. Under the terms of the agreement of the merger, the Louisiana Grand Lodge members became recognized as \"regular\" by the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. All Lodges chartered by the Louisiana Grand Lodge (or by the Grand Lodge of Mississippi in Louisiana) passed under the jurisdiction of the new Grand Lodge of Louisiana. While the new constitution appeared to merge the two Grand Lodges, the Grand Lodge of Louisiana was, in effect, taken over by the Louisiana Grand Lodge. All non-York Rite Lodges were instructed to turn in their charters to receive new York Rite charters from the new Grand Lodge. Three Scottish Rite Lodges, Etoile Polaire, Los Amigos del Orden, and Disciples of the Masonic Senate, sought relief from the New Orleans Supreme Council. Of these events Foulhouze wrote:\n\n\"It was agreed that the Grand Lodge should no more cumulate the rites, that it would have and keep its own forms, but that each Lodge in the East might freely work according to its particular and more favorite rite and tenets.\n\nHad that agreement been faithfully observed, another series of quiet days might have ensued in Louisiana: but the newcomers in the Grand Lodge soon showed that far from being sincere, they had crept into our bosom with the only view to tear it to pieces and to build their powers on the ruins of ours. [...] They made as I had foreseen and foretold, a Constitution by which the Scotch lodges of the East were reduced to nought and the life members of the Grand Lodge expelled from it38 the better to secure the triumph and power of those invaders.\n\nBut from the moment that the constitution began to work, the Scotch lodges understood their mistake; and not withstanding the blame thrown upon them by the new Grand Lodge which was as it was expected, did not fail to say that they were bound by the vote of the majority at Baton Rouge, they all parted from it, averting and showing that they had been deceived, and could not thus be fetted and annihilated by a paltry trick.\n\nThat event occasioned a good deal of rumor. The Mississippians who had snatched the power began promulgating their bulls of excom-munication. John Gedge, like his imitators of this present Consistory, wrote his reports, made his speeches, sent his circulars, but it was to no purpose.\n\nThe Supreme Council of Louisiana resumed its authority on the blue lodges of the Scotch rite, and the separation was con-summated.39\n\nIf the goal of the new 1850 Grand Lodge Constitution and the merger with the Louisiana Grand Lodge was to bring peace to all the Louisiana Masons, it was a total failure. If the goal was to remove the power base in the Grand Lodge from the French-speaking New Orleans Masons, it was, indeed, a success. The French-speaking New Orleans Masons became split after 1850. One faction, outraged at the turn of events, wished nothing more to do with the Grand Lodge and saw the Supreme Council as the only hope of maintaining the French interests. The other French faction, most likely very tired of the squabbles, remained with the Grand Lodge in the hopes of possibly still bringing unity to the troubled Grand Lodge.\n\nThe 1850 Union of the Grand Lodge resulted in a perceived need for action in the New Orleans Council. Foulhouze believed that he could strengthen the New Orleans Scottish Rite by expanding the number of 33rds in the Council.\n\nFoulhouze says of this:\n\n\"Brother Canonge died and I was elected commander in his place. My first move was to promote to the 33d degree one or two members of each of the lodges then established and of some importance in the city of New Orleans, hoping that their initiation would be the best means to secure the masonic peace in our East, as it would contribute to carry light where it was most needed.\" 40\n\nDuring Foulhouze's administration of the Supreme Council of Louisiana prior to the Concordat, he elevated approximately 30 Masons to the 33rd degree in the New Orleans Council.41 Those elevated to the 33rd degree by Foulhouze included Charles Claiborne, Thomas Wharton Collens (22 June 1849), Claude Pierre Samory and Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat (11 February 1852). The wisdom of expanding the membership of the Supreme Council was apparently recognized by Albert Pike on 25 March 1859 (Pike's first SC Session as Grand Commander) when he expanded the Membership in the Charleston Council from 9 Members to 33 Members.\n\nCharles Claiborne assumed the post of Secretary General for the New Orleans Council and T. Wharton Collens, that of Lt. Grand Commander. The Foulhouze\/Collens relationship was a very close one which continued until Foulhouze's death in 1875 - years after both had resigned from Masonry. Foulhouze and Collens would, in the early 1850's, even share a law office.\n\nThe Lopez Expedition and James Foulhouze\n\nIf the Union of 1850 between the Grand Lodge of Louisiana and the Louisiana Grand Lodge, along with the many bomb shells from that event, were not enough to occupy the minds of the Louisiana Masons, an event took place simultaneously that over-shadowed the Masonic events in Louisiana and be thrust into the forefront of the minds and thoughts of all Americans. This international event directly played a part in future New Orleans Masonic \"battles.\"\n\nIn 1849 Narciso Lopez, a Venezuelan and former colonel in the Spanish Army, began a campaign to take control of Cuba and replace the Spanish government on the island with his own government. Lopez received limited support from various U.S. politicians, but was unable to raise a suitable sized army for his mission. Lopez found better luck in New Orleans where he was able to raise an army of approximately 750 men, mainly veterans of the Mexican War, and sail out of New Orleans in April of 1850 with the goal of capturing the island. The mission was a complete failure. The U.S. troops were slaughtered and Lopez was eventually captured and executed. Reports quickly came to the U.S. and the newspapers of the day reported the \"murder\" of the U.S. troops along with the capture and execution of not only troops, but vacationing U.S. tourists who happened to be on the island. New Orleans was an obvious \"hot spot\" for the Lopez Expedition as, not only did the expedition leave from New Orleans, but the city contained many Spanish speaking citizens from Cuba. The Grand Lodge of Louisiana had also chartered two Lodges in Cuba during the early years of the Grand Lodge.42 The tie between New Orleans and Cuba was close for both the general and Masonic population.\n\nJames Foulhouze became entwined in the Lopez Expedition when he traveled to Cuba at the height of the crisis. A New Orleans newspaper, the Daily Delta, ran a story on Foulhouze vehemently criticizing his trip, and suggesting that he was, possibly, a spy for the Spanish government.43 The very evening following the publication of the article concerning Foulhouze, T. Wharton Collens and Robert Preaux published an article in the Daily Picayune explaining that Foulhouze's trip to Cuba was with the goal of, hopefully, securing the release of vacationing U.S. citizens who were caught in the conflict.44 Foulhouze, being made a Mason in a Spanish speaking Lodge, had numerous interactions with New Orleans Masons from Cuba. In addition, Foulhouze had gained the confidence of various Spanish officials on the island of Cuba through acting as legal council for them several years earlier. Along with the article published by Collens and Preaux, the Delta article on Foulhouze received censure by a number of competing New Orleans newspapers. The Delta article was exposed to be a newspaper \"thriller\" story with little basis in fact. One newspaper entitling an article critical of the Delta's lack of support for its charges \"Newspaper Intolerance\"45 and another paper calling a report on Foulhouze's trip \"A Mission of Humanity.\" 46 The Delta ran one more article in defense of its position claiming that the matter would be settled when Foulhouze returned to New Orleans and the entire event would be brought to the attention of the public.47 Nothing more, however, was published on the matter by the Delta. The event passed from the public's attention and was attributed to one newspaper's attempt to sensationalize anything concerning a recent event with the possible goal of increasing its sale of newspapers.\n\nEnter the Charleston Supreme Council\n\nJohn Gedge, who in 1849 was the Grand Master of the irregular Louisiana Grand Lodge, was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana for the year 1851. On 27 March 1851 the New Orleans Council issued a manifesto in its own defense. This manifesto examined the New Orleans situation and was an appeal for the establishment of fraternal relations between the New Orleans Council and other Masonic Bodies world-wide. With Louisiana Masonry in a state of turmoil and the once powerful Supreme Council of Louisiana fighting for order and stability, the time for the Charleston Council to act was at hand.\n\nAt the invitation of John Gedge, Albert Mackey came to New Orleans in February of 1852 and established, for the Charleston Council, a Consistory of the 32\u00ba. Gedge served as Commander in Chief. The establishment of this Charleston Consistory in New Orleans resulted in a new wave of turmoil and paved the way for the Concordat of 1855 merging the Charleston and New Orleans Councils.\n\nThe Supreme Council of Louisiana responded to the Charleston Consistory in New Orleans by taking several measures. A notice critical of the new consistory was place in the New Orleans Bee by the Supreme Council of Louisiana on 27 February 1852.48 The notice carried the names of the then 29 Active Members49 of the New Orleans Council. The New Orleans Council, also, incorporated itself under the official name of \"Supreme Council of the Thirty-three [sic] and last degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite for the United States of America, sitting at New Orleans, State of Louisiana.\" The act of incorporation was signed on 7 June 1852 and approved by the Secretary of State, the noted Charles Gayarre, on 13 January 1853.50\n\nIn July of 1852 Foulhouze traveled to New York to install Henry C. Atwood as Grand Commander of the \"Sup-reme Council of the Thirty-third Degree of and for the Free, Sovereign and Inde-pendent State of New York\" and then journeyed on to France in an attempt to enlist French support for his cause. It is noteworthy that Foulhouze embraced the concept that Supreme Councils should be limited to state jurisdictions just as Grand Lodges.51\n\nThe Concordat of 1855\n\nThe speed in which the total loss of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana by the French-speaking Masons occurred caused obvious confusion and uncertainty as to the future. James Foulhouze, as Grand Commander of the New Orleans Supreme Council, sought to unite all of the French-speaking Masons under his banner. Whether it was because of the rapid advancement of Foulhouze (resulting in uncertainty in his ability) or simply personality conflicts, Foulhouze was unable to unite all of the French Masons. The conflict of opinions within the New Orleans Supreme Council as to the direction in which to proceed can reasonably be seen as a contributing factor to the resignation of Foulhouze on 30 July 1853 and nearly all of the officers of the New Orleans Council by December of 1853. The final break for Foulhouze appears to have occurred at the 22 June meeting of the New Orleans Council. At that meeting, T. Wharton Collens, the Lt. Grand Commander, had prepared a series of resolutions to present to the Council. After a reading of the resolutions, the floor was opened for comment, but instead of addressing the points of the various resolutions, Charles Claiborne apparently began a series of attacks on Foulhouze's clothing. The meeting fell into shouting matches and the deep rooted feelings of frustration from the events of the past years seemingly boiled up. Foulhouze, realizing that control of the meeting was lost, closed the Council and departed.52\n\nIn the absence of the Minutes of the New Orleans Council during the Foulhouze years53 it can only be presumed that T. Wharton Collens assumed the post of acting Grand Commander for the remainder of 1853 until his own resignation on 19 December of that year. The day following the resignation of Collens, the Grand Treasurer, Jean Baptiste Faget, turned in his letter of resignation and an undated letter of resignation from the Grand Secretary, J.J.E. Massicott, was also accepted by the Council.\n\nOn 7 January 1854, Charles Claiborne was elected Grand Commander of the New Orleans Council. Claude Pierre Samory was elected Lt. Grand Commander and Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat was appointed Grand Secretary. Samory and Lad\u00e9bat were part of the French-speaking faction that split from Foulhouze during the 1850-53 turmoil. 1854 was devoted to negotiations with the Charleston Supreme Council. 6 & 17 February 1855 the concordat merging the New Orleans and Charleston Supreme Councils was signed. Present in New Orleans for the signing of the Concordat, and representing the Charleston Council, were Albert Mackey and John Quitman. John Gedge, who had spearheaded the movement of the Louisiana Grand Lodge and the 1852 Consistory, did not live to see the concordat between the New Orleans and Charleston Councils - he died on 13 April 1854 during a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans.\n\nThe death of Gedge must have created some concern for the future of the newly reorganized Scottish Rite Masonry in New Orleans. Gedge had led a complete and total coup of the Grand Lodge, dramatically altering its nature. It was, also, Gedge who had written to Mackey to bring a Charleston consistory to New Orleans and took control of this consistory as he did the Grand Lodge. The introduction of the Charleston consistory paved the way for the Concordat of 1855. His influence on the events of the times is unquestionable. It is reasonable to assume that Gedge might have taken some position of leadership in the post concordat days - had he lived. It is logical that Gedge would have become an Active Member of the Charleston Supreme Council and led the reorganized Grand Consistory of Louisiana. The death of Gedge made this impossible, yet the basic problem remained. A powerful figure was needed to lead and unite the very fragmented New Orleans Scottish Rite. Regardless of the fact that the concordat had taken place, there were still quite a number of former New Orleans Council 33rds unaffiliated with the Charleston Council - or any Council. The potential for uprising was undeniable. In a letter to Claude Samory, Albert Mackey suggested that the man to lead and unite the New Orleans Scottish Rite Masons had been found and it was believed that only the formalities remained. Mackey wrote:\n\nI hope to be present at the installation of that Bro:. as S:.G:.I:.G:. whose adhesion to us will heal all difficulties [...] The moment we receive your nomination, the nominated Bro:. will be elected.54\n\nThe man Mackey wrote of was James Foulhouze. The choosing of Foulhouze to join the Charleston Council and lead the New Orleans Scottish Rite for the Charleston Council is very reasonable and, given the situation, the only logical choice that could be made. Foulhouze was viewed as a regular 33rd from the Grand Orient of France. As Foulhouze was also a former Grand Commander of the New Orleans Supreme Council who had resigned prior to the concordat, he might have been viewed as something of a prominent \"free agent.\" The fact that Foulhouze was a member (and even Grand Commander) of the New Orleans Council was irrelevant from a regularity stand point. If he agreed to join with the Charleston Council then this matter could be easily settled. Samory and Lad\u00e9bat were also members of the New Orleans Council (and both given the 33rd degree by Foulhouze) yet both became Active Members and officers of the Charleston Council. If James Foulhouze agreed to lead the New Orleans Scottish Rite, under the Charleston Council banner, the Charleston Council would have a much easier road to travel in bringing the remainder of the New Orleans Scottish Rite Masons under their control. Foulhouze was approached by Albert Mackey and Claude Samory in the summer of 1856 and offered the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Consistory and Active Membership in the Southern Jurisdiction providing that he joined the Charleston camp.55 Of this event Foulhouze wrote:\n\nAbout a year or fifteen months ago, M. Antonio Costa asked me whether I had any objection to converse with M. Claude Samory about the then state of affairs with regard to the Scottish Rite in Louisiana. I answered that I had none. On the following day M. Samory together with M. Costa called on me, and in his presence, told me that he had long been anxious to see me, that he was always my friend, that the course which he and other members of the Supreme Council of Louisiana had followed since I left it was with the only view of putting an end to any further contest and quarrel both with the Grand Lodge of our state and the Supreme Council of Charleston, that many a York mason of this east was now initiated to the high degrees of the Scottish Rite, that they all had heard of me as being well versed in its tenets and ceremonies, and were anxious to see me join the Consistory thereto assume the command of the Rite in Louisiana, that indeed I had just cause to complain of the conduct of some BB:. towards me both in the Supreme Council and in the Polar Star Lodge, but that they all acknowledged it, and were ready on my joining the Grand Consistory, to offer me any apology I might wish, that there was a vacancy in the Supreme Council of Charleston which he had been offered to fill, and which he was ready to give up in my behalf if I would unite with them, that my presence in that Council would do immense good both here and at Charleston, and that the best I could do was to accept, if I desired to carry out my opinion and views with regard to the right which Louisiana has to its Supreme Council.\n\nMy answer to M. Samory was as follows:\n\nI need no apology, for any thing which may have been done or said in any masonic body to hurt my feelings. Masonry, thank God, has taught me better desires, and it is enough for me to hear from you that all those who may have had an intention to offend me, do now regret it. As to your proposal, I can in no way or manner accept it. My position is clear and well defined. The Supreme Council of Louisiana was not founded by me. It existed before I was a mason. In 1845 I received, not in the Supreme Council of France founded by M. Grasse de Tilly, but in the Supreme Council of the Grand Orient, the 33d degree. That most Illustrious body treated me as a future member of the Supreme Council of Louisiana with which it corresponded, and I was commissioned by its Grand Commander and other members to be the interpreter of their good feelings near our Supreme Council. A short time after my return here, our Grand Commander Jean Fran\u00e7ois Canonge died, and I was elected to replace him. On doing so, I bound myself to obey it and protect its rights: and I must say that after a most serious inquiry into its origin and the sources from which it emanates, I am more than ever convinced that my opinion with regard to the fundamental authority of the Scottish Rite is correct, and that the views of Charleston thereon are altogether erroneous. From the moment you and other 33rds of this East judged fit to recognize the Council of Charleston as your superior, I and two other members of our Supreme Council, did immediately exercise what, in such case we considered to be our right, and continued the work of our Supreme Council. It is true that on account of the momentary excitement which has prevailed, we have chosen to be silent, but we exist nevertheless and have resolved to safeguard our power and authority for any case of emergency. I certainly feel much honored with the proposition which you make me to accept an appointment as an active member of the Supreme Council of Charleston and as such to preside your Consistory here, but neither such a flattering offer, nor any other consideration can make me deviate from what I consider to be my duty towards a body which I have sworn to protect. I have personally no pretension whatsoever to power. I know that I am good only to make an initiation, and I acknowledge that the privilege of commanding should be better placed in other hands than mine. Many a person, no doubt, will attribute my determination to a spirit of opposition, but as I feel good will towards all and even those who condemn me both in York and Scotish [sic] ranks of Masonry, I will, happen what it may, persevere following the line which I believe to be the only correct one.\n\nThereupon, M. Samory expressed his hope that I would change my mind, and asked me whether I would like to converse with M. Albert G. Mackey on that subject. I answered affirmatively and two or three days afterward, he called at my house with that Gentleman.\n\nM. Mackey began by expressing a desire that his visit to me should not be considered as official. I replied that being both knights templars, we were authorized to meet as such and talk of the questions relative to the Scotish Rite, as if we were perfect strangers to it; and it being so agreed, he repeated to me all that M. Samory had said before with regard to the desire expressed by a large number of masons that I should join the consistory, and with regard to my being made an active member of the Council of Charleston and taking as such command of the Scotish rite in Louisiana. I answered him what I had already answered M. Samory. A few words where then exchanged between him and me, with regard to the origin of the council of Charleston, the constitutions of 1786, the authority which the Supreme Council of the Grand Orient of France claims on the Scotish degrees and the differences which exists between the York and Scotish rites. He admitted that difference and that the reasons which I gave upon all the other points presented a strong matter of consideration, but that he could not accept them as conclusive, which I immediately understood and acknowledged to be with him a matter of course.\n\nHe then insisted that I should again consider the proposition made by Mr. C. Samory, and confirmed by himself; and in conclusion he wished me to let him know what my determination would be after more mature reflection.\n\nI promised to do so through Mr. Samory: and this Gentleman having called on me some weeks afterwards, and repeated all that he had been kind enough to say at his first interview with me, I again answered that I could not accept: and I remember having thus addressed him in the end:\n\n'My dear Sir, in the same manner as the masons whom you now represent, express a desire to have me in your Consistory for their best interest, so a time may come when Scotish masons of this East, tired of a foreign dominion, shall be glad to know that there is in New Orleans a 33d of some value who has never varied, and can at any time be the strong hold around which they may gather as Louisianians.'\n\nThereon we parted good friends as I parted with Mr. Mackey, after due interchange of kindness and politeness. 56\n\nIn 1858, Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat, while clearly bitter towards Foulhouze, commented on this meeting between Foulhouze, Samory and Mackey:\n\nIll Bros. Mackey and Samory knew very well that with a few persons, amoung the weak minded and the ignorant, Mr. Foulhouze was \"somebody,\" and that if they could prevail on him to join the Grand Consistory of Louisiana, peace would be finally restored, and it was solely for the purpose of securing that peace, that they paid him a visit, against the advise of many who knew Mr. Foulhouze better than they. 57\n\nWith John Gedge dead and Foulhouze no longer in consid-eration, Claude Samory became the first New Orleans Mason to be elected an Active member of the Charleston Council. His election was on 20 November 1856. On 17 December 1856, the Grand Consistory filled the vacancy offered to James Foulhouze. The choice was a Mason of promise but of little training in the Scottish Rite. The attorney from Arkansas, Albert Pike, was unanimously (and in his absence 58) elected Commander in Chief of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana.\n\nPrior to the election of Samory and Pike, Foulhouze took part in an activity which sealed his fate with the Charleston Council. James Foulhouze, along with T.W. Collens, J.J.E. Massicott, J.B. Faget and other former members of the Supreme Council of Louisiana declared, in effect, the Concordat of 1855 invalid and publicly resumed the activities of the New Orleans Council. The date that the New Orleans Council was re-opened is sometimes disputed. Foulhouze stated in November of 1857:\n\nFrom the moment I had noticed of that nameless act [the Concordat of 1855], I called upon some 33ds, whom I knew to be true to their obligations, and with them I immediately opened the Supreme Council and continued its work, in order that it might not even be said that it had slept a single instant ... 59\n\nIf such a meeting of 33rds did take place, it was still not until 9 October 1856 that J.J.E. Massicott would be elected Grand Commander of the reorganized Supreme Council of Louisiana and their activities become public. That action was the \"shot\" which started a new round of Masonic turbulence which dramatically altered the nature of the U.S. Scottish Rite.\n\nThe re-origination of the Supreme Council of Louisiana\n\nThe days\/months\/years following the concordat were a time of great uncertainty with many New Orleans Masons. The arguments made by all sides sounded somewhat reasonable. An examination of who chose to associate with the Charleston Council after the concordat, who choose to associate with the revived New Orleans Council and who chose to associate with neither body provides an interesting look into the divided, confused and emotional state of affairs. Of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana officers who were Active Members of the New Orleans Council in the pre-concordat days, two of the five Past Grand Masters60 chose to affiliate with neither body. One affiliated with the Charleston Council61 and two with the revived New Orleans Council.62 Of the eight senior Grand Lodge officers, two chose to affiliate with neither body,63 two with the Charleston Council64 and four with the revived New Orleans Council.65 Of the non- Grand Lodge New Orleans 33rds in the pre-concordat days, 8 chose to associate with neither body, 15 with the Charleston Council and 4 with the revived New Orleans Council. The totals then would be: 12 choosing to affiliate with neither body, 19 with the Charleston Council and 10 with the revived New Orleans Council. These figures should not, however, be viewed as the final tally as they were, over the following years, modified as members moved from one body to the other in a most disconcerting manner. L. E. Deluzain, who was a participant in the 1855 Concordat affiliating with the Charleston Council, re-affiliated with the revived New Orleans Council upon its revival. Joseph Lamarre, who was created a 33rd in the revived New Orleans Council on 25 February 1858, was tried and expelled by that Council on 22 May 1858. He then affiliated with the Grand Consistory of Louisiana becoming an Honorary 33rd. Neither side could truly claim clear victory as the severely bitter strife left both sides with ragged edges. Many of those who chose one side or the other eventually retired from any Masonic affiliation.\n\nPossibly concerned over the reorganization of the New Orleans Council, the Grand Consistory of Louisiana sought to organize itself into a state corporation in early 1857. On 19 March 1857 the General Assembly of the Louisiana State Senate and House of Representatives approved the incorporation of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana. Listed as members were two future Sovereign Grand Commanders of the Charleston Council - Albert Pike and James C. Batchelor. On 22 April 1857 Foulhouze was elected Grand Commander of the revived New Orleans Council. T. Wharton Collens resumed his former position as Lt. Grand Commander. With Foulhouze back in command, the New Orleans Council began to grow in strength and size. 1858 was a pivotal year for Foulhouze and the reorganized New Orleans Supreme Council. In February, Albert Pike delivered a lecture before the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. His lecture was a sharp assault on Foulhouze and the New Orleans Council. The lecture by Pike, and arguments against it, occupied most of the March 1858 issue of the Masonic Delta.66 Clearly the Charleston camp had found a Mason as capable of the \"stinging pen\" as Foulhouze. February 1858 also brought a commanding new (returning) member to the New Orleans Council. The announcement in the Masonic Delta was sure to cause great concern in the Charleston\/New Orleans camp:\n\nWe are happy to say that our most Ill:. and worthy Bro:. Pierre Soul\u00e9 has joined the Supreme Council of the 33d, in and for the Sovereign and Independent State of Louisiana. This eminent citizen and learned Freemason admits thus the State Rights masonically as well as politically.67\n\nThe return of this fiery and powerful former United States Senator and U.S. Minister to Spain to the rolls of the New Orleans Supreme Council was the equivalent of a shot of adrenaline for the New Orleans Council. Soul\u00e9 was created a 33rd on 8 March 1838 by Jean Jacques Conte and was, actually, a Member of the New Orleans Supreme Council prior to the election of Foulhouze as Grand Com-mander. Soul\u00e9 apparently resigned from the Council at some point following Foulhouze's election as his name is no where to be found in any of the records concerning the Concordat of 1855. There are no known record giving the reasons for the resignation of Soul\u00e9 from the Council nor his Masonic activities during, or thoughts of, the concordat. Soul\u00e9 was elected a U.S. Senator in 1847 and served in that office until 1853 followed by his appointment as Minister to Spain from 1853-55. Soul\u00e9 was a vocal, resourceful and respected addition to the New Orleans Council.\n\nThe addition of Pierre Soul\u00e9 as an Active Member of the New Orleans Council would seem to be answered one month later by the addition of Albert Pike as an Active Member of the Charleston Council on 20 March 1858. 68 At the very session which elected Pike as an Active Member, Foulhouze was formally \"expelled\" from the Scottish Rite by the Charleston Council. Since Foulhouze was never a member of any Body controlled by the Charleston Council, this action was more of a public statement of disapproval than an actual expulsion. What followed next was a series of \"sledge hammer\" verbal and written attacks from and upon both the New Orleans and Charleston Councils. The extremely bitter attacks surpassed even the Cerneau \"war\" which resulted in the death of all \"High Grade\" Scottish Rite Masonry in the U.S. with the exception of in New Orleans. Foulhouze released his M\u00e9moire \u00e0 Consulter in French in 1858 and, then in 1859, issue his Historical Inquiry into the Origin of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in English.69 The book served as the platform from which Foulhouze stated his case, defined his actions and views on regularity as well as his concepts of the history of the Scottish Rite. Foulhouze also used the Masonic Delta as a platform. This monthly publication was he official organ of the revived Supreme Council of Louisiana. Joseph Lamarre released his A Masonic Trial in New Orleans in French in 1858 and Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat translated and added notes to the work for an English edition. The next major New Orleans Masonic publication was a work designed to answer Foulhouze's M\u00e9moire \u00e0 Consulter and further state the position of the Charleston Supreme Council. A Dissection of the Manifesto of Mr. Charles Bienvenu was released 1858 and opened a very regrettable door for the Charleston Council. The work, while originally issued as an anonymous publication, was later learned to be the work of Albert Pike and Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat. While the Dissection was as harsh in tone as Foulhouze's M\u00e9moire \u00e0 Consulter, it went back to the Lopez Expedition period and re-printed in the end of the booklet the article published on Foulhouze by the Daily Delta and the retort by T. Wharton Collens and Robert Preaux. What was not published, nor mentioned, was the response of nearly all of the competing New Orleans newspapers condemning the yellow journalistic style of the Delta's article on Foulhouze. The illusion created in the Dissection was that the Delta's article on Foulhouze was factual and Collens and Preaux were only attempting to deny the obvious. In 1873, James Scot published his Outline of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Louisiana and reveal that the Dissection influenced his thinking and beliefs (and assuredly that of many others) of Foulhouze. Scot says of Foulhouze:\n\nAt this time [1850] he [Foulhouze] was charged with being a spy of the Spanish Government, and was afterwards denounced as such in the newspapers of the day when the news of the fate of the Lopez expedition reached New Orleans. During the excitement he was concealed by some friends to prevent his falling into the hands of the mob, until he was able to effect his escape to Havana. He afterward returned, and resigned his membership in the Supreme Council, July 30, 1853. 70\n\nJames Foulhouze was not viewed as one who simply held a very strong opposing Masonic opinion and followed a course of action that he felt was correct, he was now portrayed as a charlatan of low moral character. This was quite a different picture than the Mason who was approached by Albert Mackey to become an Active Member of the Charleston Supreme Council. The statement by Scot is erroneous. The only newspaper which published such a opinion of Foulhouze was denounced by the balance of the newspapers in New Orleans. Foulhouze went to Havana in an attempt to secure the release of American citizens prior to the article by the Delta. He did not \"escape\" to Havana. The Scot quotation is an example of the emotional and confused state of affairs in Louisiana Masonry and the fact that inaccuracies were, sadly, sometimes accept as fact.\n\nOn 3 October 1858 Foulhouze informed the New Orleans Council, in Session, of a communication he received from the Grand Orient of France. Foulhouze, as a Grand Orient 33rd, was officially instructed to disassociate himself from the revived New Orleans Council. Foulhouze refused this mandate. On 4 February 1859 the Grand Orient of France struck Foulhouze's name from its list of 33rds.\n\nDespite the actions taken and the decrees and publications written against Foulhouze and the New Orleans Council, there was no sign that the Council was weakening. In fact, the New Orleans Council showed every indication of strengthening. By 1859 the Supreme Council of Louisiana was at its peak of power in the post concordat days. Twenty-five active lodges were under its jurisdiction71 and the Council was composed of thirty-four Active Members.72 Of the lodges under the jurisdiction of the New Orleans Council, seven were located outside of New Orleans in various regions of Louisiana. The make-up of the lodges reveal that the popularity of the New Orleans Council was not solely with the French speaking New Orleans Masons. Twelve lodges worked in the French language, seven in the English language, two in German, one in Italian and one in Spanish. Remembering the fact that the Louisiana Grand Lodge (with its \"irregular\" stamp) grew in power and took over the Grand Lodge of Louisiana in 1850 with no outside support, save the Grand Lodge of Mississippi, the matter of the New Orleans Council had to be addressed. It was not simply a growing threat to the Charleston Council, but, also, to the Grand Lodge of Louisiana.\n\nWith no real structure, rituals or organization, the Charleston Council apparently began to realize that it was, indeed, in trouble. Of this time Charles S. Lobingier, 33\u00ba, G.C. writes in his 1931 The Supreme Council, 33\u00ba:\n\nBoth Pike and Mackey had by this time decided that the Supreme Council needed reform. On January 20, 1858, the former had written the latter urging an increase in the membership and the introduction of the elective system. 73\n\nFor reasons that are, at best, ambiguous, Grand Commander John Honour resigned his office in the Charleston Council on 13 August 1858. It was not until 2 January 1859 that Albert Pike was proclaimed, by Albert Mackey, elected to the office of Grand Commander of the Charleston Supreme Council. It is logical that the actions of Foulhouze and the New Orleans Council influenced the change of command in the Charleston Council. Pike immediately began to reform the Charleston Council and make the changes necessary for its survival.\n\nIn 1860 Foulhouze was elected to the judgeship of the Second District Court in Plaquemines Parish. In 1861 Foulhouze moved his domicile from New Orleans to Plaquemines Parish. That same year former judge and Lt. Grand Commander T. Wharton Collens was elected Judge of the Seventh District Court in New Orleans. On 2 January 1861 the New Orleans Council re-incorporated itself taking officially, for the first time, the name \"The Supreme Council of Louisiana.\" Due to the pressures of his new position, T.W. Collens resigned in 1861 as Lt. Grand Commander of the New Orleans Council. He was replaced by Sam Brown, who was created a 33rd by Foulhouze 5 March 1860.\n\nThe Civil War\n\nArguably there has been no lower point in the history of the United States then the Civil War years of 1861-65. The divided country nearly destroyed itself in four years of devastating war, the effects of which plagued the county for a century to follow. While there has been numerous accounts of Masonic acts of charity during the war years, the war weakened Masonry in the U.S. due to the loss of life, property and the economic hardship that followed the war years. There is no sign or record that any of the Supreme Councils in the U.S. were active during the Civil Wars years. Pierre Soul\u00e9 was imprisoned for a time upon the capture of New Orleans in 1862. Upon his release from prison, he lived out the remaining war years in Cuba. Albert Pike was charged with war crimes stemming from the Battle at Pea Ridge (his only war command) and was left out of the general amnesty afforded at the close of the war. Pike fled to Canada awaiting a Presidential pardon allowing him to return to the U.S.\n\nThere are no known records of the Supreme Council of Louisiana during the war years and it is unknown what events, if any, took place in the Council during this time. James Foulhouze, who prior to the war was a district court judge is shown to be a Parish Attorney for Plaquemines Parish following the war. There are no records of the exact date that he left office as a judge, nor giving the reasons. It is possible that the then 65 year old Foulhouze simply retired from his judgeship or his leaving office might have been required by the Union in the post war years. A series of events that can best be described as \"amazing\" then takes place concerning Foulhouze and the New Orleans Council.\n\nOn 3 May 1866, T. Wharton Collens, Pierre Soul\u00e9 and 8 other 33rds of the New Orleans Council signed an \"oath of allegiance\" to the New Orleans Council.74 Foulhouze's name is not included in this apparent reorganization. On 10 May 1866, the New Orleans Council obtained the oath of allegiance of Robert Preaux and created two 33rds. One of the 33rds created was a New Orleans music teacher, music shop owner and composer of moderate note who corresponded with many of the artistic and literary figures in Europe including Victor Hugo. His name was Eugene Chassaignac. On 7 January 1867, Chassaignac was elected Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Louisiana. It is unknown who was Grand Commander or \"acting\" Grand Commander at the time that Chassaignac was elevated to the 33d degree or why Chassaignac was selected to lead the New Orleans Council. There is a total veil of mystery over the election of Chassaignac and the departure of Foulhouze.\n\nThe 1 May 1867 minutes of Liberty Lodge #19 (under the New Orleans Council's jurisdiction)75 show that O.J Dunn, Grand Master of the Eureka Grand Lodge of Louisiana (Prince Hall) and five other Prince Hall Lodges in various locations in the U.S. had officially accepted the invitation to attend Liberty Lodge and noted that this Lodge admitted visitors with no regard to race. The Worshipful Master of Liberty Lodge was Eugene Chassaignac. The New Orleans Council, likewise and that same year, officially announced that membership to its lodges were not be based on race. That announcement, in itself, seems curious as the Supreme Council of Louisiana (and the whole of New Orleans Masonry) had a long history, prior to the Civil War, of having little concern over race and Masonic membership.\n\nIn an amazing and dramatic move, the Grand Orient of France, ignoring its past action against James Foulhouze, re-recognized the Supreme Council of Louisiana on 5 November 1868. Eugene Chassaignac commented on James Foulhouze and the relations with the Grand Orient of France in the April-May 1869 issue of the Bulletin: 76\n\nIt is true that in 1858, following the writings of Mr. J. Foulhouze, (writings that were not at all the acts of the Supreme Council) our relations with the Grand Orient were interrupted; but since I have had the honor of being the Grand Commander and Grand Master of the Scotch Rite, in Louisiana, I had the pamphlets disavowed by a solemn resolution; on the other hand, Mr. Foulhouze not being any longer a member of our order, there no longer exists a reason for the relations between the Grand Orient of France and the Supreme Council of Louisiana to be interrupted.77\n\nWhat happened? Without James Foulhouze the reorganization of the New Orleans Council would have failed before it started. The Chassaignac statement can only be viewed as incredible and shows an almost contempt for Foulhouze. Why? There is no clue as to what could have taken place during the Civil War years. Prior to the war the New Orleans Council was at its height of power and could have in a matter of a few years, realistically, overpowered the Charleston Council and seriously threatened the Grand Lodge of Louisiana had the war not interrupted its growth. James Foulhouze was the power and the driving force of this movement. It simply could not have happened without him. There is not a hint as to why Foulhouze left office, why Chassaignac was made a 33rd, why Chassaignac was elected Grand Commander or why Chassaignac seemingly turned on Foulhouze. Just as perplexing as the Chassaignac statement on Foulhouze is the re-recognition of the New Orleans Council by the Grand Orient. The Grand Orient had stripped Foulhouze of his 33rd Degree for his participation in the reorganization of the New Orleans Council. Why would they now recognize that very same Body? The re-recognition of the New Orleans Council by the Grand Orient of France unquestionably caused great concern in the Supreme Councils SJ and NMJ. In a bold move, relations between the Grand Orient and the SJ and NMJ were suspended by a join resolution of the SJ and NMJ dated 2 May and 15 June 1870. The resolution made the following points (presumably written by Pike).\n\n\"The Grand Orient of France well knew, for it had so decided in a sane interval, in 1858, that an Inspector-General created by itself could exercise no powers within the jurisdiction of another Supreme Council. It knew that the Chassaignac body was created by the sole authority of M. Jacques Foulhouze, whom it had denuded of his privileges as an Inspector-General, for \"forfaiture d'honneur,\" in establishing it. And yet, without any new light upon the subject, without any reconsideration or reexamination, without restoring M. Foulhouze, and while in alliance with us, it recognized this spurious organization as a lawful Supreme Council.\" 78\n\nThe Death of James Foulhouze\n\nThere is no suggestion that Foulhouze had any connection with Masonry following the Civil War years. In 1869 Foulhouze co-authored a book with William M. Prescott titled The Ordinances of the Police Jury of the Parish of Plaquemines. Foulhouze is listed as \"Parish Attorney\" and Prescott as \"Parish Judge.\" Foulhouze apparently busied himself with legal matters and spent the remainder of his life in the Mississippi River town of Pointe-a-la-Hache, Louisiana.\n\nOn 21 December 1875 the following article appeared in the New Orleans Bee:\n\n\"Deceased the 18th of December 1875 at Pointe-a-la Hache, parish of Plaquemines, the Hon. James Foulhouze at the age of seventy-five. A native of Riom, Auvergue, France.\"\n\nFoulhouze was buried at St. Thomas the Apostle Church Cemetery in Pointe-a-la-Hache, Louisiana. T. Wharton Collens, who had by then also resigned from all Masonic activities, handled the legal matters concerning Foulhouze's succession. Collens wrote of Foulhouze:\n\n\"I was very intimately acquainted with the late James Foulhouze during the thirty years that preceded his death. He was a native of Riom in France, and during the thirty years that I knew him he frequently spoke to me of his relatives in that country, and showed me his correspondences with them. His father died previous to 1830, his mother a few years before he 'J. Foulhouze' did. He had a brother who died before he did - that brother left one heir a daughter. Foulhouze himself was never married.\" 79\n\nWhile Foulhouze not, by any means, a man of great wealth, he did own a home in Pointe-a-la-Hache and some property. Foulhouze's entire estate was willed to Od\u00e9alie Collens McCaleb, the married daughter of his long time friend T. Wharton Collens and Od\u00e9alie's son, James Foulhouze McCaleb.\n\nThe many unanswered questions concerning Foulhouze, and the events surrounding him may never be fully answered or understood. It is clear, however, that James Foulhouze followed a path which he honestly felt to be correct. Regardless of which side of the issue one takes, it must be objectively recognized that the impact that Foulhouze had on the whole of U.S. Scottish Rite Masonry was substantial. It must, also, be pointed out that those who supported and held the same opinion as Foulhouze were neither \"weak minded\" nor \"ignorant\" as sometimes charged. Differing opinions are frequently held by intelligent people. It is unfortunate when judgment is colored by emotion and it is tragic when erroneous conclusions born of skewed judgment makes its way into accepted history.\n\nNotes:\n\n1. The Masonic Delta March 1858.\n\n2. This date was obtained from the tombstone of James Foulhouze located in St. Thomas the Apostle Church Cemetery, Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana.\n\n3. Personal letter: Christine McCullough, Assistant Archivist, Archdiocese of Philadelphia to Michael R. Poll, 23 April 1993.\n\n4. Passenger and Immigration List Index Vol. I P. William Filby, Mary K. Meyer Editors. (Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co., 1981) 314.\n\n5. Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat, translator, notes of A Masonic Trial in New Orleans . (New Orleans, LA: J. Lamarre, 1858) p. 62.\n\n6. Encyclopedia Britannica Vol. XI (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1965) 814.\n\n7. McCullough to Poll, 23 April 1993. It should be noted that a priest having his faculties suspended is akin to a physician having his medical license suspended. The affected priest would no longer be able to carry out the duties of a priest such as hearing confessions, preforming wedding, baptisims, Mass, etc. While a priest who has had his faculties suspended is, in fact, prevented from doing all that makes one a priest, it is only the Vatican who can separate a priest from his vows as a priest. This would mean that Foulhouze might have, technically, remained a priest, without powers, until his death.\n\n8. At the time that Foulhouze was a priest, Philadelphia was a \"Diocese\" and not yet an \"Archdiocese.\"\n\n9. McCullough to Poll, 23 April 1993.\n\n10. Lad\u00e9bat, notes, A Masonic Trial in New Orleans p. 62.\n\n11. Philadelphia : U. Hunt, 1842.\n\n12. The paper which Bishop Kenrick mentions was Le Penseur (The Thinker).\n\n13. Records of the American Catholic Historical Society Vol. VIII, 1896 Bishop Kenrick to Dr. Cullen 23 November, 1843. 311-312.\n\n14. Masonic and anti-Masonic\n\n15. The Louisiana Historical Quarterly Vol. 31, No. 4 October, 1948. New Orleans, LA 918.\n\n16. Roman Catholic law forbid duels regardless of the fact that, for many years, the traditional site for duels was in the gardens directly behind, and on the grounds of, the St. Louis Cathedral.\n\n17. The Masonic Delta November 1857 edition.\n\n18. Ibid.\n\n19. Ibid.\n\n20. James Foulhouze, Historical Inquiry into the Origin of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (New Orleans: True Delta Job Office, 1859.) 17.\n\n21. Masonic Delta November 1857.\n\n22. Canonge served the Grand Lodge of Louisiana as Grand Master in 1822-24 & 1829 and, also, served as Commander in Chief of the Grand Consistory of Louisiana from 1843-46. Canonge had served as the Grand Senior Warden of the Cerneau Grand Council of Princes of the Royal Secret, 32\u00ba in Philadelphia in 1818 and was an early member of the Supreme Council of Louisiana, being appointed Grand Expert on 7 November 1839. It was during Canonge's administration as Commander in Chief of the Grand Consistory that this body passed under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Council of Louisiana. Prior to his election to the office of Sovereign Grand Commander, Canonge served as the Lt. Grand Commander of the Supreme Council. Canonge had the reputation of being a \"no nonsense\" and \"ready to act\" individual with an amazing memory. As a criminal court judge he once ordered the arrest of the entire state Supreme Court for interfering in one of his capital trials. New Orleans Times Democrat 8 January 1893 \"Louisiana Families\"\n\n23. Masonic Delta November 1857.\n\n24. Foulhouze, Historical Inquiry p. 62.\n\n25. See: The Elimination of the French Influence in Louisiana Masonry (New Orleans, LA: Michael Poll Publishing, 1996).\n\n26. Report of the Committee on Foreign Correspondence of the Louisiana Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons. (New Orleans: Cook, Young & Co., 1849.) 5.\n\n27 Ibid. 5.\n\n28. The town of Lafayette was a suburb of New Orleans in the 1800's located in what is now considered the \"uptown\" area of New Orleans.\n\n29. George Washington, Lafayette, Warren, Marion, Crescent City, Hiram & Eureka.\n\n30. Grand Lodge of the State of Louisiana Report and Exposition (New Orleans: J.L Soll\u00e9e, 1849) 5-34.\n\n31. James B. Scot, Outline of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Louisiana 1873 (New Orleans, LA: Cornerstone Book Publishers, reprint 2008) 76.\n\n32. Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat, Ancient and Accepted Rite. Thirtieth Degree. (New Orleans: 1857). xxvii.\n\n33. Lad\u00e9bat states in a footnote of his published 18\u00ba ritual: \"The philosophical explanation of this and of all the other Degrees from the First up to the Thirtieth inclusive, is taken from the work of Ill.: Bro.: J. Foulhouze, 33d, with some slight alterations, of which, the author willingly assumes the responsibility.\" Lad\u00e9bat, Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite. Eighteenth Degree (New Orleans: 1856) 123. Foulhouze had, also, rewritten the 33\u00ba for the New Orleans Council. See: James D. Carter History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba SJUSA (1861-1891). (Washington, D.C.: The Supreme Council 33\u00ba, 1967). 37.\n\n34. The title of this magazine is sometimes given as Freemasons' Magazine.\n\n35. Charles S. Lobingier, The Supreme Council , 33\u00ba (Louisville, KY: The Standard Printing Co., Inc., 1931). 172; Ray Baker Harris, James D. Carter, History of the Supreme Council, 33\u00ba SJUSA (1801-1861), (Washington, DC: The Supreme Council 33\u00ba, 1964.) 236.\n\n36. Minutes Book, Friends of Harmony Lodge #58 14 September 1849.\n\n37. James Scot, Outline of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Louisiana. New Orleans, LA: Cornerstone Book Publishers, reprint 2008. 78-80.\n\n38. Prior to the Grand Lodge Constitution of 1850 Past Masters of the constituted lodges were made Life Members of the Grand Lodge with voting rights in the Grand Lodge. Following the Constitution of 1850, voting rights were only given to Grand Lodges Officers, the three principal members of each lodge, Past Grand Masters and Grand Lodge Committee members.\n\n39. The Masonic Delta November 1857.\n\n40. The Masonic Delta November 1857.\n\n41. The numbers vary according to the source. The Annual Grand Communication of the Supreme Council, 1859, VIII lists 26 new 33rds. Albert Pike, Official Bulletin VIII, 1886 page 571-572 lists 31 new 33rds.\n\n42. Reunion Fraternal de Caridad in Havana 12 July 1815 and El Templo de la Devina Pastora in Matanzaz 12 July 1818, Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana 1995 (A-2 & 3).\n\n43. New Orleans Daily Delta 31 May 1850.\n\n44. The Daily Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana 31 May 1850.\n\n45. The Daily Crescent New Orleans, Louisiana 1 June 1850.\n\n46. Daily Orleanian, New Orleans, Louisiana 2 June 1850.\n\n47. New Orleans Daily Delta 1 June 1850.\n\n48. New Orleans Bee 27 February 1852.\n\n49. James Foulhouze, T.W. Collens, Charles Claiborne, J.B. Faget, Felix Garcia, F.A. Lumsden, Joseph Walker, John L. Lewis, Robert Preaux, Charles Murian, S. Heriman, Jean Lamothe, Antonio Costa, A. P. Lanaux, G.A. Montmain, F. Correjolles, J.H. Holland, R.D. Fanis, J.E. Jolly, J. Bachino, Aug. Brou\u00e9, M. Prados, F. Ricau, J.J.E. Massicott, Fran\u00e7ois Meilleur, C.M. Emerson, H.G. Duvivier, C. Samory & Charles Laffon.\n\n50. The Masonic Delta August 1857.\n\n51. An interesting document resides in the New Orleans Scottish Rite Library and Museum. It is a handwritten copy of the 1846 General Regulations of the New Orleans Supreme Council. This document is of special interest as it was used as a \"working copy\" for the 1848 General Regulations which were approved on 20 July 1848. The document contains the notes and changes throughout made by James Foulhouze with his signature. Clearly the various changes were presented to the Council for approval. The official name \"The Supreme Council for the United States of America Sitting in New Orleans \" at the head of the Regulations has portions scratched out leaving the only \"The Supreme Council sitting in New Orleans.\" In addition, the side margins contain the proposed changes. In addition to the official name being altered to remove \"for the United States of America\" the proposed change to \"for the State of Louisiana\" written in the margin was also scratched out. Presumably the new title did not pass the vote of the Council or Foulhouze decided not to propose this name change - at that time. It is significant, however, to realize that Foulhouze, from the early days of his administration, considered the Supreme Council structure as possibly being limited to state boundaries just as Grand Lodges.\n\n52. This account can not be confirmed in totality by any existing official record, but is recounted in an old unsigned handwritten paper located in the New Orleans Scottish Rite Library and Museum. In the notes of the 1859 A Masonic Trial in New Orleans, Charles Laffon de La\u00e9bat writes of the event: \"... An opportunity offered and that was the address of Ill:. Bro. Chas. Claiborne who, instead of arguing the point at issue, that is, the merits and demerits of the 20 articles, amused himself by ridiculing the masonic costumes of Mr. Foulhouze. Mr. Foulhouze was stung to the quick and swore, in leaving the hall, that he had done with Masonry! He sent in his letter of resignation on the 30th of July 1853.\" page 43.\n\n53. Alain Bernheim located the Minutes of the Supreme Council of Louisiana from its creation to 15 February 1847 in the BN in Paris in 1987. This writer located the Minutes of the Supreme Council of Louisiana from the election of Charles Claiborne to the Concordat of 1855 in the Library of the New Orleans Scottish Rite Bodies in 1994.\n\n54. Official Bulletin VIII 1886 p 536.\n\n55. Foulhouze, Historical Inquiry 78. The Masonic Delta, August 1857 & March 1858. Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat, Translator, A Masonic Trial in New Orleans (Lamarre's Defense) (New Orleans, J. Lamarre, 1858) 43-44. Note: A Masonic Trial in New Orleans was written by Joseph Lamarre and originally published in French. The work was translated into English and republished that same year. The name of the translator is not given in this work. Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat states on page 83 of Dissection of the Manifesto of Mr. Charles Bienienu (New Orleans: privately published, 1858) that he was the translator for Lamarre' work and author of the notes in that book.\n\n56. The Masonic Delta August 1857.\n\n57. Lad\u00e9bat, A Masonic Trial in New Orleans page 43.\n\n58. Michael R. Poll, In His Own (w)Rite, (New Orleans, LA Cornerstone Book Publishers, 2011) \"Albert Pike, His Addrtess before the Grand Consistory of Louisiana\" page 5.\n\n59. The Masonic Delta November 1857.\n\n60. Felix Garcia, Lucien Hermann.\n\n61. John Henry Holland.\n\n62. Jean Lamothe & Robert Preaux.\n\n63. Ramon Vionnet & Stephen Herriman.\n\n64. Fran\u00e7ois Meilleur and Charles Murian.\n\n65. Jean B. Faget, Jean J.E. Massicott, Romain Brugier and Joseph Lisbony.\n\n66. The revived New Orleans Council's monthly publication.\n\n67. The Masonic Delta February 1858.\n\n68. Although Pike was elected an Active Member in March, it was not until 7 July that Mackey would send the official general notification of his election. Harris, Carter History 260. Mackey would, however, inform Claude Samory of Pike's election on 8 May 1859. Official Bulletin VIII, 544.\n\n69. Foulhouze's Historical Inquiry can not be viewed as an English translation of his M\u00e9moire \u00e0 Consulter. Upon examination by Alain Bernheim, it has been determined that the Historical Inquiry, while closely following M\u00e9moire \u00e0 Consulter, has enough significant changes to consider it a rewrite rather than a translation.\n\n70. Scot, Outline. 4.\n\n71. The Masonic Delta September 1859.\n\n72. The Masonic Delta April 1860.\n\n73. Lobingier, Supreme Council, 249.\n\n74. Original document in the George Longe Collection in the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana.\n\n75. Photocopy reproduction of the minutes in The Perfect Ashlar (publication of the Supreme Council of Louisiana) October 1969.\n\n76. The Bulletin replaced The Masonic Delta in 1869 as the official publication of the Supreme Council of Louisiana.\n\n77. Eugene Chassaignac Bulletin (New Orleans, A. Simon, 1869) 28.\n\n78. Carter, History 431.\n\n79. Foulhouze Secession Papers, 1875, Court House Pointe a la Hashe, Louisiana.\n\n***\n\nQuantity or Quality?\n\nONE OF THE GREAT THINGS about living in New Orleans is the food that we often take for granted. When I moved back after living away for almost 10 years, it was the simple Po-Boy sandwich that gave me such joy. I delighted in finding cozy, hole in the wall places where I could discover new taste sensations. In one such place I saw a sign advertising the \"largest Po-Boy in New Orleans.\" Well, I had to try this place out. The ad was correct; the sandwich was so big that it could really feed two people with some left over. But, to my great disappointment, it tasted terrible. It was a simple Ham & Swiss, but the cheese was hard and the ham was some sort of nasty, discount deli reject. Even the lettuce was soggy and turning brown. It was sure big, but it was a total waste of my money. Clearly, the biggest is not always the best.\n\nI also remember years ago when I first started college. I enrolled at the University of New Orleans (it was then Louisiana State University at New Orleans). I took a civics class and when I walked in on my first day, I found it was in an auditorium with something like 300 in the class! I came from a small high school and was overwhelmed. How was I going to learn anything with a sea of people all around me? The following year I transferred to Loyola University in New Orleans and found the class size much more to my liking. In one music class, it was just the instructor and myself. That was a learning experience for me. But, that's just my taste. The mileage for others may vary.\n\nThe fact is that I am far more comfortable in small settings. I would be more drawn to an intimate, quite dinner with my wife and a few friends than dining at the Hard Rock Cafe with hundreds of others. But, don't misunderstand me, I'm all for a bargain. If that big, ole sandwich had tasted good; I would have been a happy camper. I could have fed my wife and I for the price of one. The problem with my college civics class was not only that it was very large, but that they had not prepared properly. They accepted too many students and when at the last minute, they realized that there were too many for the classroom; they moved the class to the auditorium. Because of the quick change of venue, they did not think about a microphone. It was only the few sitting in the very front who could properly hear the man. They didn't prepare properly. Mistakes were made and the class suffered.\n\nI am interested in quality experiences. Yes, if all things were equal, I would prefer a small gathering for dining, but if the food was bad and the food at the Hard Rock Cafe was outstanding, then the overall winner would be the Hard Rock Cafe. It is no different with Masonry. I want quality and while I prefer small groups, it should not be understood to mean that I place numbers (large or small) first. I place quality first.\n\nI remember when the big \"One Day, All The Way\" classes began and I expressed my concern about them. One argument always seemed to come back at me which totally missed the point I was trying to make. When I expressed concern about the quality of the event, it would invariably be argued that \"bad\" degrees were often seen in small lodge setting. SO WHAT? That's like telling me that it is OK to eat bad food at a convention center because you can get bad food in a small restaurant! I don't want bad food anywhere! You can't sell me on something bad because something bad is also offered somewhere else.\n\nA successful lodge can be one that is small or large. It is successful because it does its work properly. And, \"work\" does not just mean ritual. No worshipful Master should rush into a lodge meeting with no idea of what the secretary will read or announce. The WM should be completely aware of all that will happen in the lodge on any given night. He should also be prepared of how to handle the occasional unexpected event. In other words, no one would be elected WM of a lodge without spending a good many years in training for the office. Knowing the ritual is only one small part of what is necessary for one to become a successful WM.\n\nA lodge should work as a solid unit. Little groups that develop in Masonic bodies spell death for the body. \"I'm in and you are not\" games should have no place in the lodge. The successful lodge moves and acts as one.\n\nIt is not the large or small lodge that has any advantage by their number. The lodge with the advantage is the lodge that expects and provides quality work.\n\n***\n\nWho Am I?\n\nA NUMBER OF YEARS AGO I was visiting my doctor for a check-up. As I was outside in the waiting room, I picked up a medical magazine and started flipping through it. An article caught my attention. It was titled \"Who Am I?\" As I started to read it, I became enthralled.\n\nThe article told the story of a man in his mid to late 30s who was found by the Chicago police around Midnight on a downtown street. He was unconscious and lying in a pool of blood from an injury to the back of his head. The man was wearing a business suit, but had no money, credit cards or any other identification on him. He was the apparent victim of a mugging.\n\nAfter spending several days unconscious in the hospital, the man finally awoke. He was completely disoriented. He had no idea how he came to be in the hospital or what might have happened to get him there. As his mind started to clear, instead of an improving situation, things became much worse. He began to realize that not only did he not know how he came to be in the hospital, but he also did not know his name, where he was from or anything at all about himself prior to waking up in the hospital bed. He had complete and total amnesia.\n\nThe police sent photos of the injured man to the local media and sent his fingerprints off for possible identification. Neither proved helpful. Because of the number of large hotels in the area where he was found, the police felt that he could have been a businessman traveling to the city from almost anywhere.\n\nThe doctors told the man that with his type of injury, amnesia was not uncommon. They told him that they could not give any sort of firm prognosis as there was simply too much that was unknown about this type of injury. There was no way to know if all of his memory, some of it, or any of it would return. The doctors also said that they could not give him any sort of time frame on when he might expect to see any changes or improvements. Uncertainty was the only thing of which they were certain.\n\nThe man realized that the money and credit cards that were taken from him were insignificant. What they took of true value was his life. If he could not regain his memory, then the man he had been before waking up in the hospital bed was dead.\n\nThink about this man's situation. Each one of us has a personal history in our memories. We remember childhood, our family, friends, and events both happy and sad. We remember school, early jobs, dating, marriage, children and everything that has gone into shaping us. Who we are today is based, in a large part, on the total memory of our experiences. Now, think about all of those memories disappearing into dust in a snap of your fingers. Who would you be? What would you be? In that situation, and especially if you were alone with no one around who knew you, how could you be the same person?\n\nThis loss of identity and self is not limited to individuals. Groups of people and even whole societies have suffered the same fate. It was known long ago that if one group wanted to defeat another group, then it was necessary to overpower the enemy's military. But, if one group wanted to completely destroy another group, then they would need to wipe out the enemy's history. Look at the Mayan Indians. Their vast library was destroyed and all of their books, save just three, were burned to dust. And what do we know of the Mayan society and people today? What do the decedents of the Mayans know about their own history? Next to nothing.\n\nEven when there was no deliberate attempt at destroying another's history, the lack of history can still create vacuums in our knowledge of the past. In north Louisiana there is an area known as Poverty Point. There are several large and impressive Indian mounds where a considerable amount of pottery has been excavated. Archaeologists know that this significant civilization existed several thousand years ago and that it is the largest and most complex site of its type discovered in North America. But, because of the lack of any written records and very little information on the people themselves, it is a true lost society.\n\nOur past is vital to us. The practical reality of the existence and nature of each of us depends on the continued knowledge of our nature and existence. When we die, the continued knowledge of us will only exist if our history is recorded and preserved. If not, then when we die, all knowledge of our achievements, work and self dies with us.\n\nFreemasonry is no different. Want to start a debate? Go into any Lodge and ask whether Freemasonry has its roots in the Knights Templar. In some Lodges, such a debate might end up in an argument. The simple truth is that we have little knowledge of the very early history of Freemasonry. The same is pointedly true of the early history of the Scottish Rite. Jurisdictional wars, destruction of early records, and \"edited\" histories designed to strengthen the argument of one or the other side makes our available knowledge questionable to the objective researcher.\n\nThe history of our Lodge or other Masonic body should not just be passed off as the concern of \"those library types.\" It is our history and we all share in its proper preservation... or its loss. We need to be sure that not only are proper records taken and kept, but that we take all necessary steps to preserve old documents and records.\n\nWhen we look at the injured man's situation, we can feel sympathy for him. But we are really only disinterested parties. We don't know the man, and while we can realize the terrible situation he is in, we do not feel his pain. In Masonry, our loss of history is personal. We are not disinterested parties. It is our history and our personal loss when we are not able to answer questions about ourselves that we should be able to answer. The horrible mistake so many make is in believing that the preservation of our history is someone else's job or duty \u2013 as if we play no part in it. If we don't care, we don't exist. It's as simple as that.\n\n***\n\nWhat is Truth?\n\nAn Address Before the Louisiana Lodge\n\nof Research \u2013 02\/05\/2010\n\nA FEW WEEKS AGO I tuned in to one of the educational channels on TV and watched a show on archeology. It was an interesting show dealing with the history of archeological practices from the early \"Indiana Jones\" style to today's standard of documentation. I found a general similarity between the growth and development of archeological excavation standards and those of Masonic research. The show pointed out that in the early days of archeology, researchers would find an important site and boldly their way in to take whatever they felt was valuable or important with little regard for detailed documentation or preservation of the site. Today, great care is taken at excavation sites. It is realized that value and importance are not only with items, but where they are located, what might be near them and the general condition of everything having to do with the site. In the old days of Masonic research, importance was given to special events, but less care was made in verifying the events or knowing what was going on at the time of the event. It is realized today that the whole story, and the understanding of the whole story, entails far more than isolated events.\n\nTechnology being developed today is also of great importance to both archeology and Masonic research. Ground penetrating radar allows archeologists to \"see\" below ground. When these devices are rolled over an area with buried ruins of past civilizations, the whole area becomes visible and they know where they should begin their dig. In addition, satellites are being employed to help with archeological excavation in overgrown forest areas such as South America. The satellites are able to filter the forest and discover sites which previously would have been discovered only by luck.\n\nLikewise, Masonic research has been greatly aided by advances in technology. Where at one time a Masonic researcher would need to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to sit in a Masonic library to wade through large stacks of paper documents, today the computer and internet can put all of the world's great libraries at his fingertips. Databases of information and documents can allow a Masonic researcher to locate, read and copy documents physically located most anywhere in the world from the researcher's home computer.\n\nWhile technology allows researchers to locate items of value far more quickly than in past times, the need to understand an item of interest and what it means remains vital. Finding an old Masonic diploma means little more than momentary interest if you know nothing of the individual or body for which the diploma was issued.\n\nAnd this brings us to Louisiana.\n\nThere are few places with a richer research potential than Louisiana. Simply put, Louisiana is a Masonic researcher's gold mine. When we couple the large amount of unanswered questions in our Masonic history with modern technology, the potential for great discoveries is enough to excite any thinking researcher. We have an opportunity in Louisiana that is greater than many realize.\n\nBut, there is another side to every coin. In this case, the other side of the coin is lack of understanding. It is one thing to find or possess an important Masonic document. It is another thing to properly understand it. The danger exists for important old documents to be found, appreciated only as \"something old\" and then hidden away in private collections unavailable and lost to all.\n\nLouisiana is, by any way you look at it, unique. Our government, laws and Masonry are, to this day, different than in other parts of the United States. Louisiana was founded as a French territory. It was French in nature, language and custom. French Masonry was introduced into Louisiana some sixty years prior to the creation of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana.1 The five lodges who created the Grand Lodge of Louisiana were French-speaking lodges.2 This was not done because of any particular loyalty to France or any desire to not be a part of the U.S., but simply because this is what the vast majority of the Louisiana Masons knew. They spoke French, not English, and they practiced their Masonry in the manner in which they knew it.\n\nAnd what of the English-speaking Americans who began arriving in New Orleans soon after it became a U.S. territory in 1803? Most of the rank and file Americans traveling to the city did not speak French. Yet, the government, shops and pretty much everywhere you went was French-speaking. Sure, the educated on both sides were multi-lingual and able to function in either society, but the majority of the population were not the educated leaders. The same was true in Masonry. English-speaking Masons arriving in New Orleans on business trips wanted to visit lodges. But, the language being used in New Orleans lodges was mostly (save one or two) not to their understanding and even the furnishings and practices that could be understood were not the same American-Webb ritual familiar to them. What visiting Masons saw in New Orleans was mostly very different from what they knew. And, at that time, \"different\" was not a good thing.\n\nUnrest was born in both the population of the city of New Orleans and in Louisiana Masonry. On one hand, the English-speaking Masons of New Orleans demanded that change take place and Masonry in Louisiana be turned into the Masonry of the rest of the country. On the other hand, the French-speaking Masons saw no need to bring about such change when their Masonry had been the same for as long as they knew it. It was the establishment in Louisiana. It was the Masonry as worked in Europe and the Masonry with which they were comfortable. Both sides were unyielding and unwilling to work with the other side.\n\nIn 1851, John Gedge was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. His election places him in a status held by no other Grand Master of our Grand Lodge. You see, prior to his election as Grand Master, MWBro. Gedge was viewed by the Grand Lodge of Louisiana as being an irregular Master Mason. Not only was he viewed to be an irregular Mason, he was the Grand Master of a Grand Lodge viewed to be irregular. But, it does not end there. Gedge was Grand Master of this Grand Lodge in 1848, 49 and 50. Without missing a beat, he stepped from being Grand Master of a Grand Lodge viewed as irregular to Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. Why? How? Of course, we are talking about the Louisiana Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons and its 1850 merger with the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, but why did the Grand Master of the \"irregular side\" step right over to become the Grand Master of our Grand Lodge? This event can be seen as one of the catalysts to the great unrest, division and bitterness in New Orleans Masonry in the mid 1800's, but who was right and who was wrong? Do we have enough information to form any sound conclusion?\n\nDuring the trial of Jesus, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate asked what would seem to be a straightforward question: \"What is truth?\" Since that time, philosophers have pondered and debated both the question and its answer \u2013 many times with less than satisfactory conclusions.\n\nIn the 1970's, a movie was released that has risen today to the status of a classic - Star Wars. Designed to be a science fiction\/adventure film, the move had a few surprising philosophical elements - possibly from one of the script advisors, Joseph Campbell. With a careful eye, Masons might find some things of value in the events presented in the tale.\n\nThe story is about a young boy, Luke Skywalker, who lived on a farm in a far away galaxy. Luke was raised by his aunt and uncle after the death of his parents. He worked and lived simply, but was aware of a war taking place in far-away parts of his galaxy. That was the truth that he knew.\n\nOne day, while he was away, the war came to Luke's planet. His home was attacked and his aunt and uncle killed. An old man, who was viewed by Luke as something of a hermit, took him in. His name was Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke began to learn amazing things from and about this old man. He learned that Obi-Wan had been a warrior in the very war that was being fought \u2013 a Jedi Knight who was highly skilled and possessed great powers. But, Luke learned more. He learned that the powers of a Jedi are passed down from parent to child. Luke learned that he possessed these same powers because his father was also a Jedi Knight who fought in the very same war. Luke knew nothing of this and his reality began to change. What he knew as \"the truth\" was not actually the truth. Luke asked about the actual fate of his father. Reluctantly, Obi-Wan told him that his father was killed. He told him that a gifted student of his turned to the \"dark side\" and killed his father. The student's name was Darth Vader.\n\nLuke continued to train and grow in power. Then one day he left to face the man who killed his father. Luke and Vader faced each other in Jedi battle. When Vader realized who Luke was and that he was trained by his former master, he asked Luke if Obi-Wan told him of his father. In anger, Luke told him that he was told enough, that he knew that Vader killed his father. In the bombshell of the movie, Darth Vader then tells Luke, \"No, Luke, I am your father.\" Luke was devastated. He screamed in anguish and broke away from the fight. It was not only clear that he, once again, did not know the actual facts about his father, but now he must face that his own father was the ultimate villain causing so much trouble in the galaxy. Luke's concept of truth seemed to be proven faulty time and again. What was the truth?\n\nWhen Luke again saw Obi-Wan, he wanted to know why he had been told falsehoods. Surprisingly, Obi-Wan told him that what he told Luke was the truth, \"from a certain point of view.\" He explained that his father, Anakin Skywalker, was a good man and when he fell to the \"dark side\" the good man was killed by the evil that became Darth Vader. Obi-Wan then said, \"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view.\"\n\nI needed to think long and hard about that line by Obi-Wan. Maybe sometimes truth is subjective.\n\nIn matters of religion, truth does seem to fall very much in line with the thoughts of Obi-Wan. My truth may or may not be your truth. It depends upon our own point of view. How many wars have been fought in the name of religious truth? How many men have been willing to die, or kill, in the name of religion? How do you prove a religious truth? The poet Kahlil Gibran wrote, \"Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.\" Religious truth is accepted as such simply because we believe it.\n\nIn its wisdom, Masonry realized early on that good, honest men could have very different religious views. As such, pointed religious (or political) discussions are not allowed in lodge. The outcome of such discussions could result in disharmony. It is the combination of the passion in which a religious or political view is held along with the inability to conclusively prove such views that result in such discussions being emotional powder kegs. One simply does not prove the correctness of a religious view or political opinion in the same manner that they would prove a mathematical equation.\n\nReligion and politics are not the only subjects which can result in passion for a Mason. Masons have a passion for Masonry. Masons very often have a strong passion for Masonry. Want to see a good fight? Get two Grand Lecturers together who disagree as to if it should be \"on\" or \"upon.\" We are taught to subdue our passions, but, truthfully, do we always?\n\nSo, let's go back to the mid 1800's and keep these thoughts of \"passion\" and \"truth\" in our minds.\n\nIn New Orleans, the city that care forgot, there were two groups facing off. They differed in language, Masonic customs, Masonic rites, and points of view. They were emotional. They were passionate. They were unyielding. It was not a case of two friends sitting down with one ordering strawberry ice cream and the other chocolate and enjoying each others company. It was a case of two angry opponents sitting down disgusted that the other would dare to order something different than their flavor. The truth held by each was that their flavor was the best! Period. They were childish. Each group of Masons held to their own \"flavor\" of Masonry and would tolerate no difference of opinion as to the validity of their view. It was not a case of \"you are mistaken;\" it was a case of \"you are a liar.\" It was a sad, sad time.\n\nThe two sides in New Orleans refused to bend or try to understand the other. Rather than withdrawing to avoid disharmony, they openly engaged each other in lodge or in public settings with bitter and unMasonic attacks upon the character of their brothers.3 It was a war. It was a nasty war. It was not necessary.\n\nFrom a strictly historical standpoint, we know some of what took place, and some of the \"why.\" But, there is much that remains unknown or unclear about the events prior to the \"wars.\" We know but bits and pieces of pre-1850 Louisiana Freemasonry.\n\nWe have lessons and opportunities.\n\nThe lessons should be obvious. We are taught to subdue our passions. We are taught to not speak evil of our brothers \u2013 either to their face or by private character assassination. We should try to help each other, not wage war on each other because we have differences of opinion as to the nature of Freemasonry. We should advance the Light of Masonry, not the darkness of ignorance, falsehood and ambition.\n\nOur opportunities should also be obvious. Never before has technology been available to make the work of Masonic research easier and more possible for anyone with the desire. We have clear standards of how our research should be conducted, documented and presented. We know that we should not present ideas as facts, or allow \"Masonic politics\" to color or sway our research or presentation. We have the chance to do meaningful, objective work that can benefit the Freemasonry of today as well as the future.\n\nThe brothers of the mid 1800's were quick to point the finger of blame at \"the other guy\" for all the perceived wrongs in Masonry during that time. But, were the wrongs with Masonry itself or the individual Masons of the time? Was Masonry flawed on either side or were the individual Masons flawed? Can we see the opportunity to help Masons of today by a study of the unfortunate events of the past?\n\nWhen our ego allows us to see clearly, we realize that Masonry is better than us. Masonry is not improved because of our membership; we are improved because of our membership.\n\nWe have an opportunity. We have the tools to do the real work of Masonic research. We have the knowledge to know the nature of the real work of Masonic research. It is up to us to either do that work and earn our keep as Masons or succumb to the three villains.\n\nWhat is truth? It may depend on what we are made of and our own points of view.\n\nNotes:\n\n1. On Sunday, July 16th, 1752, Loge de la Parfaite Harmonie was created in New Orleans under the direct jurisdiction of Loge de la Parfaite Union de Martinique. Sharp Document #40.\n\n2. Parfaite Union #1, Charit\u00e9 #2, Concorde #3, Pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance #4 & Etoile Polaire #5.\n\n3. Among other works, see: A Masonic Trial in New Orleans by Joseph Lamarre, tans. by Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat (1858); M\u00e9moire \u00e0 Consulter by James Foulhouze (1858) and A Dissection of the Manifesto of Mr. Charles Bienvenu by Albert Pike and Charles Laffon de Lad\u00e9bat (1858).\n\n***\n\nDeadly Apathy\n\nThe Journal of the Masonic Society, Issue 10, 2010\n\nWE HAVE ALL READ or heard stories of individuals who have taken drastic steps to save their own lives. Recently I read of a man who was doing some repair work on his water heater. He needed to reach far into the tank while lying on his back. While working in that position, his arm became wedged in the tank and he found that it was impossible to remove it. He screamed for help, but was alone in the house and no one was near enough outside to hear his cries. The man had spent several days trapped with his arm hopelessly wedged when he noticed a disturbing smell coming from inside the tank and around his arm. The man later recounted that instinct must have taken over. He managed to reach a saw and began to cut off his arm. The next day, several family members \u2013 concerned at not being able to reach him \u2013 found him unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood, his arm severed at the elbow. The man was taken to the hospital where he recovered, but the doctors gave him a sobering report. Gangrene had set into his arm, and he was told that if he had not removed it when he did, he would have died. The doctors also noted that if he had waited any longer to remove the arm, it would have been too late. The poison would have spread through his body and nothing then would have saved him. The man's life was saved not just because he took action, but when he took action.\n\nI joined Masonry in the mid-'70s. While a number of my family members had been Masons, I knew next to nothing of the philosophy or history of Freemasonry. All that I knew was that it was a \"good\" organization. It took my joining to find out what \"good\" meant. Such ignorance of the philosophy of Freemasonry prior to joining is becoming more of the exception than the rule today. Many of the young men who join Masonry already know much of its philosophy. They have read the popular, new and exciting books on Freemasonry. They arrive at the door of the Lodge with an awareness of a wonderful, mysterious, moral and enlightened group of seekers. They want to share in and be a part of such an organization. But, sadly, this is not exactly what they always find when they join.\n\nThe numbers of demits, NPD, and non-participation are growing at an alarming rate. The new reports paint a dismal picture. Yes, new members are coming fast, and sometimes in very good numbers, but we seem to be having trouble keeping them. So, why is this happening and what do we do?\n\nWhat seems to be happening is the young men come to Freemasonry with an idea of what it should be and find that it is something very different. Many come with the hopes of finding enlightening discussions, intellectual programs designed to lift us to new heights and help us learn more of ourselves and our world. Yet, sometimes all they find is \"good ole boys\" seeking to add another title, gain a bit more authority or power, and be more of the \"big fish\" in whatever pond they thrive. There is lots of coffee, but little real enlightenment. The young Masons become upset at the reality of their Masonry when they compare it to what they believed of Masonry before they joined. Some make their displeasure known \u2013 loudly. At times, such pointed objections by the young brothers are met with disapproval. It is perceived that the young Masons know nothing of what they are talking about, are out of place, need to \"get with the program\" and stop \"being so negative.\" The upset young Masons are viewed as the trouble-makers and their cries for Masonry as they believe it should be are viewed more as the cries of malcontents. They are often ignored and sometimes ostracized. The Masons become disillusioned and wonder why they ever joined.\n\nWhat happens next takes us back to the man with his arm wedged in the tank of the water heater. At the moment he began to smell something very bad, he had a choice. He could act or he could wait and see. Acting in a decisive manner saved his life; waiting to see if the situation changed on its own would have cost him his life. As in many cases, timing is everything. In Freemasonry, our gangrene is apathy. If apathy towards Freemasonry, or any body of Freemasonry, sets into anyone then they stop caring. Once they stop caring, Masonry does not matter to them and they turn their back, demit, stop paying their dues or just live as a card carrier. The positive force that could have been dies. We all lose.\n\nAnd, whose fault is it if a Mason stops caring about Masonry? If we believe or say that it is in some way the fault of the disillusioned Mason, that he would \"do better to bring about changes on the inside\" or some other such criticism designed to shame him into remaining a member, then we add insult to injury. We have missed the point and are only making a bad situation worse. It would be the same as if we saw the man with his arm wedged in the tank and we advised him to be patient and hang on a bit longer as things will certainly get better if he just waits out the unpleasant situation. When does \"hanging on\" reach the point of gangrene and result in death no matter what is done after?\n\nIn all cases, objectivity, recognition of the actual situation and the courage to do what needs to be done must be paramount. If a dedicated, serious Mason ceases to care about some Masonic body, then the \"blame game\" of identifying who is at fault is pointless. Apathy has won and Masonry loses.\n\nThe time to act is when we see the first signs of actual trouble. The first thing the man with his arm wedged did was try to free his arm. He twisted it, moved it this way and that and did everything he could do to free it. This is the same as if we belong to a dysfunctional Masonic body and we try to suggest ways to improve the body, work for changes and do all we can to correct the situation as a member. If nothing works, then we must take the next step.\n\nWhen all his own efforts could not free his arm, the man began yelling for help. He was clearly not in a position to effect any positive change in the situation; maybe someone else could render him aid. In Masonry, the calling for help would come in the form of seeking out superiors who might be able to correct the situation. When our own best efforts fail, and they sometimes do, we need to seek help from those in a position who might be able to grant what we need.\n\nAnd what do we do if no help comes? In all cases, we need to act responsibly. We can not act in haste, foolishly or without considered thought. But at some point we need to act. Failure to take any action is often just as reckless and foolish as an action taken too quickly. At some point, the man with his arm wedged knew that something was very wrong. He may not have known all the details or possessed all the medical knowledge of the situation, but he knew that he needed to take drastic action to correct the situation. Oh yes, help did arrive just the next day. But, it was too late. The doctors told him that if he had waited those additional hours, the poison would have gone through his body and then nothing would have been able to save him. He took the necessary action and he took it in time to save his life.\n\nNo one told us that being a Mason was always going to be easy. If someone did, they told us a story. Throughout our degrees, we are given lessons of honor, integrity and courage. We are given lessons that are sometimes very difficult to put into practice. In my Craft Masonry, we use the Scottish Rite Craft ritual. We are taught that the three \"villains\" in craft Masonry represent ignorance, falsehood and ambition. If we have a deficiency of the former or allow any of the later to gain hold of us, then we do not live Freemasonry as we were taught. Our goal is to control and advance ourselves. We must live our own lives as Masonry teaches us. We have no control over another, even our closest brother, but we must always have total control over ourselves.\n\nFreemasonry is going through a revolution of sorts. Gone are the days of the \"good ole boy\" clubs, the power brokers or the joining of one organization only because it is viewed as a prerequisite for another organization. The young Masons come to us with an understanding of the value of what we teach, not the shiny trinkets we wear. The beauty of what is taught in the various bodies is desired. The leadership of every single body in Masonry must provide quality education, leadership and teach what is supposed to be learned by the new members. If it is in any way unclear as to what is supposed to be taught in any Masonic body, then that should give the clear signal that a change is in order in those bodies. When the ones who must teach don't know themselves, the whole body suffers. Stand up, do the work that you need to do or allow another to do the work.\n\nLuckily, in many cases we find that only the first step is necessary in dysfunctional Masonic bodies. We are finding more and more cases of the new members realizing that something is very lacking, standing up and taking control of the lacking Lodges and making the positive changes themselves. In those bodies where the membership is not in a position to make such changes on their own authority, then assistance from superiors is necessary or the body will crumble. Period.\n\nApathy is the cancer we can not allow to set into any Mason. Our new, young Masons have a foundation that brings with them a hope for our future that is too valuable to ignore. We must do all in our power to see that their interest, dedication and hunger for Masonry is not trampled by the unworthy or their death grip on their perceived power.\n\nWe are in new wonderful times. We must always look to tomorrow if we have any hope of a future than includes Freemasonry.\n\n***\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n_Also by Kate Atkinson_\n\nBehind the Scenes at the Museum  \nHuman Croquet  \nEmotionally Weird  \nNot the End of the World  \nCase Histories  \nOne Good Turn  \nWhen Will There Be Good News?  \nStarted Early, Took My Dog\n\nFor more information on Kate Atkinson and her books,  \nvisit her website at www.kateatkinson.co.uk\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2013 Kate Costello Ltd.\n\nAll rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher\u2014or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency\u2014is an infringement of the copyright law.\n\nThe Bond Street Books colophon is a registered trademark of  \nRandom House of Canada Limited.\n\nLibrary and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication\n\nAtkinson, Kate  \nLife after life \/ Kate Atkinson.\n\neISBN: 978-0-385-67138-5\n\nI. Title.\n\nPR6051.T56L54 2013 823\u2032.914 C2012-906610-9\n\nThis book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.\n\nCover design by Kelly Hill  \nCover images courtesy of Shutterstock\n\nPublished in Canada by Bond Street Books,  \nan imprint of Random House of Canada Limited\n\nwww.randomhouse.ca\n\nv3.1\nFor Elissa\nWhat if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more'... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'\n\nNietzsche, _The Gay Science_\n\nEverything changes and nothing remains still.\n\nPlato, _Cratylus_\n\n'What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?'\n\nEdward Beresford Todd\n\n# _Contents_\n\n_Cover_\n\n_Other Books by This Author_\n\n_Title Page_\n\n_Copyright_\n\n_Dedication_\n\nBe Ye Men of Valour\n\n_November 1930_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nFour Seasons Fill the Measure of the Year\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\n_May 1910_\n\n_June 1914_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nWar\n\n_June 1914_\n\n_July 1914_\n\n_January 1915_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nWar\n\n_20 January 1915_\n\nArmistice\n\n_June 1918_\n\n_11 November 1918_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nArmistice\n\n_12 November 1918_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nArmistice\n\n_11 November 1918_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nArmistice\n\n_11 November 1918_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nArmistice\n\n_11 November 1918_\n\nPeace\n\n_February 1947_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nLike a Fox in a Hole\n\n_September 1923_\n\n_December 1923_\n\n_11 February 1926_\n\n_May 1926_\n\n_August 1926_\n\n_June 1932_\n\n_11 February 1926_\n\n_August 1926_\n\nA Lovely Day Tomorrow\n\n_2 September 1939_\n\n_November 1940_\n\nA Lovely Day Tomorrow\n\n_2 September 1939_\n\n_April 1940_\n\n_November 1940_\n\nA Lovely Day Tomorrow\n\n_September 1940_\n\n_November 1940_\n\n_August 1926_\n\nThe Land of Begin Again\n\n_August 1933_\n\n_August 1939_\n\n_April 1945_\n\nA Long Hard War\n\n_September 1940_\n\n_October 1940_\n\n_October 1940_\n\n_November 1940_\n\n_May 1941_\n\n_November 1943_\n\n_February 1947_\n\n_June 1967_\n\nThe End of the Beginning\n\nBe Ye Men of Valour\n\n_December 1930_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nThe Broad Sunlit Uplands\n\n_May 1945_\n\nSnow\n\n_11 February 1910_\n\nAcknowledgements\n\n_About the Author_\n\n# Be Ye Men of Valour\n\n# _November 1930_\n\nA fug of tobacco smoke and damp clammy air hit her as she entered the caf\u00e9. She had come in from the rain and drops of water still trembled like delicate dew on the fur coats of some of the women inside. A regiment of white-aproned waiters rushed around at tempo, serving the needs of the _M\u00fcnchner_ at leisure \u2013 coffee, cake and gossip.\n\nHe was at a table at the far end of the room, surrounded by the usual cohorts and toadies. There was a woman she had never seen before \u2013 a permed, platinum blonde with heavy make-up \u2013 an actress by the look of her. The blonde lit a cigarette, making a phallic performance out of it. Everyone knew that he preferred his women demure and wholesome, Bavarian preferably. All those dirndls and knee-socks, God help us.\n\nThe table was laden. _Bienenstich, Gugelhupf, K\u00e4sekuchen_. He was eating a slice of _Kirschtorte_. He loved his cakes. No wonder he looked so pasty, she was surprised he wasn't diabetic. The softly repellent body (she imagined pastry) beneath the clothes, never exposed to public view. Not a manly man. He smiled when he caught sight of her and half rose, saying, ' _Guten Tag, gn\u00e4diges Fr\u00e4ulein_ ,' indicating the chair next to him. The bootlicker who was currently occupying it jumped up and moved away.\n\n' _Unsere Englische Freundin_ ,' he said to the blonde, who blew cigarette smoke out slowly and examined her without any interest before eventually saying, ' _Guten Tag_.' A Berliner.\n\nShe placed her handbag, heavy with its cargo, on the floor next to her chair and ordered _Schokolade_. He insisted that she try the _Pflaumen Streusel_.\n\n'Es _regnet_ ,' she said by way of conversation. 'It's raining.'\n\n'Yes, it's raining,' he said with a heavy accent. He laughed, pleased at his attempt. Everyone else at the table laughed as well. 'Bravo,' someone said. ' _Sehr gutes Englisch_.' He was in a good mood, tapping the back of his index finger against his lips with an amused smile as if he was listening to a tune in his head.\n\nThe _Streusel_ was delicious.\n\n' _Entschuldigung_ ,' she murmured, reaching down into her bag and delving for a handkerchief. Lace corners, monogrammed with her initials, 'UBT' \u2013 a birthday present from Pammy. She dabbed politely at the _Streusel_ flakes on her lips and then bent down again to put the handkerchief back in her bag and retrieve the weighty object nesting there. Her father's old service revolver from the Great War, a Webley Mark V.\n\nA move rehearsed a hundred times. One shot. Swiftness was all, yet there was a moment, a bubble suspended in time after she had drawn the gun and levelled it at his heart when everything seemed to stop.\n\n' _F\u00fchrer_ ,' she said, breaking the spell. ' _F\u00fcr Sie_.'\n\nAround the table guns were jerked from holsters and pointed at her. One breath. One shot.\n\nUrsula pulled the trigger.\n\nDarkness fell.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nAn icy rush of air, a freezing slipstream on the newly exposed skin. She is, with no warning, outside the inside and the familiar wet, tropical world has suddenly evaporated. Exposed to the elements. A prawn peeled, a nut shelled.\n\nNo breath. All the world come down to this. One breath.\n\nLittle lungs, like dragonfly wings failing to inflate in the foreign atmosphere. No wind in the strangled pipe. The buzzing of a thousand bees in the tiny curled pearl of an ear.\n\nPanic. The drowning girl, the falling bird.\n\n'Dr Fellowes should have been here,' Sylvie moaned. 'Why isn't he here yet? Where is he?' Big dewdrop pearls of sweat on her skin, a horse nearing the end of a hard race. The bedroom fire stoked like a ship's furnace. The thick brocade curtains drawn tightly against the enemy, the night. The black bat.\n\n'Yer man'll be stuck in the snow, I expect, ma'am. It's sure dreadful wild out there. The road will be closed.'\n\nSylvie and Bridget were alone in their ordeal. Alice, the parlour maid, was visiting her sick mother. And Hugh, of course, was chasing down Isobel, his wild goose of a sister, _\u00e0 Paris_. Sylvie had no wish to involve Mrs Glover, snoring in her attic room like a truffling hog. Sylvie imagined she would conduct proceedings like a parade-ground sergeant-major. The baby was early. Sylvie was expecting it to be late like the others. The best-laid plans, and so on.\n\n'Oh, ma'am,' Bridget cried suddenly, 'she's all blue, so she is.'\n\n'A girl?'\n\n'The cord's wrapped around her neck. Oh, Mary, Mother of God. She's been strangled, the poor wee thing.'\n\n'Not breathing? Let me see her. We must do something. What can we do?'\n\n'Oh, Mrs Todd, ma'am, she's gone. Dead before she had a chance to live. I'm awful, awful sorry. She'll be a little cherub in heaven now, for sure. Oh, I wish Mr Todd was here. I'm awful sorry. Shall I wake Mrs Glover?'\n\nThe little heart. A helpless little heart beating wildly. Stopped suddenly like a bird dropped from the sky. A single shot.\n\nDarkness fell.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\n'For God's sake, girl, stop running around like a headless chicken and fetch some hot water and towels. Do you know nothing? Were you raised in a field?'\n\n'Sorry, sir.' Bridget dipped an apologetic curtsy as if Dr Fellowes were minor royalty.\n\n'A girl, Dr Fellowes? May I see her?'\n\n'Yes, Mrs Todd, a bonny, bouncing baby girl.' Sylvie thought Dr Fellowes might be over-egging the pudding with his alliteration. He was not one for bonhomie at the best of times. The health of his patients, particularly their exits and entrances, seemed designed to annoy him.\n\n'She would have died from the cord around her neck. I arrived at Fox Corner in the nick of time. Literally.' Dr Fellowes held up his surgical scissors for Sylvie's admiration. They were small and neat and their sharp points curved upwards at the end. 'Snip, snip,' he said. Sylvie made a mental note, a small, vague one, given her exhaustion and the circumstances of it, to buy just such a pair of scissors, in case of similar emergency. (Unlikely, it was true.) Or a knife, a good sharp knife to be carried on one's person at all times, like the robber-girl in _The Snow Queen_.\n\n'You were lucky I got here in time,' Dr Fellowes said. 'Before the snow closed the roads. I called for Mrs Haddock, the midwife, but I believe she is stuck somewhere outside Chalfont St Peter.'\n\n'Mrs _Haddock_?' Sylvie said and frowned. Bridget laughed out loud and then quickly mumbled, 'Sorry, sorry, sir.' Sylvie supposed that she and Bridget were both on the edge of hysteria. Hardly surprising.\n\n'Bog Irish,' Dr Fellowes muttered.\n\n'Bridget's only a scullery maid, a child herself. I am very grateful to her. It all happened so quickly.' Sylvie thought how much she wanted to be alone, how she was never alone. 'You must stay until morning, I suppose, doctor,' she said reluctantly.\n\n'Well, yes, I suppose I must,' Dr Fellowes said, equally reluctantly.\n\nSylvie sighed and suggested that he help himself to a glass of brandy in the kitchen. And perhaps some ham and pickles. 'Bridget will see to you.' She wanted rid of him. He had delivered all three (three!) of her children and she did not like him one bit. Only a husband should see what he saw. Pawing and poking with his instruments in her most delicate and secretive places. (But would she rather have a midwife called Mrs Haddock deliver her child?) Doctors for women should all be women themselves. Little chance of that.\n\nDr Fellowes lingered, humming and hawing, overseeing the washing and wrapping of the new arrival by a hot-faced Bridget. Bridget was the eldest of seven so she knew how to swaddle an infant. She was fourteen years old, ten years younger than Sylvie. When Sylvie was fourteen she was still in short skirts, in love with her pony, Tiffin. Had no idea where babies came from, even on her wedding night she remained baffled. Her mother, Lottie, had hinted but had fallen shy of anatomical exactitude. Conjugal relations between man and wife seemed, mysteriously, to involve larks soaring at daybreak. Lottie was a reserved woman. Some might have said narcoleptic. Her husband, Sylvie's father, Llewellyn Beresford, was a famous society artist but not at all Bohemian. No nudity or louche behaviour in his household. He had painted Queen Alexandra, when she was still a princess. Said she was very pleasant.\n\nThey lived in a good house in Mayfair, while Tiffin was stabled in a mews near Hyde Park. In darker moments, Sylvie was wont to cheer herself up by imagining that she was back there in the sunny past, sitting neatly in her side-saddle on Tiffin's broad little back, trotting along Rotten Row on a clean spring morning, the blossom bright on the trees.\n\n'How about some hot tea and a nice bit of buttered toast, Mrs Todd?' Bridget said.\n\n'That would be lovely, Bridget.'\n\nThe baby, bandaged like a Pharaonic mummy, was finally passed to Sylvie. Softly, she stroked the peachy cheek and said, 'Hello, little one,' and Dr Fellowes turned away so as not to be a witness to such syrupy demonstrations of affection. He would have all children brought up in a new Sparta if it were up to him.\n\n'Well, perhaps a little cold collation wouldn't go amiss,' he said. 'Is there, by chance, any of Mrs Glover's excellent piccalilli?'\n\n# Four Seasons Fill the Measure of the Year\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nSylvie was woken by a dazzling sliver of sunlight piercing the curtains like a shining silver sword. She lay languidly in lace and cashmere as Mrs Glover came into the room, proudly bearing a huge breakfast tray. Only an occasion of some importance seemed capable of drawing Mrs Glover this far out of her lair. A single, half-frozen snowdrop drooped in the bud vase on the tray. 'Oh, a snowdrop!' Sylvie said. 'The first flower to raise its poor head above the ground. How brave it is!'\n\nMrs Glover, who did not believe that flowers were capable of courage, or indeed any other character trait, laudable or otherwise, was a widow who had only been with them at Fox Corner a few weeks. Before her advent there had been a woman called Mary who slouched a great deal and burnt the roasts. Mrs Glover tended, if anything, to undercook food. In the prosperous household of Sylvie's childhood, Cook was called 'Cook' but Mrs Glover preferred 'Mrs Glover'. It made her irreplaceable. Sylvie still stubbornly thought of her as Cook.\n\n'Thank you, Cook.' Mrs Glover blinked slowly like a lizard. 'Mrs Glover,' Sylvie corrected herself.\n\nMrs Glover set the tray down on the bed and opened the curtains. The light was extraordinary, the black bat vanquished.\n\n'So bright,' Sylvie said, shielding her eyes.\n\n'So much snow,' Mrs Glover said, shaking her head in what could have been wonder or aversion. It was not always easy to tell with Mrs Glover.\n\n'Where is Dr Fellowes?' Sylvie asked.\n\n'There was an emergency. A farmer trampled by a bull.'\n\n'How dreadful.'\n\n'Some men came from the village and tried to dig his automobile out but in the end my George came and gave him a ride.'\n\n'Ah,' Sylvie said, as if suddenly understanding something that had puzzled her.\n\n'And they call it horsepower,' Mrs Glover snorted, bull-like herself. 'That's what comes of relying on new-fangled machines.'\n\n'Mm,' Sylvie said, reluctant to argue with such strongly held views. She was surprised that Dr Fellowes had left without examining either herself or the baby.\n\n'He looked in on you. You were asleep,' Mrs Glover said. Sylvie sometimes wondered if Mrs Glover was a mind-reader. A perfectly horrible thought.\n\n'He ate his breakfast first,' Mrs Glover said, displaying both approval and disapproval in the same breath. 'The man has an appetite, that's for sure.'\n\n'I could eat a horse,' Sylvie laughed. She couldn't, of course. Tiffin popped briefly into her mind. She picked up the silver cutlery, heavy like weapons, ready to tackle Mrs Glover's devilled kidneys. 'Lovely,' she said (were they?) but Mrs Glover was already busy inspecting the baby in the cradle. ('Plump as a suckling pig.') Sylvie idly wondered if Mrs Haddock was still stuck somewhere outside Chalfont St Peter.\n\n'I hear the baby nearly died,' Mrs Glover said.\n\n'Well...' Sylvie said. Such a fine line between living and dying. Her own father, the society portraitist, slipped on an Isfahan rug on a first-floor landing after some fine cognac one evening. The next morning he was discovered dead at the foot of the stairs. No one had heard him fall or cry out. He had just begun a portrait of the Earl of Balfour. Never finished. Obviously.\n\nAfterwards it turned out that he had been more profligate with his money than mother and daughter realized. A secret gambler, markers all over town. He had made no provision at all for unexpected death and soon there were creditors crawling over the nice house in Mayfair. A house of cards as it turned out. Tiffin had to go. Broke Sylvie's heart, the grief greater than any she felt for her father.\n\n'I thought his only vice was women,' her mother said, roosting temporarily on a packing case as if modelling for a piet\u00e0.\n\nThey sank into genteel and well-mannered poverty. Sylvie's mother grew pale and uninteresting, larks soared no more for her as she faded, consumed by consumption. Seventeen-year-old Sylvie was rescued from becoming an artist's model by a man she met at the post-office counter. Hugh. A rising star in the prosperous world of banking. The epitome of bourgeois respectability. What more could a beautiful but penniless girl hope for?\n\nLottie died with less fuss than was expected and Hugh and Sylvie married quietly on Sylvie's eighteenth birthday. ('There,' Hugh said, 'now you will never forget the anniversary of our marriage.') They spent their honeymoon in France, a delightful _quinzaine_ in Deauville, before settling in semi-rural bliss near Beaconsfield in a house that was vaguely Lutyens in style. It had everything one could ask for \u2013 a large kitchen, a drawing room with French windows on to the lawn, a pretty morning room and several bedrooms waiting to be filled with children. There was even a little room at the back of the house for Hugh to use as a study. 'Ah, my growlery,' he laughed.\n\nIt was surrounded at a discreet distance by similar houses. There was a meadow and a copse and a bluebell wood beyond with a stream running through it. The train station, no more than a halt, would allow Hugh to be at his banker's desk in less than an hour.\n\n'Sleepy hollow,' Hugh laughed as he gallantly carried Sylvie across the threshold. It was a relatively modest dwelling (nothing like Mayfair) but nonetheless a little beyond their means, a fiscal recklessness that surprised them both.\n\n'We should give the house a name,' Hugh said. 'The Laurels, the Pines, the Elms.'\n\n'But we have none of those in the garden,' Sylvie pointed out. They were standing at the French windows of the newly purchased house, looking at a swathe of overgrown lawn. 'We must get a gardener,' Hugh said. The house itself was echoingly empty. They had not yet begun to fill it with the Voysey rugs and Morris fabrics and all the other aesthetic comforts of a twentieth-century house. Sylvie would have quite happily lived in Liberty's rather than the as-yet-to-be-named marital home.\n\n'Greenacres, Fairview, Sunnymead?' Hugh offered, putting his arm around his bride.\n\n'No.'\n\nThe previous owner of their unnamed house had sold up and gone to live in Italy. 'Imagine,' Sylvie said dreamily. She had been to Italy when she was younger, a grand tour with her father while her mother went to Eastbourne for her lungs.\n\n'Full of Italians,' Hugh said dismissively.\n\n'Quite. That's rather the attraction,' Sylvie said, unwinding herself from his arm.\n\n'The Gables, the Homestead?'\n\n'Do stop,' Sylvie said.\n\nA fox appeared out of the shrubbery and crossed the lawn. 'Oh, look,' Sylvie said. 'How tame it seems, it must have grown used to the house being unoccupied.'\n\n'Let's hope the local hunt isn't following on its heels,' Hugh said. 'It's a scrawny beast.'\n\n'It's a vixen. She's a nursing mother, you can see her teats.'\n\nHugh blinked at such blunt terminology falling from the lips of his recently virginal bride. (One presumed. One hoped.)\n\n'Look,' Sylvie whispered. Two small cubs sprang out on to the grass and tumbled over each other in play. 'Oh, they're such handsome little creatures!'\n\n'Some might say vermin.'\n\n'Perhaps they see _us_ as verminous,' Sylvie said. 'Fox Corner \u2013 that's what we should call the house. No one else has a house with that name and shouldn't that be the point?'\n\n'Really?' Hugh said doubtfully. 'It's a little whimsical, isn't it? It sounds like a children's story. _The House at Fox Corner_.'\n\n'A little whimsy never hurt anyone.'\n\n'Strictly speaking though,' Hugh said, 'can a house _be_ a corner? Isn't it _at_ one?'\n\nSo this is marriage, Sylvie thought.\n\nTwo small children peered cautiously round the door. 'Here you are,' Sylvie said, smiling. 'Maurice, Pamela, come and say hello to your new sister.'\n\nWarily, they approached the cradle and its contents as if unsure as to what it might contain. Sylvie remembered a similar feeling when viewing her father's body in its elaborate oak and brass coffin (charitably paid for by fellow members of the Royal Academy). Or perhaps it was Mrs Glover they were chary of.\n\n'Another girl,' Maurice said gloomily. He was five, two years older than Pamela and the man of the family for as long as Hugh was away. 'On business,' Sylvie informed people although in fact he had crossed the Channel post-haste to rescue his foolish youngest sister from the clutches of the married man with whom she had eloped to Paris.\n\nMaurice poked a finger in the baby's face and she woke up and squawked in alarm. Mrs Glover pinched Maurice's ear. Sylvie winced but Maurice accepted the pain stoically. Sylvie thought that she really must have a word with Mrs Glover when she was feeling stronger.\n\n'What are you going to call her?' Mrs Glover asked.\n\n'Ursula,' Sylvie said. 'I shall call her Ursula. It means little she-bear.'\n\nMrs Glover nodded non-committally. The middle classes were a law unto themselves. Her own strapping son was a straightforward George. 'Tiller of the soil, from the Greek,' according to the vicar who christened him and George was indeed a ploughman on the nearby Ettringham Hall estate farm, as if the very naming of him had formed his destiny. Not that Mrs Glover was much given to thinking about destiny. Or Greeks, for that matter.\n\n'Well, must be getting on,' Mrs Glover said. 'There'll be a nice steak pie for lunch. And an Egyptian pudding to follow.'\n\nSylvie had no idea what an Egyptian pudding was. She imagined pyramids.\n\n'We all have to keep up our strength,' Mrs Glover said.\n\n'Yes indeed,' Sylvie said. 'I should probably feed Ursula again for just the same reason!' She was irritated by her own invisible exclamation mark. For reasons she couldn't quite fathom, Sylvie often found herself impelled to adopt an overly cheerful tone with Mrs Glover, as if trying to restore some kind of natural balance of humours in the world.\n\nMrs Glover couldn't suppress a slight shudder at the sight of Sylvie's pale, blue-veined breasts surging forth from her foamy lace peignoir. She hastily shooed the children ahead of her out of the room. 'Porridge,' she announced grimly to them.\n\n*\n\n'God surely wanted this baby back,' Bridget said when she came in later that morning with a cup of steaming beef tea.\n\n'We have been tested,' Sylvie said, 'and found not wanting.'\n\n'This time,' Bridget said.\n\n# _May 1910_\n\n'A telegram,' Hugh said, coming unexpectedly into the nursery and ruffling Sylvie out of the pleasant doze she had fallen into while feeding Ursula. She quickly covered herself up and said, 'A telegram? Is someone dead?' for Hugh's expression hinted at catastrophe.\n\n'From Wiesbaden.'\n\n'Ah,' Sylvie said. 'Izzie has had her baby then.'\n\n'If only the bounder hadn't been married,' Hugh said. 'He could have made an honest woman of my sister.'\n\n'An honest woman?' Sylvie mused. 'Is there such a thing?' (Did she say that out loud?) 'And anyway, she's so very _young_ to be married.'\n\nHugh frowned. It made him seem more handsome. 'Only two years younger than you when you married me,' he said.\n\n'Yet so much older somehow,' Sylvie murmured. 'Is all well? Is the baby well?'\n\nIt had turned out that Izzie was already noticeably _enceinte_ by the time Hugh caught up with her and dragged her on to the boat train back from Paris. Adelaide, her mother, said she would have preferred it if Izzie had been kidnapped by white slave traders rather than throwing herself into the arms of debauchery with such enthusiasm. Sylvie found the idea of the white slave trade rather attractive \u2013 imagined herself being carried off by a desert sheikh on an Arabian steed and then lying on a cushioned divan, dressed in silks and veils, eating sweetmeats and sipping on sherbets to the bubbling sound of rills and fountains. (She expected it wasn't really like that.) A harem of women seemed like an eminently good idea to Sylvie \u2013 sharing the burden of a wife's duties and so on.\n\nAdelaide, heroically Victorian in her attitudes, had barred the door, literally, at the sight of her youngest daughter's burgeoning belly and dispatched her back across the Channel to wait out her shame abroad. The baby would be adopted as swiftly as possible. 'A respectable German couple, unable to have their own child,' Adelaide said. Sylvie tried to imagine giving away a child. ('And will we never hear of it again?' she puzzled. 'I certainly hope not,' Adelaide said.) Izzie was now to be packed off to a finishing school in Switzerland, even though it seemed she was already finished, in more ways than one.\n\n'A boy,' Hugh said, waving the telegram like a flag. 'Bouncing, etcetera.'\n\nUrsula's own first spring had unfurled. Lying in her pram beneath the beech tree, she had watched the patterns that the light made flickering through the tender green leaves as the breeze delicately swayed the branches. The branches were arms and the leaves were like hands. The tree danced for her. _Rock-a-bye baby_ , Sylvie crooned to her, _in the tree-top_.\n\n_I had a little nut tree_ , Pamela sang lispingly, _and nothing would it bear, but a silver nutmeg and a golden pear_.\n\nA tiny hare dangled from the hood of the carriage, twirling around, the sun glinting off its silver skin. The hare sat upright in a little basket and had once adorned the top of the infant Sylvie's rattle, the rattle itself, like Sylvie's childhood, long since gone.\n\nBare branches, buds, leaves \u2013 the world as she knew it came and went before Ursula's eyes. She observed the turn of seasons for the first time. She was born with winter already in her bones, but then came the sharp promise of spring, the fattening of the buds, the indolent heat of summer, the mould and mushroom of autumn. From within the limited frame of the pram hood she saw it all. To say nothing of the somewhat random embellishments the seasons brought with them \u2013 sun, clouds, birds, a stray cricket ball arcing silently overhead, a rainbow once or twice, rain more often than she would have liked. (There was sometimes a tardiness to rescuing her from the elements.)\n\nOnce there had even been the stars and a rising moon \u2013 astonishing and terrifying in equal measure \u2013 when she had been forgotten one autumn evening. Bridget was castigated. The pram was outside, whatever the weather, for Sylvie had inherited a fixation with fresh air from her own mother, Lottie, who when younger had spent some time in a Swiss sanatorium, spending her days wrapped in a rug, sitting on an outdoor terrace, gazing passively at snowy Alpine peaks.\n\nThe beech shed its leaves, papery bronze drifts filling the sky above her head. One boisterously windy November day a threatening figure appeared, peering into the baby carriage. Maurice, making faces at Ursula and chanting, 'Goo, goo, goo,' before prodding the blankets with a stick. 'Stupid baby,' he said before proceeding to bury her beneath a soft pile of leaves. She started to fall asleep again beneath her new leafy cover but then a hand suddenly swatted Maurice's head and he yelled, 'Ow!' and disappeared. The silver hare pirouetted round and round and a big pair of hands plucked her from the pram and Hugh said, 'Here she is,' as if she had been lost.\n\n'Like a hedgehog in hibernation,' he said to Sylvie.\n\n'Poor old thing,' she laughed.\n\nWinter came again. She recognized it from the first time around.\n\n# _June 1914_\n\nUrsula entered her fifth summer without further mishap. Her mother was relieved that the baby, despite (or perhaps because of) her daunting start in life, grew, thanks to Sylvie's robust regime (or perhaps in spite of it) into a steady-seeming sort of child. Ursula didn't think too much, the way Pamela sometimes did, nor did she think too little, as was Maurice's wont.\n\n_A little soldier_ , Sylvie thought as she watched Ursula trooping along the beach in the wake of Maurice and Pamela. How small they all looked \u2013 they _were_ small, she knew that \u2013 but sometimes Sylvie was taken by surprise by the breadth of her feelings for her children. The smallest, newest, of them all \u2013 Edward \u2013 was confined to a wicker Moses basket next to her on the sand and had not yet learned to cry havoc.\n\nThey had taken a house in Cornwall for a month. Hugh stayed for the first week and Bridget for the duration. Bridget and Sylvie managed the cooking between them (rather badly) as Sylvie gave Mrs Glover the month off so that she could go and stay in Salford with one of her sisters who had lost a son to diphtheria. Sylvie sighed with relief as she stood on the platform and watched Mrs Glover's broad back disappearing inside the railway carriage. 'You had no need to see her off,' Hugh said.\n\n'For the pleasure of seeing her go,' Sylvie said.\n\nThere was hot sun and boisterous sea breezes and a hard unfamiliar bed in which Sylvie lay undisturbed all night long. They bought meat pies and fried potatoes and apple turnovers and ate them sitting on a rug on the sand with their backs against the rocks. The rental of a beach hut took care of the always tricky problem of how to feed a baby in public. Sometimes Bridget and Sylvie took off their boots and daringly dabbled their toes in the water, other times they sat on the sand beneath enormous sunshades and read their books. Sylvie was reading Conrad, while Bridget had a copy of _Jane Eyre_ that Sylvie had given her as she had not thought to bring one of her usual thrilling gothic romances. Bridget proved to be an animated reader, frequently gasping in horror or stirred to disgust and, at the end, delight. It made _The Secret Agent_ seem quite dry by comparison.\n\nShe was also an inland creature and spent a lot of time fretting about whether the tide was coming in or going out, seemingly incapable of understanding its predictability. 'It changes a little every day,' Sylvie explained patiently.\n\n'But what on earth for?' a baffled Bridget asked.\n\n'Well...' Sylvie had absolutely no idea. 'Why not?' she concluded crisply.\n\nThe children were returning from fishing with their nets in the rock pools at the far end of the beach. Pamela and Ursula stopped halfway along and began to paddle at the water's edge but Maurice picked up the pace, sprinting towards Sylvie before flinging himself down in a flurry of sand. He was holding a small crab by its claw and Bridget screeched in alarm at the sight of it.\n\n'Any meat pies left?' he asked.\n\n'Manners, Maurice,' Sylvie admonished. He was going to boarding school after the summer. She was rather relieved.\n\n'Come on, let's go and jump over the waves,' Pamela said. Pamela was bossy but in a nice way and Ursula was nearly always happy to fall in with her plans and even if she wasn't she still went along with them.\n\nA hoop bowled past them along the sand, as if blown by the wind, and Ursula wanted to run after it and reunite it with its owner, but Pamela said, 'No, come on, let's paddle,' and so they put their nets down on the sand and waded into the surf. It was a mystery that no matter how hot they were in the sun the water was always freezing. They yelped and squealed as usual before holding hands and waiting for the waves to come. When they did they were disappointingly small, no more than a ripple with a lacy frill. So they waded out further.\n\nThe waves weren't waves at all now, just the surge and tug of a swell that lifted them and then moved on past them. Ursula gripped hard on to Pamela's hand whenever the swell approached. The water was already up to her waist. Pamela pushed further out into the water, a figurehead on a prow, ploughing through the buffeting waves. The water was up to Ursula's armpits now and she started to cry and pull on Pamela's hand, trying to stop her from going any further. Pamela glanced back at her and said, 'Careful, you'll make us both fall over,' and so didn't see the huge wave cresting behind her. Within a heartbeat, it had crashed over both of them, tossing them around as lightly as though they were leaves.\n\nUrsula felt herself being pulled under, deeper and deeper, as if she were miles out to sea, not within sight of the shore. Her little legs bicycled beneath her, trying to find purchase on the sand. If she could just stand up and fight the waves, but there was no longer any sand to stand on and she began to choke on water, thrashing around in panic. Someone would come, surely? Bridget or Sylvie, and save her. Or Pamela \u2013 where was she?\n\nNo one came. And there was only water. Water and more water. Her helpless little heart was beating wildly, a bird trapped in her chest. A thousand bees buzzed in the curled pearl of her ear. No breath. A drowning child, a bird dropped from the sky.\n\nDarkness fell.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nBridget removed the breakfast tray and Sylvie said, 'Oh, leave the little snowdrop. Here, put it on my bedside table.' She kept the baby with her too. The fire was blazing now and the bright snow-light from the window seemed both cheerful and oddly portentous at the same time. The snow was drifting against the walls of the house, pressing in on them, burying them. They were cocooned. She imagined Hugh tunnelling heroically through the snow to reach home. He had been away three days now, looking for his sister, Isobel. Yesterday (how long ago that seemed now) a telegram had arrived from Paris, saying, THE QUARRY HAS GONE TO GROUND STOP AM IN PURSUIT STOP, although Hugh was not really a hunting man. She must send her own telegram. What should she say? Something cryptic. Hugh liked puzzles. WE WERE FOUR STOP YOU ARE GONE BUT WE ARE STILL FOUR STOP (Bridget and Mrs Glover did not count in Sylvie's tally). Or something more prosaic. BABY HAS ARRIVED STOP ALL WELL STOP. Were they? All well? The baby had nearly died. She had been deprived of air. What if she wasn't quite right? They had triumphed over death this night. Sylvie wondered when death would seek his revenge.\n\nSylvie finally fell asleep and dreamed that she had moved to a new house and was looking for her children, roaming the unfamiliar rooms, shouting their names, but she knew they had disappeared for ever and would never be found. She woke with a start and was relieved to see that at least the baby was still by her side in the great white snowfield of the bed. The baby. Ursula. Sylvie had had the name ready, Edward if it had turned out to be a boy. The naming of children was her preserve, Hugh seemed indifferent to what they were called although Sylvie supposed he had his limits. Scheherazade perhaps. Or Guinevere.\n\nUrsula opened her milky eyes and seemed to fix her gaze on the weary snowdrop. _Rock-a-bye baby_ , Sylvie crooned. How calm the house was. How deceptive that could be. One could lose everything in the blink of an eye, the slip of a foot. 'One must avoid dark thoughts at all costs,' she said to Ursula.\n\n# War\n\n# _June 1914_\n\nMr Winton \u2013 Archibald \u2013 had set up his easel on the sand and was attempting to render a seascape in watery marine smears of blue and green \u2013 Prussians and Cobalt Blues, Viridian and Terre Verte. He daubed a couple of rather vague seagulls in the sky, sky that was virtually indistinguishable from the waves below. He imagined showing the picture on his return home, saying, 'In the style of the Impressionists, you know.'\n\nMr Winton, a bachelor, was by profession a senior clerk in a factory in Birmingham that manufactured pins but was a romantic by nature. He was a member of a cycling club and every Sunday tried to wheel as far away from Birmingham's smogs as he could, and he took his annual holiday by the sea so that he could breathe hospitable air and think himself an artist for a week.\n\nHe thought he might try to put some figures in his painting, it would give it a bit of life and 'movement', something his night-school teacher (he took an art class) had encouraged him to introduce into his work. Those two little girls down at the sea's edge would do. Their sunhats meant he wouldn't need to try and capture their features, a skill he hadn't yet quite mastered.\n\n'Come on, let's go and jump the waves,' Pamela said.\n\n'Oh,' Ursula said, hanging back. Pamela took her hand and dragged her into the water. 'Don't be a silly.' The closer she got to the water the more Ursula began to panic until she was swamped with fear but Pamela laughed and splashed her way into the water and she could only follow. She tried to think of something that would make Pamela want to return to the beach \u2013 a treasure map, a man with a puppy \u2013 but it was too late. A huge wave rose, curling above their heads, and came crashing over them, sending them down, down into the watery world.\n\nSylvie was startled to look up from her book and see a man, a stranger, walking towards her along the sand with one of her girls tucked under each arm, as if he was carrying geese or chickens. The girls were sopping wet and tearful. 'Went out a bit too far,' the man said. 'But they'll be fine.'\n\nThey treated their rescuer, a Mr Winton, a clerk ('senior') to tea and cakes in a hotel that overlooked the sea. 'It's the least I can do,' Sylvie said. 'You have ruined your boots.'\n\n'It was nothing,' Mr Winton said modestly.\n\n'Oh, no, it was most definitely _something_ ,' Sylvie said.\n\n'Glad to be back?' Hugh beamed, greeting them on the station platform.\n\n'Are you glad to have us back?' Sylvie said, somewhat combatively.\n\n'There's a surprise for you at home,' Hugh said. Sylvie didn't like surprises, they all knew that.\n\n'Guess,' Hugh said.\n\nThey guessed a new puppy which was a far cry from the Petter engine that Hugh had had installed in the cellar. They all trooped down the steep stone staircase and stared at its oily throbbing presence, its rows of glass accumulators. 'Let there be light,' Hugh said.\n\nIt would be a long time before any of them were able to snap a light switch without expecting to be blown up. Light was all it could manage, of course. Bridget had hoped for a vacuum cleaner to replace her Ewbank but there wasn't enough voltage. 'Thank goodness,' Sylvie said.\n\n# _July 1914_\n\nFrom the open French windows Sylvie watched Maurice erecting a makeshift tennis net, which mostly seemed to involve whacking everything in sight with a mallet. Small boys were a mystery to Sylvie. The satisfaction they gained from throwing sticks or stones for hours on end, the obsessive collection of inanimate objects, the brutal destruction of the fragile world around them, all seemed at odds with the men they were supposed to become.\n\nNoisy chatter in the hallway announced the jaunty arrival of Margaret and Lily, once schoolfriends and now infrequent acquaintances, bearing gaily beribboned gifts for the new baby, Edward.\n\nMargaret was an artist, militantly unmarried, conceivably someone's mistress, a scandalous possibility that Sylvie hadn't mentioned to Hugh. Lily was a Fabian, a society suffragette who risked nothing for her beliefs. Sylvie thought of women being restrained while tubes were pushed down their throats and raised a reassuring hand to her own lovely white neck. Lily's husband, Cavendish (the name of a hotel, not a man, surely), had once cornered Sylvie at a tea-dance, pressing her up against a pillar with his goatish, cigar-scented body, suggesting something so outrageous that even now she felt hot with embarrassment at the thought of it.\n\n'Ah, the fresh air,' Lily exclaimed when Sylvie led them out into the garden. 'It's so _rural_ here.' They cooed like doves \u2013 or pigeons, that lesser species \u2013 over the pram, admiring the baby almost as much as they applauded Sylvie's svelte figure.\n\n'I'll ring for tea,' Sylvie said, already tired.\n\n*\n\nThey had a dog. A big, brindled French mastiff called Bosun. 'The name of Byron's dog,' Sylvie said. Ursula had no idea who the mysterious Byron was but he showed no interest in reclaiming his dog from them. Bosun had soft loose furry skin that rolled beneath Ursula's fingers and his breath smelt of the scrag-end that Mrs Glover, to her disgust, had to stew for him. He was a good dog, Hugh said, a responsible dog, the kind that pulled people from burning buildings and rescued them from drowning.\n\nPamela liked to dress Bosun up in an old bonnet and shawl and pretend that he was her baby, although they had a real baby now \u2013 a boy, Edward. Everyone called him Teddy. Their mother seemed taken by surprise by the new baby. 'I don't know where he came from.' Sylvie had a laugh like a hiccup. She was taking tea on the lawn with two schoolfriends 'from her London days' who had come to inspect the new arrival. All three of them wore lovely flimsy dresses and big straw hats and sat in the wicker chairs, drinking tea and eating Mrs Glover's sherry cake. Ursula and Bosun sat on the grass a polite distance away, hoping for crumbs.\n\nMaurice had put up a net and was trying, not very enthusiastically, to teach Pamela how to play tennis. Ursula was occupied in making a daisy-chain coronet for Bosun. She had stubby, clumsy fingers. Sylvie had the long, deft fingers of an artist or a pianist. She played on the piano in the drawing room ('Chopin'). Sometimes they sang rounds after tea but Ursula never managed to sing her part at the right time. ('What a dolt,' Maurice said. 'Practice makes perfect,' Sylvie said.) When she opened the lid of the piano there was a smell that was like the insides of old suitcases. It reminded Ursula of her grandmother, Adelaide, who spent her days swathed in black, sipping Madeira.\n\nThe new arrival was tucked away in the huge baby carriage under the big beech tree. They had all been occupants of this magnificence but none of them could remember it. A little silver hare dangled from the hood and the baby was cosy beneath a coverlet 'embroidered by nuns', although no one ever explained who these nuns were and why they had spent their days embroidering small yellow ducks.\n\n'Edward,' one of Sylvie's friends said. 'Teddy?'\n\n'Ursula and Teddy. My two little bears,' Sylvie said and laughed her hiccup laugh. Ursula wasn't at all sure about being a bear. She would rather be a dog. She lay down on her back and stared up at the sky. Bosun groaned mightily and stretched out beside her. Swallows were knifing recklessly through the blue. She could hear the delicate chink of cups on saucers, the creak and clatter of a lawn-mower being pushed by Old Tom in the Coles' garden next door, and could smell the peppery-sweet perfume of the pinks in the border and the heady green of new-mown grass.\n\n'Ah,' said one of Sylvie's London friends, stretching out her legs and revealing graceful white-stockinged ankles. 'A long, hot summer. Isn't it delicious?'\n\nThe peace was broken by a disgusted Maurice throwing his racquet on to the grass where it bounced with a thump and a squeak. 'I can't teach her \u2013 she's a girl!' he yelled and stalked off into the shrubbery where he began to bash things with a stick, although in his head he was in the jungle with a machete. He was going to boarding school after the summer. It was the same school that Hugh had been to, and his father before _him_. ('And so on, back to the Conquest probably,' Sylvie said.) Hugh said it would be 'the making' of Maurice but he seemed quite made already to Ursula. Hugh said when he first went to the school he cried himself to sleep every night and yet he seemed more than happy to subject Maurice to the same torture. Maurice puffed out his chest and declared that _he_ wouldn't cry.\n\n('And what about us?' a worried Pamela asked. 'Shall we have to go away to school?'\n\n'Not unless you're very naughty,' Hugh said, laughing.)\n\nA pink-cheeked Pamela balled up her fists and, planting them on her hips, roared, 'You're such a pig!' after Maurice's indifferent, retreating back. She made 'pig' sound like a much worse word than it was. Pigs were quite nice.\n\n'Pammy,' Sylvie said mildly. 'You sound like a fishwife.'\n\nUrsula edged nearer to the source of cake.\n\n'Oh, come here,' one of the women said to her, 'let me look at you.' Ursula tried to shy away but was held firmly in place by Sylvie. 'She's quite pretty, isn't she?' Sylvie's friend said. 'She takes after you, Sylvie.'\n\n'Fish have wives?' Ursula said to her mother and Sylvie's friends laughed, lovely bubbling laughs. 'What a funny little thing,' one of them said.\n\n'Yes, she's a real hoot,' Sylvie said.\n\n*\n\n'Yes, she's a real hoot,' Sylvie said.\n\n'Children,' Margaret said, 'they are droll, aren't they?'\n\nThey are so much more than that, Sylvie thought, but how do you explain the magnitude of motherhood to someone who has no children? Sylvie felt positively matronly in her present company, the friends of her brief girlhood curtailed by the relief of marriage.\n\nBridget came out with the tray and started to take away the tea things. In the mornings Bridget wore a striped print dress for housework but in the afternoons she changed into a black dress with white cuffs and collar and a matching white apron and little cap. She had been elevated out of the scullery. Alice had left to get married and Sylvie had engaged a girl from the village, Marjorie, a boss-eyed thirteen-year-old, to help with the rough work. ('We couldn't get by with just two of them?' Hugh queried mildly. 'Bridget and Mrs G? It's not as if they're running a mansion.'\n\n'No, we can't,' Sylvie said and that was the end of that.)\n\nThe little white cap was too big for Bridget and was forever slipping over her eyes, like a blindfold. On her way back across the lawn she was suddenly blinkered by the cap and tripped, a music-hall tumble that she rescued just in time and the only casualties were the silver sugar bowl and tongs that went shooting through the air, lumps of sugar scattering like blind dice across the green of the lawn. Maurice laughed extravagantly at Bridget's misfortune, and Sylvie said, 'Maurice, stop playing the fool.'\n\nShe watched as Bosun and Ursula picked up the jettisoned sugar lumps, Bosun with his big pink tongue, Ursula, eccentrically, with the tricky tongs. Bosun swallowed his quickly without chewing. Ursula sucked hers slowly, one by one. Sylvie suspected that Ursula was destined to be the odd one out. An only child herself, she was frequently disturbed by the complexity of sibling relationships among her own children.\n\n'You should come up to London,' Margaret said suddenly. 'Stay with me for a few days. We could have such fun.'\n\n'But the children,' Sylvie said. 'The baby. I can hardly leave them.'\n\n'Why not?' Lily said. 'Your nanny can manage for a few days, surely?'\n\n'But I have no nanny,' Sylvie said. Lily cast her eyes around the garden as if she was looking for a nanny lurking in the hydrangeas. 'Nor do I want one,' Sylvie added. (Or did she?) Motherhood was her responsibility, her destiny. It was, lacking anything else (and what else could there be?), her life. The future of England was clutched to Sylvie's bosom. Replacing her was not a casual undertaking, as if her absence meant little more than her presence. 'And I am feeding the baby myself,' she added. Both women seemed astonished. Lily unconsciously clasped a hand to her own bosom as if to protect it from assault.\n\n'It's what God intended,' Sylvie said, even though she hadn't believed in God since the loss of Tiffin. Hugh rescued her, striding across the lawn like a man with a purpose. He laughed and said, 'What's going on here then?' picking up Ursula and tossing her casually in the air, only stopping when she started to choke on a sugar lump. He smiled at Sylvie and said, 'Your friends,' as if she might have forgotten who they were.\n\n'Friday evening,' Hugh said, depositing Ursula back on the grass, 'the working man's labours are over and I believe the sun is officially over the yardarm. Would you lovely ladies like to move on to something stronger than tea? Gin slings perhaps?' Hugh had four younger sisters and felt comfortable with women. That in itself was enough to charm them. Sylvie knew his instincts were to chaperone, not to court, but she did occasionally wonder about his popularity and where it might lead. Or, indeed, have already led.\n\nA d\u00e9tente was brokered between Maurice and Pamela. Sylvie asked Bridget to drag a table out on to the small but useful terrace so that the children could eat their tea outside \u2013 herring roe on toast and a pink shape that was barely set and quivered without restraint. The sight of it made Sylvie feel slightly queasy. 'Nursery food,' Hugh said with relish, observing his children eating.\n\n'Austria has declared war on Serbia,' Hugh said conversationally and Margaret said, 'How silly. I spent a wonderful weekend in Vienna last year. At the Imperial, do you know it?'\n\n'Not intimately,' Hugh said.\n\nSylvie knew it but did not say so.\n\nThe evening turned into gossamer. Sylvie, drifting gently on a mist of alcohol, suddenly remembered her father's cognac-induced demise and clapped her hands as if killing a small annoying fly and said, 'Time for bed, children,' and watched as Bridget pushed the heavy pram awkwardly across the grass. Sylvie sighed and Hugh helped her up from her chair, bussing her cheek once she was on her feet.\n\nSylvie propped open the tiny skylight window in the baby's stuffy room. They called it the 'nursery' but it was no more than a box tucked into a corner of the eaves, airless in summer and freezing in winter, and thereby totally unsuitable for a tender infant. Like Hugh, Sylvie considered that children should be toughened up early, the better to take the blows in later life. (The loss of a nice house in Mayfair, a beloved pony, a faith in an omniscient deity.) She sat on the button-backed velvet nursing chair and fed Edward. 'Teddy,' she murmured fondly as he gulped and choked his way to sated sleep. Sylvie liked them all best as babies, when they were shiny and new, like the pink pads on a kitten's paw. This one was special though. She kissed the floss on his head.\n\nWords floated up in the soft air. 'All good things must come to an end,' she heard Hugh say as he escorted Lily and Margaret indoors to dinner. 'I believe the poetically inclined Mrs Glover has baked a skate. But first, perhaps you would care to see my Petter engine?' The women twittered like the silly schoolgirls they still were.\n\nUrsula was woken by an excited shouting and clapping of hands. 'Electricity!' she heard one of Sylvie's friends exclaim. 'How wonderful!'\n\nShe shared an attic room with Pamela. They had matching small beds with a rag rug and a bedside cabinet in between. Pamela slept with her arms above her head and sometimes cried out as if pricked with a pin (a horrible trick Maurice was fond of). On one side of the bedroom wall was Mrs Glover who snored like a train and on the other side Bridget muttered her way through the night. Bosun slept outside their door, always on guard even when asleep. Sometimes he whined softly but whether in pleasure or pain they couldn't tell. The attic floor was a crowded and unquiet sort of place.\n\nUrsula was woken again later by the visitors taking their leave. ('That child is an unnaturally light sleeper,' Mrs Glover said, as if it were a flaw in her character that should be corrected.) She climbed out of bed and padded over to the window. If she stood on a chair and looked out, something they were all expressly forbidden to do, then she could see Sylvie and her friends on the lawn below, their dresses fluttering like moths in the encroaching dusk. Hugh stood at the back gate, waiting to escort them along the lane to the station.\n\nSometimes Bridget walked the children to the station to meet their father off the train when he came home from work. Maurice said he might be an engine driver when he was older, or he might become an Antarctic explorer like Sir Ernest Shackleton who was about to set sail on his grand expedition. Or perhaps he would simply become a banker, like his father.\n\nHugh worked in London, a place they visited infrequently to spend stilted afternoons in their grandmother's drawing room in Hampstead, a quarrelsome Maurice and Pamela 'fraying' Sylvie's nerves so that she was always in a bad mood on the train home.\n\nWhen everyone had left, their voices fading into the distance, Sylvie walked back across the lawn towards the house, a darkening shadow now as the black bat unfolded his wings. Unseen by Sylvie, a fox trotted purposefully in her footsteps before veering off and disappearing into the shrubbery.\n\n'Did you hear something?' Sylvie asked. She was propped up on pillows, reading an early Forster. 'The baby perhaps?'\n\nHugh cocked his head to one side. For a moment he reminded Sylvie of Bosun.\n\n'No,' he said.\n\nThe baby slept all through the night usually. He was a cherub. But not in heaven. Thankfully.\n\n'The best one yet,' Hugh said.\n\n'Yes, I think we should keep this one.'\n\n'He doesn't look like me,' Hugh said.\n\n'No,' she agreed amiably. 'Nothing like you at all.'\n\nHugh laughed and, kissing her affectionately, said, 'Good night, I'm turning out my light.'\n\n'I think I'll read a little longer.'\n\n*\n\nOne afternoon of heat a few days later they went to watch the harvest being brought in.\n\nSylvie and Bridget walked across the fields with the girls, Sylvie carrying the baby in a sling that Bridget fashioned from her shawl and tied around Sylvie's torso. 'Like a Hibernian peasant,' Hugh said, amused. It was a Saturday and, freed from the gloomy confines of banking, he was lying on the wicker chaise-longue on the terrace at the back of the house, cradling _Wisden Cricketers' Almanack_ like a hymnal.\n\nMaurice had disappeared after breakfast. He was a nine-year-old boy and free to go where he pleased with whomsoever he pleased, although he tended to keep to the exclusive company of other nine-year-old boys. Sylvie had no idea what they did but at the end of the day he would return, filthy from head to toe and with some unappetizing trophy, a jar of frogs or worms, a dead bird, the bleached skull of some small creature.\n\nThe sun had long since started on its steep climb into the sky by the time they finally set off, awkwardly encumbered with the baby, and picnic baskets, sun-bonnets and parasols. Bosun trotted along at their side like a small pony. 'Goodness, we're burdened like refugees,' Sylvie said. 'The Jews leaving Israel, perhaps.'\n\n'Jews?' Bridget said, screwing up her plain features in distaste.\n\nTeddy slept throughout the trek in his makeshift papoose while they clambered over stiles and stumbled on muddy ruts made hard by the sun. Bridget tore her dress on a nail and said she had blisters on her feet. Sylvie wondered about removing her corsets and leaving them by the wayside, imagined someone's puzzlement when they came across them. She had a sudden memory, unexpected in the dazzling daylight in a field of cows, of Hugh unlacing her stays on honeymoon in their hotel in Deauville while sounds drifted in from the open window \u2013 gulls screeching on the wing and a man and a woman arguing in rough, rapid French. On the boat home from Cherbourg Sylvie was already carrying the tiny homunculus that would become Maurice, although she had been blissfully unaware of this fact at the time.\n\n'Ma'am?' Bridget said, breaking this reverie. 'Mrs Todd? They're not cows.'\n\n*\n\nThey stopped to admire George Glover's plough horses, enormous Shires called Samson and Nelson who snorted and shook their heads when they caught sight of company. They made Ursula nervous but Sylvie fed them an apple each and they picked the fruit delicately from her palm with their big pink-velvet lips. Sylvie said they were dappled greys and much more beautiful than people and Pamela said, 'Even children?' and Sylvie said, 'Yes, especially children,' and laughed.\n\nThey found George himself helping with the harvest. When he caught sight of them he strode across the field to greet them. 'Ma'am,' he said to Sylvie, removing his cap and wiping the sweat off his forehead with a big red and white spotted handkerchief. Tiny pieces of chaff were stuck to his arms. Like the chaff, the hairs on his arms were golden from the sun. 'It's hot,' he said unnecessarily. He looked at Sylvie from beneath the long lock of hair that always fell in his handsome blue eyes. Sylvie appeared to blush.\n\nAs well as their own lunch \u2013 bloater paste sandwiches, lemon curd sandwiches, ginger beer and seed cake \u2013 they had carried the remains of yesterday's pork pie that Mrs Glover had sent for George, along with a little jar of her famous piccalilli. The seed cake was already stale because Bridget had forgotten to put it back in the cake tin and it was left out in the warm kitchen overnight. 'I wouldn't be surprised if the ants had laid eggs in it,' Mrs Glover said. When it came to eating it, Ursula had to pick out the seeds, which were legion, checking each one to make sure it wasn't an ant egg.\n\nThe workers in the field stopped to have their lunch, bread and cheese and beer mainly. Bridget turned red and giggled as she handed over the pork pie to George. Pamela told Ursula that Maurice said Bridget had a pash on George, although it seemed to both of them that Maurice was an unlikely source of information on affairs of the heart. They ate their picnic at the edge of the stubble, George sprawled casually as he took great horse-sized bites out of the pork pie, Bridget gazing at him in admiration as if he were a Greek god, while Sylvie fussed with the baby.\n\nSylvie traipsed off to find a discreet spot in order to feed Teddy. Girls brought up in nice houses in Mayfair did not generally duck behind hedges to suckle infants. Like Hibernian peasants, no doubt. She thought fondly of the beach hut in Cornwall. By the time she found a suitable covert in the lee of a hedge, Teddy was bawling his head off, little pugilistic fists clenched against the injustice of the world. Just as he settled at the breast she happened to glance up and caught sight of George Glover coming out of the trees at the far end of the field. Spotting her, he stopped, staring at her like a startled deer. For a second he didn't move but then he doffed his cap and said, 'Still hot, ma'am.'\n\n'It certainly is,' Sylvie said briskly and then watched as George Glover hastened towards the five-bar gate that broke the hedgerow in the middle of the field and leapt over it as easily as a big hunter over a hurdle.\n\nFrom a safe distance they watched the enormous harvester noisily eating the wheat. 'Hypnotic, isn't it?' Bridget said. She had recently learned the word. Sylvie took out her pretty little gold fob watch, an article much coveted by Pamela, and said, 'Heavens above, look at the time,' although none of them did. 'We must be getting back.'\n\nJust as they were leaving, George Glover shouted, 'Heyathere!' and cantered towards them across the field. He was carrying something cuddled in his cap. Two baby rabbits. 'Oh,' Pamela said, tearful with excitement.\n\n'Conies,' George Glover said. 'All huddled up in the middle of the field. Their mother gone. Take them, why don't you? One each.'\n\nOn the way home, Pamela carried both baby rabbits in her pinafore, holding it out proudly in front of her like Bridget with a tea-tray.\n\n'Look at you,' Hugh said when they walked wearily through the garden gate. 'Golden and kissed by the sun. You look like real countrywomen.'\n\n'More red than gold, I'm afraid,' Sylvie said ruefully.\n\nThe gardener was at work. He was called Old Tom ('Like a cat,' Sylvie said. 'Do you think he was once called Young Tom?'). He worked six days a week, sharing his time between them and another house nearby. These neighbours, the Coles, addressed him as 'Mr Ridgely'. He gave no indication which he preferred. The Coles lived in a very similar house to the Todds' and Mr Cole, like Hugh, was a banker. 'Jewish,' Sylvie said in the same voice she would use for 'Catholic' \u2013 intrigued yet unsettled by such exoticism.\n\n'I don't think they practise,' Hugh said. Practise what, Ursula wondered? Pamela had to practise her piano scales every evening before tea, a _plinking_ and _plonking_ that wasn't very pleasant to listen to.\n\nMr Cole had been born with a quite different name, according to their eldest son, Simon, something far too complicated for English tongues. The middle son, Daniel, was friends with Maurice, for although the grown-ups weren't friends the children were familiar with each other. Simon, 'a swot' (Maurice said), helped Maurice every Monday evening with his maths. Sylvie was unsure how to reward him for this disagreeable task, perplexed seemingly by his Jewishness. 'Perhaps I might give him something that would offend them?' she speculated. 'If I give money they might think I'm referring to their well-known reputation for miserliness. If I give sweets they might not fit their dietary strictures.'\n\n'They don't practise,' Hugh repeated. 'They're not _observant_.'\n\n'Benjamin's very observant,' Pamela said. 'He found a blackbird's nest yesterday.' She glared at Maurice when she said this. He had come upon them marvelling at the beautiful eggs, blue and freckled brown, and had grabbed them and cracked them open on a stone. He thought it was a great joke. Pamela threw a small (well, smallish) rock at him that hit him on the head. 'There,' she said. 'How does it feel to have _your_ shell broken open?' Now he had a nasty cut and a bruise on his temple. 'Fell,' he said shortly when Sylvie enquired how he came by the injury. He would, by nature, have told on Pamela, but the initial sin would have come to light and Sylvie would have punished him soundly for breaking the eggs. She had caught him stealing eggs before now and had boxed his ears. Sylvie said they should 'revere' nature, not destroy it, but reverence was not in Maurice's own nature, unfortunately.\n\n'He's learning the violin, isn't he \u2013 Simon?' Sylvie said. 'Jews are usually very musical, aren't they? Perhaps I could give him some sheet music, something like that.' This discussion of the perils of offending Judaism had taken place around the breakfast table. Hugh always looked vaguely startled to find his children at the same table as him. He hadn't eaten breakfast with his parents until he was twelve years old and deemed fit to leave the nursery. He was the robust graduate of an efficient nanny, a household within a household in Hampstead. The infant Sylvie, on the other hand, had dined late, on _Canard \u00e0 la presse_ , perched precariously on cushions, lulled by flickering candles and twinkling silverware, while her parents' conversation floated above her head. It was not, she now suspected, an entirely regular childhood.\n\nOld Tom was double-digging a trench, he said, for a new asparagus bed. Hugh had long since abandoned _Wisden_ and had been picking raspberries to fill a big white enamel bowl that both Pamela and Ursula recognized as the one that Maurice had until recently been keeping tadpoles in, although neither of them mentioned this fact. Pouring himself a glass of beer, Hugh said, 'Thirsty work, this agricultural labour,' and they all laughed. Except for Old Tom.\n\nMrs Glover came out to demand that Old Tom dig up some potatoes to go with her beef collops. She huffed and puffed at the sight of the rabbits, 'Not enough even for a stew.' Pamela screamed and had to be calmed down with a sip of Hugh's beer.\n\nPamela and Ursula made a nest, in a lost corner of the garden, out of grass and cotton wool, decorated with fallen rose petals, and carefully placed the baby rabbits in it. Pamela sang them a lullaby, she could keep a tune nicely, but they had been asleep ever since George Glover had handed them over.\n\n'I think they might be too small,' Sylvie said. Too small for what? Ursula wondered but Sylvie didn't say.\n\nThey sat on the lawn and ate the raspberries with cream and sugar. Hugh looked up into the blue, blue sky and said, 'Did you hear that thunder? There's going to be a tremendous storm, I can feel it coming. Can't you, Old Tom?' he raised his voice so that Old Tom, far away in the vegetable bed, could hear. Hugh believed that, as a gardener, Old Tom must know about weather. Old Tom said nothing and carried on digging.\n\n'He's deaf,' Hugh said.\n\n'No, he isn't,' Sylvie said, making a Rose Madder by mashing raspberries, beautiful like blood, into thick cream, and she thought, unexpectedly, about George Glover. A son of the soil. His strong square hands, his beautiful dappled greys, like big rocking horses, and the way he had lolled on the grassy bank eating his lunch, posed rather like Michelangelo's Adam in the Sistine Chapel but reaching for another slice of pork pie rather than the hand of his Creator. (When Sylvie had accompanied her father, Llewellyn, to Italy she had been astonished by the amount of male flesh available to view as art.) She imagined feeding George Glover apples from her hand and laughed.\n\n'What?' Hugh said and Sylvie said, 'What a handsome boy George Glover is.'\n\n'He must be adopted then,' Hugh said.\n\nIn bed that night Sylvie abandoned Forster for less cerebral pursuits, entwining overheated limbs in the marital bed, more a panting hart than a soaring lark. She found herself thinking not of Hugh's smooth, wiry body but of the great burnished centaureal limbs of George Glover. 'You're very...' a spent Hugh said, gazing at the bedroom cornice as he searched for an appropriate word. 'Lively,' he concluded finally.\n\n'It must be all that fresh air,' Sylvie said.\n\nGolden and kissed by the sun, she thought as she drifted comfortably off to sleep and then Shakespeare came unwontedly to mind. _Golden lads and girls all must, \/ as chimney-sweepers, come to dust_ , and she felt suddenly afraid.\n\n'There's the storm rolling in at last,' Hugh said. 'Shall I turn out the light?'\n\nSylvie and Hugh were ejected from their Sunday-morning slumber by a wailing Pamela. She and Ursula had woken early with excitement and rushed outside to find that the rabbits had disappeared, only the fluffy pom-pom of one tiny tail remaining, white smudged with red.\n\n'Foxes,' Mrs Glover said, with some satisfaction. 'What did you expect?'\n\n# _January 1915_\n\n'Did you hear the latest news?' Bridget asked.\n\nSylvie sighed and put down the letter from Hugh, its pages as brittle as dead leaves. It was only a matter of months since he had left for the Front yet she could hardly remember being married to him any more. Hugh was a captain in the Ox and Bucks. Last summer he was a banker. It seemed absurd.\n\nHis letters were cheerful and guarded ( _the men are wonderful, they have such character_ ). He used to mention these men by name ('Bert', 'Alfred', 'Wilfred') but since the Battle of Ypres they had become simply 'men' and Sylvie wondered if Bert and Alfred and Wilfred were dead. Hugh never mentioned death or dying, it was as if they were away on a jaunt, a picnic ( _An awful lot of rain this week. Mud everywhere. Hope you are enjoying better weather than we are!_ ).\n\n'To war? You are going to war?' she had shouted at him when he enlisted and it struck her that she had never shouted at him before. Perhaps she should have.\n\nIf there was to be a war, Hugh explained to her, he didn't want to look back and know that he had missed it, that others had stepped forward for their country's honour and he had not. 'It may be the only adventure I ever have,' he said.\n\n'Adventure?' she echoed in disbelief. 'What about your children, what about your _wife_?'\n\n'But it's for you that I am doing this,' he said, looking exquisitely pained, a misunderstood Theseus. Sylvie disliked him intensely in that moment. 'To protect hearth and home,' he persisted. 'To defend everything we believe in.'\n\n'And yet I heard the word _adventure_ ,' Sylvie said, turning her back on him.\n\nNonetheless, she had, of course, gone up to London to see him off. They had been jostled by an enormous flag-waving throng who were cheering as if a great victory had already been won. Sylvie was surprised by the rabid patriotism of the women on the platform, surely war should make pacifists of all women?\n\nHugh had held her close to him as if they were new sweethearts and only jumped on the train at the very last moment. He was instantly swallowed by the crush of uniformed men. _His regiment_ , she thought. How odd. Like the crowd, he had seemed immensely, stupidly cheerful.\n\nWhen the train began to heave itself slowly out of the station the excitable crowd roared their approval, frantically waving their flags and throwing caps and hats in the air. Sylvie could only stare blindly at the carriage windows as they passed by, first slowly and then more and more rapidly until they were no more than a blur. She could see no sign of Hugh, nor, she supposed, could he see her.\n\nShe remained on the platform after everyone else had left, staring at the spot on the horizon where the train had disappeared.\n\nSylvie abandoned the letter and took up her knitting needles instead.\n\n' _Did_ you hear the news?' Bridget persisted. She was placing the cutlery on the tea-table. Sylvie frowned at the knitting on her needles and wondered if she wanted to hear any news that had Bridget as its provenance. She cast off a stitch on the raglan sleeve of the serviceable grey jersey that she was knitting for Maurice. All the women of the household now spent an inordinate amount of time knitting \u2013 mufflers and mittens, gloves and socks and hats, vests and sweaters \u2013 to keep their men warm.\n\nMrs Glover sat by the kitchen stove in the evening and knitted huge gloves, big enough to fit over the hooves of George's plough horses. They were not for Samson and Nelson, of course, but for George himself, one of the first to volunteer, Mrs Glover said proudly at every opportunity, making Sylvie quite crotchety. Even Marjorie, the scullery maid, had been taken by the knitting fad, labouring after lunch on something that looked like a dishcloth, although to call it 'knitting' was generous. 'More holes than wool' was Mrs Glover's verdict, before boxing her ears and telling her to get back to work.\n\nBridget had taken to making misshapen socks \u2013 she could not turn a heel for the life of her \u2013 for her new love. She had 'given her heart' to a groom from Ettringham Hall called Sam Wellington. 'Oh, for sure, he's an old boot,' she said and laughed her head off at her joke, several times a day, as if telling it for the first time. Bridget sent Sam Wellington sentimental postcards in which angels hovered in the air over women who wept while sitting at chenille-covered tables in domestic parlours. Sylvie had hinted to Bridget that perhaps she should send more cheerful missives to a man at war.\n\nBridget kept a photograph, a studio portrait, of Sam Wellington on her rather poorly appointed dressing table. It took pride of place next to the old enamelled brush and comb set that Sylvie had given her when Hugh had bought her a silver vanity set for her birthday.\n\nA similar obligatory likeness of George adorned Mrs Glover's bedside table. Trussed in uniform and uncomfortable before a studio backdrop that reminded Sylvie of the Amalfi coast, George Glover no longer resembled a Sistine Adam. Sylvie thought of all the enlisted men who had already undergone the same ritual, a keepsake for mothers and sweethearts, the only photograph that would ever be taken of some of them. 'He could be killed,' Bridget said of her beau, 'and I might forget what he looked like.' Sylvie had plenty of photographs of Hugh. He led a well-documented life.\n\nAll of the children, except for Pamela, were upstairs. Teddy was asleep in his cot, or perhaps he was awake in his cot, whichever state he was in, he was not complaining. Maurice and Ursula were doing Sylvie knew-not-what and was not interested in it as it meant that tranquillity reigned in the morning room, apart from the occasional suspicious thud on the ceiling and the metallic report of heavy pans in the kitchen where Mrs Glover was making her feelings about something known \u2013 the war or Marjorie's incompetence, or both.\n\nEver since the fighting on the continent began they had been taking their meals in the morning room, abandoning the Regency Revival dining table as too extravagant for wartime austerity and instead espousing the little parlour table. ('Not using the dining room isn't going to win the war,' Mrs Glover said.)\n\nSylvie gestured to Pamela who obediently followed her mother's mute orders and trailed round the table after Bridget, turning the cutlery the right way round. Bridget couldn't tell her right from her left or her up from her down.\n\nPamela's support for the expeditionary force had taken the form of a mass production of dun-coloured mufflers of extraordinary and impractical lengths. Sylvie was pleasantly surprised by her elder daughter's capacity for monotony. It would stand her in good stead for her life to come. Sylvie lost a stitch and muttered an oath that startled Pamela and Bridget. 'What news?' she asked at last, reluctantly.\n\n'Bombs have been dropped on Norfolk,' Bridget said, proud of her information.\n\n'Bombs?' Sylvie said, looking up from her knitting. 'In _Norfolk_?'\n\n'A Zeppelin raid,' Bridget said authoritatively. 'That's the Hun for you. They don't care who they kill. They're wicked, so they are. They eat Belgian babies.'\n\n'Well...' Sylvie said, hooking the lost stitch, 'that might be a slight exaggeration.'\n\nPamela hesitated, dessert fork in one hand, spoon in the other, as if she was about to attempt an attack on one of Mrs Glover's heavyweight puddings. 'Eat?' she echoed in horror. 'Babies?'\n\n'No,' Sylvie said crossly. 'Don't be silly.'\n\nMrs Glover shouted for Bridget from the depths of the kitchen and Bridget flew to her command. Sylvie could hear Bridget yelling, in turn, up the stairs to the other children, 'Yer tea is on the table!'\n\nPamela sighed the sigh of someone with a lifetime behind them already and sat at the table. She stared blankly at the cloth and said, 'I miss Daddy.'\n\n'Me too, darling,' Sylvie said. 'Me too. Now don't be a goose, go and tell the others to wash their hands.'\n\nAt Christmas, Sylvie had packaged up a great box of goods for Hugh: the inevitable socks and gloves; one of Pamela's endless mufflers and, as an antidote to this, a two-ply cashmere comforter knitted by Sylvie and baptized with her favourite perfume, La Rose Jacqueminot, to remind him of home. She imagined Hugh on the battlefield wearing the comforter next to his skin, a gallant jousting knight sporting a lady's favour. This daydream of chivalry was a comfort in itself, preferable to the glimpses of something darker. They had spent a wintry weekend in Broadstairs, bundled in gaiters, bodices and balaclavas, and heard the booming of the great guns across the water.\n\nThe Christmas box also contained a plum cake baked by Mrs Glover, a tin of somewhat misshapen peppermint creams made by Pamela, cigarettes, a bottle of good malt whisky and a book of poetry \u2013 an anthology of English verse, mostly pastoral and not too taxing \u2013 as well as little hand-made gifts from Maurice (a balsa-wood plane) and a drawing from Ursula of blue sky and green grass and the tiny distorted figure of a dog. 'Bosun,' Sylvie wrote helpfully across the top. She had no idea whether or not Hugh had received the box.\n\nChristmas was a dull affair. Izzie came and talked a great deal about nothing (or rather herself) before announcing that she had joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment and was leaving for France as soon as the festivities were over.\n\n'But, Izzie,' Sylvie said, 'you can't nurse or cook or type or do anything useful.' The words came out harsher than she intended, but really Izzie was such a cuckoo. ('Flibbertigibbet' was Mrs Glover's verdict.)\n\n'That's it then,' Bridget said when she heard of Izzie's call to alms, 'we'll have lost the war by Lent.' Izzie never mentioned her baby. He had been adopted in Germany and Sylvie supposed he was a German citizen. How strange that he was only a little younger than Ursula but, officially, he was the enemy.\n\nThen at New Year, one by one, all the children came down with chickenpox. Izzie was on the next train to London as soon as the first spot erupted on Pamela's face. So much for Florence Nightingale, Sylvie said irritably to Bridget.\n\nUrsula, despite her clumsy, stubby fingers, had now joined in the household's knitting frenzy. For Christmas she received a wooden French knitting doll called La Reine Solange which Sylvie said meant 'Queen Solange' although she was 'doubtful' that there ever was a Queen Solange in history. Queen Solange was painted in regal colours and wore an elaborate yellow crown, the points of which held her wool. Ursula was a devoted subject and spent all of her spare time, of which she had oceans at her disposal, creating long serpentine lengths of wool that had no purpose except to be coiled into mats and lopsided tea-cosies. ('Where are the holes for the spout and the handle?' Bridget puzzled.)\n\n'Lovely, dear,' Sylvie said, examining one of the little mats that was slowly uncurling in her hands, like something waking from a long sleep. 'Practice makes perfect, remember.'\n\n'Yer tea is on the table!'\n\nUrsula ignored the call. She was in thrall to majesty, sitting on her bed, features scrunched up in concentration as she hooked wool around Queen Solange's crown. It was an old bit of fawn worsted but 'needs must', Sylvie said.\n\nMaurice should have been back at school but his chickenpox had been the worst of all of them and his face was still covered in little scars as if a bird had pecked at him. 'Another few days at home, young man,' Dr Fellowes said, but, in Ursula's eyes, Maurice seemed bursting with rude health.\n\nHe paced restlessly round the room, bored as a caged lion. He found one of Pamela's slippers beneath the bed and kicked it around like a football. Then he picked up a china ornament, the figure of a crinolined lady that was precious to Pamela, and tossed it so high in the air that it glanced off the vaseline glass shade of the light with an alarming _ting_. Ursula dropped her knitting, her hands flying to her mouth in horror. The crinolined lady found a soft landing on the pouchy quilt of Pamela's satin eiderdown but not before Maurice had snatched up the discarded knitting doll instead and started running around with it, pretending it was an aeroplane. Ursula watched as poor Queen Solange flew round the room, the tail of wool that protruded from her innards streaming out behind her like a thin banner.\n\nAnd then Maurice did something truly wicked. He opened the attic window, letting in a blast of unwelcome cold air, and sent the little wooden doll soaring out into the hostile night.\n\nUrsula immediately hauled a chair over to the window, climbed aboard and peered out. Illuminated in the pool of light that flooded from the window, she spotted Queen Solange, stranded on the slates in the valley between the two attic roofs.\n\nMaurice, a Red Indian now, was jumping from one bed to the other, emitting war whoops. 'Yer tea is on the table!' Bridget bellowed more urgently from the foot of the stairs. Ursula ignored both of them, her heroine heart beating loudly as she clambered out of the window \u2013 no easy task \u2013 determined to rescue her sovereign. The slates were slick with ice and Ursula had barely placed her small, slippered foot on the slope beneath the window before it slid out from under her. She let out a little cry, held out a hand towards the knitting queen as she raced past her, feet first, a tobogganer without a toboggan. There was no parapet to buffer her descent, nothing at all to stop her being propelled into the black wings of night. A kind of rush, a thrill almost, as she was launched into the bottomless air and then nothing.\n\nDarkness fell.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nThe piccalilli was the lurid colour of jaundice. Dr Fellowes ate at the kitchen table by the light of an annoyingly smoky oil lamp. He smeared the piccalilli on to buttered bread and topped it with a thick slice of fatty ham. He thought of the flitch of bacon resting coolly in his own pantry. He had chosen the pig himself, pointing it out to the farmer, seeing not a living creature but an anatomy lesson \u2013 an assembly of loin chops and hock, cheek and belly and huge joints of gammon for boiling. Flesh. He thought of the baby he had rescued from the jaws of death with a snip of his surgical scissors. 'The miracle of life,' he said dispassionately to the rough little Irish maid. ('Bridget, sir.') 'I am to stay the rest of the night,' he added. 'On account of the snow.'\n\nHe could think of many places he would rather be than Fox Corner. Why was it called that? Why would you celebrate the habitation of such a wily beast? Dr Fellowes had ridden with the hunt, dashing in scarlet, when a young man. He wondered if the girl would skip into his room in the morning with a tray of tea and toast. Imagined her pouring hot water from the jug into the washbasin and soaping him down in front of the bedroom fire the way his mother had done, decades ago. Dr Fellowes was obstinately faithful to his wife but his thoughts roamed far and wide.\n\nBridget led him upstairs with a candle. The candle flared and flickered wildly as he followed the maid's scrawny backside up to a chilly guest room. She lit him his own candle on top of the pot cupboard and then disappeared into the dark maw of the hall with a hasty 'Good night, sir.'\n\nHe lay in the cold bed, the piccalilli repeating unpleasantly. He wished he was at home, next to the slack, warm body of Mrs Fellowes, a woman to whom nature had denied elegance and who always smelled vaguely of fried onions. Not necessarily a disagreeable thing.\n\n# War\n\n# _20 January 1915_\n\n'Will yer get a move on?' Bridget said crossly. She was standing impatiently in the doorway, holding Teddy. 'How many times do I have to tell you, _yer tea is on the table_.' Teddy squirmed in the tight brace of her arms. Maurice paid no heed, deeply involved as he was in the intricacies of a Red Indian war dance. 'Get down from that window, Ursula, for the love of God. And why is it open? It's freezing, you'll catch yer death.'\n\nUrsula had been about to plunge out of the window in Queen Solange's wake, intent on delivering her from the no man's land of the roof, when something made her hesitate. A little doubt, a faltering foot and the thought that the roof was very high and the night very wide. And then Pamela had appeared and said, 'Mummy says you're to wash your hands for tea,' closely followed by Bridget stomping up the stairs with her unyielding refrain, _Yer tea's on the table!_ and all hope of royal rescue was lost. 'And as for you, Maurice,' Bridget continued, 'you're little more than a savage.'\n\n'I _am_ a savage,' he said. 'I'm an Apache.'\n\n'You could be the King of the Hottentots as far as I'm concerned but YER TEA IS STILL ON THE TABLE.'\n\nMaurice gave a last defiant battle cry before clattering noisily down the stairs and Pamela used an old lacrosse-net tied on to a walking cane to trawl Queen Solange back from the icy depths of the roof.\n\nTea was a boiled chicken. Teddy had a coddled egg. Sylvie sighed. Many meals involved chickens in one way or another now that they kept their own. They had a henhouse and a wired run on what was to have been an asparagus bed before the war. Old Tom had left them now, although Sylvie heard that 'Mr Ridgely' still worked for their neighbours, the Coles. Perhaps, after all, he did not like being called 'Old Tom'.\n\n'This isn't one of our chickens, is it?' Ursula asked.\n\n'No, darling,' Sylvie said. 'It isn't.'\n\nThe chicken was tough and stringy. Mrs Glover's cooking hadn't been the same since George was injured in a gas attack. He was still in a field hospital in France and when Sylvie enquired how badly he was injured she said she didn't know. 'How awful,' Sylvie said. Sylvie thought that if she had a wounded son, far from home, she would have to go on a quest to find him. Nurse and heal her poor boy. Perhaps not Maurice, but Teddy, certainly. The thought of Teddy lying wounded and helpless made her eyes prick with tears.\n\n'Are you all right, Mummy?' Pamela asked.\n\n'Absolutely,' Sylvie said, fishing the wishbone out of the chicken carcass and offering it to Ursula, who said she didn't know how to wish. 'Well, generally speaking, we wish for our dreams to come true,' Sylvie said.\n\n'But not my dreams?' Ursula said, a look of alarm on her face.\n\n'But not my dreams?' Ursula said, thinking of the giant lawn-mower that chased her through the night and the Red Indian tribe that tied her to stakes and surrounded her with bows and arrows.\n\n'This _is_ one of our chickens, isn't it?' Maurice said.\n\nUrsula liked the chickens, liked the warm straw and featheriness of the henhouse, liked reaching under the solid warm bodies to find an even warmer egg.\n\n'It's Henrietta, isn't it?' Maurice persisted. 'She was old. Ready for the pot, Mrs Glover said.'\n\nUrsula inspected her plate. She was particularly fond of Henrietta. The tough white slice of meat gave no clues.\n\n'Henrietta?' Pamela squeaked in alarm.\n\n'Did you kill her?' Maurice asked Sylvie eagerly. 'Was it very bloody?'\n\nThey had already lost several chickens to the foxes. Sylvie said she was surprised at how stupid chickens were. No more stupid than people, Mrs Glover said. The foxes had taken Pamela's baby rabbit too, last summer. George Glover had rescued two and Pamela had insisted on making a nest for hers out in the garden but Ursula had rebelled and brought her little rabbit inside and placed it in the dolls' house where it knocked everything over and left droppings like tiny liquorice balls. When Bridget discovered it she removed it to an outhouse and it was never seen again.\n\nFor pudding they had jam roly-poly and custard, the jam from the summer's raspberries. The summer was a dream now, Sylvie said.\n\n'Dead baby,' Maurice said, in that horribly off-hand manner that boarding school had only served to foster. He shovelled pudding into his mouth and said, 'That's what we call jam roly-poly at school.'\n\n'Manners, Maurice,' Sylvie warned. 'And please, don't be so vile.'\n\n'Dead baby?' Ursula said, putting her spoon down and gazing in horror at the dish in front of her.\n\n'The Germans eat them,' Pamela said gloomily.\n\n'Puddings?' Ursula puzzled. Didn't everyone eat puddings, even the enemy?\n\n'No, _babies_ ,' Pamela said. 'But only Belgian ones.'\n\nSylvie looked at the roly-poly, the round, red seam of jam like blood, and shivered. This morning she had watched Mrs Glover snapping poor old Henrietta's neck backwards over a broom handle, the bird dispatched with the indifference of a state executioner. Needs must, I suppose, Sylvie thought. 'We're at war,' Mrs Glover said, 'it's not the time to be squeamish.'\n\nPamela would not let the subject rest. 'Was it, Mummy?' she insisted quietly. 'Was it Henrietta?'\n\n'No, darling,' Sylvie said. 'On my word of honour, that was not Henrietta.'\n\nAn urgent rapping at the back door prevented further discussion. They all sat still, staring at each other, as if they had been caught in the middle of a crime. Ursula didn't really know why. 'Don't let it be bad news,' Sylvie said. It was. Seconds later there was a terrible scream from the kitchen. Sam Wellington, the old boot, was dead.\n\n'This terrible war,' Sylvie murmured.\n\n*\n\nPamela gave Ursula the remains of one of her dun-coloured balls of four-ply lambswool and Ursula promised that Queen Solange would be delivered of a little mat for Pamela's water glass in gratitude for her rescue.\n\nWhen they went to bed that night they placed the crinoline lady and Queen Solange side by side on the bedside cabinet, valiant survivors of an encounter with the enemy.\n\n# Armistice\n\n# _June 1918_\n\nTeddy's birthday. Born beneath the sign of the crab. An enigmatic sign, Sylvie said, even though she thought such things were 'bunkum'. 'For you are four,' Bridget said, which was perhaps a kind of joke.\n\nSylvie and Mrs Glover were preparing a little tea-party, 'a surprise'. Sylvie liked all her children, Maurice not so much perhaps, but she doted entirely on Teddy.\n\nTeddy didn't even know it was his birthday as for days now they had been under strict instructions not to mention it. Ursula couldn't believe how difficult it was to keep a secret. Sylvie was an adept. She told them to take 'the birthday boy' out while she got things ready. Pamela complained that _she_ had never had a surprise party and Sylvie said, 'Of course you have, you just don't remember.' Was this true? Pamela frowned at the impossibility of knowing. Ursula had no idea whether or not she had ever had a surprise party or even a party that wasn't a surprise. The past was a jumble in her mind, not the straight line that it was for Pamela.\n\nBridget said, 'Come on, we'll all go for a walk,' and Sylvie said, 'Yes, take some jam to Mrs Dodds, why don't you?' Sylvie, sleeves rolled up, hair scarved, had spent all day yesterday helping Mrs Glover make jam, boiling up copper pans of raspberries from the garden with the sugar that they had been hoarding from their ration. 'Like working in a munitions factory,' Sylvie said, as she funnelled the boiling jam into one glass jar after another. 'Hardly,' Mrs Glover muttered to herself.\n\nThe garden had produced a bumper crop, Sylvie had read books on how to cultivate fruit and declared that she was quite the gardener now. Mrs Glover said darkly that berries were easy, wait until she tried her hand at cauliflowers. For the heavy work in the garden Sylvie employed Clarence Dodds, once a pal of Sam Wellington's, the old boot. Before the war Clarence had been an under-gardener at the Hall. He had been invalided out of the army and now wore a tin mask on half of his face and said he wanted to work in a grocer's shop. Ursula first came across him when he was preparing a bed for carrots and she gave an impolite little scream when he turned round and she saw his face for the first time. The mask had one wide-open eye painted blue to match the real one. 'Enough to frighten the horses, isn't it?' he said and smiled. She wished he hadn't because his mouth wasn't covered by the mask. His lips were puckered and strange as if they were an afterthought, stitched on after he was born.\n\n'One of the lucky ones,' he said to her. 'Artillery fire, it's the devil.' It didn't look very lucky to Ursula.\n\nThe carrots had barely sprigged their feathery tops above ground when Bridget started walking out with Clarence. By the time Sylvie was grubbing up the first of the King Edwards, Bridget and Clarence were engaged and, as Clarence couldn't afford a ring, Sylvie gave Bridget a gypsy ring that she said she'd 'had for ever' and never wore. 'It's just a trinket really,' she said, 'it's not worth much,' although Hugh had bought it for her in New Bond Street after Pamela was born and had not stinted on the cost.\n\nSam Wellington's photograph was banished to an old wooden crate in the shed. 'I can't keep it,' Bridget said fretfully to Mrs Glover, 'but I can hardly throw it away, can I now?'\n\n'You could bury it,' Mrs Glover suggested but the idea gave Bridget the shivers. 'Like black magic.'\n\nThey set off for Mrs Dodds's house, laden with jam, as well as a magnificent bouquet of maroon sweet peas that Sylvie was very proud of having grown. 'The variety is \"Senator\", in case Mrs Dodds is interested,' she told Bridget.\n\n'She won't be,' Bridget said.\n\nMaurice wasn't with them, of course. He had set off on his bicycle after breakfast, a picnic lunch in his knapsack, and had disappeared for the day with his friends. Ursula and Pamela took very little interest in Maurice's life and he took none whatsoever in theirs. Teddy was a quite different kind of brother, loyal and affectionate as a dog and petted accordingly.\n\nClarence's mother was still employed at the Hall in 'a semi-feudal capacity', according to Sylvie, and had a cottage on the estate, a cramped, ancient thing that smelt of stale water and old plaster. Distemper on the damp ceiling ballooned like loose skin. Bosun had died of distemper the previous year and was buried beneath a Bourbon rose that Sylvie had ordered especially to mark his grave. 'It's called \"Louise Odier\",' she said. 'If you're interested.' They had another dog now, a wriggly black lurcher puppy called Trixie who might as well have been called Trouble because Sylvie was always laughing and saying, 'Uh-oh, here comes trouble.' Pamela had seen Mrs Glover giving Trixie a well-aimed kick with her big-booted foot and Sylvie had 'to have a word'. Bridget wouldn't let Trixie come to Mrs Dodds's house, she said she would never hear the end of it. 'She doesn't believe in dogs,' Bridget said.\n\n'Dogs are hardly an article of faith,' Sylvie said.\n\nClarence met them at the entrance gate to the estate. The Hall itself was miles away, at the end of a long avenue of elms. The Daunts had lived there for centuries and popped up occasionally to open f\u00eates and bazaars and fleetingly grace the annual Christmas party in the village hall. They had their own chapel so were never seen in church, although now they were never seen at all because they had lost three sons, one after the other, to the war and had more or less retreated from the world.\n\nIt was impossible not to stare at Clarence's tin face ('galvanized copper', he corrected them). They lived in terror that he would remove the mask. Did he take it off to go to bed at night? If Bridget married him would she see the horror beneath? 'It's not so much what's there,' they had overheard Bridget say to Mrs Glover, 'as what's _not_ there.'\n\nMrs Dodds ('Old Mother Dodds' Bridget called her, like something from a nursery rhyme) made tea for the grown-ups, tea that Bridget later reported to be 'as weak as lamb's water'. Bridget liked her tea 'strong enough for the teaspoon to stand up in it'. Neither Pamela nor Ursula could decide what lamb's water might be but it sounded nice. Mrs Dodds gave them creamy milk, ladled from a big enamel pitcher and still warm from the Hall's dairy. It made Ursula feel sick. 'Lady Bountiful,' Mrs Dodds muttered to Clarence when they handed her the jam and the sweet peas and he said, 'Mother,' chidingly. Mrs Dodds passed the flowers over to Bridget, who remained holding the sweet peas like a bride until Mrs Dodds said to her, 'Put them in water, you daft girl.'\n\n'Cake?' Clarence's mother said and doled out thin slices of gingerbread that seemed as damp as her cottage. 'It's nice to see children,' Mrs Dodds said, looking at Teddy as if he were a rare animal. Teddy was a steadfast little boy and was not put off his milk and cake. He had a moustache of milk and Pamela wiped it off with her handkerchief. Ursula suspected that Mrs Dodds didn't really think it was nice to see children, indeed she suspected that on the subject of children she was in agreement with Mrs Glover. Except for Teddy, of course. Everyone liked Teddy. Even Maurice. Occasionally.\n\nMrs Dodds examined the gypsy ring newly adorning Bridget's hand, pulling Bridget's finger towards her as if she was pulling a wishbone. 'Rubies and diamonds,' she said. 'Very fancy.'\n\n'Tiny stones,' Bridget said defensively. 'Just a trinket really.'\n\nThe girls helped Bridget wash the tea things and left Teddy to fend for himself with Mrs Dodds. They washed up in a big stone sink in the scullery that had a pump instead of a tap. Bridget said that when she was a girl 'in County Kilkenny' they had to walk to a well to get water. She arranged the sweet peas prettily in an old Dundee marmalade jar and left it on the wooden draining board. When they had dried the crockery with one of Mrs Dodds's thin, worn tea-towels (damp, of course), Clarence asked them if they would like to go over to the Hall to see the walled garden. 'You should stop going back over there, son,' Mrs Dodds said to him, 'it only upsets you.'\n\nThey entered via an old wooden door in a wall. The door was stiff and Bridget gave a little scream when Clarence took his shoulder to it and shoved it open. Ursula was expecting something wonderful \u2013 sparkling fountains and terraces, statues, walks and arbours and flowerbeds as far as the eye could see \u2013 but it wasn't much more than an overgrown field, brambles and thistles rambling everywhere.\n\n'Aye, it's a jungle,' Clarence said. 'This used to be the kitchen garden, twelve gardeners worked at the Hall before the war.' Only the roses climbing on the walls were still flourishing, and the fruit trees in the orchard that were laden with fruit. Plums were rotting on the branches. Excited wasps darted everywhere. 'They haven't picked this year,' Clarence said. 'Three sons at the Hall, all dead in this bloody war. I suppose they didn't much feel like plum pie.'\n\n'Tsk,' Bridget said. 'Language.'\n\nThere was a glasshouse with hardly any glass and inside it they could see the withered peach and apricot trees. 'Damned shame,' Clarence said and Bridget tsked again and said, 'Not in front of the children,' just like Sylvie did. 'Everything gone to seed,' Clarence said, ignoring her. 'I could weep.'\n\n'Well, you could get your job back here at the Hall,' Bridget said. 'I'm sure they'd be glad. It's not as if you can't work just as well with...' She hesitated and gestured vaguely in the direction of Clarence's face.\n\n'I don't want my job back,' he said gruffly. 'My days as some rich nob's servant are over. I miss the garden, not the life. The garden was a thing of beauty.'\n\n'We could get our own little garden,' Bridget said. 'Or an allotment.' Bridget seemed to spend a lot of time trying to cheer Clarence up. Ursula supposed she was rehearsing for marriage.\n\n'Yes, why don't we do that?' Clarence said, sounding grim at the prospect. He picked up a small, sour apple that had fallen early and bowled it hard overarm like a cricketer. It landed on the glasshouse and shattered one of the few remaining panes. 'Bugger,' Clarence said and Bridget flapped her hand at him and hissed, 'Children.'\n\n('A thing of beauty,' Pamela said appreciatively that night, as they flannelled their faces before bed with the heavy bar of carbolic. 'Clarence is a poet.')\n\nAs they trailed their way home Ursula could still smell the scent of the sweet peas they had left behind in Mrs Dodds's kitchen. It seemed an awful waste to leave them there unappreciated. By then Ursula had forgotten all about the birthday tea and was almost as surprised as Teddy when they got back to the house and found the hallway decorated with flags and bunting and a beaming Sylvie bearing a gift-wrapped present that was unmistakably a toy aeroplane.\n\n'Surprise,' she said.\n\n# _11 November 1918_\n\n'Such a melancholy time of year,' Sylvie said to no one in particular.\n\nThe leaves still lay thick on the lawn. The summer was a dream again. Every summer, it was beginning to seem to Ursula, was a dream. The last of the leaves were falling and the big beech was almost a skeleton. The Armistice seemed to have made Sylvie even more despondent than the war. ('All those poor boys, gone for ever. The peace won't bring them back.')\n\nThey had the day off school because of the great victory and they were turned outside into the morning drizzle to play. They had new neighbours, Major and Mrs Shawcross, and they spent a good deal of the damp morning peering through gaps in the holly hedge trying to get a glimpse of the Shawcrosses' daughters. There were no other girls their age in the neighbourhood. The Coles only had boys. They weren't rough like Maurice, they had nice manners and were never horrible to Ursula and Pamela.\n\n'I think they're playing hide-and-seek,' Pamela reported back from the Shawcross front. Ursula tried to see through the hedge and got scratched in the face by the vicious holly. 'I think they're the same age as us,' Pamela said. 'There's even a little one for you, Teddy.' Teddy raised his eyebrows and said, 'Oh.' Teddy liked girls. Girls liked Teddy. 'Oh, wait, there's another one,' Pamela said. 'They're multiplying.'\n\n'Bigger or smaller?' Ursula asked.\n\n'Smaller, another girl. More of a baby. Being carried by an older one.' Ursula was growing confused by the mathematics of so many girls.\n\n'Five!' Pamela said breathlessly, reaching a final total apparently. 'Five girls.'\n\nBy this time Trixie had managed to wriggle through the bottom of the hedge and they heard the excited squeals that accompanied her appearance on the other side of the holly.\n\n'I say,' Pamela said, raising her voice, 'can we have our dog back?'\n\nLunch was boiled toad in the hole and a queen of puddings. 'Where have you been?' Sylvie asked. 'Ursula, you have twigs in your hair. You look like a pagan.'\n\n'Holly,' Pamela said. 'We've been next door. We met the Shawcross girls. Five of them.'\n\n'I know.' Sylvie counted them off on her fingers. 'Winnie, Gertie, Millie, Nancy and...'\n\n'Beatrice,' Pamela supplied.\n\n'Were you invited in?' Mrs Glover, a stickler for propriety, asked.\n\n'We found a hole in the hedge,' Pamela said.\n\n'That's where those damn foxes are getting through,' Mrs Glover grumbled, 'they're coming from the copse,' and Sylvie frowned at Mrs Glover's language but said nothing as, officially, they were in celebration mood. Sylvie, Bridget and Mrs Glover were 'toasting the peace' with glasses of sherry. Neither Sylvie nor Mrs Glover seemed to have much of a taste for jubilation. Both Hugh and Izzie were still away at the Front and Sylvie said she wouldn't believe Hugh was safe until he walked through the door. Izzie had driven an ambulance throughout the war but none of them could imagine this. George Glover was being 'rehabilitated' in a home somewhere in the Cotswolds. Mrs Glover had travelled to visit him but was disinclined to talk about what she had found, other than to say that George was no longer really George. 'I don't think any of them are themselves any more,' Sylvie said. Ursula tried to imagine not being Ursula but was defeated by the impossibility of the task.\n\nTwo girls from the Women's Land Army had taken George's place on the farm. They were both horsey types from Northamptonshire and Sylvie said that if she'd known they were going to let women work with Samson and Nelson she would have applied for the job herself. The girls had come to tea on several occasions, sitting in the kitchen in their muddy puttees, to Mrs Glover's disgust.\n\n*\n\nBridget had her hat on ready to go out when Clarence appeared shyly at the back door, mumbling a greeting to Sylvie and Mrs Glover. The 'happy couple', as Mrs Glover referred to them without any hint of congratulation, were catching the train up to London to take part in the victory celebrations. Bridget was giddy with excitement. 'Sure now you don't want to come with us, Mrs Glover? I'll bet there'll be some high jinks to be had.' Mrs Glover rolled her eyes like a discontented cow. She was 'avoiding crowds' on account of the influenza epidemic. She had a nephew who had dropped dead in the street, perfectly healthy at breakfast and 'dead by noon'. Sylvie said they mustn't be scared of the influenza. 'Life must go on,' she said.\n\nAfter Bridget and Clarence left for the station, Mrs Glover and Sylvie sat at the kitchen table and drank another sherry. 'High jinks, indeed,' Mrs Glover said. By the time Teddy appeared, Trixie eager on his tail, and announced that he was starving and 'Had they forgotten lunch?' the meringue on top of the queen of puddings had collapsed and was all burnt. The final casualty of the war.\n\nThey had tried, and failed, to stay awake for Bridget's return, falling asleep over their bedtime reading. Pamela was in the spell of _At the Back of the North Wind_ while Ursula was working her way through _The Wind in the Willows_. She was particularly fond of Mole. She was a mysteriously slow reader and writer ('Practice makes perfect, dear') and liked it best when Pamela read out loud to her. They both liked fairy stories and had all of the Andrew Lang books, all twelve colours, bought by Hugh for birthdays and Christmases. 'Things of beauty,' Pamela said.\n\nBridget's noisy return woke Ursula and she, in turn, roused Pamela and they both tiptoed downstairs where a merry Bridget and a more sober Clarence regaled them with tales of the festivities, of the 'sea of people' and of the gay crowd shouting themselves hoarse for the King ('We want the King! We want the King!' Bridget demonstrated enthusiastically) until he appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. 'And the bells,' Clarence added, 'never heard anything like it. All the bells of London ringing out the peace.'\n\n'A thing of beauty,' Pamela said.\n\nBridget had lost her hat somewhere amid the throng as well as several hairpins and the top button of her blouse. 'Lifted off my feet in the crush,' she said happily.\n\n'Goodness, what a racket,' Sylvie said, appearing in the kitchen, sleepy and lovely in her lacy wrap, her hair in a great fraying rope down her back. Clarence blushed and looked at his boots. Sylvie made cocoa for them all and listened indulgently to Bridget until even the novelty of being up at midnight couldn't keep any of them awake.\n\n'Back to normal tomorrow,' Clarence said, giving Bridget a daring peck on the cheek before making his way back to his mother. It was, altogether, a day out of the ordinary.\n\n'Do you think Mrs Glover will be cross that we didn't wake her?' Sylvie whispered to Pamela on the way up the stairs.\n\n'Furious,' Pamela said and they both laughed like conspirators, like women.\n\nWhen she fell asleep again Ursula dreamed of Clarence and Bridget. They were walking in an overgrown garden, looking for Bridget's hat. Clarence was crying, real tears on the good side of his face while on the mask there were painted tears, like artificial raindrops on a picture of a windowpane.\n\nWhen Ursula woke up the next morning she was burning hot and aching all over and 'Boiling, like a lobster,' Mrs Glover said, brought in for a second opinion by Sylvie. Bridget was also laid up in bed. 'Hardly surprising,' Mrs Glover said, folding disapproving arms beneath her ample yet uninviting bosom. Ursula hoped she would never have to be nursed by Mrs Glover.\n\nUrsula's breathing was harsh and raspy, her breath thickening in her chest. The world boomed and receded like the sea in a giant shell. Everything was rather pleasantly fuzzy. Trixie lay on the bed at her feet while Pamela read to her from _The Red Fairy Book_ , but the words came and went meaninglessly. Pamela's face loomed in and out of focus. Sylvie came and tried to feed her beef tea but her throat felt too small and she sputtered it out, all over the bed sheets.\n\nThere was the sound of tyres on gravel and Sylvie said to Pamela, 'That will be Dr Fellowes,' and rose swiftly, adding, 'Stay with Ursula, Pammy, but don't let Teddy in here, will you?'\n\n*\n\nThe house was more silent than usual. When Sylvie didn't come back, Pamela said, 'I'll go and look for Mummy. I won't be long.' Ursula heard murmurings and cries drifting from somewhere in the house but they meant nothing to her.\n\nShe was sleeping a strange restless kind of sleep when Dr Fellowes appeared suddenly by the side of the bed. Sylvie sat on the other side of the bed and held Ursula's hand, saying, 'Her skin is lilac. Like Bridget's.' Lilac skin sounded rather nice, like _The Lilac Fairy Book_. Sylvie's voice seemed funny, choked up and panicked like the time she saw the telegram boy coming up the path but it turned out to be only a telegram from Izzie wishing Teddy a happy birthday. ('Thoughtless,' Sylvie said.)\n\nUrsula couldn't breathe and yet she could smell her mother's perfume and hear her voice murmuring gently in her ear like a bee-buzz on a summer's day. She was too tired to open her eyes. She heard Sylvie's skirts rustle as she left her bedside, followed by the sound of the window opening. 'I'm trying to get you some air,' Sylvie said, returning to Ursula's side and holding her against her crisp seersucker blouse with its safe scents of laundry starch and roses. The woody fragrance of bonfire smoke drifted through the window and into the little attic room. She could hear the clopping of hooves followed by the rattle of the coal as the coalman emptied his sacks into the coal shed. Life was going on. A thing of beauty.\n\nOne breath, that was all she needed, but it wouldn't come.\n\nDarkness fell swiftly, at first an enemy, but then a friend.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nA big woman with the forearms of a stoker woke Dr Fellowes by clattering a cup and saucer down on the pot table next to his bed and yanking open the curtains even though it was still dark outside. It took him a moment to remember that he was in the freezing-cold guest bedroom at Fox Corner and that the rather intimidating woman bearing the cup and saucer was the Todds' cook. Dr Fellowes searched the dusty archive of his brain for a name that he knew had come to him easily a few hours earlier.\n\n'It's Mrs Glover,' she said, as if reading his mind.\n\n'So it is. She of the excellent pickles.' His head felt full of straw. He was uncomfortably aware that beneath the frugal covers he was wearing only his combinations. The bedroom grate, he noted, was cold and empty.\n\n'You're needed,' Mrs Glover said. 'There's been an accident.'\n\n'An accident?' Dr Fellowes echoed. 'Something has happened to the baby?'\n\n'A farmer trampled by a bull.'\n\n# Armistice\n\n# _12 November 1918_\n\nUrsula woke up with a start. It was dark in the bedroom but she could hear noises somewhere downstairs. A door closing, giggling and shuffling. She caught the high-pitched cackle that was Bridget's unmistakable laugh and the rumbling bass note of a man. Bridget and Clarence back from London.\n\nUrsula's first instinct was to clamber out of bed and shake Pamela awake so that they could go downstairs and interrogate Bridget about the high jinks, but something stopped her. As she lay listening to the dark, a wave of something horrible washed over her, a great dread, as if something truly treacherous were about to happen. The same feeling she had had when she'd followed Pamela into the sea when they were on holiday in Cornwall, just before the war. They had been rescued by a stranger. After that Sylvie made sure they all went to the swimming baths in town and took lessons, from an ex-major in the Boer War who barked orders at them until they were too frightened to sink. Sylvie often retold the tale as if it were a hilarious escapade ('The heroic Mr Winton!') when in fact Ursula still clearly recalled the terror.\n\nPamela mumbled something in her sleep and Ursula said, 'Ssh.' Pamela mustn't wake up. They mustn't go downstairs. They mustn't see Bridget. Ursula didn't know why this was so, where this awful sense of dread came from, but she pulled the blankets over her head to hide from whatever was out there. She hoped it was out there and not inside her. She thought she would feign sleep but within minutes the real thing came.\n\n*\n\nIn the morning they ate in the kitchen because Bridget was in bed, feeling ill. 'Hardly surprising,' Mrs Glover said unsympathetically, doling out porridge. 'I dread to think what time she staggered in.'\n\nSylvie came down from upstairs with a tray that hadn't been touched. 'I really don't think Bridget is well, Mrs Glover,' she said.\n\n'Too much drink,' Mrs Glover scoffed, cracking eggs as if she were punishing them. Ursula coughed and Sylvie glanced sharply at her. 'I think we should call Dr Fellowes out,' Sylvie said to Mrs Glover.\n\n'For Bridget?' Mrs Glover said. 'The girl's as healthy as a horse. Dr Fellowes will give you short shrift when he smells the alcohol on her.'\n\n_'Mrs Glover_ ,' Sylvie said in the tone she used when she was being very serious about something and wanted to make sure people were listening ( _Don't trail muddy footprints into the house, never be unkind to other children, no matter how provoking they are_ ). 'I really do think Bridget is ill.' Mrs Glover seemed suddenly to understand.\n\n'Can you see to the children?' Sylvie said. 'I am going to telephone for Dr Fellowes and then I'll go up and sit with Bridget.'\n\n'Aren't the children going to school?' Mrs Glover asked.\n\n'Yes, of course they are,' Sylvie said. 'Although perhaps not. No \u2013 yes \u2013 they are. Or should they?' She hovered, fretfully indecisive, in the kitchen doorway while Mrs Glover waited with surprising patience for her to come to a conclusion.\n\n'I think keep them at home, for today,' Sylvie said finally. 'Crowded schoolrooms and so on.' She took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling. 'But keep them down here, just now.' Pamela raised her eyebrows at Ursula. Ursula raised hers back although she wasn't sure what they were trying to communicate to each other. Horror mainly, she supposed, at being put in Mrs Glover's care.\n\nThey had to sit at the kitchen table so Mrs Glover could 'keep an eye on them' and then, despite their violent protests, she bade them get out their schoolbooks and do work \u2013 sums for Pamela, letters for Teddy ( _Q is for quail, R is for rain_ ) and Ursula was set to practise her 'atrocious' handwriting. Ursula thought it vastly unfair that someone who wrote nothing more than shopping lists in a blunt hand ( _suet, stove blacking, mutton chops and Dinneford_ ' _s magnesia_ ) should be passing judgement on her own painful script.\n\nMrs Glover meanwhile was more than fully occupied with pressing a calf's tongue, removing the gristle and bone and rolling it up before squeezing it into the tongue press, an altogether more fascinating activity to observe than writing out _Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim_ or _The five boxing wizards jumped quickly_. 'I would hate to be in any school where she was mistress,' Pamela muttered, wrestling with equations.\n\nThey were all distracted by the advent of the butcher's boy, ringing his bicycle bell noisily to announce his arrival. He was a fourteen-year-old called Fred Smith whom both the girls and Maurice admired tremendously. The girls signalled their ardour by calling him 'Freddy' while Maurice called him 'Smithy' in comradely approval. Pamela had once declared that Maurice had a pash on Fred and Mrs Glover, who happened to hear, slapped Pamela in passing on the back of her legs with a balloon whisk. Pamela was very put out and had no idea what she had been punished for. Fred Smith himself addressed the girls deferentially as 'Miss' and Maurice as 'Master Todd', although he took no interest in any of them. To Mrs Glover he was 'young Fred' and to Sylvie he was 'the butcher's boy', sometimes 'that nice butcher's boy' to distinguish him from the previous butcher's boy, Leonard Ash, 'a sneaky rogue' according to Mrs Glover, who had caught him stealing eggs from the henhouse. Leonard Ash died in the Battle of the Somme after lying about his age when he enlisted and Mrs Glover said he got what was coming to him, which seemed a rough kind of justice.\n\nFred handed over a white-paper package to Mrs Glover and said, 'Your tripe,' and then deposited the long soft body of a hare on the wooden draining board. 'Hung for five days. It's a beauty, Mrs Glover,' and even Mrs Glover, disinclined to praise in the best of circumstances, acknowledged the hare's superiority by opening a cake tin and allowing Fred to choose the biggest rock bun from within its usually clam-like innards.\n\nMrs Glover, her tongue now safely in the press, immediately began skinning the hare, a distressing yet hypnotic process to witness, and it was only when the poor creature was stripped of its fur and exposed, naked and shiny, that anyone noticed Teddy's absence.\n\n'Go and fetch him,' Mrs Glover said to Ursula. 'And you can all have a glass of milk and a rock bun, although goodness knows you've done nothing to deserve it.'\n\nTeddy was fond of hide-and-seek and, when he didn't respond to his name being called, Ursula looked in his secret places, behind the drawing-room curtains, beneath the dining-room table, and when she could find no sign of him she set off up the stairs to the bedrooms.\n\nA forceful clanging of the front-door bell echoed up the stairs in her wake. From the turn in the stairs she saw Sylvie appear in the hallway and open the door to Dr Fellowes. Ursula supposed her mother must have come down the back stairs rather than appearing by magic. Dr Fellowes and Sylvie engaged in an intense, whispered conversation, about Bridget, presumably, but Ursula couldn't catch any of the words.\n\nNot in Sylvie's room (they had long ago ceased to think of it as a room that belonged to two parents). Not in Maurice's room, so generously sized for someone who spent more than half his life living at school. Not in the guest bedroom or the second guest bedroom nor in Teddy's own little back bedroom that was almost entirely taken up with his train set. Not in the bathroom or the linen cupboard. Nor was there any sign of Teddy under the beds or in the wardrobes or in the many cupboards, nor \u2013 his favourite trick \u2013 as still as a corpse beneath Sylvie's big eiderdown.\n\n'There's cake downstairs, Teddy,' she offered up to the empty rooms. The promise of cake, true or not, was normally enough to flush Teddy out from cover.\n\nUrsula trudged up the dark narrow wooden staircase that led to the attic bedrooms and as soon as she had placed her foot on the first tread she experienced a sudden pinch of fear in her insides. She had no idea where it came from, or why.\n\n'Teddy! Teddy, where are you?' Ursula tried to raise her voice but the words came out in a whisper.\n\nNot in the bedroom she shared with Pamela, not in Mrs Glover's old room. Not in the boxroom, once a nursery and now home to chests and trunks and packing cases of old clothes and toys. Only Bridget's room remained unexplored.\n\nThe door was ajar and Ursula had to force her feet to walk towards it. Something terrible was beyond that open door. She didn't want to see it, but she knew she must.\n\n'Teddy!' she said, overcome with relief at the sight of him. Teddy was sitting on Bridget's bed, his birthday aeroplane on his knee. 'I've been looking everywhere for you,' Ursula said. Trixie was lying on the floor next to the bed and sprang up eagerly when she saw her.\n\n'I thought it might make Bridget feel better,' Teddy said, stroking the plane. Teddy had great faith in the healing power of toy trains and aeroplanes. (He was, he assured them, going to be a pilot when he grew up.) 'I think Bridget's asleep but her eyes are open,' he said.\n\nThey were. Wide open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. There was a watery blue film across those disturbing eyes and her skin had a strange lilac hue. Cobalt Violet in Ursula's Winsor and Newton watercolour set. She could see the tip of Bridget's tongue sticking out of her mouth and had a momentary vision of Mrs Glover pushing the calf's tongue into the press.\n\nUrsula had never seen a dead body but she knew without any doubt that Bridget had now become one. 'Get off the bed, Teddy,' she said cautiously, as if her brother were a wild creature about to bolt. She started to tremble all over. It wasn't just that Bridget was dead, although that was bad enough, but there was something more perilous here. The unadorned walls, the thin jacquard bedspread on the iron bedstead, the enamelled brush and comb set on the dressing table, the rag rug on the floor, all suddenly grew immensely threatening as if they were not really the objects they seemed. Ursula heard Sylvie and Dr Fellowes on the stairs. Sylvie's tones were urgent, Dr Fellowes's less concerned.\n\nSylvie came in and gasped, 'Oh dear God,' when she saw them in Bridget's room. She snatched Teddy off the bed and then pulled Ursula by the arm out into the passage. Trixie, tail wagging eagerly at the excitement, bounded after them. 'Go to your room,' Sylvie said. 'No, go to Teddy's room. No, go to my room. Go _now_ ,' she said, sounding frantic, not at all the Sylvie they were used to. Sylvie went back into Bridget's room and closed the door decisively. They could hear only murmured exchanges between Sylvie and Dr Fellowes and eventually Ursula said, 'Come on,' to Teddy and took his hand. He allowed her to lead him docilely back down the stairs to Sylvie's bedroom. 'Did you say cake?' he asked.\n\n'Teddy's skin is the same colour as Bridget's,' Sylvie said. Her stomach hollowed out with terror. She knew what she was looking at. Ursula was merely pale, although her closed eyelids were dark and her skin glistened with a strange, sickly sheen.\n\n'Heliotrope cyanosis,' Dr Fellowes said, taking Teddy's pulse. 'And see those mahogany spots on his cheeks? This is the more virulent strain, I'm afraid.'\n\n'Stop, please stop,' Sylvie hissed. 'Do not lecture me like a medical student. I am their _mother_.' How she hated Dr Fellowes at that moment. Bridget was lying in her bed upstairs, still warm but as dead as the marble on a tomb. 'The influenza,' Dr Fellowes continued relentlessly. 'Your maid was mixing with crowds of people yesterday in London \u2013 perfect conditions for the infection to spread. It can take them in the blink of an eye.'\n\n'But not this one,' Sylvie said fiercely, clutching Teddy's hand. 'Not my child. Not my children,' she amended, reaching across to stroke Ursula's burning forehead.\n\nPamela hovered in the doorway and Sylvie shooed her away. Pamela started to cry but Sylvie had no time for tears. Not now, not in the face of death.\n\n'There must be something I can do,' she said to Dr Fellowes.\n\n'You can pray.'\n\n'Pray?'\n\nSylvie did not believe in God. She considered the biblical deity to be an absurd, vengeful figure (Tiffin and so on), no more real than Zeus or the great god Pan. She went to church dutifully every Sunday, however, and avoided alarming Hugh with her heretical thoughts. Needs must, and so on. She prayed now, with desperate conviction but no faith, and she suspected it made no difference either way.\n\nWhen a pale bloody kind of froth, like cuckoo-spit, bubbled from Teddy's nostrils Sylvie made a noise like a wounded animal. Mrs Glover and Pamela were listening at the other side of the door and in a rare moment of unity they clutched each other's hands. Sylvie snatched Teddy from the bed and held him tightly to her breast and howled with pain.\n\nDear God, Dr Fellowes thought, the woman grieved like a savage.\n\nThey sweated together in a tangle of Sylvie's linen bed sheets. Teddy was spreadeagled across the pillows. Ursula wanted to hold him close but he was too hot so she held one of his ankles instead, as if she was trying to stop him running away. Ursula's lungs felt as if they were full of custard, she imagined it thick and yellow and sweet.\n\nTeddy was gone by nightfall. Ursula knew the moment he died, she felt it inside her. She heard just one wretched moan from Sylvie and then someone lifted Teddy out of the bed and even though he was just a little boy it was as if something weighty had gone from her side and Ursula was alone in the bed. She could hear Sylvie's choking sobs, an awful noise, as if someone had hacked off one of her limbs.\n\nEvery breath squeezed the custard stuff in her lungs. The world was fading and she began to have a stirring sense of anticipation, as if it were Christmas or her birthday, and then the black bat night approached and enfolded her in his wings. One last breath and then no more. She held out a hand to Teddy, forgetting that he wasn't there any more.\n\nDarkness fell.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nSylvie lit a candle. Winter dark, five o'clock in the morning by the little gold carriage clock on the bedroom mantelpiece. The clock, an English one ('Better than a French one,' her mother had instructed), had been one of her parents' wedding presents. When the creditors came to call after the society portraitist's death his widow hid the clock beneath her skirts, bemoaning the passing of the crinoline. Lottie appeared to chime on the quarter, disconcerting the creditors. Luckily they were not in the room when she struck the hour.\n\nThe new baby was asleep in her cradle. Words from Coleridge suddenly came into Sylvie's mind: _Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side_. Which poem was that?\n\nThe fire in the grate had died down, leaving only the smallest flame still dancing on the coals. The baby began to make mewling sounds and Sylvie climbed gingerly out of bed. Childbirth was a brutal affair. If she had been in charge of designing the human race she would have gone about things quite differently. (A golden shaft of light through the ear for conception perhaps and a well-fitting hatch somewhere modest for escape nine months later.) She left the warmth of her bed and retrieved Ursula from the cradle. And then, suddenly, breaking the snow-muffled silence, she thought she heard the soft nicker of a horse and felt a little buzz of electric pleasure in her soul at this unlikely sound. She carried Ursula over to the window and drew one of the heavy curtains back far enough to see out. The snow had obliterated everything familiar, the world outside was shawled in white. And there below was the fantastic sight of George Glover riding bareback on one of his great Shires (Nelson, if she wasn't mistaken) up the wintry drive. He looked magnificent, like a hero of old. Sylvie closed the curtains and decided that the tribulations of the night had probably affected her brain and were making her hallucinate.\n\nShe took Ursula back into bed with her and the baby rooted around for her nipple. Sylvie believed in wet-nursing her own children. The idea of glass bottles and rubber teats seemed unnatural somehow but that didn't mean that she didn't feel like a cow being milked. The baby was slow and floundering, confounded by the new. How long before breakfast, Sylvie wondered?\n\n# Armistice\n\n# _11 November 1918_\n\n_Dear Bridget, I have locked and bolted the doors. There is a gang of thieves \u2013_ should the 'i' come before the 'e'? Ursula chewed the end of her pencil until it splintered. Undecided, she crossed out 'thieves' and wrote 'robbers' instead. _There is a gang of robbers in the village. Please can you stay with Clarence's mother?_ For good measure she added _and also I have a headache so don't knock_. She signed it _Mrs Todd_. Ursula waited until there was no one in the kitchen and then went outside and pinned the note to the back door.\n\n'What are you doing?' Mrs Glover asked as she came back inside. Ursula jumped, Mrs Glover could move as quietly as a cat.\n\n'Nothing,' Ursula said. 'Looking to see if Bridget was coming yet.'\n\n'Heavens,' Mrs Glover said, 'she'll be back on the last train, not for hours yet. Now shift yourself, it's long past your bedtime. It's Liberty Hall here.'\n\nUrsula didn't know what Liberty Hall meant but it sounded like rather a good place to live.\n\nNext morning there was no Bridget in the house. Nor, more puzzlingly, was there any sign of Pamela. Ursula felt overwhelmed by a relief as inexplicable as the panic that had led her to write the note the previous night.\n\n'There was a silly note on the door last night, a prank,' Sylvie said. 'Bridget was locked out. You know, it looks just like your handwriting, Ursula, I don't suppose you can explain that?'\n\n'No, I can't,' Ursula said stoutly.\n\n'I sent Pamela to Mrs Dodds to fetch Bridget home,' Sylvie said.\n\n'You sent _Pamela_?' Ursula echoed in horror.\n\n'Yes, Pamela.'\n\n'Pamela is with _Bridget_?'\n\n'Yes,' Sylvie said. 'Bridget. What is the matter with you?'\n\nUrsula ran out of the house. She could hear Sylvie shouting after her but she didn't stop. She had never run so fast in all of her eight years, not even when Maurice was chasing her to give her a Chinese burn. She ran up the lane in the direction of Mrs Dodds's cottage, splashing through the mud so that by the time Pamela and Bridget were in sight ahead of her she was filthy from head to toe.\n\n'What _is_ the matter?' Pamela asked anxiously. 'Is it Daddy?' Bridget made the sign of the cross. Ursula threw her arms round Pamela and collapsed in tears.\n\n'Whatever is it? _Tell_ me,' Pamela said, caught up now in the dread.\n\n'I don't know,' Ursula sobbed. 'I just felt so worried about you.'\n\n'What a goose,' Pamela said affectionately, hugging her.\n\n'I have a bit of a headache,' Bridget said. 'Let's get back to the house.'\n\nDarkness soon fell again.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\n'A miracle, says the Fellowes feller,' Bridget said to Mrs Glover as they toasted the new baby's arrival over their morning teapot. As far as Mrs Glover was concerned miracles belonged inside the pages of the Bible, not amid the carnage of birth. 'Maybe she'll stop at three,' she said.\n\n'Now why would she be going and doing that when she has such lovely healthy babies and there's enough money in the house for anything they want?'\n\nMrs Glover, ignoring the argument, heaved herself up from the table and said, 'Well, I must get on with Mrs Todd's breakfast.' She took a bowl of kidneys soaking in milk from the pantry and commenced removing the fatty white membrane, like a caul. Bridget glanced at the milk, white marbled with red, and felt uncharacteristically squeamish.\n\nDr Fellowes had already breakfasted \u2013 on bacon, black pudding, fried bread and eggs \u2013 and left. Men from the village had arrived and tried to dig his car out and when that had failed someone ran for George and he had come to the rescue, riding on the back of one of his big Shires. St George slipped briefly into Mrs Glover's mind and hastily slipped out again as being too fanciful. With not inconsiderable difficulty, Dr Fellowes was hoisted up behind Mrs Glover's son and the pair had ridden off, ploughing snow, not earth.\n\nA farmer had been trampled by a bull, but was alive still. Mrs Glover's own father, a dairyman, had been killed by a cow. Mrs Glover, young but doughty and not yet acquainted with Mr Glover, had come across her father lying dead in the milking shed. She could still see the blood on the straw and the surprised look on the face of the cow, her father's favourite, Maisie.\n\nBridget warmed her hands on the teapot and Mrs Glover said, 'Well, I'd better to see to my kidneys. Find me a flower for Mrs Todd's breakfast tray.'\n\n'A flower?' Bridget puzzled, looking through the window at the snow. 'In this weather?'\n\n# Armistice\n\n# _11 November 1918_\n\n'Oh, Clarence,' Sylvie said, opening the back door. 'Bridget's had a bit of an accident, I'm afraid. She tripped and fell over the step. Just a sprained ankle, I think, but I doubt that she'll be able to go up to London for the celebrations.'\n\nBridget was sipping a brandy, sitting in Mrs Glover's chair, a big high-backed Windsor, by the stove. Her ankle was propped up on a stool, and she was enjoying the drama of her tale.\n\n'I was just coming in the kitchen door, so I was. I'd been hanging out washing although I don't know why I bothered because it started to rain again, when I felt hands shoving me in the back. And then there I was, sprawled all over the ground, in agony. Small hands,' she added. 'Like the hands of a little ghost child.'\n\n'Oh, really,' Sylvie said. 'There are no ghosts in this house, children or otherwise. Did you see anything, Ursula? You were in the garden, weren't you?'\n\n'Oh, the silly girl just tripped,' Mrs Glover said. 'You know how clumsy she is. Well, anyway,' she said with some satisfaction, 'that's put paid to your London high jinks.'\n\n'Not so,' Bridget said stoutly. 'I'm not missing this day for anything. Come on, Clarence. Give me your arm. I can _hobble_.'\n\nDarkness, and so on.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\n' \"Ursula\", before you ask,' Mrs Glover said, dumping spoonfuls of porridge into bowls in front of Maurice and Pamela, who were sitting at the big wooden table in the kitchen.\n\n'Ursula,' Bridget said appreciatively. 'That's a good name. Did she like the snowdrop?'\n\n# Armistice\n\n# _11 November 1918_\n\nEverything familiar somehow. 'It's called _d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu_ ,' Sylvie said. 'It's a trick of the mind. The mind is a fathomless mystery.' Ursula was sure that she could recall lying in the baby carriage beneath the tree. 'No,' Sylvie said, 'no one can remember being so small,' yet Ursula remembered the leaves, like great green hands, waving in the breeze and the silver hare that hung from the carriage hood, turning and twisting in front of her face. Sylvie sighed. 'You do have a very vivid imagination, Ursula.' Ursula didn't know whether this was a compliment or not but it was certainly true that she often felt confused between what was real and what was not. And the terrible fear \u2013 fearful terror \u2013 that she carried around inside her. The dark landscape within. 'Don't dwell on such things,' Sylvie said sharply when Ursula tried to explain. 'Think sunny thoughts.'\n\nAnd sometimes, too, she knew what someone was about to say before they said it or what mundane incident was about to occur \u2013 if a dish was about to be dropped or an apple thrown through a glasshouse, as if these things had happened many times before. Words and phrases echoed themselves, strangers seemed like old acquaintances.\n\n'Everyone feels peculiar from time to time,' Sylvie said. 'Remember, dear \u2013 sunny thoughts.'\n\nBridget lent a more willing ear, declaring that Ursula 'had the second sight'. There were doorways between this world and the next, she said, but only certain people could pass through them. Ursula didn't think that she wanted to be one of those people.\n\nLast Christmas morning, Sylvie had handed Ursula a box, nicely wrapped and ribboned, the contents quite invisible, and said, 'Happy Christmas, dear,' and Ursula said, 'Oh, good, a dining set for the dolls' house,' and was immediately in trouble for having sneaked a preview of the presents.\n\n'But I never,' she insisted obstinately to Bridget later in the kitchen, where Bridget was trying to affix little white-paper crowns on the footless legs of the Christmas goose. (The goose made Ursula think of a man in the village, a boy really, who had had both his feet blown off at Cambrai.) 'I didn't look, I just _knew_.'\n\n'Ah, I know,' Bridget said. 'For sure, you have the sixth sense.'\n\nMrs Glover, wrestling with the plum pudding, snorted her disapproval. She was of the opinion that five senses were too many, let alone adding on another one.\n\nThey were shut out in the garden for the morning. 'So much for victory celebrations,' Pamela said as they sheltered from the drizzle beneath the beech tree. Only Trixie was having a good time. She loved the garden, mainly because of the number of rabbits which, despite the best attentions of the foxes, continued to enjoy all the benefits of the vegetable garden. George Glover had given two babies to Ursula and Pamela before the war. Ursula convinced Pamela that they had to keep them indoors and they hid them in their bedroom cupboard and fed them with an eye-dropper they found in the medicine cabinet until they hopped out one day and frightened Bridget out of her wits.\n\n' _A fait accompli_ ,' Sylvie said when she was presented with the rabbits. 'You can't keep them in the house though. You'll have to ask Old Tom to build a hutch for them.'\n\nThe rabbits had escaped long ago, of course, and had multiplied happily. Old Tom had laid down poison and traps to little avail. ('Goodness,' Sylvie said, looking out one morning at the rabbits contentedly breakfasting on the lawn. 'It's like Australia out there.') Maurice, who was learning to shoot in the junior ATC at school, had spent all of last summer's long holiday taking potshots at them from his bedroom window with Hugh's neglected old Westley Richards wildfowler. Pamela was so furious with him that she put some of his own itching powder (he was forever in joke shops) in his bed. Ursula immediately got the blame and Pamela had to own up, even though Ursula had been quite ready to take it on the chin. That was the kind of person Pamela was \u2013 always very stuck on being fair.\n\nThey heard voices in the garden next door \u2013 they had new neighbours they were yet to meet, the Shawcrosses \u2013 and Pamela said, 'Come on, let's go and see if we can catch a look. I wonder what they're called.'\n\nWinnie, Gertie, Millie, Nancy and baby Bea, Ursula thought but said nothing. She was getting as good at keeping secrets as Sylvie.\n\nBridget gripped her hatpin between her teeth and lifted her arms to adjust her hat. She had sewn a new bunch of paper violets on to it, especially for the victory. She was standing at the top of the stairs, singing _K-K-Katy_ to herself. She was thinking of Clarence. When they were married ('in the spring,' he said, although it had been 'before Christmas' not so long ago) she would be leaving Fox Corner. She would have her own little household, her own babies.\n\nStaircases were very dangerous places, according to Sylvie. People died on them. Sylvie always told them not to play at the top of the stairs.\n\nUrsula crept along the carpet runner. Took a quiet breath and then, both hands out in front of her, as if trying to stop a train, she threw herself at the small of Bridget's back. Bridget whipped her head round, mouth and eyes wide in horror at the sight of Ursula. Bridget went flying, toppling down the stairs in a great flurry of arms and legs. Ursula only just managed to stop herself from following in her wake.\n\nPractice makes perfect.\n\n'The arm's broken, I'm afraid,' Dr Fellowes said. 'You took quite a tumble down those stairs.'\n\n'She's always been a clumsy girl,' Mrs Glover said.\n\n' _Someone_ pushed me,' Bridget said. A great bruise bloomed on her forehead, she was holding her hat, the violets crushed.\n\n'Someone?' Sylvie echoed. 'Who? Who would push you downstairs, Bridget?' She looked around the faces in the kitchen. 'Teddy?' Teddy put his hand over his mouth as if he was trying to stop words escaping. Sylvie turned to Pamela. 'Pamela?'\n\n'Me?' Pamela said, piously holding both of her outraged hands over her heart like a martyr. Sylvie looked at Bridget, who made a little inclination of her head towards Ursula.\n\n'Ursula?' Sylvie frowned. Ursula stared blankly ahead, a conscientious objector about to be shot. 'Ursula,' Sylvie said severely, 'do you know something about this?'\n\nUrsula had done a wicked thing, she had pushed Bridget down the stairs. Bridget might have died and she would have been a murderer now. All she knew was that she _had_ to do it. The great sense of dread had come over her and she had to do it.\n\nShe ran out of the room and hid in one of Teddy's secret hiding places, the cupboard beneath the stairs. After a while the door opened and Teddy crept in and sat on the floor next to her. 'I don't think you pushed Bridget,' he said and slipped his small, warm hand into hers.\n\n'Thank you. I did though.'\n\n'Well, I still love you.'\n\nShe might never have come out of that cupboard but the front-door bell clanged and there was a sudden great commotion in the hallway. Teddy opened the door to see what was happening. He ducked back in and reported, 'Mummy's kissing a man. She's crying. He's crying as well.' Ursula put her head out of the cupboard to witness this phenomenon. She turned in astonishment to Teddy. 'I think it might be Daddy,' she said.\n\n# Peace\n\n# _February 1947_\n\nUrsula traversed the street cautiously. The road surface was treacherous \u2013 crimped and rucked by ridges and crevasses of ice. The pavements were even more perilous, no more than massifs of ugly, hard-packed snow, or, worse, toboggan runs ironed by the neighbourhood children who had nothing better to do than enjoy themselves because the schools were closed. Oh, God, Ursula thought, how mean-spirited I've become. The bloody war. The bloody peace.\n\nBy the time she had put her key in the lock of the street door she was exhausted. A shopping trip had never seemed such a challenge previously, even in the worst days of the Blitz. The skin on her face was whipped raw by the biting wind and her toes were numb with cold. The temperature hadn't risen above zero for weeks, colder even than '41. Ursula imagined at some future date trying to recall this glacial chill and knew she would never be able to conjure it up. It was so _physical_ , you expected bones to shatter, skin to crackle. Yesterday she had seen two men trying to open a manhole in the road with what looked like a flamethrower. Perhaps there would be no future of thaw and warmth, perhaps this was the beginning of a new Ice Age. First fire and then ice.\n\nIt was as well, she thought, that the war had robbed her of any care for fashion. She was wearing, in order, from inner to outer \u2013 a short-sleeved vest, a long-sleeved vest, a long-sleeved pullover, a cardigan and stretched on top of it all her shabby old winter coat, bought new in Peter Robinson's two years before the war. Not to mention, of course, the usual drab underwear, a thick tweed skirt, grey wool stockings, gloves _and_ mittens, a scarf, a hat and her mother's old fur-lined boots. Pity any man who was suddenly moved to ravish her. 'Chance'd be a fine thing, eh?' Enid Barker, one of the secretaries, said over the balm and succour of the tea-urn. Enid had auditioned for the part of plucky young London woman somewhere around 1940 and had been playing it with gusto ever since. Ursula chided herself for more unkind thoughts. Enid was a good sort. Terrifically skilled at typing tabulations, something Ursula had never quite got the hang of when she was at secretarial college. She had done a typing and shorthand course, years ago now \u2013 everything before the war seemed like ancient history (her own). She had been surprisingly adept. Mr Carver, the man who ran the secretarial college, had suggested that her shorthand was good enough for her to train as a court reporter at the Old Bailey. That would have been a quite different life, perhaps a better one. Of course, there was no way of knowing these things.\n\nShe trudged up the unlit stairs to her flat. She lived on her own now. Millie had married an American USAF officer and moved to New York State ('Me \u2013 a war bride! Who'd a thunk it?'). A thin layer of soot and what seemed to be grease coated the walls of the stairway. It was an old building, in Soho of all places ('needs must' she heard her mother's voice say). The woman who lived upstairs had a great many gentleman callers and Ursula had become accustomed to the creaking bedsprings and strange noises that came through the ceiling. She was pleasant though, always ready with a cheery greeting and never missed her turn at sweeping the stairs.\n\nThe building had been Dickensian in its dinginess to begin with and was now even more neglected and unloved. But then, the whole of London looked wretched. Grimy and grim. She remembered Miss Woolf saying that she didn't think 'poor old London' would ever be clean again. ('Everything is so awfully _shabby_.') Perhaps she was right.\n\n'You wouldn't think we had _won_ the war,' Jimmy said when he came to visit, spivvy in his American clothes, shiny and bright with promise. She readily forgave her little brother his New World \u00e9lan, he had had a hard war. Hadn't they all? 'A long and hard war,' Churchill had promised. How right he had been.\n\nIt was a temporary billet. She had the money for something better but the truth was she didn't really care. It was just one room, a window above the sink, a hot-water geyser, shared toilet down the hall. Ursula still missed the old flat in Kensington that she had shared with Millie. They had been bombed out in the big raid of May '41. Ursula had thought of Bessie Smith singing _like a fox without a hole_ but she had actually moved back in for a few weeks, living without a roof. It was chilly but she was a good camper. She had learned with the Bund Deutscher M\u00e4del, although it wasn't the kind of fact that you bandied about in those dark days.\n\nBut here was a lovely surprise waiting for her. A gift from Pammy \u2013 a wooden crate filled with potatoes, leeks, onions, an enormous emerald-green Savoy cabbage (a thing of beauty) and on the top, half a dozen eggs, nestled in cotton wool inside an old trilby of Hugh's. Lovely eggs, brown and speckled, as precious as unpolished gemstones, tiny feathers stuck here and there. _From Fox Corner, with love_ the label attached to the crate read. It was like receiving a Red Cross parcel. How on earth had it got here? There were no trains running and Pamela was almost certainly snowed in. Even more puzzling was how her sister had managed to dig up this wintry harvest when _Earth stood hard as iron_.\n\nWhen she opened the door she found a scrap of paper on the floor. She had to put her spectacles on to read it. It was a note from Bea Shawcross. _Visited but you weren't in. Will pop by again. Bea xxx_. Ursula was sorry she had missed Bea's visit, it would have been a nicer way to spend a Saturday afternoon than wandering in the dystopian West End. She was immensely cheered by nothing more than the sight of a cabbage. But then the cabbage \u2013 unexpectedly as was always the wont of these moments \u2013 uprooted an unwanted memory of the little parcel in the cellar at Argyll Road and she was plunged back into gloom. She was so up and down these days. Honestly, she chided herself, buck up, for heaven's sake.\n\nIt felt even colder inside the flat. She had developed chilblains, horrid painful things. Even her ears were cold. She wished she had some earmuffs, or a balaclava, like the grey woollen ones that Teddy and Jimmy used to wear to school. There was a line in 'The Eve of St Agnes', what was it? Something about the stone effigies in the church _in icy hoods and mails_. It used to make her feel cold every time she recited it. Ursula had learned the whole poem at school, a feat of memory that was probably beyond her now, and what, after all, had been the point if she couldn't even remember a complete line? She had a sudden longing for Sylvie's fur coat, a neglected mink, like a large friendly animal, that now belonged to Pamela. Sylvie had chosen death on VE Day. While other women were scratching together food for tea-parties and dancing in the streets of Britain, Sylvie had lain down on the bed that had been Teddy's when he was a child and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. No note, but her intention and motivation were quite clear to the family that she left behind. There had been a horrible funeral tea for her at Fox Corner. Pamela said it was the coward's way out, but Ursula wasn't so sure. She thought it showed a rather admirable clarity of purpose. Sylvie was another casualty of war, another statistic.\n\n'You know,' Pamela said, 'I used to argue with her because she said science had made the world a worse place, that it was all about men inventing new ways to kill people. But now I wonder if she wasn't right.' And that was before Hiroshima, of course.\n\nUrsula lit the gas fire, a rather pathetic little Radiant that looked as if it dated from the turn of the century, and fed the meter. The rumour was that pennies and shillings were running out. Ursula wondered why they couldn't melt down armaments. Guns into ploughshares, and so on.\n\nShe unpacked Pammy's box, laying everything out on the little wooden draining board like a poor man's still life. The vegetables were dirty but there wasn't much hope of washing the soil off as the pipes were frozen, even in the little Ascot, although the gas pressure was so low that it could barely heat the water anyway. _Water like a stone_. At the bottom of the crate she found a half-bottle of whisky. Good old Pammy, ever the thoughtful one.\n\nShe scooped some water from the bucket that she'd filled from the standpipe in the street and put a pan of water on the gas ring, thinking she might boil one of the eggs, although it would take for ever as there was only the tiniest frill of blue around the burner. There were warnings to be vigilant about the gas pressure \u2013 in case the gas came back on when the pilot light had gone out.\n\nWould it be so bad to be gassed, Ursula wondered? _Gassed_. She thought of Auschwitz. Treblinka. Jimmy had been a Commando and at the end of the war he had become attached, rather haphazardly according to him (although everything to do with Jimmy was always slightly haphazard), to the anti-tank regiment that liberated Bergen-Belsen. Ursula insisted that he told her what he had found there. He was reluctant and had probably withheld the worst but it was necessary to know. One must bear witness. (She heard Miss Woolf's voice in her head, _We must remember these people when we are safely in the future_.)\n\nThe toll of the dead had been her business during the war, the endless stream of figures that represented the blitzed and the bombed passed across her desk to be collated and recorded. They had seemed overwhelming, but the greater figures \u2013 the six million dead, the fifty million dead, the numberless infinities of souls \u2013 were in a realm beyond comprehension.\n\nUrsula had fetched water yesterday. They \u2013 who _were_ 'they'? After six years of war everyone had become accustomed to following 'their' orders, what an obedient lot the English were \u2013 _they_ had set up a standpipe in the next street and Ursula had filled up a kettle and bucket from the tap. The woman ahead of her in the queue was terrifically smart in an enviable floor-length sable, silver-grey, and yet there she was, waiting patiently in the bitter cold with her buckets. She looked out of place in Soho but then who knew her story?\n\nThe women at the well. Ursula seemed to remember that Jesus had a particularly confrontational conversation with the woman at the well. A woman of Samaria \u2013 no name, of course. She had had five husbands, Ursula recalled, and was living with a man who wasn't her husband, but the King James Bible never said what had happened to those five. Perhaps she had poisoned the well.\n\nUrsula remembered Bridget telling them that when she was a girl in Ireland she had walked to a well every day to draw water. So much for progress. How quickly civilization could dissolve into its more ugly elements. Look at the Germans, the most cultured and well-mannered of people, and yet... Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen. Given the same set of circumstances it could just as well have been the English, but that was something else you couldn't say. Miss Woolf had believed that, she'd said\u2014\n\n'I say,' the woman in sable said, interrupting her thoughts. 'Do you understand why my water is frozen solid and yet this isn't?' She had a cut-glass accent.\n\n'I don't know,' Ursula said. 'I know nothing.' The woman laughed and said, 'Oh, I feel the same way, believe me,' and Ursula thought that perhaps this was someone she would like as a friend but then a woman behind them said, 'Get a move on, love,' and the sable-furred woman hefted her buckets, as strapping as a Land Girl, and said, 'Well, must be off, cheerio.'\n\nShe turned on the wireless. Transmission of the Third Programme had been suspended for the duration. The war against the weather. You were lucky if you got the Home or the Light, there were so many electricity cuts. She needed noise, the sound of a familiar life. Jimmy had given her his old gramophone before he left, hers had been lost in Kensington along, sadly, with most of her records. She had managed to rescue a couple, miraculously unbroken, and placed one on the turntable now. 'I'd Rather Be Dead And Buried In My Grave'. Ursula laughed. 'Cheerful or what?' she said out loud. She listened to the scratch and hiss of the old record. Was that how she felt?\n\nShe glanced at the clock, Sylvie's little gold carriage clock. She had brought it home after the funeral. Four o'clock only. Ye gods, how the days dragged. She caught the pips, turned off the news. What was the point?\n\nShe had spent the afternoon trawling Oxford Street and Regent Street, for something to do \u2013 really it was just to get out of her monastic cell of a bedsit. All the shops were dim and dismal. Paraffin lamps in Swan and Edgar's, candles in Selfridge's \u2013 the drawn, shadowy faces of people like something from a painting by Goya. There was nothing to buy, or certainly nothing that she wanted, and anything she did want, like a lovely cosy-looking pair of fur-topped bootees, was outrageously expensive (fifteen guineas!). So depressing. 'Worse than the war,' Miss Fawcett at work said. She was leaving to get married, they had all clubbed together for her wedding present, a rather uninspiring vase, but Ursula wanted to get her something more personal, more special, but she couldn't think what and had hoped that the West End department stores might have just the thing. They didn't.\n\nShe'd gone into a Lyon's for a pale cup of tea, like lamb's water, Bridget would have said. And a utilitarian teacake, she counted just two hard dry raisins, and a scraping of margarine, and tried to imagine she was eating something wonderful \u2013 a luscious _Cremeschnitte_ or a slice of _Dobostorte_. She supposed the Germans weren't getting much in the way of pastries at the moment.\n\nShe murmured _Schwarzw\u00e4lder Kirschtorte_ accidentally out loud (such an extraordinary name, such an extraordinary cake) and attracted the unwanted attention of a neighbouring table, a woman stoically working her way through a large iced bun. 'Refugee, love?' she asked, surprising Ursula with her sympathetic tone.\n\n'Something like that,' Ursula said.\n\nWhile she was waiting for the egg to boil \u2013 the water still only lukewarm \u2013 she rooted among her books, never unpacked after Kensington. She found the Dante that Izzie had given her, nicely tooled red leather but the pages all foxed, a copy of Donne (her favourite), _The Waste Land_ (a rare first edition purloined from Izzie), a _Collected Shakespeare_ , her beloved metaphysical poets and, finally, at the bottom of the box, her battered school copy of Keats, with an inscription that read _To Ursula Todd_ , _for good work_. It would do for an epitaph too, she supposed. She flicked through the neglected pages until she found 'The Eve of St Agnes'.\n\nAh, bitter chill it was!\n\nThe owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;\n\nThe hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,\n\nAnd silent was the flock in woolly fold.\n\nShe read out loud and the words made her shiver. She should read something warming, Keats and his bees \u2013 _For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells_. Keats should have died on English soil. Asleep in an English garden on a summer's afternoon. Like Hugh.\n\nShe ate the egg while reading a copy of yesterday's _Times_ , given to her by Mr Hobbs in the post room when he had finished with it, a little daily ritual they had acquired. The paper's newly shrunk dimensions made it seem ridiculous somehow, as if the news itself was less important. Although really it was, wasn't it?\n\n*\n\nSnow like flakes of grey, soapy ash was falling outside the window. She thought of the Coles' relatives in Poland \u2013 rising above Auschwitz like a volcanic cloud, circling the Earth and blotting out the sun. Even now, after everything people had learned about the camps and so on, anti-Semitism was still rife. 'Jewboy' she'd heard someone being called yesterday, and when Miss Andrews ducked out of contributing to Miss Fawcett's wedding present Enid Barker had made a joke of it and said, 'What a Jew,' as if it were the mildest of insults.\n\nThe office was a tedious, rather irritable place these days \u2013 fatigue, probably, due to the cold and the lack of good, nourishing food. And the work was tedious, an endless compilation and permutation of statistics to be filed away in the archives somewhere \u2013 to be pored over by the historians of the future, she supposed. They were still 'clearing up and putting their house in order', as Maurice would have it, as if the casualties of war were clutter to be put away and forgotten. Civil Defence had been stood down for over a year and a half yet she still hadn't rid herself of the minutiae of bureaucracy. The mills of God (or the government) did indeed grind extremely small and slow.\n\nThe egg was delicious, it tasted as if it had been laid that very morning. She found an old postcard, a picture of the Brighton Pavilion (bought on a day trip with Crighton) that she'd never sent, and scrawled a thank you to Pammy \u2013 _Wonderful! Like a Red Cross package \u2013_ and propped it up on the mantelpiece next to Sylvie's clock. Next to Teddy's photo too. Teddy and his Halifax crew taken one sunlit afternoon. They were lounging in an assortment of old chairs. Forever young. The dog, Lucky, stood as proud as a little figurehead on Teddy's knee. How cheering it would be to still have Lucky. She had Teddy's DFC, propped up on the glass of the photo frame. Ursula had a medal too but it meant nothing to her.\n\nShe would put the postcard in with the afternoon post tomorrow. It would take an age to reach Fox Corner, she supposed.\n\nFive o'clock. She took her plate over to the sink to join the other unwashed dishes. The grey ash was a blizzard in the dark sky now and she pulled the flimsy cotton curtain to try to make it disappear. It tugged hopelessly on its wire and she gave up before she brought the whole thing down. The window was old and ill-fitting and let in a piercing draught.\n\nThe electricity went off and she fumbled for the candle on the mantelpiece. Could it get any worse? Ursula took the candle and the whisky bottle to bed, climbed under the covers still in her coat. She was so tired.\n\nThe flame on the little Radiant fire quivered alarmingly. Would it be so very bad? _To cease upon the midnight with no pain_. There were worse ways. Auschwitz, Treblinka. Teddy's Halifax going down in flames. The only way to stop the tears was to keep drinking the whisky. Good old Pammy. The flame on the Radiant flickered and died. The pilot light too. She wondered when the gas would come back on. If the smell would wake her, if she would get up and relight it. She hadn't expected to die like a fox frozen in its den. Pammy would see the postcard, know that she'd been appreciated. Ursula closed her eyes. She felt as though she had been awake for a hundred years and more. She really was so very, very tired.\n\nDarkness began to fall.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nWarm and milky and new, the smell was a siren call to Queenie the cat. Queenie, strictly speaking, belonged to Mrs Glover, although she was aloofly unaware that she was anyone's possession. An enormous tortoiseshell, she had arrived on the doorstep with Mrs Glover, carried in a carpet bag, and had taken up residence in her own Windsor chair, a smaller version of Mrs Glover's, next to the big kitchen range. Having her own chair didn't stop her leaving her fur on every other available seat in the house, including the beds. Hugh, no great lover of cats, complained continually about the mysterious way that the 'mangy beast' managed to deposit its hairs on his suits.\n\nMore malevolent than most cats, she had a way of simply punching you, like a fighting hare, if you got close to her. Bridget, also no great cat-lover, declared the cat to be possessed by a demon.\n\nWhere was that delicious new scent coming from? Queenie padded up the stairs and into the big bedroom. The room was warmed by the embers of a hot fire. This was a good room, the thick, soft quilt on the bed and the gentle rhythms of sleeping bodies. And there \u2013 a perfect little cat-sized bed, already warmed by a perfect little cat-sized cushion. Queenie kneaded her paws on the soft flesh, carried suddenly back to kittenhood. She settled herself down more comfortably, a deep bass purr of happiness rumbling in her throat.\n\nSharp needles in the soft skin pricked her into consciousness. Pain was a new, unwelcome thing. But then suddenly she was muffled, her mouth full of something, stoppering her, suffocating her. The more she tried to breathe the less it became possible. She was pinned down, helpless, no breath. Falling, falling, a bird shot.\n\nQueenie had already purred herself into a pleasant oblivion when she was woken by a shriek and found herself being grabbed and thrown across the room. Growling and spitting, she backed out of the door, sensing this was a fight she would lose.\n\nNothing. Slack and still, the little ribcage not moving. Sylvie's own heart was knocking in her chest as if a fist was inside her, punching its way out. Such danger! Like a terrible thrill, a tide washing through her.\n\nInstinctively, she placed her mouth over the baby's face, covering the little mouth and nose. She blew gently. And again. And again.\n\nAnd the baby came back to life. It was that simple. ('I'm sure it was a coincidence,' Dr Fellowes said, when told of this medical miracle. 'It seems very unlikely that you could revive someone using that method.')\n\nBridget returned to the kitchen from upstairs where she had been delivering beef tea and reported faithfully to Mrs Glover, 'Mrs Todd says to tell Cook \u2013 that's you, Mrs Glover \u2013 that you have to get rid of the cat. That it would be better if you had it killed.'\n\n'Killed?' Mrs Glover said, outraged. The cat, now reinstated in her usual place by the stove, raised her head and stared balefully at Bridget.\n\n'I'm just telling you what she said.'\n\n'Over my dead body,' Mrs Glover said.\n\nMrs Haddock sipped a glass of hot rum, in what she hoped was a ladylike way. It was her third and she was beginning to glow from the inside out. She had been on her way to help deliver a baby when the snow had forced her to take refuge in the snug of the Blue Lion, outside Chalfont St Peter. It was not the kind of place she would ever have considered entering, except out of necessity, but there was a roaring fire in the snug and the company was proving surprisingly convivial. Horse brasses and copper jugs gleamed and twinkled. Visible from the snug, on the other side of the counter, was the public bar, where the drink seemed to flow particularly freely. It was an altogether rowdier place. A sing-song was currently in progress there and Mrs Haddock was surprised to find her toe tapping in accompaniment.\n\n'You should see the snow,' the landlord said, leaning across the great polished depth of the brass bar counter. 'We could all be stuck here for days.'\n\n'Days?'\n\n'You may as well have another tot of rum. You won't be going anywhere in a hurry tonight.'\n\n# Like a Fox in a Hole\n\n# _September 1923_\n\n'And so you don't see Dr Kellet at all now?' Izzie asked, snapping open her enamelled cigarette case and displaying a neat row of Black Russian cigarettes. 'Gasper?' she offered, holding out the case. Izzie addressed everyone as if they were the same age as herself. It was both seductive and lazy.\n\n'I'm thirteen years old,' Ursula said. Which as far as she could see answered both questions.\n\n'Thirteen is quite grown-up nowadays. And life can be very short, you know,' Izzie added, taking out a long ebony and ivory cigarette holder. She cast vaguely around the restaurant for a waiter to produce a light. 'I rather miss those little visits of yours to London. Chaperoning you to Harley Street and then on to the Savoy for tea. A treat for both of us.'\n\n'I haven't seen Dr Kellet for over a year,' Ursula said. 'I'm considered cured.'\n\n'Jolly good. I, on the other hand, am considered by _la famille_ to be incurable. You are, of course, a _jeune fille bien \u00e9lev\u00e9e_ and will never know what it is like to be the scapegoat for everyone else's sins.'\n\n'Oh, I don't know. I think I have an idea.'\n\nIt was Saturday lunchtime and they were in Simpson's. 'Ladies at leisure,' Izzie said, over great slices of bloody beef carved off the bone before their eyes. Millie's mother, Mrs Shawcross, was a vegetarian and Ursula imagined her horror at the sight of the great haunch of meat. Hugh called Mrs Shawcross (Roberta) 'a Bohemian', Mrs Glover called her mad.\n\nIzzie leaned towards the young waiter who had scurried over to light her cigarette. 'Thank you, darling,' she murmured, gazing directly up into his eyes in a way that made him grow suddenly as pink as the roast beef on her plate. ' _Le rosbif_ ,' she said to Ursula, dismissing the waiter with an indifferent flap of her hand. She was always peppering her conversation with French words ('I spent some time in Paris when I was younger. And, of course, the war...'). 'Do you speak French?'\n\n'Well, we do it at school,' Ursula said. 'But that doesn't mean I can speak it.'\n\n'You're a droll little thing, aren't you?' Izzie inhaled deeply on her cigarette holder and then puckered up her (astonishingly) red cupid's bow as if she were about to play the trumpet before exhaling a stream of smoke. Several men seated nearby turned to stare at her in fascination. She winked at Ursula. 'I bet the first French words you learned were _d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu_. Poor old thing. Maybe you were dropped on your head as a baby. I expect I was. Come on, let's tuck in, I'm ravenous, aren't you? I'm supposed to be banting but really there's only so much one can take,' Izzie said, cutting enthusiastically into the beef.\n\nThis was an improvement, when she had met Ursula on the platform at Marylebone Izzie had looked green and said she was 'a tad queasy' on account of the oysters and rum ('never a good combination') after a 'disreputable' night in a club in Jermyn Street. Now, oysters apparently forgotten, she was eating as if she were starving even though she claimed, as usual, to be 'watching her figure'. She also claimed to be 'stony broke' yet was wildly extravagant with her money. 'What's life worth if you can't have some fun?' she said. ('Her life is nothing but fun as far as I can see,' Hugh grumbled.)\n\nFun \u2013 and the concomitant treats \u2013 were necessary, Izzie claimed, to sweeten the fact that she had now 'joined the ranks of the workers', and had to 'pound away' on a typewriter to earn her keep. 'Goodness, you would think she was hewing coal,' Sylvie said crossly after a rare and rather embattled family luncheon at Fox Corner. After Izzie had gone, Sylvie banged down the Worcester fruit plates she was helping Bridget to clear and said, 'All she's doing is producing drivel, which is something she's been doing since she first learned to talk.'\n\n'Heirlooms,' Hugh murmured, rescuing the Worcester.\n\nIzzie had managed to get a job ('God knows how,' Hugh said) writing a weekly column for a newspaper \u2013 _Adventures of a ModernSpinster_, the column was called \u2013 on the subject of being a 'singleton'. 'Everyone knows that there simply aren't enough men to go round any more,' she said, tearing into a bread roll at Fox Corner's Regency Revival dining table. ('You don't seem to have any trouble finding them,' Hugh muttered.) 'The poor boys are all dead,' Izzie continued, ignoring him. Butter was plastered on to the roll with no regard for the hard labour of the cow. 'There's nothing can be done about it, we have to move on as best we can without them. The modern woman must fend for herself without the prospect of the succour of hearth and home. She must learn to be independent, emotionally, financially and, most importantly, in her _spirit_.' ('Rot.' Hugh again.) 'The men are not the only ones who had to sacrifice themselves in the Great War.' ('They're dead, you're not, that's the difference.' This from Sylvie. Coldly.)\n\n'Of course,' Izzie said, mindful of Mrs Glover at her elbow with a tureen of Brown Windsor, 'the women of the lower classes have always known what it is to work.' Mrs Glover gave her a baleful look and tightened her grip on the soup ladle. ('Brown Windsor, how delicious, Mrs Glover. What do you put in it to make it taste this way? Really? How _interesting_.') 'We're moving towards a classless society, of course,' a remark directed at Hugh but which earned a snort of derision from an unappeased Mrs Glover.\n\n'Are you a Bolshevik this week then?' Hugh asked.\n\n'We're all Bolsheviks now,' Izzie said blithely.\n\n'And at my table!' Hugh said and laughed.\n\n'She's such a fool,' Sylvie said when Izzie had finally departed for the station. 'And so much make-up! You would think she was on the stage. Of course, in her head she's always on the stage. She _is_ her own theatre.'\n\n'The hair,' Hugh said regretfully. It went without saying that Izzie had bobbed her hair before anyone else they knew. Hugh had expressly forbidden the women in his family to cut their hair. Almost as soon as he had issued this paternal edict the normally unrebellious Pamela had gone into town with Winnie Shawcross and the pair of them had returned shingled and shorn. ('It's just easier for games' was Pamela's rational explanation.) Pamela had saved her heavy plaits, whether as relics or trophies, it was hard to say. 'Mutiny in the ranks, eh?' Hugh said. Neither of them being the argumentative sort, that was the end of the conversation. The plaits now lived at the back of Pamela's underwear drawer. 'You never know, they might come in useful for something,' she said. No one in the family could imagine what that something might be.\n\nSylvie's feelings about Izzie went deeper than hair or make-up. She had never forgiven Izzie for the baby. He would be thirteen now, the same age as Ursula. 'A little Fritz or Hans,' she said. 'My own children's blood running through his veins. But, of course, the only thing of any interest to Izzie is Izzie.'\n\n'Still, she can't be entirely shallow,' Hugh said. 'I expect she saw some awful things in the war.' As if he hadn't.\n\nSylvie tossed her head. There might have been a halo of gnats around her own lovely hair. She was rather envious of Izzie's war, even the awfulness. 'She's still a fool,' she said and Hugh laughed and said, 'Yes, she is.'\n\nIzzie's column seemed for the most part to be nothing more than a diary of her own hectic personal life with the odd social comment thrown in. Last week it had been 'How high can they go?' and was about 'the rise of the emancipated female hemline', but consisted mostly of Izzie's tips to acquire the necessary shapely ankles. _Stand backwards, on tiptoe, on the bottom step of a staircase and let your heels drop over the edge_. Pamela practised all week on the attic staircase and declared no improvement at all.\n\nMuch against his will, Hugh felt it necessary to buy Izzie's newspaper every Friday and read it on the train home, 'just to keep an eye on what she's saying' (and then jettison the offending item on the hall table, from where Pamela was able to rescue it). Hugh harboured a particular horror that Izzie would write about _him_ and his only comfort was that she wrote under the pseudonym Delphine Fox, which was 'the silliest name' that Sylvie had ever heard. 'Well,' Hugh said, 'Delphine is her middle name, from her godmother. And Todd is an old word for fox, so I suppose there is some logic in it. Not that I'm defending her.'\n\n'But it's my _name_ , it's on my birth certificate,' Izzie said, looking hurt when attacked over the pre-prandial decanter. 'And it's from Delphi, you know, the oracle, and so on. So rather fitting, I would have said.' ('She's an oracle now?' from Sylvie. 'If she's an oracle then I'm the high priestess of Tutankhamun.')\n\nIzzie, in the person of Delphine, had already on more than one occasion mentioned 'my two nephews' ('Terrific rascals, both of them!') but had not cited any names. 'So far,' Hugh said darkly. She had made up a few 'amusing anecdotes' about these clearly fictional nephews. Maurice was eighteen (Izzie's 'sturdy little chaps' were nine and eleven), still away at boarding school and had spent no more than ten minutes in Izzie's company in as many years. As for Teddy, he tended to avoid situations that might evolve into anecdotes.\n\n'Who _are_ these boys?' Sylvie quizzed over Mrs Glover's surprisingly capricious interpretation of sole V\u00e9ronique. She had the folded newspaper on the table next to her and tapped Izzie's column with her forefinger as if it might be impregnated with germs. 'Are they supposed to be based in some way on Maurice and Teddy?'\n\n'What about Jimmy?' Teddy said to Izzie. 'Why don't you write about _him_?' Jimmy, perky in a sky-blue knitted jumper, was spooning mashed potato into his mouth and didn't look too bothered about being written out of great literature. He was a child of the peace, the war to end all wars had, after all, been fought for Jimmy. Yet again, Sylvie claimed to be taken by surprise by the newest addition to the family ('Four had seemed like the complete set'). Once, Sylvie had had no idea how children were started, now she seemed uncertain as to how you might stop them. ('Jimmy's an afterthought, I suppose,' Sylvie said.\n\n'I wasn't _thinking_ much,' Hugh said and they both laughed and Sylvie said, 'Really, Hugh.')\n\nJimmy's arrival had the effect of making Ursula feel as if she was being pushed further away from the heart of the family, like an object at the edge of an overcrowded table. A cuckoo, she had overheard Sylvie say to Hugh. _Ursula_ ' _s a bit of an awkward cuckoo_. But how could you be a cuckoo in your own nest? 'You are my real mother, aren't you?' she asked Sylvie and Sylvie laughed and said, 'Incontrovertibly, dear.'\n\n'The odd one out,' she said to Dr Kellet.\n\n'Well, there always has to be one,' he said.\n\n' _Don't_ write about my children, Isobel,' Sylvie said heatedly to Izzie.\n\n'They're _imaginary_ , for heaven's sake, Sylvie.'\n\n'Don't even write about my imaginary children.' She lifted the tablecloth and peered at the floor. 'What _are_ you doing with your feet?' she said testily to Pamela, who was sitting opposite her.\n\n'I'm making circles with my ankles,' Pamela said, unconcerned by Sylvie's irritability. Pamela was quite bold these days but also rather reasonable, a combination that seemed designed to annoy Sylvie. ('You are so like your father,' she had said to Pamela only this morning over some trifling difference of opinion. 'But why would that be a bad thing?' Pamela said.) Pamela wiped gluey potato from Jimmy's pink cheeks and said, 'Clockwise, then anti-clockwise. It's the way to a shapely ankle, according to Aunt Izzie.'\n\n'Izzie is not a person from whom anyone with any sense would take advice.' ('Excuse me?' Izzie said.) 'Besides which, you're too young for shapely ankles.'\n\n'Well,' Pamela said, 'I'm nearly the same age as you were when you married Daddy.'\n\n'Oh, splendid,' Hugh said, relieved at the sight of Mrs Glover waiting in the doorway to make a grand entrance with a _Riz imp\u00e9ratrice_. 'The ghost of Escoffier is at your back today, Mrs Glover.' Mrs Glover couldn't help but glance behind her.\n\n'Oh, splendid,' Izzie said. 'A cabinet pudding. You can rely on Simpson's for nursery food. We had a nursery, you know, it took up the whole top floor of the house.'\n\n'In Hampstead? Grandmama's house?'\n\n'The very same. I was the baby. Like Jimmy.' Izzie wilted a little, as if she were remembering some hitherto long-forgotten sadness. The ostrich feather on her hat trembled in sympathy. She revived at the sight of the silver sauce-boat of custard. 'And so you don't have those odd feelings any more? The _d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu_ and so on?'\n\n'Me?' Ursula said. 'No. Sometimes. Not so much, I suppose. It was before, you know. Now it's gone. Sort of.' Had it? She was never sure. Her memories seemed like a cascade of echoes. Could echoes cascade? Perhaps not. She had tried (and largely failed) to learn to be precise with language under Dr Kellet's guidance. She missed that cosy hour ( _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_ , he called it. More French) on a Thursday afternoon. She was ten years old when she first went to see him and had enjoyed being liberated from Fox Corner, in the company of someone who gave his full attention to her and only her. Sylvie, or more often than not Bridget, put Ursula on the train and she was met at the other end by Izzie even though both Sylvie and Hugh doubted that Izzie was sufficiently reliable to be in charge of a child. ('Expediency,' Izzie said to Hugh, 'generally trumps ethics, I've noticed. Personally, if I had a ten-year-old child I don't think I would feel entirely comfortable allowing it to travel all on its own.' 'You _do_ have a ten-year-old child,' Hugh pointed out. The little Fritz. 'Couldn't we try and find him?' Sylvie asked. 'Needle in a haystack,' Hugh said. 'The Hun are legion.')\n\n'So I rather miss seeing you,' Izzie said, 'which is why I asked if you could come up for the day. To be frank, I was surprised Sylvie agreed. There's always been a certain, shall we say, _froideur_ between your mother and myself. I, of course, am considered mad, bad and dangerous to know. Anyway I thought I should try to single you out from the herd, as it were. You remind me a little of me.' (Was that a good thing, Ursula wondered?) 'We could be special chums, what do you think? Pamela's a little dull,' Izzie continued. 'All that tennis and cycling, no wonder she has such sturdy ankles. _Tr\u00e8s sportive_ , I'm sure, but still. And science! No fun in that. And the boys are, well... boys, but you're interesting, Ursula. All that funny stuff in your head about knowing the future. Quite the little clairvoyant. Perhaps we should set you up in a gypsy caravan, get you a crystal ball, Tarot cards. _The drowned Phoenician sailor_ and all that. You can't see anything in my future, can you?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Reincarnation,' Dr Kellet had said to her. 'Have you heard of that?' Ursula, aged ten, shook her head. She had heard of very little. Dr Kellet had a nice set of rooms in Harley Street. The one that he showed Ursula into was half panelled in mellow oak, with a thick carpet figured in red and blue on the floor and two large leather armchairs either side of a well-stoked coal fire. Dr Kellet himself wore a three-piece Harris tweed suit strung with a large gold fob watch. He smelt of cloves and pipe tobacco and had a twinkly look about him as if he were going to toast muffins or read a particularly good story to her, but instead he beamed at Ursula and said, 'So, I hear you tried to kill your maid?' (Oh, that's why I'm here, Ursula thought.)\n\nHe offered her tea which he brewed in something called a samovar in the corner of the room. 'Although I'm not Russian, far from it, I'm from Maidstone, I visited St Petersburg before the Revolution.' He was like Izzie in that he treated you as a grown-up, or at least he appeared to, but that was where the resemblance ended. The tea was black and bitter and only drinkable with the aid of heaps of sugar and the contents of the tin of Huntley and Palmer's Marie biscuits that sat between them on a little table.\n\nHe had trained in Vienna ('where else?') but trod, he said, his own path. He was no one's disciple, he said, although he had studied 'at the feet of all of the teachers. One must nose forward,' he said. 'Nudge one's way through the chaos of our thoughts. Unite the divided self.' Ursula had no idea what he was talking about.\n\n'The maid? You pushed her down the stairs?' It seemed a very direct question for someone who talked about nosing and nudging.\n\n'It was an accident.' She didn't think of Bridget as 'the maid', she thought of her as Bridget. And it was ages ago now.\n\n'Your mother is worried about you.'\n\n'I just want you to be happy, darling,' Sylvie said after she had made the appointment with Dr Kellet.\n\n'Aren't I happy?' Ursula puzzled.\n\n'What do you think?'\n\nUrsula didn't know. She wasn't sure that she had a yardstick against which to measure happiness or unhappiness. She had obscure memories of elation, of falling into darkness, but they belonged to that world of shadows and dreams that was ever-present and yet almost impossible to pin down.\n\n'As if there is another world?' Dr Kellet said.\n\n'Yes. But it's this one as well.'\n\n('I know she says the oddest things, but a _psychiatrist_?' Hugh said to Sylvie. He frowned. 'She's only small. She's not _defective_.'\n\n'Of course not. She just needs a little fixing.')\n\n'And, hey presto, you're fixed! How marvellous,' Izzie said. 'He was an odd little bod, that mind doctor, wasn't he? Shall we essay the cheese board \u2013 the Stilton's so ripe it looks as if it's about to walk away of its own accord \u2013 or shall we tootle off and go to mine?'\n\n'I'm stuffed,' Ursula said.\n\n'Me too. Tootle off it is then. Shall I pick up the bill?'\n\n'I have no money. I'm thirteen,' Ursula reminded her.\n\nThey left the restaurant and, to Ursula's astonishment, Izzie sauntered a few yards up the Strand and climbed into the driver's seat of a gleaming open-top car, parked, rather carelessly, outside the Coal Hole. 'You have a car!' Ursula exclaimed.\n\n'Good, isn't it? Not _exactly_ paid for. Hop in. A Sunbeam, sports model. Certainly beats driving an ambulance. Wonderful in this weather. Shall we take the scenic route, go along the Embankment?'\n\n'Yes, please.'\n\n'Ah, the Thames,' Izzie said when the river came into view. 'The nymphs, sadly, are all departed.' It was a lovely late-September afternoon, crisp as an apple. 'London's glorious, isn't it?' Izzie said. She drove as if she were on the circuit at Brooklands. It was both terrifying and exhilarating. Ursula supposed that if Izzie had managed to drive throughout the war unscathed then they would probably make it along the Victoria Embankment without coming to grief.\n\nAs they approached Westminster Bridge they had to slow down on account of the crowds of people whose flow had been interrupted by a largely silent demonstration of unemployed men. _I fought overseas_ , a placard held aloft read. Another proclaimed _Hungry and wanting to work_. 'They're so meek,' Izzie said dismissively. 'There'll never be a revolution in this country. Not another one at any rate. We chopped the head off a king once and felt so guilty about it that we've been trying to make up for it ever since.' A shabby-looking man came up alongside the car and shouted something incomprehensible at Izzie, although the meaning was clear.\n\n' _Qu'ils mangent de la brioche_ ,' Izzie murmured. 'You know she never said that, don't you? Marie-Antoinette? She's a rather maligned figure in history. You must never believe everything they say about a person. Generally speaking, most of it will be lies, half-truths at best.' It was hard to figure out whether Izzie was a royalist or a republican. 'Best not to adhere too closely to one side or the other really,' she said.\n\nBig Ben tolled a solemn three o'clock as the Sunbeam pushed its way through the throng. ' _Si lunga tratta di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta_. Have you read Dante? You should. He's very good.' How did Izzie know so much? 'Oh,' she said airily. 'Finishing school. And I spent some time in Italy after the war. I took a lover, of course. An impoverished count, it's more or less _de rigueur_ when you're over there. Are you shocked?'\n\n'No.' She was. Ursula wasn't surprised there was a _froideur_ between her mother and Izzie.\n\n'Reincarnation is at the heart of Buddhist philosophy,' Dr Kellet would say, sucking on his meerschaum pipe. All conversations with Dr Kellet were punctuated by this object, whether by gesture \u2013 a great deal of pointing with both mouthpiece and Turk's-head bowl (fascinating in itself) \u2013 or the necessary ritual of emptying, filling, tamping, lighting and so on. 'Have you heard of Buddhism?' She hadn't.\n\n'How old are you?'\n\n'Ten.'\n\n'Still quite new. Perhaps you're remembering another life. Of course, the disciples of the Buddha don't believe that you keep coming back as the _same_ person in the _same_ circumstances, as you feel you do. You move on, up or down, sideways occasionally, I expect. Nirvana is the goal. Non-being, as it were.' At ten it seemed to Ursula that perhaps _being_ should be the goal. 'Most ancient religions,' he continued, 'adhered to an idea of circularity \u2013 the snake with its tail in its mouth, and so on.'\n\n'I've been confirmed,' she said, trying to be helpful. 'Church of England.'\n\nDr Kellet had come to Sylvie recommended by Mrs Shawcross via Major Shawcross, their next-door neighbour. Kellet had done a lot of good work, the major said, with men who 'needed help' after they returned from the war (there was a suggestion that the major himself had 'needed help'). Ursula's path crossed occasionally with some of these other patients. Once there was a dejected young man who stared at the carpet in the waiting room speaking quietly to himself, another who tapped his foot restlessly in time to something only he could hear. Dr Kellet's receptionist, Mrs Duckworth, who was a war widow and had been a nurse during the war, was always very nice to Ursula, offering her peppermints and asking her about her family. One day a man blundered into the waiting room, although the doorbell downstairs had never rung. He looked bewildered and a little wild but he just stood stock-still in the middle of the room, staring at Ursula as if he'd never seen a child before, until Mrs Duckworth led him to a chair and sat down next to him and then put her arm round him and said, 'Now, now, Billy what is it?' the way a nice mother would have done and Billy laid his head on her chest and began to sob.\n\nIf Teddy ever cried when he was younger, Ursula could never bear it. It seemed to open up a chasm inside, something deep and dreadful and full of sorrow. All she ever wanted was to make sure he never felt like crying again. The man in Dr Kellet's waiting room had the same effect on her. ('That's how motherhood feels every day,' Sylvie said.)\n\nDr Kellet came out of his room at that moment and said, 'Come along, Ursula, I'll see to Billy later,' but when Ursula finished her appointment Billy was no longer in the waiting room. 'Poor man,' Mrs Duckworth said sadly.\n\nThe war, Dr Kellet said to Ursula, had made many people search for meaning in new places \u2013 'Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, anthroposophy, spiritualism. Everyone needs to make sense of their loss.' Dr Kellet himself had sacrificed a son, Guy, a captain in the Royal West Surreys, lost at Arras. 'One must hold on to the idea of sacrifice, Ursula. It can be a higher calling.' He showed her a photograph, not one taken in uniform, just a snapshot really, of a boy in cricket whites, standing proudly behind his bat. 'Could have played for the county,' Dr Kellet said sadly. 'I like to think of him \u2013 of all of them \u2013 playing a never-ending game in heaven. A perfect afternoon in June, always just before they break for tea.'\n\nIt seemed a shame for all the young men never to have their tea. Bosun was in heaven, along with Sam Wellington, the old boot, and Clarence Dodds, who had died with astonishing speed of the Spanish flu the day after the Armistice. Ursula couldn't imagine any of them playing cricket.\n\n'Of course, I don't believe in God,' Dr Kellet said. 'But I believe in heaven. One has to,' he added, rather bleakly. Ursula wondered how all of this was supposed to fix her.\n\n'From a more scientific point of view,' he said, 'perhaps the part of your brain responsible for memory has a little flaw, a neurological problem that leads you to think that you are repeating experiences. As if something had got stuck.' She wasn't really dying and being reborn, he said, she just _thought_ she was. Ursula couldn't see what the difference was. _Was_ she stuck? And if so, where?\n\n'But we don't want it to result in you killing the poor servants, do we?'\n\n'But it was such a long time ago,' Ursula said. 'It's not as if I've tried to kill anyone since.'\n\n'Down in the dumps,' Sylvie said at their first meeting with Dr Kellet, the only time she had been to the Harley Street rooms with Ursula although she had clearly already talked to him _without_ Ursula. Ursula wondered very much what had been said about her. 'And she's rather forlorn all the time,' Sylvie continued. 'I can understand an adult feeling like that\u2014'\n\n'Can you?' Dr Kellet said, leaning forward, the meerschaum indicating interest. 'Do _you_?'\n\n'I'm not the problem,' Sylvie said with her most gracious smile.\n\nI'm a problem, Ursula thought? And anyway she hadn't been _killing_ Bridget, she was _saving_ her. And if she wasn't saving her perhaps she was sacrificing her. Hadn't Dr Kellet himself said sacrifice was a higher calling?\n\n'If I were you I would stick to traditional moral guidelines,' he said. 'Fate isn't in your hands. That would be a very heavy burden for a little girl.' He got up from his chair and put another shovel of coal on the fire.\n\n'There are some Buddhist philosophers (a branch referred to as Zen) who say that sometimes a bad thing happens to prevent a worse thing happening,' Dr Kellet said. 'But, of course, there are some situations where it's impossible to imagine anything worse.' Ursula supposed he was thinking of Guy, _lost at Arras_ and then denied his tea and cucumber sandwiches for eternity.\n\n'Try this,' Izzie said, squirting a perfume atomizer in Ursula's direction. 'Chanel Number 5. It's quite the thing. _She's_ quite the thing. _Her strange, synthetic perfumes_.' She laughed as if she had made a great joke and sprayed another invisible cloud around the bathroom. It was quite different from the flowery scents that Sylvie anointed herself with.\n\nThey had finally arrived at Izzie's flat in Basil Street ('rather a dull _endroit_ but handy for Harrods'). Izzie's bathroom was pink and black marble ('I designed it myself, delicious, isn't it?') and was all sharp lines and hard corners. Ursula hated to think what would happen if you slipped and fell in here.\n\nEverything in the flat seemed to be new and shiny. It was nothing like Fox Corner, where the slow-seeming tick of the grandfather clock in the hall counted time and the patina of years shone on the parquet floors. The Meissen figures with their missing fingers and chipped toes, the Staffordshire dogs with accidentally lopped-off ears, bore no resemblance to the Bakelite bookends and onyx ashtrays in Izzie's rooms. In Basil Street everything looked so new it seemed to belong in a shop. Even the books were new, novels and volumes of essays and poetry by writers Ursula had never heard of. 'One must keep up with the times,' Izzie said.\n\nUrsula regarded herself in the bathroom mirror. Izzie stood behind her, Mephistopheles to her Faustus, and said, 'Goodness, you're turning out to be quite pretty,' before rearranging her hair into different styles. 'You must have it cut,' she said, 'you should come to my _coiffeur_. He's really very good. You're in danger of looking like a milkmaid, when really I think you're going to turn out to be deliciously wicked.'\n\nIzzie danced around the bedroom singing _I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate_. 'Can you shimmy? Look, it's easy.' It wasn't and they collapsed in laughter on the satin eiderdown of the bed. 'Gort to 'ave fun, 'aven't yew?' Izzie said in an atrocious mock-Cockney accent. The bedroom was a terrible mess, clothes everywhere, satin petticoats, _cr\u00eape de Chine_ nightdresses, silk stockings, partnerless shoes lying abandoned on the carpet, a dusting of Coty powder over everything. 'You can try things on if you want,' Izzie said carelessly. 'Although you're rather small compared to me. _Jolie et petite_.' Ursula declined, fearing enchantment. They were the kind of clothes that might turn you into someone else.\n\n'What shall we do?' Izzie said, suddenly bored. 'We could play cards? Bezique?' She danced through to the living room and tripped her way towards a large shining chrome object that looked as if it belonged on the bridge of an ocean liner and turned out to be a cocktail cabinet. 'A drink?' She looked doubtfully at Ursula. 'No, don't tell me, you're only thirteen.' She sighed, lit a cigarette and looked at the clock. 'We're too late to catch a matinee, too early for an evening performance. _London Calling!_ is on at the Duke of York's, it's supposed to be very amusing. We could go, you could get a later train home.'\n\nUrsula fingered the keys on the Royal typewriter that sat on a desk at the window. 'My trade,' Izzie said. 'Perhaps I should put you in this week's column.'\n\n'Really? What would you say?'\n\n'I don't know, make something up, I expect,' she said. 'That's what writers do.' She took out a record from the cabinet of the gramophone and put it on the turntable. 'Listen to this,' she said. 'You've never heard anything like it.'\n\nIt was true, she hadn't. It started with a piano, but nothing like the Chopin and Liszt that Sylvie played so nicely (and Pamela in such a pedestrian fashion).\n\n'They call it honky-tonk, I believe,' Izzie said. A woman began to sing, raw and American. She sounded as if she had spent her life in a prison cell. 'Ida Cox,' Izzie said. 'She's a Negress. Isn't she extraordinary?'\n\nShe was.\n\n'Singing about how wretched it is to be a woman,' Izzie said, lighting up another cigarette and sucking hard. 'If only one could find someone really filthy rich to marry. _A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of_. Do you know who said that? No? Well you should.' She was suddenly irritable, a not completely domesticated animal. The phone rang and she said, 'Saved by the bell,' and proceeded to have a feverishly animated conversation with the unseen, unheard caller. She ended the call by saying, 'That would be delish, darling, meet you in half an hour.' And to Ursula, 'I would offer you a lift but I'm going to Claridge's and it's simply _miles_ from Marylebone and after that I have a party to go to in Lowndes Square so I can't possibly see you to the station. You can Tube it to Marylebone, can't you? You know how? The Piccadilly line to Piccadilly Circus and then change to the Bakerloo to Marylebone. Come on, I'll walk out with you.'\n\nWhen they reached the street Izzie breathed deeply as if she'd been released from unwanted confinement. 'Ah, twilight,' she said. 'The violet hour. Lovely, isn't it?' She kissed Ursula on the cheek and said, 'It was marvellous seeing you, we have to do this again. Are you all right from here? _Tout droit_ on to Sloane Street, turn left and Bob's your uncle, there's Knightsbridge Tube station. Toodle-oo then.'\n\n' _Amor fati_ ,' Dr Kellet said, 'have you heard of that?' It sounded like he had said, 'A more fatty.' Ursula was puzzled \u2013 both herself and Dr Kellet were on the lean side. Nietzsche ('a philosopher'), he said, was drawn to it. 'A simple acceptance of what comes to us, regarding it as neither bad nor good.'\n\n' _Werde, der du bist_ , as he would have it,' Dr Kellet continued, knocking the ashes from his pipe on to the hearth from where Ursula supposed someone else would sweep them up. 'Do you know what that means?' Ursula wondered how many ten-year-old girls Dr Kellet had actually encountered before. 'It means become who you are,' he said, adding more shreds of tobacco to the meerschaum. (The being before the non-being, Ursula supposed.) 'Nietzsche got that from Pindar.   Do you know Greek?' He had quite lost her now. 'It means \u2013 become such as you are, having learned what that is.'\n\nUrsula thought he said 'from Pinner', which was where Hugh's old nanny had retired to, living with her sister above a shop in an old building on the high street. Hugh had driven Ursula and Teddy out there in his splendid Bentley one Sunday afternoon. Nanny Mills was rather frightening (although not to Hugh apparently), spending a lot of time quizzing Ursula about her manners and inspecting Teddy's ears for dirt. Her sister was nicer and plied them with glasses of elderflower cordial and slices of milk fadge spread with blackberry jelly. 'How is Isobel?' Nanny Mills asked, her mouth set like a prune. 'Izzie is Izzie,' Hugh said, which if you repeated it very quickly, as Teddy did later, sounded like a small swarm of wasps. Izzie, apparently, had become herself a long time ago.\n\nIt seemed unlikely that Nietzsche had obtained anything from Pinner, least of all his beliefs.\n\n'Nice time with Izzie?' Hugh asked when he picked her up from the station. There was something reassuring about the sight of Hugh in his grey homburg and long dark-blue wool overcoat. He scrutinized her for any visible change. She thought it best not to tell him that she had taken the Tube on her own. It had been a terrifying adventure, a dark night in the forest, but one which, like any good heroine, she had survived. Ursula shrugged. 'We went to Simpson's for lunch.'\n\n'Hm,' Hugh said as if trying to decipher a meaning from this.\n\n'We listened to a Negress singing.'\n\n'In Simpson's?' Hugh puzzled.\n\n'On Izzie's gramophone.'\n\n'Hm,' again. He opened the car door for her and she settled into the lovely leathery seat of the Bentley, almost as reassuring as Hugh himself. Sylvie regarded the car as 'ruinously' extravagant. It _was_ breathtakingly expensive. The war had made Sylvie parsimonious: slivers of soap were collected and boiled down for the laundry, sheets turned side to middle, hats refurbished. 'We would live on eggs and chickens if she had her way,' Hugh laughed. He, on the other hand, had become less prudent since the war, 'perhaps not the best trait for a banker to develop', Sylvie said. ' _Carpe diem_ ,' Hugh said and Sylvie said, 'You were never one for seizing.'\n\n'Izzie has a car now,' Ursula offered.\n\n'Does she?' Hugh said. 'I'm sure it's not as splendid as this beast.' He patted the dashboard of the Bentley fondly. As they drove away from the station he said quietly, 'She's not to be trusted.'\n\n'Who?' (Mother? The car?)\n\n'Izzie.'\n\n'No, you're probably right,' Ursula agreed.\n\n'How did you find her?'\n\n'Oh, you know. Incurable. Izzie is Izzie, after all.'\n\nWhen they returned to the house they found Teddy and Jimmy playing a tidy game of dominos on the table in the morning room while Pamela was next door with Gertie Shawcross. Winnie was slightly older than Pamela and Gertie slightly younger and Pamela divided her time equally between them but rarely both at the same time. Ursula, devoted to Millie, found it an odd arrangement. Teddy loved all the Shawcross girls but his heart was in Nancy's small hands.\n\nOf Sylvie there was no sign. 'Don't know,' Bridget said, rather indifferently, when Hugh enquired.\n\nMrs Glover had left them a rather utilitarian mutton stew keeping warm in the range. Mrs Glover no longer lived with them at Fox Corner. She rented a little house in the village so that she could look after George as well as them. George hardly ever left the house. Bridget referred to him as a 'poor soul' and it was hard to disagree with that description. If it was good weather (or even not particularly good weather at all) he sat in a big ugly bath-chair at the front door and watched the world pass him by. His handsome head ('Leonine, once,' Sylvie said sadly) hung down on his chest and a long thread of drool dangled from his mouth. 'Poor devil,' Hugh said. 'Better off if he'd been killed.'\n\nSometimes one or other of them tagged along when Sylvie \u2013 or a more reluctant Bridget \u2013 visited him during the day. It seemed odd that they would go to his home to see him while his own mother stayed in their home looking after them. Sylvie would fuss with the blanket across his legs and fetch him a glass of beer and then wipe his mouth the way you did with Jimmy.\n\nThere were other war veterans in the neighbourhood, visible thanks to their limps or missing limbs. All those unclaimed arms and legs lost in the fields of Flanders \u2013 Ursula imagined them pushing roots down into the mud and shoots up to the sky and growing once again into men. An army of men marching back for revenge. ('Ursula has morbid thoughts,' she heard Sylvie say to Hugh. Ursula had become a great eavesdropper, it was the only way to find out what people were really thinking. She didn't hear Hugh's answer as Bridget came crashing into the room in a fury because the cat \u2013 Hattie, one of Queenie's offspring, possessed of the same character as her mother \u2013 had stolen the poached salmon that was to have been their lunch.)\n\nThere were those, too, who, like the men in Dr Kellet's waiting room, had less visible injuries. There was an ex-soldier in the village called Charles Chorley who had served with the Buffs and had come through the war without a scratch and then one day in the spring of 1921 he had stabbed his wife and three children where they lay sleeping in their beds and then shot himself in the head with a Mauser he had taken from a German soldier he had killed at Bapaume. ('Terrible mess,' Dr Fellowes reported. 'These chaps should think about the people who have to clean up afterwards.')\n\nBridget, of course, had her 'own cross to bear', having lost Clarence. Like Izzie, Bridget was resigned to spinsterhood although she embraced it in a less giddy fashion. They had all attended Clarence's funeral, even Hugh. Mrs Dodds had been her usual restrained self and had flinched when Sylvie placed a comforting hand on her arm, but after they had shuffled away from the gaping hole of the grave (not a thing of beauty, not at all) Mrs Dodds said to Ursula, 'Part of him died during the war. This was just the rest of him catching up,' and she put her finger to the corner of her eye and dabbed at a trace of moisture there \u2013 a tear would have been too generous a description. Ursula didn't know why she had been chosen for this confidence, possibly simply because she was the nearest person. Certainly no response was expected, or received.\n\n'Ironic, one might say,' Sylvie said, 'for Clarence to have survived the war and to die of an illness.' ('What would I have done if one of you had caught the influenza?' she often said.)\n\nUrsula and Pamela had spent a considerable amount of time discussing whether Clarence had been buried with his mask on or off. (And if off, where might it be now?) They didn't feel it was the kind of thing that they could ask Bridget. Bridget said bitterly that Old Mrs Dodds had finally got her son to herself and stopped another woman taking him away from her. ('A little harsh, perhaps,' Hugh murmured.) Clarence's photograph, a print of the one taken for his mother, before Bridget knew him, before he marched off to his destiny, had now joined that of Sam Wellington in the shed. 'The endless ranks of the dead,' Sylvie said angrily. 'Everyone wants to forget them.'\n\n'Well I certainly do,' Hugh said.\n\nSylvie returned in time for Mrs Glover's apple charlotte. Their own apples \u2013 a small orchard that Sylvie had planted at the end of the war was beginning to bear fruit. When Hugh wondered where she had been she said something indistinct about Gerrards Cross. She sat at the dining table and said, 'I'm not really terribly hungry.'\n\nHugh caught her eye and, nodding in Ursula's direction, said, 'Izzie.' An exquisite shorthand communication.\n\nUrsula had expected an inquisition but all Sylvie said was 'Good lord, I had quite forgotten that you had been to London. You've returned in one piece, I'm glad to see.'\n\n'Untainted,' Ursula said brightly. 'Do you, by the way, know who it was who said, _A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of_?' Sylvie's knowledge, like Izzie's, was random yet far-ranging, 'the sign that one has acquired one's learning from novels, rather than an education', according to Sylvie.\n\n'Austen,' Sylvie said promptly. ' _Mansfield Park_. She puts the words in Mary Crawford's mouth, for whom she professes disdain, of course, but really I expect dear Aunt Jane rather believed those words. Why?'\n\nUrsula shrugged. 'Nothing.'\n\n' _Till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country parson ever aspired to a shrubbery, or anything of the kind_. Wonderful stuff. I always think the word shrubbery denotes a certain kind of person.'\n\n'We have a shrubbery,' Hugh said but Sylvie ignored him and continued to Ursula, 'You really should read Jane Austen. You're surely the right age by now.' Sylvie seemed quite gay, a mood somehow at odds with the mutton that was still sitting on the table in its dull brown pot, little ponds of white fat congealing on the surface. 'Really,' Sylvie said sharply, turning suddenly like the weather. 'Standards are falling everywhere, even in one's own home.' Hugh raised his eyebrows and before Sylvie had a chance to call on Bridget he got up from the table and took the stew-pot back to the kitchen himself. Their little maid-of-all-work, Marjorie, no longer so little, had recently decamped and Bridget and Mrs Glover were left to shoulder the burden of looking after them. ('It's not as if we're demanding in any way,' Sylvie said crossly when Bridget mentioned that she hadn't had a pay rise since the end of the war. 'She should be grateful.')\n\nIn bed that night \u2013 Ursula and Pamela still shared the cramped quarters of the attic bedroom ('like prisoners in a cell' according to Teddy) \u2013 Pamela said, 'Why didn't she invite me as well as you, or even instead of you?' This, being Pamela, was said with genuine curiosity rather than malice.\n\n'She thinks I'm interesting.'\n\nPamela laughed and said, 'She thinks Mrs Glover's Brown Windsor is _interesting_.'\n\n'I know. I'm not flattered.'\n\n'It's because you're pretty and clever,' Pamela said, 'while I am merely clever.'\n\n'That's not true and you know it,' Ursula said, hotly defensive of Pamela.\n\n'I don't mind.'\n\n'She says she'll put me in her newspaper next week but I don't suppose she will.'\n\nUrsula, in her account to Pamela of the day's adventures in London, had omitted a scene she had witnessed, unseen by Izzie, who had been preoccupied with turning the car round in the middle of the road outside the Coal Hole. A woman wearing a mink coat had come out of the entrance to the Savoy, on the arm of a rather elegant man. The woman was laughing in a carefree way at something the man had just said but then she broke away from his arm to search in her handbag for her purse in order to drop a handful of coins into the bowl of an ex-soldier who was sitting on the pavement. The man had no legs and was perched on some kind of makeshift wooden trolley. Ursula had seen another limbless man on a similar contraption outside Marylebone station. Indeed, the more she had looked on the London streets, the more amputees she had seen.\n\nA doorman from the hotel darted out of Savoy Court and advanced on the legless man, who quickly scooted away using his hands as oars on the pavement. The woman who had given him money remonstrated with the doorman \u2013 Ursula could make out her handsome, impatient features \u2013 but then the elegant man took her gently by the elbow and guided her away up the Strand. The remarkable thing about this scene was not the content but the characters. Ursula had never seen the elegant man before but the agitated woman was \u2013 quite unmistakably \u2013 Sylvie. If she hadn't recognized Sylvie, she would have recognized the mink, given to her by Hugh for their tenth wedding anniversary. She seemed a long way from Gerrards Cross.\n\n'Well,' Izzie said when the car was finally facing the right way, 'that was a tricky manoeuvre!'\n\n*\n\nWhen it came to the next week Ursula was indeed absent from Izzie's column, even in fictional form. She had written instead about the freedom that the single woman could obtain from ownership of 'a little car'. 'The joys of the open road far surpass being trapped on a filthy omnibus or being followed down a dark street by a stranger. One has no need to glance nervously over one's shoulder at the wheel of a Sunbeam.'\n\n'I say, that's grim,' Pamela said. 'Do you think she has? Been followed down a street by a stranger?'\n\n'Lots of times, I expect.'\n\nUrsula was not called upon again to be Izzie's 'special chum', indeed none of them heard from her again until she turned up on the doorstep on Christmas Eve (invited but not expected) and declared herself to be 'in a bit of a jam', a state which necessitated her being closeted in the growlery with Hugh, to emerge an hour later looking almost chastened. She had brought no presents with her and smoked throughout Christmas dinner, picking listlessly at her food. 'Annual income twenty pounds,' Hugh said when Bridget brought the brandy-soaked pudding to the table. 'Annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.'\n\n'Oh, do shut up,' Izzie said and flounced off before Teddy could put a match to the pudding.\n\n'Dickens,' Sylvie said to Ursula.\n\n' _J'\u00e9tais un peu d\u00e9rang\u00e9e_ ,' Izzie said to Ursula, rather contritely, next morning by way of explanation.\n\n'Silly of me, really,' Izzie said. 'I got in a bit of a muddle.'\n\nIn the new year the Sunbeam disappeared and the Basil Street address was exchanged for a less salubrious one in Swiss Cottage (an even duller _endroit_ ) but nonetheless Izzie remained undeniably Izzie.\n\n# _December 1923_\n\nJimmy had a cold so Pammy said she would stay at home with him and make decorations from silver milk-bottle tops while Ursula and Teddy tramped along the lane in search of holly. Holly was abundant in the copse but the copse was further away and the weather was so wretched that they wanted to be outside for as little time as possible. Mrs Glover, Bridget and Sylvie were confined to the kitchen, caught up in the afternoon drama of Christmas cooking.\n\n'Don't pick any branches without berries,' Pamela instructed as they left the house. 'And don't forget to look for some mistletoe as well.'\n\nThey went prepared with pruning shears and a pair of Sylvie's leather gardening gloves, having learned the painful lesson of previous Christmas foraging expeditions. They had their sights set on the big holly tree in the field at the far end of the lane, having been deprived of the handy holly hedge in the garden, which had been replaced by a more biddable privet after the war. The whole neighbourhood was tamer and more suburban. Sylvie said it would not be long before the village had spread so much that they would be surrounded by houses. 'People must live somewhere,' Hugh said reasonably. 'But not here,' Sylvie said.\n\nIt was unpleasantly windy and spitting with rain and Ursula would have much preferred to stay by the fire in the morning room with the festive promise of Mrs Glover's mince pies scenting the whole house. Even Teddy, usually the one to find a silver lining, trudged disconsolately along beside her, hunched against the weather, a small, stalwart Knight Templar in his knitted grey balaclava. 'This is beastly,' he said. Only Trixie relished the outing, ferreting in the hedgerows and delving in the ditch as if she had been sent on a mission to unearth treasure. She was a noisy dog, much given to barking for reasons apparent only to herself, so when, way ahead of them in the lane, she began to yap deliriously they took little notice.\n\nTrixie had quietened down a bit by the time they caught up with her. She was standing sentinel over her prize, and Teddy said, 'Something dead, I expect.' Trixie was particularly skilled at truffling out half-rotted birds and the desiccated corpses of larger mammals. 'A rat or a vole, probably,' Teddy said. And then an eloquent 'Oh,' when he saw the true nature of the trove in the ditch.\n\n'I'll stay here,' Ursula said to Teddy, 'and you run back to the house and fetch someone,' but then as she watched his vulnerable little figure setting off, running alone along the deserted lane, the early winter dark already closing in around him, she had shouted at him to wait for her. Who knew what terror lay in wait? For Teddy, for all of them.\n\nThere was confusion as to what to do with the body over the holiday and eventually it was decided to keep it in the ice house at Ettringham Hall until after Christmas.\n\nDr Fellowes, who had arrived along with a police constable, said the child had died of unnatural causes. A girl, eight or nine years old; her second set of front teeth had grown in although they had been knocked out before death. There were no little girls reported missing, the police said, certainly not locally. They speculated she might be a gypsy, although Ursula thought that gypsies _took_ children, rather than left them behind.\n\nIt was almost New Year before a reluctant Lady Daunt was willing to give her up. When they removed her from the ice house they found her decorated like a relic \u2013 flowers and little tokens on her body, her skin bathed and her hair brushed and beribboned. As well as their three sons sacrificed to the Great War, the Daunts had also once had a girl, dead in infancy, and her custody of the little corpse had caused Lady Daunt to revisit her old grief and she had gone out of her mind for a while. She wanted to bury the girl in the grounds of the Hall but there was a rebellious murmuring from the villagers who insisted that she be buried in the churchyard, 'Not hidden away as Lady Daunt's pet,' someone said. A strange kind of pet, Ursula thought.\n\nNeither her identity nor that of her murderer was ever discovered. The police questioned everyone in the neighbourhood. They had come to Fox Corner one evening and Pamela and Ursula had almost hung themselves from the banisters in an attempt to hear what was said. From this eavesdropping they learned that no one in the village was a suspect and that 'terrible things' had been done to the child.\n\nIn the end she was buried on the last day of the old year but not before the vicar had christened her, as the general feeling was that although the girl was determined to remain an enigma she should not be buried without a name. No one seemed to know how 'Angela' was arrived at but it seemed appropriate. Nearly the whole village turned out for the funeral and many wept more heartily for Angela than they had ever done for their own flesh and blood. There was sadness rather than fear and Pamela and Ursula often discussed why it was, exactly, that everyone they knew was regarded as innocent.\n\nLady Daunt was not the only one to be strangely affected by the murder. Sylvie was particularly disturbed, more by anger, it seemed, than sadness. 'It's not,' she fumed, 'that she was killed, although heaven knows that's terrible enough, it's that _no one missed her_.'\n\nTeddy had nightmares for weeks afterwards, creeping into bed beside Ursula in the dead of night. They would for ever be the ones who found her, the ones who had seen the little shoeless, sockless foot \u2013 bruised and grubby, poking out from the dead branches of an elm, her body shrouded with a cold coverlet of leaves.\n\n# _11 February 1926_\n\n'Sweet sixteen,' Hugh said, kissing her affectionately. 'Happy birthday, little bear. Your future's all ahead of you.' Ursula still harboured the feeling that some of her future was also behind her but she had learned not to voice such things. They were to have gone up to London for afternoon tea at the Berkeley (it was half term), but Pamela had recently twisted her ankle in a hockey match and Sylvie was recovering from an attack of pleurisy that had seen her spend a night in the cottage hospital ('I suspect I have my mother's lungs,' a remark that Teddy found funny every time he thought about it). And Jimmy was only just over a bout of the tonsillitis he was prone to. 'Going down like flies,' Mrs Glover said, beating butter into sugar for the cake. 'Who's next, I wonder?'\n\n'Who needs to go to a hotel for a decent tea anyway?' Bridget said. 'Just as good here.'\n\n'Better,' Mrs Glover said. Although, of course, neither Bridget nor Mrs Glover had been invited to the Berkeley and indeed Bridget had never been inside a London hotel, or a hotel anywhere come to that, apart from having gone into the Shelbourne to admire the foyer before catching the ferry at D\u00fan Laoghaire to come to England, 'a lifetime ago'. Mrs Glover, on the other hand, declared herself to be 'quite familiar' with the Midland in Manchester where one of her nephews (of which, it seemed, she had an endless supply) had taken her and her sister for dinner 'on more than one occasion'.\n\nCoincidentally, Maurice was down for the weekend, although he had forgotten ('if he ever knew' Pamela said) that it was Ursula's birthday. He was in his last year at Balliol where he was reading law and was 'more of a prig than ever' according to Pamela. His parents didn't seem particularly taken with him either. 'He _is_ mine, isn't he?' Ursula had overheard Hugh say to Sylvie. 'You didn't have a dalliance in Deauville with that terrifically boring chap from Halifax, the one who owned the mill?'\n\n'What a memory you have,' Sylvie laughed.\n\nPamela had taken time out from her studies to make a lovely card, a _d\u00e9coupage_ of flowers cut out from Bridget's magazines, as well as baking a batch of her famous (in Fox Corner anyway) 'piccaninny' biscuits. Pamela was studying for the entrance exam for Girton. 'A Girton girl,' she said, her eyes alight, 'imagine.' As Pamela prepared to leave the sixth form of the school they both attended, Ursula was about to enter it. She was good at Classics. Sylvie said that she couldn't see the point of Latin and Greek (she had never been taught them and seemed to feel the lack). Ursula, on the other hand, was rather attracted to words that were now only whispers from the necropoles of ancient empires. ('If you mean \"dead\" then say \"dead\",' Mrs Glover said irritably.)\n\nMillie Shawcross was also invited to tea and had arrived early, her usual chirpy self. Her present was an assortment of lovely velvet hair ribbons, bought with her own money from the haberdasher's in town. ('Now you'll never be able to cut your hair,' Hugh said to Ursula, with some satisfaction.)\n\nMaurice had brought two friends to stay for the weekend, Gilbert and an American, Howard ('Call me Howie, everyone does'), who were going to have to double up in the spare-room bed, a fact that seemed to make Sylvie uneasy. 'You can go top to tail,' she told them briskly. 'Or one of you can sleep on a cot with the Great Western Railway,' which was their name for Teddy's Hornby train set that took up all of Mrs Glover's old room in the attic. Jimmy was allowed to share this pleasure. 'Your sidekick, huh?' Howie said to Teddy, ruffling Jimmy's hair so vigorously that Jimmy was knocked off balance. The fact that Howie was an American gave him a special kind of glamour, although it was Gilbert who had the brooding, rather exotic, movie star looks. His name \u2013 Gilbert Armstrong \u2013 and his father (a high court judge) and his education (Stowe) pointed to impeccably English credentials but his mother was the scion of an old Spanish aristocratic family ('Gypsies,' Mrs Glover concluded, which was pretty much what she considered all foreigners to be).\n\n'Oh, my,' Millie whispered to Ursula, 'the gods walk among us.' She crossed her hands over her heart and flapped them like wings. 'Not Maurice,' Ursula said. 'He would have been kicked off Olympus for getting on everyone's nerves.'\n\n'The self-importance of gods,' Millie said, 'what a wonderful title for a novel.' Millie, needless to say, wanted to be a writer. Or an artist, or a singer, or a dancer, or an actress. Anything where she might be the centre of attention.\n\n'What are you little girls chattering about?' Maurice said. Maurice was very sensitive, some might have said over-sensitive, to criticism.\n\n'You,' Ursula said. Girls did find Maurice attractive, a fact that continually surprised the women in his own family. He had fair hair that looked as if it had been marcelled and a strapping physique from rowing but it was hard to overlook his charmlessness. Gilbert, however, was even now kissing Sylvie's hand ('Oh,' said Millie, 'can it _get_ any better?'). Maurice had introduced Sylvie as 'My old mater,' and Gilbert said, 'You're too young to be anyone's mother.'\n\n'I know,' Sylvie said.\n\n('A rather louche fellow' was Hugh's verdict. 'A Lothario,' Mrs Glover said.)\n\nThe three young men seemed to fill Fox Corner as if the house had suddenly shrunk and both Hugh and Sylvie were relieved when Maurice suggested that they go outside for 'a tour of the grounds'. 'Good idea,' Sylvie said, 'work off some of that surplus energy.' The three of them ran out into the garden in Olympian fashion (sportive rather than sacred) and commenced a hearty kick-about with a ball that Maurice had found in the hall cupboard. ('Mine, actually,' Teddy pointed out to no one in particular.) 'They'll ruin the lawn,' Hugh said, observing them howling like hooligans as they chewed up the grass with their muddy brogues.\n\n'Oh,' Izzie said, when she arrived and caught sight of this athletic trio through the window, 'I say, they're rather gorgeous, aren't they? Can I have one?'\n\nIzzie, swathed from head to toe in fox fur, said, 'I brought gifts,' an unnecessary announcement as she was laden with all kinds of different-shaped parcels in expensive wrapping 'for my favourite niece'. Ursula glanced at Pamela and gave a rueful shrug. Pamela rolled her eyes. Ursula hadn't seen Izzie in months, not since a fleeting visit to Swiss Cottage in the car with Hugh to drop off a crate full of vegetables from Fox Corner's bountiful late-summer garden. ('A marrow?' Izzie said, inspecting the contents of the box. 'What on earth am I supposed to do with that?')\n\nPrior to that she had visited for a long weekend but had more or less ignored everyone except Teddy, whom she took off for long walks and quizzed relentlessly. 'I think she's singled him out from the herd,' Ursula told Pamela. 'Why?' Pamela said. 'So she can eat him?'\n\nWhen questioned (closely by Sylvie), Teddy was mystified as to why he had received special attention. 'She just asked me what I did, what school was like, what my hobbies were, what I liked to eat. My friends. Stuff like that.'\n\n'Maybe she wants to adopt him,' Hugh said to Sylvie. 'Or sell him. I'm sure Ted would bring a good price.' And Sylvie, fiercely, 'Don't say things like that, not even in jest.' But then Teddy was dropped by Izzie as swiftly as he'd been picked up by her and they had thought no more of it.\n\nThe first of Ursula's presents to be unwrapped was a recording by Bessie Smith which Izzie immediately placed on the gramophone, home usually to Elgar and, Hugh's favourite, _The Mikado_. 'The \"St Louis Blues\",' Izzie said instructively. 'Listen to that cornet! Ursula loves this music.' ('Do you?' Hugh asked Ursula. 'I had no idea.') Then a lovely tooled red-leather edition of Dante in translation was produced. This was followed by a satin and lace bedjacket from Liberty's \u2013 'as you know, a shop of which your mother is inordinately fond'. This was pronounced 'far too grown-up' by Sylvie, 'Ursula wears flannelette.' Next a bottle of Shalimar ('new by Guerlain, divine') which received a similar verdict from Sylvie.\n\n'So speaks the child bride,' Izzie said.\n\n''I was eighteen, not sixteen,' a tight-lipped Sylvie said. 'One day we must talk about what _you_ got up to at sixteen, Isobel.'\n\n'What?' Pamela said eagerly.\n\n' _Il n'avait pas d'importance_ ,' Izzie said dismissively. Finally, from this cornucopia, a bottle of champagne. ('And definitely far too young for that!')\n\n'Better get that on ice,' Izzie said, handing it to Bridget.\n\nA perplexed Hugh glared at Izzie. 'Did you steal all this?' he asked.\n\n'Hey, darkie music,' Howie said when the three boys returned from the outdoors, crowding into the drawing room and smelling vaguely of bonfires and something else, less definable ('Essence of stag,' Izzie murmured, sniffing the air). Bessie Smith was now on her third go round and Hugh said, 'It begins to grow on one after a while.' Howie did some kind of odd dance to the music, vaguely barbaric, and then whispered something in Gilbert's ear. Gilbert laughed, rather crudely for someone with blue blood, albeit foreign, and Sylvie clapped her hands and said, 'Boys, how about some potted shrimps?' and marshalled them into the dining room when she noticed, too late, the dirty footprints they had tracked through the house.\n\n'They didn't fight in the war,' Hugh said, as if that explained their muddy spoor.\n\n'And that's a good thing,' Sylvie said firmly. 'No matter how unsatisfactory they turn out.'\n\n'Now,' Izzie said when the cake was cut and apportioned, 'I have one last gift\u2014'\n\n'For goodness', sake, Izzie,' Hugh interrupted, unable to contain his exasperation any longer. 'Who is paying for this? You have no money, your debts are piled to the rafters. You promised you would learn economy.'\n\n'Please,' Sylvie said. Any discussion of money (even Izzie's) in front of strangers filled her with reticent horror. A sudden dark cloud passed over her heart. It was Tiffin, she knew.\n\n' _I_ am paying,' Izzie said, very grandly. 'And this is not a present for Ursula, it is for Teddy.'\n\n'Me?' Teddy said, startled on to centre stage. He had been thinking what a jolly good cake it was and wondering what the chances of a second piece were and certainly had no desire to be pushed into the limelight.\n\n'Yes, you, darling boy,' Izzie said. Teddy visibly shrank away from both Izzie and the present that she put on the table in front of him. 'Go on,' Izzie said encouragingly, 'unwrap it. It won't explode.' (But it would.) Gingerly, Teddy removed the expensive paper. Unwrapped, the present turned out to be exactly what it looked like when wrapped \u2013 a book. Ursula, sitting opposite, tried to decipher the upside-down title. _The Adventures of_...\n\n_'The Adventures of Augustus_ ,' Teddy read out loud, 'by Delphie Fox.' ('Delphie?' Hugh queried.)\n\n'Why is everything an \"adventure\" with you?' Sylvie said irritably to Izzie.\n\n'Because life is an adventure, of course.'\n\n'I would say it was more of an endurance race,' Sylvie said. 'Or an obstacle course.'\n\n'Oh, my dear,' Hugh said, suddenly solicitous, 'not that bad, surely?'\n\n'Anyway,' Izzie said, 'back to Teddy's present.'\n\nThe thick card of the cover was green, the lettering and line drawings were gold \u2013 illustrations of a boy, roughly Teddy's age, wearing a schoolboy's cap. He was accompanied by a catapult and a small dog, a scruffy West Highland terrier. The boy was dishevelled and had a wild look on his face. 'That's Augustus,' Izzie said to Teddy. 'What do you think? I've based him on you.'\n\n'Me?' Teddy said, horrified. 'But I don't look like that. It's not even the right dog.'\n\nSomething astonishing. 'Give anyone a lift back to town?' Izzie asked casually.\n\n'You haven't got another car?' Hugh moaned.\n\n'I parked it at the foot of the drive,' Izzie said sweetly, 'so as not to annoy you.' They all trooped down the drive to inspect the car, Pamela, still on her crutches, hobbling tardily behind. 'The poor and the maimed, the halt and the blind,' she said to Millie and Millie laughed and said, 'For a scientist you know your Bible.'\n\n'Best to know your enemy,' Pamela said.\n\nIt was cold and none of them had thought to put their coats on. 'But really quite mild for this time of year,' Sylvie said. 'Not like when you were born. Goodness, I've never seen snow like that.'\n\n'I know,' Ursula said. The snow the day she was born was a legend in the family. She had heard the story so often that she thought she could remember it.\n\n'It's just an Austin,' Izzie said. 'An open-road tourer \u2013 four doors though \u2013 but nowhere near as costly as a _Bentley_ , goodness, it's positively a vehicle for hoi polloi compared to _your_ indulgence, Hugh.' 'On tick, no doubt,' Hugh said. 'Not at all, paid up in full, _in cash_. I have a _publisher_ , I have _money_ , Hugh. You don't need to worry about me any more.'\n\nWhile everyone was admiring (or not, in the case of Hugh and Sylvie) the cherry-bright vehicle, Millie said, 'I have to go, I have a dancing exhibition tonight. Thank you very much for a lovely tea, Mrs Todd.'\n\n'Come on, I'll walk you back,' Ursula said.\n\nOn the return home, through the well-worn shortcut at the bottom of the gardens, Ursula had an unexpected encounter \u2013 this was the something amazing, not the Austin tourer \u2013 when she almost tripped over Howie, on his hands and knees, rooting among the bushes. 'Looking for the ball,' he said apologetically. 'It was your kid brother's. I think we lost it in the' \u2013 he sat back on his heels and looked around helplessly at the berberis and buddleia \u2013 'Shrubbery,' Ursula supplied. 'We aspire to it.'\n\n'Huh?' he said, standing up in one clean move and suddenly towering above her. He looked as though he boxed. Indeed there was a bruise below his eye. Fred Smith, who used to be the butcher's boy but now worked on the railways, was a boxer. Maurice had taken a couple of his pals to cheer Fred on in an amateur bout in the East End. Apparently it had dissolved into a boozy riot. Howie smelt of bay rum \u2013 Hugh's scent \u2013 and there was something polished and new about him, like a freshly minted coin.\n\n'Did you find it?' she asked. 'The ball?' She sounded squeaky to her own ears. She had thought Gilbert was the handsome one out of the two but faced with Howie's clean-limbed, uncomplicated strength, like a large animal, she felt stupid.\n\n'How old are you?' he asked.\n\n'Sixteen,' she said. 'It's my birthday. You ate cake.' Clearly she wasn't the only stupid one.\n\n'Hoo-ee,' he said, an ambiguous kind of word (closely related to his own name, she noted) although it seemed to signal amazement as if reaching sixteen was a feat. 'You're shivering,' he said.\n\n'It's freezing out here.'\n\n'I can warm you up,' he said and then \u2013 the something astonishing \u2013 he took her by the shoulders and pulled her towards him and \u2013 an action that necessitated bending down quite a bit \u2013 pushed his big lips against hers. 'Kiss' seemed too courtly a word for what Howie was doing. He prodded his enormous tongue, like an ox's, against the portcullis of her teeth and she was amazed to realize that he was expecting her to open her mouth and let the tongue in. She would choke, for sure. Mrs Glover's tongue press in the kitchen came unwontedly to mind.\n\nUrsula was debating what to do, the bay rum and the lack of oxygen were making her dizzy, when they heard Maurice shouting, quite nearby, 'Howie! Leaving without you, chum!' Ursula's mouth was released and, without a word to her, Howie yelled, 'Coming!' so loudly that her ears hurt. Then he let go of her and set off, crashing through the bushes, leaving Ursula gasping for air.\n\nShe wandered back to the house in a daze. Everyone was still on the drive, even though it felt like hours had passed but she supposed it was only minutes really, like in the best fairy stories. In the dining room, the ruins of the cake were being licked delicately by Hattie. _The Adventures of Augustus_ , lying on the table, had a smear of icing on it. Ursula's heart was still palpitating from the shock of Howie's advances. To be kissed on her sixteenth birthday, and in such an unlooked-for way, seemed a considerable accomplishment. She was surely passing beneath the triumphal arch that led to womanhood. If only it had been Benjamin Cole, then it would have been perfect!\n\nTeddy, 'the kid', himself appeared, very browned off and said, 'They lost my ball.'\n\n'I know,' Ursula said.\n\nHe opened the book at the title page where, in a flamboyant hand, Izzie had inscribed, _To my nephew, Teddy. My own darling Augustus_.\n\n'What rot,' Teddy said, scowling. Ursula picked up a half-drunk glass of champagne the rim of which was adorned with red lipstick and poured half of it into a jelly glass that she handed to Teddy. 'Cheers,' she said. They chinked their glasses and drained them to the dregs.\n\n'Happy birthday,' Teddy said.\n\n# _May 1926_\n\nBy the beginning of the month, Pamela, off her crutches and back to playing tennis, had learned that she had failed her Cambridge exam. 'I panicked,' she said, 'I saw questions I didn't know and I went to pieces and flunked it. I should have swotted more or if I'd just stayed calm and thought it through I could probably have made a good fist of it.'\n\n'There are other universities if you're so set on being a bluestocking,' Sylvie said. Sylvie, although she never quite came out and said it, thought academia was pointless for girls. 'After all, woman's highest calling is to be a mother and a wife.'\n\n'You'd have me slave over a hot stove rather than a Bunsen burner?'\n\n'What did science ever do for the world, apart from make better ways of killing people?' Sylvie said.\n\n'Well, it's a crying shame about Cambridge,' Hugh said. 'Maurice is set to get a first and he's a complete dolt.' To make up for Pamela's disappointment he bought her a Raleigh loop-frame roadster and Teddy asked what he would get if _he_ failed an exam. Hugh laughed and said, 'Careful, that's Augustus talk.'\n\n'Oh, please, don't,' Teddy said, mortified at any mention of the book. _The Adventures of Augustus_ had, to everyone's chagrin but particularly Teddy's, proved a roaring success, 'flying off the bookshelves' and reprinted three times so far, according to Izzie who had already earned a 'fat little royalty cheque' and moved into a flat in Ovington Square. She had also done an interview for a newspaper in which she mentioned her 'prototype', her 'charming rogue of a nephew'.\n\n'But not my _name_ ,' Teddy said, hanging on to hope. He got a conciliation gift from Izzie in the shape of a new dog. Trixie had died a few weeks previously and Teddy had been in mourning ever since. The new dog was a Westie, like Augustus's dog \u2013 not a breed that any of them would have chosen. He had already been christened by Izzie \u2013 Jock, naturally, the name engraved on the tag on his expensive collar.\n\nSylvie suggested changing his name to Pilot ('Charlotte Bront\u00eb's dog,' she said to Ursula. ('One day,' Ursula said to Pamela, 'my communion with our mother will consist entirely of the names of the great writers of the past,' and Pamela said, 'I think it probably already does.')\n\nThe little dog already answered to Jock and it seemed wrong to confuse him, so Jock he remained, and in time they all grew to love him best of any of their dogs despite his annoying provenance.\n\nMaurice turned up on a Saturday morning, this time with only Howie in tow and no sign of Gilbert, who had been sent down for 'an indiscretion'. When Pamela said, 'What indiscretion?' Sylvie said that it was the definition of an indiscretion that you didn't speak of it afterwards.\n\nUrsula had thought of Howie quite often since their last encounter. It was not so much the physical Howie \u2013 the Oxford bags, the soft-collared shirt, the brilliantined hair \u2013 but the fact that he had been thoughtful enough to try to find Teddy's lost ball. Being kind modified the extraordinary, alarming _otherness_ of him, which was threefold \u2013 large, male and American. Despite her ambivalent feelings she couldn't help but experience a slight thrill when she saw him hop effortlessly out of his open-top car, parked outside the front door of Fox Corner.\n\n'Hey,' he said when he caught sight of her and she realized her imaginary beau didn't even know her name.\n\nA pot of coffee and a plate of scones were hastily conjured up by Sylvie and Bridget. 'We're not staying,' Maurice said to Sylvie, who said, 'Thank goodness, I don't have enough to stretch to feed two hulking young men.'\n\n'We're going up to London to help out with the strike,' Maurice said. Hugh expressed surprise. He hadn't realized, he said, that Maurice's politics put him on the side of the workers and Maurice in turn expressed surprise that his father could even think this was the case. They were going to drive buses and trains, and whatever else it took 'to keep the country running'.\n\n'I didn't know you knew how to drive a train, Maurice,' Teddy said, suddenly finding his brother interesting.\n\n'Well, a stoker, then,' Maurice said irritably, 'it can't be that difficult.'\n\n'They're not called stokers, they're called firemen,' Pamela said, 'and it's a very skilled job. Ask your friend Smithy.' A remark which for some reason got Maurice even hotter under the collar.\n\n'You're trying to shore up a civilization that's in its death throes,' Hugh said, as casually as if he were remarking on the weather. 'There's really no point.'\n\nUrsula left the room at this juncture, if there was one thing she found more tedious than thinking about politics it was _talking_ about politics.\n\nAnd then. Astonishing. Again. As she was skipping up the back stairs on her way to the attic bedroom to fetch something, something innocent \u2013 a book, a handkerchief, afterwards she would never remember what \u2013 she was almost sent flying by Howie on his way down. 'I was looking for a bathroom,' he said.\n\n'Well, we only have one,' Ursula said, 'and it's not up these\u2014' but before the sentence was finished she found herself pinned awkwardly against the neglected floral wallpaper of the back stairs, a pattern that had been up since the house was built. 'Pretty girl,' he said. His breath smelt of mint. And then she was again subjected to pushing and shoving from the outsized Howie. But this time it was not his tongue trying to jam its way into her mouth but something inexpressibly more intimate.\n\nShe tried to say something but before a sound came out his hand clamped over her mouth, over half her face in fact, and he grinned and said, 'Ssh,' as if they were conspirators in a game. With his other hand he was fiddling with her clothes and she squealed in protest. Then he was butting up against her, the way the bullocks in the Lower Field did against the gate. She tried to struggle but he was twice, three times her size even and she might as well have been a mouse in Hattie's jaws.\n\nShe tried to see what he was doing but he was pressed so tightly against her that all she could see was his big square jaw and the slight brush of stubble, unnoticeable from a distance. Ursula had seen her brothers naked, knew what they had between their legs \u2013 wrinkled cockles, a little spout \u2013 and it seemed to have little to do with this painful piston-driven thing that was now ramming inside her like a weapon of war. Her own body breached. The arch that led to womanhood did not seem so triumphal any more, merely brutal and completely uncaring.\n\nAnd then Howie gave a great bellow, more ox than Oxford man, and was hitching himself back together and grinning at her. 'English girls,' he said, shaking his head and laughing. He wagged his finger at her, almost disapproving, as if she had engineered the disgusting thing that had just happened and said, 'You really are something!' He laughed again and bounded down the stairs, taking them three at a time, as though his descent had been barely interrupted by their strange tryst.\n\nUrsula was left to stare at the floral wallpaper. She had never noticed before that the flowers were wisteria, the same flower that grew on the arch over the back porch. This must be what in literature was referred to as 'deflowering', she thought. It had always sounded like a rather pretty word.\n\nWhen she came back downstairs a half-hour later, a half-hour of thoughts and emotions considerably more intense than was usual for a Saturday morning, Sylvie and Hugh were on the doorstep waving a dutiful goodbye to the disappearing rear end of Howie's car.\n\n'Thank goodness they weren't staying,' Sylvie said. 'I don't think I could have been bothered with Maurice's bluster.'\n\n'Imbeciles,' Hugh said cheerfully. 'All right?' he said, catching sight of Ursula in the hallway.\n\n'Yes,' she said. Any other answer would have been too awful.\n\nUrsula found it easier than she had expected to lock this occurrence away. After all, hadn't Sylvie herself said that the definition of an indiscretion was that you didn't speak of it afterwards? Ursula imagined a cupboard in her mind, a corner one, in simple pitch pine. Howie and the back stairs were put on a high shelf and the key was firmly turned in the lock.\n\nA girl surely should know better than to be caught on those back stairs \u2013 or in the shrubbery \u2013 like the heroine in a gothic novel, the kind that Bridget was so fond of. But who would have suspected that the reality of it would be so sordid and bloody? He must have sensed something in her, something unchaste, that even she was unaware of. Before locking it away she had gone over the incident again and again, trying to see in what way she had been to blame. There must be something written on her skin, in her face, that some people could read and others couldn't. Izzie had seen it. Something wicked this way comes. And the something was herself.\n\nThe summer unrolled. Pamela was given a place at Leeds University to read chemistry and said she was glad because people would be 'more straightforward' in the provinces and not as snobbish. She played a lot of tennis with Gertie and championship mixed doubles with Daniel Cole and his brother Simon, and often let Ursula borrow her bike so that she could go for long rides with Millie, both of them shrieking as they freewheeled down hills. Sometimes Ursula went for lazy walks through the lanes with Teddy and Jimmy, Jock running rings around them. Neither Teddy nor Jimmy seemed to need to keep their lives secret from their sisters in the way that Maurice had done.\n\nPamela and Ursula took Teddy and Jimmy up to London for day trips, to the Natural History Museum, to the British Museum, to Kew, but they never told Izzie when they were in town. She had moved yet again, to a large house in Holland Park ('a rather artistic _endroit_ '). One day as they wandered along Piccadilly they spied a pile of _The Adventures of Augustus_ in a bookshop window, accompanied by 'a photograph of the author \u2013 Miss Delphie Fox, taken by Mr Cecil Beaton' in which Izzie looked like a film star or a society beauty. 'Oh, God,' Teddy said and Pamela, despite being _in loco parentis_ , didn't correct his language.\n\nThere was a f\u00eate once more in the grounds of Ettringham Hall. The Daunts had gone, after a thousand years, Lady Daunt never having recovered from the murder of little Angela, and the Hall was now owned by a rather mysterious man, a Mr Lambert who some said was Belgian, some Scottish, but no one had had a long enough conversation with him to discover his origins. Rumour said he had made his fortune during the war but everyone reported him shy and difficult to talk to. There were dances, too, in the village hall on Friday evenings and at one of these Fred Smith appeared, scrubbed clean of his daily soot, and asked, in turn, Pamela, Ursula and the three eldest Shawcrosses to dance. There was a gramophone, not a band, and they danced only old-fashioned dances, no Charleston or Black Bottom, and it was pleasant to be waltzed safely around the room, with surprising skill, by Fred Smith. Ursula thought it would be rather nice to have someone like Fred as a beau, although obviously Sylvie would never have tolerated such a thing. (' _A railwayman_?')\n\nAs soon as she thought about Fred in this way, the cupboard door sprang open and the whole appalling scene on the back stairs tumbled out.\n\n'Steady on,' Fred Smith said, 'you've gone a bit green round the gills, Miss Todd,' and Ursula had to blame it on the heat and insist on taking some fresh air on her own. She had in fact been feeling quite queasy lately. Sylvie put it down to a summer cold.\n\nMaurice had gained his expected first ('How?' Pamela puzzled) and came home for a few weeks to lounge around before taking up a place in chambers in Lincoln's Inn, to train as a barrister. Howie, apparently, had returned to 'his people' at their summer home on Long Island Sound. Maurice seemed a little miffed that he had not been invited to join them.\n\n'What happened to you?' Maurice said to Ursula one afternoon as he sprawled on a deckchair on the lawn reading _Punch_ , cramming nearly an entire slice of Mrs Glover's marmalade cake into his mouth at once.\n\n'What do you mean what happened to me?'\n\n'You've turned into a heifer.'\n\n'A heifer?' It was true she was filling out her summer frocks rather alarmingly, even her hands and feet seemed to have plumped up. 'Puppy fat, dear,' Sylvie said, 'even I had it. Less cake and more tennis, that's the remedy.'\n\n'You look hellish,' Pamela said to her, 'what's wrong with you?'\n\n'I have no idea,' Ursula said.\n\nAnd then something truly terrible dawned on her, so awful, so shameful, so _irretrievable_ , that she felt something catch fire and burn inside her at the very thought. She hunted down Sylvie's copy of _The Teaching of Young Children and Girls as to Reproduction_ by Dr Beatrice Webb, which, theoretically, Sylvie kept under lock and key in a chest in her bedroom, but the chest was never locked because Sylvie had long ago lost the key. Reproduction seemed to be the last thing on the author's mind. She advised distracting young girls by giving them plenty of 'home-made bread, cake, porridge, puddings and cold water splashed regularly on to the parts'. It was clearly no help. Ursula shuddered at the memory of Howie's 'parts' and how they had come together with hers in one vile conjugation. Was this what Sylvie and Hugh did? She couldn't imagine her mother putting up with such a thing.\n\nShe sneaked a look at Mrs Shawcross's medical encyclopaedia. The Shawcrosses were on holiday in Norfolk but their maid thought nothing of it when Ursula appeared at the back door saying she had come to look at a book.\n\nThe encyclopaedia explained the mechanics of 'the sexual act', something which appeared to take place only within the 'loving confines of the marital bed' rather than on the back stairs when you were on your way to fetch a handkerchief, a book. The encyclopaedia also detailed the consequences of failing to retrieve that handkerchief, that book \u2013 the missed monthlies, the sickness, the weight gain. It took nine months apparently. And now they were already well into July. Before long she would be squeezing herself back into her navy-blue gymslip and catching the bus to school every morning with Millie.\n\nUrsula began to take long solitary walks. There was no Millie to confide in (and would she have anyway?) and Pamela had decamped to Devon with her Girl Guide patrol. Ursula had never taken to the Guides, now she rather regretted that \u2013 they might have given her the gumption to deal with Howie. A Guide would have retrieved that handkerchief, that book, without being hindered on the journey.\n\n'Is there anything the matter, dear?' Sylvie asked as they darned stockings together. Sylvie's children only really came into focus for her when in isolation. Together they were an unwieldy flock, singly they had character.\n\nUrsula imagined what she could say. _You remember Maurice's friend Howie_? _I appear to be the mother of his child_. She glanced at Sylvie, serenely wefting and warping her little woollen patch on the hole in the toe of one of Teddy's socks. She did not look like a woman who had had her parts breached. (A 'vagina', apparently, according to Mrs Shawcross's encyclopaedia \u2013 not a word that had ever been uttered in the Todds' household.)\n\n'No, nothing at all,' Ursula said. 'I'm fine. Absolutely fine.'\n\nThat afternoon she walked to the station and sat on a bench on the platform and contemplated throwing herself under the express when it came hurtling through, but the next train turned out to be for London, huffing slowly to a halt in front of her in a way that seemed so familiar that it made her want to cry. She spotted Fred Smith climbing down from the cab, oily overalls and face smutty with coal dust. Spotting her, he came over and said, 'Here's a coincidence, are you catching our train?'\n\n'I haven't got a ticket,' Ursula said.\n\n'That's all right,' Fred said, 'nod and a wink from me and the ticket inspector'll see a friend of mine all right.' Was she a friend of Fred Smith? It was comforting to think so. Of course, if he knew about her condition he would no longer be a friend. No one would.\n\n'Yes, all right, thank you,' she said. Not having a ticket seemed such a _little_ problem.\n\nShe watched Fred climb back into the cab of his locomotive. The stationmaster stalked along the platform, slamming the carriage doors with a finality that suggested they would never be opened again. Steam flared from the funnel and Fred Smith stuck his head out of the cab and shouted, 'Look smart there, Miss Todd, or you'll be left behind,' and she stepped obediently on board.\n\nThe stationmaster's whistle chirped, short at first and then a longer call, and the train shuffled out of the station. Ursula sat on the warm plush of the seats and contemplated the future. She supposed she could get lost among the other fallen women crying woe on the streets of London. Curl up on a park bench and freeze to death overnight, except that it was the height of summer and she was unlikely to freeze. Or wade into the Thames and drift gently on the tide, past Wapping and Rotherhithe and Greenwich and on to Tilbury and out to sea. How puzzled her family would be if her drowned body was hooked from the deep. She imagined Sylvie, frowning over her darning, _But she only went for a walk, she said she was going to pick the wild raspberries in thelane_. Ursula thought guiltily of the white china pudding basin she had abandoned in the hedgerow, intending to collect it on her return. It was half full of the sour little berries and her fingers were still stained red.\n\nShe spent the afternoon walking through the great parks of London, through St James's and Green Park, past the Palace and into Hyde Park and on to Kensington Gardens. It was extraordinary how far you could go in London and barely touch a pavement or cross a road. She had no money on her, of course \u2013 a ridiculous mistake, she realized now \u2013 and couldn't even buy a cup of tea in Kensington. There was no Fred Smith here to 'see her all right'. She was hot and tired and dusty and felt as parched as the grass in Hyde Park.\n\nCould you drink the water in the Serpentine? Shelley's first wife had drowned herself here but Ursula supposed that on a day like this \u2013 crowds of people enjoying the sunshine \u2013 it would be almost impossible to avoid another Mr Winton jumping in and rescuing her.\n\nShe knew where she was going, of course. It was inevitable somehow.\n\n'Good God, what happened to you?' Izzie said, throwing her front door wide dramatically as if she had been expecting someone more interesting. 'You look a fright.'\n\n'I've been walking all afternoon,' Ursula said. 'I have no money,' she added. 'And I think I'm going to have a baby.'\n\n'You'd better come in then,' Izzie said.\n\nAnd now here she was, sitting on an uncomfortable chair in a large house in Belgravia in what must have once been the dining room. Now, devoid of any purpose except waiting, it was nondescript. The Dutch still life above the fireplace and the bowl of dusty-looking chrysanthemums on a Pembroke table provided no clue as to what might happen elsewhere in the house. It was hard to connect any of this to the odious rendezvous with Howie on the back stairs. Who would have thought it could be so easy to slip from one life to another. Ursula wondered what Dr Kellet would have made of her predicament.\n\nAfter her unexpected arrival in Melbury Road, Izzie had put her to bed in her spare bedroom and Ursula had lain sobbing beneath the shiny satin cover, trying not to listen to Izzie's unlikely lies on the phone in the hallway \u2013 _I know! She just turned up on the doorstep, the lamb... wanted to see me... pay a visit, museums and so on, the theatre, nothing risqu\u00e9... now don't be a termagant, Hugh_... It was just as well that Izzie hadn't spoken to Sylvie, she would have been given short shrift there. The upshot was that she was to be allowed to stay for a few days for _museums and so on_.\n\nPhone call finished, Izzie came into the bedroom carrying a tray.\n\n'Brandy,' she said. 'And buttered toast. All I could rustle up at short notice, I'm afraid. You are such a fool,' she sighed. 'There are ways, you know, things that one can do, prevention better than cure and so on.' Ursula had no idea what Izzie was talking about.\n\n'And you must get rid of it,' Izzie continued. 'We are agreed on that, aren't we?' A question which produced a heartfelt 'yes' from Ursula.\n\nA woman in a nurse's uniform opened the door of the Belgravia waiting room and looked in. Her uniform was so starched it would have stood up quite well without her inside it.\n\n'This way,' she said stiffly, without addressing Ursula by name. Ursula followed as meek as a lamb to the slaughter.\n\nIzzie, efficient rather than sympathetic, had dropped her off in the car ('Good luck') with a promise that she would return 'later'. Ursula had no idea what was to happen in the interim between Izzie's 'Good luck' and her 'later' but she presumed it would be unpleasant. A foul-tasting syrup or a kidney dish full of large pills perhaps. And undoubtedly a good talking-to about her morals and her character. She hardly cared, as long as in the end the clock could be put back. How big was the baby, she wondered? Her brief research in the Shawcrosses' encyclopaedia had given few clues. She supposed it would come out with a certain amount of difficulty and be wrapped in a shawl before being placed in a cradle and tended carefully until it was ready to be given to a nice couple who longed to have a baby as much as Ursula longed not to have one. And then she would be able to catch the train home, walk along Church Lane and retrieve the white china bowl with its harvest of raspberries, before entering Fox Corner as if nothing had happened beyond _museums and so on_.\n\n*\n\nIt was a room like any other really. There were curtains, swagged and tasselled, at the tall windows. The curtains looked as though they were left over from the previous life of the house, as did the marble fireplace that now held a gas fire and, on the mantelpiece, a plain-faced clock with large numbers. The green linoleum underfoot and the operating table in the middle of the room were equally incongruous. The room smelt like the science laboratory at school. Ursula wondered about the brutish array of shining metal instruments that were laid out on a linen cloth on a trolley. They seemed to have more to do with butchery than babies. There was no sign of a cradle waiting anywhere. Her heart began to flutter.\n\nA man, older than Hugh, in a long white doctor's smock hurried into the room as if he were on his way somewhere else and ordered Ursula up on to the operating table with her feet 'in the stirrups'.\n\n'Stirrups?' Ursula repeated. Surely horses were not involved. The request was baffling until the starched nurse pushed her down and hooked her feet up. 'I'm having an operation?' Ursula protested. 'But I'm not ill.' The nurse placed a mask over her face. 'Count from ten down to one,' she said. 'Why?' Ursula tried to ask, but the word had barely formed in her brain before the room and everything in it disappeared.\n\nThe next thing she knew she was in the passenger seat of Izzie's Austin, gazing woozily through the windscreen.\n\n'You'll be right as rain in no time,' Izzie said. 'Don't worry, they've doped you up. You'll feel queer for a bit.' How did Izzie know so much about this appalling process?\n\nBack in Melbury Road, Izzie helped her into bed and she slept deeply beneath the shiny satin cover in the spare bedroom. It was dark outside when Izzie came in with a tray. 'Oxtail soup,' she said cheerfully. 'I got it from a tin.' Izzie smelt of alcohol, something sweet and cloying, and underneath her make-up and her bright demeanour she looked exhausted. Ursula supposed she must be a terrible burden to her. She struggled to sit up. The smell of the alcohol and the oxtail was too much and she vomited all over the shiny satin.\n\n'Oh, God,' Izzie said, holding her hand over her mouth. 'I'm really not cut out for this kind of thing.'\n\n'What happened to the baby?' Ursula asked.\n\n'What?'\n\n'What happened to the baby?' Ursula repeated. 'Did they give it to someone nice?'\n\nShe woke in the night and vomited again and fell back to sleep without either cleaning it up or calling out to Izzie. When she woke in the morning she was too hot. Far too hot. Her heart was knocking in her chest and each breath was hard to come by. She tried to get out of bed but her head was swimming and her legs wouldn't hold her. After that everything was a blur. Izzie must have called Hugh because she felt a cool hand on her clammy forehead and when she opened her eyes he was smiling reassuringly at her. He was sitting on the bed, still in his overcoat. She was sick all over it.\n\n'We'll get you to a hospital,' he said, unperturbed by the mess. 'You've got a bit of an infection.' Somewhere in the background Izzie was putting up a fierce protest. 'I'll be prosecuted,' she hissed at Hugh and Hugh said, 'Good, I hope they put you in jail and throw away the key.' He lifted Ursula up in his arms and said, 'Quicker to take the Bentley, I think.' Ursula felt weightless, as if she was going to float away. The next thing she knew she was on a cavernous hospital ward and Sylvie was there, her face tight and awful. 'How could you?' she said. She was glad when evening came and Sylvie changed places with Hugh.\n\nIt was Hugh who was with her when the black bat came. The hand of night was held out to her and Ursula rose to meet it. She was relieved, almost glad, she could feel the shining, luminous world beyond calling, the place where all the mysteries would be revealed. The darkness enveloped her, a velvet friend. Snow was in the air, as fine as talcum, as icy as the east wind on a baby's skin \u2013 but then Ursula fell back into the hospital bed, her hand rejected.\n\nThere was a brilliant slant of light across the pale green of the hospital counterpane. Hugh was asleep, his face slack and tired. He was sitting in an awkward position in a chair next to the bed. One trouser leg had ridden up slightly and Ursula could see a wrinkled grey lisle sock and the smooth skin of her father's shin. He had once been like Teddy, she thought, and one day Teddy would be like him. The boy within the man, the man within the boy. It made her want to weep.\n\nHugh opened his eyes and when he saw her he smiled weakly and said, 'Hello, little bear. Welcome back.'\n\n# _August 1926_\n\n_The pen should be held lightly, and in such a manner as to permit of the shorthand characters being easily written. The wrist must not be allowed to rest on the notebook or desk_.\n\nThe rest of the summer was wretched. She sat beneath the apple trees in the orchard and tried to read a Pitman's shorthand instruction book. It had been decided she would do a typing and shorthand course rather than return to school. 'I can't go back,' she said. 'I just can't.'\n\nThere was little escape from the chill that Sylvie brought with her every time she entered a room and discovered Ursula in it. Both Bridget and Mrs Glover were puzzled as to why the 'serious illness' that Ursula had contracted in London while staying with her aunt seemed to have made Sylvie so distant from her daughter when they might have expected the opposite. Izzie, of course, was barred for ever. _Persona non grata in perpetuam_. No one knew the truth of what had happened except for Pamela who had wormed the whole story out of Ursula, bit by bit.\n\n'But he _forced_ himself on you,' she fumed, 'how can you think it was your fault?'\n\n'But the consequences...' Ursula murmured.\n\nSylvie blamed her entirely, of course. 'You've thrown away your virtue, your character, everyone's good opinion of you.'\n\n'But no one knows.'\n\n' _I_ know.'\n\n'You sound like someone in one of Bridget's novels,' Hugh said to Sylvie. Had Hugh read one of Bridget's novels? It seemed unlikely. 'In fact,' Hugh said, 'you sound rather like my own mother.' ('It seems dreadful now,' Pamela said, 'but this too will pass.')\n\nEven Millie was fooled by her lies. 'Blood poisoning!' she said. 'How dramatic. Was hospital ghastly? Nancy said that Teddy told her that you nearly died. I'm sure nothing so exciting will ever happen to me.'\n\nWhat a world of difference there was between dying and nearly dying. One's whole life, in fact. Ursula felt she had no use for the life she had been saved for. 'I'd like to see Dr Kellet again,' she said to Sylvie.\n\n'He's retired, I believe,' Sylvie said indifferently.\n\nUrsula still wore her hair long, mostly to please Hugh, but one day she went into Beaconsfield with Millie and had her hair chopped short. It was a penitent act that made her feel rather like a martyr or a nun. She supposed that was how she would live out the rest of her life, somewhere between the two.\n\nHugh seemed surprised rather than saddened. She supposed a haircut was a mild travesty compared to Belgravia. 'Good gracious,' he said, when she sat down at the dinner table to unappetizing veal cutlets _\u00e0 la Russe_. ('Looks like the dog's dinner,' Jimmy said, although Jimmy, a boy of magnificent appetite, would have quite happily eaten Jock's dinner.)\n\n'You look like a completely different person,' Hugh said.\n\n'That can only be a good thing, can't it?' Ursula said.\n\n'I liked the old Ursula,' Teddy said.\n\n'Well, it seems as though you're the only one who does,' Ursula muttered. Sylvie made a noise that fell short of a word and Hugh said to Ursula, 'Oh, come, I think you're\u2014'\n\nBut she never did find out what Hugh thought of her because the loud rapping of the front-door knocker announced a rather anxious Major Shawcross enquiring as to whether Nancy was with them. 'Sorry to interrupt your dinner,' he said, hovering in the doorway of the dining room.\n\n'She isn't here,' Hugh said, although Nancy's absence was obvious.\n\nMajor Shawcross frowned at the cutlets on their plates. 'She went to gather some leaves in the lane,' he said. 'For her scrapbook. You know what she's like.' This addressed to Teddy, Nancy's twin soul. Nancy loved nature, forever collecting twigs and pine cones, shells and stones and bones, like the totems of an ancient religion. 'A child of nature,' Mrs Shawcross called her ('As if that were a good thing,' Sylvie said).\n\n'She wanted oak leaves,' Major Shawcross said. 'We don't have any oaks in our garden.'\n\nThere was a short discussion about the demise of the English oak, followed by a thoughtful silence. Major Shawcross cleared his throat. 'She's been gone about an hour, according to Roberta. I've walked the length of the lane, up and back, shouting her name. I can't think where she might be. Winnie and Millie are out searching as well.' Major Shawcross was beginning to look rather sick. Sylvie poured a glass of water and handed it to him. 'Sit down,' she said. He didn't. Of course, Ursula thought, he was thinking of Angela.\n\n'I expect she'll have found something interesting,' Hugh said, 'a bird's nest or a farm cat with kittens. You know what she's like.' They were all now quite in agreement that they knew what Nancy was like.\n\nMajor Shawcross picked up a spoon from the dining-room table and gazed at it absently. 'She's missed her dinner.'\n\n'I'll come and help you look for her,' Teddy said, jumping up from the table. He knew what Nancy was like too, knew she never missed her dinner.\n\n'Me too,' Hugh said, giving Major Shawcross an encouraging pat on the back, the veal cutlets abandoned.\n\n'Shall I come?' Ursula asked.\n\n'No,' Sylvie said. 'Nor Jimmy either. Stay here, we'll look in the gardens.'\n\nNo ice house this time. A hospital mortuary for Nancy. Still warm and soft when they found her, pushed into an empty old cattle trough. 'Interfered with,' Hugh told Sylvie while Ursula lurked like a spy behind the morning-room door. 'Two little girls in three years, it can't be a coincidence, can it? Strangled like Angela before her.'\n\n'A monster is living among us,' Sylvie said.\n\nIt was Major Shawcross who found her. 'Thank God, it wasn't poor old Ted this time,' Hugh said. 'He couldn't have borne it.' Teddy couldn't bear it anyway. He barely spoke for weeks. His soul had been cut away, he said, when he did eventually speak. 'Scars heal,' Sylvie said. 'Even the worst ones.'\n\n'Do you think that's true?' Ursula said, thinking about the wisteria wallpaper, the waiting room in Belgravia, and Sylvie said, 'Well, not always,' not even bothering to lie.\n\nThey heard Mrs Shawcross screaming all through the first night. Afterwards her face never looked right and Dr Fellowes reported that she'd had a 'small stroke'.\n\n'Poor, poor woman,' Hugh said.\n\n'She never knows where those girls are,' Sylvie said. 'She just lets them run wild. Now she's paying the price of her carelessness.'\n\n'Oh, Sylvie,' Hugh said sadly. 'Where is your heart?'\n\nPamela left for Leeds. Hugh drove her there in the Bentley. Her trunk was too massive for the boot and had to be sent by train. 'Big enough to hide a body in,' Pamela said. She was bound for a women's hall of residence and had already been informed that she was to share the small room with a girl called Barbara, from Macclesfield. 'It'll be just like being at home,' Teddy said encouragingly, 'except that Ursula will be someone else.'\n\n'Well, that rather makes it _nothing_ like home,' Pamela said. She clung to Ursula a little too fiercely before climbing into the car and sitting next to Hugh.\n\n'I can't wait to go,' Pamela said to Ursula in bed on her last night, 'but I feel bad at leaving you.'\n\nWhen she didn't go back to school for the autumn term, no one questioned Ursula's decision. Millie was too grief-stricken over Nancy's death to care much about anything.\n\nUrsula travelled on the train to High Wycombe every morning to attend a private secretarial college. 'College' was a fancy word for two rooms, a cold scullery and a colder cupboard containing a WC above a greengrocer's on the high street. The college was run by a man called Mr Carver whose lifelong passions were Esperanto and Pitman's shorthand, the latter more useful than the former. Ursula rather liked shorthand, it was akin to a secret code, with a whole new vocabulary \u2013 aspirates and shun hooks, compound consonants, special contractions, halving and doubling \u2013 the language of neither the dead nor the living but the strangely inert. There was something soothing about listening to Mr Carver's monotonous intonation of word lists \u2013 _iterate, iteration, reiteration, reiterated, reiterating, prince, princely, princes, princess, princesses_...\n\nThe other girls on the course were all very pleasant and friendly \u2013 sanguine, practical sorts who always remembered their shorthand notebooks and rulers and never had fewer than two different-coloured inks in their bags.\n\nAt lunchtime when the weather was bad they stayed in, sharing their packed lunches and darning stockings among the banks of typewriters. They had spent their summer hiking and swimming and camping and Ursula wondered if they could tell just by looking at her how different her own summer had been. 'Belgravia' had become her shorthand for what had happened. ('An abortion,' Pamela said. 'An illegal abortion.' Pamela was never one to avoid a blunt vocabulary. Ursula very much wished that she would.) She envied the ordinariness of their lives. (How Izzie would scorn such an idea.) Ursula's own chance at ordinariness seemed lost for ever.\n\nWhat if she had thrown herself beneath the express train or had died after Belgravia, or, indeed, what if she were simply to open her bedroom window and throw herself out, head first? Would she really be able to come back and start again? Or was it, as everyone told her, and as she must believe, all in her head? And so what if it was \u2013 wasn't everything in her head real too? What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind? Philosophers 'came to grips' with this problem a long time ago, Dr Kellet had told her, rather wearily, it was one of the very first questions they addressed, so there was really no point in her fretting over it. But surely, by its very nature, everyone wrestled with this dilemma anew every time?\n\n('Forget typing,' Pamela wrote from Leeds, 'you should read philosophy at university, you have the right kind of mind for it. Like a terrier with a terrifically tedious bone.')\n\nShe had, eventually, gone in search of Dr Kellet and found his rooms occupied by a steel-haired, steel-spectacled woman who informed her that Dr Kellet had indeed retired and did she wish to make an appointment with herself? No, Ursula said, she didn't. It was the first time she had been to London since Belgravia and she had a panic attack on the Bakerloo line on the way back from Harley Street and had to run out of the station at Marylebone, gasping for air. A newspaper seller said, 'Are you all right, miss?' and she said, yes, yes, quite all right, thank you.\n\nMr Carver liked touching the girls ('my girls') lightly on their shoulders, stroking the angora of a bolero cardigan or the lambswool of a sweater as if they were animals he was fond of.\n\nIn the morning they practised their typing skills on the big Underwoods. Sometimes Mr Carver made them practise with blindfolds on as this was, he claimed, the only way to stop them looking at the keys and slowing down their speeds. Wearing the blindfold made Ursula feel like a soldier about to be shot for desertion. On these occasions she often heard him making odd noises, muffled wheezes and grunts, but didn't like to peek from the blindfold to see what he might be doing.\n\nIn the afternoons they did shorthand \u2013 soporific dictation exercises that encompassed every kind of business letter. _Dear-Sir, I-brought your letter before-the Board-of-Directors at their-meeting yesterday, but after some discussion they-were obliged to postpone further-consideration of-the-matter until the next Directors'-meeting, which-will-be held on-the last Tuesday_... The content of these letters was tedious in the extreme and was a strange contrast to the furious flow of ink across their pads as they struggled to keep up.\n\nOne afternoon, while he was dictating to them, _We-fear there-is-no prospect of success for-those-who raise objection to-the appointment_ , Mr Carver passed behind Ursula and gently touched the nape of her neck, no longer protected by long hair. A shiver rippled right through her. She stared at the keys of her Underwood on the table in front of her. Was it something in her that attracted this kind of attention? Was she not a good person?\n\n# _June 1932_\n\nPamela had chosen a white brocade for herself and yellow satin for her bridesmaids. The yellow was on the acidic side and made all of the bridesmaids look slightly liverish. There were four of them \u2013 Ursula, Winnie Shawcross (chosen over Gertie) and Harold's two youngest sisters. Harold came from a large noisy family in the Old Kent Road that Sylvie considered to be 'inferior'. The fact that Harold was a doctor didn't seem to mitigate his circumstances (Sylvie was curiously averse to the medical profession). 'I thought your own family were somewhat _d\u00e9class\u00e9_ , weren't they?' Hugh said to Sylvie. He liked his new son-in-law-to-be, found him 'refreshing'. He liked Harold's mother, Olive, too. 'She says what she means,' he said to Sylvie. 'And means what she says. Unlike some people.'\n\n'I thought it looked nice in the pattern book,' Pamela said doubtfully at Ursula's third and final fitting, in a dressmaker's front room in Neasden, of all places. The bias-cut dress stretched tightly across Ursula's midriff.\n\n'You've put on weight since the last fitting,' the dressmaker said.\n\n'Have I?'\n\n'Yes,' Pamela said. Ursula thought of the last time she had put on weight. Belgravia. It was certainly not the reason this time. She was standing on a chair, the dressmaker moving in a circle around her, a pincushion attached to her wrist. 'You still look nice though,' Pamela added.\n\n'I sit all day at my work,' Ursula said. 'I should walk more, I expect.' It was so easy to be lazy. She lived on her own but no one knew. Hilda, the girl she was supposed to share the flat with \u2013 a top floor in Bayswater \u2013 had moved out, although she still paid the rent, thank goodness. Hilda was living in Ealing in a 'regular little pleasure palace' with a man called Ernest whose wife wouldn't grant him a divorce, and she had to pretend to her parents that she was still in Bayswater, living the life of a single and virtuous woman. Ursula supposed it would only be a matter of time before Hilda's parents turned up unexpectedly on the doorstep and she would have to spin a lie, or several, to explain their daughter's absence. Hugh and Sylvie would have been horrified if they thought Ursula was living on her own in London.\n\n'Bayswater?' Sylvie said doubtfully when Ursula announced she was moving out of Fox Corner. 'Is that really necessary?' Hugh and Sylvie had vetted the flat, and they had also vetted Hilda, who stood up well to Sylvie's inquisition. Nonetheless Sylvie found both the flat and Hilda somewhat wanting.\n\n'Ernest from Ealing', as Ursula always thought of him, was the one who paid the rent ('a kept woman', Hilda laughed) but Hilda herself came by every couple of weeks to pick up her post and pay the rent money over. 'I can find someone else to share with,' Ursula offered, although she hated the idea.\n\n'Let's wait a bit,' Hilda said, 'see if it all works out for me. That's the beauty about living in sin, you can always just get up and leave.'\n\n'So can Ernest (from Ealing).'\n\n'I'm twenty-one, he's forty-two, he's not about to leave, trust me.'\n\nIt had been a relief when Hilda had moved out. Ursula was able to lounge around all evening in her dressing gown, with her curlers in, eating oranges and chocolates and listening to the wireless. Not that Hilda would have objected to any of these things, would have enjoyed them in fact, but Sylvie had instilled decorum in the presence of others from an early age and it was hard to shake it off.\n\nAfter a couple of weeks of being on her own, it struck her that she had hardly any friends and those that she did have she never seemed to care enough about to keep in touch with. Millie had become an actress, and was away almost all the time with a touring theatre company. She sent the odd postcard from places she would probably never have visited otherwise \u2013 Stafford, Gateshead, Grantham \u2013 and drew funny cartoons of herself in various roles ('Me as Juliet, what a hoot!'). Their friendship hadn't really survived Nancy's death. The Shawcross family had turned inward with grief and when Millie finally started to live her life again she found Ursula had stopped living hers. Ursula often wished that she could explain Belgravia to Millie but didn't want to risk what was left of their fragile attachment.\n\nShe worked for a big importing company and sometimes when Ursula listened to the girls in the office chatting about what they'd been doing and with whom, she found herself wondering how on earth they met all these people, these Gordons, Charlies, Dicks, Mildreds, Eileens and Veras \u2013 a gay, restless flock with whom they frequented variety palaces and cinemas, went skating, swam in lidos and baths and drove out to Epping Forest and Eastbourne. Ursula did none of these things.\n\nUrsula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn't even begin to solve. At work, they regarded her as a person apart, as if she were senior to them in every way, even though she wasn't. Occasionally one or other of the office coterie would say to her, 'Do you want to come out with us after work?' It was meant kindly and felt like charity, which it probably was. She never took them up on their offers. She suspected, no, she knew, that they talked about her behind her back, nothing nasty, just curiosity really. They imagined there must be more to her. _A dark horse_. And _still waters run deep_. They would be disappointed to know that there _was_ no more, that even clich\u00e9s were more interesting than the life she lived. No depths, no darkness (in the past perhaps, but not the present). Unless you counted the drink. Which she supposed they would.\n\nThe work was a chore \u2013 endless bills of lading and customs forms and balance sheets. The goods themselves \u2013 rum, cocoa, sugar \u2013 and the exotic places they came from seemed at odds with the daily tedium of the office. She supposed she was a little cog in the big wheel of Empire. 'Nothing wrong with being a cog,' Maurice said, himself a big wheel now in the Home Office. 'The world needs cogs.' She didn't want to be a cog, but Belgravia seemed to have put paid to anything grander.\n\nUrsula knew how the drinking had started. Nothing dramatic, just something as small and domestic as a _boeuf bourguignon_ she had planned for Pamela when she came to stay for the weekend a few months ago. She was still working in the lab in Glasgow and wanted to do some shopping for her wedding. Harold hadn't moved yet either, he was due to take up his post at the Royal London in a few weeks. 'We'll have a nice weekend, just the two of us,' Pamela said.\n\n'Hilda's away,' Ursula lied easily. 'Gone to Hastings for the weekend with her mother.' There was no reason not to tell Pamela the truth of her arrangement with Hilda, Pamela had always been the one person she could be honest with, and yet something held her back.\n\n'Splendid,' Pamela said. 'I'll drag Hilda's mattress through to your bedroom and it'll be like old times.'\n\n'Are you looking forward to being married?' Ursula asked as they lay in bed. It wasn't really like old times at all.\n\n'Of course I am, why would I be doing it otherwise? I like the idea of marriage. There is something smooth and round and solid about it.'\n\n'Like a pebble?' Ursula said.\n\n'A symphony. Well, more of a duet, I suppose.'\n\n'It's not like you to wax poetic.'\n\n'I like what our parents have,' Pamela said simply.\n\n'Do you?' It was a while since Pamela had spent much time with Hugh and Sylvie. Perhaps she didn't know what they had these days. Dissonance rather than harmony.\n\n'Have you met anyone?' Pamela asked cautiously.\n\n'No. No one.'\n\n'Not yet,' Pamela said in her most encouraging manner.\n\nThe _boeuf bourguignon_ had, naturally, required burgundy and in her lunch hour Ursula had dropped into the wine merchant's that she passed every day on her way to work in the City. It was an ancient place, the wood of the interior gave the impression that it had been soaked in wine over the centuries and the dark bottles with their beautiful labels seemed to hold out the promise of something that went beyond their contents. The wine merchant picked out a bottle for her, some people used inferior wine for cooking, he said, but the only use one should have for inferior wine was vinegar. He himself was acerbic and rather overwhelming. He afforded the bottle the tenderness of care due a baby, lovingly wrapping it in tissue paper and passing it to Ursula to cradle in her basket-weave shopper where her purchase remained concealed from the office during the afternoon, in case they suspected her of being a secret lush.\n\nThe burgundy was bought before the beef and that evening Ursula thought she would open the wine and try a glass, seeing as it had been lauded so highly by the wine merchant. Of course, she'd had alcohol before, she was no teetotaller, after all, but she had never drunk alone. Never uncorked an expensive bottle of burgundy and poured a glass just for herself (dressing gown, curlers, a cosy gas fire). It was like stepping into a warm bath on a cold night, the deep, mellow wine suddenly enormously comforting. This was Keats's _beaker full of the warm South_ , was it not? Her habitual despondency seemed to evaporate a little so she had another glass. When she stood up she felt quite swimmy and laughed at herself. 'Tiddly,' she said to no one and found herself wondering about getting a dog. It would be someone to talk to. A dog like Jock would greet her every day with cheerful optimism and perhaps some of that would rub off on her. Jock was gone now, a heart attack, the vet said. 'And he had such a strong little heart,' Teddy said, himself heartbroken. He had been replaced by a sad-eyed whippet that seemed too delicate for the rough and tumble of a dog's life.\n\nUrsula rinsed the glass and put the cork back in the bottle, leaving plenty for the beef tomorrow before tottering off to bed.\n\nShe fell fast asleep and didn't wake until the alarm, which made a change from the usual restlessness. _Drink, and leave the world unseen_. When she woke she realized that she couldn't possibly look after a dog.\n\nNext day at work, the tedium of filling in ledgers all afternoon was cheered by the thought of the half-bottle sitting on her kitchen draining board. After all, she could buy another bottle for the beef.\n\n'That good, eh?' the wine merchant said when she appeared again two days later.\n\n'No, no,' she laughed, 'I haven't cooked the meal yet. It struck me that I should have something equally good to drink with it.' She realized she couldn't come back here, to this lovely shop, there was a limit to how many _boeuf bourgignon_ s someone was likely to cook.\n\nFor Pamela, Ursula made an abstemious cottage pie, followed by baked apples and custard. 'I brought you a present from Scotland,' Pamela said and produced a bottle of malt whisky.\n\n*\n\nOnce the malt had been drunk she found another wine merchant, one who treated his wares with less veneration. 'For a _boeuf bourguignon_ ,' she said, although he showed no interest in its purpose. 'I'll take two, actually. I'm cooking for a lot of people.' A couple of bottles of Guinness from the public house on the corner, 'For my brother,' she said, 'he popped in unexpectedly.' Teddy wasn't quite eighteen, she doubted he was a drinker. A couple of days later the same. 'Your brother round again, miss?' the publican said. He winked at her and she flushed.\n\nAn Italian restaurant in Soho that she 'happened to be passing' happily sold her a couple of bottles of Chianti without question. 'Sherry from the wood' \u2013 she could take a jug to the Co-op at the end of the road and they would fill it up from the barrel. ('For my mother.') Rum from public houses a long way from the flat ('for my father'). She was like a scientist experimenting with the various forms of alcohol, but she knew what she liked best, that first bottle of blushful Hippocrene, the blood-red wine. She plotted how to get a case delivered ('for a family celebration').\n\nShe had become a secret drinker. It was a private act, intimate and solitary. The very thought of a drink made her heart thud with both fear and anticipation. Unfortunately, between the restrictive licensing laws and the horror of humiliation, a young woman from Bayswater could have considerable difficulty in supplying her addiction. It was easier for the rich, Izzie had an account somewhere, Harrods probably, that simply delivered the stuff to her door.\n\nShe had dipped her toe in the waters of Lethe and the next thing she knew she was drowning, from sobriety to being a drunkard in a matter of weeks. It was both shameful and a way of annihilating shame. Every morning she woke up and thought, not tonight, I won't take a drink tonight, and every afternoon the longing built as she imagined walking into her flat at the end of the day and being greeted by oblivion. She had read sensationalist accounts of the opium dens of Limehouse and wondered if they were true. Opium sounded better than burgundy for eclipsing the pain of existence. Izzie could probably supply her with the location of a Chinese opium den, she had 'kicked the gong around', she had reported blithely, but it wasn't really the kind of thing Ursula felt she could ask. It might not lead to Nirvana (she had proved an apt pupil of Dr Kellet after all), it might lead to a new Belgravia.\n\nIzzie was occasionally allowed back into the family fold ('Weddings and funerals only,' Sylvie said. 'Not christenings'). She had been invited to Pamela's wedding but to Sylvie's profound relief had sent her apologies. 'Weekend in Berlin,' she said. She knew someone with a plane ( _thrilling_ ) who was going to fly her there. Ursula visited Izzie occasionally. They had the horror of Belgravia in common, a memory that would unite them for evermore, although they never spoke of it.\n\nIn her stead there was a wedding present, a box of silver cake forks, a gift that Pamela was amused by. 'How mundane,' she said to Ursula. 'She never ceases to surprise.'\n\n'Nearly finished,' the Neasden dressmaker said through a mouthful of pins.\n\n'I suppose I am getting a bit plump,' Ursula said, looking in the mirror at the yellow satin straining to accommodate her pot belly. 'Perhaps I should join the Women's League of Health and Beauty.'\n\nStone-cold sober, she tripped on her way home from work. It was a miserable November evening a few months after Pamela's wedding, wet and dark, and she simply hadn't seen the pavement slab the edge of which had been lifted slightly by a tree root. Her hands were full \u2013 books from the library and grocery shopping, all acquired hastily in a lunch hour \u2013 and her instinct was to save the groceries and the books rather than herself. The result was that her face slammed into the pavement, the full force taken by her nose.\n\nThe pain stunned her, she had never experienced anything that came close to it before. She knelt on the ground and held her arms around herself, shopping and books now abandoned to the wet pavement. She could hear herself moaning \u2013 keening \u2013 and could do nothing to stop the noise.\n\n'Oh, my,' a man's voice said, 'how awful for you. Let me help you. You have blood all over your nice peach scarf. Is that the colour, or is it salmon?'\n\n'Peach,' Ursula murmured, polite despite the pain. She had never given much thought to the mohair muffler around her neck. There seemed to be a lot of blood. She could feel her whole face swelling and could smell the blood, thick and rusty, in her nose but the pain had lessened a degree or two.\n\nThe man was rather nice-looking, not very tall but he had sandy hair and blue eyes, and clean, polished-looking skin stretched over good cheekbones. He helped her to her feet. His hand in hers was firm and dry. 'My name's Derek, Derek Oliphant,' he said.\n\n' _Elephant?_ '\n\n'Oliphant.'\n\nThree months later they were married.\n\nDerek's origins were in Barnet and as unremarkable to Sylvie as Harold's before him. That was, of course, the essence of his appeal for Ursula. He taught history at Blackwood, a minor public school for boys ('the children of aspirant shopkeepers', Sylvie said dismissively) and courted Ursula with concerts in the Wigmore Hall and walks on Primrose Hill. They took long bike rides that ended up in pleasant pubs in the outer suburbs, a half-pint of mild for him, a lemonade for her.\n\nHer nose proved to be broken. ('Oh, poor you,' Pamela wrote. 'And you had such a nice nose.') Before he escorted her to a hospital, Derek had led her into a public house nearby to get cleaned up a little. 'Let me get you a brandy,' he said when she sat down and she said, 'No, no, I'm fine, I'll just have a glass of water. I'm not much of a drinker,' even though the previous evening she had blacked out on the floor of her bedroom in Bayswater, courtesy of a bottle of gin she had stolen from Izzie's house. She had no qualms about thieving from Izzie, Izzie had taken so much from her. Belgravia, and so on.\n\nUrsula stopped drinking almost as suddenly as she had started. She supposed she had had a hollow inside her that had been scooped out in Belgravia. She had tried to fill it with alcohol but now it was being replenished with her feelings for Derek. What were those feelings? Mostly relief that someone wanted to look after her, someone who knew nothing of her shameful past. 'I'm in love,' she wrote rather deliriously to Pamela. 'Hurrah,' Pamela wrote back.\n\n'Sometimes,' Sylvie said, 'one can mistake gratitude for love.'\n\nDerek's mother still lived in Barnet but his father was dead, as was a younger sister. 'A horrible accident,' Derek said. 'She fell into the fire when she was four years old.' Sylvie had always been very particular about fireguards. Derek himself had nearly drowned when he was a boy, he said after Ursula had offered up her own incident in Cornwall. It was one of the few adventures in her life where she felt she had played an almost entirely innocent part. And Derek? A rough tide, an upturned rowing boat, an heroic swim to shore. No Mr Winton necessary. 'I rescued myself,' he said.\n\n'He's not _entirely_ ordinary then,' Hilda said, offering Ursula a cigarette. She hesitated but declined, not ready to take on another addiction. She was in the middle of packing up her goods and chattels. She could hardly wait to leave Bayswater behind. Derek was in digs in Holborn but was finalizing the purchase of a house for them.\n\n'I've written to the landlord, by the way,' Hilda said. 'Told him we're both moving out. Ernie's wife's giving him a divorce, did I say?' She yawned. 'He's popped the question. Thought I might take him up on it. We'll both be respectable married women. I can come and visit you in \u2013 where is it again?'\n\n'Wealdstone.'\n\nThe wedding party, in a register office, was, according to Derek's wishes, restricted to his mother and to Hugh and Sylvie. Pamela was disconcerted not to be invited. 'We didn't want to wait,' Ursula said. 'And Derek didn't want any fuss.'\n\n'And don't _you_ want fuss?' Pamela asked. 'Isn't that the point of a wedding?'\n\nNo, she didn't want a fuss. She was going to belong to someone, safe at last, that was all that counted. Being a bride was nothing, being a wife was everything. 'We wanted it all to be simple,' she said resolutely. ('And cheap, by the looks of it,' Izzie said. Another set of mundane silver cake forks was dispatched.)\n\n'He seems like a pleasant enough chap,' Hugh said at what passed for a reception \u2013 a three-course luncheon in a restaurant close to the register office.\n\n'He is,' Ursula agreed. 'Very pleasant.'\n\n'Still, it's a bit of a rum do, little bear,' Hugh said. 'Not like Pammy's wedding, is it? Half of the Old Kent Road seemed to turn out for that. And poor Ted was very put out not to be invited today. As long as you're happy, though,' he added encouragingly, 'that's the main thing.'\n\nUrsula wore a dove-grey suit for the ceremony. Sylvie had provided corsages for everyone made from hothouse roses from a florist. 'Not my roses, sadly,' she said to Mrs Oliphant. 'Gloire des Mousseux, if you're interested.'\n\n'Very nice, I'm sure,' Mrs Oliphant said, in a way that didn't sound much like a compliment.\n\n'Marry in haste, repent at leisure,' Sylvie murmured to no one in particular before a restrained sherry toast to the bride and bridegroom.\n\n'Have _you_?' Hugh asked her mildly. 'Repented?' Sylvie pretended not to hear. She was in a particularly discordant mood. 'Change of life, I believe,' an embarrassed Hugh whispered to Ursula.\n\n'Me too,' she whispered back. Hugh squeezed her hand and said, 'That's my girl.'\n\n'And does Derek know you're not intact?' Sylvie asked when she was alone with Ursula in the Ladies' powder room. They were sitting on little padded stools, repairing their lipstick in the mirror. Mrs Oliphant remained at the table, having no lipstick to repair.\n\n'Intact?' Ursula echoed, staring at Sylvie in the mirror. What did that mean, that she was flawed? Or broken?\n\n'One's maidenhood,' Sylvie said. 'Deflowering,' she added impatiently when she saw Ursula's blank expression. 'For someone who is far from innocent you seem remarkably na\u00efve.'\n\nSylvie used to love me, Ursula thought. And now she didn't. 'Intact,' Ursula repeated again. She had never even considered this question. 'How will he tell?'\n\n'The blood, of course,' Sylvie said, rather testily.\n\nUrsula thought of the wisteria wallpaper. The deflowering. She hadn't known there was a connection. She thought the blood was a wound, not the breaching of the arch.\n\n'Well, he might not realize,' Sylvie sighed. 'I'm sure he won't be the first husband to be deceived on his wedding night.'\n\n'Fresh warpaint?' Hugh said easily when they returned to the table. Ted had inherited Hugh's smile. Derek and Mrs Oliphant shared the same frown. Ursula wondered what Mr Oliphant had been like. He was seldom mentioned.\n\n'Vanity, thy name is woman,' Derek said with what seemed like a forced joviality. He was not, Ursula noticed, as comfortable in social situations as she had first thought. She smiled at him, feeling a new bond. She was marrying a stranger, she realized. ('Everyone marries a stranger,' Hugh said.)\n\n'The word is \"frailty\", actually,' Sylvie said pleasantly. ' _Frailty, thy name is woman_. Hamlet. Many people misquote it for some reason.'\n\nA shadow passed over Derek's face but then he laughed it off. 'I bow to your superior learning, Mrs Todd.'\n\nTheir new house in Wealdstone had been chosen for its location, relatively near to the school where Derek taught. He had an inheritance, 'a very small sum' from his seldom-mentioned father's investments. It was a 'sound' terrace in Masons Avenue, half-timbered in the Tudor style with leaded lights and a stained-glass panel in the front door depicting a galleon in full sail, although Wealdstone seemed a long way from any ocean. The house had all modern conveniences as well as shops close by, a doctor, a dentist and a park for children to play in, in fact everything a young wife (and mother, 'one day very soon', according to Derek) could want.\n\nUrsula could see herself eating breakfast with Derek in the mornings before waving him off to work, could see herself pushing their children in prams then pushchairs then swings, bathing them in the evening and reading bedtime stories in their pretty bedroom. She and Derek would sit quietly in the lounge in the evenings listening to the wireless. He could work on the book he was writing, a school textbook \u2013 'From Plantagenets to Tudors'. ('Gosh,' Hilda said. 'Sounds thrilling.') Wealdstone was a long way from Belgravia. Thank goodness.\n\nThe rooms this married life was to be carried out in remained in her imagination until after their honeymoon, as Derek had bought and furnished the house without her ever having seen it.\n\n'That's a bit odd, don't you think?' Pamela said. 'No,' Ursula said. 'It's like a surprise gift. My wedding present from him.'\n\nWhen Derek finally carried her awkwardly over the Wealdstone threshold (a red-tiled porch that neither Sylvie nor William Morris would have approved of) Ursula couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment. The house proved to be more sparsely old-fashioned than the one in her imagination and there was a drabness about it that she supposed came from its not having had a woman's hand in the d\u00e9cor, so she was surprised when Derek said, 'Mother helped me.' But then there was, of course, a similar kind of occlusion in Barnet where a certain dinginess adhered to the dowager Mrs Oliphant.\n\nSylvie had passed her honeymoon in Deauville, Pamela spent hers on a walking holiday in Switzerland, but Ursula began her own marriage with a rather wet week in Worthing.\n\nShe married one man ('a pleasant enough chap') and woke up with another, one as tightly wound as Sylvie's little carriage clock.\n\nHe changed almost immediately, as if the honeymoon itself was a transition, an anticipated rite of passage for him from solicitous suitor to disenchanted spouse. Ursula blamed the weather, which was wretched. The landlady of the boarding house where they were staying expected them to vacate the premises between breakfast and dinner at six and so they spent long days sheltering in caf\u00e9s or in the art gallery and museum or fighting the wind on the pier. Evenings were spent playing partner whist with other (less dispirited) guests before retiring to their chilly bedroom. Derek was a poor card player, in more ways than one, and they lost nearly every hand. He seemed almost to wilfully misread her attempts to indicate her hand to him.\n\n'Why did you lead trumps?' she asked him later \u2013 genuinely curious \u2013 as they decorously removed their clothes in the bedroom. 'You think that nonsense is important?' he said with a look of such deep contempt that she thought it might be best to avoid games of any kind with Derek in the future.\n\nOn the first night, blood, or the lack of it, passed unnoticed, Ursula was relieved to find. 'I think you should know that I am not inexperienced,' Derek said rather pompously as they climbed into bed together for the first time. 'I believe it is the duty of a husband to know something of the world. How else can he protect the purity of his wife?' It sounded like a specious argument to Ursula but she was hardly in a position to argue.\n\n*\n\nDerek rose early each morning and did a relentless series of press-ups \u2013 as if he were in an army barracks rather than on honeymoon. ' _Mens sana in corpora sana_ ,' he said. Best not to correct him, she thought. He was proud of his Latin, as well as his smattering of ancient Greek. His mother had scrimped and saved to make sure he had a good education, 'nothing had been handed on a plate, unlike some'. Ursula had been rather good at Latin, Greek too, but she thought it best not to crow. That was another Ursula, of course. A different Ursula, unmarked by Belgravia.\n\nDerek's method of having conjugal relations was very similar to his method of exercise, even down to the same expression of pain and effort on his face. Ursula could have been part of the mattress for all he seemed to care. But what did she have to measure it against? Howie? She wished now that she had questioned Hilda about what went on in her 'pleasure palace' in Ealing. She thought of Izzie's exuberant flirting and the warm affection between Pamela and Harold. It all seemed to indicate diversion if not downright happiness. 'What's life worth if you can't have some fun?' Izzie used to say. Ursula sensed there was going to be a shortage of fun in Wealdstone.\n\nAs humdrum as her job had been, it was as nothing compared to the drudge work of keeping house, day in, day out. Everything had to be continually washed, scrubbed, dusted, polished and swept, not to mention the ironing, the folding, the hanging, the straightening. The _adjustments_. Derek was a man of right angles and straight lines. Towels, tea-towels, curtains, rugs all needed constant alignment and realignment. (As did Ursula, apparently.) But this was her job, this was the arrangement and realignment of marriage itself, wasn't it? Although Ursula couldn't get over the feeling that she was on some kind of permanent probation.\n\nIt was easier to succumb to Derek's unquestioning belief in domestic order rather than to fight it. ('A place for everything and everything in its place.') Crockery had to be scoured clean of stains, cutlery had to be polished and straightened in drawers \u2013 knives adjusted like soldiers on parade, spoons spooning each other neatly. A housewife has to be the most observant worshipper at the altar of the Lares and Penates, he said. It should be 'hearth', not 'altar', she thought, the amount of time she spent sweeping out grates and rattling clinker out of the boiler.\n\nDerek was particular about tidiness. He couldn't think, he said, if things were out of place or askew. 'Tidy house, tidy mind,' he said. He was, Ursula was learning, rather fond of aphorisms. He certainly couldn't work on 'From Plantagenets to Tudors' in the kind of muddle that Ursula seemed to create simply by entering a room. They needed the income from this textbook \u2013 his first \u2013 which William Collins was to publish and to this end he commandeered the poky dining room (table, sideboard and all) at the back of the house as his 'study' and Ursula was banished from Derek's company most evenings so that he could write. Two should live as cheaply as one, he said, and yet here they were, barely able to pay their bills because of her lack of domestic economy, so she could at least give him some peace to try to earn an extra crust. And no, thank you, he didn't want her help in typing up his manuscript.\n\nUrsula's old household routines now seemed appallingly slovenly, even to her own eyes. In Bayswater her bed often went unmade and her pots unwashed. Bread and butter made a good breakfast and there was nothing wrong, as far as she could see, with a boiled egg for tea. Married life was more exacting. Breakfasts had to be cooked and on the table at just the right time in the morning. Derek couldn't be late for school and regarded his breakfast, a litany of porridge, eggs and toast, as a solemn (and solitary) communion. The eggs were cooked in rotation throughout the week, scrambled, fried, boiled, poached, and on Fridays the excitement of a kipper. At weekends Derek liked bacon, sausage and black pudding with his eggs. The eggs came not from a shop but a smallholding three miles away, to which Ursula had to trek on foot every week because Derek had sold their bikes when they moved to Wealdstone 'to save money'.\n\nTea was a different kind of nightmare as she had to think of new things to cook all the time. Life was an endless round of chops and steaks and pies and stews and roasts, not to mention the pudding that was expected every day and in great variety. _I'm a slave to recipe books!_ she wrote with faux-cheerfulness to Sylvie, although cheerful was far from how she felt every day, poring over their demanding pages. She gained a new respect for Mrs Glover. Of course, Mrs Glover benefited from a large kitchen, a substantial budget and a full _batterie de cuisine_ , whereas the Wealdstone kitchen was fitted out in a rather paltry fashion and Ursula's housekeeping allowance never seemed to stretch throughout the week so that she was continually chastised for overspending.\n\nShe had never bothered much about money in Bayswater, if she fell short she ate less and walked instead of taking the Tube. If she really needed topping up there had always been Hugh or Izzie to fall back on, but she could hardly go running to them for money now that she had a husband. Derek would have been mortified at this slur on his manhood.\n\nAfter several months under the constraint of unending chores Ursula thought she might go mad if she couldn't find some kind of pastime to alleviate the long days. There was a tennis club that she passed en route to the shops every day. All she could see of it was the tall netting that rose behind a wooden fence and a green door in a white pebble-dash wall facing the street, but she could hear the familiar inviting summer sound of _thock_ and _twang_ and one day she found herself knocking on the green door and asking if she could join.\n\n'I've joined the local tennis club,' she said to Derek when he came home that evening.\n\n'You didn't ask me,' Derek said.\n\n'I didn't think you played tennis.'\n\n'I don't,' he said. 'I meant you didn't ask me if you could join.'\n\n'I didn't know I had to ask.' Something passed over his face, the same cloud she had briefly seen on their wedding day when Sylvie had corrected his Shakespeare. This time it took longer to pass and seemed to change him in some indefinable way, as though part of him had shrivelled inside.\n\n'Well, can I?' she said, thinking it would be better to be meek and keep the peace. Would Pammy have asked such a question of Harold? Would Harold have ever expected such a question? Ursula wasn't sure. She realized she knew nothing about marriage. And, of course, Sylvie and Hugh's alliance remained an ongoing enigma.\n\nShe wondered what argument Derek could possibly have against her playing tennis. He seemed to be having the same struggle and eventually said begrudgingly, 'I suppose so. As long as you still have time to do everything in the house.' Halfway through their tea \u2013 stewed lamb chops and mashed potatoes \u2013 he got up abruptly from the table, picked up his plate and threw it across the room and then walked out of the house without saying a word. He didn't come back until Ursula was getting ready for bed. He still wore the same thrawn expression on his face as when he had left and gave her a brief 'good night' that almost choked him as they climbed into bed.\n\nIn the middle of the night she was woken by him clambering on top of her and hitching himself wordlessly inside her. Wisteria came to mind.\n\nThe thrawn face ('that look' was how she thought of it) now made regular appearances and Ursula surprised herself with how far she would go to appease it. But it was hopeless, once he was in this mood she got on his nerves, no matter what she did or said, in fact her attempts to placate him seemed to make the situation worse, if anything.\n\nA visit was arranged to Mrs Oliphant in Barnet, the first since the wedding. They had popped in briefly \u2013 tea and a stale scone \u2013 to announce their engagement, but hadn't been back since.\n\nThis time round Mrs Oliphant fed them a limp ham salad and some small conversation. She had several odd jobs 'saved up' for Derek and he disappeared, tools in hand, leaving his womenfolk to clear up. When the washing-up was done, Ursula said, 'Shall I make a cup of tea?' and Mrs Oliphant said, 'If you like,' without any great encouragement.\n\nThey sat awkwardly in the parlour, sipping their tea. There was a framed photograph hanging on the wall, a studio portrait of Mrs Oliphant and her new husband on their wedding day, looking strait-laced in turn-of-the-century wedding garb. 'Very nice,' Ursula said. 'Do you have any photographs of Derek when he was small? Or of his sister?' she added because it didn't seem right to exclude the girl from family history merely on account of her being dead.\n\n'Sister?' Mrs Oliphant said, frowning. 'What sister?'\n\n'His sister who died,' Ursula said.\n\n'Died?' Mrs Oliphant looked startled.\n\n'Your daughter,' Ursula said. 'She fell in the fire,' she added, feeling foolish, it was hardly a detail you were likely to forget. She wondered if perhaps Mrs Oliphant was a little simple. Mrs Oliphant herself looked confused, as if she were trying to recollect this forgotten child. 'I only ever had Derek,' she concluded firmly.\n\n'Well, anyway,' Ursula said, as if this were a trivial subject to be lightly tossed away, 'you must come and visit us in Wealdstone. Now that we're settled. We're very grateful, you know, for the money that Mr Oliphant left.'\n\n'Left? He left money?'\n\n'Some shares, I think, in the will,' Ursula said. Perhaps Mrs Oliphant hadn't been involved in the probate.\n\n'Will? He left nothing but debts when he went. He's not dead,' she added as if it were Ursula who was the simple one. 'He's living in Margate.'\n\nWhat other lies and half-truths were there, Ursula wondered? Did Derek really nearly drown when he was younger?\n\n'Drown?'\n\n'Fall out of a rowing boat and swim to shore?'\n\n'Whatever gave you that idea?'\n\n'Now then,' Derek said, appearing in the doorway and making them both jump, 'what are you two gossiping about?'\n\n'You've lost weight,' Pamela said.\n\n'Yes, I suppose I have. I've been playing tennis.' How normal that made her life sound. She doggedly attended the tennis club, it was the only relief she had from the claustrophobia of life in Masons Avenue, though she had to face a constant inquisition on the subject. Every evening when he came home Derek asked if she had played tennis today, even though she only played two afternoons a week. She was always interrogated about her partner, a dentist's wife called Phyllis. Derek seemed to despise Phyllis, even though he had never met her.\n\nPamela had travelled all the way from Finchley. 'Obviously it was the only way I was ever going to see you. You must like married life. Or Wealdstone,' she laughed. 'Mother said that you put her off.' Ursula had been putting everyone off since the wedding, rebuffing Hugh's offers to 'pop in' for a cup of tea and Sylvie's hints that perhaps they should be invited to Sunday lunch. Jimmy was away at school and Teddy was in his first year at Oxford but he wrote lovely long letters to her, and Maurice, of course, had no inclination to visit anyone in his family.\n\n'I'm sure she's not too bothered about visiting. Wealdstone and so on. Not her cup of tea at all.'\n\nThey both laughed. Ursula had almost forgotten what it felt like to laugh. She felt tears start to her eyes and had to turn away and busy herself with the tea things. 'It's so nice to see you, Pammy.'\n\n'Well, you know you're welcome in Finchley whenever you please. You should get a telephone, and then we could talk all the time.' Derek thought a telephone was an expensive luxury but Ursula suspected that he simply didn't want her speaking to anyone. She could hardly voice this suspicion (and to whom \u2013 Phyllis? The milkman?) as people would think she was off her head. Ursula had been looking forward to Pamela's visit the way people looked forward to holidays. On Monday she had said to Derek, 'Pamela's coming on Wednesday afternoon,' and he had said, 'Oh?' He seemed indifferent and she was relieved that the thrawn face did not appear.\n\nAs soon as they were finished with them Ursula quickly cleared the tea things away, washed and dried them and put them back in their places.\n\n'Golly,' Pamela said, 'when did you become such a neat little _Hausfrau_?'\n\n'Tidy house, tidy mind,' Ursula said.\n\n'Tidiness is overrated,' Pamela said. 'Is anything the matter? You seem awfully down.'\n\n'Time of the month,' Ursula said.\n\n'Oh, rotten luck. I'm going to be free of that problem for a few months. Guess what?'\n\n'You're having a baby? Oh, that's wonderful news!'\n\n'Yes. Isn't it? Mother will be a grandmother again.' (Maurice had already made a start on the next generation of Todds.) 'Will she like that, do you suppose?'\n\n'Who knows? She's rather unpredictable these days.'\n\n'Did you have a nice visit from your sister?' Derek asked when he came home that night.\n\n'Lovely. She's having a baby.'\n\n'Oh?'\n\n*\n\nThe next morning her poached eggs were not 'up to scratch'. Even Ursula had to admit that the egg she presented for Derek's breakfast was a sad sight, a sickly jellyfish deposited on toast to die. A sly smile appeared on his face, an expression that seemed to indicate a certain triumph in finding fault. A new look. Worse than the old.\n\n'Do you expect me to eat that?' he asked.\n\nSeveral answers to that question passed through Ursula's mind but she rejected them all as provocative. Instead she said, 'I can do you another one.'\n\n'You know,' he said, 'I have to work all hours at a job I despise, just to keep you. You don't have to worry your silly little noggin about anything, do you? You do nothing all day \u2013 oh, no, forgive me,' he said sarcastically, 'I was forgetting you play tennis \u2013 and you can't even manage to cook me an egg.'\n\nUrsula hadn't realized he despised his job. He complained a great deal about the behaviour of the Lower Third and talked incessantly about the headmaster's lack of appreciation of his hard work, but she hadn't thought that he _hated_ teaching. He looked close to tears and she felt suddenly and unexpectedly sorry for him and said, 'I'll poach another.'\n\n'Don't bother.' She anticipated the egg would be thrown at the wall, Derek was given to tossing food around since she had joined the tennis club, but instead he delivered a massive open-handed slap to the side of her head that sent her reeling against the cooker and then to the floor where she remained, kneeling as though she were at prayer. The pain, more than the act, had taken her by surprise.\n\nDerek walked across the kitchen and stood over her with the plate containing the offending egg. For a moment she thought he was going to bring it crashing down on her but instead he slid the egg off the plate and on to the top of her head. Then he stalked out of the kitchen and she heard the front door slam a minute later. The egg slid off her hair, down her face and on to the floor, where it burst open in a quiet splash of yellow. She struggled to her feet and fetched a cloth.\n\nThat morning seemed to open up something in him. She broke rules she didn't know existed \u2013 too much coal on the fire, too much toilet paper used, a light accidentally left on. Receipts and bills were all scrutinized by him, every penny had to be accounted for and she never had any spare money.\n\nHe proved himself capable of the most enormous rants over the pettiest of things, once started he seemed unable to stop. He was angry all the time. _She_ made him angry all the time. Every evening now he demanded an exacting account of her day. How many books did she change in the library, what did the butcher say to her, did anyone call at the house? She gave up tennis. It was easier.\n\nHe didn't hit her again but violence seemed to simmer constantly beneath his surface, a dormant volcano that Ursula had unwontedly brought back to life. She was wrong-footed by him all the time so that she never seemed to have a moment to clear the befuddlement in her brain. Her very existence seemed to be irksome to him. Was life to be lived as a continuous punishment? (Why not, didn't she deserve that?)\n\nShe began to live in a strange kind of malaise, as though her head was full of fog. She had made her bed, she supposed, and now she must lie on it. Perhaps that was another version of Dr Kellet's _amor fati_. What would he say about her current predicament? More to the point, perhaps, what would he say about Derek's peculiar character?\n\nShe was to attend sports day. It was a big event in Blackwood's calendar and wives of masters were expected to attend. Derek had given her money for a new hat and said, 'Make sure you look smart.'\n\nShe went to a local shop that sold apparel for women and children, called A La Mode (although it really wasn't). It was here that she bought her stockings and undergarments. She had had no new clothes since her wedding. She didn't care enough about her appearance to badger Derek for the money.\n\nIt was a lacklustre-looking shop in a row of other lacklustre shops \u2013 a hairdressing salon, a fishmonger, a greengrocer's, a post office. She didn't have the heart or the stomach (or the budget) to bother going up to town to a smart London department store (and what would Derek say about such a jaunt?). When she worked in London, before the watershed of marriage, she had spent a lot of time in Selfridge's and Peter Robinson's. Now those places seemed as distant as foreign countries.\n\nThe contents of the shop window were protected from the sun by a yellowy-orange screen, a kind of thick cellophane that reminded her of the wrapper on a bottle of Lucozade and made everything in the window completely undesirable.\n\nIt was not the most beautiful hat but she supposed it would do. She scrutinized her reflection unwillingly in the shop's floor-to-ceiling tripartite mirror. In triptych she looked three times worse than she did in the bathroom mirror (the only one in the house that she couldn't avoid). She no longer recognized herself, she thought. She had taken the wrong path, opened the wrong door, and was unable to find her way back.\n\nSuddenly, horribly, she frightened herself by wailing, the wretched sound of utter despondency. The owner of the shop came rushing from behind the counter and said, 'There, dear, don't get upset. Time of the month, is it?' She made her sit and have a cup of tea and a biscuit and Ursula couldn't begin to express her gratitude for this simple kindness.\n\nThe school was one stop on the train and then a short walk along a quiet road. Ursula joined the stream of parents flowing through Blackwood's gates. It was exciting \u2013 and slightly terrifying \u2013 to suddenly find herself among a crush. She had been married less than six months but had forgotten what it was like to be in a crowd.\n\nUrsula had never been to the school before and was surprised by its commonplace red brick and its pedestrian herbaceous borders, quite unlike the ancient school that the men of the Todd family attended. Teddy and then Jimmy had followed in Maurice's footsteps to Hugh's old school, a lovely building of soft grey stone and as pretty as an Oxford college. ('Savage within', though, according to Teddy.) The grounds were particularly beautiful and even Sylvie admired the profusion of flowers in the beds. 'Rather romantic planting,' she said. No such romance at Derek's school, where the emphasis was on the playing fields. The boys at Blackwood were not particularly academic, according to Derek anyway, and were kept occupied by an endless round of rugby and cricket. More healthy minds in healthy bodies. Did Derek have a healthy mind?\n\nIt was too late to ask him about his sister and his father, Krakatoa would erupt, Ursula suspected. Why would you make up something like that? Dr Kellet would know.\n\nTrestle tables, bearing refreshments for parents and staff, were set up at one end of the athletics field. Tea and sandwiches and finger slices of dry Dundee cake. Ursula lingered by the tea-urn looking for Derek. He had told her he wouldn't be able to talk much to her as he was needed to 'help out' and when she did eventually spot him at the far end of the field he was diligently carrying an armful of large hoops, the purpose of which seemed mysterious to Ursula.\n\nEveryone gathered around the trestles seemed to know each other, particularly the masters' wives, and it struck Ursula that there must be a great many more social events at Blackwood than Derek ever mentioned.\n\nA couple of senior masters, gowned like bats, settled on the tea-table and she caught the name 'Oliphant'. As inconspicuously as possible Ursula stepped a little closer to them, pretending a deep fascination with the crab paste in the sandwich on her plate.\n\n'Young Oliphant's in trouble again, I hear.'\n\n'Really?'\n\n'Hit a boy, I believe.'\n\n'Nothing wrong with hitting boys. I hit them all the time.'\n\n'Bad this time though, apparently. Parents are threatening to go to the police.'\n\n'He's never been able to control a class. Ruddy awful teacher, of course.'\n\nPlates now fully loaded with cake, the two men began to wander off, Ursula drifting in their wake.\n\n'In debt up to his ears, you know.'\n\n'Perhaps he'll make some money from his book.'\n\nThey both laughed heartily as if a great joke had been told.\n\n'The wife's here today, I gather.'\n\n'Really? We'd better watch out. I hear she's very unstable.' This, too, a great joke, seemingly. A sudden shot from the starting pistol signalling the beginning of a hurdles race made Ursula jump. She let the masters amble off. She had lost her appetite for eavesdropping.\n\nShe caught sight of Derek striding towards her, hoops now replaced by an unwieldy burden of javelins. He shouted to a couple of boys for help and they trotted up obediently. As they passed Ursula, one of them sniggered, sotto voce, 'Yes, Mr Elephant, coming, Mr Elephant.' Derek dropped the javelins to the grass with a great clatter and said to the boys, 'Carry them to the end of the field, come on, get a move on.' He approached Ursula and kissed her lightly on the cheek, saying, 'Hello, dear.' She burst out laughing, she couldn't help herself. It was the nicest thing he had said to her in weeks and was voiced not to her but for the benefit of the two masters' wives who were standing nearby.\n\n'Is there something funny?' he asked, studying her face a little too long for comfort. She could tell he was seething. She shook her head in answer. She was worried she might scream out loud, could feel her own volcano bubbling up, ready to explode. She supposed she was hysterical. _Unstable_.\n\n'I have to see to the Upper School's high jump,' Derek said, frowning at her. 'I'll meet you shortly.' He walked off, still frowning, and she started to laugh again.\n\n'Mrs Oliphant? Is it Mrs Oliphant, it is, isn't it?' The two masters' wives pounced on her, lionesses sensing wounded prey.\n\nShe also travelled home alone as Derek had to supervise evening study and would eat at the school, he said. She made herself a scrappy tea of fried herring and cold potatoes and had a sudden longing for a bottle of good red wine. In fact one bottle after another until she had drunk herself to death. She scraped the herring bones into the bin. _To cease upon the midnight with no pain_. Anything was better than this ludicrous life.\n\nDerek was a joke, to the boys, to the staff. _Mr Elephant_. She could just imagine the unruly Lower Third driving him mad with rage. And his book, what of his book?\n\nUrsula never bothered much with the contents of Derek's 'study'. She had never felt any great interest in the Plantagenets or Tudors either, for that matter. She was under strict instructions not to move any of his papers or books when dusting and polishing in the dining room (as she still liked to think of it) but she didn't care to anyway, barely glancing at the progress of the great tome.\n\nHe had been working feverishly of late, the table was covered in a clutter of notes and scraps of paper. It was all disconnected sentences and thoughts \u2013 _rather amusing if somewhat primitive belief \u2013 planta genista, the common broom gives us the name Angevin \u2013 come of the devil, and to the devil they would go_. There was little sign of an actual manuscript, just corrections and re-corrections, the same paragraph written over and over with tiny changes each time, and endless trial pages, written in ruled exercise books with Blackwood's crest and motto ( _A posse ad esse \u2013_ 'from possibility to reality') on the cover. No wonder he hadn't wanted her to type up his manuscript. She had married a Casaubon, she realized.\n\nDerek's whole life was a fabrication. From his very first words to her (Oh, _my, how awful for you. Let me help you_ ) he had not been genuine. What had he wanted from her? Someone weaker than himself? Or a wife, a mother of his children, someone running his house, all the trappings of the _vie quotidienne_ but without any of its underlying chaos. She had married him in order to be safe from that chaos. He had married her, she now understood, for the same reason. They were the last two people on earth who could make anyone safe from anything.\n\nUrsula rooted through the sideboard drawers and found a sheaf of letters, the top one with the letterhead of William Collins and Sons, Co. Ltd 'regretfully' rejecting his idea for a book, in an 'already oversubscribed area of history textbooks'. There were similar letters from other educational publishers and, worse, there were unpaid bills and threatening final notices. A particularly harsh letter demanded immediate repayment of the loan taken out apparently to pay for the house. It was the kind of sour letter that she had typed up from dictation at her secretarial college, _Dear Sir, It has been brought to my notice\u2014_\n\nShe heard the front door open and her heart jumped. Derek appeared in the doorway of the dining room, a Gothic intruder on stage. 'What are you doing?'\n\nShe held up the letter from William Collins and said, 'You're a liar, through and through. Why did you marry me? Why did you make us both so unhappy?' The look on his face. That look. She was asking to be killed, but wasn't that easier than doing it herself? She didn't care any more, there was no fight in her.\n\nUrsula was expecting the first blow but it still took her by surprise, his fist punching hard into the middle of her face as if he wanted to obliterate it.\n\n*\n\nShe slept, or perhaps she passed out, on the kitchen floor and woke some time before six. She was sick and dizzy and every inch of her was sore and aching, her whole body made of lead. She was desperate for a drink of water but didn't dare turn the tap on for fear of waking Derek. Using first a chair, then the table, she hauled herself up to standing. She found her shoes and crept into the hallway where she took her coat and a headscarf from the peg. Derek's wallet was in his jacket pocket and she took a ten-shilling note, more than enough for the rail fare and then a cab onward. She felt exhausted just at the thought of this taxing journey \u2013 she wasn't even sure she could make it on foot as far as Harrow and Wealdstone station.\n\nShe slipped her coat on and pulled the headscarf over her face, avoiding the mirror in the hallstand. It would be too dreadful a sight. She left the front door slightly ajar in case the noise of it closing woke him up. She thought of Ibsen's Nora slamming the door behind her. Nora wouldn't have gone in for dramatic gestures if she had been trying to escape from Derek Oliphant.\n\nIt was the longest walk of her life. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might give out. All the way she expected to hear his footsteps running up behind her and him yelling her name. At the ticket office she had to mumble 'Euston' through a mouthful of bloody, broken teeth. The ticket clerk glanced at her and then glanced quickly away when he saw the state she was in. Ursula supposed he had no precedent for dealing with female passengers who looked as if they had been in bare-knuckle fights.\n\nShe had to wait for the first train of the day for another ten agonizing minutes in the ladies' waiting room but at least she was able to get a drink of water and remove some of the dried blood from her face.\n\nIn the carriage she sat with her head bowed, one hand shielding her face. The men in suits and bowlers studiously ignored her. As she waited for the train to pull away she risked a glance along the platform and was relieved beyond measure that there was still no sign of Derek. With any luck he hadn't missed her yet and was still doing his press-ups on the bedroom floor, presuming her to be down in the kitchen preparing his breakfast. Friday, kipper day. The kipper still lay on the pantry shelf, wrapped in newspaper. He would be furious.\n\nWhen she got off the train at Euston her legs almost gave way. People gave her a wide berth and she worried that the cab driver would refuse the fare, but when she showed him the money he took her. They drove in silence across London, bathed in rain overnight, and now the stones of the buildings were sparkling in the first rays of sun and the soft cloudy dawn was opalescent in pinks and blues. She had forgotten how much she liked London. Her heart rose. She had decided to live and now she wanted to very much.\n\nThe cab driver helped her out at the end of the journey. 'You're sure about this, miss, are you?' he said, looking doubtfully at the large redbrick house in Melbury Road. She nodded, mutely.\n\nIt was an inevitable destination.\n\nShe rang the bell and the front door opened. Izzie's hand flew to her mouth in horror at the sight of her face. 'Oh, my God. What _happened_ to you?'\n\n'My husband tried to kill me.'\n\n'You'd better come in then,' Izzie said.\n\nThe bruises healed, very slowly. 'Battle scars,' Izzie said.\n\nIzzie's dentist fixed Ursula's teeth and she had to wear her right arm in a sling for a while. Her nose had been broken again and her cheekbones and jaw cracked. She was flawed, no longer _intact_. On the other hand, she felt as if she had been scourged clean. The past no longer weighed so heavily on the present. She sent a message to Fox Corner saying that she had gone away for the summer, 'a touring holiday of the Highlands with Derek'. She was fairly sure that Derek wouldn't contact Fox Corner. He would be licking his wounds somewhere. Barnet, maybe. He had no idea where Izzie lived, thank goodness.\n\nIzzie was surprisingly sympathetic. 'Stay as long as you like,' she said. 'It'll make a change from rattling around in here on my own. And God only knows, I've got more than enough money to keep you. Take your time,' she added. 'No rush. And you're only twenty-three, for heaven's sake.' Ursula didn't know which was more surprising \u2013 Izzie's genuine hospitality or the fact that she knew how old she was. Perhaps Izzie had been changed by Belgravia too.\n\nUrsula was in on her own one evening when Teddy turned up on the doorstep. 'You're hard to find,' he said, giving her an enormous hug. Ursula's heart bumped with pleasure. Teddy always seemed more real than other people somehow. He was brown and strong from spending the long summer vacation working on the Hall farm. He had announced recently that he wanted to be a farmer. 'I'll have the money back that I spent on your education,' Sylvie said \u2013 but smiling because Teddy was her favourite.\n\n'I believe it was _my_ money,' Hugh said. (Did Hugh have a favourite? 'You, I think,' Pamela said.)\n\n'What happened to your face?' Teddy asked her.\n\n'Bit of an accident, you should have seen it before,' she laughed.\n\n'You're not in the Highlands,' Teddy said.\n\n'Doesn't seem so, does it?'\n\n'You've left him then?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Good.' Teddy, like Hugh, didn't go in for long narratives. 'Where's the giddy aunt then?' he asked.\n\n'Out giddying. The Embassy Club, I believe.' They drank some of Izzie's champagne to celebrate Ursula's freedom.\n\n'You'll be disgraced in Mother's eyes, I expect,' Teddy said.\n\n'Don't worry, I believe I already am.'\n\nTogether they made an omelette and a tomato salad and ate with their plates on their knees listening to Ambrose and his orchestra on the wireless. When they finished their food, Teddy lit a cigarette. 'You're so grown-up these days,' Ursula laughed. 'I have muscles,' he said, demonstrating his biceps like a circus strongman. He was reading English at Oxford and said it was a relief to stop thinking and 'be working on the land'. He was writing poetry, too, he said. About the land, not about 'feelings'. Teddy's heart had been fractured by Nancy's death and once a thing was cracked, he said, it could never be repaired perfectly. 'Quite Jamesian, isn't it?' he said ruefully. (Ursula thought of herself.)\n\nA bereft Teddy carried his wounds on the inside, a scar across his heart where little Nancy Shawcross had been ripped away. 'It's as if,' he said to Ursula, 'you walk into a room and your life ends but you keep on living.'\n\n'I think I understand. I do,' Ursula said.\n\n*\n\nUrsula dozed off with her head on Teddy's shoulder. She was still tremendously tired. ('Sleep is a great healer,' Izzie said, bringing her breakfast on a tray every morning.)\n\nEventually, Teddy sighed and stretched and said, 'I suppose I should be getting back to Fox Corner. What's the story, did I see you? Or are you still in Brigadoon?' He took their plates through to the kitchen. 'I'll clear up while you think about your answer.'\n\nWhen the doorbell rang Ursula presumed it was Izzie. Now that Ursula was living in Melbury Road she had grown careless about her door keys. 'But you're always here, darling,' she said when Ursula had to crawl out of bed at three in the morning to let her in.\n\nIt wasn't Izzie, it was Derek. She was so surprised she couldn't even speak. She had left him so firmly behind that she thought of him as someone who had ceased to exist. He didn't belong in Holland Park, but rather in some dark place of the imagination.\n\nHe twisted her arm behind her back and frogmarched her down the hall into the drawing room. He glanced at the coffee table, a heavy wooden thing carved in the Oriental style. Seeing the empty champagne glasses still sitting on the coffee table and the big onyx ashtray containing Teddy's cigarette stubs, he hissed, 'Who's been here with you?' He was incandescent with rage. 'Who have you been fornicating with?'\n\n'Fornicating?' Ursula said, surprised by the word. So biblical. Teddy came into the room, a dishtowel casually over his shoulder. 'What's all this?' he said, and then, 'Get your hands off her.'\n\n'Is this him?' Derek asked Ursula. 'Is this the man you're whoring around London with?' and without waiting for an answer he smashed her head on to the coffee table and she slid to the ground. The pain in her head was terrible and grew worse rather than lessened, as if she were in a vice being tightened all the time. Derek lifted the heavy onyx ashtray high as if it were a chalice, careless of the cigarette butts that showered on to the carpet. Ursula knew her brain wasn't working properly because she should have been cowering in terror but all she could think about was that this was rather like the incident with the poached egg and how silly life was. Teddy yelled something at Derek and Derek threw the ashtray at him instead of breaking open Ursula's skull with it. Ursula couldn't see whether or not the ashtray hit Teddy because Derek grabbed her by her hair, lifted her head up and cracked it back on to the coffee table. A bolt of lightning flashed in front of her eyes but the pain began to fade.\n\nShe slipped down on to the carpet, unable to move. There was so much blood in her eyes that she could barely see. The second time that her head hit the table she had felt something give way, the instinct to life perhaps. She knew from the awkward shuffling and grunting dance on the carpet around her that Derek and Teddy were fighting. At least Teddy was on his feet and not lying unconscious but she didn't want him to fight, she wanted him to run away, out of harm's way. She didn't mind dying, she really didn't, as long as Teddy was safe. She tried to say something but it came out as guttural nonsense. She was very cold and tired. She remembered feeling this way in the hospital, after Belgravia. Hugh had been there, he had held on to her hand and kept her in this life.\n\nAmbrose was still on the wireless, Sam Browne was singing 'The Sun Has Got His Hat On'. It was a jolly song to leave life to. Not what you expected.\n\nThe black bat was coming for her. She didn't want to go. The blackness edged around her. _Easeful death_. It was so cold. It will snow tonight, she thought, even though it isn't winter yet. It was already snowing, cold flakes dissolving on her skin like soap. Ursula put out a hand for Teddy to hold but this time nothing could stop her fall into the dark night.\n\n# _11 February 1926_\n\n'Ow! What d'ya do that for?' Howie yelled, rubbing his cheek where Ursula had punched him in a very unladylike way.\n\n'You have one hell of a right cross for a little girl,' Howie said, almost admiringly. He made another grab for her which she jinked as neatly as a cat. As she did so, she spotted Teddy's ball, lurking deep within the recesses of a cotoneaster. A well-aimed kick connected with Howie's shin and gave her enough time to rescue the ball from the clutches of the reluctant bush.\n\n'I just wanted a kiss,' Howie said, sounding absurdly hurt. 'It wasn't like I was trying to _rape_ you or anything.' The brutal word hung in the chilly air. Ursula might have blushed, should have blushed at the word but she felt a certain possession of it. She sensed it was what boys like Howie did to girls like Ursula. All girls, especially those celebrating their sixteenth birthdays, had to be cautious when walking through the dark, wild wood. Or, in this case, the shrubbery at the bottom of Fox Corner's garden. Howie rewarded her by looking somewhat shamefaced.\n\n'Howie!' they heard Maurice shouting. 'Leaving without you, chum!'\n\n'You had better go,' Ursula said. A small triumph for her new womanhood.\n\n'I found your ball,' she said to Teddy.\n\n'Excellent,' Teddy said. 'Thank you. Shall we have more of your birthday cake?'\n\n# _August 1926_\n\n_Il se tenait devant un miroir long, appliqu\u00e9 au mur entre les deux fen\u00eatres, et contemplait son image de tr\u00e8s beau et tr\u00e8s jeune homme, ni grand ni petit, le cheveu bleut\u00e9 comme un plumage de merle_.\n\nShe could barely keep her eyes open to read. It was beautifully hot and time treacled past every day with nothing more to do than read books and go for long walks \u2013 mainly in the vain hope of bumping into Benjamin Cole, or indeed any of the Cole boys, who had all grown into darkly handsome youths. 'They could pass for Italian,' Sylvie said. But why would they want to pass for anything other than themselves?\n\n'You know,' Sylvie said, discovering her lying beneath the apple trees, _Ch\u00e9ri_ drowsily abandoned on the warm grass, 'long, lazy days like these will never come again in your life. You think they will, but they won't.'\n\n'Unless I become incredibly rich,' Ursula said. 'Then I could be idle all day long.'\n\n'Perhaps,' Sylvie said, unwilling to renounce her newly habitual dysphoric stance. 'But summer would still come to an end one day.' She sank down on the grass next to Ursula. Her skin was freckled from working in the garden. Sylvie was always up with the sun. Ursula would have been happy to sleep all day. Sylvie leafed idly through the Colette and said, 'You should do more with your French.'\n\n'I could live in Paris.'\n\n'Perhaps not _that_ ,' Sylvie said.\n\n'Do you think I should apply to university when I finish school?'\n\n'Oh, really, dear, what's the point? It won't teach you how to be a wife and mother.'\n\n'What if I don't want to be a wife and mother?'\n\nSylvie laughed. 'Now you're just talking nonsense to provoke.' She stroked Ursula's cheek. 'You always were such a funny little thing. There's tea on the lawn,' she said, rousing herself reluctantly. 'And cake. And, unfortunately, Izzie.'\n\n'Darling,' Izzie said when she saw Ursula coming across the lawn towards her. 'You've quite grown since I last saw you. You're a woman now, and so pretty!'\n\n'Not quite,' Sylvie said. 'We were just discussing her future.'\n\n'Were we?' Ursula said. 'I thought we were discussing my French. I need more of an education,' she said to Izzie.\n\n'How serious,' Izzie said. 'At sixteen you should be head over heels in love with some unsuitable boy.' I am, Ursula thought, I am in love with Benjamin Cole. She supposed he was unsuitable. ('A Jew?' she imagined Sylvie saying. Or a Catholic, or a coalminer (or anyone foreign), a shop assistant, a clerk, a groom, a tram-driver, a schoolteacher. The unsuitable males were legion.)\n\n'Were _you_?' Ursula asked Izzie.\n\n'Was I what?' Izzie puzzled.\n\n'In love when you were sixteen?'\n\n'Oh, tremendously.'\n\n'What about you?' Ursula said to Sylvie.\n\n'Goodness, no,' Sylvie said.\n\n'But at _seventeen_ you must have been in love,' Izzie said to Sylvie.\n\n'Must I?'\n\n'When you met Hugh, of course.'\n\n'Of course.'\n\nIzzie leaned towards Ursula and dropped her voice to a conspirator's whisper. 'I eloped when I was about your age.'\n\n'Nonsense,' Sylvie said to Ursula. 'She did no such thing. Ah, here comes Bridget with the tea-tray.' Sylvie turned to Izzie. 'Was there a particular reason for your visit, or have you merely come to annoy?'\n\n'I was driving nearby, I thought I'd drop in. I've got something I wanted to ask you.'\n\n'Oh, dear,' Sylvie said wearily.\n\n'I've been thinking,' Izzie said.\n\n'Oh, dear.'\n\n' _Would_ you stop saying that, Sylvie.'\n\nUrsula poured tea and sliced cake. She sensed a battle. Izzie was rendered temporarily speechless by a mouthful of cake. It was not one of Mrs Glover's airier sponges.\n\n'As I said' \u2013 she swallowed with difficulty \u2013 'I've been thinking \u2013 and don't say anything, Sylvie. _The Adventures of Augustus_ is still _wildly_ successful, I'm writing a book every six months. It's quite crazy. And I have the house in Holland Park, and I have money, but of course no husband. Nor do I have a child.'\n\n'Really?' Sylvie said. 'Are you sure?'\n\nIzzie ignored her. 'No one to share my good fortune with. So, I was thinking, why don't I adopt Jimmy?'\n\n'I'm sorry?'\n\n'She's unbelievable,' Sylvie hissed at Hugh. Izzie was still out on the lawn, entertaining Jimmy by reading from an unfinished manuscript she had in her oversized handbag. 'Augustus Goes to the Seaside'.\n\n'Why doesn't she want to adopt me?' Teddy said. 'After all, it's me that's supposed to be Augustus.'\n\n'Do you want to be adopted by Izzie?' Hugh puzzled.\n\n'Good lord, no,' Teddy said.\n\n'No one is being adopted,' Sylvie said furiously. 'Go and have a word with her, Hugh.'\n\nIn the kitchen, Ursula went looking for an apple and found Mrs Glover thumping slices of veal with a meat tenderizer. 'I imagine that they're the heads of the Boche,' she said.\n\n'Really?'\n\n'The ones that sent the gas over that did for poor George's lungs.'\n\n'What's for dinner? I'm starving.' Ursula had grown rather callous about George Glover's lungs, she had heard so much of them that they seemed to have a life of their own, rather like Sylvie's mother's lungs, organs that seemed to have more character than their owner.\n\n'Veal cutlets _\u00e0 la Russe_ ,' Mrs Glover said, flipping the meat over and pounding again. 'The Ruskies are just as bad, mind you.' Ursula wondered if Mrs Glover had ever actually met anyone from another country.\n\n'Well, there are a lot of Jews in Manchester,' Mrs Glover said.\n\n'Did you meet any?'\n\n'Meet? Why would I meet them?'\n\n'Jews aren't necessarily foreign, though, are they? The Coles next door are Jewish.'\n\n'Don't be daft,' Mrs Glover said, 'they're as English as you and me.' Mrs Glover had a certain fondness for the Cole boys, based on their excellent manners. Ursula wondered if it was worth arguing. She took another apple and Mrs Glover returned to her pounding.\n\nUrsula ate the apple sitting on a bench in a secluded corner of the garden, one of Sylvie's favourite hideaways. The words 'Veal cutlets _\u00e0 la Russe_ ' drifted sleepily through her brain. And then suddenly she was on her feet, her heart knocking in her chest, a sudden familiar but long-forgotten terror triggered \u2013 but by what? It was so at odds with the peaceful garden, the late-afternoon warmth on her face, Hattie, the cat, washing herself lazily on the sunny path.\n\nThere were no terrible portents of doom, nothing to suggest all was not well in the world but nonetheless Ursula flung the apple core into the bushes and fled from the garden, through the gate and into the lane, the old demons snapping at her heels. Hattie paused in her toilette and viewed the swinging gate with disdain.\n\nPerhaps it was a train disaster, perhaps she would have to rip off her petticoats like the girls in _The Railway Children_ to signal the driver, but no, as she reached the station the 5.30 to London was drawing quietly alongside the platform in the safe stewardship of Fred Smith and his driver.\n\n'Miss Todd?' he said, tipping the brim of his railwayman's cap. 'Are you all right? You look worried.'\n\n'I'm fine, Fred, thank you for asking.' Just in a state of mortal dread, nothing to fret about. Fred Smith didn't look as if he had ever suffered a moment of mortal dread.\n\nShe walked back along the lane, still drenched with the nameless fear. Halfway along she met Nancy Shawcross and said, 'Hello there, what are you up to?' and Nancy said, 'Oh, just looking for things for my nature book. I've got some oak leaves and some tiny baby acorns.'\n\nThe fear started to drain from Ursula's body and she said, 'Come on, then, I'll walk back home with you.'\n\nAs they approached the dairy herd's field a man climbed over the five-bar gate and landed heavily among the cow parsley. He tipped his cap at Ursula and mumbled, 'Evening, miss,' before carrying on in the direction of the station. He had a limp that made him walk rather comically, like Charlie Chaplin. Another veteran of the war perhaps, Ursula thought.\n\n'Who was that? Nancy asked.\n\n'I have no idea,' Ursula said. 'Oh, look, there on the road, a dead devil's-coach-horse beetle. Is that any good to you?'\n\n# A Lovely Day Tomorrow\n\n# _2 September 1939_\n\n'Maurice says it will be over in a few months.' Pamela rested her plate on the neat dome that contained her next baby. She was hoping for a girl.\n\n'You're going to go on for ever until you produce one, aren't you?' Ursula said.\n\n'Till the crack of doom,' Pamela agreed cheerfully. 'So, we were invited, _much_ to my surprise. Sunday lunch in Surrey, the full works. Their rather strange children, Philip and Hazel\u2014'\n\n'I think I've only met them twice.'\n\n'You've probably met them more than that, you just didn't notice them. Maurice said he'd invited us over so that the \"cousins could get to know each other better\" but the boys didn't take to them at all. Philip and Hazel have no idea how to _play_. And their mother was being a martyr to the roast beef and apple pie. Edwina's a martyr to Maurice as well. Martyrdom would suit her, of course, she's quite _violently_ Christian considering she's C of E.'\n\n'I would hate to be married to Maurice, I don't know how she puts up with it.'\n\n'She's grateful to him, I think. He's given her Surrey. A tennis court, friends in the Cabinet, lots of roast beef. They _entertain_ a lot \u2013 the great and the good. Some women would suffer for that. Even suffer Maurice.'\n\n'I expect he's a great test of her Christian tolerance.'\n\n'A great test of Harold's beliefs in general. He had a scrap with Maurice over welfare, another one with Edwina about predestination.'\n\n'She believes in that? I thought she was an Anglican.'\n\n'I know. She has no sense of logic though. She's remarkably stupid, I suppose that's why he married her. Why do you think Maurice says the war will only last a few months? Is that just departmental bluster? Do we believe everything he says? Do we believe _anything_ he says?'\n\n'Well, generally speaking, no,' Ursula said. 'But he is a big chief in the Home Office, so he _ought_ to know, presumably. Home Security, new department as of this week.'\n\n'You too?' Pamela asked.\n\n'Yes, me too. The ARP Department is now a ministry, we're all still getting used to the idea of being grown-ups.'\n\nWhen Ursula left school at eighteen she had not gone to Paris, nor, despite the exhortations of some of her teachers, had she applied to Oxbridge and done a degree in any languages, dead or alive. She had not in fact gone further than High Wycombe and a small secretarial college. She was eager to _get on_ and earn her independence rather than be cloistered in another institution. ' _Time's winged chariot_ , and all that,' she said to her parents.\n\n'Well, we all _get on_ ,' Sylvie said, 'one way or another. And in the end we all arrive at the same place. I hardly see that it matters how we get there.'\n\nIt seemed to Ursula that _how_ you got there was the whole point but there was nothing to be gained from arguing with Sylvie on the days when she was mired in gloom. 'I shall be able to get an interesting job,' Ursula said, brushing off her parents' objections, 'working in a newspaper office or perhaps a publishing house.' She imagined a Bohemian atmosphere, men in tweed jackets and cravats, women smoking in a sophisticated manner while sitting at their Royals.\n\n'Anyway, good for you,' Izzie said to Ursula, over a rather superior afternoon tea at the Dorchester to which she had invited both Ursula and Pamela ('She must want something,' Pamela said).\n\n'And who wants to be a boring old bluestocking?' Izzie said.\n\n'Me,' Pamela said.\n\nIt turned out that Izzie did have an ulterior motive. Augustus was so successful that Izzie's publisher had asked her to produce 'something similar' for girls. 'But not books based on a _naughty_ girl,' she said. 'That apparently won't do. They want a gung-ho sort, hockey-captain kind of thing. Lots of japes and scrapes but always towing the line, nothing that will frighten the horses.' She turned to Pamela and said sweetly, 'So I thought of you, dear.'\n\nThe college had been run by a man called Mr Carver, a man who was a great disciple of both Pitman's and Esperanto and who tried to make his 'girls' wear blindfolds when they were practising their touch-typing. Ursula, suspecting there was more to it than monitoring their skills, led a revolt of Mr Carver's 'girls'. 'You're such a rebel,' one of them \u2013 Monica \u2013 said admiringly. 'Well, not really,' Ursula said. 'Just being sensible, you know.'\n\nShe was. She had become a sensible sort.\n\nAt Mr Carver's college Ursula had proved to have a surprising aptitude for typing and shorthand, although the men who interviewed her for the job in the Home Office, men she would never see again, clearly believed that her proficiency in the Classics would somehow stand her in better stead when opening and closing filing-cabinet drawers and conducting endless searches among a sea of buff-coloured folders. It wasn't quite the 'interesting job' she had envisaged but it kept her attention and over the next ten years she rose slowly through the ranks, in the bridled way that women did. ('One day a woman will be Prime Minister,' Pamela said. 'Maybe even in our lifetime.') Now Ursula had her own junior clericals to chase down the buff folders for her. She supposed that was progress. Since '36 she'd been working in the Air Raid Precautions Department.\n\n' _You've_ not heard rumours then?' Pamela said.\n\n'I'm a lowly squaw, I hear nothing but rumours.'\n\n'Maurice can't say what he does,' Pamela grumbled. 'Couldn't possibly talk about what goes on within the \"hallowed walls\". He actually used that term \u2013 hallowed walls. You would think he had signed the Official Secrets Act with his blood and pledged his soul as warranty.'\n\n'Oh, well, we all have to do that,' Ursula said, helping herself to cake. 'De _rigueur_ , don't you know. Personally, I suspect Maurice just goes around _counting_ things.'\n\n'And feeling very pleased with himself. He's going to love the war, lots of power and no personal danger.'\n\n' _Lots_ of things to count.' They both laughed. It struck Ursula that they seemed very merry for people on the brink of dreadful conflict. They were in the garden of Pamela's house in Finchley, a Saturday afternoon with the tea things set out on a spindly bamboo table. They were eating cake, almond speckled with chopped-up pieces of chocolate, an old recipe of Mrs Glover's handed down on a piece of paper that was covered in greasy fingerprints. In places, the paper was as transparent as a dirty windowpane.\n\n'Make the most of it,' Pamela said, 'there'll be no more cake, I expect.' She fed a piece to Heidi, an unprepossessing mongrel rescued from Battersea. 'Did you know that people are putting their pets down, thousands of them?'\n\n'That's horrible.'\n\n'As if they weren't part of the _family_ ,' Pamela said, rubbing the top of Heidi's head. 'She's much nicer than the boys. Better behaved too.'\n\n'How were your evacuees?'\n\n'Grubby.' Despite her condition, Pamela had spent most of the morning organizing evacuees at Ealing Broadway while Olive, her mother-in-law, looked after the boys.\n\n'You would be so much more help to the war effort than someone like Maurice,' Ursula said. 'If it were up to me I would make you Prime Minister. You'd make a much better job of it than Chamberlain.'\n\n'Well, that's true.' Pamela put down her tea plate and took up her knitting \u2013 something pink and lacy. 'If it's a boy I'm just going to _pretend_ it's a girl.'\n\n'And aren't _you_ going to leave?' Ursula asked. 'You're not going to keep the boys in London, are you? You could go and stay at Fox Corner, I don't expect the Germans will be much bothered with bombing sleepy hollow.'\n\n'And stay with Mother? Lord, no. I have a friend from university, Jeanette, a vicar's daughter, not that that's relevant, I suppose. There's a cottage that belonged to her grandmother, up in Yorkshire, Hutton-le-Hole, dot on the map, that kind of place. She's going up there with her two boys and suggested I join her with my three.' Pamela had given birth in quick succession to Nigel, Andrew and Christopher. She had taken to motherhood with gusto. 'Heidi will love it too. It sounds utterly primitive, no electricity, no running water. Wonderful for the boys, they can run around like savages. It's hard to be a savage in Finchley.'\n\n'I expect some people manage,' Ursula said.\n\n'How's \"the man\"?' Pamela asked. ' \"The Man from the Admiralty\".'\n\n'You _can_ use his name,' Ursula said, brushing cake crumbs off her skirt. 'The antirrhinums don't have ears.'\n\n'You never know these days. Has _he_ said anything?'\n\nUrsula had been involved with Crighton \u2013 'the Man from the Admiralty' \u2013 for a year now (she dated it from Munich). They had met at an inter-departmental meeting. He was fifteen years older than Ursula, rather dashing and with a vaguely wolfish air that was barely offset by his marriage to an industrious wife (Moira) and their clutch of three girls, all at a private school. 'I shan't leave them, no matter what,' he told her after the first time they had made love in the rather basic quarters of his 'emergency bolthole'.\n\n'But I don't want you to,' Ursula said, although as a declaration of his intent she thought it might have been better if he had let it precede the act rather than provide its coda.\n\n'The bolthole' (she suspected that she was not the first woman to have seen the inside of it at Crighton's invitation) was a flat provided by the Admiralty for the nights when Crighton stayed in town rather than 'hiking' all the way back to Moira and the girls in Wargrave. The bolthole wasn't his exclusively and when it wasn't available he 'trekked out' to Ursula's flat in Argyll Road where they spent long evenings in her single bed (he had a sailor's practical attitude towards confined spaces) or on her sofa, pursuing the 'delights of the flesh' as he put it, before he 'slogged his way' back to Berkshire. Any journey on land, even a couple of stops on the Tube, had an expeditionary quality for Crighton. He was a naval man at heart, Ursula supposed, and would have been happier sailing a skiff to the Home Counties rather than making his way overland. They did once take a little boat out to Monkey Island and have a picnic on the banks of the river. 'Like a normal couple,' he said apologetically.\n\n'What then, if not love?' Pamela asked.\n\n'I _like_ him.'\n\n'I like the man who delivers my groceries,' Pamela said. 'But I don't share my bed with him.'\n\n'Well, I can assure you he means a good deal more to me than a tradesman.' They were almost arguing. 'And he's not a callow youth,' she continued for the defence. 'He's a proper person, he comes whole, all... ready-made. You know?'\n\n'Ready-made with a family,' Pamela said, rather crotchety now. She looked quizzical and said, 'But doesn't your heart beat a little faster at the sight of him?'\n\n'Perhaps a little faster,' Ursula conceded generously, sidestepping the argument, suspecting that she would never be able to explain the forensics of adultery to Pamela. 'Who would have thought that out of everyone in our family, you would turn out to be the romantic?'\n\n'Oh, no, I think that's Teddy,' Pamela said. 'I just like to believe that there are nuts and bolts that hold our society together \u2013 especially now \u2013 and that marriage is part of that.'\n\n'Nothing romantic about nuts and bolts.'\n\n'I admire you, really,' Pamela said. 'Being your own woman. Not following the herd and so on. I just don't want you to be hurt.'\n\n'Believe me, neither do I. Pax?'\n\n'Pax,' Pamela agreed readily. Laughing, she said, 'My life would be so dull without your salacious reports from the front line. What a deal of vicarious excitement I derive from your love life \u2013 or whatever you want to call it.'\n\nThere had been nothing salacious about their outing to Monkey Island, they had sat chastely on a tartan blanket and eaten cold chicken and drunk warm red wine. 'The _blushful Hippocrene_ ,' Ursula said and Crighton laughed and said, 'That sounds suspiciously like literature to me. I have no poetry in me. You should know that.'\n\n'I do.'\n\nThe thing about Crighton was that there always seemed to be more of him than he ever revealed. She had overheard someone in the office refer to him as 'the Sphinx' and he did indeed wear an air of reticence that hinted at unexplored depths and suppressed secrets \u2013 some childhood harm, some magnificent obsession. His cryptic self, she thought, peeling a hard-boiled egg and dipping it into a little screw of paper that contained salt. Who had packed this picnic \u2013 not Crighton, surely? Not Moira, heaven forfend.\n\nHe had grown rather remorseful over the clandestine nature of their relationship. She had brought a little excitement into what had become a rather tedious life, he said. He had been at Jutland with Jellicoe, he had 'seen much' and now he was 'little better than a bureaucrat'. He was restless, he said.\n\n'You're either about to declare your love for me,' Ursula said, 'or tell me that it's all over.' There was fruit \u2013 peaches nestling inside tissue paper.\n\n'It's a fine balance,' he said, with a rueful smile. 'I am teetering.' Ursula laughed, the word didn't suit him.\n\nHe embarked on a tale about Moira, something to do with her life in the village and her need for committee work, and Ursula drifted off, more interested in the discovery of a Bakewell tart that had apparently been magicked from a kitchen somewhere deep in the Admiralty. ('We're well looked after,' he said. Like Maurice, she thought. The privileges of men in power, unavailable to those adrift on the sea of buff.)\n\nIf Ursula's older female colleagues had got wind of the affair, there would have been a stampede for the smelling salts, especially if they had known just who in the Admiralty it was that she was dallying with (Crighton was rather senior). Ursula was good, very good, at keeping secrets.\n\n'Your reputation for discretion precedes you, Miss Todd,' Crighton had said when introduced to her.\n\n'Goodness,' Ursula said, 'that makes me sound so dull.'\n\n'Intriguing, rather. I suspect you would make a good spy.'\n\n'And how _was_ Maurice? In himself?' Ursula asked.\n\n'Maurice is very well \"in himself\", in that he _is_ himself and will never change.'\n\n'Invitations to Sunday lunch in Surrey never come _my_ way.'\n\n'Count yourself lucky.'\n\n'In fact I hardly ever see him. You wouldn't think we worked in the same ministry. He walks the airy corridors of power\u2014'\n\n'The hallowed walls.'\n\n'The hallowed walls. And I scurry around in a bunker.'\n\n'Are you? In a bunker?'\n\n'Well, it's above ground. In South Ken, you know \u2013 in front of the Geological Museum. Not Maurice, he prefers his Whitehall office to our War Room.'\n\nWhen she had applied originally for a job in the Home Office, Ursula had rather presumed that Maurice would put in a good word for her but instead he had blustered on about nepotism and having to be seen to be above any suspicion of favouritism, 'Caesar's wife and so on,' he said. 'And I take it Maurice is Caesar in this conceit, rather than Caesar's wife?' Pamela said. 'Oh, don't put that idea into my head,' Ursula laughed. 'Maurice as a woman, imagine.'\n\n'Ah, but a _Roman_ woman. That would suit him more. What was Coriolanus's mother called?'\n\n'Volumnia.'\n\n'Oh, and I know what I had to tell you \u2013 Maurice invited a friend to lunch,' Pamela said. 'From his Oxford days, that big American chap. Do you remember?'\n\n'I do!' Ursula struggled to come up with the name. 'Oh, darn, what was he called... something American. He tried to kiss me on my sixteenth birthday.'\n\n'The swine!' Pamela laughed. 'You never said.'\n\n'Hardly what you want from a first kiss. More like a rugby tackle. He was a bit of a lout.' Ursula laughed. 'I think I hurt his pride \u2013 or perhaps more than his pride.'\n\n'Howie,' Pamela said. 'Only now he's Howard \u2013 Howard S. Landsdowne III to give him his full title, apparently.'\n\n'Howie,' Ursula mused. 'I had quite forgotten. What's he doing now?'\n\n'Something diplomatic. He's even more secretive than Maurice. At the embassy, Kennedy's a god to him. I think Howie rather admires old Adolf.'\n\n'Maurice, too, probably, if he weren't quite so _foreign_. I saw him once at a Blackshirt meeting.'\n\n'Maurice? Never! Perhaps he was spying, I can imagine him as an _agent provocateur_. What were _you_ doing there?'\n\n'Oh, you know, espionage, like Maurice. No, really just happenstance.'\n\n'So many startling revelations for one pot of tea. Are there more to come? Should I brew another pot?'\n\nUrsula laughed. 'No, I think that's it.'\n\nPamela sighed. 'It's bloody, isn't it?'\n\n'What, about Harold?'\n\n'Poor man, I suppose he'll have to stay here. They can't really call up hospital doctors, can they? They'll need them if we're bombed and gassed. We _will_ be bombed and gassed, you do know that, don't you?'\n\n'Yes, of course,' Ursula said, as offhand as if they were talking about the weather.\n\n'What an awful thought.' Pamela sighed again, abandoning her needles and stretching her arms above her head. 'It's such a glorious day. It's hard to believe this is probably the last ordinary day we'll have for a long time.'\n\nUrsula had been due to begin her annual leave on Monday. She had planned a week of leisurely day trips \u2013 Eastbourne and Hastings or perhaps as far afield as Bath or Winchester \u2013 but with war about to be declared it seemed impossible to think of going anywhere. She felt suddenly listless at the idea of what might lie ahead. She had spent the morning on Kensington High Street, stocking up \u2013 batteries for her torch, a new hot-water bottle, candles, matches, endless amounts of black paper, as well as tins of baked beans and potatoes, vacuum-packed coffee. She had bought clothes too, a good woollen frock for eight pounds, a green velvet jacket for six, stockings and a pair of nice tan leather brogues that looked made to last. She had felt pleased with herself for resisting a yellow _cr\u00eape de Chine_ tea dress, patterned with little black swallows. 'My winter coat's only two years old,' she said to Pamela, 'it'll see the war out, surely?'\n\n'Goodness, I would hope so.'\n\n'It's all so horrid.'\n\n'I know,' Pamela said, cutting more cake. 'It's vile. It makes me so _cross_. Going to war is madness. Have more cake, why don't you? May as well, while the boys are still at Olive's. They'll come in and go through the place like locusts. God knows how we'll manage with rationing.'\n\n'You'll be in the country \u2013 you can grow things. Keep chickens. A pig. You'll be all right.' Ursula felt miserable at the thought of Pamela going away.\n\n'You should come.'\n\n'I should stay, I'm afraid.'\n\n'Oh, good, here's Harold,' Pamela said when Harold appeared, carrying a big bunch of dahlias wrapped in damp newspaper. She half rose to greet him and he kissed her on the cheek and said, 'Don't get up.' He kissed Ursula as well and presented the dahlias to Pamela.\n\n'A girl was selling them on the street corner, in Whitechapel,' he said. 'Very _Pygmalion_. Said they came from her grandfather's allotment.' Crighton had given Ursula roses once but they had quickly drooped and faded. She rather envied Pamela her robust allotment flowers.\n\n'So, anyway,' Harold said, when he had poured himself a lukewarm cup of tea from the pot, 'we're already evacuating patients who are well enough to be moved. They're definitely going to declare war tomorrow. In the morning. It's probably timed so that the nation can get down on its collective knees in church and pray for deliverance.'\n\n'Oh, yes, war is always so _Christian_ , isn't it?' Pamela said sarcastically. 'Especially when one is English. I have several friends in Germany,' she said to Ursula. 'Good people.'\n\n'I know.'\n\n'Are they the enemy now?'\n\n'Don't get upset, Pammy,' Harold said. 'Why is it so quiet, what have you done with the boys?'\n\n'Sold them,' Pamela said, perking up. 'Three for the price of two.'\n\n'You ought to stay the night, Ursula,' Harold said kindly. 'You shouldn't be on your own tomorrow. It'll be one of those awful days. Doctor's orders.'\n\n'Thanks,' Ursula said. 'But I've already got plans.'\n\n'Good for you,' Pamela said, picking up her knitting again. 'We mustn't behave as if the world is coming to an end.'\n\n'Even if it is?' Ursula said. She wished now that she'd bought the yellow _cr\u00eape de Chine_.\n\n# _November 1940_\n\nShe was on her back, lying in a shallow pool of water, a fact that didn't worry her so much at first. The worst thing was the awful smell. It was a combination of different things, none of them good, and Ursula was trying to separate them into their components. The fetid stench of gas (domestic) for one, and, for another, the stink of sewage, disgustingly rank, that was making her gag. Added to that was a complex cocktail of damp, old plaster and brick dust, all mixed with the traces of human habitation \u2013 wallpaper, clothes, books, food \u2013 and the sour, alien smell of explosive. In short, the essence of a dead house.\n\nIt was as if she were lying at the bottom of a deep well. Through a hazy veil of dust, like fog, she could make out a patch of black sky and a pared fingernail of moon that she remembered noticing earlier in the evening when she had looked out of the window. That seemed a long time ago.\n\nThe window itself, or at least the frame, was still there, way, way above her, not where it should be at all. It was definitely her window, she recognized the curtains, charred rags now, flapping in the breeze. They were \u2013 had been \u2013 a thick jacquard brocade from John Lewis's that Sylvie had helped her pick out. The flat in Argyll Road was rented as furnished but Sylvie declared the curtains and rugs to be 'completely shoddy' and subbed Ursula for new ones when she moved in.\n\nAt the time Millie had suggested that she move in with her in Phillimore Gardens. Millie was still playing ing\u00e9nues and said she expected to go from Juliet to the Nurse with nothing in between. 'It would be fun,' Millie said, 'to share digs,' but Ursula wasn't so sure that Millie's idea of fun coincided with her own. She often felt rather dull and sober against Millie's brightness. A dunnock keeping company with a kingfisher. And sometimes Millie burnt just a little too brightly.\n\nThis was just after Munich and Ursula had already started her affair with Crighton and it seemed more practical to live on her own. Looking back, she realized that she had accommodated Crighton's needs a great deal more than he had hers, as if Moira and the girls somehow trumped her own existence.\n\nThink about Millie, she told herself, think about the curtains, think about Crighton if you must. Anything except her present predicament. Especially the gas. It seemed particularly important to try to take her mind off the gas.\n\nAfter their purchases in soft furnishings Sylvie and Ursula had taken afternoon tea in John Lewis's restaurant, served by a grimly efficient waitress. 'I'm always so glad,' Sylvie murmured, 'that I don't have to take a turn at being other people.'\n\n'You're very good at being yourself,' Ursula said, aware that it didn't necessarily sound like a compliment.\n\n'Well, I've had years of practice.'\n\nIt was a very good afternoon tea, the kind you couldn't get any more in department stores. And then John Lewis itself was destroyed, no more than the black toothless skull of a building. ('How awful,' Sylvie wrote, moved in a way that she didn't appear to have been by the dreadful raids on the East End.) It was up and running again in days, 'Blitz spirit' everyone said, but really, what was the alternative?\n\nSylvie had been in a good mood that day, and they had drawn closer over the subject of curtains and the idiocy of people who thought that Chamberlain's silly little piece of paper meant anything at all.\n\nIt was very quiet and Ursula wondered if her eardrums were shattered. How did she get here? She remembered looking out of the window in Argyll Road \u2013 the window that was so far away now \u2013 and seeing the sickle moon. And before that she had been sitting on the sofa, doing some sewing, turning the collar on a blouse, with the wireless tuned to a short-wave German station. She was taking a German evening class ( _know your enemy_ ) but was finding it difficult to decipher anything beyond the occasional violent noun ( _Luftangriffe, Verluste_ ) in the broadcast. In despair at her lack of proficiency, she had turned the wireless off and put Ma Rainey on the gramophone. Before she left for America, Izzie had bequeathed Ursula her collection of records, an impressive archive of female American blues artistes. 'I don't listen to that stuff any more,' Izzie said. 'It's very _pass\u00e9_. The future lies with something a little more _soign\u00e9_.' Izzie's Holland Park house was shut up now, everything covered in dustsheets. She had married a famous playwright and they had decamped to California in the summer. ('Cowards, the pair of them,' Sylvie said.\n\n'Oh, I don't know,' Hugh said, 'I'm sure if I could sit out the war in Hollywood I would.')\n\n'That's interesting music I hear you listening to,' Mrs Appleyard said to Ursula one day as they passed on the stairs. The wall between their flats was paper-thin and Ursula said, 'I'm sorry. I don't mean to disturb you,' although she could well have added that she heard Mrs Appleyard's baby bawling its head off day and night and that was _very_ disturbing. The baby at four months old was big for its age, fat and ruddy, as if it had leeched all the life out of Mrs Appleyard.\n\nMrs Appleyard \u2013 the deadweight of the baby asleep in her arms, its head on her shoulder \u2013 waved a dismissive hand and said, 'Don't be concerned, it doesn't bother me.' She was lugubriously East European, a refugee of some kind, Ursula supposed, although her English was precise. Mr Appleyard had disappeared some months ago, gone for a soldier, perhaps, but Ursula hadn't asked as the marriage had been clearly (and audibly) unhappy. Mrs Appleyard was pregnant when her husband left and, as far as Ursula could tell (or hear), he had never been back to meet his squawking infant.\n\nMrs Appleyard must have been pretty once but day by day she grew thinner and sadder until it seemed as though only the (very) solid burden of the baby and its needs kept her tethered to everyday life.\n\nIn the bathroom that they shared on the first floor there was always an enamel pail in which the baby's foul-smelling nappies lay soaking before being boiled in a pan on Mrs Appleyard's two-ring stove. On the neighbouring ring there was usually to be found a pan of cabbage and, perhaps as a result of this twin boiling, she always carried on her person a faint perfume of old vegetables and damp laundry. Ursula recognized it, it was the smell of poverty.\n\nThe Misses Nesbit, nesting on the top floor, fretted a good deal about Mrs Appleyard and the baby in the way that old maids were inclined to. The two Nesbits, Lavinia and Ruth, slight spinsters, lived in the attic rooms ('beneath the eaves, like swallows', they twittered). They might as well have been twins for all the difference between them and Ursula had to make a tremendous effort to remember which was which.\n\nThey were long retired \u2013 they had both been telephonists in Harrods \u2013 and were a frugal pair, their only indulgence being an impressive collection of costume jewellery, purchased mainly from Woolworths in their lunch hour, during their 'working years'. Their flat smelt quite different to Mrs Appleyard's, lavender water and Mansion House polish \u2013 the scent of old ladies. Ursula sometimes did shopping for both the Nesbits and Mrs Appleyard. Mrs Appleyard was always ready at the door with the exact money that she owed (she knew the price of everything) and a polite 'thank you', but the Nesbits were forever trying to inveigle Ursula inside with weak tea and stale biscuits.\n\nBelow them, on the second floor, were to be found Mr Bentley ('a queer fish', they were all agreed) whose flat smelt (appropriately) of the finnan haddock he boiled in milk for his supper, and next door to him the aloof Miss Hartnell (whose flat smelt of nothing at all) who was a housekeeper at the Hyde Park Hotel and rather severe, as if nothing could ever hope to meet her standards. She made Ursula feel distinctly wanting.\n\n'Disappointed in love, I believe,' Ruth Nesbit whispered in mitigation to Ursula, clamping her bird-boned hand on her chest as if her own frail heart might be about to jump ship and attach itself to someone unsuitable. Both the Misses Nesbit were deeply sentimental about love, never having experienced its rigours. Miss Hartnell looked more as if she would mete out disappointment than receive it.\n\n'I also have some records,' Mrs Appleyard said with the earnestness of a conspirator. 'But, alas, no gramophone.' Mrs Appleyard's 'alas' seemed freighted with all the tragedy of a broken continent. It could hardly bear the weight it was asked to carry.\n\n'Well, do please feel welcome to come and play them on mine,' Ursula said, rather hoping that the downtrodden Mrs Appleyard wouldn't take up the offer. She wondered what kind of music Mrs Appleyard possessed. It seemed impossible that it could be anything very jolly.\n\n'Brahms,' Mrs Appleyard said, answering the unasked question. 'And Mahler.' The baby shifted restlessly as if disturbed by the prospect of Mahler. Whenever Ursula met Mrs Appleyard on the stairs or the landing, the baby was asleep. It was as if there were two babies, the one inside the flat who never stopped crying and the one outside who never started.\n\n'Would you mind holding Emil for a moment while I find my keys?' Mrs Appleyard asked, handing the cumbersome child over without waiting for an answer.\n\n'Emil,' Ursula murmured. She hadn't thought of the baby as having a name. Emil was, as usual, dressed for some kind of Arctic winter, bulked out with nappies and rubber knickers and romper suits and all kinds of knitted and beribboned garments. Ursula wasn't a stranger to babies, both she and Pamela had mothered Teddy and Jimmy with the same enthusiasm they accorded puppies and kittens and rabbits, and she was the very picture of a doting aunt where Pamela's boys were concerned, but Mrs Appleyard's baby was of a less appealing order. The Todd babies smelt sweetly of milk and talcum powder and the fresh air that their clothes were dried in, whereas Emil had a slightly gamey scent.\n\nMrs Appleyard rummaged for her keys in her large battered handbag, an item that looked as if it, too, had crossed Europe from a faraway country (of which Ursula, patently, knew nothing). With a great sigh, Mrs Appleyard finally located the keys at the bottom of the bag. The baby, perhaps sensing the proximity of the threshold, squirmed in Ursula's arms as if preparing itself for the transition. It opened its eyes and looked rather quarrelsome.\n\n'Thank you, Miss Todd,' Mrs Appleyard said, reclaiming the baby. 'It was nice talking to you.'\n\n'Ursula,' Ursula said. 'Do please call me Ursula.'\n\nMrs Appleyard hesitated before saying, almost shyly, 'Eryka. E-r-y-k-a.' They had lived next door to each other for a year now but this was the nearest they had come to intimacy.\n\nAlmost as soon as her door closed the baby began its customary roaring. 'Does she stick pins in it?' Pamela wrote. Pamela produced placid babies. 'They don't tend to turn feral until they're two,' she said. She had given birth to another boy, Gerald, just before last Christmas. 'Better luck next time,' Ursula said when she saw her. She had taken a train north to visit the new arrival, a long and challenging journey, most of which was spent in the guard's van, on a train packed with soldiers on their way to a training camp. She had been subjected to a barrage of sexual innuendo which had started as amusing and ended as tedious. 'Not exactly perfect gentle knights,' she said to Pamela when she finally arrived, the last part of the journey being accomplished in a donkey-cart as if time had slipped into some other century, some other country even.\n\nPoor Pammy was bored with the phoney war and with being shut up with so many little boys, 'like being a matron in a boys' school'. Not to mention Jeanette who had proved to be 'a bit of a slacker' (not to mention a moaner and a snorer). 'One expects better of a vicar's daughter,' Pamela wrote, 'although goodness knows why.' She had decamped back to Finchley in the spring but since the nightly raids had started she had retreated with her brood to Fox Corner 'for the duration', despite her previous misgivings about living with Sylvie. Harold, now at St Thomas's, was working on the front line. The nurses' home there had been bombed a couple of weeks ago and five nurses killed. 'Every night is hell,' Harold reported. It was the same report that Ralph gave from the bombsites.\n\nRalph! Of course, Ralph. Ursula had quite forgotten him. He had been in Argyll Road too. Was he there when the bomb exploded? Ursula struggled to turn her head to look around, as if she would find him among the wreckage. There was no one, she was alone. Alone and corralled in a cage of smashed wooden beams and jagged rafters, the dust settling all around her, in her mouth, her nostrils, her eyes. No, Ralph had already left when the sirens went.\n\nUrsula was no longer bedded by her man from the Admiralty. The declaration of war had brought on a sudden flush of guilt in her lover. They must stop their affair, Crighton said. The temptations of the flesh were apparently secondary to martial pursuits \u2013 as if she were Cleopatra about to destroy his Antony for love. There was enough excitement in the world now, it seemed, without the added hazards of 'keeping a mistress'. 'I'm a mistress?' Ursula said. She had not thought of herself as sporting a scarlet letter, a rubric that belonged to a racier woman, surely?\n\nThe balance had shifted. Crighton had teetered. And apparently tottered. 'Very well,' she had said equably. 'If that's what you want.' She had begun to suspect by then that there was not, in fact, a different, more intriguing Crighton hidden beneath the enigmatic surface. He was not so very inscrutable, after all. Crighton was Crighton \u2013 Moira, the girls, Jutland, although not necessarily in that order.\n\nDespite the fact that the end of the affair was at his instigation, he was cut up. Wasn't she? 'You're very cool,' he said.\n\nBut she had never been 'in love' with him, she said. 'And I expect we can still be friends.'\n\n'I don't think that we can, I'm afraid,' Crighton said, already wistful for what was now history.\n\nNonetheless, she had spent the following day dutifully crying for her loss. Her _liking_ for him had not been quite the negligent emotion that Pamela seemed to think. Then she dried her tears, washed her hair and went to bed with a plate of Bovril on toast and a bottle of 1929 Ch\u00e2teau Haut-Brion that she had filched from Izzie's excellent wine cellar, left casually behind in Melbury Road. Ursula had the keys to Izzie's house. 'Just help yourself to anything you can find,' Izzie had said. So she did.\n\nIt was rather a shame though, Ursula thought, that she no longer had assignations with Crighton. The war made indiscretions easier. The blackout was the perfect screen for illicit liaisons, and the disruption of the bombing \u2013 when it finally started \u2013 would have provided him with plenty of excuses for not being in Wargrave with Moira and the girls.\n\nInstead, Ursula was having an entirely above-board relationship with a fellow student on her German course. After the initial class ( _Guten Tag. Mein Name ist Ralph. Ich bin dreizig Jahre alt_ ) the two of them had retired to the Kardomah on Southampton Row, almost invisible behind a wall of sandbags these days. It turned out that he worked in the same building as she did, on the bomb-damage maps.\n\nIt was only as they left the class \u2013 held in a stuffy room, three floors up in Bloomsbury \u2013 that Ursula noticed that Ralph was limping. Wounded at Dunkirk, he said, before she could ask. Shot in the leg while waiting in the water to get into one of the little boats that were shuttling back and forth between the shore and the bigger boats. He was hauled on board by a fisherman from Folkestone who was shot in the neck minutes later. 'There,' he said to Ursula, 'now we don't need to talk about it again.'\n\n'No, I don't suppose we do,' Ursula said. 'But how awful.' She had watched the newsreels, of course. 'We played a bad hand well,' Crighton said. Ursula had run into him in Whitehall not long after the evacuation of the troops. He missed her, he said. (He was teetering again, she thought.) Ursula was determinedly nonchalant, said she had reports she needed to take to the War Cabinet Office, clutching buff folders to her chest like a cuirass. She had missed him too. It seemed important not to let him see that.\n\n'You liaise with the War Cabinet?' Crighton said, rather impressed.\n\n'Just an assistant to an under-secretary. Actually, not even to the assistant, just another \"girl\" like me.'\n\nThe conversation had gone on long enough, she decided. He was gazing at her in a way that made her want to feel his arms around her. 'Must push off,' she said brightly, 'there's a war on, you know.'\n\nRalph was from Bexhill, gently sardonic, left-wing, utopian. ('Aren't all socialists utopians?' Pamela said.) Ralph was nothing like Crighton, who with hindsight seemed rather too powerful.\n\n'Being courted by a Red?' Maurice asked, coming across her within the hallowed walls. She felt sought out by him. 'It might not look good for you if anyone knew.'\n\n'He's hardly a card-carrying communist,' she said.\n\n'Still,' Maurice said, 'at least he won't be betraying battleship positions in his pillow talk.'\n\nWhat did that mean? Did Maurice know about Crighton?\n\n'Your personal life isn't personal, not while there's a war on,' he said with a look of distaste. 'And why, by the way, are you learning German? Are you awaiting the invasion? Getting ready to welcome the enemy?'\n\n'I thought you were accusing me of being a communist, not a fascist,' Ursula said crossly. ('What an ass,' Pamela said. 'He's just terrified of anything that might reflect badly on him. Not that I'm defending him. Heaven forbid.')\n\n*\n\nFrom her position at the bottom of the well, Ursula could see that most of the insubstantial wall between her flat and Mrs Appleyard's had disappeared. Looking up through the fractured floorboards and the shattered beams she could see a dress hanging limply on a coat hanger, hooked to a picture rail. It was the picture rail in the Millers' lounge on the ground floor, Ursula recognized the wallpaper of sallow, overblown roses. She had seen Lavinia Nesbit on the stairs wearing the dress only this evening, when it had been the colour of pea soup (and equally limp). Now it was a grey bomb-dust shade and had migrated down a floor. A few yards from her head she could see her own kettle, a big brown thing, surplus to requirements in Fox Corner. She recognized it from the thick twine wound around the handle one day long ago by Mrs Glover. Everything was in the wrong place now, including herself.\n\nYes, Ralph had been in Argyll Road. They had eaten \u2013 bread and cheese \u2013 accompanied by a bottle of beer. Then she had done the crossword, yesterday's _Telegraph_. Recently Ursula had been forced to buy a pair of spectacles for close work, rather ugly things. It was only after she had brought them home that she realized they were almost identical to the pair that one of the Misses Nesbit wore. Was this her fate too, she thought, contemplating her bespectacled reflection in the mirror above the fireplace? Would she, too, end up as an old maid? _The proper sport of boys and girls_. And could you be an old maid if you had worn the scarlet letter? Yesterday an envelope had mysteriously appeared on her desk while she was snatching a sandwich lunch in St James's Park. She saw her name in Crighton's handwriting (he had a surprisingly nice italic hand) and tore the whole thing to bits and threw it in the bin without reading it. Later, when all the clerical assistants were flocking like pigeons around the tea-trolley, she had retrieved the scraps and pieced them together.\n\n_I have mislaid my gold cigarette case. You know the one \u2013 my father gave it me after Jutland. You wouldn't have come across it by any chance, would you?_\n\n_Yours, C_.\n\nBut he was never hers, was he? On the contrary, he belonged to Moira. (Or perhaps the Admiralty.) She dropped the pieces of paper back in the bin. The cigarette case was in her handbag. She had found it beneath her bed a few days after he had left her.\n\n'Penny for them?' Ralph said.\n\n'Not worth it, trust me.'\n\nRalph was stretched out next to her, resting his head on the arm of the sofa, his socked feet in her lap. Although he looked as though he were asleep he gave a murmured response every time she tossed a clue in his direction. ' _A Roland for an Oliver_? How about \"paladin\"?' she said. 'What do you think?'\n\nAn odd thing had happened to her yesterday. She had been on the Tube, she didn't like the Tube, before the bombing she cycled everywhere but it was difficult with so much glass and rubble around. She had been doing the _Telegraph_ crossword, trying to pretend she wasn't underground. Most people felt safer underground but Ursula didn't like the idea of confinement. There had been an incident only a couple of days previously of a bomb falling on to an Underground entrance, the blast had travelled down and into the tunnels and the result was pretty awful. She wasn't sure that it had made the papers, these things were so bad for morale.\n\nOn the Tube, a man sitting next to her had suddenly leaned across \u2013 she had shrunk back \u2013 and, nodding at her half-filled grid, said, 'You're rather good at that. Can I give you my card? Pop into my office if you like. I'm recruiting clever girls.' I bet you are, she thought. He got off at Green Park, tipping his hat to her. The card had an address in Whitehall but she had thrown it away.\n\nRalph shook two cigarettes from a packet and lit them both. He passed one to her and said, 'You're a clever thing, aren't you?'\n\n'Pretty much,' she said. 'That's why I'm in the Intelligence Department and you're in the Map Room.'\n\n'Ha, ha, clever and funny.'\n\nThere was an easy camaraderie between them, that of pals more than lovers. They respected each other's character and made few demands. It helped that they both worked in the War Room. There were a lot of things they never had to explain to each other.\n\nHe touched the back of her hand with his and said, 'How are you?' and she said, 'Very well, thank you.' His hands were still those of the architect he had been before the war, unspoilt by battle. He had been safely away from the fighting, a surveyor in the Royal Engineers, poring over maps and photographs and so on and hadn't expected to become a combatant, wading through filthy, oily, bloody seawater being shot at from all quarters. (For he had, after all, spoken a little more of it.)\n\nAlthough the bombing was awful, he said, you could see that something good could come out of it. He was hopeful about the future (unlike Hugh or Crighton). 'All those hovels,' he said. Woolwich, Silvertown, Lambeth and Limehouse were being destroyed and after the war they would have to be rebuilt. It was an opportunity, he said, to build clean, modern homes with all the facilities \u2013 a community of glass and steel and air in the sky instead of Victorian slums. 'A kind of San Gimignano for the future.'\n\nUrsula was unconvinced by this vision of modernist towers, if it were up to her she would rebuild the future as garden cities, comfortable little houses with cottage gardens. 'What an old Tory you are,' he said affectionately.\n\nYet he loved the old London too ('What architect wouldn't?') \u2013 Wren's churches, the grand houses and elegant public buildings \u2013 'the Stones of London', he said. One or two nights a week he was part of the St Paul's night watch, men who were ready to climb into the rafters 'if necessary' to keep the great church safe from incendiaries. The place was a firetrap, he said \u2013 old timbers, lead everywhere, flat roofs, a multitude of staircases and dark forgotten places. He had answered an advertisement in the Royal Institute of British Architects' journal, appealing for architects to volunteer to be firewatchers because they would 'understand the plans, and so on'. 'We might have to be pretty nimble,' he said and Ursula wondered how he would do that with his limp. She had visions of him beleaguered by flames on all those staircases and in the dark forgotten places. It seemed a chummy kind of watch \u2013 they played chess and had long conversations about philosophy and religion. She imagined that it suited Ralph very well.\n\nOnly a few weeks ago they had watched together, spellbound in horror, as Holland House burnt. They had been in Melbury Road, raiding the wine cellar. 'Why not stay in my house,' Izzie had said casually before she embarked for America. 'You can be my caretaker. You'll be safe here. I can't imagine the Germans will want to bomb Holland Park.' Ursula thought that Izzie might be rather overestimating the Luftwaffe's precision with bombs. And if it was so safe why was Izzie turning tail and running?\n\n'No thanks,' she said. The house was too big and empty. She had taken the key though and occasionally foraged in the house for useful things. There was still some tinned food in the cupboards that Ursula was keeping for a last-ditch emergency, and, of course, the full wine cellar.\n\nThey were scanning the wine racks with their torches \u2013 the electricity had been turned off when Izzie left \u2013 and Ursula had just pulled a rather fine-looking bottle of P\u00e9trus from the rack and said to Ralph, 'Do you think this would go with potato scallops and Spam?' when there was a terrific explosion and, thinking the house had been hit, they had thrown themselves on the hard stone floor of the cellar with their hands over their heads. This was Hugh's advice, instilled in Ursula at a recent visit to Fox Corner. 'Always protect your head.' He had been in a war. She sometimes forgot. All the wine bottles had shaken and shivered in their racks and with hindsight Ursula dreaded to think what damage those bottles of Ch\u00e2teau Latour and Ch\u00e2teau d'Yquem could have done if they had rained down on them, the splintered glass like shrapnel.\n\nThey had run outside and watched Holland House turn into a bonfire, the flames eating everything, and Ursula thought, don't let me die in a fire. Let it be quick, please God.\n\nShe was tremendously fond of Ralph. Not hounded by love the way some women were. With Crighton she had been teased endlessly by the _idea_ of it, but with Ralph it was more straightforward. Again not love, more like the feelings you would have for a favourite dog (and, no, she would never have said such a thing to him. Some people, a lot of people, didn't understand how attached one could be to a dog).\n\nRalph lit another cigarette and Ursula said, 'Harold says smoking is very bad for people. Says he's seen lungs on operating tables that look like unswept chimneys.'\n\n'Of course it's not good for you,' Ralph said, lighting one for Ursula too. 'But being bombed and shot at by the Germans isn't good for you either.'\n\n'Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. 'If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in \u2013 I don't know, say, a Quaker household \u2013 surely things would be different.'\n\n'Do you think Quakers would kidnap a baby?' Ralph asked mildly.\n\n'Well, if they knew what was going to happen they might.'\n\n'But nobody knows what's going to happen. And anyway he might have turned out just the same, Quakers or no Quakers. You might have to kill him instead of kidnapping him. Could you do that? Could you kill a baby? With a gun? Or what if you had no gun, how about with your bare hands? In cold blood.'\n\nIf I thought it would save Teddy, Ursula thought. Not just Teddy, of course, the rest of the world, too. Teddy had applied to the RAF the day after war was declared. He had been working on a small farm in Suffolk. After Oxford he had done a year at an agricultural college and then had worked on different farms and smallholdings around the country. He wanted to know everything, he said, before he got his own place. ('A _farmer_?' Sylvie still said.) He didn't want to be one of those idealistic back-to-the-land types who ended up knee-deep in muddy yards with sickly cows and dead lambs, their crops not worth picking. (He had worked on one of those places apparently.)\n\nTeddy still wrote poetry and Hugh said, 'A poet farmer, eh? Like Virgil. We'll expect a new _Georgics_ from you.' Ursula wondered how Nancy felt about being a farmer's wife. She was awfully smart, doing research at Cambridge into some arcane and bewildering aspect of maths. ('All gibberish to me,' Teddy said.) And now his childhood dream of becoming a pilot was suddenly and unexpectedly within reach. At the moment he was safe in Canada at an Empire Training School, learning to fly, sending home letters about how much food there was, how great the weather was, making Ursula green with envy. She wished he could stay over there for ever, out of harm's way.\n\n'How did we end up talking about murdering babies in cold blood?' Ursula said to Ralph. 'Mind you,' she cocked her head towards the wall and the rise and fall of Emil's siren wail.\n\nRalph laughed. 'He's not so bad tonight. Mind you, I'd go batty if my children made a racket like that.'\n\nUrsula thought it was interesting that he said 'my children', not 'our children'. Strange to be thinking of having children at all during a time when the very existence of the future was in doubt. She stood up rather abruptly and said, 'The raids will be starting soon.' Back at the beginning of the Blitz they would have said, 'They can't come _every_ night', now they knew they could. ('Is this to be life for ever,' she wrote to Teddy, 'to be harried without rest by the bombs?') Fifty-six nights in a row now so that it was beginning to seem possible that there really would be no end to it.\n\n'You're like a dog,' Ralph said. 'You've got a sixth sense for the raiders.'\n\n'Well you'd better believe me then and go. Or you'll have to come down to the dark hole of Calcutta and you know you won't like that.' The sprawling Miller family, Ursula had counted at least four generations, lived on the ground floor and in the semi-basement of the house in Argyll Road. They also had access down to a further level, a subterranean cellar that the residents of the house used as an air-raid shelter. It was a maze, a mouldy, unpleasant space, full of spiders and beetles, and felt horribly crowded if they were all in there, especially once the Millers' dog, a shapeless rug of fur called Billy, was dragged reluctantly down the stairs to join them. They had also, of course, to put up with the tears and lamentations of Emil, who was passed around between the cellar occupants like an unwanted parcel in a futile attempt to pacify him.\n\nMr Miller, in an effort to make the cellar 'homely' (something it could never be), had taped some reproductions of 'great English art', as he called it, against the sandbagged walls. These colour plates \u2013 _The Haywain_ , Gainsborough's _Mr and Mrs Andrews_ (how smug they looked) and _Bubbles_ (the most sickly Millais possible, in Ursula's opinion) \u2013 looked suspiciously as if they had been pilfered from expensive reference books on art. 'Culture,' Mr Miller said, nodding sagely. Ursula wondered what she would have chosen to represent 'great English art'. Turner perhaps, the smudged, fugitive content of the late works. Not to the Millers' taste at all, she suspected.\n\n*\n\nShe had sewn the collar on her blouse. She had switched off the _Sturm und Drang_ of the wireless broadcast and listened instead to Ma Rainey singing 'Yonder Come the Blues' \u2013 an antidote to all the easy sentiment that was beginning to pour out of the wireless. And she had eaten bread and cheese with Ralph, attempted the crossword and then hurried him out of the door with a kiss. Then she had turned off the light and moved the blackout aside so that she could catch a glimpse of him walking away down Argyll Road. Despite his limp (or perhaps because of it) he had a buoyant gait as if he was expecting something interesting to cross his path. It reminded her of Teddy.\n\nHe knew that she was watching him but he didn't look back, simply raised an arm in silent salute and was swallowed by the dark. There was some light though, a bright slice of crescent moon and a scattering of the faintest stars as though someone had flung a handful of diamond dust into the dark. The _Queen-Moon_ , surrounded by _all her starry Fays_ , although she suspected Keats was writing about a full moon and the moon above Argyll Road seemed more like a moon-in-waiting. She was in a \u2013 rather poor \u2013 poetic mood. It was the enormity of war, she thought, it left you scrabbling for ways to think about it.\n\nBridget always said it was bad luck to look at the moon through glass and Ursula let the blind fall back into place and closed the curtains tightly.\n\nRalph was casual with his safety. After Dunkirk, he said, he felt proofed against sudden violent death. It seemed to Ursula that in a time of war, when one was surrounded by an immense amount of sudden violent death, the odds were quite changed and it was impossible to be protected from anything.\n\nAs she knew it would, the caterwauling commenced, followed swiftly by the guns in Hyde Park starting up and the noise of the first bombs, over the docks again by the sound of it. She was galvanized into action, snatching her torch from the hook beside the front door where it lived like a holy relic, picking up her book, also kept by the door. It was her 'shelter book' \u2013 _Du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de chez Swann_. Now that the war looked as if it were going to last for ever Ursula had decided she might as well embark on Proust.\n\nThe planes whined overhead and then she heard the fearsome _swish_ of a bomb descending and then a walloping _thump!_ as it landed somewhere nearby. Sometimes an explosion sounded much closer than it actually was. (How quickly one acquired new knowledge in the most unlikely subjects.) She looked for her shelter suit. She was wearing a rather flimsy dress considering the season and it was horribly cold and damp in the cellar. The shelter suit had been bought by Sylvie, up in town for the day not long before the bombing started. They had gone for a stroll along Piccadilly and Sylvie had spotted an advertisement in Simpson's window for 'tailored shelter suits' and insisted that they go in and try them on. Ursula couldn't imagine her mother in a shelter, let alone a shelter suit, but it was clearly a garment, a uniform even, that attracted Sylvie. 'It'll be rather good for mucking out hens,' she said and bought them one each.\n\nThe next massive bang had an urgency to it and Ursula abandoned her search for the dratted suit and instead she grabbed the blanket of woollen squares crocheted by Bridget. ('I was going to parcel it up and send it off to the Red Cross,' Bridget had written in her round schoolgirl's hand, 'but then I thought you might need it more.'\n\n'You see, even within my own family I have the status of a refugee,' Ursula wrote to Pamela.)\n\nShe passed the Nesbit sisters on the stairs. 'Ooh, bad luck, Miss Todd,' Lavinia giggled. 'Crossing on the stairs, you know.'\n\nUrsula was going down, the sisters were coming up. 'You're going the wrong way,' she said, rather pointlessly.\n\n'I forgot my knitting,' Lavinia said. She was wearing an enamel brooch shaped like a black cat. A little rhinestone winked for an eye. 'She's knitting leggings for Mrs Appleyard's baby,' Ruth said. 'It's so cold in their flat.' Ursula wondered how many more knitted garments could be applied to the poor child before it resembled a sheep. Not a lamb. Nothing lamb-like about the Appleyard infant. Emil, she reminded herself.\n\n'Well, do hurry, won't you?' she said.\n\n'Hail, hail, the gang's all here,' Mr Miller said as they trooped, one by one, into the cellar. A ragtag assortment of chairs and temporary bedding filled the dank space. There were two ancient army camp beds that Mr Miller had scrounged from somewhere and on which the Nesbits were persuaded to rest their elderly bones. In the current absence of either sister, Billy the dog had installed himself on one of them. There was also a small spirit stove and an Aladdin paraffin stove, both of which seemed to Ursula extraordinarily dangerous items to be in such proximity when people were dropping bombs on you. (The Millers were effortlessly sanguine in the face of jeopardy.)\n\nThe roll-call was almost complete \u2013 Mrs Appleyard and Emil, the queer fish Mr Bentley, Miss Hartnell and the full complement of Millers. Mrs Miller voiced her concern for the whereabouts of the Nesbits and Mr Miller volunteered to go and hurry them up ('ruddy knitting and all') but just then a tremendous explosion rocked the cellar. Ursula felt the foundations trembling as the blast moved through the earth beneath her. Obedient to Hugh's directive, she dropped to the floor with her hands over her head, grabbing the nearest of the smaller Miller boys ('Oi, get your hands off me!') on the way down. She crouched awkwardly over him but he wriggled away from her.\n\nAll went quiet.\n\n'That wasn't our house,' the boy said dismissively, swaggering a little to restore his wounded male dignity.\n\nMrs Appleyard had also thrown herself to the floor, the baby soft-shelled beneath her. Mrs Miller had clutched not one of her brood but the old Farrah's Harrogate toffee tin that contained her savings and insurance policies.\n\nMr Bentley, his voice sounding a quaver higher than normal, asked, 'Was that us?' No, thought Ursula, we would be dead if it had been. She sat down again on one of the rickety bentwood chairs provided by Mr Miller. She could feel her heart, too loud. She began to shiver and wrapped herself in Bridget's crochet.\n\n'Nah, the boy's right,' Mr Miller said, 'that sounded like Essex Villas.' Mr Miller always professed to know where the bombs were dropping. Surprisingly, he was often correct. All of the Millers were adept at wartime language as well as wartime spirit. They could all take it. ('And we can give it out too, can't we?' Pamela wrote. 'You would think _we_ had no blood on our hands.')\n\n'The backbone of England, no doubt,' Sylvie said to Ursula on first (and last) acquaintance with them. Mrs Miller had invited Sylvie down to her kitchen for a cup of tea but Sylvie was still cross at the state of Ursula's curtains and rugs, for which she blamed Mrs Miller, under the apprehension that she was the landlady and not merely another renter. (She was deaf to Ursula's explanations.) Sylvie behaved as though she were a duchess visiting the cottage of one of her rustic tenants. Ursula imagined Mrs Miller later saying to Mr Miller, 'Hoity-toity, that one.'\n\nUp above, the racket of a steady bombardment was now under way, they could hear the timpani of the big bombs, the whistling of shells and the thunder of a nearby mobile artillery unit. Every now and then the foundations of the cellar shook with a _crump_ and _thump_ and _bump_ as the bombs hammered down on the city. Emil howled, Billy the dog howled, a couple of the smallest Millers howled. All in discord with each other, an unwelcome counterpoint to the _Donner und Blitzen_ of the Luftwaffe. A terrible, endless storm. _Despair behind, and death before_.\n\n'Crikey, old Fritz is really trying to put the wind up us tonight,' Mr Miller said, calmly adjusting a lamp for all the world as if they were on a camping trip. He was responsible for morale in the cellar. Like Hugh, he had lived through the trenches and claimed that he was impervious to threats from Jerry. There was a whole club of them, Crighton, Ralph, Mr Miller, even Hugh, who had undergone their ordeal by fire and mud and water and who presumed it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.\n\n'What's old Fritz up to, eh?' he said soothingly to one of the smaller, more frightened children. 'Trying to stop me getting my beauty sleep?' The Germans always came singularly for Mr Miller in the person of Fritz and Jerry, Otto, Hermann, Hans, sometimes Adolf himself was four miles up dropping his high explosive.\n\nMrs Miller (Dolly), an embodiment of the triumph of experience over hope (unlike her spouse), was doling out 'refreshments' of tea, cocoa, biscuits and bread and margarine. The Millers, a family of generous morals, were never short of rations thanks to Renee, their eldest daughter, who had 'connections'. Renee was eighteen and fully formed in every way and seemed to be a girl of most easy virtue. Miss Hartnell made it clear that she found Renee very wanting indeed although she was not averse to sharing in the provender that she brought home. Ursula got the impression that one of the smaller Miller children was actually Renee's rather than Mrs Miller's and had, in a pragmatic way, simply been absorbed into the family pool.\n\nRenee's 'connections' were ambiguous but a few weeks ago Ursula had spotted her in the first-floor coffee lounge of the Charing Cross Hotel sipping daintily on gin in the company of a sleek and rather prosperous-looking man who had 'racketeer' written all over him.\n\n'There's a sleazy gent if ever I saw one,' Jimmy had laughed. Jimmy, the baby produced to celebrate the peace after the war to end all wars, was about to fight in another one. He had a few days' leave from his army training and they had taken refuge in the Charing Cross Hotel while an unexploded bomb in the Strand was being dealt with. They could hear the naval guns that had been stationed on trolleys between Vauxhall and Waterloo \u2013 _boom-boom-boom \u2013_ but the bombers were looking for other targets and seemed to have moved on. 'Doesn't it ever stop?' Jimmy asked.\n\n'Apparently not.'\n\n'It's safer in the army,' he laughed. He had joined the ranks as a private even though the army had offered him a commission. He wanted to be one of the chaps, he said. ('But someone has to be an officer, surely?' Hugh puzzled. 'Better if it's someone with a bit of intelligence.')\n\nHe wanted the experience. He wanted to be a writer, he said, and what better than a war to reveal to him the heights and depths of the human condition? 'A _writer_?' Sylvie said. 'I fear the hand of the evil fairy rocked his cradle.' She meant Izzie, Ursula supposed.\n\nIt had been lovely spending time with Jimmy. Jimmy was dashing in his battledress and gained an entrance wherever they went \u2013 risqu\u00e9 venues in Dean Street and Archer Street, the Boeuf sur le Toit in Orange Street that was very risqu\u00e9 indeed (if not downright risky), places that made Ursula wonder about Jimmy. All in the pursuit of the human condition, he said. They got very drunk and a little silly and it was all rather a relief from cowering in the Millers' cellar. 'Promise you won't die,' she said to Jimmy as they groped like a blind couple along the Haymarket, listening to some other part of London being blown out of existence.\n\n'Do my best,' Jimmy said.\n\n*\n\nShe was cold. The water she was lying in was making her even colder. She needed to move. Could she move? Apparently not. How long had she been lying here? Ten minutes? Ten years? Time had ceased. Everything seemed to have ceased. Only the awful concoction of smells remained. She was in the cellar. She knew that because she could see _Bubbles_ , still miraculously taped to a sandbag near her head. Was she going to die looking at this banality? Then banality seemed suddenly welcome as a ghastly vision appeared at her side. A terrible ghost, black eyes in a grey face and wild hair, was clawing at her. 'Have you seen my baby?' the ghost said. It took Ursula a few moments to realize that this was no ghost. It was Mrs Appleyard, her face covered in dirt and bomb dust and streaked with blood and tears. 'Have you seen my baby?' she said again.\n\n'No,' Ursula whispered, her mouth dry from whatever filth had been falling. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again Mrs Appleyard had disappeared. She might have imagined her, perhaps she was delirious. Or perhaps it really had been the ghost of Mrs Appleyard and they were both trapped in some desolate limbo.\n\nHer attention was caught again by Lavinia Nesbit's dress hanging from the Millers' picture rail. But it wasn't Lavinia Nesbit's dress. A dress didn't have arms in it. Not sleeves, but _arms_. With _hands_. Something on the dress winked at Ursula, a little cat's eye caught by the crescent moon. The headless, legless body of Lavinia Nesbit herself was hanging from the Millers' picture rail. It was so absurd that a laugh began to boil up inside Ursula. It never broke because something shifted \u2013 a beam, or part of the wall \u2013 and she was sprinkled with a shower of talcum-like dust. Her heart thumped uncontrollably in her chest. It was sore, a time-delay bomb waiting to go off.\n\nFor the first time she felt panic. No one was coming to help her. Certainly not the deranged ghost of Mrs Appleyard. She was going to die alone in the cellar of Argyll Road, with nothing but _Bubbles_ and the headless Lavinia Nesbit for company. If Hugh were here, or Teddy or Jimmy, or even Pamela, they would be fighting to get her out of here, to _save_ her. They would care. But there was no one here to care. She heard herself mewling like an injured cat. How sorry she felt for herself, as if she were someone else.\n\n*\n\nMrs Miller had said, 'Well, I think we could all do with a nice cup of cocoa, don't you?' Mr Miller was fretting about the Nesbits again and Ursula, utterly fed up with the claustrophobia of the cellar, said, 'I'll go and look for them,' and got up from the rickety dining chair just as the _swish_ and _pheew_ announced the arrival of a high explosive bomb. There was a giant thunderclap, a great cracking noise as the wall of hell suddenly split open and let all the demons out and then the tremendous suction and compression, as if her insides, her lungs, her heart and stomach, even her eyeballs were being sucked from her body. _Salute the last and everlasting day_. This is it, she thought. This is how I die.\n\nA voice broke into the silence, almost next to her ear, a man's voice saying, 'Come on then, miss, let's see if we can get you out of here, shall we?' Ursula could see his face, grimy and sweaty as if he had tunnelled to reach her. (She supposed he had.) She was surprised to recognize him. It was one of their local ARP wardens, a new one.\n\n'What's your name, miss? Can you tell me?' Ursula muttered her name but she knew it hadn't come out right. 'Urry?' he queried. 'What's that then \u2013 Mary? Susie?'\n\nShe didn't want to die as a Susie. But did it matter?\n\n'Baby,' she mumbled to the warden.\n\n'Baby?' he said sharply. 'You've got a baby?' He backed away slightly and shouted something to someone unseen. She heard other voices and realized there were lots of people now. As if to verify this the warden said, 'We're all here to get you out. The gas boys have turned the gas off and we'll be moving you in a tick. Don't you worry. Now tell me about your baby, Susie. Were you holding him? Is he just a littl'un?' Ursula thought of Emil, as heavy as a bomb (who had been caught out holding him when the music stopped and the house exploded?), and tried to speak but found herself mewling again.\n\nSomething creaked and groaned overhead and the warden grabbed her hand and said, 'It's all right, I'm here,' and she felt immensely grateful to him, and to all the people toiling to get her out. And she thought how grateful Hugh would be too. The thought of her father made her start to cry and the warden said, 'There, there, Susie, everything's all right, soon have you out of here, like a winkle out of a shell. Get you a nice cup of tea, eh? How does that sound? Lovely, eh? Fancy one myself.'\n\nSnow seemed to be falling, tiny icy needles on her skin. 'So cold,' she murmured.\n\n'Don't worry, we'll have you out of here in two shakes of a lamb's tail, you'll see,' the warden said. He struggled out of the coat he was wearing and covered her with it. There wasn't room for such a generous manoeuvre and he knocked something, causing a shower of debris to fall on them both.\n\n'Oh,' she said to the warden because she felt suddenly violently sick but it passed and she felt calmer. Leaves were falling now mixed with the dust and ash and flakes of the dead and suddenly she was blanketed in piles of wafery beech leaves. They smelt of mushrooms and bonfires and something sweet. Mrs Glover's gingerbread. So much nicer than sewage and gas.\n\n'Come on, girl,' the warden said. 'Come on, Susie, don't go to sleep on me now.' He held her hand tighter but Ursula was looking at something glinting and twirling in the sunlight. A rabbit? No, a hare. A silver hare, spinning slowly in front of her eyes. It was mesmerizing. It was the prettiest thing she had ever seen.\n\nShe was flying off a roof into the night. She was in a cornfield with the sun beating down. Picking raspberries in the lane. Playing hide-and-seek with Teddy. _She's a funny little thing_ , someone said. Not the warden, surely? And then the snow began to come down. The night sky was no longer high above, it was all around her, like a warm dark sea.\n\nShe was floating into the blackout. She tried to say something to the warden. _Thank you_. But it didn't matter any more. Nothing mattered. The darkness had fallen.\n\n# A Lovely Day Tomorrow\n\n# _2 September 1939_\n\n'Don't get upset, Pammy,' Harold said. 'Why is it so quiet, what have you done with the boys?'\n\n'Sold them,' Pamela said, perking up. 'Three for the price of two.'\n\n'You ought to stay the night, Ursula,' Harold said kindly. 'You shouldn't be on your own tomorrow. It'll be one of those awful days. Doctor's orders.'\n\n'Thanks,' Ursula said. 'But I've already got plans.'\n\nShe tried on the yellow _cr\u00eape de Chine_ tea dress that she'd bought earlier that day in an eve-of-war spending spree on Kensington High Street. The _cr\u00eape de Chine_ had a pattern \u2013 tiny black swallows in flight. She admired it, rather admired herself, or what she could see in the dressing-table mirror as she had to stand on her bed in order to see her lower half.\n\nThrough Argyll Road's thin walls Ursula could hear Mrs Appleyard having a row, in English, with a man \u2013 the mysterious Mr Appleyard presumably \u2013 whose comings and goings at all times of the day and night kept no noticeable timetable. Ursula had encountered him in the flesh only once, in passing on the stairs, when he had glared moodily at her and hurried on without a greeting. He was a big man, ruddy and slightly porcine. Ursula could imagine him standing behind a butcher's counter or hauling brewery sacks, although according to the Misses Nesbit he was in fact an insurance clerk.\n\nMrs Appleyard, in contrast, was thin and sallow and when her husband was out of the flat Ursula could hear her singing mournfully to herself in a language that she couldn't place. Something Eastern European by the sound of it. How useful Mr Carver's Esperanto would be, she thought. (Only if everyone spoke it, of course.) And especially these days with so many refugees flooding into London. ('She's Czech,' the Nesbits had eventually informed her. 'We didn't used to know where Czechoslovakia was, did we? I wish we still didn't.') Ursula presumed Mrs Appleyard was also some kind of refugee who, looking for safe harbour in the arms of an English gentleman, had found instead the pugnacious Mr Appleyard. Ursula thought that if she ever heard Mr Appleyard actually hitting his wife then she would have to knock on their door and somehow put a stop to it, although she had no idea how she would do that.\n\nThe dispute next door reached a crescendo and then the Appleyards' front door slammed decisively in conclusion and all went quiet. Mr Appleyard, a great one for noisy exits and entrances, could be heard stomping down the stairs, a trail of profanity in his wake on the subject of women and foreigners, of which the oppressed Mrs Appleyard was both.\n\nThe sour aura of dissatisfaction that seeped through the walls, along with the even less appetizing smell of boiled cabbage, was really quite depressing. Ursula wanted her refugees to be soulful and romantic \u2013 fleeing for their cultural lives \u2013 rather than the abused wives of insurance clerks. Which was ridiculously unfair of her.\n\nShe stepped down from the bed and did a little twirl for the mirror. The dress suited her, she decided, she still had her figure, even at nearly thirty. Would she one day develop Sylvie's matronly girth? It was beginning to seem unlikely now that she would ever have children of her own. She remembered holding Pamela's babies \u2013 remembered Teddy and Jimmy, too \u2013 how overwhelming the feelings of love and terror, the desperate desire to protect. How much stronger would those feelings be if it were her own child? Perhaps too strong to bear.\n\nOver their afternoon tea in John Lewis, Sylvie had asked, 'Do you never get broody?'\n\n'Like your hens?'\n\n'A \"career woman\",' Sylvie said, as if the two words had no place in the same sentence. 'A spinster,' she added, contemplating the word. Ursula wondered why her mother was working so hard to rile her. 'Perhaps you will never marry,' Sylvie said, as if in conclusion, as if Ursula's life was as good as over.\n\n'Would that be such a bad thing? \"The unmarried daughter\",' Ursula said, tucking into an iced fancy. 'It was good enough for Jane Austen.'\n\nShe lifted the dress over her head and, in petticoat and stocking feet, padded through to the little scullery and filled a water glass at the tap before hunting down a cream cracker. Prison fare, she thought, good practice for what was to come. All she had had to eat since her breakfast toast was Pamela's cake. She was hoping to be stood, at the very least, a good dinner by Crighton tonight. He had asked her to meet him at the Savoy, they rarely had such public assignations, and she wondered if there was going to be drama, or if the shadow of war was drama enough and he wanted to talk to her about it.\n\nShe knew that war was to be declared tomorrow, even though she had played rather dumb with Pammy. Crighton told her all kinds of things he shouldn't, on the basis that they had 'both signed the Official Secrets Act'. (She, on the other hand, told him almost nothing.) He had been teetering again lately and Ursula wasn't at all sure which way he was going to fall, wasn't sure which way she wanted him to fall.\n\nHe had asked her to meet him for a drink, a request conveyed on an Admiralty docket that had arrived mysteriously while she was briefly out of the office. Not for the first time Ursula wondered who brought these notes that seemed to appear on her desk as if delivered by elves. _I think your department may be due an audit_ , it read. Crighton liked code. Ursula hoped that the navy's encryptions weren't as rudimentary as Crighton's.\n\nMiss Fawcett, one of her clerical assistants, spotted the note lying in full view and gave her a panic-stricken look. 'Crikey,' she said. 'Are we? Due an audit?'\n\n'Someone's idea of a joke,' Ursula said, dismayed to find herself blushing. There was something un-Crighton-like about these salacious (if not downright filthy) but seemingly innocent messages. _I believe there is a shortage of pencils_. Or _Are your ink levels sufficiently topped up?_ Ursula wished he would learn Pitman's, or more discretion. Or, better still, stop altogether.\n\nWhen she was ushered inside the Savoy by a doorman, Crighton was waiting for her in the expansive foyer and instead of escorting her up to the American Bar he shepherded her up the stairs to a suite on the second floor. The bed seemed to dominate the room, enormous and pillowy. Oh, so this is why we're here, she thought.\n\nThe _cr\u00eape de Chine_ had been deemed unsuitable for the occasion and she had donned her royal-blue satin \u2013 one of her three good evening dresses \u2013 a decision she now regretted as Crighton, if form was anything to go by, would soon be divesting her of it rather than treating her to a slap-up meal.\n\nHe liked undressing her, liked looking at her. 'Like a Renoir,' he said, although he knew little about art. Better a Renoir than a Rubens, she thought. Or a Picasso, for that matter. He had bestowed on her the great gift of regarding herself naked with little, if any, criticism. Moira, apparently, was a floor-length flannelette and lights-out woman. Sometimes Ursula wondered if Crighton didn't exaggerate his wife's sturdy qualities. Once or twice it had crossed her mind to journey out to Wargrave to catch a glimpse of the wronged wife and find out if she really was a dowd. The problem, of course, with Moira in the flesh (Rubenesque, not Renoir, she imagined) would be that Ursula would find it difficult to betray a real person rather than an enigma.\n\n('But she _is_ a real person,' Pamela puzzled. 'It's a specious argument.'\n\n'Yes, I _am_ aware of that.' This later, at Hugh's sixtieth birthday, a rather querulous affair in the spring.)\n\nThe suite had a magnificent view of the river, from Waterloo Bridge to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, all shadowy now, in the encroaching twilight. ('The violet hour'.) She could just make out Cleopatra's Needle, a dark finger poking skywards. None of the usual blaze and twinkle of London lights. The blackout had already begun.\n\n'The bolthole wasn't available then? We're out in the open?' Ursula said while Crighton opened a bottle of champagne that had been waiting for them in a sweating silver bucket. 'Are we celebrating?'\n\n'Saying our adieux,' Crighton said, joining her at the window and handing her a glass.\n\n'Our adieux?' Ursula said, bemused. 'You've brought me to a good hotel and are plying me with champagne in order to end it all between us?'\n\n'Adieu to the peace,' Crighton said. 'We're saying goodbye to the world as we know it.' He raised his glass in the direction of the window, to London, in its dusky glory. 'To the beginning of the end,' he said grimly. 'I've left Moira,' he added, as if it were an afterthought, a nothing. Ursula was caught by surprise.\n\n'And the girls?' (Just checking, she thought.)\n\n'All of them. Life is too precious to be unhappy.' Ursula wondered how many people across London were saying the same thing that night. Perhaps in less salubrious surroundings. And there would be others, of course, who would be saying the same words to cleave to what they already had, not to discard it on a whim.\n\nSuddenly and unexpectedly panicked, Ursula said, 'I don't want to marry you.' She hadn't realized quite how strongly she felt until the words came out of her mouth.\n\n'I don't want to marry you either,' Crighton said, and, perversely, she felt disappointed.\n\n'I've taken a lease on a flat in Egerton Gardens,' he said. 'I thought perhaps you would come and join me.'\n\n'To cohabit? To live in sin in Knightsbridge?'\n\n'If you will.'\n\n'My, you are bold,' she said. 'What about your career?'\n\nHe made a dismissive sound. So, she, and not the war, was to be his new Jutland then.\n\n'Will you say yes? Ursula?'\n\nUrsula stared through the window at the Thames. The river was almost invisible now.\n\n'We should have a toast,' she said. 'What is it they say in the navy \u2013 \"Sweethearts and wives \u2013 may they never meet\"?' She chinked her glass against Crighton's and said, 'I'm starving, we are going to eat, aren't we?'\n\n# _April 1940_\n\nA car horn down in the street below broke the Sunday-morning silence of Knightsbridge. Ursula missed the sound of church bells. There were so many simple things she had taken for granted before the war. She wished that she could go back and appreciate them properly.\n\n'Why the horn,' Crighton said, 'when we have a perfectly good doorbell?' He looked out of the window. 'He's here,' he said, 'if he's a young man in a three-piece suit puffed up like a Christmas robin.'\n\n'That does sound like him.' Although Ursula didn't think of Maurice as 'young', had never thought of him as young, but she supposed he was to Crighton.\n\nHugh's sixtieth birthday and Maurice had grudgingly offered her a lift to Fox Corner for the celebrations. It was going to be a novelty, and not necessarily a good one, to spend time cloistered in a car with Maurice. They were rarely alone with each other.\n\n'He has petrol?' Crighton had said, raising an eyebrow but really it was more a statement than a question.\n\n'He has a _driver_ ,' Ursula said. 'I knew Maurice would squeeze the most out of the war.' 'What war?' Pamela would have said. She was 'marooned' in Yorkshire with only six small boys for company and Jeanette, who had turned out to be not merely a moaner but 'quite the _fain\u00e9ante_. I expected better of a vicar's daughter. She's so lazy, I run around all day long after her boys as well as mine. I've had enough of this evacuation lark, I think we'll come home soon.'\n\n'I suppose he could hardly turn up at home in a car _without_ having given me a lift,' Ursula said. 'Maurice wouldn't want to be seen to be behaving badly, even by his own family. He has a _reputation_ to keep up. Besides, his family are staying there and he's bringing them back to London tonight.' Maurice had sent Edwina and the children to stay at Fox Corner for the Easter holidays. Ursula had wondered if he knew something about the war that the public didn't \u2013 was Easter to be a particularly hazardous time? There must be so many things that Maurice knew that others didn't, but Easter had passed off without incident and she supposed it was merely a case of grandchildren visiting grandparents. Philip and Hazel were very uninventive children and Ursula wondered how they were getting on with Sylvie's rambunctious evacuees. 'It'll be horribly crowded on the way back, with Edwina and the children. Not to mention the _driver_. Still, needs must and so on.'\n\nThe car horn sounded again. Ursula ignored it as a matter of principle. How wickedly satisfying it would be, she thought, to have Crighton in tow, in full naval fig (all those medals, all that gold braid), outranking Maurice in so many ways. 'You could come with me, you know,' she said to him. 'We just wouldn't mention Moira. Or the girls.'\n\n'Is it your home?'\n\n'Sorry?'\n\n'You said, \"he could hardly turn up at home\". Isn't this? Your home?' Crighton said.\n\n'Yes, of course,' Ursula said. Maurice was pacing impatiently up and down on the pavement and she rapped on the window pane to get his attention and held up her index finger, mouthing 'one minute' to him. He frowned at her. 'It's a figure of speech,' she said, turning back to Crighton. 'One always refers to one's parents' place as \"home\".'\n\n'Does one? I don't.'\n\nNo, thought Ursula, you don't. Wargrave was 'home' for Crighton, even if only in his thoughts. And he was right, of course, she didn't consider the flat in Egerton Gardens to be her home. It was a point in time, a temporary stopping-off place on yet another journey that the war had interrupted. 'We can argue the point if you want,' she said amiably. 'It's just, you know... Maurice, marching up and down out there like a little tin soldier.'\n\nCrighton laughed. He never looked for arguments.\n\n'I would love to join you and meet your family,' he said, 'but I'm going to the Citadel.' The Admiralty was constructing an underground fortress, the Citadel, on Horse Guards Parade and Crighton was in the process of moving his office over.\n\n'I'll see you later then,' Ursula said. 'My carriage awaits and Maurice is pawing the ground.'\n\n'Ring,' Crighton reminded her and Ursula said, 'Oh, yes, of course, I nearly forgot.' She had started wearing a wedding ring when not at work, for appearances' sake, 'Tradesmen, and so on.' The boy who delivered the milk, the woman who came in to clean twice a week, she didn't want them thinking she was in an illicit relationship. (She had surprised herself with this bashfulness.)\n\n'You can imagine how many questions there would be if they saw _that_ ,' she said, slipping the ring off and leaving it on the hall table.\n\nCrighton kissed her lightly on the cheek and said, 'Have a nice time.'\n\n'No guarantee of that,' she said.\n\n'Still not caught yourself a man?' Izzie asked Ursula. 'Of course,' she said, turning brightly to Sylvie, 'you have \u2013 how many grandchildren now, seven, eight?'\n\n'Six. Perhaps _you're_ a grandmother, Izzie.'\n\n'What?' Maurice said. 'How could she be?'\n\n'Anyway,' Izzie said airily, 'it takes the pressure off Ursula to produce one.'\n\n'Produce?' Ursula said, a forkful of salmon in aspic suspended on its way to her mouth.\n\n'Looks like you're left on the shelf,' Maurice said.\n\n'Pardon?' The fork returned to the plate.\n\n'Always the bridesmaid...'\n\n'Once,' Ursula said. 'I have been a bridesmaid once only, to Pamela.'\n\n'I'll have that if you're not eating it,' Jimmy said, filching the salmon.\n\n'I was, actually.'\n\n'Even worse then,' Maurice said. 'Nobody even wants you as a bridesmaid except for your sister.' He sniggered, more schoolboy than man. He was, annoyingly, seated too far away for her to kick him beneath the table.\n\n'Manners, Maurice,' Edwina murmured. How many times would he disappoint you in a day if you were married to him, Ursula wondered? It seemed to her that in the search for arguments against marriage the existence of Maurice presented the very best one of all. Of course, Edwina's nose was currently out of joint on account of the _driver_ , who turned out to be a rather attractive ATS girl in uniform. Sylvie, to the girl's embarrassment (her name was Penny but everyone immediately forgot this), insisted that she join them at the table when she would clearly have been more comfortable staying with the car, or in the kitchen with Bridget. She was stuck at the cramped end of the table with the evacuees and was the object of constant frosty scrutiny from Edwina. Maurice, on the other hand, studiously ignored her. Ursula tried to read some meaning into this. She wished Pamela were here, she was very good at deciphering people, although not perhaps as good as Izzie. ('So, Maurice has been a naughty boy, I see. Mind you, she's a looker. Women in uniform, what man can resist?')\n\nPhilip and Hazel sat passively between their parents. Sylvie had never been particularly fond of Maurice's children whereas she seemed to delight in her evacuees, Barry and Bobby ('my two busy bees'), currently crawling beneath the Regency Revival dining table, giggling in a rather manic fashion. 'Full of mischief,' Sylvie said indulgently. The evacuees, as everyone else referred to them, as if they were entirely defined by their status, had been scrubbed and polished into apparent innocence by Bridget and Sylvie but nothing could disguise their impish nature. ('What little horrors,' Izzie said with a shudder.) Ursula rather liked them, they reminded her of the small Millers. If they had been dogs their tails would have been constantly wagging.\n\nSylvie now had a pair of real puppies as well, excitable black Labradors who were also brothers. They were called Hector and Hamish but seemed to be known collectively and indistinguishably as 'the dogs'. The dogs and the evacuees appeared to have contributed to a new shabbiness in Fox Corner. Sylvie herself seemed more reconciled now to this war than she had ever been to the last one. Hugh less so. He had been 'pushed' into training the Home Guard and had only this morning after Sunday service been instructing the 'ladies' of the local church in the use of the stirrup pump.\n\n'Is that suitable for the Sabbath?' Edwina asked. 'I'm sure God's on our side, but...' she tailed off, incapable of sustaining a theological position despite being 'a devout Christian', which meant, according to Pamela, that she slapped her children hard and made them eat for breakfast what they left at tea.\n\n'Of course it's suitable,' Maurice said. 'In my role organizing the civil defence\u2014'\n\n'I don't consider myself to be \"on the shelf\" as you so charmingly put it,' Ursula interrupted him irritably. Again, she experienced a fleeting wish for Crighton's be-medalled, braided presence. How horrified Edwina would be to know of Egerton Gardens. ('And how is the Admiral?' Izzie asked later in the garden, sotto voce, like a conspirator, for, of course, she knew. Izzie knew everything and if she didn't know it she could mouse it out with ease. Like Ursula, she had the character for espionage. 'He's not an admiral,' Ursula said. 'But he is well, thank you.')\n\n'You do all right on your own,' Teddy said to Ursula. ' _Contracted to thine own bright eyes_ , and so on.' Teddy had faith in poetry, as if merely to quote from Shakespeare would mollify a situation. Ursula thought the sonnet he was quoting from was about being selfish but didn't say so as Teddy meant it kindly. Unlike everyone else, it seemed, all of whom appeared quite fixed on her unmarried status.\n\n'She's only thirty, for heaven's sake,' Izzie said, putting in her oar again. (If only they would all be quiet, Ursula thought.) 'After all,' Izzie persisted, 'I was over forty when I married.'\n\n'And where _is_ your husband?' Sylvie asked, looking around the Regency Revival \u2013 both leaves extended to accommodate their numbers. She feigned perplexity (it didn't suit her). 'I don't seem to see him here.'\n\nIzzie had chosen the occasion to turn up ('Uninvited, as usual,' Sylvie said) to offer her congratulations on Hugh's six decades. ('A landmark.') Hugh's other sisters had deemed the journey to Fox Corner 'too challenging'.\n\n'What a parcel of vixens they are,' Izzie said later to Ursula. Izzie might have been the baby but she was never the favourite. 'Hugh has always been so good to them.'\n\n'He's always been good to everyone,' Ursula said, surprised, alarmed even, to find tears starting up at the thought of her father's sound character.\n\n'Oh, don't,' Izzie said, handing her a froth of lace that apparently passed as a handkerchief. 'You'll make me cry as well.' It seemed unlikely, it had never happened before.\n\nIzzie had also chosen the occasion to announce her imminent departure for California. Her husband, the famous playwright, had been offered a job writing screenplays in Hollywood. 'All the Europeans are going there,' she said.\n\n'You're European now, are you?' Hugh said.\n\n'Aren't we all?'\n\nThe whole family had gathered, apart from Pamela, for whom the journey was genuinely too challenging. Jimmy had managed to wangle a couple of days' leave and Teddy had brought Nancy along. On arrival, she gave Hugh a disarming hug, said, 'Happy birthday, Mr Todd,' before handing him a parcel, wrapped prettily in old wallpaper scavenged from the Shawcross household. It was a copy of _The Warden_. 'It's a first edition,' Nancy said. 'Ted said that you liked Trollope.' (A fact that none of the rest of his family appeared to know.)\n\n'Good old Ted,' Hugh said, kissing her on the cheek. And to Teddy, 'What a sweetheart you have here. When are you going to pop the question?'\n\n'Oh,' Nancy said, blushing and laughing, 'plenty of time for that.'\n\n'I hope so,' a sombre Sylvie said. Teddy had graduated now from the Initial Training School ('He has wings!' Nancy said. 'Like an angel!') and was waiting to sail to Canada, to train as a pilot. When he was qualified he would head back here and take up a place in an Operational Training Unit.\n\nHe was more likely to be killed in an OTU, he said, 'than on an actual bombing run'. It was true. Ursula knew a girl in the Air Ministry. (She knew girls everywhere, everyone did.) They ate their sandwiches together in St James's Park and gloomily traded statistics, despite the dead hand of the Official Secrets Act.\n\n'Well, that's a great comfort to me,' Sylvie said.\n\n'Ow!' one of the evacuees squealed beneath the table. 'Some bugger just kicked me.' Everyone instinctively looked at Maurice. Something cold and wet nosed itself up Ursula's skirt. She hoped very much that it was the nose of one of the dogs and not one of the evacuees. Jimmy pinched her arm (rather hard) and said, 'They do go on, don't they?'\n\nThe poor ATS girl \u2013 like the evacuees and the dogs, defined by her status \u2013 looked as if she were about to cry.\n\n'I say, are you all right?' ever-solicitous Nancy asked her.\n\n'She's an only child,' Maurice said matter-of-factly. 'They don't understand the joys of family life.' This knowledge of the ATS girl's background seemed to particularly infuriate Edwina, who was gripping the butter knife in her hand as if she were planning to attack someone with it \u2013 Maurice or the ATS girl, or anyone within stabbing distance by the look of it. Ursula wondered how much harm a butter knife could do. Enough, she supposed.\n\nNancy jumped up from the table and said to the ATS girl, 'Come on, let's go for a walk, it's such a lovely day. The bluebells will be out in the wood, if you fancy a bit of a hike.' She hooked arms with her and almost pulled her out of the room. Ursula thought about running after them.\n\n' _Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play_ ,' Izzie said as if nothing had interrupted them. 'Someone said that.'\n\n'Congreve,' Sylvie said. 'What on earth does that have to do with anything?'\n\n'Just saying,' Izzie said.\n\n'Of course \u2013 you're _married_ to a playwright, aren't you?' Sylvie said. 'The one we never see.'\n\n'The journey is different for everyone,' Izzie said.\n\n'Oh, please,' Sylvie said. 'Spare us your cod philosophy.'\n\n'For me, marriage is about freedom,' Izzie said. 'For you it has always been about the vexations of confinement.'\n\n'What on earth are you talking about?' Sylvie said. (A bafflement shared by the rest of the table.) 'You talk such nonsense.'\n\n'And what life would you have led otherwise?' Izzie continued blithely (or relentlessly, depending on your viewpoint). 'I seem to remember you were seventeen and on your uppers, a dead, bankrupt artist's daughter. Heaven only knows what would have happened to you if Hugh hadn't charged in and rescued you.'\n\n'You remember nothing, you were still in the nursery at the time.'\n\n'Barely. And, I, of course\u2014'\n\n'Oh, do shut up,' Hugh said wearily.\n\nBridget broke the tension (often her starring role at Fox Corner now that Mrs Glover was gone), entering the dining room bearing aloft a roast duck.\n\n'Duck _\u00e0 la surprise_ ,' Jimmy said, for, naturally, they had all been expecting a chicken.\n\nNancy and the ATS girl ('Penny,' Nancy reminded everyone) returned in time to be handed warmed-up plates. 'You're lucky there's any duck on that,' Teddy said to Nancy when he handed her a plate. 'The poor bird was picked clean.'\n\n'There's so little eating on a duck,' Izzie said, lighting up a cigarette. 'There's barely enough for two people, I can't imagine what you were thinking.'\n\n'I was thinking there's a war on,' Sylvie said.\n\n'If I'd known you planned a _duck_ ,' Izzie ploughed on, 'I would have sought out something a little more generous. I know a man who can get anything.'\n\n'I bet you do,' Sylvie said.\n\nJimmy offered Ursula the wishbone and they both wished loudly and pointedly for a nice birthday for Hugh.\n\nAn amnesty was brought about by the advent of the cake, an ingenious confection that, naturally, relied mainly on eggs. Bridget brought it to the table. She had no flair for making an occasion of anything and dumped it in front of Hugh without ceremony. She was coerced by him into taking a place at the table. 'I wouldn't if I were you,' Ursula heard the ATS girl mutter quietly.\n\n'You're part of the family, Bridget,' Hugh said. No one else in the family, Ursula thought, slaved away from dawn to dusk the way Bridget did. Mrs Glover had retired and gone to live with one of her sisters, a move prompted by George's sudden but not unexpected death.\n\nJust as Hugh filled his lungs, rather theatrically, for there was only one token candle to blow out, there was a great commotion out in the hallway. One of the evacuees went out to investigate and ran back with the news that it was 'A woman, and loads of bloody kids!'\n\n*\n\n'How was it?' Crighton asked, when she finally arrived home.\n\n'Pammy came back \u2013 for good, I think,' she said, deciding on the highlight. 'She looked done in. She came by train, three little boys plus a babe-in-arms, can you imagine? It took her _hours_.'\n\n'A nightmare,' Crighton said with feeling.\n\n('Pammy!' Hugh said. He looked enormously pleased.\n\n'Happy birthday, Daddy,' Pamela said. 'No presents, I'm afraid, just us.'\n\n'More than enough,' Hugh said, beaming.)\n\n'And _suitcases_ , and the dog. She's such a stalwart. _My_ journey home, on the other hand, was a different kind of nightmare. Maurice, Edwina, their uninspiring offspring and the _driver_. Turned out to be a rather lovely ATS girl.'\n\n'Good God,' Crighton said, 'how does he do it? I've been trying to get my hands on a Wren for months.' She laughed and hovered in the kitchen while he made cocoa for both of them. While they drank it in bed she regaled him with tales from the day, somewhat embellished (she felt it her duty to entertain him). What, after all, she thought, was there to distinguish them from any married couple? Perhaps the war. Perhaps not.\n\n'I think I'm going to have to join up, or something,' she said. She thought of the ATS girl. ' \"Do my bit\", as they say. Get my hands dirty. I read reports every day about people doing brave things and my hands stay very clean.'\n\n'You're doing your bit already,' he said.\n\n'What? Supporting the navy?'\n\nHe laughed and rolled over and pulled her into his arms. He nuzzled her neck and as she lay there it struck her that it was just possible that she was happy. Or at any rate, she thought, qualifying the idea, as happy as was possible in this life.\n\n'Home', it had struck her on the torturous drive back to London, wasn't Egerton Gardens, wasn't even Fox Corner. Home was an idea, and like Arcadia it was lost in the past.\n\nShe had already ticketed the day in her memory as 'Hugh's sixtieth birthday', one more in a roll-call of family occasions. Later, when she understood that it was the last time they would all be together, she wished she had paid more attention.\n\n*\n\nShe was woken in the morning by Crighton bringing her a tray of tea and toast. She had the Senior Service to thank for his domesticity rather than Wargrave.\n\n'Thank you,' she said, struggling to sit up, still worn out from yesterday.\n\n'Bad news, I'm afraid,' he said, opening the curtains.\n\nShe thought of Teddy and Jimmy, although she knew that for this morning at least they were safely tucked up in their beds in Fox Corner, sharing their boyhood room, once Maurice's.\n\n'What bad news?' she asked.\n\n'Norway has fallen.'\n\n'Poor Norway,' she said and sipped the hot tea.\n\n# _November 1940_\n\nPamela had sent a parcel of baby clothes that Gerald had grown out of, and Ursula thought of Mrs Appleyard. She might not have thought of Mrs Appleyard as she hadn't kept up with the residents of Argyll Road since she left for Egerton Gardens, something she had rather regretted as she had been fond of the Misses Nesbit and often wondered how they were faring under the relentless bombardment. But then she had had a chance encounter with Renee Miller a few weeks ago.\n\nUrsula had been 'on the town', as he put it, with Jimmy, who had a couple of days' furlough in the capital. They had been stranded in the Charing Cross Hotel thanks to a UXB \u2013 sometimes she thought unexploded bombs were more of a nuisance than exploded ones \u2013 and had taken refuge in the first-floor coffee lounge.\n\n'There's a rather tarty girl, all lipstick and teeth, over there who seems to know you,' Jimmy said.\n\n'Ye gods, Renee Miller,' Ursula said when she spotted Renee waving eagerly at her. 'And who on earth is that man with her? He looks like a gangster.'\n\nRenee was effusive, as though she had been best pals with Ursula in some former life ('She's a lively girl,' Jimmy laughed after they'd escaped), and insisted that they join her and 'Nicky' for a drink. Nicky himself seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea but nonetheless shook hands and signalled to the waiter.\n\nRenee filled Ursula in on 'the doings' in Argyll Road, although little seemed to have changed since she left a year ago for Egerton Gardens, except that the army now had Mr Appleyard and his wife had a baby. 'A boy,' Renee said. 'Ugly little thing.' Jimmy guffawed and said, 'I like a girl who knows when a spade's a spade.' Nicky was rather put out by Jimmy's personable presence, especially as by the time she had downed another watery gin Renee had begun to flirt (almost professionally it seemed) with him.\n\nUrsula overheard someone say that the unexploded bomb had been dealt with and when Renee said, 'Get us another round in, Nicky,' and Nicky began to glower Ursula thought it might be politic to move on. Nicky refused to let them pay, as if it were a matter of principle. Ursula wasn't sure she wanted to be beholden to someone of his calibre. Renee hugged and kissed her and said, 'Come and see the old dears, they'd love it,' and Ursula promised that she would.\n\n'Good God, I thought she was going to eat me,' Jimmy said as they manoeuvred around rubble on Henrietta Street.\n\nShe made good on her promise to Renee, prompted by the parcel of Gerald's old clothes. She reached Argyll Road not long after six, getting away from work early for once. She had not, after all, donned a uniform of any kind yet, as there seemed hardly enough time to eat and breathe between work and the bombs. 'Your job _is_ war work,' Crighton pointed out, 'I would have thought that you would have enough on your plate. How is the Ministry of Some Obscurity these days?'\n\n'Oh, you know. Busy.' There was so much information to be logged. Each individual incident \u2013 what type of bomb, the damage done, how many killed or injured (the tally was mounting horribly) \u2013 streamed across their desks.\n\nOccasionally, she would open a buff folder and find what she thought of as the 'raw material' \u2013 ARP typed reports or even the handwritten reports they were based on \u2013 and wonder what it was like to be in the heat of battle, for that's what the Blitz was, wasn't it? Sometimes she saw bomb-damage maps, once one that had been drawn by Ralph. He had signed it in faint, almost indecipherable pencil on the back. They were friends, she had met him at her German class, although he had made it clear that he would like them to mean more to each other. 'Your other man,' Crighton called him, amused.\n\n'How kind,' Mrs Appleyard said when Ursula appeared on her doorstep with the parcel of clothes. 'Please come in.'\n\nUrsula crossed the threshold reluctantly. The previous smell of boiled cabbage now mingled with the more unappetizing smells that could accompany an infant. Sadly, Renee's judgement on Mrs Appleyard's baby's pulchritude, or lack of it, turned out to be true \u2013 he was an 'ugly little thing'.\n\n'Emil,' Mrs Appleyard said, handing him over to Ursula to hold. She could feel the dampness of him through his rubber knickers. She almost handed him straight back. 'Emil?' she said to him, making a face and grinning at him with forced jollity. He stared back at her, rather truculently, his paternity not in doubt.\n\nMrs Appleyard offered tea and Ursula excused herself and scurried up the stairs to the Nesbits' eyrie.\n\nThey were their usual benign selves. It must be quite nice to live with one's sister, Ursula thought. She wouldn't mind living out her days with Pamela.\n\nRuth grasped one of her fingers with her own twig-like ones. 'You're married! How wonderful.' Oh darn, Ursula thought, she had forgotten to take off the wedding ring. She demurred, 'Well...' and then, seeing the complexity, finally, modestly, 'Yes, I suppose so.' They both offered triumphant congratulations, as if she had achieved something spectacular.\n\n'What a shame you have no engagement ring,' Lavinia said.\n\nUrsula had forgotten their penchant for costume jewellery and wished she had brought them something. She had a little box of old diamant\u00e9 buckles and clips that Izzie had given her that she knew they would have appreciated.\n\nLavinia was wearing an enamel brooch shaped like a black cat. A little rhinestone winked for an eye. Ruth sported a weighty carbuncle of topaz pinned to her sparrow chest. It looked like it might topple her insubstantial frame.\n\n'We're like magpies,' Ruth laughed. 'We love all the shiny little things.'\n\nThey had the kettle on and were happily fussing over what to feed her \u2013 toast with Marmite or toast with jam \u2013 when the siren began its infernal warble. Ursula looked out of the window. No sign of any raiders yet although a searchlight was already sweeping the black sky. A beautiful new moon had stamped a crescent of light out of the blackness.\n\n'Come along, dear, down to the Millers' cellar,' Lavinia said, surprisingly chipper. 'Every night an adventure,' Ruth added, as they gathered up a great amount of stuff \u2013 shawls and cups, books and darning. 'Torch, torch, don't forget the torch!' Lavinia said gaily.\n\nAs they reached the ground floor a bomb thudded down a couple of streets away. 'Oh, no!' Lavinia said. 'I forgot my knitting.'\n\n'We'll go back, dear,' Ruth said and Ursula said, 'No, you must take shelter.'\n\n'I'm knitting leggings for Mrs Appleyard's baby,' Lavinia said, as if that were a good enough reason to risk her life.\n\n'Don't worry about us, dear,' Ruth said, 'we'll be back before you know we've gone.'\n\n'For heaven's sake, if you must have it then I'll go,' Ursula said but they were already creaking their old bones up the stairs and Mr Miller was bustling her down to the cellar.\n\n'Renee, Dolly, everyone \u2013 look who's come to join her old pals!' he announced to the occupants as if Ursula were a music hall turn.\n\nShe had forgotten how many Millers there were, and how starchy Miss Hartnell could be and how downright odd Mr Bentley was. And as for Renee, she seemed to have quite forgotten the ardour of their previous encounter, saying only, 'Oh, lawd, another body using up the air in this hellhole.' Renee was \u2013 reluctantly \u2013 dandling a fractious Emil. She was right, it was a hellhole. In Egerton Gardens they had a rather salubrious basement that they retired to, although Ursula (and Crighton too if he was there) often took her chances and stayed in her own bed.\n\nUrsula remembered the wedding ring and thought how confused Hugh and Sylvie would be if they saw it on her body if she were to die in a raid. Would Crighton come to her funeral and explain? She was prevented from slipping it off by Renee suddenly thrusting Emil into her arms just before a massive explosion rocked the building.\n\n'Crikey, old Fritz is really trying to put the wind up us tonight,' Mr Miller said cheerfully.\n\nHer name was Susie, apparently. She had no idea, she really couldn't remember anything. A man kept calling her out of the darkness. 'Come on, Susie, don't go to sleep now,' and 'How about we have a nice cuppa when we get out of here, eh, Susie?' She was choking on ash and dust. She sensed something inside her was torn beyond repair. Cracked. She was a golden bowl. 'Quite Jamesian, really,' she heard Teddy say. (Had he said that?) She was a great tree (how odd). She was very cold. The man was holding her hand, squeezing it, 'Come on, Susie, stay awake now.' But she couldn't, the soft dark was beckoning to her with the promise of sleep, endless sleep, and the snow began to fall gently until she was entirely shrouded and everything was dark.\n\n# A Lovely Day Tomorrow\n\n# _September 1940_\n\nShe missed Crighton, more than she had let on to either him or Pamela. He had taken a room at the Savoy on the night before war was declared and she had got dressed up in her good royal-blue satin only for him to announce that they should call an end to things ('to say our adieux'). 'It's going to get awfully bloody,' he said, but whether he meant the war or them she wasn't sure.\n\nDespite or perhaps because of their adieux, they went to bed together and he spent a lot of time telling her how much he would miss 'this body', the 'lineaments of your flesh', 'this pretty face', and so on, until she got rather fed up and said, 'Well, it _is_ you that wants out of this, not me.'\n\nShe wondered if he made love to Moira in the same way \u2013 detachment and passion in equal measure \u2013 but it was one of those questions you couldn't ask in case he were to tell the truth. What did it matter, Moira was getting him back. Soiled goods perhaps but hers nonetheless.\n\nThe next morning they breakfasted in the room and then listened to Chamberlain's speech. There was a wireless in the suite. Not long after, a siren sounded but strangely neither of them panicked. It all seemed very unreal. 'I expect it's a test,' Crighton said. Ursula thought that from now on everything would probably be a test.\n\nThey left the hotel and walked along the Embankment to Westminster Bridge, where air-raid wardens were blowing their whistles and shouting that the scare was over. Others were riding along on bicycles with _All-Clear_ signs attached to them, and Crighton said, 'Good God, I fear for us if this is the best we can muster in a raid.' Sandbags were being stacked along the bridge, being stacked everywhere and Ursula thought it was just as well there was so much sand in the world. She tried to remember the lines from 'The Walrus and the Carpenter'. _If seven maids with seven mops \u2013_ but they had reached Whitehall by now and Crighton broke into her thoughts by taking both her hands in his and saying, 'I must go now, darling,' and for a moment he sounded like a rather cheap and sentimental movie star. She decided she would live out the war as a nun. Much easier.\n\nShe had watched him walk along Whitehall and suddenly felt horribly alone. She might, after all, go back to Finchley.\n\n# _November 1940_\n\nOn the other side of the wall she could hear Emil complaining and Mrs Appleyard's soothing remonstrance. She began to sing a lullaby in her own language, the mother tongue, Ursula thought. It was an extraordinarily sad song and Ursula vowed that if she ever had a child (difficult when you had decided to live as a nun) she would sing to it nothing but jolly jigs and ditties.\n\nShe felt alone. She would have liked a warm body for comfort, a dog would be better than being on her own on nights like this. A living, breathing presence.\n\nShe moved the blackout aside. No sign of bombers yet, just the long finger of a solitary searchlight poking into the blackness. A new moon hung in the sky. _Pale for weariness_ , according to Shelley but _Queen and huntress, chaste and fair_ for Ben Jonson. To Ursula it betrayed an indifference that made her suddenly shiver.\n\nThere was always a second before the siren started when she was aware of a sound as yet unheard. It was like an echo, or rather the opposite of an echo. An echo came afterwards, but was there a word for what came before?\n\nShe heard the whine of a plane overhead and the _bang-bang-bang-bang-bang_ of the first bombs dropping and she was about to replace the blackout and make a run for the cellar when she noticed a dog cowering in a doorway opposite \u2013 almost as if she'd wished it into existence. Even from where she was, she could sense its terror. She hesitated for a second and then thought, oh, damn, and raced down the stairs.\n\nShe passed the Nesbit sisters. 'Ooh, bad luck, Miss Todd,' Ruth giggled. 'Crossing on the stairs, you know.'\n\nUrsula was going down, the sisters were coming up. 'You're going the wrong way,' she said, rather pointlessly.\n\n'I forgot my knitting,' Lavinia said. She was wearing an enamel brooch shaped like a black cat. A little rhinestone winked for an eye. 'She's knitting leggings for Mrs Appleyard's baby,' Ruth said. 'It's so cold in her flat.'\n\nIt was incredibly noisy on the street. She could hear incendiaries clattering down on a roof nearby, sounding like a giant coal scuttle being emptied. The sky was alight. A chandelier flare fell, as graceful as fireworks, illuminating everything below.\n\nA stream of bombers was roaring overhead as she dashed across the street to the dog. It was a nondescript terrier, whimpering and shaking all over. Just as she grabbed hold of it she heard a terrific _swish_ and knew she was for it, that they were both for it. A colossal growling noise was followed by the loudest bang she'd heard so far in the Blitz. This is it, she thought, this is how I die.\n\nShe took a blow to the forehead, a brick or something, but didn't lose consciousness. A blast of air, like a hurricane, knocked her off her feet. There was a horrendous pain in her ears and all she could hear was a high-pitched whistling, singing noise and she knew that her eardrums must have gone. Debris was showering down on her, cutting her and digging into her. The blast seemed to come in successive waves and she could feel a grumbling, grinding vibration in the ground beneath her.\n\nFrom a distance an explosion seemed to be over almost immediately but when you were in the middle of it it seemed to go on for ever, to have a character that changed and developed as it went along so that you had no idea how it was going to end up, how _you_ were going to end up. She was half sitting, half lying on the ground and tried to hang on to something but she couldn't let go of the dog (this thought uppermost in her mind for some reason) and she found herself being blown slowly along the ground.\n\nThe pressure began to decrease a little but the dirt and dust were still raining down and the blast had life in it yet. Then something else hit her on the head and everything went dark.\n\n*\n\nShe was woken by the dog licking her face. It was very hard to understand what had happened but after a while she realized that the doorway where she had grabbed the dog didn't exist any more. The door had been blown inwards, the pair of them with it, and now they were lying among debris in the passage of a house. The staircase of the house behind them, choked with broken bricks and splintered wood, now led nowhere as the upper floors had gone.\n\nStill stunned, she struggled to a sitting position. Her head felt thick and stupid but nothing seemed to be broken and she couldn't find any bleeding, although she supposed she must be covered in cuts and bruises. The dog too, although very quiet, seemed to be uninjured. 'Your name must be Lucky,' she said to it but her voice hardly came out at all, there was so much choking dust in the air. Cautiously, she got to her feet and walked down the passage to the street.\n\nHer house had also gone, everywhere she looked there were great heaps of smoking rubble and skeletal walls. The pared fingernail of the moon was bright enough, even through the veil of dust, to cast light on the horror. If she hadn't run to save the dog she would be cinders in the Millers' cellar now. Was everyone dead? The Nesbits, Mrs Appleyard and Emil? Mr Bentley? All the Millers?\n\nShe stumbled into the street where two firemen were unreeling a hose. While they were attaching it to the hydrant one of them spotted her and shouted, 'Are you all right, miss?' It was funny but he looked exactly like Fred Smith. And then the other fireman yelled, 'Watch out, the wall's coming down!'\n\nIt was. Slowly, incredibly slowly, as if in a dream, the whole wall tilted on an invisible axis and without a single brick detaching itself it inclined towards them, as if taking a graceful bow, and fell in one piece, bringing the darkness down with it.\n\n# _August 1926_\n\n_Als er das Zimmer verlassen hatte wusst, was sie aus dieser Erscheinung machen solle..._\n\nBees buzzed their summer afternoon lullaby and Ursula, in the shade of the apple trees, drowsily abandoned _Die Marquise von O_. Through half-open eyes she watched a small rabbit a few yards away nibbling contentedly on grass. He was either unaware of her or very bold. Maurice would have shot it by now. He was home after graduation, waiting to start his training in the law, and had spent the entire vacation being thoroughly and noisily bored. ('He could always get a summer job,' Hugh said. 'It's not unheard of for vigorous young men to work.')\n\nMaurice was so bored in fact that he had agreed to teach Ursula to shoot and even agreed to use old bottles and cans as targets rather than the many wild creatures that he was forever taking potshots at \u2013 rabbits, foxes, badgers, pigeons, pheasants, even once a small roe deer, for which neither Pamela nor Ursula would ever forgive him. As long as they were inanimate, Ursula rather liked shooting things. She used Hugh's old wildfowler but Maurice had a splendid Purdey, his twenty-first-birthday present from his grandmother. Adelaide had been threatening to die for some years now but 'never came good on her promises', Sylvie said. She lingered on in Hampstead, 'like a giant spider', Izzie said, shuddering, over the veal cutlets _\u00e0 la Russe_ , although it may have been the cutlets themselves that caused this reaction. It was not one of the better dishes in Mrs Glover's repertoire.\n\nOne of the few things, perhaps the only thing Sylvie and Izzie had in common, was their antipathy towards Hugh's mother. 'Your mother too,' Hugh pointed out to Izzie and Izzie said, 'Oh, no, she found me by the side of the road. She often told me so. I was so naughty that even the gypsies didn't want me.'\n\nHugh came to watch Maurice and Ursula shooting and said, 'Why, little bear, you're a real Annie Oakley.'\n\n'You know,' Sylvie said, appearing suddenly and startling Ursula into full wakefulness, 'long, lazy days like these will never come again in your life. You think they will, but they won't.'\n\n'Unless I become incredibly rich,' Ursula said. 'Then I could be idle all day long.'\n\n'Perhaps,' Sylvie said, 'but summer would still have to come to an end one day.' She sank down on the grass next to Ursula and picked up the Kleist. 'A suicidal romantic,' she said dismissively. 'Are you really going to do Modern Languages? Your father says Latin might be more useful.'\n\n'How can it be useful? Nobody speaks it,' Ursula said reasonably. This was an argument that had been rumbling genteelly all summer. She stretched her arms above her head. 'I shall go and live in Paris for a year and speak nothing but French. That will be very _useful_ there.'\n\n'Oh, Paris,' Sylvie shrugged. 'Paris is rather overrated.'\n\n'Berlin, then.'\n\n'Germany's a mess.'\n\n'Vienna.'\n\n'Stuffy.'\n\n'Brussels,' Ursula said. 'No one can object to Brussels.'\n\nIt was true, Sylvie could think of nothing to say about Brussels and their grand tour of Europe came to an abrupt halt.\n\n'After university anyway,' Ursula said. 'That's _years_ away yet, you can stop worrying.'\n\n'University won't teach you how to be a wife and mother,' Sylvie said.\n\n'What if I don't want to be a wife and mother?'\n\nSylvie laughed. 'Now you're just talking nonsense to provoke. There's tea on the lawn,' she said, rousing herself reluctantly. 'And cake. And, unfortunately, Izzie.'\n\n*\n\nUrsula went for a walk along the lane before supper, Jock happily trotting ahead. (He was a wonderfully cheerful dog, it was hard to believe that Izzie could have chosen so well.) It was the kind of summer evening that made Ursula want to be alone. 'Oh,' Izzie said, 'you're at an age when a girl is simply _consumed_ by the sublime.' Ursula wasn't sure what she meant ('No one is ever sure what she means,' Sylvie said) but she thought she understood a little. There was a strangeness in the shimmering air, a sense of _imminence_ that made Ursula's chest feel full, as if her heart was growing. It was a kind of high holiness \u2013 she could think of no other way of describing it. Perhaps it was the future, she thought, coming nearer all the time.\n\nShe was sixteen, on the brink of everything. She had even been kissed, on her birthday at that, by the rather alarming American friend of Maurice's. 'Just one kiss,' she told him before batting him away when he got too fresh with her. Unfortunately he stumbled over his huge feet and fell backwards into a cotoneaster, which looked rather uncomfortable and certainly undignified. She told Millie, who hooted with laughter. Still, as Millie said, a kiss was a kiss.\n\nHer walk took her to the station where she said hello to Fred Smith, who doffed his railwayman's cap as if she were already a grown-up.\n\nThe imminence remained imminent, receded even, as she watched his train _huff-huff-huff_ off to London. She walked back and met Nancy, grubbing for things for her nature collection, and they walked companionably together before they were overtaken by Benjamin Cole on his bicycle. He stopped and dismounted and said, 'Shall I escort you home, ladies?' rather in the way that Hugh might have done and Nancy giggled.\n\nUrsula was glad that the heat of the afternoon had already made her cheeks pink because she could feel herself blushing. She grabbed some cow parsley from the hedgerow and fanned herself (ineffectually) with it. She had not, after all, been so wrong about the imminence.\n\nBenjamin ('Oh, do call me Ben,' he said. 'Only my parents call me Benjamin these days') walked with them as far as the Shawcrosses' gate where he said, 'Goodbye, then,' and climbed back on his bicycle for the short ride home.\n\n'Oh,' Nancy whispered, disappointed on her behalf, 'I thought maybe he would walk you home, just the two of you.'\n\n'Am I so obvious?' Ursula asked, her spirits drooping.\n\n'You are rather. Never mind.' Nancy patted her on the arm as if she were the elder by four years rather than Ursula. And then, 'I'm late, I think, I don't want to miss dinner,' she said and, clutching her foraged treasure, she skipped along the path towards her house, singing _tra-la-la_. Nancy was a girl who really did sing _tra-la-la_. Ursula wished she was that kind of girl. She turned to go, she supposed she was late for supper too, but then she heard the mad ringing of a bicycle bell announcing Benjamin (Ben!) zooming towards her. 'I forgot to say,' he said, 'we're having a party next week \u2013 Saturday afternoon \u2013 Mother said to ask you. It's Dan's birthday, she wants some girls to dilute the boys, I think that was her phrase. She thought maybe you and Millie. Nancy's a bit young, isn't she?'\n\n'Yes, she is,' Ursula agreed quickly. 'But I'd love to come. So would Millie, I'm sure. Thank you.'\n\nImminence had returned to the world.\n\nShe watched him cycle away, whistling as he went. When she turned round she nearly bumped into a man who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and was hovering, waiting for her. He tipped his cap and muttered, 'Evening, miss.' He was a rough-looking fellow and Ursula took a step back. 'Tell me the way to the station, miss?' he said and she pointed down the lane and said, 'It's that way.'\n\n'Care to show me the way, miss?' he said, moving closer to her again.\n\n'No,' she said, 'no thank you.' Then his hand suddenly shot out and he grabbed her forearm. She managed to tug her arm away and set off running, not daring to look behind until she reached her doorstep.\n\n'All right, little bear?' Hugh asked as she flung herself into the porch. 'You look all puffed out,' he said.\n\n'No, I'm fine, really,' she said. Hugh would only worry if she told him about the man.\n\n'Veal cutlets _\u00e0 la Russe_ ,' Mrs Glover said as she put a large white china dish on the table. 'I'm only telling you because last time I cooked it someone said they couldn't begin to imagine what it was.'\n\n'The Coles are having a party,' Ursula said to Sylvie. 'Millie and I are invited.'\n\n'Lovely,' Sylvie said, distracted by the contents of the white porcelain dish, much of which would later be fed to a less discerning (or, as Mrs Glover would have it, 'less fussy') West Highland terrier.\n\nThe party was a disappointment. It was a rather daunting affair with endless games of charades (Millie in her element, needless to say) and quizzes to which Ursula knew most of the answers but was left unheard, beaten by the ferociously competitive speed of the Cole boys and their friends. Ursula felt invisible and the only intimacy that she shared with Benjamin (he no longer seemed like Ben) was when he asked her if she would like some fruit cup and then forgot to come back with any. There was no dancing but piles of food and Ursula comforted herself picking and choosing from an impressive selection of desserts. Mrs Cole, patrolling the food, said to her, 'Goodness, you're such a little scrap of a thing, where do you put all that food?'\n\nSuch a little scrap of a thing, Ursula thought as she tramped dejectedly home, that no one even seemed to notice her.\n\n'Did you get cake?' Teddy asked eagerly when she came in the door.\n\n'Masses,' she said. They sat on the terrace and shared the large slice of birthday cake doled out on departure by Mrs Cole, Jock receiving his fair share. When a large dog fox trotted on to the twilit lawn Ursula tossed a piece in its direction but it regarded the cake with the disdain of a carnivore.\n\n# The Land of Begin Again\n\n# _August 1933_\n\n' _Er kommt! Er kommt!_ ' one of the girls shouted.\n\n'He's coming? Finally?' Ursula said, glancing at Klara.\n\n'Apparently. Thank goodness. Before we die of hunger and boredom,' she said.\n\nThey were both equally bemused and amused by the younger girls' hero-worshipping antics. They had been waiting by the roadside for the best part of a hot afternoon, with nothing to eat or drink except for a pail of milk that two of the girls had fetched from a farm nearby. Some of the girls had heard a rumour that the F\u00fchrer would be arriving today at his mountain retreat, and they had been waiting patiently for hours now. Several of the girls had taken a siesta on the grass verge, but none of them had any intention of giving up without a glimpse of the F\u00fchrer.\n\nThere was some cheering further down the steep, crooked road that led up to Berchtesgaden and they all jumped to their feet. A big black car swept past them and some of the girls squealed with excitement but 'he' wasn't in it. Then a second car, a magnificent open-topped black Mercedes, came into view, a swastika pennant fluttering on the bonnet. It drove slower than the previous car and did indeed contain the new Chancellor of the Reich.\n\nThe F\u00fchrer gave an abbreviated version of his salute, a funny little flap of the hand backwards so that he looked as if he were cupping his ear to hear them better as they shouted out to him. At the sight of him, Hilde, standing next to Ursula, said simply, 'Oh,' investing the single syllable with religious ecstasy. And then, just as quickly, it was all over. Hanne crossed her hands over her chest, looking like a rather constipated saint. 'My life is fulfilled,' she laughed.\n\n'He looks better in his photographs,' Klara murmured.\n\nThe girls were all in remarkably high spirits, had been all day, and under their _Gruppenf\u00fchrerin's_ orders (Adelheid, a blonde Amazon, an admirably competent eighteen-year-old) they now quickly formed themselves into a squad and started cheerfully on the long march back to the youth hostel, singing as they went. ('They sing _all_ the time,' Ursula wrote to Millie. 'It's all a little too _lustig_ for my liking. I feel like I'm in the chorus of a particularly jolly folk opera.')\n\nTheir repertoire was varied \u2013 folk songs, quaint love songs and rousing, rather savage, patriotic anthems about flags dipped in blood, as well as the obligatory sing-songs around the campfire. They especially liked _Schunkeln \u2013_ linking arms and swaying to songs. When Ursula was pushed into rendering a song she gave them 'Auld Lang Syne', perfect for _Schunkeln_.\n\nHilde and Hanne were Klara's younger sisters, keen members of the BDM, the Bund Deutscher M\u00e4del \u2013 the girls' equivalent of the Hitler-Jugend ( _'Ha Jot_ , we call them,' Hilde said, and she and Hanne fell about giggling at the idea of handsome boys in uniform).\n\nUrsula had heard of neither the Hitler-Jugend nor the BDM before arriving in the Brenner household but in the two weeks she had been living there she had heard little else from Hilde and Hanne. 'It's a healthy hobby,' their mother, Frau Brenner, said. 'It promotes peace and understanding between young people. No more wars. And it keeps them away from boys.' Klara, like Ursula a recent graduate \u2013 she had been an art student at the _Akademie \u2013_ was indifferent to her sisters' obsession but had offered to be a chaperone on their _Bergwanderung_ , their summer camping trip, hiking from one _Jugendherberge_ to the next in the Bavarian mountains. 'You'll come, won't you?' Klara said to Ursula. 'I'm sure we'll have fun and you'll see some of the countryside. And if you don't you'll be stuck in town with Mutti and Vati.'\n\n'I think it's like the Girl Guides,' Ursula wrote to Pamela.\n\n'Not quite,' Pamela wrote back.\n\nUrsula was not intending to spend long in Munich. Germany was no more than a detour in her life, part of her adventurous year in Europe. 'It will be my own grand tour,' she said to Millie, 'although I'm afraid it's a little second-rate, a \"not quite so grand tour\".' The plan was to take in Bologna rather than Rome or Florence, Munich not Berlin and Nancy instead of Paris (Nancy Shawcross much amused by this choice) \u2013 all cities where her tutors from university knew of good homes in which she could lodge. To keep herself she was to do a little teaching, although Hugh had arranged for a modest but regular money order to be sent to her. Hugh was relieved that she would be spending her time 'in the provinces', where 'people are, on the whole, better behaved'. ('He means duller,' Ursula said to Millie.) Hugh had completely vetoed Paris, he had a particular aversion to the city, and was hardly more keen on Nancy which was still uncompromisingly _French_. ('Because it's in France,' Ursula pointed out.) He had seen enough of the continent during the Great War, he said, he couldn't see what all the hullabaloo was about.\n\nUrsula had, despite Sylvie's reservations, studied for a degree in Modern Languages \u2013 French and German and a little Italian (very little). Recently graduated and failing to think of anything else, she had applied and been given a place on a teacher-training course. She had deferred for a year, saying that she wanted an opportunity to see a little of the world before 'settling down' to a lifetime at the blackboard. That was her rationale anyway, the one that she paraded for parental scrutiny, whereas her true hope was that something would happen in the course of her time abroad that would mean she need never take up the place. What that 'something' was she had no idea ('Love perhaps,' Millie said wistfully). Anything really that would mean she didn't end up as an embittered spinster in a girls' grammar school, spooling her way through the conjugation of foreign verbs, chalk dust falling from her clothes like dandruff. (She based this portrait on her own schoolmistresses.) It wasn't a profession that had garnered much enthusiasm in her immediate circle either.\n\n'You want to be a _teacher_?' Sylvie said.\n\n'Honestly, if her eyebrows had shot up any further they would have left the atmosphere,' Ursula said to Millie.\n\n'But do you really? Want to teach?' Millie said.\n\n'Why does every single person I know ask me that question in that same tone of voice?' Ursula said, rather piqued. 'Am I so clearly unsuited to the profession?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\nMillie herself had done a course at a drama academy in London and was now playing in rep in Windsor, in second-rate crowd pleasers and melodramas. 'Waiting to be discovered,' she said, striking a theatrical pose. Everyone seems to be waiting for something, Ursula thought. 'Best not to wait,' Izzie said. 'Best to _do_.' Easier for her to say.\n\nMillie and Ursula were sitting in the wicker chairs on the lawn at Fox Corner, hoping that the foxes would come and play on the grass. A vixen and her litter had been visiting the garden. Sylvie had been putting out scraps and the vixen was half tame now and would sit quite boldly in the middle of the lawn, like a dog waiting for its dinner, while her cubs \u2013 already rangy, long-legged things by June \u2013 squabbled and somersaulted around her.\n\n'What am I to do then?' Ursula said helplessly (hopelessly). Bridget appeared with a tray of tea and cake and placed it on a table between them. 'Learn shorthand and typing and work in the civil service? That sounds pretty dismal too. I mean what else is there for a woman to _do_ if she doesn't want to go from the parental to the marital home with nothing in between?'\n\n'An educated woman,' Millie amended.\n\n'An educated woman,' Ursula agreed.\n\nBridget muttered something incomprehensible and Ursula said, 'Thank you, Bridget.'\n\n( _'You_ have seen Europe,' she said, rather accusingly, to Sylvie. 'When you were younger.'\n\n'I was not on my own, I was in the company of my father,' Sylvie said. But surprisingly this argument seemed to have some effect and it was, in the end, Sylvie who championed the trip against Hugh's objections.)\n\nBefore she departed for Germany Izzie took her shopping for silk underwear and scarves, pretty lace-edged handkerchiefs, 'a really good pair of shoes', two hats and a new handbag. 'Don't tell your mother,' she said.\n\nIn Munich she was to lodge with the Brenner family \u2013 mother, father and three daughters (Klara, Hildegard and Hannelore) and a son, Helmut, who was away at school, in an apartment on the Elisabethstrasse. Hugh had already had an extensive correspondence with Herr Brenner to assess his suitability as a host. 'I'll be a terrible disappointment,' she said to Millie, 'Herr Brenner will be expecting the Second Coming, given the preparations that have been made.' Herr Brenner was himself a teacher at the Deutsche Akademie and had arranged for Ursula to give some classes to beginners in English and had also procured several introductions to people looking for private tuition. This he told her when he met her off the train. She felt rather downcast, she hadn't set her mind to the idea of work just yet and she was exhausted after a long and decidedly trying rail journey. The _Schnellzug_ from the Gare de l'Est in Paris had been anything but _schnell_ and she had shared the compartment with, among others, a man who alternated smoking a cigar with eating his way through an entire salami, both actions which made her feel rather discomfited. ('And all I saw of Paris was a station platform,' she wrote to Millie.)\n\nThe salami-eating man had followed her out into the corridor when she went in search of the Ladies. She thought he was going to the buffet car but then as she reached the lavatory compartment he attempted, to her alarm, to push in after her. He said something to her that she didn't understand, although its meaning seemed lewd (the cigar and the salami seemed strange preludes). ' _Lass mich in Ruhe_ ,' leave me in peace, she said stoutly but he continued to push her and she continued to push back. She suspected their struggle, polite as opposed to violent, might have looked quite comical to an observer. Ursula wished there was someone in the corridor that she could appeal to. She couldn't imagine what the man would do to her if he succeeded in confining her in the tiny lavatory compartment. (Afterwards she wondered why she hadn't simply screamed. What a dunce she was.)\n\nShe was 'saved' by a pair of officers, smart in their black uniforms and silver insignia, who materialized out of nowhere and took a firm hold of the man. They gave him a stern talking-to, although she couldn't recognize half the vocabulary, and then very gallantly they found her a different carriage, one where there were only women, which she hadn't known about. When the officers had gone her fellow female travellers couldn't stop talking about how handsome the SS officers were. (' _Schutzstaffel_ ,' one of the women murmured admiringly. 'Not like those louts in brown.')\n\nThe train was late pulling into the station in Munich. There had been some kind of incident, Herr Brenner said, a man had fallen from the train.\n\n'How awful,' Ursula said.\n\nDespite it being summer, it was chilly and raining heavily. The gloomy atmosphere didn't lift with her arrival at the Brenners' enormous apartment, where no lamps were lit against the evening and where the rain was beating against the lace-curtained windows as if it was determined to break in.\n\nBetween them, Ursula and Herr Brenner had lugged her heavy trunk up the stairs, a somewhat farcical procedure. Surely there was someone who could help them, Ursula thought irritably? Hugh would have employed 'a man' \u2013 or two \u2013 and not expected her to manage it herself. She thought of the SS officers on the train, how efficiently and courteously they would have dealt with the trunk.\n\nThe female Brenners of the house proved to be absent. 'Oh, not back yet,' Herr Brenner said, unconcerned. 'They went shopping, I think.' The apartment was full of heavy furniture and shabby rugs and leafy plants that gave the impression of a jungle. She shivered, it seemed inhospitably cold for the time of year.\n\nThey manoeuvred the trunk into the room that was to be hers. 'This used to be my mother's room,' Herr Brenner said. 'This is her furniture. Sadly, she died last year.' The way that he gazed at the bed \u2013 a large, Gothic affair that looked as if it were built specifically to induce nightmares in its occupant \u2013 clearly hinted that Frau Brenner senior's demise had taken place within its downy coverlets. The bed seemed to dominate the room and Ursula felt suddenly nervous. Her experience on the train with the salami-eating man was still embarrassingly vivid and now here she was again alone in a foreign country with a complete stranger. Bridget's lurid tales of the white slave trade came to mind.\n\nTo her relief, they both heard the front door open and a great commotion taking place in the hallway. 'Ah,' Herr Brenner said, beaming with delight, 'they're back!'\n\nThe girls spilled and tumbled into the apartment, all wet from the rain, laughing and carrying parcels. 'Look who's arrived,' Herr Brenner said, inducing much excitement in the youngest two girls. (Hilde and Hanne would prove to be the most excitable girls Ursula had ever encountered.)\n\n'You're here!' Klara said, clasping both her hands in her own cold, damp ones, ' _Herzlich willkommen in Deutschland_.'\n\nWhile the younger girls chattered nineteen to the dozen Klara moved quickly round the apartment turning on lamps and the place was suddenly transformed \u2013 the rugs were worn but they were figured richly, the old furniture gleamed with polish, the cold jungle of plants turned into a pretty, ferny bower. Herr Brenner lit a big porcelain _Kachelofen_ in the living room ('like having a big warm animal in the room', she wrote to Pamela) and assured her that tomorrow the weather would be back to normal, warm and sunny.\n\nA table was quickly laid with an embroidered cloth and supper produced \u2013 a platter of cheese, salami, sliced sausage, salad and a dark bread that smelt of Mrs Glover's seed cake as well as a delicious kind of fruit soup that confirmed that she was in a foreign country. ('Cold fruit soup!' she wrote to Pamela. 'What would Mrs Glover have to say about that!')\n\nEven Herr Brenner's dead mother's room was more accommodating now. The bed was soft and inviting, the sheets edged with handworked crochet and the bedside lamp had a pretty pink glass shade that cast a warm glow. Someone \u2013 Klara, Ursula suspected \u2013 had placed a posy of marguerites in a little vase on the dressing table. Ursula was dropping with fatigue by the time she clambered into the bed (it was so high it required a small footstool) and fell gratefully into a deep, dreamless sleep, untroubled by the ghost of the previous occupant.\n\n'But of course you're going to have some holiday time,' Frau Brenner said next morning at breakfast (a meal that was oddly similar to supper the night before). Klara was 'at a bit of a loose end'. She had finished her art course and didn't know what to do next. She was chafing at the bit to leave home and 'be an artist' but 'not much money in Germany to spare for art', she grumbled. Klara kept some of her work in her room, big, harsh abstract canvases that seemed at odds with her kind and temperate nature. Ursula couldn't imagine she would make a living from them. 'Perhaps I shall have to teach,' she said miserably.\n\n'Fate worse than death,' Ursula agreed.\n\nKlara occasionally did some framing for a photography studio in Schellingstrasse. The daughter of one of Frau Brenner's acquaintances worked there and had put in a word for her. Klara and the daughter \u2013 Eva \u2013 had been in kindergarten together. 'But framing, it's hardly art, is it?' Klara said. The photographer \u2013 Hoffmann \u2013 was the 'personal photographer' of the new Chancellor, 'so I am intimately acquainted with his features', she said.\n\nThe Brenners didn't have much money either (Ursula supposed that was why they were renting her a room) and everyone Klara knew was poor, but then in 1933 everyone everywhere was poor.\n\nDespite the lack of funds Klara was determined that they should make the most of the remainder of the summer. They went to the Carlton Teehaus or Caf\u00e9 Heck by the Hofgarten and ate _Pfannkuchen_ and drank _Schokolade_ until they felt sick. They walked for hours in the Englischer Garten and then ate ice-cream or drank beer, their faces pink with the sun. They also spent time boating or swimming with friends of Helmut, Klara's brother \u2013 a revolving carousel of Walters, Werners, Kurts, Heinzes and Gerhards. Helmut himself was in Potsdam, a cadet, a _Jungmann_ at a new kind of military school that the F\u00fchrer had founded. 'He's very keen on the Party,' Klara said, in English. Her English was quite good and she was enjoying practising with Ursula.\n\n'On parties,' Ursula corrected her. 'We would say \"he's very keen on parties\".' Klara laughed and shook her head, 'No, no, _the_ Party, the Nazis. Don't you know that since last month it's the only one that we're allowed?'\n\n'When Hitler came to power,' Pamela wrote didactically to her, 'he passed the Enabling Act, in Germany it's called _Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich_ which translates as something like the \"Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich\". That's a fancy title for the overthrow of democracy.'\n\nUrsula wrote blithely back, 'But democracy will right itself as it always does. This too shall pass.'\n\n'Not without help,' Pamela replied.\n\nPamela was a grouch about Germany and was easy to ignore when you could spend long hot afternoons sunbathing with Walters, Werners, Kurts, Heinzes and Gerhards, lolling lazily by the municipal swimming pool or the river. Ursula was taken aback at how these boys were near enough naked with their short shorts and disconcertingly small swimming trunks. Germans generally, she discovered, were not averse to stripping off in front of others.\n\nKlara also knew a different, more cerebral set \u2013 her friends from art school. They tended to prefer the dark, the smoky interiors of caf\u00e9s or their own scruffy apartments. They drank and smoked a great deal and spoke a lot about art and politics. ('So by and large,' she wrote to Millie, 'between these two groups of people I am getting an all-round education!') Klara's art-school friends were a ragged, dissident bunch who all seemed to dislike Munich, which was a seat of 'petit-bourgeois provincialism' apparently, and talked all the time about moving to Berlin. They talked a lot about doing things, she noticed, but actually did very little.\n\nKlara was in the grip of a different kind of inertia. Her life had 'stalled', she was secretly in love with one of her professors from art school, a sculptor, but he was away in the Black Forest on a family holiday. (Reluctantly, she admitted that the 'family' was actually his wife and two children.) She was waiting for her life to resolve itself, she said. More prevarication, Ursula thought. Although she was hardly one to talk.\n\nUrsula was still a virgin, of course, 'intact' as Sylvie would have it. Not for any moral reason, simply because she hadn't yet met anyone that she liked enough. 'You don't have to _like_ them,' Klara laughed.\n\n'Yes, but I want to.' She seemed instead to be a magnet for unsavoury types \u2013 the man on the train, the man in the lane \u2013 and worried that they could read something in her that she couldn't read herself. She felt rather stiff and English compared to Klara and her artist friends or the absent Helmut's confr\u00e8res (who were actually terrifically well behaved).\n\nHanne and Hilde had persuaded Klara and Ursula to accompany them to an event in the local sports stadium. Ursula was under the misapprehension that it was a concert but it turned out to be a rally of Hitler-Jugend. Despite Frau Brenner's optimism, the BDM had done nothing to counter Hilde and Hanne's interest in boys.\n\nTo Ursula, these ranks of hearty, healthy boys all looked the same but Hilde and Hanne spent a lot of time animatedly pointing out Helmut's friends, those same Walters, Werners, Kurts, Heinzes and Gerhards who loafed by the swimming pool in next to nothing. Now, squeezed into their immaculate uniforms (more short shorts), they looked like very fierce and upstanding Boy Scouts.\n\nThere was a lot of marching and singing to a brass band and several speakers who attempted the same declamatory style as the F\u00fchrer (and failed) and then everyone leapt to their feet and sang ' _Deutschland \u00fcber alles_ '. As Ursula didn't know the words she quietly sang 'Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken' to Haydn's lovely tune, a hymn they had often sung in school assembly. When the singing finished everyone shouted ' _Sieg Heil!_ ' and saluted and Ursula was almost surprised to find herself joining in. Klara was convulsed with laughter at the sight but nonetheless Ursula noticed she had her arm raised too. 'I should think so too,' she said, nonchalantly. 'I don't want to be set upon on the way home.'\n\nNo, thank you, Ursula didn't want to stay home with Vati and Mutti Brenner in hot, dusty Munich so Klara rummaged through her wardrobe and found a navy skirt and white blouse that suited requirements and the group leader, Adelheid, provided a spare khaki battledress jacket. A three-cornered scarf drawn through a braided leather Turk's-head knot completed the outfit. Ursula thought she looked rather dashing. She found herself regretting never having been a Girl Guide, although she supposed it was about more than just the uniform.\n\nThe upper age limit for the BDM was eighteen so neither Ursula nor Klara was qualified to join, they were 'old ladies', _alte Damen_ , according to Hanne. Ursula didn't think that the troop really needed to be escorted by them as Adelheid was as efficient as a sheepdog with her girls. With her statuesque figure and Nordic blonde plaits she could have passed for a youthful Freyja visiting from F\u00f3lkvangr. She was perfect propaganda. At eighteen she would soon be too old for the BDM, what would she do then?\n\n'Why, I will join the National Socialist Women's League, of course,' she said. She already wore a small silver swastika pinned to her shapely bosom, the runic symbol of belonging.\n\nThey took a train, their rucksacks stowed on the luggage racks, and by evening they had arrived in a small Alpine village, near to the Austrian border. From the station they marched in formation (singing, naturally) to their _Jugendherberge_. People stopped to watch them and some clapped appreciatively.\n\nThe dormitory they were allotted was full of two-tier bunks, most of which were already occupied by other girls and they had to squeeze themselves in, sardine fashion. Klara and Ursula elected to share a mattress on the floor.\n\nThey were given supper in the dining room, seated at long trestle tables, served with what turned out to be the standard fare of soup and _Kn\u00e4ckebrot_ with cheese. In the morning they breakfasted on dark bread, cheese and jam and tea or coffee. The clean mountain air made them ravenous and they wolfed down everything in sight.\n\nThe village and its surroundings were idyllic, there was even a small castle that they were allowed to visit. It was cold and dank, full of suits of armour and flags and heraldic shields. It seemed like a very uncomfortable place to live.\n\nThey took long walks around the lake or in the forest and then they hitched lifts back to the youth hostel on farm lorries and hay-carts. One day they hiked all the way along the river to a magnificent waterfall. Klara had brought her sketch-pad with her and her quick, lively little charcoal drawings were much more appealing than her paintings. 'Ach,' she said, 'they're _gem\u00fctlich_. Cosy little sketches. My friends would laugh.' The village itself was a sleepy little place where the houses had windows full of geraniums. There was an inn on the river where they drank beer and ate veal and noodles until they thought they would burst. Ursula never mentioned the beer to Sylvie in her letters, she wouldn't have understood how commonplace it was here. And even if she had, she wouldn't have approved.\n\nThey were to move on the next day, they would be living 'under canvas' for a few days, a big encampment of girls, and Ursula felt sorry to be leaving the village.\n\nA fair was taking place on their last night there, a combination of an agricultural show and a harvest festival, a lot of it incomprehensible to Ursula. ('To me too,' Klara said. 'I'm a city girl, remember.') The women all wore local costume and variously garlanded farm animals were paraded around a field and then awarded prizes. Flags, again with swastikas, decorated the field. There was plenty of beer and a brass band played. A big wooden platform had been set up in the middle of the field and, accompanied by an accordion, some boys in _Lederhosen_ gave a demonstration of _Schuhplattler_ , clapping and stamping and slapping their thighs and heels in time to the music.\n\nKlara scoffed at them but Ursula considered it rather clever. Ursula thought that she would quite like to live in an Alpine village ('Like Heidi,' she wrote to Pamela. She wrote less to Pamela as her sister was so aggravated by the new Germany. Pamela, even at a distance, was the voice of her conscience, but then it was very easy to have a conscience from a distance).\n\nThe accordionist took his place in a band and people began to dance. Ursula was led on to the platform by a succession of terrifically shy farm boys who had an odd clodhopping way of moving around the dance floor which she recognized as the rather awkward \u00be time of the _Schuhplattler_. Between the beer and the dancing she began to feel quite light-headed so that she was confused when Klara appeared, dragging by the hand a very handsome man who was clearly not local, saying, 'Look who I found!'\n\n'Who?' Ursula asked.\n\n'None other than our cousin's half-cousin's cousin once removed,' Klara said gaily. 'Or something to that effect. May I present J\u00fcrgen Fuchs.'\n\n'Just a half-cousin,' he said, smiling.\n\n'Delighted to meet you I'm sure,' she said. He clicked his heels and kissed her hand, she was reminded of Prince Charming in _Cinderella_. 'It's the Prussian in me,' he said and laughed, as did the Brenners. 'We have no Prussian blood at all,' Klara said.\n\nHe had a lovely smile, amused and thoughtful at the same time, and extraordinarily blue eyes. He was undoubtedly handsome, rather like Benjamin Cole, except Benjamin was his dark polar opposite, the negative to J\u00fcrgen Fuchs's positive.\n\nA Todd and a Fuchs \u2013 a pair of foxes. Had fate intervened in her life? Dr Kellet might have appreciated the coincidence.\n\n'He is so handsome,' she wrote to Millie after that encounter. All those awful words used in trashy romances come to mind \u2013 _heart-stopping,breathtaking_. She had read enough of Bridget's novels on idle wet afternoons to know.\n\n'Love at first sight,' she wrote giddily to Millie. But of course such feelings weren't 'true' love (that was what she would feel for a child one day), merely the false grandeur of madness. ' _Folie \u00e0 deux_ ,' Millie wrote back. 'How delicious.'\n\n'Good for you,' Pamela wrote.\n\n'Marriage is based on a more enduring kind of love,' Sylvie cautioned.\n\n'I am thinking of you, little bear,' Hugh wrote, 'so far away from here.'\n\nWhen darkness fell there was a torchlit procession through the village and then fireworks from the battlements of the small castle. It was rather thrilling.\n\n' _Wundersch\u00f6n, nicht wahr?_ ' Adelheid said, her face radiant in the light of the torches.\n\nYes, Ursula agreed, it's lovely.\n\n# _August 1939_\n\n_Der Zauberberg_. The magic mountain.\n\n' _Aaw. Sie ist so niedlich.' Click, click, click_. Eva loved her Rolleiflex. Eva loved Frieda. She is so _cute_ , she said. They were on the enormous terrace of the Berghof, bright with Alpine sun, waiting for lunch to be brought out. It was much nicer to eat out here, _al fresco_ , rather than in the big, gloomy dining room, its massive window full of nothing but mountains. Dictators loved everything to be on a grand scale, even their scenery. _Bitte l\u00e4cheln!_ Big smile. Frieda obliged. She was an obliging child.\n\nEva had persuaded Frieda out of her serviceable English hand-smocked dress (Bourne and Hollingsworth, purchased by Sylvie and sent for Frieda's birthday) and had arrayed her instead in Bavarian costume \u2013 dirndl, apron, knee-length white socks. To Ursula's English eyes (more English every day, she felt) the outfit still looked as though it belonged in a dressing-up box, or perhaps a school play. Once, at her own school (how long ago and far away that seemed now), they had put on a performance of _The Pied Piper of Hamelin_ and Ursula had played a village girl, clad in much the same get-up that Frieda was now attired in.\n\nMillie had been King Rat, a bravura performance, and Sylvie said, 'Those Shawcross girls thrive on attention, don't they?' There was something of Millie in Eva \u2013 a restless, empty gaiety that needed continual feeding. But then Eva was an actress too, playing the greatest part of her life. In fact her life _was_ her part, there was no difference.\n\nFrieda, lovely little Frieda, just five years old, with her blue eyes and stubby blonde plaits. Frieda's complexion, so pale and wan when she had first arrived, now pink and gold from all the Alpine sunshine. When the F\u00fchrer saw Frieda, Ursula caught the zealot gleam in his own blue eyes, as cold as the K\u00f6nigsee down below, and knew he was seeing the future of the _Tausendj\u00e4hriges Reich_ rolling out in front of him, _M\u00e4dchen_ after _M\u00e4dchen_. ('She doesn't take after you, does she?' Eva said, without malice, she had no malice.)\n\nWhen she was a child \u2013 a period in her life that Ursula seemed to find herself returning to almost compulsively these days \u2013 she had read fairy tales of wronged princesses who saved themselves from lustful fathers and jealous stepmothers by smearing their fair faces with walnut juice and rubbing ashes in their hair to disguise themselves \u2013 as the gypsy, the outsider, the shunned. Ursula wondered how one obtained walnut juice, it didn't seem the kind of thing you could just walk into a shop and buy. And it was no longer safe to be the nut-brown outsider, much better if one wanted to survive to be here, on Obersalzberg \u2013 _Der Zauberberg \u2013_ in the kingdom of make-believe, 'the Berg', as they called it with the intimacy of the elect.\n\nWhat on earth was she doing here, Ursula wondered, and when could she leave? Frieda was well enough now, her convalescence drawing to a close. Ursula determined to say something to Eva today. After all, they weren't prisoners, they could leave any time they chose.\n\nEva lit a cigarette. The F\u00fchrer was away and the mouse was being naughty. He didn't like her to smoke or drink, or wear make-up. Ursula rather admired Eva's small acts of defiance. The F\u00fchrer had come and gone twice since Ursula first arrived at the Berghof with Frieda two weeks ago, his arrivals and departures moments of heightened drama for Eva, for everyone. The Reich, Ursula had concluded a long time ago, was all pantomime and spectacle, ' _A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury_ ,' she wrote to Pamela. 'But unfortunately _not_ signifying nothing.'\n\nFrieda, on a prompt from Eva, did a twirl and laughed. She was the molten core at the centre of Ursula's heart, she was the better part of everything she did or thought. Ursula would be willing to walk on knives for the rest of her life if it would protect Frieda. Burn in the flames of hell to save her. Drown in the deepest of waters if it would buoy her up. (She had explored many extreme scenarios. Best to be prepared.) She had had no idea (Sylvie gave little indication) that maternal love could be so gut-achingly, _painfully_ physical.\n\n'Oh, yes,' Pamela said, as if it were the most casual thing in the world, 'it turns you into a regular she-wolf.' Ursula didn't think of herself as a she-wolf, she was, after all, a bear.\n\nThere were real she-wolves prowling everywhere on the Berg \u2013 Magda, Emmy, Margarete, Gerda \u2013 the brood-wives of the senior party officials, all jostling for a little power of their own, producing endless babies from their fecund loins, for the Reich, for the F\u00fchrer. These she-wolves were dangerous, predatory animals and they hated Eva, the 'silly cow' \u2013 _die bl\u00f6de Kuh \u2013_ who somehow or other had managed to trump them all.\n\nThey, surely, would have given anything to be the mate of the glorious leader rather than insignificant Eva. Wasn't a man of his stature worthy of a Br\u00fcnnhilde \u2013 or at the very least a Magda or a Leni? Or perhaps the Valkyrie herself, 'the Mitford woman', _das Fr\u00e4ulein Mitford_ , as Eva referred to her. The F\u00fchrer admired England, especially aristocratic, imperial England, although Ursula doubted that his admiration would stop him from trying to destroy it if the time came.\n\nEva disliked all the Valkyries who might be a rival for the F\u00fchrer's attentions, her strongest emotions conceived in fear. Her greatest antipathy was reserved for Bormann, the _\u00e9minence grise_ of the Berg. It was he who held the purse strings, he who shopped for Eva's gifts from the F\u00fchrer and who doled out the money for all those fur coats and Ferragamo shoes, reminding her in many subtle ways that she was merely a courtesan. Ursula wondered where the fur coats came from, most of the furriers she had seen in Berlin were Jewish.\n\nHow it must stick in the collective craw of the she-wolves that the F\u00fchrer's consort was a shop girl. When she first met him, Eva told Ursula, when she was working in Hoffmann's _Photohaus_ , she had addressed him as Herr Wolf. 'Adolf means noble wolf in German,' she said. How he must like that, Ursula thought. She had never heard anyone call him Adolf. (Did Eva call him _mein F\u00fchrer_ even in bed? It seemed perfectly possible.) 'And do you know that his favourite song,' Eva laughed, 'is \"Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?\" '\n\n'From the Disney film _Three Little Pigs_?' Ursula said, incredulous.\n\n'Yes!'\n\nOh, thought Ursula, I cannot wait to tell _that_ to Pamela.\n\n'And now one with _Mutti_ ,' Eva said. 'Hold her in your arms. _Sehr sch\u00f6n_. Smile!' Ursula had watched Eva gleefully stalking the F\u00fchrer with her camera, hunting down a photograph of him where he hadn't turned away from the lens or pulled the brim of his hat down comically low, like a spy in poor disguise. He disliked having his photograph taken by her, preferring flattering studio lighting or a more heroic pose than the snaps Eva liked of him. Eva, on the other hand, loved being photographed. She didn't just want to be in photographs, she wanted to be in a film. 'Ein movie.' She was going to go to Hollywood ('one day') and play herself, 'the story of my life', she said. (The camera made everything real somehow for Eva.) The F\u00fchrer had promised, apparently. Of course, the F\u00fchrer promised a lot of things. It was what had got him where he was today.\n\nEva refocused the Rolleiflex. Ursula was glad she hadn't brought her old Kodak, it would hardly have stood up to comparison. 'I'll have copies made for you,' Eva said. 'You can send them to England, to your parents. It looks very pretty with the mountains in the background. Now give me a big smile. _Jetzt lach doch mal richtig!_ '\n\nThe mountain panorama was the backdrop to every photo taken here, the backdrop to everything. At first Ursula had thought it beautiful, now she was beginning to find its magnificence oppressive. The great icy crags and the rushing waterfalls, the endless pine trees \u2013 nature and myth fused to form the Germanic sublimated soul. German Romanticism, it seemed to Ursula, was writ large and mystical, the English Lakes seemed tame by comparison. And the English soul, if it resided anywhere, was surely in some unheroic back garden \u2013 a patch of lawn, a bed of roses, a row of runner beans.\n\nShe should go home. Not to Berlin, to Savignyplatz, but to England. To Fox Corner.\n\nEva perched Frieda on the parapet and Ursula promptly removed her. 'She has no head for heights,' she said. Eva was forever lolling precariously on this same parapet, or parading dogs or small children along it. The drop below was dizzying, all the way down past Berchtesgaden to the K\u00f6nigsee. Ursula felt rather sorry for little Berchtesgaden with its innocent window boxes of cheerful geraniums, its meadows sloping down to the lake. It seemed a long time since she was here in '33 with Klara. Klara's professor had divorced his wife and Klara was now married to him and they had two children.\n\n'The _Nibelungen_ live up there,' Eva told Frieda, pointing at the peaks all around them, 'and demons and witches and evil dogs.'\n\n'Evil dogs?' Frieda echoed uncertainly. She had already been scared by the irksome Negus and Stasi, Eva's annoying Scotties, without needing to hear about dwarves and demons.\n\nAnd _I_ have heard, Ursula thought, that it was Charlemagne who hid out in the Untersberg, sleeping in a cave, waiting to be woken for the final battle between good and evil. She wondered when that would be. Soon perhaps.\n\n'And one more,' Eva said. 'Big smile!' The Rolleiflex glinted relentlessly in the sun. Eva owned a cine camera too, an expensive gift from her own Mr Wolf, and Ursula supposed she should be glad that they weren't being recorded for posterity in moving colour. Ursula imagined in a future time someone leafing through Eva's (many) albums and wondering who Ursula was, mistaking her perhaps for Eva's sister Gretl or her friend Herta, footnotes to history.\n\nOne day, of course, all this would be consigned to that same history, even the mountains \u2013 sand, after all, was the future of rocks. Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance. The F\u00fchrer was different, he was consciously _making_ history for the future. Only a true narcissist could do that. And Speer was designing buildings for Berlin so that they would look good when they were in ruins a thousand years from now, his gift to the F\u00fchrer. (To think on such a scale! Ursula lived hour by hour, another consequence of motherhood, the future as much a mystery as the past.)\n\nSpeer was the only one who was nice to Eva and therefore Ursula afforded him a latitude in her opinion that perhaps he didn't deserve. He was also the only one of these would-be Teutonic knights who had good looks, who wasn't gimpy or toad-squat or a corpulent pig, or \u2013 worse somehow \u2013 resembled a low-level bureaucrat. ('And they are all in uniform!' she wrote to Pammy. 'But it's all pretend. It's like living in the pages of _The Prisoner of Zenda_. They're awfully good at hogwash.' How she wished Pammy was here by her side, how she would have enjoyed dissecting the characters of the F\u00fchrer and his henchmen. She would conclude that they were all charlatans, spouting cant.)\n\nIn private, J\u00fcrgen claimed to find them all 'tremendously' flawed and yet in public he behaved like any good servant of the Reich. _Lippenbekenntnis_ , he said. Lip service. (Needs must, Sylvie would have said.) This was how you got on in the world, he said. Ursula supposed in this respect he was rather like Maurice, who said you had to work with fools and donkeys to advance your career. Maurice was also a lawyer, of course. He was quite senior in the Home Office these days. If they went to war would this be a problem? Would the armour of German citizenship \u2013 donned so reluctantly \u2013 be enough to protect her? (If they went to war! Could she really countenance being on this side of the Channel?)\n\nJ\u00fcrgen was a lawyer. If he wanted to practise law he had to join the Party, he had no choice. _Lippenbekenntnis_. He worked for the Ministry of Justice in Berlin. At the time he proposed to her ('a bit of a whirlwind courtship', she wrote to Sylvie) he had barely ceased being a communist.\n\nNow J\u00fcrgen had abandoned his Leftist politics and was staunch in his defence of what had been achieved \u2013 the country was working again \u2013 full employment, food, health, self-respect. New jobs, new roads, new factories, new hope \u2013 how else could they achieve this, he said? But it came with an ecstatic faux-religion and a wrathful false messiah. 'Everything comes with a price,' J\u00fcrgen said. Perhaps not as high as this one. (How _had_ they done it, Ursula often wondered. Fear and stagecraft mostly. But where _had_ all the money and jobs come from? Perhaps just from manufacturing flags and uniforms, enough of those around to rescue most economies. 'The economy is recovering anyway,' Pamela wrote, 'it's a happy coincidence for the Nazis that they can claim this recovery.') Yes, he said, there was violence to begin with, but it was a spasm, a wave, the Sturmabteilung letting off steam. Everything, everybody, was more rational now.\n\nIn April they had attended the parade for the F\u00fchrer's fiftieth birthday in Berlin. J\u00fcrgen had been allotted seats, in the guests' grandstand. 'An honour, I suppose,' he said. What had he done, she wondered, to deserve the 'honour'? (Did he seem happy about it? It was hard to tell sometimes.) He hadn't been able to get them tickets for the Olympics in '36 yet here they were now, rubbing shoulders with the VIPs of the Reich. He was always busy these days. 'Lawyers never sleep,' he said. (Yet as far as Ursula could see they were prepared to sleep throughout the Thousand Years.)\n\nThe parade had gone on for ever, the greatest expression yet of Goebbels's showmanship. A great deal of martial music and then the overture provided by the Luftwaffe \u2013 an impressive, noisy fly-past along the East\u2013West Axis and over the Brandenburg Gate by squadrons of aircraft in formation, wave after wave. More sound and fury. 'Heinkels and Messerschmitts,' J\u00fcrgen said. How did he know? All boys know their planes, he said.\n\nThere followed the march-past of the regiments, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of soldiers goose-stepping along the road. They reminded Ursula of high-kicking Tiller girls. ' _Stechschritt_ ,' Ursula said, 'who on earth invented that?'\n\n'The Prussians,' J\u00fcrgen laughed, 'of course.'\n\nShe took out a bar of chocolate and broke off a piece and offered it to J\u00fcrgen. He frowned and shook his head as though she had showed a lack of respect to the assembled military might. She ate another piece. Small acts of defiance.\n\nHe leaned in close so she could hear him \u2013 the crowd were making an abominable racket \u2013 'You really have to admire their precision, if nothing else,' he said. She did, she did admire it. It _was_ extraordinary. Robotic in its perfection as if each member of each regiment was identical to the next, as if they had been produced on a factory line. It wasn't quite _human_ , but then it wasn't the job of armies to look human, was it? ('It was all so very _masculine_ ,' she reported to Pamela.) Would the British army be capable of achieving such mechanical drilling on this scale? The Soviets perhaps, but the British were less _committed_ somehow.\n\nFrieda, on her knee, was already asleep and it had hardly begun yet. All the while Hitler took the salute, his arm stiff in front of him the whole time (she could catch a glimpse of him from where they were sitting, just the arm, like a poker). Power obviously provided a peculiar kind of stamina. If it was my fiftieth birthday, Ursula thought, I would like to spend it on the banks of the Thames, Bray or Henley or thereabouts, with a picnic, a very English picnic \u2013 a Thermos of tea, sausage rolls, egg and cress sandwiches, cake and scones. Her family was all there in this picture, but was J\u00fcrgen part of the idyll? He would fit in well enough, lounging on the grass in boating flannels, talking cricket with Hugh. They had met and got on well. They had gone to England, to Fox Corner, in '35 for a visit. 'He seems like a nice chap,' Hugh said, although when he learned that she had taken German citizenship he wasn't so keen. It had been an awful mistake, she knew that now. 'Hindsight's a wonderful thing,' Klara said. 'If we all had it there would be no history to write about.'\n\nShe should have stayed in England. She should have stayed at Fox Corner, with the meadow and the copse and the stream that ran through the bluebell wood.\n\nThe machinery of war started to roll past. 'Here come the tanks,' J\u00fcrgen said in English, as the first of the _Panzer_ appeared, carried on the back of lorries. His English was good, he had spent a year at Oxford (hence his knowledge of cricket). Then came the _Panzer_ under their own steam, motorbikes with sidecars, armoured cars, the cavalry trotting smartly along (a particular crowd pleaser \u2013 Ursula woke Frieda up for the horses), and then the artillery, from light field guns to massive anti-aircraft guns and huge cannons.\n\n'K-3s,' J\u00fcrgen said appreciatively, as if that would mean something to her.\n\nThe parade showed a love of order and geometry that was incomprehensible to Ursula. In this, it was no different from all the other parades and rallies \u2013 all that theatre \u2013 but this one seemed so bellicose. So much weaponry was staggering \u2013 the country was armed to the teeth! Ursula had had no idea. No wonder there were jobs for everyone. 'If you want to rescue the economy you need a war, Maurice says,' Pamela wrote. And what did you need weaponry for if not war?\n\n'Refitting the military has helped to rescue our psyche,' J\u00fcrgen said, 'given us back our pride in our country. When in 1918 the generals surrendered...' Ursula stopped listening, it was an argument she had heard too many times. 'They started the last war,' she wrote crossly to Pamela. 'And honestly, you would think they were the only ones who struggled afterwards, and that no other people were poor or hungry or bereaved.' Frieda woke up again and was cranky. She fed her chocolate. Ursula was cranky too. Between them they finished the bar.\n\nThe finale was actually rather moving. The massed colours of the regiments formed a long file several ranks deep in front of Hitler's podium \u2013 a formation so precise its edges might have been cut with a razor \u2013 and then they dipped their colours to the ground in honour of him. The crowd went wild.\n\n'What did you think?' J\u00fcrgen asked as they shuffled out of the grandstand. He carried Frieda on his shoulders.\n\n'Magnificent,' Ursula said. 'It was magnificent.' She could feel the beginnings of a headache worming its way into her temple.\n\nFrieda's illness had begun one morning several weeks ago with a raised temperature. 'I feel sick,' Frieda said. When Ursula felt her forehead it was clammy and she said, 'You don't have to go to kindergarten, you can stay home with me today.'\n\n'A summer cold,' J\u00fcrgen said, when he came home. She was always a chesty child ('Takes after my mother,' Sylvie said gloomily) and they were accustomed to sniffling colds and sore throats but the cold got worse very quickly and Frieda turned feverish and listless. Her skin felt as though it were ready to catch fire. 'Keep her cool,' the doctor said and Ursula laid cold wet cloths on her forehead and read her stories but Frieda, try as she did, could summon no interest in them. Then she grew delirious and the doctor listened to her rattling lungs and said, 'Bronchitis, you have to wait for it to pass.'\n\nLate that night Frieda grew suddenly, horribly worse and they wrapped the almost inanimate little body in a blanket and rushed in a taxi to the nearest hospital, a Catholic one. Pneumonia was diagnosed. 'She's a very sick little girl,' the doctor said, as if somehow they were to blame.\n\nUrsula didn't leave Frieda's bedside for two days and nights, holding on to the little hand to keep her in this world. 'If only I could have it for her,' J\u00fcrgen whispered across the starchy white sheets that were also helping to pin Frieda to this world. Nuns floated around the ward like galleons in their enormous, complicated wimples. How long, Ursula wondered in an absent moment when all her attention wasn't focused on Frieda, did it take them to put these contraptions on in the morning? Ursula was sure she would never have managed without making a mess of it. The headdress alone seemed a good enough reason not to be a nun.\n\nThey willed Frieda to live and she did. _Triumph des Willens_. The crisis passed and she started the long road to recovery. Pale and weak, she was going to need to convalesce and one evening when Ursula returned home from the hospital she found an envelope, hand-delivered to their door.\n\n'From Eva,' she said to J\u00fcrgen, showing him the letter when he returned from work.\n\n'Who's Eva?' he asked.\n\n'Smile!' _Click, click, click_. Anything to help keep Eva amused, she supposed. She didn't mind. Eva had been very kind to invite them so that Frieda could breathe good mountain air and eat the fresh vegetables and eggs and milk from the Gutshof, the model farm on the slopes beneath the Berghof.\n\n'Is it a royal command?' J\u00fcrgen asked. 'Can you say no? Do you want to say no? I hope not. And it will do your headaches good too.' She'd noticed recently that the more he rose through the echelons in the ministry, the more one-sided their conversations had become. He made statements, raised questions, answered the questions and drew conclusions without ever needing to involve her in the exchange. (A lawyer's way perhaps.) He didn't even seem to be aware that he was doing it.\n\n'The old goat has a woman after all then, does he? Who would have guessed? Did you know? No, you would have said. And to think you know her. It can only be good for us, can't it? To be so close to the throne. For my career, which is the same thing as us. _Liebling_ ,' he added, rather perfunctorily.\n\nUrsula thought that being close to a throne was a rather dangerous place to be. 'I don't know Eva,' Ursula said. 'I've never met her. It's Frau Brenner who knows her, knows her mother, Frau Braun. Klara used to work at Hoffmann's sometimes, with Eva. They were at kindergarten together.'\n\n'Impressive,' J\u00fcrgen said, 'from _Kaffeeklatsch_ to the seat of power in three easy moves. Does Fr\u00e4ulein Eva Braun know her old kindergarten pal, Klara, is married to a Jew?' It was the way he said the word that surprised her. _Jude_. She'd never heard him say it that way before \u2013 sneering and dismissive. It drove a nail into her heart. 'I have no idea,' she said. 'I am not part of the _Kaffeeklatsch_ , as you call it.'\n\nThe F\u00fchrer took up so much room in Eva's life that when he wasn't here she was an empty vessel. Eva kept nightly telephone vigils when her lover was absent and was like a dog, one ear fretfully cocked every evening for the call that brought her master's voice to her.\n\nAnd there was so little to _do_ up here. After a while all the tramping along forest paths and swimming in the (freezing cold) K\u00f6nigsee became enervating rather than invigorating. There were only so many wildflowers you could pick, only so much sunbathing on the loungers on the terrace before you went slightly mad. There were battalions of nursemaids and nannies on the Berg, all eager to be with Frieda, and Ursula found herself with much of the same empty time on her hands as Eva. She had, stupidly, packed only one book, at least it was a long one, Mann's _Der Zauberberg_. She hadn't realized it was on the banned list. A Wehrmacht officer saw her reading it and said, 'You're very bold, that's one of their forbidden books, you know.' She supposed the way he said 'their' implied he wasn't one of 'them'. What was the worst they could do? Take the book off her and put it in the kitchen stove?\n\nHe was nice, the Wehrmacht officer. His grandmother was Scottish, he said, and he had spent many happy holidays in 'the Highlands'.\n\n_Im Grunde hat es eine merkw\u00fcrdige Bewandtnis mit diesem Sicheinleben an fremdem Orte, dieser \u2013 sei es auch \u2013 m\u00fchseligen Anpassung und Umgew\u00f6hnung_ , she read and translated laboriously and rather badly \u2013 'There is something strange about getting this settling in to a new place, the laborious adaptation and familiarization...' How true, she thought. Mann was hard work. She would have preferred a boxload of Bridget's gothic romances. She was sure they wouldn't be _verboten_.\n\nThe mountain air had done her headaches no good at all (nor had Thomas Mann). They were, if anything, worse. _Kopfschmerzen_ , the very word made her head sore. 'I can't find anything wrong with you,' the doctor at the hospital told her. 'It must be your nerves.' He gave her a prescription for veronal.\n\nEva herself had no intellect to sustain her but then the Berg wasn't exactly the court of an intelligentsia. The only person whom you might have called a thinker was Speer. It wasn't that Eva led an unexamined life, far from it, Ursula suspected. You could sense the depression and neuroses hidden beneath all that _Lebenslust_ , but anxiety wasn't what a man looked for in a mistress.\n\nUrsula supposed that to be a successful mistress (although she had never been one herself, either successful or unsuccessful) a woman should be a comfort and a relief, a restful pillow for the weary head. _Gem\u00fctlichkeit_. Eva was amiable, she chatted about inconsequential things and made no attempt to be brainy or astute. Powerful men needed their women to be unchallenging, the home should not be an arena for intellectual debate. 'My own husband told me this so it must be true!' she wrote to Pamela. He hadn't meant it in the context of himself \u2013 he was not a powerful man. 'Not yet, anyway,' he laughed.\n\nThe political world was of concern only in that it took the object of Eva's devotion away from her. She was shunted rudely out of the public eye, allowed no official status, allowed no status at all, as loyal as a dog but with less recognition than a dog. Blondi was higher in the hierarchy than Eva. Her greatest regret, Eva said, was not being allowed to meet the duchess when the Windsors visited the Berghof.\n\nUrsula frowned on hearing this. 'But she's a Nazi, you know,' she said unthinkingly. ('I suppose I should be more careful in what I say!' she wrote to Pamela.) Eva had merely replied, 'Yes, of course, she is,' as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the consort of the once and never again King of England to be a Hitlerite.\n\nThe F\u00fchrer must be seen to tread a noble, solitary path of chastity, he couldn't marry because he was wedded to Germany. He had sacrificed himself to his country's destiny \u2013 at least that was the gist of it, Ursula thought she might have discreetly nodded off at this point. (It was one of his endless after-dinner monologues.) Like our own Virgin Queen, she thought, but didn't say so, as she expected the F\u00fchrer would not like to be compared to a woman, even an English aristocratic one with the heart and stomach of a king. At school, Ursula had had a history teacher who had been particularly fond of quoting Elizabeth I. _Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested_.\n\nEva would have been happier back in Munich, in the little bourgeois house that the F\u00fchrer had bought for her, where she could lead a normal social life. Here, in her gilded cage, she had to amuse herself, flicking through magazines, discussing the latest hairstyles and love lives of film stars (as if Ursula knew anything on the subject), and parading one outfit after another like a quick-change artist. Ursula had been in her bedroom several times, a pretty, feminine boudoir quite different from the heavy-handed d\u00e9cor of the rest of the Berghof, spoilt only by the portrait of the F\u00fchrer that was given pride of place on the wall. Her hero. The F\u00fchrer had not hung a reciprocal portrait of his mistress in his rooms. Instead of Eva's face smiling at him from the wall he was challenged by the stern features of his own beloved hero, Frederick the Great. _Friedrich der Grosse_.\n\n'I always mishear \"grocer\" for \"great\",' she wrote to Pamela. Grocers were not, generally speaking, warmongers and conquerors. What had the F\u00fchrer's apprenticeship for greatness been? Eva shrugged, she didn't know. 'He's always been a politician. He was born a politician.' No, Ursula thought, he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become.\n\nThe F\u00fchrer's bedroom, adjoining Eva's bathroom, was out of bounds. Ursula had seen him sleeping though, not in that sacrosanct bedroom but in the warm post-prandial sunshine on the Berghof's terrace, the great warrior's mouth slackly open in _l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9_. He looked vulnerable but there were no assassins on the Berg. Plenty of guns, thought Ursula, easy enough to get hold of a Luger and shoot him through the heart or the head. But then what would happen to her? Worse, what would happen to Frieda?\n\nEva sat next to him, watching fondly as one might a child. In sleep he belonged to no one but her.\n\nShe was, fundamentally, nothing more nor less than a nice young woman. You couldn't necessarily judge a woman by the man she slept with. (Or could you?)\n\nEva had a wonderful athletic figure, one that Ursula felt quite envious of. She was a healthy, physical girl \u2013 a swimmer, a skier, a skater, a dancer, a gymnast \u2013 who loved the outdoors, who loved _movement_. And yet she had attached herself like a limpet to an indolent middle-aged man, a creature of the night, literally, who didn't rise from his bed before midday (and yet who could still take an afternoon nap), who didn't smoke or drink or dance or overindulge \u2013 spartan in his habits although not his vigour. A man who had never been seen stripped off further than his _Lederhosen_ (comically unattractive to the non-Bavarian eye), whose halitosis had repelled Ursula on first meeting and who swallowed tablets like sweets for his 'gas problem' ('I hear he farts,' J\u00fcrgen said, 'be warned. Must be all those vegetables'). He was concerned for his dignity but he wasn't really vain, as such. 'Merely a megalomaniac,' she wrote to Pamela.\n\nA car and a driver had been sent for them and when they arrived at the Berghof the F\u00fchrer himself had greeted them \u2013 on the great steps, where he welcomed dignitaries, where he had welcomed Chamberlain last year. When Chamberlain returned to Britain he said that he 'now knew what was in Herr Hitler's mind'. Ursula doubted that anyone knew that, not even Eva. Particularly not Eva.\n\n'You're very welcome here, _gn\u00e4diges Frau_ ,' he said. 'You should stay until the _liebe Kleine_ is better.'\n\n'He likes women, children, dogs, really what can you fault?' Pamela wrote. 'It's just a shame he's a dictator with no respect for the law or common humanity.' Pamela had quite a few friends in Germany from her university days, many of them Jewish. She had a full house (well, three of a kind) of boisterous boys (quiet little Frieda would be quite overwhelmed in Finchley) and now wrote that she was pregnant again, 'fingers crossed for a girl'. Ursula missed Pammy.\n\nPamela would not fare well under this regime. Her sense of moral outrage would be too great for her to remain silent. She wouldn't be able to bite her tongue like Ursula did (a scold's bridle). _They also serve who only stand and wait_. Did that apply to one's ethics? Is this my defence, Ursula wondered? It might be better to misquote Edmund Burke rather than Milton. _All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good women to do nothing_.\n\nThe day after they arrived there had been a children's tea-party for someone's birthday, a little Goebbels or Bormann, Ursula wasn't sure \u2013 there were so many of them and they were so similar. She was reminded of the ranks of the military at the F\u00fchrer's birthday parade. Scrubbed and polished, each one had a special word from Uncle Wolf before they were allowed to indulge in the cake that was set out on a long table. Poor sweet-toothed Frieda (who undoubtedly took after her mother in this respect) was too heavy-lidded with fatigue to eat any. There was always cake on the Berghof, poppyseed _Streusel_ and cinnamon and plum _Tortes_ , puff pastries filled with cream, chocolate cake \u2013 great domes of _Schwarzw\u00e4lder Kirschtorte \u2013_ Ursula wondered who ate all this cake. She herself certainly did her best to get through it.\n\nIf a day with Eva could be tedious it was as nothing compared to an evening when the F\u00fchrer was present. Interminable hours after dinner were spent in the Great Hall \u2013 a vast, ugly room where they listened to the gramophone or watched films (or, often, both). The F\u00fchrer naturally dictated the choices. For music, _Die Fledermaus_ and _Die lustige Witwe_ were favourites. On the first evening, Ursula thought it would be hard to forget the sight of Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels (and their savage helpmeets) all wearing their thin-lipped snake smiles (more _Lippenbekenntnis_ , perhaps) while listening to _Die lustige Witwe_. Ursula had seen a student production of _The Merry Widow_ when she was at university. She had been good friends with the girl who played Hanna, the lead. She could never have guessed then that the next time she would hear 'Vilja, O Vilja! the witch of the wood', it would be in German and in this strangest of company. That production had taken place in '31. She hadn't seen what her own future held, let alone that of Europe.\n\nFilms were shown nearly every evening in the Great Hall. The projectionist would arrive and the great Gobelin tapestry on one wall would be rolled up mechanically, like a blind, to reveal a screen behind it. Then they would have to sit through some awful romantic schmaltz or American adventure, or worse, a mountain film. In this way Ursula had seen _King Kong, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer_ and _Der Berg ruft_. On the first evening it had been _Der heilige Berg_ (more mountains, more Leni). The F\u00fchrer's favourite film, Eva confided, was _Snow White_. And which character did he identify with, Ursula wondered \u2013 the wicked witch, the dwarves? Not Snow White surely? It must be the Prince, she concluded (did he have a name? Did they ever, was it enough simply to _be_ the role?). The Prince who awoke the sleeping girl, just as the F\u00fchrer had woken Germany. But not with a kiss.\n\nWhen Frieda was born, Klara had given her a beautiful edition of _Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge_ , 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves', illustrated by Franz J\u00fcttner. Klara's professor had long since been barred from teaching at the art school. They had planned to leave in '35 and then again in '36. After _Kristallnacht_ , Pamela had written to Klara directly, although she had never met her, offering her a home in Finchley. But that inertia, that damned tendency everyone seemed to have to _wait_... and then her professor had been part of a round-up and had been transported east \u2013 to work in a factory, the authorities said. 'His beautiful sculptor's hands,' Klara said sadly.\n\n('They're not really _factories_ , you know,' Pamela wrote.)\n\nUrsula remembered being an avid reader of fairy tales as a child. She had put great faith not so much in the happy ending as in the restoration of justice to the world. She suspected she had been duped by _die Br\u00fcder_ Grimm. _Spieglein, Spieglein, an der Wand \/ Wer ist die Sch\u00f6nste im ganzen Land?_ Not this lot, that was for sure, Ursula thought, looking around the Great Hall during her first wearisome evening on the Berg.\n\nThe F\u00fchrer was a man who preferred operetta to opera, cartoons to highbrow culture. Watching him holding Eva's hand while humming along to Lehar, Ursula was struck by how _ordinary_ (even silly) he was, more Mickey Mouse than Siegfried. Sylvie would have made short work of him. Izzie would have eaten him up and spat him out. Mrs Glover \u2013 what would Mrs Glover have done, Ursula wondered? This was her new favourite game, deciding how the people she knew would have dealt with the Nazi oligarchs. Mrs Glover, she concluded, would probably have beaten them all soundly with her meat hammer. (What would Bridget do? Ignore him completely probably.)\n\nWhen the film was finished the F\u00fchrer settled down to expound (for hours) on his pet subjects \u2013 German art and architecture (he perceived himself to be an architect-manqu\u00e9), _Blut und Boden_ (the land, always the land), his solitary, noble path (the wolf again). He was the saviour of Germany, and poor Germany, his _Schneewittchen_ , would be saved by him whether she wanted it or not. He droned on about healthy German art and music, about Wagner, _Die Meistersinger_ , his favourite line from the libretto \u2013 _Wacht auf, es nahet gen den Tag \u2013_ 'Awake, the morning is here' (it would be if he went on much longer, she thought). Back to destiny \u2013 his \u2013 how it was intertwined with the destiny of the _Volk. Heimat, Boden_ , victory or downfall (What victory, Ursula wondered? Against whom?). Then something about Frederick the Great that she didn't catch, something about Roman architecture, then the Fatherland. (For the Russians it was 'the Motherland', was there something to be made of that, Ursula wondered? What was it for the English? Just 'England', she supposed. Blake's 'Jerusalem' at a pinch.)\n\nThen back to destiny and the _Tausendj\u00e4hriges_. On and on so that the headache that had begun before dinner as a dull ache was a crown of thorns by now. She imagined Hugh saying, 'Oh, do shut up, Herr Hitler,' and suddenly felt so homesick she thought she was going to cry.\n\nShe wanted to go home. She wanted to go to Fox Corner.\n\nAs with kings and their courtiers, they could not leave until dismissed, until the monarch himself decided to ascend to the bedchamber. At one point Ursula caught Eva yawning theatrically at him as if to say, 'That's enough now, Wolfi' (her imagination was becoming rather lurid, she knew, forgivable given the circumstances). And then at last, finally, thank God, he made a move and the exhausted company rustled to its feet.\n\nWomen in particular seemed to love the F\u00fchrer. They wrote him letters in the thousands, baked him cakes, embroidered swastikas on to cushions and pillows for him, and, like Hilde and Hanne's BDM troop, lined the steep road up to the Obersalzberg to catch a delirious glimpse of him in the big black Mercedes. Many women shouted to him that they wanted to have his baby. 'But what do they _see_ in him?' Sylvie puzzled. Ursula had taken her to a parade, one of the interminable flag-waving, banner-toting ones in Berlin, because she wanted to 'find out for myself what all the fuss is about'. (How very British of Sylvie to reduce the Third Reich to a 'fuss'.)\n\nThe street was a forest of red, black and white. 'Their colours are very harsh,' Sylvie said, as though she were considering asking the National Socialists to decorate her living room.\n\nAt the F\u00fchrer's approach the crowd's excitement had grown to a rabid frenzy of _Sieg Heil_ and _Heil Hitler_. 'Am I the only one to be unmoved?' Sylvie said. 'What is it, do you suppose \u2013 mass hysteria of some kind?'\n\n'I know,' Ursula said, 'it's like the Emperor's new clothes. We're the only ones who can see the naked man.'\n\n'He's a clown,' Sylvie said dismissively.\n\n'Shush,' Ursula said. The English word was the same as the German and she didn't want to attract the hostility of the people around them. 'You should put your arm up,' she said.\n\n'Me?' the outraged flower of British womanhood replied.\n\n'Yes, you.'\n\nReluctantly, Sylvie raised her arm. Ursula thought that until the day she died she would remember the sight of her mother giving the Nazi salute. Of course, Ursula said to herself afterwards, this was in '34, back when one's conscience hadn't been shrunk and muddled by fear, when she had been blind to what was truly afoot. Blinded by love perhaps, or just dumb stupidity. (Pamela had seen, unblinkered by anything.)\n\nSylvie had made the journey to Germany so that she could inspect Ursula's unexpected husband. Ursula wondered what she had planned to do if she hadn't found J\u00fcrgen suitable \u2013 drug and kidnap her and haul her on to the _Schnellzug_? They were still in Munich then, J\u00fcrgen hadn't started working for the Ministry of Justice in Berlin, they hadn't moved to the Savignyplatz or become parents to Frieda, although Ursula was cumbersome with pregnancy.\n\n'Fancy you becoming a mother,' Sylvie said, as if it were something she had never expected. 'To a German,' she added thoughtfully.\n\n'To a baby,' Ursula said.\n\n'It's nice to get away,' Sylvie said. From what, Ursula wondered?\n\nKlara met them for lunch one day and afterwards said, 'Your mother is rather chic.' Ursula had never thought of Sylvie as stylish but she supposed that compared with Klara's mother, Frau Brenner, as soft and doughy as a loaf of _Kartoffelbrot_ , Sylvie was quite a fashion plate.\n\nOn the way back from lunch, Sylvie said she wanted to visit Oberpollingers and buy a present for Hugh. When they reached the department store they found the windows daubed with anti-Jewish slogans and Sylvie said, 'Gracious, what a mess.' The shop was open for business but a pair of grinning louts in SA uniform were loitering in front of the doors, putting people off from entering. Not Sylvie, who had marched past the Brownshirts while Ursula reluctantly trailed in her wake into the store and up the thickly carpeted staircase. In the face of the uniforms, Ursula had shrugged a cartoon helplessness and murmured rather shamefacedly, 'She's English.' She thought that Sylvie didn't understand what it was like living in Germany but in retrospect she thought that perhaps Sylvie had understood very well.\n\n'Ah, here's lunch,' Eva said, putting down the camera and taking Frieda's hand. She led her to the table and then propped her up on an extra cushion before heaping her plate with food. Chicken, roast potatoes and a salad, all from the Gutshof. How well they ate here. _Milchreis_ for Frieda's pudding, the milk fresh that morning from the cows of the Gutshof. (A less childish _K\u00e4sekuchen_ for Ursula, a cigarette for Eva.) Ursula remembered Mrs Glover's rice pudding, a creamy, sticky yellow beneath its crisp brown skin. She could smell the nutmeg even though she knew there was none in Frieda's dish. She couldn't remember the German for nutmeg and thought it was too difficult to explain to Eva. The food was the only thing that she was going to miss about the Berghof so she might as well enjoy it while she could, she thought, and helped herself to more _K\u00e4sekuchen_.\n\nLunch was served to them by a small contingent of the army of staff who serviced the Berghof. The Berg was a curious combination of Alpine holiday chalet and military training camp. A small town really with a school, a post office, a theatre, a large SS barracks, a rifle range, a bowling alley, a Wehrmacht hospital and much more, everything but a church really. There were also plenty of young, handsome Wehrmacht officers who would have made better suitors for Eva.\n\nAfter lunch they walked up to the _Teehaus_ on the Mooslahner Kopf, Eva's yappy, nippy dogs running along beside them. (If only one of them would fall off the parapet or from the outlook.) Ursula had the beginnings of a headache and sank gratefully into one of the armchairs with green-flowered linen upholstery that she found particularly offensive to the eye. Tea \u2013 and cake, naturally \u2013 were brought to them from the kitchen. Ursula swallowed a couple of codeine with her tea and said, 'I think Frieda's well enough to go home now.'\n\n*\n\nUrsula went to bed as early as she could, slipping in between the cool white sheets of the guest-room bed she shared with Frieda. Too tired to sleep, she found herself still awake at two in the morning so she put on the bedside light \u2013 Frieda slept the deep sleep of children, only illness could wake her \u2013 and she got out pen and paper and wrote to Pamela instead.\n\nOf course, none of these letters to Pamela was ever posted. She couldn't be completely sure that they wouldn't be read by someone. You just didn't _know_ , that was the awful thing (how much more awful for others). Now she wished they weren't in the dog-days of heat when the _Kachelofen_ in the guest room was cold and unlit, as it would have been safer to burn the correspondence. Safer never to have written at all. One could no longer express one's true thoughts. _Truth is truth to the end of reckoning_. What was that from? _Measure for Measure_? But perhaps truth was asleep until the end of reckoning. There was going to be an awful _lot_ of reckoning when the time came.\n\nShe wanted to go home. She wanted to go to Fox Corner. She had planned to go back in May but then Frieda had become sick. She'd had it all planned, their suitcases were packed, stored beneath the bed, where they were usually kept empty so J\u00fcrgen had no reason to look inside them. She had the train tickets, the onward boat-train tickets, had told no one, not even Klara. She hadn't wanted to move their passports \u2013 Frieda's luckily still valid from their trip to England in '35 \u2013 from the big porcupine-quill box where all their documents were kept. She had checked they were there almost every day but then the day before they were to go she looked in the box and there was no sign of them. She thought she was mistaken, rifled through birth and death and marriage certificates, through insurance and guarantees, J\u00fcrgen's will (he was a lawyer, after all), all kinds of paperwork except for what mattered. In mounting panic she emptied the lot on to the carpet and went through everything one by one, again and again. No passports, only J\u00fcrgen's. In desperation she went through every drawer in the house, searched inside every shoebox and cupboard, beneath sofa cushions and mattresses. Nothing.\n\nThey ate supper as normal. She could barely swallow. 'Are you feeling ill?' J\u00fcrgen asked, solicitously.\n\n'No,' she said. Her voice sounded squeaky. What could she say? He knew, of course, he knew.\n\n'I thought we might take a holiday,' he said. 'On Sylt.'\n\n'Sylt?'\n\n'Sylt. We won't need a passport for there,' he said. Did he smile? Did he? And then Frieda was ill and nothing else mattered.\n\n' _Er kommt!_ ' Eva said happily the next morning at breakfast. The F\u00fchrer was coming.\n\n'When? Now?'\n\n'No, this afternoon.'\n\n'What a shame, we'll be gone by then,' Ursula said. Thank God, she thought. 'Do thank him, won't you?'\n\nThey were taken home in one of the fleet of black Mercedes from the _Platterhof_ garage, driven by the same chauffeur who had brought them to the Berghof.\n\nThe next day Germany invaded Poland.\n\n# _April 1945_\n\nThey had lived for months in the cellar, like rats. When the British were bombing by day and the Americans by night there was nothing else for it. The cellar beneath the apartment block in the Savignyplatz was dank and disgusting, a small paraffin lamp for light and one bucket for a lavatory, yet the cellar was better than one of the bunkers in town. She had been caught with Frieda near the zoo in a daylight raid and had taken shelter in the Zoo Station flak tower \u2013 thousands of people crammed in, the air supply gauged by a candle (as if they were canaries). If the candle goes out, someone told her, everyone has to leave, out into the open even if a raid is in progress. Near to where they were crushed against a wall, a man and a woman were embracing (a polite term for what they were doing) and as they were leaving they had to step over an old man who had died during the raid. The worst thing, even worse than this, was that as well as being a shelter the enormous concrete citadel was a gigantic anti-aircraft battery, several huge guns pounding away on the roof the whole time so that the shelter shook with every recoil. It was the closest to hell that Ursula ever hoped to come.\n\nAn enormous explosion had shaken the structure, a bomb dropped close to the zoo. She felt the pressure wave sucking and pushing her body and was terrified that Frieda's lungs might burst. It passed. Several people vomited, although unfortunately there was nowhere to vomit except on one's feet, or perhaps worse, on other people's feet. Ursula vowed never to go into a flak tower again. She would rather, she thought, die out in the street, quickly, with Frieda. That's what she thought about a lot of the time now. A swift, clean death, Frieda wrapped in her arms.\n\nPerhaps it was Teddy up there, dropping bombs on them. She hoped it was, it would mean he was alive. There had been a knock on the door one day \u2013 when they still had a door, before the British started their relentless bombing in November '43. When Ursula opened the door she found a thin youth standing there, fifteen or sixteen years old maybe. He had a desperate air and Ursula wondered if he was looking for somewhere to hide but he pushed an envelope into her hand and ran off before she could even say a word to him.\n\nThe envelope was creased and filthy. Her name and address were written on it and she burst into tears at the sight of Pamela's handwriting. Thin papery blue sheets, dated several weeks ago, detailing all the comings and goings of her family \u2013 Jimmy in the army, Sylvie fighting the good fight on the home front ('a new weapon \u2013 chickens!'). Pamela was well and living at Fox Corner, she said, four boys now. Teddy in the RAF, a squadron leader with a DFC. A lovely long letter and at the end a page that was almost like a postscript, 'I have saved the sad news to last.' Hugh was dead. 'In the autumn of 1940, peacefully, a heart attack.' Ursula wished she hadn't received the letter, wished she could think of Hugh still alive, of Teddy and Jimmy in non-combatant roles, living out the war in a coal mine or civil defence.\n\n'I think of you constantly,' Pamela said. No recriminations, no 'I told you so', no 'Why didn't you come home when you could have done?' She had tried, too late, of course. The day after Germany declared war on Poland she had gone through town, dutifully doing the things that she thought you were supposed to do when war was imminent. She stocked up on batteries and torches and candles, she bought canned goods and blackout material, she shopped for clothes for Frieda in Wertheim's department store \u2013 one and two sizes bigger in case the war went on for a long time. She bought nothing for herself, passing by all those warm coats and boots, stockings and decent frocks, something she bitterly regretted now.\n\nShe heard Chamberlain on the BBC, those fateful words _We are now at war with Germany_ , and for several hours felt strangely numb. She tried to phone Pamela but the lines were all engaged. Then towards evening (J\u00fcrgen had been at the ministry all day) she suddenly came back to life, Snow White awake. She must leave, she must go back to England, passport or no. She packed a hasty suitcase and harried Frieda on to a tram to the station. If she could just get on a train somehow everything would be all right. No trains, an official at the station told her. The borders were closed. 'We're at war, didn't you know?' he said.\n\nShe ran to the British Embassy in Wilhelmstrasse, dragging poor Frieda by the hand. They were German citizens but she would throw herself on the mercy of the embassy staff, surely they would be able to do something, she was still an Englishwoman after all. It was growing dark by then and the gates were padlocked and there were no lights on in the building. 'They've gone,' a passer-by told her, 'you've missed them.'\n\n'Gone?'\n\n'Back to Britain.'\n\nShe had to clap a hand over her mouth to stop the wail that rose up from deep inside her. How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn't she seen what was coming? _A fool too late bewares when all the peril is past_. Something else that Elizabeth I had said.\n\nShe wept on and off for two days after receiving Pamela's letter. J\u00fcrgen was sympathetic, came home with some real coffee for her and she didn't ask where he had got it. A good cup of coffee (miraculous as that was) was hardly going to assuage her grief for her father, for Frieda, for herself. For everybody. J\u00fcrgen died in an American raid in '44. Ursula was ashamed at how relieved she felt when she was given the news, especially as Frieda was so upset. She loved her father and he loved her, which was a nugget of grace to be salvaged from the whole sorry business of their marriage.\n\nFrieda was ill now. She had the same gaunt features and sickly pallor of most people you saw on the streets these days but her lungs were full of phlegm and she had terrible bouts of coughing that seemed as though they would never end. When Ursula listened to her chest it was like listening to a galleon at sea, heaving and creaking through the waves. If only she could sit her down by a big warm fire, give her hot cocoa to drink, a beef stew, dumplings, carrots. Were they still eating well on the Berg, she wondered? Was anyone still on the Berg?\n\nAbove their heads, the apartment block was still standing although most of the front wall had been taken away by a bomb. They still went up there to forage for anything useful. It had been saved from looting by the almost insurmountable difficulty of getting up the staircase which was filled with rubble. She and Frieda tied pieces of cushion to their knees with rags and wore thick leather gloves that had belonged to J\u00fcrgen and in this way clambered over the stones and bricks like inept monkeys.\n\nThe one thing there was nothing of in the apartment was the only thing they were interested in \u2013 food. Yesterday they had queued for three hours for a loaf of bread. When they ate it, it seemed to contain no actual flour, although it was hard to say what it did contain \u2013 cement dust and plaster? That was what it tasted of anyway. Ursula remembered Rogerson's the baker's in the village at home, how the smell of the baking bread would waft through the street and how the bakery's window was full of lovely soft white loaves burnished with a sticky bronze glaze. Or the kitchen at Fox Corner on Mrs Glover's baking days \u2013 the big brown 'health' loaves that Sylvie insisted on, but also the sponges and tarts and buns. She imagined eating a slice of the warm brown bread, thickly buttered, with the jam made from the raspberries and redcurrants at Fox Corner. (She tormented herself with memories of food the whole time.) There was to be no more milk, someone told her in the bread queue.\n\nThis morning, Fr\u00e4ulein Farber and her sister Frau Meyer who had lived together in the attic but who now rarely left the cellar gave her two potatoes and a piece of cooked sausage for Frieda, _Aus Anstand_ , they said, out of decency. Herr Richter, also a cellar resident, told Ursula that the sisters had decided to stop eating. (An easy thing to do when there was no food, Ursula thought.) They have had enough, he said. They cannot face what will happen when the Russians get here.\n\nThey had heard a rumour that in the east people were reduced to eating grass. Lucky them, Ursula thought, there was no grass in Berlin, just the black skeletal remains of a proud and beautiful city. Was London like this too? It seemed unlikely, yet possible. Speer had his noble ruins, a thousand years early.\n\nThe inedible bread yesterday, two half-raw potatoes the day before that was all Ursula had in her own stomach. Everything else \u2013 for the little it was worth \u2013 she'd given to Frieda. But what good would it do Frieda if Ursula were dead? She couldn't leave her alone in this terrible world.\n\nAfter the British raid on the zoo they had gone to see if there were any animals they could eat but plenty of people had got there before them. (Could _that_ happen at home? Londoners scavenging in Regent's Park zoo? Why not?)\n\nThey still saw the occasional bird that was clearly not native to Berlin, surviving against the odds, and on one occasion, a cowed, mangy creature that they had taken for a dog before they realized it was a wolf. Frieda was all for trying to take it back to the cellar with them and making a pet of it. Ursula couldn't even imagine what their elderly neighbour Frau Jaeger's reaction would have been to that.\n\nTheir own apartment was like a dolls' house, open to the world, all the intimate details of their domestic life on view \u2013 beds and sofas, the pictures on the walls, even an ornament or two that had miraculously survived the blast. They had raided anything truly useful but there were still some clothes and a few books and only yesterday she had found a cache of candles beneath a pile of broken crockery. Ursula was hoping to trade them in for medicine for Frieda. There was still a lavatory, in the bathroom, and occasionally, who knew how, there was water. One of them would stand and hold up an old sheet to protect the other's modesty. Did their modesty matter that much any more?\n\nUrsula had made the decision to move back in. It was cold in the apartment but the air wasn't fetid and she judged that on balance that would be better for Frieda. They still had blankets and quilts they could wrap themselves in and they shared a mattress on the floor, behind a barricade formed by the dining table and chairs. Ursula's thoughts strayed constantly to the meals they had eaten at that table, her dreams full of meat, pork and beef, slabs of it grilled and roasted and fried.\n\nThe apartment was two floors up and this, combined with the partially blocked staircase, might be enough to put the Russians off. On the other hand they would be the dolls on display in the doll's house, a woman and a girl ripe for the plucking. Frieda would soon be eleven but if even a tenth of the rumours coming from the east were true then her age wouldn't save her from the Russians. Frau Jaeger never stopped talking nervously about how the Soviets were raping and murdering their way towards Berlin. There was no wireless any more, just rumour and the occasional flimsy piece of newssheet. The name Nemmersdorf was rarely off Frau Jaeger's lips ('A massacre!'). 'Oh, do shut up,' Ursula said to her the other day. In English, which she didn't understand, of course, although she must have heard the unfriendly tone. Frau Jaeger had been visibly startled to be addressed in the language of the enemy and Ursula felt sorry, she was just a frightened old lady, she reminded herself.\n\nThe east moved nearer every day. Interest in the western front had long since died, only the east was of concern. The distant thunder of guns now replaced by a constant roar. There was no one to save them. Eighty thousand German troops to defend them against a million and a half Soviets, and most of those German troops seemed to be children or old men. Perhaps poor old Frau Jaeger would be called upon to beat off the enemy with a broom handle. It could only be a matter of days, hours even, before they saw their first Russian.\n\nThere was a rumour that Hitler was dead. 'Not before time,' Herr Richter said. Ursula remembered the sight of him asleep on his sun lounger on the terrace on the Berg. He had strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage. To what avail? A kind of Armageddon. The death of Europe.\n\nIt was life itself, wasn't it, she corrected herself, that Shakespeare had fretting and strutting. _Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage_. They were all walking shadows in Berlin. Life had mattered so much once and now it was the cheapest thing on offer. She spared an idle thought for Eva, she was always blas\u00e9 about the idea of suicide, had she accompanied her leader into hell?\n\nFrieda was so poorly now, chills and fever and complaining almost constantly of a headache. If she hadn't been sick they might have joined the exodus of people heading west, away from the Russians, but there was no way she would survive such a journey.\n\n'I've had enough, Mummy,' she whispered, a terrible echo of the sisters from the attic.\n\nUrsula left her alone while she hurried to the chemist, scrabbling over the debris that littered the streets, occasionally a corpse \u2013 she felt nothing for the dead any more. She cowered in doorways when the gunfire seemed too close and then scurried to the next street corner. The chemist was open but he had no medicine, he didn't even want her precious candles or her money. She came back defeated.\n\nThe whole time she had been away from Frieda she had been anxious that something would happen to her in her absence and she promised herself that she wouldn't leave her side again. She had seen a Russian tank two streets away. She had been terrified by the sight, how much more terrified would Frieda be? The noise of artillery fire was constant. She was gripped by the idea that the world was ending. If it was then Frieda must die in her arms, not alone. But whose arms would she die in? She longed for the safety of her father and the thought of Hugh made the tears start.\n\nBy the time she had climbed the rubble staircase she was exhausted, weary to the bone. She found Frieda slipping in and out of delirium and lay down beside her on the mattress on the floor. Stroking her damp hair, she talked in a low voice to her about another world. She told her about the bluebells in spring in the wood near Fox Corner, about the flowers that grew in the meadow beyond the copse \u2013 flax and larkspur, buttercups, corn poppies, red campion and ox-eye daisies. She told her about the smell of new-mown grass from an English summer lawn, the scent of Sylvie's roses, the sour-sweet taste of the apples in the orchard. She talked of the oak trees in the lane, and the yews in the graveyard and the beech in the garden at Fox Corner. She talked about the foxes, the rabbits, the pheasants, the hares, the cows and the big plough horses. About the sun beaming his friendly rays on fields of corn and fields of green. The bright song of the blackbird, the lyrical lark, the soft coo of the wood pigeons, the hoot of the owl in the dark. 'Take this,' she said, putting the pill in Frieda's mouth, 'I got it from the chemist, it will help you sleep.'\n\nShe told Frieda how she would walk on knives to protect her, burn in the flames of hell to save her, drown in the deepest of waters if it would buoy her up and how she would do this one last thing for her, the most difficult thing of all.\n\nShe put her arms around her daughter and kissed her and murmured in her ear, telling her about Teddy when he was little, his surprise birthday party, about how clever Pamela was and how annoying Maurice was and how funny Jimmy had been when he was small. How the clock ticked in the hall and the wind rattled in the chimneypots and how on Christmas Eve they lit an enormous log fire and hung their stockings from the mantelpiece and next day ate roast goose and plum pudding and how that was what they would all do next Christmas, all of them together. 'Everything is going to be all right now,' Ursula told her.\n\nWhen she was sure that Frieda was asleep she took the little glass capsule that the chemist had given her and placed it gently in Frieda's mouth and pressed her delicate jaws together. The capsule broke with a tiny crunching noise. A line from one of Donne's _Holy Sonnets_ came into mind as she bit down on her own little glass vial. _I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday_. She held tightly on to Frieda and soon they were both wrapped in the velvet wings of the black bat and this life was already unreal and gone.\n\nShe had never chosen death over life before and as she was leaving she knew something had cracked and broken and the order of things had changed. Then the dark obliterated all thoughts.\n\n# A Long Hard War\n\n# _September 1940_\n\n' _See where Christ's blood streams across the firmament_ ,' a voice nearby said. ' _In_ ' the firmament, Ursula thought, not 'across'. The red glow of a false dawn indicated a massive fire in the east. The barrage in Hyde Park cracked and flared and the anti-aircraft guns closer to home were doing a good job of keeping up their own cacophony, shells whistling into the air like fireworks and _crack-crack-cracking_ as they exploded high overhead. And beneath it all was the horrible throbbing drone of the bombers' unsynchronized engines, a sound that always made her stomach feel pitchy.\n\nA parachute mine floated down gracefully and a basket of incendiaries rattled their contents on to what was left of the road and burst into flowers of fire. A warden, Ursula couldn't make out his face, ran across to the incendiaries with a stirrup pump. If there had been no noise it might have seemed a beautiful nightscape but there _was_ noise, brutish dissonance that sounded as if someone had thrown open the gates of hell and let out the howling of the damned.\n\n' _Why this is hell, nor am I out of it_ ,' the voice spoke again as if reading her thoughts. It was so dark that she could barely make out the owner of the voice although she knew without a doubt that it belonged to Mr Durkin, one of the wardens from her post. He was a retired English teacher, much inclined to quoting. And misquoting. The voice \u2013 or Mr Durkin \u2013 said something else, it may still have been _Faustus_ but the words disappeared into the enormous _whump_ of a bomb falling a couple of streets away.\n\nThe ground shook and another voice, that of someone working on the mound, yelled, 'Watch out!' She heard something shifting and a noise like displaced scree rattling and rolling down a mountain, the harbinger of an avalanche. Rubble, not scree. And a mound of it, not a mountain. The rubble that comprised the mound was all that was left of a house, or rather, several houses all ground and mashed into each other now. The rubble had been homes half an hour ago, now those same homes were just a hellish jumble of bricks, broken joists and floorboards, furniture, pictures, rugs, bedding, books, crockery, lino, glass. People. The crushed fragments of lives, never to be whole again.\n\nThe rumble slowed to a trickle and finally stopped, the avalanche averted, and the same voice shouted, 'All right! Carry on!' It was a moonless night, the only light coming from the masked torches of the heavy rescue squad, ghostly will-o'-the-wisps, moving on the mound. The other reason for the immense, treacherous dark was the thick cloud of smoke and dust that hung like a curtain of vile gossamer in the air. The stink, as usual, was awful. It wasn't just the smell of coal gas and high explosive, it was the aberrant odour produced when a building was blown to smithereens. The smell of it wouldn't leave her. She had tied an old silk scarf around her mouth and nose, bandit-style, but it did little to stop the dust and the stench getting into her lungs. Death and decay were on her skin, in her hair, in her nostrils, her lungs, beneath her fingernails, all the time. They had become part of her.\n\nThey had only recently been issued with overalls, navy blue and unflattering. Until now Ursula had been wearing her shelter suit, bought almost as a novelty item by Sylvie from Simpson's soon after war was declared. She had added an old leather belt of Hugh's from which she'd strung her 'accessories' \u2013 a torch, gas mask, a first-aid packet and a message pad. In one pocket she had a penknife and a handkerchief and in the other a pair of thick leather gloves and a lipstick. 'Oh, what a good idea,' Miss Woolf said, when she saw the penknife. Let's face it, Ursula thought, despite a host of regulations, they were making it up as they went along.\n\nMr Durkin, for it was indeed he, resolved himself out of the gloom and foggy smoke. He shone his torch on to his notebook, the weak light barely illuminating the paper. 'A lot of people live on this street,' he said, peering at the list of names and house numbers which no longer bore any relation to the surrounding havoc. 'The Wilsons are at number one,' he said, as if beginning at the beginning would somehow help.\n\n'There is no number one any more,' Ursula said. 'There are no numbers at all.' The street was unrecognizable, everything familiar annihilated. Even in broad daylight it would have been unrecognizable. It wasn't a street any more, it was simply 'the mound'. Twenty feet high, maybe more, with planks and ladders running up its sides to enable the heavy-rescue squad to crawl over it. There was something primitive about the human chain they had formed, passing debris in baskets from hand to hand, from the top of the mound to the bottom. They could have been slaves building the pyramids \u2013 or in this case, excavating them. Ursula thought suddenly of the leafcutter ants that used to be in Regent's Park zoo, each one dutifully carrying its little burden. Had the ants been evacuated along with the other animals or had they simply set them free in the park? They were tropical insects, so perhaps they would not be able to survive the rigours of the climate of Regent's Park. She had seen Millie there in an open-air production of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , in the summer of '38.\n\n'Miss Todd?'\n\n'Yes, sorry, Mr Durkin, miles away.' It happened a lot these days \u2013 she would be in the middle of these awful scenes and she would find that she had drifted off to pleasant moments in the past. Little slivers of light in the darkness.\n\nThey made their way warily towards the mound. Mr Durkin passed the list of the street's residents to her and started giving a hand with the chain of baskets. No one was actually digging on the mound, instead they were clearing the rubble by hand, like careful archaeologists. 'A bit delicate up there,' one of the rescue squad near the bottom of the chain said to her. A shaft had been cleared, going down the middle of the mound (a volcano then, rather than a mound, Ursula thought). A lot of the men in the heavy rescue squad were from the building trade \u2013 bricklayers, labourers and so on \u2013 and Ursula wondered if it felt odd to them to be scrambling over these dismantled buildings, as if time had somehow gone backwards. But then they were pragmatic, resourceful men who were not much given to this kind of fantastical thinking.\n\nOccasionally a voice would call for quiet \u2013 impossible when the raid was still going on overhead \u2013 but nonetheless everything would stop while the men at the top of the mound listened intently for signs of life within. It looked hopeless but if there was one thing that the Blitz had taught them it was that people lived (and died) in the most unlikely of circumstances.\n\nUrsula searched in the gloom for the dim blue lights that marked out the incident officer's post and instead caught sight of Miss Woolf, stumbling purposefully over broken bricks towards her. 'It's bad,' she said matter-of-factly when she reached Ursula. 'They need someone slight.'\n\n'Slight?' Ursula repeated. The word, for some reason, was devoid of meaning.\n\nShe had joined the ARP as a warden after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March '39, when it suddenly seemed horribly clear to her that Europe was doomed. ('What a gloomy Cassandra you are,' Sylvie said, but Ursula worked in the Air Raid Precautions department at the Home Office, she could see the future.) During the strange twilight of the phoney war the wardens had been something of a joke but now they were 'the backbone of London's defences' \u2013 this from Maurice.\n\nHer fellow wardens were a mixed bunch. Miss Woolf, a retired hospital matron, was the senior warden. Thin and straight as a poker, her iron-grey hair in a neat bun, she came with natural authority. Then there was her deputy, the aforesaid Mr Durkin, Mr Simms, who worked for the Ministry of Supply, and Mr Palmer, who was a bank manager. The latter two men had fought in the last war and were too old for this one (Mr Durkin had been 'medically exempt', he said defensively). Then there was Mr Armitage who was an opera singer and as there were no operas to sing in any more he kept them entertained with his renditions of _'La donna \u00e8 mobile_ ' and ' _Largo al factotum_ '. 'Just the popular arias,' he confided to Ursula. 'Most people don't like anything challenging.'\n\n'Give me old Al Bowlly any day,' Mr Bullock said. The rather aptly named Mr Bullock (John) was in Miss Woolf's words 'a little questionable'. He certainly cut a strapping figure \u2013 he wrestled competitively and lifted weights in a local gym as well as being the denizen of several of the less salubrious nightclubs. He was also acquainted with some rather glamorous 'dancers'. One or two had 'dropped in' on him in the shelter and been shooed away like chickens by Miss Woolf. ('Dancers my eye,' she said.)\n\nLast but not least there was Herr Zimmerman ('Gabi, please,' he said, but no one did), who was an orchestra violinist from Berlin, 'our refugee' as they referred to him (Sylvie had evacuees, similarly denoted by their circumstances). He had 'jumped ship' in '35 while on tour with his orchestra. Miss Woolf, who knew him through the Refugee Committee, had gone to great lengths to make sure that Herr Zimmerman and his violin were not interned, or worse, shipped across the lethal waters of the Atlantic. They all followed Miss Woolf's lead and never addressed him as 'Mister', always as 'Herr'. Ursula knew that Miss Woolf called him thus to make him feel at home but it only succeeded in making more of an alien of him.\n\nMiss Woolf had come across Herr Zimmerman in the course of her work for the Central British Fund for German Jewry ('Rather a mouthful, I'm afraid'). Ursula was never sure whether Miss Woolf was a woman of some influence or whether she simply refused to take no for an answer. Both, perhaps.\n\n'A cultured lot, aren't we?' Mr Bullock said sarcastically. 'Why don't we just put on shows instead of fighting a war.' ('Mr Bullock is a man of strong emotions,' Miss Woolf said to Ursula. And strong drink too, Ursula thought. Strong everything in fact.)\n\nA small hall belonging to the Methodists had been commandeered to be their post by Miss Woolf (herself a Methodist), and they had furnished it with a couple of camp beds, a small stove with tea-making equipment and an assortment of chairs, both hard and soft. Compared to some posts, compared to many, it was luxurious.\n\nMr Bullock turned up one night with a green baize card table and Miss Woolf declared herself rather fond of bridge. Mr Bullock, in the lull between the fall of France and the first raids at the beginning of September, had taught them all poker. 'Quite the card sharp,' Mr Simms said. Both he and Mr Palmer lost several shillings to Mr Bullock. Miss Woolf, on the other hand, was two pounds up by the time the Blitz started. An amused Mr Bullock expressed surprise that Methodists were allowed to gamble. Her winnings bought a dartboard so Mr Bullock had nothing to complain about, she said. One day when they were clearing a jumble of boxes in the corner of the hall they discovered that a piano had been hiding there all along and Miss Woolf \u2013 who was proving a woman of many talents \u2013 was a rather good player. Although her own tastes tended towards Chopin and Liszt, she was more than game to 'bash out a few tunes' \u2013 Mr Bullock's words \u2013 for them all to sing along to.\n\nThey had fortified the post with sandbags although none of them believed that they would be of any use if they were hit. Apart from Ursula, who thought that taking precautions seemed an eminently sensible idea, they all tended to agree with Mr Bullock that 'If it's got your name on it, it's got your name on it,' a form of Buddhist detachment that Dr Kellet would have admired. There had been an obituary in _The Times_ during the summer. Ursula was rather glad that Dr Kellet had missed another war. It would have reminded him of the futility of Guy losing everything at Arras.\n\nThey were all part-time volunteers, apart from Miss Woolf, who was paid and full-time and took her duties very seriously. She subjected them to rigorous drills and made sure they did their training \u2013 in antigas procedures, in extinguishing incendiaries, how to enter burning buildings, load stretchers, make splints, bandage limbs. She questioned them on the contents of the manuals that she made them read and she was very keen on them learning how to label bodies, both alive and dead, so that they could be sent off like parcels to the hospital or the mortuary with all the correct information attached. They had done several exercises out in the open where they had acted out a mock raid. ('Play-acting,' Mr Bullock scoffed, failing to get into the spirit of things.) Ursula played a casualty twice, once having to feign a broken leg and on another occasion complete unconsciousness. Another time she had been on the 'other side' and as a warden had had to deal with Mr Armitage simulating someone in hysterical shock. She supposed it was his experience on stage that enabled him to give such an unnervingly authentic performance. It was quite hard to persuade him out of character at the end of the exercise.\n\nThey had to know the occupants of every building in their sector, whether they had a shelter of their own or whether they went to a public one or whether they too were fatalists and didn't bother at all. They had to know if anyone had gone away or moved, married, had a baby, died. They had to know where the hydrants were, cul-de-sacs, narrow alleyways, cellars, rest centres.\n\n'Patrol and watch', that was Miss Woolf's motto. They tended to patrol the streets in pairs until midnight when there was usually a lull, and then if there were no bombs in their sector they would have a polite argument over who should occupy the camp beds. Of course, if there was a raid in 'their streets' then it was 'all hands to the pumps' in Miss Woolf's words. Sometimes they did the 'watching' from her flat, two storeys up with an excellent view from a big corner window.\n\nMiss Woolf also did extra first-aid exercises with them. As well as having been a hospital matron, she had run a field hospital during the last war and explained to them ('As you will appreciate, those of you gentlemen who saw active service in that dreadful conflict') that casualties in war were very different from the routine accidents that one saw in peacetime. 'Much nastier,' she said. 'We must be prepared for some distressing sights.' Of course, even Miss Woolf had not imagined how distressing these sights would be when they involved civilians rather than battlefield soldiers, when they involved shovelling up unidentifiable lumps of flesh or picking out the heartbreakingly small limbs of a child from the rubble.\n\n'We cannot turn away,' Miss Woolf told her, 'we must get on with our job and we must bear witness.' What did that mean, Ursula wondered. 'It means,' Miss Woolf said, 'that we must remember these people when we are safely in the future.'\n\n'And if _we_ are killed?'\n\n'Then others must remember _us_.'\n\nThe first serious incident they attended had been at a large house in the middle of a terrace that had received a direct hit. The rest of the terrace was undamaged, as though the Luftwaffe had personally targeted the occupants \u2013 two families including grandparents, several children, two babes-in-arms. They had all survived the blast, sheltering in the cellar, but both the mains water pipe and a large sewage pipe had fractured and before either could be turned off everyone in the cellar had drowned in the awful sludge.\n\nOne of the women had managed to claw her way up and cling on to one of the cellar walls, they could see her through a gap, and Miss Woolf and Mr Armitage had held on to Hugh's leather belt while Ursula had dangled over the lip of what remained of the cellar. She reached out a hand to the woman, thought for a moment that she might actually manage to grasp hold of her, but then she simply disappeared beneath the feculent water as it rose to fill the cellar.\n\nWhen the fire brigade finally arrived to pump out the place they recovered fifteen bodies, seven of them children, and laid them in front of the house, as if to dry. Miss Woolf ordered them shrouded as quickly as possible and stowed away behind a wall while they awaited the arrival of the mortuary wagon. 'It doesn't do morale any good to see sights like that,' she said. Ursula had vomited up her supper long before then. She vomited after nearly every incident. Mr Armitage and Mr Palmer too, Mr Simms before. Only Miss Woolf and Mr Bullock seemed to have strong stomachs for death.\n\nAfterwards, Ursula tried not to think about the babies or the look of terror on that poor woman's face as she had grasped in vain for Ursula's hand (and something else, disbelief perhaps that this could be happening). 'Think of them being at peace now,' Miss Woolf counselled stoutly afterwards, dispensing scalding-hot sugary tea. 'They are out of all this, just gone a little sooner.' And Mr Durkin said, ' _They have all gone into the world of light_ ,' and Ursula thought, _they_ are _all gone into the world of light_. Ursula wasn't convinced that the dead went anywhere, except into a void, black and infinite.\n\n'Well, I hope _I_ don't die covered in shit,' Mr Bullock said, more prosaically.\n\nShe thought she would never get over that first terrible incident but the memory of it had already been overlaid by many others and now she barely thought about it.\n\n'It's bad,' Miss Woolf said matter-of-factly. 'They need someone slight.'\n\n'Slight?' Ursula repeated.\n\n'Slim,' Miss Woolf said patiently.\n\n'To go in there?' Ursula said, looking up in horror at the summit of the volcano. She wasn't sure she had the gumption to be lowered into the very maw of hell.\n\n'No, no, not there,' Miss Woolf said. 'Come with me.' It had begun to rain, quite hard, and Ursula blundered with difficulty in Miss Woolf's wake over the jagged and broken ground, littered with every kind of obstacle. Her torch was next to useless. She caught her foot in a bicycle wheel and wondered if anyone had been riding it when the bomb struck.\n\n'Here,' Miss Woolf said. It was another mound, just as big as the last. Was it another street, or the same street? Ursula had lost all sense of direction. How many mounds were there? A nightmarish scenario flashed through her mind \u2013 the whole of London reduced to one gigantic mound.\n\nThis mound wasn't a volcano, the rescue squad were going in through a horizontal shaft at the side. More robust this time, they were hacking at the rubble with picks and shovels.\n\n'There's a kind of hole here,' Miss Woolf said, taking Ursula's hand firmly in hers, as if Ursula were a reluctant child, and leading her forward. Ursula could see no sign of a hole. 'It's safe, I think, you just need to wriggle through.'\n\n'A tunnel?'\n\n'No, it's just a hole. There's a bit of a drop on the other side, we think there's someone down there. Not a long drop,' she added encouragingly. 'Not a tunnel,' she said again. 'Go head first.' The rescue squad stopped hacking at the rubble and waited, rather impatiently, for Ursula.\n\nShe had to take her helmet off in order to wriggle into the hole, her torch held awkwardly in front of her. Despite what Miss Woolf said, she had been expecting a tunnel but was immediately confronted with a cavernous space. She might have been potholing. She was relieved when she felt two pairs of invisible hands attach themselves to Hugh's old leather belt. She moved the torch around trying to see something, anything. 'Hello?' she shouted as she shone the torch into the drop. It was screened by a haphazard lattice of twisted gas pipes and wood, splintered like matchsticks. She concentrated on a gap in the chaotic mesh, trying to make out anything in the gloom beyond. An upturned face, a man's, pale and ghostly, seemed to rise out of the darkness like a vision, a prisoner in an oubliette. There might be a body attached to the face, she couldn't be sure.\n\n'Hello?' she said, as if the man might reply, although now she could see that part of his head was missing.\n\n'Anyone?' Miss Woolf said hopefully when she crawled backwards out of the hole.\n\n'One dead.'\n\n'Easy to recover?'\n\n'No.'\n\nThe rain made everything even more foul if that were possible, turning the wet brick dust into a kind of glutinous grit. A couple of hours of toiling in these conditions and they were all covered from head to toe in the stuff. It was too disgusting to give any thought to.\n\nThere was a shortage of ambulances, traffic had been snarled up by an incident on the Cromwell Road, as had the doctor and nurse who should have been there, and Miss Woolf's extra first-aid training was put to good use. Ursula splinted a broken arm, bandaged a head wound, patched an eye and strapped up Mr Simms's ankle \u2013 he had twisted it on the rough ground. She labelled two unconscious survivors (head injuries, broken femur, broken collarbone, broken ribs, what was probably a crushed pelvis) and several dead (who were easier, they were simply dead) and then double-checked them in case she had labelled them the wrong way round and had posted the dead to the hospital and the living to the mortuary. She also directed numerous survivors to the rest centre, and walking wounded to the first-aid post being manned by Miss Woolf.\n\n'Catch Anthony if you can, will you?' she said when she saw Ursula. 'Get a mobile canteen down here.' Ursula sent Tony off with this errand. Only Miss Woolf called him Anthony. He was thirteen, a Boy Scout and their civil defence messenger boy, hurtling around on the rubble-and-glass-strewn streets on his bike. If Tony were her child, Ursula thought, she would have sent him far away from the nightmare instead of plunging him into the depths of it. He loved it all, needless to say.\n\nAfter she'd spoken to Tony, Ursula went back through the hole again because someone thought they had heard a sound, but the pale, dead man was as quiet as before. 'Hello, again,' she said to him. She thought it might be Mr McColl from the neighbouring street. Perhaps he was visiting someone. Unlucky. She was dog-tired, you could almost envy the dead their eternal rest.\n\nWhen she emerged again from the hole the mobile canteen had arrived. She swilled her mouth out with tea and spat out brick dust. 'I bet you used to be a real lady,' Mr Palmer laughed. 'I'm affronted,' Ursula said and laughed. 'I think I spit in a very ladylike way.' The rescue on the mound was still going on with no sign of any result but the rest of the night was winding down and Miss Woolf told her to go back to the post and rest. Up on the mound a rope had been called for, to lower someone down, Ursula supposed, or pull someone up, or both. ('A woman, they think,' Mr Durkin said.)\n\nShe was all in, could barely put one foot in front of the other. Avoiding the debris as best she could, she had gone only ten yards or so when someone grabbed her by the arm and yanked her backwards so hard that she would have fallen over if the same person hadn't kept his tight grip on her and kept her upright. 'Watch it, Miss Todd,' a voice growled.\n\n'Mr Bullock?' In the confines of the post Mr Bullock alarmed her a little, he seemed so unassailable, but, curiously, out here in this benighted place he was harmless. 'What is it?' she said. 'I'm very tired.'\n\nHe shone his torch in front of them. 'Can you see?' he said.\n\n'I can't see anything.'\n\n'That's because there's nothing there.' She looked harder. A crater \u2013 enormous \u2013 a bottomless pit. 'Twenty, maybe thirty feet,' Mr Bullock said. 'And you nearly walked into it.'\n\nHe accompanied her back to the post. 'You're too tired,' he said. He held her arm all the way, she could feel the strength of his muscles behind the grip.\n\nAt the post she dropped on to a camp bed and blacked out rather than fell asleep. She woke up when the all-clear sounded at six o'clock. She felt as if she'd slept for days but it had only been three hours.\n\nMr Palmer was also there, pottering about making tea. She could imagine him at home, slippers and a pipe, reading his newspaper. It seemed absurd that he should be here. 'There you go,' he said, handing her a mug. 'You should go home, dear,' he said, 'the rain's stopped,' as though it were the rain that had spoilt her night rather than the Luftwaffe.\n\nInstead of going straight home she returned to the mound to see how the rescue was proceeding. It seemed different in the daylight, the shape of it oddly familiar. It reminded her of something but for the life of her she couldn't think what.\n\nIt was a scene of devastation, more or less the whole street gone, but the mound, the original mound, was still its own little hive of activity. It would have made a good subject for a war artist, she thought. _The Diggers on the Mound_ would be a good title. Bea Shawcross had been at art school, graduating just as the war started. Ursula wondered if she was moved to depict the war or if she was trying to transcend it.\n\nVery gingerly, she scaled its foothills. One of the rescue squad put out a hand to help her up. A new shift had come on but, from the look of them, the old rescue squad was the one still labouring. Ursula understood. It was hard to leave an incident when somehow you felt you 'owned' it.\n\nThere was a sudden buzz of excitement around the volcano's crater as the fruits of the night's delicate drudgery finally became apparent. A woman, a rope tied under her armpits (nothing delicate about this stage), was extricated by simply hauling her out of the narrow opening. She was passed by hand down the mound.\n\nUrsula could see that she was almost black with dirt and drifting in and out of consciousness. Broken but alive, if only just. She was loaded into an ambulance waiting patiently at the bottom.\n\nUrsula made her own way down. On the ground, a shrouded body lay waiting for a mortuary van. Ursula removed the cover from the face and found the pale-faced man from last night. In the light of day she could see that it was definitely Mr McColl from number ten. 'Hello, you,' she said. He would soon be an old friend. Miss Woolf would have told her to label him but when she looked for her message pad she discovered she had lost it and had nothing to write on. Searching in a pocket she found her lipstick. _Needs must_ , she heard Sylvie's voice say.\n\nShe thought about writing on Mr McColl's forehead but that seemed undignified (more undignified than death, she wondered?) so instead she unshrouded his arm and then spat on a handkerchief and rubbed off some of the dirt, as if he were a little boy. She wrote his name and address on his arm with the lipstick. Blood red, which seemed fitting really.\n\n'Well, goodbye,' she said. 'I don't suppose we'll meet again.'\n\n*\n\nSkirting the treacherous crater from last night, she discovered Miss Woolf sitting behind a dining table salvaged from the wreckage, as if she were in an office, telling people what they should do next \u2013 where to go for food and shelter, how to get clothes and ration cards and so on. Miss Woolf was still cheerful, yet heaven knows when she had last slept. The woman had iron in her soul, there was no doubt about that. Ursula had grown enormously fond of Miss Woolf, she respected her almost more than anyone else she knew, apart from Hugh perhaps.\n\nThe queue was made up of the occupants of a large shelter, many of whom were still emerging, blinking in the daylight like nocturnal animals, and discovering that they no longer had homes to go to. The shelter was in the wrong place, the wrong street, Ursula thought. It took her a few moments to re-orientate her brain and realize that all night she had thought herself in a different street.\n\n'They got that woman out,' she told Miss Woolf.\n\n'Alive?'\n\n'More or less.'\n\nWhen she finally got back to Phillimore Gardens she found Millie up and dressed. ' _Went the day well?_ ' she said. 'There's some tea in the pot,' she added, pouring it and handing Ursula a cup.\n\n'Oh, you know,' Ursula said, taking the cup. The tea was lukewarm. She shrugged. 'Pretty awful. Is that the time? I have to go to work.'\n\nThe following day she was surprised to find one of Miss Woolf's log entries, written in her clear matron's hand. Sometimes a buff folder would prove to be a mysterious ragbag and Ursula was never clear how some of these things turned up on her desk. _05.00 Interim Incident Report. Situation Report. Casualties 55 to hospital, 30 dead, 3 unaccounted for. Seven houses completely demolished, approximately 120 homeless. 2 NFS crews, 2 AMB, 2 HRPs, 2 LRP, one dog still operating. Work continues_.\n\nUrsula hadn't noticed any dog. It was just one of many incidents across London that night and she picked up a sheaf of them and said, 'Miss Fawcett, can you log these.' She could barely wait for the tea-trolley and elevenses.\n\n*\n\nThey ate lunch outside on the terrace. A potato and egg salad, radishes, lettuce, tomatoes, even a cucumber. 'All grown by our mother's own fair hand,' Pamela said. It really was the nicest meal Ursula had eaten in a long time. 'And to follow there's an apple charlotte, I believe,' Pamela said. They were alone at the table. Sylvie had gone to answer the doorbell and Hugh hadn't returned from investigating an unexploded bomb that had, reportedly, fallen in a field on the other side of the village.\n\nThe boys were also dining _al fresco \u2013_ sprawled on the lawn, eating buffalo stew and succotash (or, in the real world, corned beef sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs). They had erected a fusty old wigwam that had been unearthed in the shed and had been engaged in a lawless game of cowboys and Indians until the arrival of the chuck wagon (or Bridget, bearing a tray).\n\nPamela's boys were the cowboys and the evacuees were more than happy to be Apaches. 'I think it suits their nature better,' Pamela said. She had made them cardboard headbands with chicken feathers attached. The cowboys had to make do with Hugh's handkerchiefs tied around their necks. The two Labradors were racing around in a state of canine frenzy at all this excitement, while Gerald, still only ten months old, slept obliviously on a blanket alongside Pamela's dog, Heidi, too sedate for such antics.\n\n'He's some kind of token squaw, apparently,' Pamela said. 'At least it keeps them quiet. It's like a miracle. It goes rather well with the Indian summer we're having.'\n\n'Six boys in one house,' Pamela said. 'Thank God the school term's started. Boys never flag, you have to keep them busy all the time. I suppose this is a flying visit?'\n\n''Fraid so.'\n\nA precious Saturday to herself that she had sacrificed for the sake of seeing Pammy and the boys. She found Pamela drained whereas Sylvie seemed animated by the war. She had become an unlikely stalwart of the WVS.\n\n'I'm surprised. She doesn't like other women much,' Pamela said.\n\nSylvie now had a large flock of chickens and had stepped up egg production to wartime levels. 'The poor things are forced to lay day and night,' Pamela said, 'you'd think Mother was running an armaments factory.' Ursula wasn't sure how you could make a chicken do overtime. 'She talks them into it,' Pamela laughed. 'A regular henwife.'\n\nUrsula didn't mention that she had been called to an incident, a house that had been hit, where the occupants had chickens in a makeshift run in the back yard and that when they arrived they had found the chickens, nearly all of them alive, with their feathers blown off. 'Ready-plucked,' Mr Bullock had laughed callously. Ursula had seen people with their clothes blown off and trees in the middle of summer stripped of all their leaves, but she didn't mention these things either. She didn't mention wading in effluent from ruptured pipes, certainly didn't mention drowning in that same effluent. Nor did she mention the gruesome sensation of putting your hand on a man's chest and finding that your hand had somehow slipped _inside_ that chest. (Dead \u2013 something to be thankful for, she supposed.)\n\nDid Harold tell Pamela the things he had seen? Ursula didn't ask, even introducing the topic seemed wrong on such a pleasant day. She thought of all those soldiers from the last war who had come home and never spoken of what they had witnessed in the trenches. Mr Simms, Mr Palmer, her own father too, of course.\n\nSylvie's egg production seemed to be at the heart of some kind of rural black market. No one in the village was particularly short of anything. 'It's a barter economy around here,' Pamela said. 'And barter they do, believe me. That's what she'll be doing now, at the front door.'\n\n'At least you're pretty safe here,' Ursula said. Were they? She thought of the UXB Hugh had gone to look at. Or the previous week when a bomb had come down in a field belonging to the Hall farm and blown the cows in it to pieces. 'A lot of people have been quietly eating beef around here,' Pamela said. 'Us included, I'm happy to say.' Sylvie seemed to think this 'terrible episode' had put them on a par with London's suffering. She had returned now and lit up a cigarette rather than finish her food. Ursula ate what she had left on her plate while Pamela took one of Sylvie's cigarettes from the packet and lit up.\n\nBridget came out and started clearing plates and Ursula jumped up and said, 'Oh, no, I'll do that.' Pamela and Sylvie remained at the table, smoking in silence, observing the defence of the wigwam from a raiding party of evacuees. Ursula felt rather badly done by. Both Sylvie and Pamela spoke as if they had it hard whereas she was working all day, out on patrol most nights, facing the most awful sights. Only yesterday they had been at an incident where they had worked to free someone while blood dripped on their heads from a body up in the bedroom they couldn't reach because the staircase was knee-deep in broken glass from a huge skylight.\n\n'I'm thinking of going back to Ireland,' Bridget said as they rinsed plates. 'I have never felt at home in this country.'\n\n'Neither have I,' Ursula said.\n\nThe apple charlotte turned out to be simply stewed apples as Sylvie refused to use precious stale bread on a pudding when it could be fed more usefully to the chickens. Nothing went to waste at Fox Corner. Scraps went to the chickens ('She's thinking of getting a pig,' Hugh said in despair), after bones had made stock they were sent for salvage, as was every last tin and glass jar that wasn't being filled with jam or chutney or beans or tomatoes. All the books in the house had been parcelled up and taken to the post office to be sent off to the services. 'We've already read them,' Sylvie said, 'so what's the point in keeping them?'\n\nHugh returned and Bridget grumbled back outside with a plate for him.\n\n'Oh,' Sylvie said politely to him, 'do you live here? I say, why don't you join us?'\n\n'Really, Sylvie,' Hugh said, more sharply than was his usual manner. 'You can be such a child.'\n\n'If I am then it's marriage that's made me so,' Sylvie said.\n\n'I remember that you once said there was no higher calling for a woman than marriage,' Hugh said.\n\n'Did I? That must have been in our salad days.'\n\nPamela raised her eyebrows at Ursula and Ursula wondered when had their parents become so openly quarrelsome? Ursula was going to ask him about the bomb but then, 'How's Millie?' Pamela asked brightly to change the subject.\n\n'She's well,' Ursula said. 'She's a very easy-going person to share digs with. Although I hardly ever see her in Phillimore Gardens. She's joined ENSA. She's in some kind of troupe that goes round factories, entertaining workers in their lunch hour.'\n\n'Poor blighters,' Hugh laughed.\n\n'With Shakespeare?' Sylvie asked doubtfully.\n\n'I think she turns her hand to anything these days. A bit of singing, comedy, you know.' Sylvie didn't look as if she did.\n\n'I have a young man,' Ursula blurted out, catching them all unawares, including herself. It was more to lighten the conversation than anything. She should have known better really.\n\nHe was called Ralph. He lived in Holborn and he was a new friend, a 'pal', that she had met at her German class. He had been an architect before the war and Ursula supposed he would be an architect afterwards too. If anyone was still alive, of course. (Could London be erased, like Knossos or Pompeii? The Cretans and the Romans probably went around saying, 'We can take it,' in the heart of disaster.) Ralph was full of ideas for the rebuilding of the slums as modern towers. 'A city for the people', he said, one that would 'rise from the ashes of the old like a phoenix, modernist to the core'.\n\n'What an iconoclast he sounds,' Pamela said.\n\n'He's not nostalgic in the way we are.'\n\n'Are we? Nostalgic?'\n\n'Yes,' Ursula said. 'Nostalgia is predicated on something that never existed. We imagine an Arcadia in the past, Ralph sees it in the future. Both equally unreal, of course.'\n\n'Cloud-capped palaces?'\n\n'Something like that.'\n\n'But you like him?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Have you... you know?'\n\n'Really! What kind of a question is that?' Ursula laughed. (Sylvie was at the door again, Hugh was sitting cross-legged on the lawn pretending to be Big Chief Running Bull.)\n\n'It's a very good question,' Pamela said.\n\nThey hadn't, as it happened. Perhaps if he were more ardent. She thought of Crighton. 'And anyway there is so little time for...'\n\n'Sex?' Pamela said.\n\n'Well, I was going to say courtship, but yes, sex.' Sylvie had returned and was trying to separate the warring factions on the lawn. The evacuees made very unsportsmanlike enemies. Hugh was tied up now with an old washing line. 'Help!' he mouthed to Ursula but he was grinning like a schoolboy. It was nice to see him happy.\n\nBefore the war her wooing by Ralph (or his by her, perhaps) might have taken the form of dances, the cinema, cosy dinners _\u00e0 deux_ but now, more often than not, they had found themselves at bombsites, like sightseers viewing ancient ruins. The view from the top deck of the number eleven bus was particularly good for this, they had discovered.\n\nIt was perhaps due more to a kink in their respective characters than the war itself. After all, other couples managed to keep up the rituals.\n\nThey had 'visited' the Duveen Gallery at the British Museum, Hammonds next to the National Gallery, the huge crater at the Bank, so big that they had to build a temporary bridge across it. John Lewis, still smouldering when they arrived, the blackened mannequins from the shop windows strewn across the pavement, their clothes ripped off.\n\n'Do you think we're like ghouls?' Ralph asked and Ursula said, 'No, we are witnesses.' She supposed she would go to bed with him eventually. There was no great argument to be found against it.\n\nBridget came out with tea and cake and Pamela said, 'I think I'd better untie Daddy.'\n\n'Have a drink,' Hugh said, pouring her a tumbler of malt from the cut-glass decanter that he kept in the growlery. 'I find myself in here more and more these days,' he said. 'It's the only place I can get peace. Dogs and evacuees strictly barred. I worry about you, you know,' he added.\n\n'I worry about me too.'\n\n'Is it bloody?'\n\n'Dreadfully. But I believe it's the right thing. I think we are doing the right thing.'\n\n'A just war? You know the Coles still have most of their family in Europe. Mr Cole has told me some dreadful things, things that are happening to the Jews. I don't think anyone here really wants to know. Anyway,' he said, raising his glass and trying for a cheerful note, 'down the hatch. Here's to the end.'\n\n*\n\nIt was dark when she left and Hugh walked her down the lane to the station.\n\n'No petrol, I'm afraid,' he said, 'you should have gone earlier,' he added ruefully. He had a stout torch and there was no one to yell at him to put the light out. 'I hardly think I'm going to guide in a Heinkel,' he said. Ursula told him how most rescue squads had an almost superstitious horror of lights even when they were in the middle of a raid, surrounded by burning buildings and incendiaries and flares. As if a small torch beam would make any difference.\n\n'Knew a chap in the trenches,' Hugh said, 'lit a match, and Bob's your uncle, a German sniper shot his head clean off. Good chap,' he added reflectively, 'name of Rogerson, same as the bakers in the village. No relation.'\n\n'You never talk about it,' Ursula said.\n\n'I'm talking about it now,' Hugh said. 'Let it be a lesson to you, keep your head below the parapet and your light beneath a bushel.'\n\n'I know you don't mean that. Not really.'\n\n'I do. I'd rather you were a coward than dead, little bear. Teddy and Jimmy too.'\n\n'You don't mean that either.'\n\n'I do. Here we are, it's so dark you could walk right by the station and never see it. I doubt that your train will be on time, if there is a train at all. Oh, look, here's Fred. Evening, Fred.'\n\n'Mr Todd, Miss Todd. So you know, this is the last train tonight,' Fred Smith said. Fred had long since graduated from fireman to driver.\n\n'It's not really a train,' Ursula said, bemused. There was an engine but no carriages.\n\nFred looked back along the platform to where the carriages should have been, as if he'd forgotten their absence. 'Ah, yes, well,' he said, 'last time they were seen they were hanging off Waterloo Bridge. It's a long story,' he added, clearly unwilling to elaborate. Ursula was puzzled as to why the engine should be here _sans_ carriages but Fred looked rather grim.\n\n'I won't get home tonight then,' Ursula said.\n\n'Well,' Fred said, 'I've got to get this engine back up to town and I've got a head of steam up and I've got a fireman, old Willie here, so if you want to hop up on the footplate, Miss Todd, I think we can get you back.'\n\n'Really?' Ursula said.\n\n'It won't be as clean as riding on the cushions, but if you're game?'\n\n'I certainly am.'\n\nThe engine was impatient to go so she gave Hugh a quick hug and said, 'See you soon,' and climbed the steps up to the footplate where she took up her perch on the fireman's seat.\n\n'You will take care, little bear, won't you?' Hugh said. 'In London?' He had to raise his voice above the sound of hissing steam. 'Promise me?'\n\n'I promise,' she shouted. 'See you later!'\n\nShe twisted round, trying to see him on the dark platform as the train chugged off. She felt a sudden stab of guilt, she had played a rowdy game of hide-and-seek with the boys after supper. Instead she should, as Hugh said, have left when it was still light. Now Hugh would have to walk back in the dark alone along the lane. (She thought suddenly of poor little Angela, all those years ago.) Hugh quickly disappeared into the dark and smoke.\n\n'Well, this _is_ exciting,' she said to Fred. It didn't cross her mind that she would never see her father again.\n\nExciting, it was true, but also somewhat terrifying. The engine was a great metal beast roaring through the dark, the raw power of the machine come to life. It shook and rocked as if it were trying to dislodge her from its insides. Ursula had never previously thought about what went on in the cab of an engine. She had imagined, if she had imagined it at all, a relatively serene place \u2013 the driver alert to the track ahead, the fireman cheerfully shovelling coal. But instead there was non-stop activity, a continual conferring between fireman and driver over gradients and pressure, the frantic shovelling or the sudden closing down, the continual rackety noise, the almost unbearable heat of the furnace, the filthy soot from the tunnels that didn't seem to be kept out by the metal plates that had been put up to prevent light escaping from the cab. It was so hot! 'Hotter than hell,' Fred said.\n\nDespite the wartime speed restrictions they seemed to be travelling at least twice as fast as when she travelled in a carriage ('on the cushions', she thought, she must remember that for Teddy who, despite now being a pilot, still harboured his childhood desire to be a train driver).\n\nAs they approached London they could see fires in the east and hear the distant pealing of guns but as they neared the marshalling yards and engine sheds it became almost eerily quiet. They slowed to a halt and all was suddenly, thankfully, peaceful.\n\nFred helped her down from the cab. 'There you go, ma'am,' he said. 'Home sweet home. Well, not quite, I'm afraid.' He looked suddenly doubtful. 'I would walk you home but we have to put this engine to bed. Will you be all right from here?' They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, just tracks and points and the looming shadows of engines. 'There's a bomb at Marylebone. We're at the back of King's Cross,' Fred said, reading her mind. 'It's not as bad as you think.' He switched on the weakest of torches, it illuminated only a foot or so in front of them. 'Have to be careful,' he said, 'we're a prime target here.'\n\n'I'll be absolutely fine,' she said, a little more gung-ho than she felt. 'Don't give me a second thought, and thank you. Good night, Fred.' She set off resolutely and immediately tripped over a rail and gave a little cry of distress when she banged her knee hard on the sharp stones of the track.\n\n'Here, Miss Todd,' Fred said, helping her up. 'You'll never find your way in the dark. Come on, I'll walk you to the gates.' He took her arm and set off, steering her as they went, for all the world as if they were on a Sunday stroll along the Embankment. She remembered how she had been rather sweet on Fred when she was younger. It would probably be quite easy to be sweet on him again, she reckoned.\n\nThey reached a big pair of wooden gates and he opened a small door set within them.\n\n'I think I know where I am,' she said. She had no idea where she was but she didn't want to inconvenience Fred any longer. 'Well, thank you again, maybe I'll see you next time I get down to Fox Corner.'\n\n'I doubt it,' he said. 'I start in the AFS tomorrow. Plenty of old codgers like Willie can keep the trains running.'\n\n'Good for you,' she said, although she was thinking how dangerous the fire service was.\n\n*\n\nIt was the blackest blackout ever. She walked with a hand in front of her face and eventually bumped into a woman who told her where she was. They walked together for half a mile or so. After a few minutes on her own again she heard footsteps behind her and she said, 'I'm here,' so the owner of the feet didn't walk into her. It was a man, no more than a figure in the dark who went with her as far as Hyde Park. Before the war you would never have dreamed of hooking arms with a complete stranger \u2013 particularly a man \u2013 but now the danger from the skies seemed so much greater than anything that could befall you from this odd intimacy.\n\nShe thought it must be nearly dawn when she got back to Phillimore Gardens but it was barely midnight. Millie, all dressed up, had just returned from an evening out. 'Oh, my God,' she said when she saw Ursula. 'What happened to you? Did you get bombed?'\n\nUrsula looked in the mirror and found that she was smudged all over with soot and coal dust. 'What a fright,' she said.\n\n'You look like a coalminer,' Millie said.\n\n'More like an engine driver,' she said, rapidly recounting the night's adventures.\n\n'Oh,' Millie said, 'Fred Smith, the butcher's boy. He was a bit of a dish.'\n\n'Still is, I suppose. I've got eggs from Fox Corner,' she said, removing the cardboard box that Sylvie had given her from her bag. The eggs had been nestled in straw, but now they were cracked and broken from the jolting of the track or when she fell in the engine yard.\n\nThe next day they managed to make an omelette from the salvaged remains.\n\n'Lovely,' Millie said. 'You should get home more often.'\n\n# _October 1940_\n\n'It's certainly busy tonight,' Miss Woolf said. A glorious understatement. There was a full-scale raid in progress, bombers droning overhead, glinting occasionally when they caught a searchlight. HE bombs flashed and roared and the large batteries _banged_ and _whuffed_ and _cracked \u2013_ all the usual racket. Shells whistled or screamed on their way up, a mile a second until they winked and twinkled like stars before extinguishing themselves. Fragments came clattering down. (A few days ago Mr Simms's cousin had been killed by shrapnel from the ack-acks in Hyde Park. 'Shame to be killed by your own,' Mr Palmer said. 'Sort of pointless.') A red glow over Holborn indicated an oil bomb. Ralph lived in Holborn but Ursula supposed on a night like this he would be in St Paul's.\n\n'It's almost like a painting, isn't it?' Miss Woolf said.\n\n'Of the Apocalypse maybe,' Ursula said. Against the backdrop of black night the fires that had been started burnt in a huge variety of colours \u2013 scarlet and gold and orange, indigo and a sickly lemon. Occasionally vivid greens and blues would shoot up where something chemical had caught fire. Orange flames and thick black smoke roiled out of a warehouse. 'It gives one a quite different perspective, doesn't it?' Miss Woolf mused. It did. It seemed both grand and terrible compared to their own grubby little labours. 'It makes me proud,' Mr Simms said quietly. 'Our battling on like this, I mean. All alone.'\n\n'And against all odds,' Miss Woolf sighed.\n\nThey could see all the way along the Thames. Barrage balloons dotted the sky like blind whales bobbing around in the wrong element. They were on the roof of Shell-Mex House. The building was now occupied by the Ministry of Supply, for which Mr Simms worked, and he had invited Ursula and Miss Woolf to come and 'see the view from the top'.\n\n'It's spectacular, isn't it? Savage and yet strangely magnificent,' Mr Simms said, as though they were at the summit of one of the Lakeland fells rather than a building on the Strand in the middle of a raid.\n\n'Well, I don't know about _magnificent_ , exactly,' Miss Woolf said.\n\n'Churchill was up here the other night,' Mr Simms said. 'Such a good vantage point. He was fascinated.'\n\nLater, when Ursula and Miss Woolf were alone, Miss Woolf said, 'You know, I rather had the impression that Mr Simms was a lowly clerk in the ministry, he's quite a meek soul, but he must be quite senior to have been up on the roof with Churchill.' (One of the firewatchers on duty on the roof had said, 'Evening, Mr Simms,' with the kind of respect people felt obliged to afford to Maurice, although in the case of Mr Simms it was less grudgingly given.) 'He's unassuming,' Miss Woolf said. 'I like that in a man.' Whereas I prefer assuming, Ursula thought.\n\n'It really is quite a show,' Miss Woolf said.\n\n'Isn't it, though?' Mr Simms said enthusiastically. Ursula supposed that they were all aware how odd it was to be admiring the 'show' when they were so painfully conscious of what it meant on the ground.\n\n'It's as if the gods are throwing a particularly noisy party,' Mr Simms said.\n\n'One I would rather not be invited to,' Miss Woolf said.\n\nA familiar fearful swishing sound made them all duck for cover but the bombs exploded some way away and although they heard the explosions _bang-bang-bang-bang_ they couldn't see what had been hit. Ursula found it very odd to think that up above them there were German bombers being flown by men who, essentially, were just like Teddy. They weren't evil, they were just doing what had been asked of them by their country. It was war itself that was evil, not men. Although she would make an exception for Hitler. 'Oh, yes,' Miss Woolf said, 'I think the man is quite, quite mad.'\n\nAt that moment, to their surprise, a basket of incendiaries came swooping down and crashed its noisy load right on the ministry's roof. The incendiaries cracked and sparked and the two firewatchers ran towards them with a stirrup pump. Miss Woolf grabbed a bucket of sand and beat them to it. ('Fast for an old bird' was Mr Bullock's estimation of Miss Woolf under pressure.)\n\n' _What if this were the world's last night?_ ' a familiar voice said.\n\n'Ah, Mr Durkin, you managed to join us,' Mr Simms said affably. 'You didn't have any trouble with the man on the door?'\n\n'No, no, he knew I was expected,' Mr Durkin said, as if feeling his own importance.\n\n'Is _anyone_ left at the post?' Miss Woolf murmured to no one in particular.\n\nUrsula felt suddenly compelled to correct Mr Durkin. ' _What if this_ present _were the world's last night_ ,' she said. 'The word \"present\" makes all the difference, don't you think? It makes it seem as if one's somehow in the thick of it, which we are, rather than simply contemplating a theoretical concept. This is it, the end right now, no more shillyshallying.'\n\n'Goodness, so much fuss over one little word,' Mr Durkin said, sounding put out. 'However, I obviously stand corrected.' Ursula thought that one word could mean a great deal. If any poet was scrupulous with words then it was surely Donne. Donne, himself once the dean of St Paul's, had been moved down to an ignominious berth in the basement of the cathedral. In death he had survived the Great Fire of London, would he survive this one too? Wellington's tomb was too hefty to move and had simply been bricked up. Ralph had given her a tour \u2013 he was on the night watch there. He knew everything there was to know about the cathedral. Not quite the iconoclast that Pamela had presumed.\n\nWhen they emerged into the bright afternoon, he said, 'Shall we try and get a cup of tea somewhere?' and Ursula said, 'No, let's go back to your place in Holborn and go to bed with each other.' So they had and she had felt rotten because she couldn't help thinking about Crighton while Ralph was politely accommodating his body to hers. Afterwards, he had seemed abashed as if he no longer knew how to be with her. She said, 'I'm just the same person as I was before we did this,' and he said, 'I'm not sure I am.' And she thought, oh dear God, he's a virgin, but he laughed and said, no, no, that wasn't it \u2013 he _wasn't \u2013_ it was just that he was so very much in love with her 'and now I feel, I don't know... sublimated'.\n\n'Sublimated?' Millie said. 'Sounds like sentimental twaddle to me. He has you on a pedestal, heaven help him when he discovers that you have feet of clay.'\n\n'Thank you.'\n\n'Is that a mixed metaphor or is it a rather clever image?' Millie, of course had always\u2014\n\n'Miss Todd?'\n\n'Sorry. Miles away.'\n\n'We should get back to our sector,' Miss Woolf said. 'It's strange, but one feels rather safe up here.'\n\n'I'm sure we're not,' Ursula said. She was right, for a few days later Shell-Mex House was badly hit by a bomb.\n\nShe was keeping watch with Miss Woolf in her flat. Sitting at her big corner window they drank tea and ate biscuits and could have been any two women spending the evening together if it hadn't been for the tolling thunder of the barrage. Ursula learned that Miss Woolf's name was Dorcas (which she had never liked) and that her fianc\u00e9 (Richard) had died in the Great War. 'I still call it that,' she said, 'and yet this one is the greater. At least this time we have right on our side, I hope.' Miss Woolf believed in the war but her religious faith had begun to 'crumble' since the start of the bombing. 'Yet we must hold fast to what is good and true. But it all seems so random. One wonders about the divine plan and so on.'\n\n'More of a shambles than a plan,' Ursula agreed.\n\n'And the poor Germans, I doubt many of _them_ are in favour of the war \u2013 of course one mustn't say that in the hearing of people like Mr Bullock. But if _we_ had lost the Great War and been burdened with great debt just as the world's economy collapsed then perhaps we too would have been a tinderbox awaiting the strike of a flint \u2013 a Mosley or some such awful person. More tea, dear?'\n\n'I know,' Ursula said, 'but they are trying to _kill_ us, you know,' and as if to demonstrate this fact they heard the _swish_ and _wheee_ that heralded a bomb heading in their direction and flung themselves with remarkable speed behind the sofa. It seemed unlikely that it would be enough to save them and yet only two nights ago they had pulled a woman out, almost unscathed, from beneath an upturned settee in a house that was otherwise more or less destroyed.\n\nThe bomb shook the Staffordshire cow-creamers on Miss Woolf's dresser but they agreed it had landed outside their section. They were both finely tuned to the bombs these days.\n\nThey were also both terribly down in spirits as Mr Palmer, the bank manager, had been killed when a delayed action bomb had detonated at an incident they were attending. The DA had blown him some distance and they found him half buried beneath an iron bedstead. He had lost his spectacles but looked relatively unharmed. 'Can you feel a pulse,' Miss Woolf said and Ursula puzzled as to why she was asking when Miss Woolf was much more capable of finding a pulse than she was, but then she realized that Miss Woolf was very upset. 'It's different when you know someone,' she said, gently stroking Mr Palmer's forehead. 'I wonder where his spectacles are? He doesn't look right without them, does he?'\n\nUrsula couldn't find a pulse. 'Shall we move him?' she said. She took his shoulders and Miss Woolf his ankles and Mr Palmer's body came apart like a Christmas cracker.\n\n'I can put more hot water in the pot,' Miss Woolf offered. To cheer her up Ursula told her stories about Jimmy and Teddy when they were boys. She didn't bother with Maurice. Miss Woolf was very fond of children, her only regret in life was not having had any. 'If Richard had lived, perhaps... but one cannot look backwards, only forwards. What has passed has passed for ever. What is it Heraclitus says? One cannot step in the same river twice?'\n\n'More or less. I suppose a more accurate way of putting it would be \"You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.\" '\n\n'You're such a bright young woman,' Miss Woolf said. 'Don't waste your life, will you? If you're spared.'\n\nUrsula had seen Jimmy a few weeks ago. He'd been on two days' leave in London and had bedded down on their sofa in Kensington. 'Your baby brother's grown up all handsome,' Millie said. Millie was inclined to think all men were handsome, one way or another. She suggested a night on the town and Jimmy readily agreed. He'd been shut up long enough, he said, 'Time for some fun.' Jimmy had always been good at fun. The night almost didn't get started as there was a UXB on the Strand and they took refuge in the Charing Cross Hotel.\n\n'What?' Millie said to Ursula when they had sat down.\n\n'What what?'\n\n'You've got that funny look on your face, the one you get when you're trying to remember something.'\n\n'Or forget something,' Jimmy offered.\n\n'I wasn't thinking anything,' Ursula said. It had been nothing, just something fluttering and tugging at a memory. A silly thing \u2013 it always was \u2013 a kipper on a pantry shelf, a room with green linoleum, an old-fashioned hoop bowling silently along. Vaporous moments, impossible to hold on to.\n\nUrsula repaired to the Ladies where she found a girl crying noisily and rather messily. She was heavily made up and her mascara was in runnels down her cheeks. Ursula had noticed her earlier having a drink with an older man \u2013 'rather slimy' had been Millie's verdict on him. The girl looked much younger close up. Ursula helped her to repair her make-up and mop up her tears but didn't like to pry into the cause of them. 'It's Nicky,' the girl offered up voluntarily, 'he's a bastard. _Your_ young man looks lovely, fancy a foursome? I can get us in the Ritz, into the Rivoli Bar, I know a man on the door.'\n\n'Well,' Ursula said doubtfully. 'The young man's my brother actually, and I don't suppose\u2014'\n\nThe girl gave her a rather sharp jab in the ribs and laughed. 'Only joking. You two girls make the most of him, eh?' She offered Ursula a cigarette which she declined. The girl had a gold cigarette case that looked valuable. 'A gift,' she said, catching Ursula looking at it. She snapped it shut and held it out for inspection. There was a fine engraving of a battleship on the front with the single word 'Jutland' beneath. If she were to open it up again she knew she would find the initials 'A' and 'C' intertwined on the inside of the lid, for 'Alexander' and 'Crighton'. Instinctively, Ursula reached out a hand for it and the girl snatched it back, saying, 'Anyway, must be getting back. I'm as right as rain now. You seem a good sort,' she added, as if there had been a question over Ursula's character. She stuck out her hand. 'My name's Renee by the way, in case we ever bump into each other again, although I doubt we inhabit the same _endroits_ , as they say.' Her French pronunciation was spot-on, how odd, Ursula thought. She took the proffered hand \u2013 hard and warm as if the girl were running a temperature \u2013 and said, 'Pleased to meet you, I'm Ursula.'\n\nThe girl \u2013 Renee \u2013 gave herself one last look of approval in the mirror and said, ' _Au revoir_ then,' and was off.\n\nWhen Ursula went back into the coffee lounge Renee ignored her completely. 'What a strange girl,' she said to Millie.\n\n'Been making eyes at me all evening,' Jimmy said.\n\n'Well, she's barking up the wrong street there, darling, isn't she?' Millie said, batting her eyelashes at him, ridiculously theatrical.\n\n' _Tree_ ,' Ursula said. 'Barking up the wrong tree.'\n\nThey went drinking, a merry trio, in all kinds of strange haunts that Jimmy seemed to know about. Even Millie, a seasoned regular of the nightclub scene, professed surprise at some of the places they found themselves in.\n\n'Gosh,' Millie said as they left a club in Orange Street to totter homeward, 'that was different.'\n\n'A strange _endroit_ ,' Ursula laughed. She was rather drunk. It was such an Izzie word that it was bizarre to hear it from the lips of the Renee girl.\n\n'Promise you won't die,' Ursula said to Jimmy as they groped blindly home.\n\n'Do my best,' Jimmy said.\n\n# _October 1940_\n\n_'Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower: he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.'_\n\nA light drizzle was falling. Ursula felt an urge to take out her handkerchief and wipe the wet coffin lid. On the other side of the open grave, Pamela and Bridget were pillars, holding up Sylvie, who seemed to be so consumed with her grief that she could barely stand. Ursula felt her own heart harden and contract with every sob that issued from her mother's chest. Sylvie had been needlessly unkind to Hugh in the last months and now this great affliction seemed like a show. 'You're too harsh,' Pamela said. 'No one can understand what goes on in a marriage, every couple is different.'\n\nJimmy, shipped to North Africa the previous week, had been unable to get compassionate leave but Teddy had turned up at the last minute. Shiningly smart in uniform, he had returned from Canada with his 'wings' ('Like an angel,' Bridget said) and was stationed in Lincolnshire. He and Nancy clung to each other at the committal. Nancy was vague about her job ('clerical really') and Ursula thought she recognized the fudge of the Official Secrets Act at work.\n\nThe church was packed, most of the village turned out for Hugh and yet there was something odd about the funeral, as if the guest of honour hadn't been able to come. Which he hadn't, of course. Hugh wouldn't have wanted a fuss. He had once said to her, 'Oh, you can just put me out with the dustbin, I won't mind.'\n\nThe service had been the usual sort \u2013 reminiscences and commonplaces \u2013 salted with a hefty dose of Anglican doctrine, although Ursula was surprised at how well the vicar seemed to be acquainted with Hugh. Major Shawcross read from the Beatitudes, rather movingly, and Nancy read 'one of Mr Todd's favourite poems', which surprised all the women of his family who didn't know that Hugh had any inclination towards poetry. Nancy had a nice speaking voice (better actually than Millie's which was overly thespian). 'Robert Louis Stevenson,' Nancy said. 'Perhaps appropriate for these testing times:\n\n'Tempest tossed and sore afflicted, sin defiled and care oppressed,  \nCome to me, all ye that labour; come, and I will give ye rest.  \nFear no more, O doubting hearted; weep no more, O weeping eye!  \nLo, the voice of your redeemer; lo, the songful morning near.\n\n'Here one hour you toil and combat, sin and suffer, bleed and die;  \nIn my father's quiet mansion soon to lay your burden by.  \nBear a moment, heavy laden, weary hand and weeping eye.  \nLo, the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom here.'\n\n('Tosh, really,' Pamela whispered, 'but oddly comforting tosh.')\n\nAt the graveside, Izzie murmured, 'I feel as if I'm waiting for something dreadful to happen, and then I realize it already has.'\n\nIzzie had arrived back from California just a few days before Hugh died. She had flown, rather admirably, on a taxing Pan Am flight from New York to Lisbon and from there with BOAC to Bristol. 'I saw two German fighter planes from the window,' she said, 'I swear I thought they were going to attack us.'\n\nShe had decided, she said, that as an Englishwoman it was wrong to be sitting out the war amid the orange groves. All that lotus eating wasn't for her, she said (although Ursula would have said it was _exactly_ her). She had hoped, like her husband the famous playwright, to be asked to write screenplays for the film industry but had received only one offer, some 'silly' costume drama that had been aborted before it left the page. Ursula got the impression that Izzie's script hadn't come up to scratch ('too witty'). She had continued with Augustus, however \u2013 _Augustus Goes to War, Augustus and the Salvage Hunt_ and so on. It didn't help, Izzie said, that the famous playwright was surrounded by Hollywood starlets and that he was shallow enough to find them fascinating.\n\n'In truth, we simply grew bored with each other,' she said. 'All couples do eventually, it's inevitable.'\n\nIzzie was the one who had found Hugh. 'He was in a deckchair on the lawn.' The wicker furniture had long since rotted and been replaced by the more quotidian deckchair. Hugh had been put out by the arrival of folding wood and canvas. He would have preferred the wicker chaise-longue for a bier. Ursula's thoughts were full of such inconsequences. Easier to deal with, she thought, than the bare fact that Hugh was dead.\n\n'I thought he was asleep out there,' Sylvie said. 'So I didn't disturb him. A heart attack, the doctor said.'\n\n'He looked peaceful,' Izzie said to Ursula. 'As if he didn't really mind going.'\n\nUrsula felt that he probably minded very much but that was no comfort to either of them.\n\nShe had little conversation with her mother. Sylvie seemed always to be on the point of leaving the room. 'I can't settle,' she said. She was wearing an old cardigan of Hugh's. 'I'm cold,' she said. 'I'm so cold,' like someone in shock. Miss Woolf would have known what to do with Sylvie. Hot sweet tea probably, and some kind words but neither Ursula nor Izzie felt like offering either. Ursula sensed they were being rather vengeful but they had their own distress to nurse.\n\n'I'll stay on with her for a while,' Izzie said. Ursula thought this was a terrible idea and wondered if Izzie wasn't just avoiding the bombs.\n\n'You'd better get yourself a ration book then,' Bridget said. 'You're eating us out of house and home.' Bridget had been very affected by Hugh's death. Ursula came across her crying in the pantry and said, 'I'm awfully sorry,' as if the loss were Bridget's, not hers. Bridget wiped her tears vigorously on her apron and said, 'Must get on with the tea.'\n\nUrsula herself stayed only two more days and spent most of the time helping Bridget to sort out Hugh's things. ('I can't,' Sylvie said, 'I just can't.' 'Neither can I,' Izzie said. 'Then it's you and me,' Bridget said to Ursula.) Hugh's clothes were so very real it seemed absurd that the man who had worn them had disappeared. Ursula took a suit out of the wardrobe and held it against her body. If Bridget hadn't taken it from her and said, 'That's a good suit, someone will be grateful for it,' she might have crawled into the wardrobe and given up on life. Bridget's feelings were now locked up tightly, thank goodness. There was a great deal to be said for fortitude in the face of tragedy. Certainly her father would have approved.\n\nThey parcelled Hugh's clothes up in brown paper and string and the milkman put them on his cart and took them round to the WVS.\n\nIzzie's grief had left her wide open. She trailed around the house after Ursula, trying to conjure up Hugh from memories. They were all doing that, Ursula supposed, it was so impossible to grasp that he had gone for ever that they had all started trying to reconstitute him out of thin air, Izzie most of all. 'I can't remember the last thing he said to me,' Izzie said. 'Or what I said to him, for that matter.'\n\n'It won't make any difference,' Ursula said wearily. Whose bereavement was the greater after all, the daughter or the sister? But then she thought of Teddy.\n\nUrsula tried to remember what her own last words to her father had been. A nonchalant 'See you later,' she concluded. The final irony. 'We never know when it will be the last time,' she said to Izzie, platitudinous, even to her own ears. She had seen so much of other people's distress by now that she was numb to it. Except for that one moment when she held his suit (she thought of it \u2013 ridiculously \u2013 as her 'wardrobe moment') she had put Hugh's death away in some quiet place to be taken out later and considered. Perhaps when everyone else had done talking.\n\n'And the thing is,' Izzie said\u2014\n\n'Please,' Ursula said. 'I've got an awful headache.'\n\nUrsula was collecting eggs from the nest boxes when Izzie mooched into the henhouse. The chickens were clucking restlessly, they seemed to miss Sylvie's attentions, the Mother Hen. 'The thing is,' Izzie said, 'there's something I'd like to tell you.'\n\n'Oh?' Ursula said, distracted by a particularly broody hen.\n\n'I had a baby.'\n\n'What?'\n\n'I'm a mother,' Izzie said, seemingly unable to resist sounding dramatic.\n\n'You had a baby in California?'\n\n'No, no,' Izzie laughed. 'Years ago. I was just a child myself. Sixteen. I had him in Germany, I was sent abroad in disgrace, as you can imagine. A boy.'\n\n'Germany? And he was adopted?'\n\n'Yes. Well, more like given away. Hugh saw to it all so I'm sure he found a very good family. But he made him a hostage to fortune, didn't he? Poor Hugh, he was such a rock at the time, Mother would have nothing to do with it. But that's the thing, he must have known the name, where they lived, etcetera.' The hens were making a dreadful racket now and Ursula said, 'Let's get out of here.'\n\n'I always thought,' Izzie said, taking Ursula's arm and walking her round to the lawn, 'that one day I would talk to Hugh about what he did with the baby and then perhaps try and find him. My son,' she added, trying out the word as if for the first time. Tears started to roll down her face. For once, her emotions seemed from the heart. 'And now Hugh's gone and I'll never be able to find the baby. He's not a baby, of course, he's the same age as you.'\n\n'Me?' Ursula said, trying to grasp this idea.\n\n'Yes. But he's the _enemy_. He might be up there in the sky' \u2013 they both automatically glanced up at the blue autumn sky, empty of friend and foe alike \u2013 'or fighting in the forces. He might be dead, or going to die if this wretched war goes on.' Izzie was sobbing openly now. 'He might have been brought up as a Jew, for God's sake. Hugh wasn't an anti-Semite, quite the opposite, he was great friends with \u2013 your neighbour, what's his name?'\n\n'Mr Cole.'\n\n'You do know what's happening to the Jews in Germany, don't you?'\n\n'Oh, for heaven's sake,' Sylvie said, materializing suddenly like a bad fairy. 'What are you making such a fuss about?'\n\n'You should come back to London with me,' Ursula said to Izzie. The Luftwaffe's bombs would be more straightforward for her to deal with than Sylvie.\n\n# _November 1940_\n\nMiss Woolf was treating them to a little piano recital. 'Some Beethoven,' she said. 'I'm no Myra Hess, but I thought it would be nice.' She was correct on both counts. Mr Armitage, the opera singer, asked Miss Woolf if she could accompany him if he sang 'Non _pi\u00f9 andrai_ ' from _The Marriage of Figaro_ and Miss Woolf, particularly game this evening, said she would certainly have a go. It was a rousing performance ('unexpectedly _virile_ ' was Miss Woolf's verdict) and no one objected when Mr Bullock (no surprise) and Mr Simms (quite a surprise) joined in with a rather ribald version.\n\n'I know this one!' Stella said, which was true of the tune but not the words as she sang enthusiastically, 'Dum-di-dum, dum-di-dum, dum-di-dum _-dum_ ,' and so on.\n\nTheir post had recently been augmented by two wardens. The first, Mr Emslie, was a grocer and had come from another post, having been bombed out of his house, his shop and his sector. He, like Mr Simms and Mr Palmer before him, was a veteran of the previous war. The second addition was in possession of a more exotic background. Stella was one of Mr Bullock's 'chorus girls' and confessed (readily) to being a 'striptease artiste' but Mr Armitage the opera singer said, 'We're all artistes here, darling.'\n\n'What a bloody fairy that man is,' Mr Bullock muttered, 'put him in the army, that would sort him out.' 'I doubt it,' Miss Woolf said. (And it did rather beg the question why the strapping Mr Bullock himself had not been called up for active service.) 'So,' Mr Bullock concluded, 'we've got a Yid, a pansy and a tart, sounds like a dirty music-hall joke.'\n\n'It is intolerance that has brought us to this pass, Mr Bullock,' Miss Woolf reproved him mildly. They had all been decidedly tetchy \u2013 even Miss Woolf \u2013 since Mr Palmer's death. They would be better off saving their grudges for peacetime, Ursula thought. It wasn't just Mr Palmer's death, of course, but also the lack of sleep and the relentless nightly raids. How long could the Germans keep it up? For ever?\n\n'And, oh, I don't know,' Miss Woolf said quietly to her as she made tea, 'it's just the general sense of _dirtiness_ , as if one will never be clean again, as if poor old London will never be clean again. Everything is so awfully _shabby_ , you know?'\n\nIt was a relief, therefore, that their little impromptu concert party was good-natured, everyone seemingly in better spirits than of late.\n\nMr Armitage followed his Figaro with an unaccompanied and impassioned rendition of 'O _mio babbino caro_ ' ('How versatile he is,' Miss Woolf said, 'I always thought that was a woman's aria') that they all applauded wildly. Then Herr Zimmerman, their refugee, said he would be honoured to play something for them.\n\n'And then are you going to strip, sweetheart?' Mr Bullock asked Stella, who said, 'If you want,' and winked in complicity at Ursula. ('Trust me to get stuck with a load of bolshie women,' Mr Bullock complained. Frequently.)\n\nMiss Woolf said, looking worried, 'Your violin is _here_?' to Herr Zimmerman. 'Is it _safe_ here?' He had never brought his instrument to the post before. It was quite valuable, Miss Woolf said, and not just from a monetary point of view, for he had left his entire family behind in Germany and the violin was all he had from his former life. Miss Woolf said that she had had a 'harrowing' late night 'chat' with Herr Zimmerman about the situation in Germany. 'Things are terrible over there, you know.'\n\n'I know,' Ursula said.\n\n'Do you?' Miss Woolf said, her interest piqued. 'Do you have friends there?'\n\n'No,' Ursula said. 'No one. Sometimes one just _knows_ , doesn't one?'\n\nHerr Zimmerman produced his violin and said, 'You must forgive me, I am not a soloist,' and then announced, almost apologetically, 'Bach. Sonata in G Minor.'\n\n'It's funny, isn't it,' Miss Woolf whispered in Ursula's ear, 'how much German music we listen to. Great beauty transcends all. Perhaps after the war it will heal all too. Think of the Choral Symphony \u2013 _Alle Menschen werden Br\u00fcder_.'\n\nUrsula didn't answer as Herr Zimmerman had raised his bow, poised for performance, and a deep hush fell as if they were in a concert hall rather than a rundown post. Some of the silence was due to the quality of the performance ('Sublime,' Miss Woolf judged it later. 'Really beautiful,' Stella said) and some out of respect perhaps for Herr Zimmerman's refugee status, but there was also something so spare about the music that it left plenty of room for one to engage deeply with one's thoughts. Ursula found herself dwelling on Hugh's death, his absence more than his death. It was only a fortnight since he died and she was still expecting to see him again. These were the thoughts she had put away for a future time and now the future was suddenly on her. She was relieved not to be embarrassed by tears, instead she was plunged into an awful melancholy. As if sensing her emotions, Miss Woolf reached out and gripped her hand firmly. Ursula could feel that Miss Woolf herself was almost vibrating with emotion.\n\nWhen the music finished there was a moment of pure, profound silence, as if the world had stopped breathing, and then instead of praise and applause the peace was broken by the purple warning \u2013 'bombers within twenty minutes'. It was rather odd to think that these alerts were coming from her own Region 5 War Room, sent by the girls in the teleprinter room.\n\n'Come on then,' Mr Simms said, standing up and sighing heavily, 'let's get out there.' By the time they were out the red alert had come through. Just twelve minutes, if they were lucky, to dragoon people into shelters, the siren at their back.\n\nUrsula never used public shelters, there was something about the crush of bodies, the claustrophobia, that made her skin crawl. They had attended a particularly gruesome incident when a shelter took a direct hit from a parachute mine in their sector. Ursula thought that she would rather die out in the open than trapped like a fox in a hole.\n\nIt was a beautiful evening. A crescent moon and her bevy of stars had pierced the black backcloth of night. She thought of Romeo's encomium to Juliet \u2013 _It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night \/ As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear_. Ursula was in a poetic mood, some might have said, herself included, overly poetic, as a consequence of her mournful mood. There was no Mr Durkin to misquote any more. He had suffered a heart attack during an incident. He was recovering, 'thank goodness', Miss Woolf said. She had found time to visit him in hospital and Ursula felt no guilt that she had not. Hugh was dead, Mr Durkin wasn't, there was little room in her heart for sympathy. Mr Durkin's position as Miss Woolf's deputy had been taken by Mr Simms.\n\nThe strident noises of war had begun. The boom of the barrage, the raiders' engines overhead with that monotonous, uneven beat that made her nauseous. The gun discharges, the searchlights poking their fingers into the sky, the muted anticipation of dread \u2013 all soon spoiled any idea of poetry.\n\nBy the time they arrived at the incident everyone was there, the gas and water, the Bomb Disposal Squad, heavy rescue, light rescue, stretcher parties, the mortuary van (a baker's van by day). The road was carpeted with the tangled hoses of an AFS unit as on one side of the street a building was well on fire, with sparks and burning embers spitting out. Ursula thought she had caught a glimpse of Fred Smith, his features briefly illuminated by the flames, but came to the conclusion that she had imagined it.\n\nThe rescue squad was as cautious as ever with their torches and lamps even though the fire was blazing away at their backs. Yet, to a man, they had cigarettes hanging from the corners of their mouths, despite the fact that the gas men hadn't cleared the area, not to mention that the presence of the Bomb Disposal Squad indicated a bomb that might go off at any moment. Everyone just got on with the job in hand (needs must), cavalier in the face of possible disaster. Or perhaps some people (and Ursula wondered if she included herself among them nowadays) simply didn't care any more.\n\nShe had an uncomfortable feeling, a premonition perhaps, that things were not going to go well tonight. 'It was the Bach,' Miss Woolf comforted, 'it was unsettling for the soul.'\n\nApparently, the street straddled two sectors and the incident officer in charge was wrangling with two wardens who both claimed dominion over it. Miss Woolf didn't join this little fracas as it turned out that it wasn't their sector at all, but as it was obviously such a major incident she declared that their post should pitch in and get on with it and ignore what anyone said to them.\n\n'Outlaws,' Mr Bullock said, appreciatively.\n\n'Hardly,' Miss Woolf said.\n\nThe half of the street that wasn't on fire had been badly hit and the acid-raw smell of powdered brick and cordite struck their lungs immediately. Ursula tried to think of the meadow at the back of the copse at Fox Corner. Flax and larkspur, corn poppies, red campion and ox-eye daisies. She thought of the smell of new-mown grass and the freshness of summer rain. This was a new diversionary tactic to combat the brutish scents of an explosion. ('Does it work?' a curious Mr Emslie asked. 'Not really,' Ursula said.) 'I used to think of my mother's perfume,' Miss Woolf said. 'April Violets. But unfortunately now when I try to remember my mother all I can think of are the bombs.'\n\nUrsula offered Mr Emslie a peppermint. 'It helps a little bit,' she said.\n\nThe closer they got to the incident the worse it proved to be (the opposite, in Ursula's experience, was rarely so).\n\nA grisly tableau was the first thing to greet them \u2013 mangled bodies were strewn around, many of them no more than limbless torsos, like tailor's dummies, their clothes blown off. Ursula was reminded of the mannequins she had seen with Ralph in Oxford Street, after the John Lewis bomb. A stretcher-bearer, lacking as yet any live casualties, was picking up limbs \u2013 arms and legs that were sticking out of the rubble. He looked as if he was intending to piece the dead together again at a later date. Did someone do that, Ursula wondered? In the mortuaries \u2013 try and match people up, like macabre jigsaws? Some people were beyond re-creation, of course \u2013 two men from the rescue squad were raking and shovelling lumps of flesh into baskets, another was scrubbing something off a wall with a yard brush.\n\nUrsula wondered if she knew any of the victims. Their flat in Phillimore Gardens was a mere couple of streets away from here. Perhaps she passed some of them in the morning on her way to work, or had spoken to them in the grocer's or the butcher's.\n\n'Apparently there are quite a lot of people unaccounted for,' Miss Woolf said. She had spoken to the Incident Officer, who had been grateful, it seemed, to talk to a warden with common sense. 'We're not outlaws any more, you'll be pleased to hear.'\n\nOne floor above the man with the yard brush (although there was no floor) a dress was hanging on a coat hanger from a picture rail. Ursula often found herself more moved by these small reminders of domestic life \u2013 the kettle still on the stove, the table laid for a supper that would never be eaten \u2013 than she was by the greater misery and destruction that surrounded them. Although when she looked at the dress now she realized that there was a woman still wearing it, her head and legs blown off but not her arms. The capriciousness of high explosives never ceased to surprise Ursula. The woman seemed to have become fused with the wall in some way. The fire was burning so brightly that she could make out a little brooch still pinned to the dress. A black cat, a rhinestone for an eye.\n\nRubble shifted underfoot as she made her way to the back wall of this same house. There was a woman sitting propped up amongst the rubble, arms and legs splayed like a rag doll. She looked as if she had been tossed in the air and landed any old how \u2013 which was probably the case. Ursula tried to signal to the stretcher-bearer but there was now a stream of bombers passing overhead and no one could hear her above the noise.\n\nThe woman was grey with dust so that it was almost impossible to tell how old she was. She had a horrible-looking burn on her hand. Ursula fumbled in her first-aid pack for the tube of Burnol and smeared some of the ointment on to her hand. She didn't know why, the woman looked too far gone to be cured by Burnol. She wished she had some water, it was painful to see how dry the woman's lips were. Unexpectedly, she opened her dark eyes, her lashes pale and spiky with dust, and tried to say something but her voice was so hoarse from the dust that Ursula couldn't understand her. Was she foreign? 'What is it?' Ursula asked. She had a feeling the woman was very near death now.\n\n'Baby,' the woman rasped suddenly, 'where's my baby?'\n\n'Baby?' Ursula echoed, looking around. She could see no sign of any baby. It could be anywhere in the rubble.\n\n'His name,' the woman said, guttural and indistinct \u2013 she was making a tremendous effort to be lucid \u2013 'is Emil.'\n\n'Emil?'\n\nThe woman nodded her head very slightly as if she were no longer capable of speech. Ursula looked around again for any sign of a baby. She turned back to the woman to ask how big her baby was but her head was lolling limply and when Ursula felt for a pulse she found nothing.\n\nShe left the woman there and went in search of the living.\n\n'Can you take Mr Emslie a morphia tablet?' Miss Woolf asked. They could both hear a woman screaming and swearing like a navvy and Miss Woolf added, 'To the lady that's making all the noise.' A good rule of thumb was that the more noise someone was making the less likely they were to die. This particular casualty sounded as if she were ready to fight her way out single-handed from the wreckage of the house and run round Kensington Gardens.\n\nMr Emslie was in the cellar of the house and Ursula had to be lowered down by two men from the rescue squad and then had to worm her way through a barricade of joists and bricks. She was aware that an entire house appeared to be resting precariously on this same barricade. She found Mr Emslie stretched out almost horizontally next to a woman. Below the waist she was completely trapped by the wreckage of the house but she was conscious and extremely articulate about the distress she was in.\n\n'Soon have you out of here,' Mr Emslie said. 'Get you a nice cup of tea, eh? How does that sound? Lovely, eh? Fancy one myself. And here's Miss Todd with something for the pain,' he continued soothingly to her. Ursula passed him the tiny morphia tablet. He seemed very good at this, it was hard to imagine him in his grocer's apron, weighing sugar and patting butter.\n\nOne wall of the cellar had been sandbagged but most of the sand had spilled out in the explosion and for an alarming hallucinatory second Ursula was on a beach somewhere, she didn't know where, a hoop was bowling along beside her in a brisk breeze, seagulls squawking overhead, and then she was back, just as suddenly, in the cellar. Lack of sleep, she thought, it really was the devil.\n\n'About fucking time,' the woman said, greedily taking the morphia tablet. 'You'd think you lot were at a fucking tea-party.' She was young, Ursula realized, and oddly familiar. She was clutching her handbag, a large black affair, as if it were keeping her afloat in the sea of timber. 'Have you got a fag, either of you?' With some difficulty, given the awkward space they were in, Mr Emslie produced a squashed packet of Players from his pocket and then, with even more difficulty, extracted a box of matches. Her fingers tapped restlessly on the leather of the bag. 'Take your time,' she said sarcastically.\n\n'Sorry,' she said after she had drawn deeply on the cigarette. 'Being in an _endroit_ like this has an effect on the nerves, you know.'\n\n'Renee?' Ursula said, astonished.\n\n'What's it to you?' she said, returning to her former churlish self.\n\n'We met in the cloakroom at the Charing Cross Hotel a couple of weeks ago.'\n\n'I think you've mistaken me for someone else,' she said primly. 'People are always doing that. I must have one of those faces.'\n\nShe took another very long drag on her cigarette and then exhaled slowly and with extraordinary pleasure. 'You got any more of those little pills?' she asked. 'Good black market price for them, I bet.' She sounded woozy, the morphia kicking in, Ursula supposed, but then the cigarette dropped from her fingers and her eyes rolled back in her head. She started to convulse. Mr Emslie grabbed hold of her hand.\n\nUrsula, glancing at Mr Emslie, caught sight of a colour reproduction of Millais's _Bubbles_ , hanging by a piece of tape from a sandbag behind him. It was a picture she disliked, she disliked all the Pre-Raphaelites with their droopy, drugged-looking women. Hardly the time and place for art criticism, she thought. She had become almost indifferent to death. Her soft soul had crystallized. (Just as well, she thought.) She was a sword tempered in the fire. And again she was somewhere else, a little flicker in time. She was descending a staircase, wisteria was blooming, she was flying out of a window.\n\nMr Emslie was talking encouragingly to Renee. 'Come on, Susie, don't give up on us now. We'll have you out of here in two shakes of a lamb's tail, you'll see. All the lads are working on it. And the girls,' he added for Ursula's benefit. Renee had stopped convulsing but now she started to shiver alarmingly and Mr Emslie, more urgently now, said, 'Come on, Susie, come on, girl, stay awake, there's a good girl.'\n\n'Her name _is_ Renee,' Ursula said, 'even if she denies it.'\n\n'I call 'em all Susie,' Mr Emslie said softly. 'I had a little girl by that name. The diphtheria took her off when she was just a littl'un.'\n\nRenee gave one last great shudder and life disappeared from her half-open eyes.\n\n'Gone,' Mr Emslie said sadly. 'Internal injuries probably.' He wrote 'Argyll Road' on a label in his neat grocer's hand and tied it to her finger. Ursula removed the handbag from Renee's rather reluctant grasp and shook its contents out. 'Her identity card,' she said, holding it up for Mr Emslie to see. 'Renee Miller' it said, indisputably. He added her name to the label.\n\nWhile Mr Emslie began the complex manoeuvre of turning round in order to make his way back out of the cellar, Ursula picked up the gold cigarette case that had fallen out with the compact and lipstick and French letters and God knows what else that formed the contents of Renee's handbag. Not a gift but stolen property, she was sure of that. It was a difficult task for Ursula's imagination to place Renee and Crighton in the same room as each other, let alone the same bed. War did indeed make strange bedfellows of people. He must have picked her up in a hotel somewhere, or perhaps a less salubrious _endroit_. Where had she learned her French? She probably only had a couple of words. Not from Crighton anyway, he thought English was quite enough to rule the world with.\n\nShe slipped the cigarette case and the identity card into a pocket.\n\nThe debris shifted in a heart-stopping way as they were trying to back out of the cellar (they'd given up on trying to turn round). They remained paralysed, crouched like cats, hardly daring to take a breath for what seemed an eternity. When it felt safe to move again they found that this new arrangement of wreckage had made the barricade impenetrable and they were forced to find another, tortuous exit, creeping on their hands and knees through the shattered base of the building. 'Doing my back in, this lark is,' Mr Emslie muttered behind her.\n\n'Doing my knees in,' Ursula said. They carried on with weary doggedness. Ursula cheered herself up with the thought of buttered toast, although Phillimore Gardens was out of butter and unless Millie had gone out and queued (unlikely), there was no bread either.\n\nThe cellar seemed to be an endless maze and it slowly dawned on Ursula why there were people unaccounted for up above \u2013 they were all secretly cached down here. The residents of the house clearly used this part of the cellar as a shelter. The dead here \u2013 men, women, children, even a dog \u2013 looked as though they had been entombed where they had been sitting. They were completely cloaked in a shell of dust and looked more like sculptures, or fossils. She was reminded of Pompeii or Herculaneum. Ursula had visited both, during her ambitiously titled 'grand tour' of Europe. She had been lodged in Bologna where she had made friends with an American girl \u2013 Kathy, a gung-ho type \u2013 and they had taken a whistle-stop tour \u2013 Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples \u2013 before Ursula left for France and the final leg of her year abroad.\n\nIn Naples, a city that frankly terrified them, they hired a loquacious private guide and spent the longest day of their lives trudging determinedly round the dry, dusty ruins of the lost cities of the Roman Empire beneath a merciless southern sun.\n\n'Oh, gosh,' Kathy said as they staggered around a deserted Herculaneum, 'I wish no one had ever gone to the bother of digging 'em up.' Their friendship had flared brightly for a short time and fizzled out just as quickly when Ursula went to Nancy.\n\n'I have spread my wings and learned how to fly,' she wrote to Pamela after leaving Munich and her hosts, the Brenners. 'I am quite the sophisticated woman of the world,' although she was still little more than a fledgling. If the year had taught her one thing it was that after having endured a succession of private students, the last thing she wanted to do was teach.\n\nInstead, on her return \u2013 with an eye to entrance into the civil service \u2013 she did an intensive shorthand and typing course in High Wycombe, run by a Mr Carver who was later arrested for exposing himself in public. ('A meat-flasher?' Maurice said, his lip curling in disgust, and Hugh shouted at him to leave the room and never to use such language in his house again. 'Infantile,' he said when Maurice had slammed his way out into the garden. 'Is he really fit for marriage?' Maurice had come home to announce his engagement to a girl called Edwina, the eldest daughter of a bishop. 'Goodness,' Sylvie said, 'will we have to genuflect or something?'\n\n'Don't be ridiculous,' Maurice said and Hugh said, 'How dare you speak to your mother like that.' It was a terrifically bad-tempered visit all round.)\n\nMr Carver hadn't been such a bad sort really. He had been very keen on Esperanto, which had seemed an absurd eccentricity at the time but now Ursula thought it might be a good thing to have a universal language, as Latin had once been. Oh, yes, Miss Woolf said, a common language was a wonderful idea, but utterly utopian. All good ideas were, she said sadly.\n\nUrsula had embarked for Europe a virgin, but didn't return one. She had Italy to thank for that. ('Well, if one can't take a lover in Italy where can one take one?' Millie said.) He, Gianni, was studying for a doctorate in philology at Bologna University and was more grave and serious than Ursula had expected an Italian to be. (In Bridget's romantic novels, Italians were always dashing but untrustworthy.) Gianni brought a studious solemnity to the occasion and made the rite of passage less embarrassing and awkward than she had feared.\n\n'Gosh,' Kathy said, 'you are bold.' She reminded Ursula of Pamela. In some ways, not in others \u2013 not in her serene denial of Darwin, for example. Kathy, a Baptist, was saving herself for marriage but a few months after she returned to Chicago her mother wrote to Ursula to tell her that Kathy had died in a boating accident. She must have gone through her daughter's address book and written to everyone in it, one by one. What an awful task. For Hugh, they had simply put a notice in _The Times_. Poor Kathy had saved herself for nothing. _The grave's a fine and private place, But none I think do there embrace_.\n\n'Miss Todd?'\n\n'Sorry, Mr Emslie. It's like being in a crypt, isn't it? Full of the ancient dead.'\n\n'Yes, and I'd quite like to get out before I turn into one of them.'\n\nAs she crept gingerly forward, Ursula's knee pressed on something soft and supple and she recoiled, banging her head on a broken rafter, sending a shower of dust down.\n\n'You all right?' Mr Emslie said.\n\n'Yes,' she said.\n\n'Are we stopped for something else?'\n\n'Hang on.' She had once stood on a body, recognized the squashy, meat-like quality of it. She supposed she had to look, although God knows she didn't want to. She shone her torch on what seemed to be a dusty mound of material, scraps of stuff \u2013 crochet and ribbons, wool \u2013 partly impacted into the earth. It could have been the contents of a sewing basket. But it wasn't, of course. She peeled back a layer of wool and then another one as if unwrapping a badly packed parcel or a large, unwieldy cabbage. Eventually a small almost unblemished hand, a small star, revealed itself from the compacted mass. She thought she might have found Emil. Better then that his mother was dead rather than knowing about this, she thought.\n\n'Be careful here, Mr Emslie,' she said over her shoulder, 'there's a baby, try to avoid it.'\n\n'All right?' Miss Woolf asked her when they finally emerged like moles. The fire on the other side of the street was almost out now and the street was murky with the dark, the soot, the filth. 'How many?' Miss Woolf asked.\n\n'Quite a few,' Ursula said.\n\n'Easy to recover?'\n\n'Hard to say.' She handed over Renee's identity card. 'There's a baby down there, bit of a mess, I'm afraid.'\n\n'There's tea,' Miss Woolf said. 'Go and get yourself some.'\n\nAs she made her way, with Mr Emslie, to the mobile canteen she was amazed to spot a dog cowering in a doorway further up the street.\n\n'I'll catch up with you,' she said to Mr Emslie. 'Get a mug for me, will you? Two sugars.'\n\nIt was a small nondescript terrier, whimpering and shaking with fear. Most of the house behind the doorway had disappeared and Ursula wondered if this had been the dog's home, that it was hoping for some kind of safety or protection and couldn't think of anywhere else to go. As she approached it, however, it ran off up the street. Dratted dog, she thought, chasing after it. Eventually she caught up with it, snatching it up in her arms before it had a chance to run again. It was trembling all over and she held it close, talking in soothing tones to it, rather as Mr Emslie had to Renee. She pressed her face against its fur (disgustingly dirty but then so was she). It was so small and helpless. 'Slaughter of the Innocents,' Miss Woolf said the other day when they heard of a school in the East End taking a direct hit. But wasn't everyone innocent? (Or were they all guilty?) 'That buffoon Hitler certainly isn't,' Hugh said, the last time they had talked, 'it's all down to him, this whole war.' Was she really never going to see her father again? A sob escaped from her and the dog whined in fear or sympathy, it was hard to say. (There wasn't a single member of the Todd family \u2013 apart from Maurice \u2013 who didn't attribute human emotions to dogs.)\n\nAt that moment there was a tremendous noise behind them, the dog tried to bolt again and she had to hold it tightly. When she turned round she saw the gable wall of the building that had been on fire falling down, almost in one piece, the bricks rattling on to the ground in a brutish fashion, just reaching the WVS canteen.\n\nTwo of the women from the WVS were killed, as was Mr Emslie. And Tony, their messenger boy who had been scooting past on his bicycle, but not scooting fast enough unfortunately. Miss Woolf knelt down on the jagged, broken brick, oblivious to the pain, and took hold of his hand. Ursula crouched down by her side.\n\n'Oh, Anthony,' Miss Woolf said, unable to say anything else. Her hair was escaping from its usual neat bun, making her look quite wild, a figure from a tragedy. Tony was unconscious \u2013 a terrible head wound, they had dragged him roughly from beneath the collapsed wall \u2013 and Ursula felt they should say something encouraging and not let him be aware of how upset they were. She remembered he was a Scout and started talking to him about the joys of the outdoors, pitching a tent in a field, hearing a running stream nearby, collecting sticks for a fire, watching the mist rise in the morning as breakfast cooked in the open. 'What fun you'll have again when the war is over,' she said.\n\n'Your mother will be awfully glad to see you come home tonight,' Miss Woolf said, joining the charade. She stifled a sob with her hand. Tony made no sign of having heard them and they watched as he slowly turned a deathly pale, the colour of thin milk. He had gone.\n\n'Oh, God,' Miss Woolf cried. 'I can't bear it.'\n\n'But bear it we must,' Ursula said, wiping away the snot and the tears and filth from her cheeks with the back of her hand and thinking how once this exchange would have been the other way round.\n\n'Bloody fools,' Fred Smith said angrily, 'what did they go and park the bloody canteen there for? Right next to the gable end?'\n\n'They didn't know,' Ursula said.\n\n'Well, they should have bloody realized.'\n\n'Well then someone should have bloody told them,' Ursula said, her anger flaring up suddenly. 'Like a bloody fireman, for instance.'\n\nIt was first light by now and they heard the all-clear sound.\n\n'I thought I saw you earlier, and then I decided I'd imagined you,' Ursula said, making peace. He was angry because they were dead, not because they were stupid.\n\nShe felt as though she were in a dream, drifting away from reality. 'I'm as good as dead,' she said, 'I have to sleep before I go mad. I live just round the corner,' she added. 'Lucky it wasn't our flat. Lucky, too, that I ran after this dog.' One of the rescue squad had given her a piece of rope to tie round the dog's neck and she had hitched it to a charred post sticking out of the ground. She was reminded of the arms and legs the stretcher-bearer had been harvesting earlier. 'I suppose the circumstances dictate that's what I should call him \u2013 Lucky, even though it's a bit of a clich\u00e9. He saved me, you know, I would have been drinking my tea there if I hadn't gone after him.'\n\n'Bloody fools,' he said again. 'Shall I walk you home?'\n\n'That would be nice,' Ursula said but she didn't lead him 'round the corner' to Phillimore Gardens, instead they walked wearily hand in hand, like children, the dog trotting beside them, along Kensington High Street, almost deserted at this time in the morning, with only a slight diversion for a gas main that was on fire.\n\nUrsula knew where they were going, it was inevitable somehow.\n\nIn Izzie's bedroom there was a framed picture on the wall opposite her bed. It was one of the original illustrations from the first _Adventures of Augustus_ , a line drawing depicting a cheeky boy and his dog. It verged on the cartoon \u2013 the schoolboy cap, the gob-stoppered cheek of Augustus and the rather idiotic-looking Westie who bore no resemblance to the real-life Jock.\n\nThe picture was very much at odds with how Ursula remembered this room before it was mothballed \u2013 a feminine boudoir, full of ivory silks and pale satins, expensive cut-glass bottles and enamelled brushes. A lovely Aubusson carpet had been rolled up tightly and tied with thick string and left against a wall. There had been one of the lesser Impressionists on another of the walls, acquired, Ursula suspected, more for the way it matched the d\u00e9cor than for any great love of the artist. Ursula wondered if Augustus was there to remind Izzie of her success. The Impressionist had been packed away somewhere safe but this illustration seemed to have been forgotten about, or perhaps Izzie didn't care so much for it any more. Whatever the reason, it had sustained a diagonal crack from one corner of the glass to the other. Ursula recalled the night that she and Ralph had been in the wine cellar, the night that Holland House was bombed, perhaps it had sustained the damage then.\n\nIzzie had, sensibly, chosen not to stay at Fox Corner with 'the grieving widow' as she referred to Sylvie, as 'we shall fight like cats and dogs'. Instead, she had decamped to Cornwall, to a house on top of a cliff ('like Manderley, terrifically wild and romantic, no Mrs Danvers though, thank goodness'), and had started 'churning out' an _Adventures of Augustus_ comic strip for one of the popular dailies. How much more interesting, Ursula thought, if she had allowed her Augustus to grow up, as Teddy had done.\n\nA buttery, unseasonal sun was trying hard to nudge its way through the thick velvet curtains. _Why dost thou thus, \/ Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?_ she thought. If she could go back in time and take a lover from history it would be Donne. Not Keats, the knowledge of his untimely death would colour everything quite wretchedly. That was the problem with time travel, of course (apart from the impossibility) \u2013 one would always be a Cassandra, spreading doom with one's foreknowledge of events. It was quite wearyingly relentless but the only way that one could go was forward.\n\nShe could hear a bird singing outside the window, even though it was November now. The birds were probably as confounded as people were by the Blitz. What did all the explosions do to them? Kill a great many, she supposed, their poor hearts simply giving out with shock or the little lungs bursting with the pressure waves. They must drop from the sky like weightless stones.\n\n'You look thoughtful,' Fred Smith said. He was lying, one arm behind his head, smoking a cigarette.\n\n'And you look strangely at home,' she said.\n\n'I am,' he grinned and leaned forward to wrap his arms around her waist and kiss the back of her neck. They were both filthy, as if they had toiled all night in a coal mine. She recalled how sooty they had been when she had journeyed on the footplate that night. The last time she had seen Hugh alive.\n\nThere was no hot water in Melbury Road, no water at all, nor electricity, everything turned off for the duration. In the dark, they had crawled under the dustsheet on Izzie's bare mattress and fallen into a sleep that mimicked death. Some hours later they had both woken up at the same time and made love. It was the kind of love (lust, to be honest about it) that survivors of disasters must practise \u2013 or people who are anticipating disaster \u2013 free of all restraint, savage at times and yet strangely tender and affectionate. A strain of melancholy ran through it. Like Herr Zimmerman's Bach sonata it had unsettled her soul, disjointed her brain and body. She tried to recall another line from Marvell, was it in 'A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body', something about _bolts of bones_ and fetters and manacles but it wouldn't come. It seemed harsh when there was so much soft skin and flesh in this abandoned (in all ways) bed.\n\n'I was thinking of Donne,' she said. 'You know \u2013 _Busy old foole, unruly Sun_.' No, she supposed, he probably didn't know.\n\n'Oh?' he said, indifferently. Worse than indifferent really.\n\nShe was taken off guard by the sudden memory of the grey ghosts in the cellar and of kneeling on the baby. Then for a second she was somewhere else, not a cellar in Argyll Road, not in Izzie's bedroom in Holland Park but some strange limbo. Falling, falling\u2014\n\n'Cigarette?' Fred Smith offered. He lit another one from the stub of his first and handed it to her. She took it and said, 'I don't really smoke.'\n\n'I don't really pick up strange women and fuck them in posh houses.'\n\n'How Lawrentian. And I'm not strange, we've known each other since we were children, more or less.'\n\n'Not like this.'\n\n'I should hope not.' She was beginning to dislike him already. 'I have no idea what time it is,' she said. 'But I can offer you some very good wine for breakfast. It's all there is, I'm afraid.'\n\nHe looked at his wristwatch and said, 'We've missed breakfast. It's three o'clock in the afternoon.'\n\nThe dog nudged itself through the door, its paws pitter-pattering on the bare wooden boards. It jumped on the bed and gazed intently at Ursula. 'Poor thing,' she said, 'it must be starving.'\n\n'Fred Smith? What was he like? Do tell!'\n\n'Disappointing.'\n\n'How? In bed?'\n\n'Gosh, no, not that at all. I've never... like that, you know. I think I thought it would be romantic. No, that's the wrong word, a silly word. \"Soulful\" perhaps.'\n\n'Transcendent?' Millie offered.\n\n'Yes, that's it. I was looking for transcendence.'\n\n'I imagine it finds you, rather than the other way round. It's a tall order for poor old Fred.'\n\n'I had an _idea_ of him,' Ursula said, 'but the idea wasn't him. Perhaps I wanted to fall in love.'\n\n'And instead you had jolly good sex. Poor you!'\n\n'You're right, unfair of me to expect. Oh, God, I think I was an awful snob with him. I was quoting Donne. Am I a snob, do you think?'\n\n'Awful. You do reek, you know,' Millie said cheerfully. 'Cigarettes, sex, bombs, God knows what else. Shall I run you a bath?'\n\n'Oh, yes, please, that would be lovely.'\n\n'And while you're at it,' Millie said, 'you can take that ruddy dog in the bath with you. He smells to high heaven. But he is kinda cute,' she said, imitating an American accent (rather badly).\n\nUrsula sighed and stretched. 'You know I really, _really_ have had enough of being bombed.'\n\n'The war's not going away any time soon, I'm afraid,' Millie said.\n\n# _May 1941_\n\nMillie was right. The war went on and on. Into that dreadfully cold winter, and then there was the awful raid on the City at the end of the year. Ralph had helped to save St Paul's from the fire. All those lovely Wren churches, Ursula thought. They had been built because of the last Great Fire, now they were gone.\n\nThe rest of the time they did the things that everyone of their kind did. They went to the cinema, they went dancing, they went to the lunchtime concerts in the National Gallery. They ate and drank and made love. Not 'fucking'. That wasn't Ralph's style at all. 'Very Lawrentian,' she had said coolly to Fred Smith \u2013 she supposed he had no idea what she was talking about \u2013 but the crude word had jarred her horribly. She was used to hearing it at incidents, it was a vital constituent of the heavy rescue squad's vocabulary, but not in the context of _herself_. She tried saying the word to her bathroom mirror but it felt shameful.\n\n'Where on earth did you get it?' he asked.\n\nUrsula had never seen him so dumbfounded. Crighton weighed the gold cigarette case in his hand. 'I thought I'd lost it for ever.'\n\n'Do you really want to know?'\n\n'Yes, of course I do,' Crighton said. 'Why the mystery?'\n\n'Does the name Renee Miller mean anything to you?'\n\nHe frowned, thinking, and then shook his head. 'Afraid not. Should it?'\n\n'You probably paid her for sex. Or bought her a nice dinner. Or just gave her a good time.'\n\n'Oh, _that_ Renee Miller,' he laughed. After a couple of beats of silence, he said, 'No, really, the name means nothing. And anyway, I don't think I have ever _paid_ a woman for sex.'\n\n'You're in the navy,' she pointed out.\n\n'Well, not for a very, _very_ long time then. But thank you,' he said, 'you know the cigarette case meant a lot to me. My father\u2014'\n\n'Gave it to you after Jutland, I know.'\n\n'Am I boring you?'\n\n'No. Shall we go somewhere? The bolthole? Shall we fuck?'\n\nHe burst out laughing. 'If you want.'\n\nHe cared less 'for the niceties' these days, Crighton said. These niceties seemed to include Moira and the girls and they soon resumed their furtive affair, although less furtive now. He was so different to Ralph that it hardly seemed like infidelity to her. ('Oh, what a beguiling argument!' Millie said.) She hardly saw Ralph now anyway and it seemed to be a mutual kind of waning.\n\nTeddy read the words on the Cenotaph. 'The _Glorious Dead_. Do you think they are? Glorious?' he asked.\n\n'Well, they're certainly dead,' Ursula said. 'But the \"glorious\" bit is to make _us_ feel better, I expect.'\n\n'I don't suppose the dead care about anything much,' Teddy said. 'I think when you're dead you're dead. I don't believe there's anything beyond, do you?'\n\n'I might have done before the war,' Ursula said, 'before I saw a lot of dead bodies. But they just look like so much rubbish, thrown away.' (She thought of Hugh saying, 'Just put me out with the dustbin.') 'It doesn't seem as though their souls have flown.'\n\n'I shall probably die for England,' Teddy said. 'And there's a chance you might too. Is it a good enough cause?'\n\n'I think so. Daddy said he would rather we were alive and cowards than dead and heroes. I don't think he meant it, it wasn't his style to shirk responsibility. What is it that it says on the war memorial in the village? _For your tomorrow we gave our today_. That's what your lot are doing, giving up everything, it doesn't seem right somehow.'\n\nUrsula thought that she would rather die for Fox Corner than 'England'. For meadow and copse and the stream that ran through the bluebell wood. Well, that _was_ England, wasn't it? The blessed plot.\n\n'I am a patriot,' she said. 'I surprise myself with it although I don't know why. What does it say on Edith Cavell's statue, the one by St Martin's church?'\n\n' _Patriotism is not enough_ ,' Teddy supplied.\n\n'Do you think that really?' she said. 'Personally, I think it's more than enough.' She laughed and they linked arms as they walked down Whitehall. There was quite a lot of bomb damage. Ursula pointed out the Cabinet War Rooms to Teddy. 'I know a girl who works in there,' she said. 'Sleeps in a cupboard, more or less. I don't like bunkers and cellars and basements.'\n\n'I worry about you a lot,' Teddy said.\n\n'I worry about _you_ ,' she said. 'And none of that worrying has done either of us any good.' She sounded like Miss Woolf.\n\nTeddy ('Pilot Officer Todd') had survived his time in an OTU in Lincolnshire, flying Whitleys, and in a week or so was due to join a Heavy Conversion Unit in Yorkshire and learn how to fly the new Halifaxes and start his first tour of duty proper.\n\nOnly half of all bomber crews survived their first tour of duty, the girl in the Air Ministry said.\n\n('Aren't the odds the same every time they go up?' Ursula said. 'Isn't that how odds work?'\n\n'Not in the case of bomber crews,' the girl from the Air Ministry said.)\n\nTeddy was walking her back to the office after lunch, she had taken a long hour. Things were not quite as hectic as they had been.\n\nThey had planned on somewhere swanky but ended up in a British Restaurant and dined on roast beef and plum pie and custard. The plums were tinned, of course. They enjoyed all of it though.\n\n'All those names,' Teddy said, gazing at the Cenotaph. 'All those lives. And now again. I think there is something wrong with the human race. It undermines everything one would like to believe in, don't you think?'\n\n'No point in thinking,' she said briskly, 'you just have to get on with life.' (She really was turning into Miss Woolf.) 'We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it _right_ , but we must _try_.' (The transformation was complete.)\n\n'What if we had a chance to do it again and again,' Teddy said, 'until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?'\n\n'I think it would be exhausting. I would quote Nietzsche to you but you would probably thump me.'\n\n'Probably,' he said amiably. 'He's a Nazi, isn't he?'\n\n'Not exactly. Do you still write poetry, Teddy?'\n\n'Can't find the words any more. Everything I try feels like sublimation. Making pretty images out of war. I can't find the heart of it.'\n\n'The dark, beating, bloody heart?'\n\n'Maybe you should write,' he laughed.\n\nShe wasn't going out on patrol while Teddy was here, Miss Woolf had taken her off the roster. The raids were more sporadic now. There had been bad raids in March and April and they seemed all the worse for their having had a bit of a breather from the bombs. 'It's funny,' Miss Woolf said, 'one's nerves are wired so tightly when it's relentless that it's almost easier to deal with.'\n\nThere had been a decided lull at Ursula's post. 'I think Hitler's more interested in the Balkans,' Miss Woolf said.\n\n'He's going to turn on Russia,' Crighton told her with some authority. Millie was on another ENSA tour and they had the Kensington flat to themselves.\n\n'But that would be madness.'\n\n'Well, the man _is_ insane, what do you expect?' He sighed and said, 'Let's not talk about the war.' They were drinking Admiralty whisky and playing cribbage, like an old married couple.\n\nTeddy walked her as far as Exhibition Road and her office and said, 'I imagined your \"War Room\" would be a rather grand affair \u2013 porticos and pillars \u2013 not a bunker.'\n\n'Maurice has the porticos.'\n\nAs soon as she was inside she was pounced upon by Ivy Jones, one of the teleprinter operators just coming on duty, who said, 'You're a dark horse, Miss Todd, keeping that gorgeous man a secret,' and Ursula thought, this is what comes of being too friendly with staff. 'Must dash,' she said, 'I'm a slave to the Daily Situation Report.'\n\n*\n\nHer own 'girls', Miss Fawcett and her ilk, filed and collated and sent the buff folders to her so she could formulate summaries, daily, weekly, hourly sometimes. Daily logs, damage logs, situation reports, it was never-ending. Then it all had to be typed up and put into more buff folders and be signed off by her before the folders went on their journey to someone else, someone like Maurice.\n\n'We're just cogs in a machine really, aren't we?' Miss Fawcett said to her and Ursula said, 'But remember, without the cog there is no machine.'\n\nTeddy took her out for a drink. It was a warm evening and the trees were full of blossom so that for a moment it felt as if the war was over.\n\nHe didn't want to talk about flying, didn't want to talk about the war, didn't even want to talk about Nancy. Where was she? Doing something she couldn't talk about, apparently. It seemed nobody wanted to talk about anything any more.\n\n'Well, let's talk about Dad,' he said, and so they did and it felt as if Hugh had finally been given the wake he deserved.\n\nTeddy caught the train to Fox Corner next morning, he was staying there for a few nights, and Ursula said, 'Will you take another evacuee with you?' and handed over Lucky. He was in the flat all day while she was at work but she often took him to the post if she was on duty and everyone treated him as a kind of mascot. Even Mr Bullock, who did not seem like a dog-lover, would come in with scraps and bones for him. There were times when the dog seemed to eat better than she did. Nonetheless, London in wartime was no place for a dog, she told Teddy. 'All the noise, it must be terribly alarming.'\n\n'I like this dog,' he said, rubbing the dog's head. 'He's a very straightforward kind of dog.'\n\nShe went to Marylebone to see them off. Teddy tucked the little dog under one arm and gave her a salute, sweet and ironic at the same time, and boarded the train. She felt almost as sad to see the dog go as she did Teddy.\n\nThey had been too optimistic. There was a terrible raid in May.\n\nTheir flat in Phillimore Gardens was hit. Neither Ursula nor Millie was there, thank goodness, but the roof and the upper storey were destroyed. Ursula simply moved back in and camped there for a while. The weather wasn't bad and in some peculiar way she quite enjoyed it. There was still water, although no electricity, and someone at work lent her an old tent so she slept under canvas. The last time she had done that was in Bavaria when she had accompanied the Brenner girls on their BDM summer expedition to the mountains and she had shared a tent with Klara, the eldest. They had grown very fond of each other but she hadn't heard from Klara since war was declared.\n\nCrighton was sanguine about her _al fresco_ arrangement, 'like sleeping on deck under the stars in the Indian Ocean'. She felt a pang of envy, she hadn't even been to Paris. The Munich\u2013Bologna\u2013Nancy axis had defined the edges of the unknown world for her. She and her friend Hilary \u2013 the girl who slept in a cupboard in the War Rooms \u2013 had planned a holiday cycling through France but war had put paid to it. Everyone was stuck on the little sceptred isle. If you thought about it too much you could start to feel quite claustrophobic.\n\nWhen Millie returned from her ENSA tour she declared that Ursula had gone quite mad and insisted they find somewhere else and so they moved to a shabby place in Lexham Gardens that she knew she would never learn to like. ('You and I could live together if you wanted,' Crighton said. 'A little flat in Knightsbridge?' She demurred.)\n\nThat wasn't the worst, of course. Their post received a direct hit in the same raid and both Herr Zimmerman and Mr Simms were killed.\n\nAt Herr Zimmerman's funeral a string quartet, all refugees, played Beethoven. Unlike Miss Woolf, Ursula thought that it would take more than the great composer's works to heal their wounds. 'I saw them play at the Wigmore Hall before the war,' Miss Woolf whispered. 'They're very good.'\n\nAfter the funeral Ursula went in search of Fred Smith at his fire station and they rented a room in a nasty little hotel near Paddington. Later, after the sex, which had the same compelling quality as before, they were rocked to sleep by the sound of trains coming and going and she thought, he must miss that sound.\n\nWhen they woke he said, 'I'm sorry I was a complete arse last time we were together.' He went and found them two mugs of tea \u2013 she supposed he had charmed someone in the hotel, it didn't seem like the kind of place to have a kitchen, let alone room service. He did have a natural charm, the same way that Teddy did, it came from a kind of straightness in their character. Jimmy's charm was different, more dishonest perhaps.\n\nThey sat up in bed and drank their tea and smoked cigarettes. She was thinking of Donne's poem, 'The Relic', one of her favourites \u2013 the _bracelet of bright hair about the bone \u2013_ but refrained from quoting, considering how badly it had gone down last time. How funny though it would be if the hotel were hit and no one understood who they were or what they were doing here together, conjoined in a bed that had become their grave. She had grown very morbid since Argyll Road. It had affected her in a different way to other incidents. What would she like on her headstone, she wondered idly? 'Ursula Beresford Todd, stalwart to the last'.\n\n'Do you know your problem, Miss Todd?' Fred Smith said, stubbing out his cigarette. He took hold of her hand and kissed her open palm and she thought, seize this moment because it's a sweet one and said, 'No, what's my problem?' and never did find out because the siren went off and he said, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, I'm supposed to be on duty,' and threw his clothes on, gave her a hasty kiss and flew out of the room. She never saw him again.\n\nShe was reading through the Home Security War Diary for the awful early hours of 11 May \u2013\n\n_Time of Origin \u2013 0045. Form of Origin \u2013 Teleprinter. In or Out \u2013 In. Subject \u2013 South West India Dock Office, wrecked by H.E_. And Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, De Gaulle's headquarters, the Mint, the Law Courts. She had seen St Clement Dane's herself \u2013 blazing like a monstrous chimney fire on the Strand. And all the ordinary people living their precious ordinary lives in Bermondsey, Islington, Southwark. The list went on and on. She was interrupted by Miss Fawcett who said, 'Message for you, Miss Todd,' and handed her a piece of paper.\n\nA girl she knew who knew a girl in the fire service had sent her a copy of an AFS report, a little note added, 'He was a friend of yours, wasn't he? Sorry...'\n\n_Frederick Smith, fireman, crushed when a wall fell while attending a fire in Earl's Court_.\n\nBloody fool, Ursula thought. Bloody, bloody fool.\n\n# _November 1943_\n\nIt was Maurice who brought the news to her. His arrival coincided with that of the tea-trolley bearing elevenses. 'Can I have a word?' he said.\n\n'Do you want tea?' she said, getting up from her desk. 'I'm sure we can spare you some of ours, vastly inferior though it must be to the Orange Pekoe and Darjeeling and whatnot that you get in your place. And I can't imagine our biscuits can hold a candle to yours.' The tea-lady hovered, unimpressed by this exchange with an interloper from the airy regions.\n\n'No, no tea, thank you,' he said, surprisingly polite and subdued. It struck her that Maurice was nearly always simmering with suppressed fury (what a strange condition to live your life in), in some ways he reminded her of Hitler (she had heard that Maurice ranted at secretaries. 'Oh, that's so unfair!' Pamela said, 'but it does make me laugh').\n\nMaurice had never got his hands dirty. Never been to an incident, never pulled apart a man like a cracker or knelt on a matted bundle of fabric and flesh that had once been a baby.\n\nWhat was he doing here, was he going to start pontificating again about her love life? It never crossed her mind that he was here to say, 'I'm sorry to have to tell you this' (as if this were an official announcement) 'but Ted has caught one, I'm afraid.'\n\n'What?' She couldn't untangle the meaning. Caught what? 'I don't know what you mean, Maurice.'\n\n'Ted,' he said. 'Ted's plane has gone down.'\n\nTeddy had been safe. He was 'tour expired' and was instructing at an OTU. He was a squadron leader with a DFC (Ursula, Nancy and Sylvie had been to the Palace, bursting with pride). And then he had asked to go back on ops. ('I just felt I had to.') The girl she knew in the Air Ministry \u2013 Anne \u2013 told her that one in forty aircrew would survive a second tour of duty.\n\n'Ursula?' Maurice said. 'Do you understand what I'm saying to you? We've lost him.'\n\n'Then we'll find him.'\n\n'No. Officially he's \"missing in action\".'\n\n'Then he's not _dead_ ,' Ursula said. 'Where?'\n\n'Berlin, a couple of nights ago.'\n\n'He bailed out, and he's been taken captive,' Ursula said, as if stating a fact.\n\n'No, I'm afraid not,' Maurice said. 'He went down in flames, no one got out.'\n\n'How do you _know_ that?'\n\n'He was seen, an eyewitness, a fellow pilot.'\n\n'Who? Who was it who saw him?'\n\n'I don't know.' He was beginning to grow impatient.\n\n'No,' she said again. And then again, no. Her heart started racing and her mouth went dry. Her vision blurred and dotted, a pointillist painting. She was going to faint.\n\n'Are you all right?' she heard Maurice say. Am I all right, she thought, am I all right? How could I be all right?\n\nMaurice's voice sounded a long way off. She heard him shout for a girl. A chair was brought, a glass of water fetched. The girl said, 'Here, Miss Todd, put your head between your knees.' The girl was Miss Fawcett, a nice girl. 'Thank you, Miss Fawcett,' she murmured.\n\n'Mother took it very hard as well,' Maurice said, as if bemused by grief. He had never cared for Teddy the way they all did.\n\n'Well,' he said, patting her on the shoulder, she tried not to flinch, 'I'd better get back to the office, I expect I'll see you at Fox Corner,' almost casually, as if the worst part of the conversation were over and they could get on with some blander chat.\n\n'Why?'\n\n'Why what?'\n\nShe sat up straight. The water in the glass trembled slightly. 'Why will you see me at Fox Corner?' She sensed Miss Fawcett still hovering solicitously.\n\n'Well,' Maurice said, 'a family gathers on occasions such as these. After all, there won't be a funeral.'\n\n'There won't?'\n\n'No, of course not. No body,' he said. Did he shrug? Did he? She was shivering, she thought she might faint after all. She wished someone would hold her. Not Maurice. Miss Fawcett took the glass from her hand. Maurice said, 'I'll give you a lift down, of course. Mother sounded most awfully cut up,' he added.\n\nHe'd told her on the telephone? How dreadful, she thought numbly. It hardly mattered, she supposed, how one was given the news. And yet to have it conveyed by Maurice in his three-piece pinstripe, leaning against her desk, now inspecting his fingernails, waiting for her to say she was fine and he could go...\n\n'I'm fine. You can go.'\n\nMiss Fawcett brought her hot, sweet tea and said, 'I'm so sorry, Miss Todd. Would you like me to come home with you?'\n\n'That's very kind of you,' Ursula said, 'but I'll be all right. Do you think you could fetch my coat for me?'\n\nHe was twisting his uniform cap in his hands. They were making him nervous, just by their very presence. Roy Holt was drinking beer from a big dimpled-glass beer mug, great draughts with every mouthful as if he were very thirsty. He was Teddy's friend, the witness to his death. The 'fellow pilot'. Last time Ursula was here, visiting Teddy, was the summer of '42 and they had sat in the beer garden and eaten ham sandwiches and pickled eggs.\n\nRoy Holt was from Sheffield where the air still belonged to Yorkshire but was perhaps not so good. His mother and sister had been killed in the awful raids in December 1940 and he said he wasn't going to rest until he'd dropped a bomb directly on Hitler's head.\n\n'Good for you,' Izzie said. She had a peculiar way with young men, Ursula noticed, both maternal and flirtatious at the same time (where once she had simply been flirtatious). It was rather disturbing to watch.\n\nAs soon as she heard the news, Izzie left Cornwall post-haste for London and then commandeered a car and a fistful of petrol coupons from a 'man she knew' in the government, to take them both to Fox Corner, and then, onwards, to make the journey to Teddy's airfield. ('You'll never manage the train,' she said, 'you'll be far too upset.') 'Men she knew' was generally a euphemism for ex-lovers ('What did you do to get this?' a surly garage owner had asked when they filled up at his pumps on the road north. 'I slept with someone terribly important,' Izzie said sweetly).\n\nUrsula hadn't seen Izzie since Hugh's funeral, since her astonishing confession that she had a child, and Ursula thought that perhaps she should reintroduce the subject on the drive to Yorkshire (awkward to do) as Izzie had been so upset and presumably had no one else to talk to about it. But when Ursula said, 'Do you want to talk more about your baby?' Izzie said, 'Oh, _that_ ,' as if it was something trivial. 'Forget I ever said anything, I was just being morbid. Shall we stop for tea somewhere, I could demolish a scone, couldn't you?'\n\nYes, they had gathered at Fox Corner, and no, there was no 'body'. By then the status of Teddy and his crew had changed from 'missing in action' to 'missing, presumed dead'. There was no hope, Maurice said, they must stop thinking there was hope. 'There's always hope,' Sylvie said.\n\n'No,' Ursula said, 'sometimes there really isn't.' She thought of the baby. Emil. What would Teddy look like? Blackened and charred and shrunk like an ancient piece of wood? Maybe there was nothing left at all, no 'body'. Stop it, stop it, stop it. She breathed. Think of him as a little boy, playing with his planes and trains \u2013 no, actually that was worse. Much worse.\n\n'It's hardly a surprise,' Nancy said grimly. They were sitting outside on the terrace. They had drunk rather too much of Hugh's good malt. It felt peculiar to be drinking his whisky when he himself was gone. It was kept in a cut-glass decanter on the desk in the growlery, and it was the first time she had drunk it when it had not been poured by his own hand. ('Fancy a drop of the good stuff, little bear?')\n\n'He'd flown so many missions,' Nancy said, 'the odds were against him.'\n\n'I know.'\n\n'He expected it,' Nancy said. 'Accepted it, even. They have to, all those boys do. I sound sanguine, I know,' she continued quietly, 'but my heart is split in two. I loved him so much. _Love_ him so much. I don't know why I use the past tense. It's not as if love dies with the beloved. I love him _more_ now because I feel so damn sorry for him. He'll never marry, never have children, never have the wonderful life that was his birthright. Not all this,' she said, waving a hand around to indicate Fox Corner, the middle class, England in general, 'but because he was such a _good_ man. Sound and true, like a great bell, I think.' She laughed. 'Silly, I know. I know you're the one that understands. And I can't cry, I don't even want to cry. My tears would never do justice to this loss.'\n\nNancy hadn't wanted to talk, Teddy had once said, and now she wanted to do nothing but talk. Ursula herself had barely talked but wept continually. She had hardly gone an hour without finding the tears streaming unstoppably. Her eyes were still swollen and sore. Crighton had been awfully good, cradling her and shushing her, making endless cups of tea, tea purloined from the Admiralty, she supposed. He didn't deliver platitudes, didn't say everything will be all right, time will heal, he's in a better place \u2013 none of that rubbish. Miss Woolf was wonderful too. She came and sat with Crighton, never questioning who he might be, and held her hand and stroked her hair and allowed her to be an inconsolable child.\n\nThat was over now, she thought, finishing her whisky. Now there was just nothing. A vast, featureless landscape of nothing, as far as the horizon of her mind. _Despair behind, and Death before_.\n\n'Will you do something for me?' Nancy asked.\n\n'Yes, of course. Anything.'\n\n'Will you find out if there's a scrap of hope that he's alive? Surely there's a chance, however small, that he's been taken captive. I thought you might know someone in the Air Ministry\u2014'\n\n'Well, I know a girl...'\n\n'Or perhaps Maurice knows someone, someone who could be... definitive.' She stood up suddenly, swaying slightly from the whisky, and said, 'I have to go.'\n\n'We've met before,' Roy Holt said to her.\n\n'Yes, I came up to visit last year,' Ursula said. 'I stayed here, at the White Hart, they have rooms, but I suppose you know that. This is \"your\" pub, isn't it? The aircrew, I mean.'\n\n'We were all drinking in the bar, I remember,' Roy Holt said.\n\n'Yes, it was a very jolly evening.'\n\nMaurice was no use, of course, but Crighton had tried. It was always the same story. Teddy had gone down in flames, no one jumped.\n\n'You were the last person who saw him,' Ursula said.\n\n'I don't think about it really,' Roy Holt said. 'He was a good bloke, Ted, but it happens all the time. They don't come back. They're there at tea and they're not there at breakfast. You mourn for a minute and then you don't think about it. Do you know the statistics?'\n\n'I do actually.'\n\nHe shrugged and said, 'Maybe after the war, I don't know. I don't know what you want me to tell you.'\n\n'We just want to know,' Izzie said gently, 'that he didn't bail out. That he is dead. You were under attack, in extreme circumstances, you may not have seen the whole sorry drama play itself out.'\n\n'He's dead, believe me,' Roy Holt said. 'The whole crew. The plane was ablaze from front to back. Most of them were probably already dead. I could see him, the planes were very close, still in formation. He turned and looked at me.'\n\n'Looked at you?' Ursula said. Teddy in the last moments of his life, knowing he was going to die. What did he think about \u2013 the meadow and the copse and the stream that ran through the bluebell wood? Or the flames that were going to consume him \u2013 another martyr for England?\n\nIzzie reached out and clutched her hand. 'Steady,' she said.\n\n'I was only bothered about getting away from them. His kite was going out of control, I didn't want the bugger crashing into us.' He shrugged. He looked incredibly young and incredibly old at the same time.\n\n'You should get on with your lives,' he said rather roughly, and then less so added, 'I brought the dog. I thought you might want it back.'\n\nLucky was asleep at Ursula's feet, he had been deliriously happy when he saw her. Teddy hadn't left him at Fox Corner, instead he had taken him north, to his base. 'With a name and a reputation like his, what else could I do?' he wrote. He sent a photograph of his crew, lounging in old armchairs, Lucky sitting proudly to attention on Teddy's knee.\n\n'But he's your lucky mascot,' Ursula protested. 'Isn't that like asking for bad luck? Giving him away, I mean.'\n\n'We've had nothing but bad luck since Ted went,' Roy Holt said morosely. 'He was Ted's dog,' he added more kindly, 'faithful unto the last, as they say. He's pining something rotten, you should take him. The lads can't bear to see him hanging around on the airfield, waiting for Ted to come back. It just reminds them that it's probably going to be them next time.'\n\n' _I_ can't bear it,' she said to Izzie as they drove away. It was what Miss Woolf said when Tony died, she remembered. Just how much _was_ one expected to bear? The dog was sitting contentedly on her lap, sensing something of Ted about her perhaps. Or so she liked to think.\n\n'What else is there to do?' Izzie said.\n\nWell, one could kill oneself. And she might have done but how could she leave the dog behind? 'Is that ridiculous?' she asked Pamela.\n\n'No, not ridiculous,' Pamela said. 'The dog is all that's left of Teddy.'\n\n'Sometimes I feel that he _is_ Teddy.'\n\n'Now that _is_ ridiculous.'\n\nThey were sitting on the lawn at Fox Corner, two weeks or so after VE Day. ('Now begins the hard part,' Pamela said.) They hadn't celebrated. Sylvie had marked the day by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. 'Selfish, really,' Pamela said. 'After all, we're her children too.'\n\nShe had embraced the truth in her own inimitable way and lain down on Teddy's childhood bed and swallowed a whole bottle of pills, washed down with the last of Hugh's whisky. It was Jimmy's room too, but he hardly seemed to count to her. Now two of Pamela's boys slept in that room and played with Teddy's old train set, laid out in Mrs Glover's old attic room.\n\nThey lived at Fox Corner, the boys and Pamela and Harold. To everyone's surprise, Bridget made good on her threat to return to Ireland. Sylvie, enigmatic to the last, left behind her own version of a delayed action bomb. When her will was read they discovered that there was some money \u2013 stocks and shares and so on, Hugh wasn't a banker for nothing \u2013 that was to be divided equally but Pamela was to inherit Fox Corner. 'But why me?' Pamela puzzled. 'I was no more of a favourite than anyone else.'\n\n'None of us were favourites,' Ursula said, 'only Teddy. I suppose if he'd lived she would have left it to him.'\n\n'If he'd lived she wouldn't be dead.'\n\nMaurice was incandescent, Jimmy was not back from the war and when he did return he didn't seem to care too much one way or the other. Ursula wasn't entirely indifferent to the snub (a small word for a rather large betrayal) but she thought Pamela was the perfect person to live at Fox Corner and she was glad it was in her stewardship. Pamela wanted to sell and divide the proceeds but Harold, to Ursula's surprise, talked her out of it. (And it was difficult to talk Pamela out of things.) Harold had always disliked Maurice, for his politics as much as his person, and Ursula suspected this was his way of punishing Maurice for, well, for being Maurice. It was all rather Forsterian and it would have been easy to develop a grudge but Ursula chose not to.\n\nThe contents were to be divided among them. Jimmy wanted nothing, he already had his passage booked to New York and a job secured in an advertising agency, thanks to someone he met during the war, 'A man I know,' he said, an echo of Izzie. Maurice, on the other hand, having decided not to contest the will ('even though I would be successful, of course'), sent a removal van and virtually looted the house. None of the contents of the van ever turned up in Maurice's own house so they presumed he sold them, out of spite more than anything. Pamela cried for Sylvie's nice rugs and ornaments, the Regency Revival dining table, some very good Queen Anne chairs, the grandfather clock in the hall, 'Things we grew up with,' but it seemed to appease Maurice and prevented an outbreak of total war.\n\nUrsula took Sylvie's little carriage clock. 'I want nothing else,' she said. 'Only to be always welcome here.'\n\n'As you will be. You know that.'\n\n# _February 1947_\n\n_Wonderful! Like a Red Cross package_ , she wrote and propped the old postcard of the Brighton Pavilion on the mantelpiece next to Sylvie's clock, next to Teddy's photograph. She would put the card in with the afternoon post tomorrow. It would take for ever to reach Fox Corner, of course.\n\nA birthday card for her had made it through eventually. The weather had prevented the usual celebration at Fox Corner, instead Crighton had taken her to the Dorchester for dinner, by candlelight when the electricity gave out halfway through the meal.\n\n'Very romantic,' he said. 'Just like old times.'\n\n'I don't remember us being particularly romantic,' she said. Their affair had ended with the war but he had remembered her birthday, a fact which touched her more deeply than he knew. For a present he gave her a box of Milk Tray ('It's not much, I'm afraid').\n\n'Admiralty supplies?' she quizzed and they both laughed. When she got home she ate the whole box in one go.\n\nFive o'clock. She took her plate over to the sink to join the other unwashed dishes. The grey ash was a blizzard in the dark sky now and she pulled the flimsy cotton curtain to try to make it disappear. It tugged hopelessly on its wire and she gave up before she brought the whole thing down. The window was old and ill-fitting and let in a piercing draught.\n\nThe electricity went and she fumbled for the candle on the mantelpiece. Could it get any worse? Ursula took the candle and the whisky bottle to bed, climbed under the covers still in her coat. She was so tired. Being hungry and cold created the most awful lethargy.\n\nThe flame on the little Radiant fire quivered alarmingly. Would it be so very bad? _To cease upon the midnight with no pain_. There were worse ways. Auschwitz, Treblinka. Teddy's Halifax going down in flames. The only way to stop the tears was to keep drinking the whisky. Good old Pammy. The flame on the Radiant flickered and died. The pilot light too. She wondered when the gas would come back on. If the smell would wake her, if she would get up and relight it. She hadn't expected to die like a fox frozen in its den. Pammy would see the postcard, know that she'd been appreciated. Ursula closed her eyes. She felt as though she had been awake for a hundred years and more. She really was so very, very tired.\n\nDarkness began to fall.\n\nShe woke with a start. Was it daytime? The light was on but it was dark. She had been dreaming she was trapped in a cellar. She climbed out of the bed, she still felt quite drunk and realized it was the wireless that had woken her. The power was back on in time for the shipping forecast.\n\nShe fed the meter and the little Radiant popped back into life. She hadn't gassed herself after all then.\n\n# _June 1967_\n\nThis morning the Jordanians had opened fire on Tel Aviv, the BBC reporter said, now they were shelling Jerusalem. He was standing on a street, in Jerusalem presumably, she hadn't really been paying attention, the noise of artillery fire in the background, too far away to be any danger to him, yet his faux-battledress attire and style of reportage \u2013 excited, yet solemn \u2013 hinted at unlikely heroics on his part.\n\nBenjamin Cole was a member of the Israeli parliament now. He had fought in the Jewish Brigade at the end of the war and then joined the Stern Gang, in Palestine, to fight for a homeland. He had been such an upstanding kind of boy that it had been odd to think of him becoming a terrorist.\n\nThey had met up for a drink during the war but it was an awkward encounter. The romantic impulses of her girlhood had long since faded whereas his relative indifference to her as a member of the female sex had turned on its head. She had barely finished her (weak) gin and lemon when he suggested they 'go somewhere'.\n\nShe was indignant. 'Do I look like a woman of such easy virtue?' she asked Millie afterwards.\n\n'Well, why not?' Millie shrugged. 'We could be killed by a bomb tomorrow. _Carpe diem_ and all that.'\n\n'That seems to be everyone's excuse for bad behaviour,' Ursula grumbled. 'If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.' She had had a bad day at the office. One of the filing clerks had received the news that her boyfriend's ship had gone down and she had had hysterics and an important piece of paper had been lost in the sea of buff which caused more anguish, if of a different order, so she had not seized the day with Benjamin Cole, despite him pressing his suit urgently on her. 'I've always sensed something between us, haven't you?' he said.\n\n'Too late, I'm afraid,' she said, gathering up her bag and coat. 'Catch me next time round.' She thought about Dr Kellet and his theories of reincarnation and wondered what she would like to come back as. A tree, she thought. A fine big tree, dancing in the breeze.\n\nThe BBC turned its attention to Downing Street. Someone or other had resigned. She had heard tittle-tattle in the office but couldn't be bothered to listen.\n\nShe was eating her supper \u2013 a Welsh rarebit \u2013 off a tray on her knee. She usually ate like this in the evening. It seemed ridiculous to lay the table and put out vegetable dishes and table mats and all the other paraphernalia of dining for just one person. And then what? Eat in silence, or hunched over a book? There were people who saw TV dinners as the beginning of the end of civilization. (Did her robust defence of them indicate that perhaps she was of the same mind?) They obviously didn't live on their own. And really the beginning of the end of civilization had happened a long time ago. Sarajevo perhaps, Stalingrad at the latest. There were some who would say the end started at the beginning, in the Garden.\n\nAnd what was so wrong with watching television anyway? One couldn't go out to the theatre or the cinema (or the pub for that matter) every night. And when one lived alone one's only conversation inside the home was with a cat, which tended to be a one-sided affair. Dogs were different, but she hadn't had a dog since Lucky. He had died in the summer of '49, of old age, the vet said. Ursula had always thought of him as a young dog. They buried him at Fox Corner and Pamela bought a rose, a deep red, and planted it for his headstone. The garden at Fox Corner was a veritable graveyard for dogs. Wherever you went there would be a rose bush with a dog beneath, although only Pamela could remember who was where.\n\nAnd what was the alternative to television anyway? (She wasn't letting the argument die, even though it was with herself.) A jigsaw puzzle? Really? There was reading, of course, but one didn't always want to come in from a trying day at work, full of messages and memos and agendas, and then tire one's eyes out with even more words. The wireless, records, all good of course, but still _solipsistic_ in some way. (Yes, she was protesting too much.) At least with television one didn't have to _think_. Not such a bad thing.\n\nHer supper was later than usual because she had been attending her own retirement do \u2013 not unlike attending one's own funeral, except one could walk away afterwards. It had been a modest affair, no more than drinks at a local pub, but pleasant and she was relieved it had finished early (where others might feel badly done by). She didn't officially retire until Friday but she thought it would be easier on the staff to get the whole thing over and done with on a weekday. They might resent giving up their Friday evening.\n\nBeforehand, in the office, they had presented her with a carriage clock engraved _To Ursula Todd, in gratitude for her many years of loyal service_. Ye gods, she thought, what a tedious epitaph. It was a traditional kind of gift, and she didn't have the heart to say that she already had one, and a much better one at that. But they also gave her a pair of (good) tickets for the Proms, for a performance of Beethoven's Choral, which was thoughtful \u2013 she suspected the hand of Jacqueline Roberts, her secretary.\n\n'You've helped to pave the way for women in senior positions in the civil service,' Jacqueline said quietly to her, handing her a Dubonnet, her preferred drink these days. Not _that_ senior unfortunately, she thought. Not in _charge_. That was still for the Maurices of this world.\n\n'Well, cheers,' she said, chinking her glass against Jacqueline's port and lemon. She didn't drink a great deal, the occasional Dubonnet, a nice bottle of burgundy at the weekend. Not like Izzie, still inhabiting the house in Melbury Road, wandering through its many rooms like a dipsomaniac Miss Havisham. Ursula visited her every Saturday morning with a bag of groceries, most of which seemed to get thrown out. No one read the _Adventures of Augustus_ any more. Teddy would have been relieved and yet Ursula was sorry, as if another little part of him had been forgotten by the world.\n\n'You'll probably get a gong now, you know,' Maurice said, 'now that you're retired. An MBE or something.' He had been knighted in the last round of honours. ('God,' Pamela said, 'what's the country coming to?') He had sent each member of his family a framed photograph of himself, bowing beneath the Queen's sword in the ballroom of the Palace. 'Oh, the hubris of the man,' Harold laughed.\n\nMiss Woolf would have been the perfect companion for the Choral at the Albert Hall. The last time Ursula had seen her was there, at the Henry Wood seventy-fifth-birthday concert in '44. She was killed a few months later in the Aldwych rocket attack. Anne, the girl from the Air Ministry, was killed in the same attack. She had been with a group of female colleagues who were sunbathing on the ministry roof, eating their packed lunches. It was a long time ago now. And it was yesterday.\n\nUrsula was supposed to have met up with her in St James's Park at lunchtime. The Air Ministry girl \u2013 Anne \u2013 had something to tell her, she said, and Ursula had wondered if it might be some information about Teddy. Perhaps they had found wreckage or a body. She had long since accepted that he was gone for ever, they would have heard by now if he was a POW or had managed to escape to Sweden.\n\nAt the last minute fate had intervened in the shape of Mr Bullock, who had turned up unexpectedly on her doorstep the previous evening (how did he know her address?) to ask if she would accompany him to court to vouch for his good character. He was on trial for some kind of black market fraud, which came as no surprise. She was his second choice, after Miss Woolf, but Miss Woolf had been made a District Warden and was responsible for the lives of two hundred and fifty thousand people, all of whom ranked higher in her estimation than Mr Bullock. His black market 'escapades' had turned her against him in the end. None of the wardens that Ursula had known from her post were still there by '44.\n\nShe was rather alarmed to find that Mr Bullock was appearing at the Old Bailey, she had presumed it was some petty misdemeanour fit only for the magistrates' court. She had waited, in vain, all morning to be called and just as the court got up to recess for lunch she had heard the dull thud of an explosion but hadn't known it was the rocket wreaking carnage in the Aldwych. Mr Bullock, needless to say, was found innocent of all charges.\n\nCrighton had gone with her to Miss Woolf's funeral. He was a rock, but in the end he had stayed in Wargrave.\n\n' _Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore_ ,' the minister boomed as if the congregation was hard of hearing. 'Ecclesiasticus 44: 14.' Ursula didn't think that was really true. Who would remember Emil or Renee? Or poor little Tony, Fred Smith. Miss Woolf herself. Ursula had forgotten the names of most of the dead already. And all those airmen, all those young lives lost. When Teddy died he was CO of his squadron and he was only twenty-nine. The youngest CO was twenty-two. Time had accelerated for those boys, as it had for Keats.\n\nThey sang 'Onward, Christian Soldiers', Crighton had a rather fine baritone that she had never heard before. She felt sure that Miss Woolf would have preferred Beethoven to the rousing battle hymns of the church.\n\nMiss Woolf had hoped that Beethoven might heal the post-war world but the howitzers pointed at Jerusalem seemed like the final defeat of her optimism. Ursula was now the same age as Miss Woolf had been at the outbreak of the last war. Ursula had thought of her as old. 'And now _we're_ old,' she said to Pamela.\n\n'Speak for yourself. And you're not even sixty yet. That's not old.'\n\n'Feels like it.'\n\nOnce her children were grown enough and no longer needed her constant oversight, Pamela had become one of those women who did good works. (Ursula was not critical, quite the opposite.) She became a JP and eventually a chief magistrate, was active on charity boards and last year had won a place on the local council as an independent. And there was the house to keep up (although she had 'a woman who does') and the enormous garden. In 1948, when the NHS was born, Harold had taken over Dr Fellowes's old practice. The village had grown around them, more and more houses. The meadow gone, the copse too, many of the fields from Ettringham Hall's home farm had been sold off to a developer. The Hall itself was empty and rather neglected. (There was talk of a hotel.) The little railway station had been given the death sentence by Beeching and had closed two months ago, despite an heroic campaign to keep it going, spearheaded by Pamela.\n\n'But it is still lovely around here,' she said. 'A five-minute walk and you're in open countryside. And the wood hasn't been touched. Yet.'\n\nSarah. She would take Sarah to the Proms with her. Pamela's reward for patience \u2013 a daughter born in 1949. She was to take up a place at Cambridge after the summer \u2013 science, she was clever, an all-rounder like her mother. Ursula was enormously fond of Sarah. Being an aunt had helped to seal over the empty cavern in her heart from Teddy's loss. She thought often these days \u2013 if only she had had a child of her own... She had had affairs over the years, albeit nothing too thrilling (the fault, the lack of 'commitment', mainly on her own side, of course) but she had never been pregnant, never been a mother or a wife and it was only when she realized that it was too late, that it could never be, that she understood what it was that she had lost. Pamela's life would go on after she was dead, her descendants spreading through the world like the waters of a delta, but when Ursula died she would simply end. A stream that ran dry.\n\nThere had been flowers too, also Jacqueline's doing, Ursula suspected. They had survived the evening in the pub, thank goodness. Lovely pink lilies that were now sitting on her sideboard, the scent perfuming the room. The living room was west-facing and soaked up the evening sun. It was still light outside, the trees in the shared gardens in their best new leaf. It was a very nice flat, near the Brompton Oratory, and she had put all of the money that Sylvie left her into the purchase of it. There was a small kitchen and bathroom, both modern, but she had eschewed the modern when it came to d\u00e9cor. After the war she had bought simple, tasteful antique furniture when no one wanted that kind of thing. There were fitted carpets throughout in a pale willow green and the curtains were the same fabric as the suite covers \u2013 a Morris print, one of the more subtle ones. The walls were painted in a pale-lemon emulsion that made the place seem light and airy even on rainy days. There were a few pieces of Meissen and Worcester \u2013 sweetmeat dishes and a garniture set \u2013 also picked up cheaply after the war, and she always had flowers, Jacqueline knew that.\n\nThe only crude note was sounded by a pair of Staffordshire foxes, garish orange creatures, each of which had a dead rabbit drooping in its jaws. She had picked them up in Portobello Road for next to nothing years ago. They had made her think of Fox Corner.\n\n'I love coming here,' Sarah said. 'You have such nice things and it's always so clean and tidy, nothing like home.'\n\n'You can afford to be clean and tidy when you live on your own,' Ursula said, but flattered by the compliment. She supposed she should make a will, leave her worldly goods to someone. She would like Sarah to have the flat but the memory of the debacle over Fox Corner when Sylvie died made her hesitate. Should one show such outright favouritism? Possibly not. She must divide her estate between all seven of her nieces and nephews, even the ones she didn't like or never saw. Jimmy, of course, had never married or had children. He lived in California now. 'He's a homosexual, you do know that, don't you?' Pamela said. 'He's always had those proclivities.' It was information, not censure, but there was still a mild prurience in her words and the faintest trace of smugness, as if she were better able to cope with liberal views. Ursula wondered if she knew about Gerald and _his_ 'proclivities'.\n\n'Jimmy's just Jimmy,' she said.\n\nThe previous week, she had come back from lunch and found a copy of _The Times_ sitting on her desk. It had been neatly folded so that only the obituaries were on show. Crighton's had a photograph of him in uniform, taken before she knew him. She had forgotten how handsome he was. It was quite a big piece, mentioned Jutland, of course. She learned that his wife Moira had 'predeceased' him, that he was a grandfather several times over and a keen golfer. He had always hated golf, she wondered when his conversion had taken place. And who on earth had left _The Times_ on her desk? Who all these years later would have thought to tell her? She had no idea and supposed she never would now. There was a time during their affair, when he had been in the habit of leaving notes on her desk, rather smutty little _billets-doux_ that appeared as if by magic. Perhaps the same invisible hand had delivered _The Times_ , all these years later.\n\n'The Man from the Admiralty is dead,' she said to Pamela. 'Of course, everyone dies eventually.'\n\n'Well, now there's a truism,' Pamela laughed.\n\n'No, I mean, everybody one has ever known, including oneself, will be dead one day.'\n\n'Still a truism.'\n\n' _Amor fati_ ,' Ursula said. 'Nietzsche wrote about it all the time. I didn't understand, I thought it was \"a more fatty\". Do you remember I used to see a psychiatrist? Dr Kellet? He was a philosopher at heart.'\n\n'Love of fate?'\n\n'It means acceptance. Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced, I suppose.'\n\n'Sounds like Buddhism. Did I tell you that Chris is going to India, to some kind of monastery, a retreat, he calls it. He's found it hard to settle to anything since Oxford. He's a \"hippie\" apparently.' Ursula thought Pamela was very indulgent with her third son. She found Christopher rather creepy. She tried to think of another, more generous word but failed. He was one of those people who stared at you with a meaningful smile on their face, as if he was somehow intellectually and spiritually superior, when the fact was he was simply socially inept.\n\nThe scent of the lilies, lovely when they had first gone in water, was beginning to make her feel slightly sick. The room was stuffy. She should open a window. She stood up in order to carry her plate through to the kitchen and was immediately struck by a blinding pain in her right temple. She had to sit down again and wait for it to pass. She had been getting these pains for weeks now. An acute pain and then a thick, buzzy head. Or sometimes just a straightforward horrible pounding ache. She thought it might be high blood pressure but, after a battery of tests, the hospital's verdict was neuralgia, 'probably'. She was given strong painkillers and told that she was bound to feel better once she had retired. 'You'll have time to relax, take it easy,' the doctor said in the special tone of voice reserved for the elderly.\n\nThe pain passed and she stood up, gingerly.\n\nWhat _would_ she do with her time? She wondered about moving to the country, a little cottage, partaking in village life, perhaps somewhere in the vicinity of Pamela. She imagined St Mary Mead, or Miss Read's Fairacre. Perhaps _she_ could write a novel? It would certainly fill in the time. And a dog, time to get another dog. Pamela kept Golden Retrievers, a succession of them, one replacing another and quite indistinguishable to Ursula's eye.\n\nShe washed up her meagre pots. Thought she might have an early night, make some Ovaltine and take her book to bed with her. She was reading Greene's _The Comedians_. Perhaps she did need to rest more but lately she had become rather afraid of sleep. She was having such vivid dreams that sometimes she found it hard to accept that they weren't real. Several times recently she had believed that something outlandish had really happened to her when it quite obviously, logically, had not. And falling. She was always falling in her dreams, down staircases and off cliffs, it was a most unpleasant sensation. Was this the first sign of dementia? The beginning of the end. The end of the beginning.\n\nFrom her bedroom window she could see a fat moon rising. Keats's Queen-Moon, she thought. _Tender is the night_. The pain in her head came back. She ran a glass of water from the tap and swallowed a couple of painkillers.\n\n'But if Hitler had been killed, before he became Chancellor, it would have stopped all this conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis, wouldn't it?' The Six-Day War, as they had called it, had ended, the Israelis decisively victorious. 'I mean, I do understand why the Jews wanted to create an independent state and defend it vigorously,' Ursula continued, 'and I always felt sympathy for the Zionist cause, even before the war, but, on the other hand, I can also understand why the Arab states are so aggrieved. But if Hitler had been unable to implement the Holocaust\u2014'\n\n'Because he was dead?'\n\n'Yes, because he was dead. Then support for a Jewish homeland would have been weak at best...'\n\n'History is all about \"what ifs\",' Nigel said. Pamela's first-born, her favourite nephew, was a history tutor at Brasenose, Hugh's old college. She was treating him to lunch in Fortnum's.\n\n'It is nice to have an intelligent conversation with someone,' she said. 'I've been on holiday in the south of France with my friend Millie Shawcross, have you met her? No? Not that she's called that any more, she's been through several husbands, each one wealthier than the last.'\n\nMillie, the war bride, had hotfooted it back from America just as soon as she could, her new family were 'cowpokes', she reported. She had gone back to 'treading the boards' and had several disastrous relationships before she struck gold in the form of the scion of an oil family in tax exile.\n\n'She lives in Monaco. It's _incredibly_ small, I had no idea. She's really quite stupid these days. I'm wittering, aren't I?'\n\n'Not at all. Shall I pour you some water?'\n\n'People who live on their own do tend to witter. We live without restraint, verbal at any rate.'\n\nNigel smiled. He wore serious spectacles and had Harold's lovely smile. When he took his spectacles off to clean them on his napkin he looked very young.\n\n'You look so young,' Ursula said. 'You _are_ young, of course. Am I sounding like a dotty old aunt?'\n\n'God, no,' he said. 'You're just about the smartest person I know.'\n\nShe buttered a bread roll, feeling rather chuffed at this compliment. 'I heard someone say once that hindsight was a wonderful thing, that without it there would be no history.'\n\n'They're probably right.'\n\n'But think how different things would be,' Ursula persisted. 'The Iron Curtain would probably not have fallen and Russia wouldn't have been able to gobble up Eastern Europe.'\n\n'Gobble?'\n\n'Well, it _was_ just pure greed. And the Americans might not have recovered from the Depression so quickly without a war economy and consequently not exerted so much influence on the post-war world\u2014'\n\n'An awful lot of people would still be alive.'\n\n'Well, yes, obviously. And the whole cultural face of Europe would be different because of the Jews. And think of all those displaced people, shuffling from one country to another. And Britain would still have an empire, or at least we wouldn't have lost it so precipitately \u2013 I'm not saying being an imperial power is a good thing, of course. And we wouldn't have bankrupted ourselves and had such an awful time recovering, financially and psychologically. And no Common Market\u2014'\n\n'Which won't let us in anyway.'\n\n'Think how strong Europe would be! But perhaps Goering or Himmler would have stepped in. And everything would have happened in just the same way.'\n\n'Perhaps. But the Nazis were a marginal party almost up until they took power. They were all fanatical psychopaths, but none of them had Hitler's charisma.'\n\n'Oh, I know,' Ursula said. 'He was extraordinarily charismatic. People talk about charisma as if it were a good thing, but really it's a kind of glamour \u2013 in the old sense of the word, casting a spell, you know? I think it was the eyes, he had the _most_ compelling eyes. If you looked in them you felt you were putting yourself in danger of believing\u2014'\n\n'You _met_ him?' Nigel asked, astonished.\n\n'Well,' Ursula said. 'Not exactly. Would you like dessert, dear?'\n\nJuly and hot as Hades as she walked back from Fortnum's, along Piccadilly. Even the colours seemed hot. Everything was bright these days \u2013 bright young things. There were girls in her office whose skirts were like pelmets. Young people these days had so much _enthusiasm_ for themselves, as if they had invented the future. This was the generation the war had been fought for and now they bandied the word 'peace' around glibly as though it were an advertising slogan. They had not experienced a war ('And that's a good thing,' she heard Sylvie say, 'no matter how unsatisfactory they turn out'). They had been handed, in Churchill's phrase, the title deeds of freedom. What they did with them was their affair now, she supposed. (What an old fuddy-duddy she sounded, she had become the person she always thought she would never be.)\n\nShe thought she might walk through the parks and crossed the road, into Green Park. She always walked in the parks on Sundays but now she was retired every day was a Sunday, she supposed. She walked on, past the Palace, and entered Hyde Park, bought an ice-cream from a kiosk next to the Serpentine and decided she might hire a deckchair. She was awfully tired, lunch seemed to have taken it out of her.\n\nShe must have dozed off \u2013 all that food. The boats were out on the water, people pedalling, laughing and joking. Oh, drat, she thought, she could feel a headache coming and she didn't have any painkillers in her bag. Perhaps she could hail a cab on Carriage Drive, she would never be able to walk home in this heat, not in pain. But then the pain grew less rather than more severe, which was not the usual progression of her headaches. She closed her eyes again, the sun was still hot and bright. She felt wonderfully indolent.\n\nIt was odd to sleep surrounded by people. It should have made her feel vulnerable but instead there was a kind of comfort. What was Tennessee Williams's line \u2013 _the kindness of strangers_? Millie's swansong on the stage, the last gasp of the dying swan, was to play Blanche DuBois in a 1955 production in Bath.\n\nShe allowed the hum and buzz of the park to lullaby her. Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being. Dr Kellet would have approved this thought. And everything was ephemeral, yet everything was eternal, she thought sleepily. A dog barked somewhere. A child cried. The child was hers, she could feel the delicate weight of the child in her arms. It was a lovely feeling. She was dreaming. She was in a meadow \u2013 flax and larkspur, buttercups, corn poppies, red campion and ox-eye daisies \u2013 and unseasonable snowdrops. The oddities of the dream world, she thought, and caught the sound of Sylvie's little carriage clock chiming midnight. Someone was singing, a child, a reedy little voice keeping the tune, _I had a little nut-tree and nothing would it bear. Muskatnuss_ , she thought \u2013 the German for nutmeg. She had been trying to remember that word for ages and now suddenly here it was.\n\nNow she was in a garden. She could hear the delicate chink of cups on saucers, the creak and clatter of a lawn-mower, and could smell the peppery-sweet perfume of pinks. A man lifted her up and tossed her in the air and sugar cubes scattered across a lawn. There was another world but it was this one. She allowed herself a little chuckle even though her opinion was that people who laughed to themselves in public were likely to be mad.\n\nDespite the summer heat, snow began to fall, which was the kind of thing that happened in dreams, after all. The snow began to cover her face, it was lovely and cool in this weather. And then she was falling, falling into the darkness, black and deep\u2014\n\nBut here was the snow again \u2013 white and welcoming, the light like a sharp sword piercing through the heavy curtains, and she was being lifted up, cradled in soft arms.\n\n'I shall call her Ursula,' Sylvie said. 'What do you think?'\n\n'I like it,' Hugh said. His face loomed into vision. His trim moustache and sideburns, his kind green eyes. 'Welcome, little bear,' he said.\n\n# The End of the Beginning\n\n#\n\n'Welcome, little bear.' Her father. She had his eyes.\n\nHugh had paced, as was tradition, along the Voysey runner in the upper hallway, barred from the inner sanctum itself. He was unsure of the details of the doings behind the door, only too grateful that he was not expected to be familiar with the mechanics of childbirth. Sylvie's screams suggested torture if not outright butchery. Women were extraordinarily brave, Hugh thought. He smoked a series of cigarettes to stave off any unmanly squeamishness.\n\nDr Fellowes's dispassionate bass notes afforded some comfort to him, counterpointed unfortunately by a kind of hysterical Celtic babble from the scullery maid. Where was Mrs Glover? A cook could sometimes be a great help at times like these. The cook in his childhood Hampstead home had been unflappable in a crisis.\n\nA considerable commotion could be heard at one point, indicating great victory or great defeat in the battle taking place on the other side of the bedroom door. Hugh refrained from entering unless invited, which he wasn't. Eventually, Dr Fellowes flung open the door of the birth chamber and announced, 'You have a bonny, bouncing baby girl. She nearly died,' he added as an afterthought.\n\nThank goodness, Hugh thought, that he had managed to get back to Fox Corner before the snow closed the roads. He had dragged his sister back with him on the Channel crossing, a cat after a long night on the tiles. He was sporting a rather painful bite mark on his hand and was left wondering from where his sister had acquired her strain of savagery. Not from Nanny Mills and the Hampstead nursery.\n\nIzzie was still wearing her counterfeit wedding ring, a legacy of her shameful week in a Parisian hotel with her lover, although Hugh doubted that the French, an immoral lot, cared about such niceties. She had left for the continent in short skirts and a little straw boater (his mother had given him a detailed description, as if Izzie were a criminal) but she returned in a gown by Worth (as she frequently told him, as if it would impress him). It was also clear that the scoundrel had been taking advantage of her for some time before their flight as the gown, Worth or not, was straining at the seams.\n\nHe had eventually flushed his fugitive sister out from H\u00f4tel d'Alsace in St Germain, a degenerate _endroit_ , in Hugh's estimation, the scene of Oscar Wilde's demise, which said everything you needed to know about the place.\n\nAn unseemly tussle had taken place not only with Izzie but also with the bounder from whose arms Hugh wrestled her before hauling her, kicking and screaming, into the handsome two-door Renault taxi that he had paid to wait outside the hotel. Hugh thought it would be rather fine to own a motor car. Could he afford one on his salary? Could he learn to drive one? How difficult could it be?\n\nThey had eaten some rather decent, pink French lamb on the boat and Izzie had demanded champagne, which he allowed her as he was far too worn out with the whole elopement business to bother with yet another fight. It was tempting to toss her over the rails, into the dark-grey waters of the Channel.\n\nHe had telegraphed his mother, Adelaide, from Calais, informing her of Izzie's misfortune as he thought it might be best if she were prepared before setting eyes on her youngest daughter, whose condition was plain for all the world to see.\n\nTheir fellow diners on the boat presumed they were a married couple and many pretty compliments on her impending motherhood were passed Izzie's way. Hugh supposed it was better to let them think this, appalling though it was, rather than for these complete strangers to discover the truth. Thus he found himself taking part in an absurd charade for the duration of the crossing, in the course of which he was forced to deny the existence of his real wife and children and pretend that Izzie was his child bride. He became, to all intents and purposes, the very villain who had seduced a girl barely out of the nursery (forgetting, perhaps, that his own wife was only seventeen when he proposed to her).\n\nIzzie, of course, threw herself into this mockery with glee, taking her revenge on Hugh by making him as uncomfortable as possible, addressing him as _mon cher mari_ and other extremely irritating blandishments.\n\n'What a lovely young wife you have,' a man, a Belgian, chortled while Hugh was taking the air on deck and indulging in a post-prandial cigarette. 'Hardly out of the cradle herself and soon to be a mother. It's the best way \u2013 getting them young \u2013 then you can mould them to how you want them.'\n\n'Your English is remarkable, sir,' Hugh said, throwing the stub of his cigarette into the sea and walking away. A lesser man would have resorted to fisticuffs. He might, if pressed, fight for the honour of his country, but he would be damned if he would fight for the besmirched honour of his feckless sister. (Although it would be undeniably pleasant to mould a woman to one's exact requirements, like his bespoke suits from his tailor in Jermyn Street.)\n\nIt had been difficult to find the right wording for the telegram to his mother and he had finally settled on I SHALL BE IN HAMPSTEAD BY MIDDAY STOP ISOBEL IS WITH ME STOP SHE IS WITH CHILD STOP. It was a rather bald message and he should perhaps have spent the extra money on some mitigating adverbs. 'Unfortunately' might have been one. The telegram (unfortunately) had the opposite to the desired effect and when they disembarked in Dover a reply was waiting for him. DO NOT BRING HER TO MY HOUSE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES STOP, the final STOP carrying a leaden weight of certainty which was not to be challenged. Which did rather leave Hugh at a loss as to what exactly he _should_ do with Izzie. She was, despite appearances, still only a child herself, only sixteen, he could hardly abandon her on the streets. Anxious to return to Fox Corner as soon as possible, he found himself carting her along with him.\n\nWhen they finally arrived, as iced as snowmen, it was an excitable Bridget who opened the door to him at midnight and said, 'Oh, no, I was hoping you were going to be the doctor, so I was.' His third child, it seemed, was on its way. _Her_ way, he thought fondly, looking down at the tiny crumpled features. Hugh rather liked babies.\n\n'But what are we to _do_ with her?' Sylvie fretted. 'She's not giving birth under my roof.'\n\n' _Our_ roof.'\n\n'She'll have to give it away.'\n\n'The child is part of our family,' Hugh said. 'The same blood runs in its veins as in my children.'\n\n' _Our_ children.'\n\n'We'll say the child is adopted,' Hugh said. 'An orphaned relative. People won't question, why should they?'\n\nIn the end the baby _was_ born beneath the roof of Fox Corner, a boy, and once Sylvie saw him she was unable to discard him so easily. 'He's a delightful little thing really,' she said. Sylvie found all babies delightful.\n\nIzzie had not been allowed beyond the garden for the remainder of her pregnancy. She was being kept a prisoner, she said, 'like the Count of Monte Cristo'. She handed the baby over as soon as he was born and showed no more interest in him, as if the whole affair \u2013 the pregnancy, the confinement \u2013 had been a provoking task that they had coerced her into undertaking and now she had fulfilled her part of the bargain and was free to go. After a fortnight of lying around in bed being waited upon by a disgruntled Bridget she was put on a train back to Hampstead, from whence she was packed off to a finishing school in Lausanne.\n\nHugh was right, no one questioned the sudden appearance of this surplus child. Mrs Glover and Bridget were sworn to secrecy, an oath that was sweetened, unknown to Sylvie, with cash. Hugh knew the value of money, he wasn't a banker for nothing. Dr Fellowes could, one hoped, be relied upon for his professional discretion.\n\n'Roland,' Sylvie said. 'I've always rather liked that name. _The Song of Roland \u2013_ he was a French knight.'\n\n'Died in battle, I expect?' Hugh said.\n\n'Most knights do, don't they?'\n\nThe silver hare spun and shone and shimmered before her eyes. The leaves on the beech danced, the garden budded, blossomed, fruited, without any help from her at all. _Rock-a-bye baby_ , Sylvie sang. _Down will fall baby, cradle and all_. Ursula was not put off by this threat and continued on her small but dauntless journey, alongside her companion, Roland.\n\nHe was a sweet-natured child and it took some time for Sylvie to notice that he was 'not quite all there', as she put it to Hugh one evening when he returned from a difficult day at the bank. He knew there was no point in sharing these fiscal problems with Sylvie, yet sometimes he liked to imagine coming home from work to a wife who was fascinated by ledgers and balance sheets, the rising price of tea, the unsteady market in wool. A wife 'moulded' to requirements instead of the beautiful, clever and somewhat contrary one he was wedded to.\n\nHe had secluded himself in the growlery, sitting at his desk with a large malt whisky and a small cigar, hoping to be left in peace. To no avail: Sylvie swept in and sat opposite him, like a customer in the bank looking for a loan, and said, 'I think Izzie's child may be a simpleton.' Up until now he had always been Roland, now, apparently defective, he was Izzie's once more.\n\nHugh dismissed her opinion but there was no denying that as time went on Roland didn't progress the way the others did. He was slow to learn and didn't seem to possess a child's natural curiosity about the world. You could sit him on a hearth rug with a rag-book or a set of wooden bricks and he would still be there half an hour later gazing contentedly at the fire (well guarded against children) or Queenie the cat sitting next to him, attending to her toilette (less well guarded and much prone to malevolence). Roland could be set to any simple task, and spent much of his time willingly fetching and carrying for the girls, Bridget, even Mrs Glover was not above sending him on simple errands, a bag of sugar from the pantry, a wooden spoon from the jar. It seemed unlikely that he would be going to Hugh's old school or entering Hugh's old college, and Hugh grew fonder of the boy for that somehow.\n\n'Perhaps we should get him a dog,' he suggested. 'A dog always brings the best out in a boy.' Bosun arrived, a large friendly animal with a tendency to herd and protect, and discerned immediately that he had been put in charge of something important.\n\nAt least the boy was placid, Hugh thought, unlike his dratted mother, or his own two eldest children who fought incessantly with each other. Ursula, of course, was different to all of them. She was watchful, as if she were trying to drink in the whole world through those little green eyes that were both his and hers. She was rather unnerving.\n\nMr Winton's easel was set up to face the sea. He was quite pleased with what he had so far, the blues and greens and whites \u2013 and murky browns \u2013 of the Cornish seaside. Several passers-by paused in their journeys across the sands to observe the painting-in-progress. He hoped, in vain, for compliments.\n\nA little fleet of white-sailed yachts skimmed the horizon, a race of some kind, Mr Winton presumed. He smudged some Chinese white on his own painted horizon and stood back to admire the results. Mr Winton saw yachts, others might have seen blobs of white paint. They would contrast rather well, he thought, with some figures on the seashore. The two little girls so intent on building a sandcastle would be perfect. He bit the tip of his brush as he gazed at his canvas. How to do it best, he wondered?\n\nThe sandcastle was Ursula's suggestion. They should build, she said to Pamela, the best sandcastle ever. She had conjured up such a vivid image of this sandy citadel \u2013 moats and turrets and battlements \u2013 that Pamela could almost see the medieval ladies in their wimples waving to the knights as they clattered away on their horses over the drawbridge (a piece of driftwood was to be sought out for this purpose). They had set about this task with undivided energy although they were still at the heavy-engineering stage, digging a double moat that would eventually, when the tide turned, fill with seawater to protect those wimpled ladies from violent siege (by someone like Maurice, inevitably). Roland, their ever-obliging minion, was dispatched to scour the beach for decorative pebbles and the all-important drawbridge.\n\nThey were further along the beach from Sylvie and Bridget, who were immersed in their books while the new baby, Edward \u2013 Teddy \u2013 was sleeping on a blanket on the sand beneath the protection of a parasol. Maurice was dredging in rock pools at the far end of the beach. He had made new companions, rough local boys with whom he went swimming and scrabbling up cliffs. Boys were just boys to Maurice. He had not yet learned to evaluate them by accent and social standing.\n\nMaurice had an indestructible quality and no one ever seemed to worry about him, least of all his mother.\n\nBosun, unfortunately, had been left behind with the Coles.\n\nIn time-honoured fashion, the sand from the moat was piled up in a central mound, the building material for the proposed fortress. Both girls, by now hot and sticky from their exertions, took a moment to stand back and contemplate this formless heap. Pamela felt more doubtful now about the turrets and battlements, the wimpled ladies seemed even more unlikely. The mound reminded Ursula of something, but what? Something familiar, yet nebulous and undefinable, no more than a shape in her brain. She was prone to these sensations, as if a memory was being tugged reluctantly out of its hiding place. She presumed it was the same for everyone.\n\nThen this feeling was replaced by fear, a shadow of a thrill too, the kind that came with a thunderstorm rolling in, or a sea fog creeping towards the shore. Hazard could be anywhere, in the clouds, the waves, the little yachts on the horizon, the man painting at his easel. She set off at a purposeful trot to take her fears to Sylvie and have them soothed.\n\nUrsula was a peculiar child, full of troublesome notions, in Sylvie's opinion. She was forever answering Ursula's anxious questions \u2013 _What would we do if the house caught fire? Our train crashed? The river flooded?_ Practical advice, Sylvie had discovered, was the best way to allay these fears rather than dismissing them as unlikely ( _Why, dear, we would gather up our belongings and we would climb on the roof until the water receded_ ).\n\nPamela, meanwhile, returned stoically to digging the moat. Mr Winton was entirely absorbed in the close brushwork necessary for Pamela's sunhat. What a happy coincidence that those two little girls had chosen to build their sandcastle in the middle of his composition. He thought he might call it _The Diggers_. Or _The Sand Diggers_.\n\nSylvie was dozing over _The Secret Agent_ and rather resented being woken. 'What is it?' she said. She glanced along the beach and saw Pamela digging industriously. Distant yelling and wild whooping suggested Maurice.\n\n'Where's Roland?' she asked.\n\n'Roland?' Ursula said, looking around for their willing slave and failing to see him anywhere. 'He's looking for a drawbridge.' Sylvie was on her feet now, anxiously scanning the beach.\n\n'A what?'\n\n'A drawbridge,' Ursula repeated.\n\nThey concluded that he must have spotted a piece of wood in the sea and obediently waded out to collect it. He had no real understanding of danger and did not know how to swim, of course. If Bosun had been on watch on the beach he would have dog-paddled out into the waves, heedless of any peril, and snatched Roland back. In his absence, _Archibald Winton, an amateur watercolourist from Birmingham_ , as the local paper referred to him, had attempted to rescue the child ( _Roland Todd, aged four, on holiday with his family_ ). He had cast aside his paintbrush and swum out to sea and pulled the boy from the water, _but, alas, to no avail_. This clipping was carefully cut out and preserved for appreciation in Birmingham. In the course of three column inches Mr Winton had become both a hero and an artist. He imagined himself saying modestly, 'Why, it was nothing,' and \u2013 of course \u2013 it _was_ nothing, for no one was saved.\n\nUrsula watched as Mr Winton waded back through the waves, carrying Roland's limp little body in his arms. Pamela and Ursula had thought the tide was going out but it was coming in, already filling the moat and lapping at the mound of sand which would soon be gone for ever. An ownerless hoop bowled past, driven by the breeze. Ursula stared out to sea while behind her on the beach a variety of strangers attempted to revive Roland. Pamela came and joined her and they held hands. The waves began to trickle in, covering their feet. If only they hadn't been so intent on the sandcastle, Ursula thought. And it had seemed such a _good_ idea.\n\n'Sorry about your boy, Mrs Todd, ma'am,' George Glover mumbled. He touched an invisible cap on his head. Sylvie had mounted an expedition to see the harvest being brought in. They must rouse themselves from their torpid grief, she said. Following Roland's drowning, the summer had been subdued, naturally. Roland seemed greater in his absence than he had done in his presence.\n\n' _Your_ boy?' Izzie muttered after they had left George Glover to his labours. She had arrived in time for Roland's funeral, in stylish black mourning, and wept, 'My boy, my boy,' over Roland's small coffin.\n\n'He was _my_ boy,' Sylvie said vehemently, 'don't you dare say he was yours,' although she knew, guiltily, that she mourned less for Roland than she would have done for one of her own. But that was natural, surely? Everyone seemed to want ownership of him now he was gone. (Mrs Glover and Bridget, too, would have staked a small claim to him as well if anyone had listened.)\n\nHugh was very affected by the loss of 'the little chap' but knew that for the sake of his family he must carry on as usual.\n\nIzzie had lingered on, to Sylvie's annoyance. She was twenty years old, 'stuck' at home, waiting for an unknown-as-yet husband to free her from Adelaide's 'claws'. Roland's name had been forbidden in Hampstead and now Adelaide declared his death a 'blessing'. Hugh felt sorry for his sister, while Sylvie spent her time casting around the countryside for an eligible landowner with enough mutton-headed patience to withstand Izzie.\n\nIn an oppressive heat they had trudged across fields, clambered over stiles, splashed through streams. Sylvie had strapped the baby to her body with a shawl. The baby was a heavy burden, although perhaps not as heavy a burden as the picnic basket that Bridget was lugging. Bosun walked dutifully by their side, he was not a dog that ran ahead, tending more to bring up the rear. He was still puzzled by Roland's disappearance and was keen not to lose anyone else. Izzie lagged behind, any original enthusiasm for the pastoral outing long since having waned. Bosun did his best to chivvy her along.\n\nIt was a bad-tempered trek, the picnic at the end of it not much better as it turned out that Bridget had forgotten to pack the sandwiches. 'How on earth did you manage that?' Sylvie said crossly and as a consequence they had to eat the pork pie that Mrs Glover had intended for George. ('For God's sake, don't tell her,' Sylvie said.) Pamela had scratched herself on a bramble bush, Ursula had tumbled into a nettle patch. Even the usually happy Teddy was overheated and fretful.\n\n*\n\nGeorge brought two tiny baby rabbits for them to look at and said, 'Would you like to take them home with you?' and Sylvie snapped, 'No thank you, George. They will either die or multiply, neither of which would be a happy outcome.' Pamela was distraught and had to be promised a kitten. (To Pamela's surprise, this promise was kept and a kitten duly acquired from the Hall farm. A week later it took a fit and died. A full funeral was held. 'I am cursed,' Pamela declared, with uncharacteristic melodrama.)\n\n'He's very handsome, that ploughman, isn't he?' Izzie said and Sylvie said, 'Don't. Not under any circumstances. Don't,' and Izzie said, 'I have no idea what you mean.'\n\nThe afternoon grew no cooler and eventually they had no choice but to wend their way home in the same heat that they had journeyed there in. Pamela, already miserable from the rabbits, stepped on a thorn, Ursula was whacked in the face by a branch. Teddy cried, Izzie swore, Sylvie breathed fire and Bridget said if it weren't a mortal sin she would drown herself in the next stream.\n\n'Look at you,' Hugh smiled in greeting when they staggered home. 'All golden from the sun.'\n\n'Oh, please,' Sylvie said, pushing past him. 'I'm going to lie down upstairs.'\n\n'I think we'll have thunder tonight,' Hugh said. And they did. Ursula, a light sleeper, was woken. She slipped out of bed and pattered over to the attic window, standing on a chair so that she could see out.\n\nThunder rolled like gunfire in the distance. The sky, purple and swollen with portent, was suddenly split open by a fork of lightning. A fox, skulking over some small prey on the lawn, was briefly illuminated, caught as though in a photographer's flash.\n\nUrsula forgot to count and an explosive thunderclap, almost overhead, took her by surprise.\n\nThis was how war sounded, she thought.\n\nUrsula cut straight to the chase. Bridget, chopping onions at the kitchen table, was already primed for tears. Ursula sat next to her and said, 'I've been in the village.'\n\n'Oh,' Bridget said, not in the least interested in this information.\n\n'I was buying sweets,' Ursula said. 'In the sweet shop.'\n\n'Really?' Bridget said. 'Sweets in a sweet shop? Who would have thought it.' The shop sold many things other than sweets but none of those other things were of any interest to the children at Fox Corner.\n\n'Clarence was there.'\n\n'Clarence?' Bridget said. She stopped the chopping at the mention of her beloved.\n\n'Buying sweets,' Ursula said. 'Mint humbugs,' she added, for authenticity, and then, 'You know Molly Lester?'\n\n'I do,' Bridget said cautiously, 'she works in the shop.'\n\n'Well, Clarence was kissing her.'\n\nBridget rose from her chair, knife still in hand. 'Kissing? Why would Clarence kiss Molly Lester?'\n\n'That's what Molly Lester said! She said, \"Why are you kissing me, Clarence Dodds, when everyone knows you're engaged to be married to that maid that works at Fox Corner?\" '\n\nBridget was used to melodramas and penny dreadfuls. She waited for the revelation that she knew must follow.\n\nUrsula supplied it. 'And Clarence said, \"Oh, you mean Bridget. She's nothing to me. She's a very ugly girl. I am just stringing her along.\" ' Ursula, a precocious reader by now, had also read Bridget's novels and had learned the discourse of romance.\n\nThe knife was dropped to the floor with a banshee shriek. Irish curses were thrown liberally. 'The bugger,' Bridget said.\n\n'A dastardly villain,' Ursula agreed.\n\nThe engagement ring, the little gypsy ring ('a trinket'), was returned by Bridget to Sylvie. Clarence's protestations of innocence went unheeded.\n\n'You might go up to London with Mrs Glover,' Sylvie said to Bridget. 'For the Armistice celebrations, you know. I believe there are late trains running.'\n\nMrs Glover said she wouldn't go near the capital on account of the influenza and Bridget said that she hoped very much that Clarence would go, preferably with Molly Lester, and that the pair of them would catch the Spanish flu and die.\n\nMolly Lester, who had never spoken so much as a word to Clarence beyond a guiltless 'Morning, sir, what can I get you?', attended a small street party in the village but Clarence did indeed go up to London with a couple of pals and did indeed die.\n\n'But at least no one was pushed down the stairs,' Ursula said.\n\n'Whatever do you mean?' Sylvie said.\n\n'I don't know,' Ursula said. She really didn't.\n\nShe was disturbed by herself. She dreamed of flying and falling all the time. Sometimes when she stood on a chair to look out of the bedroom window she felt the urge to clamber out and throw herself down. She would not fall to the ground with a thud and a smash like an overripe apple, instead she was sure she would be caught. (By what, though, she wondered?) She refrained from testing this theory, unlike Pamela's poor little crinoline lady, who had been tossed from the very same bedroom window by a malignly bored Maurice one winter teatime.\n\nOn hearing his approach along the passageway \u2013 loudly signalled by Indian war whoops \u2013 Ursula had hastily placed her own favourite, Queen Solange, the knitting doll, beneath her pillow where she remained safe in her refuge while the unfortunate crinoline lady was defenestrated and smashed to pieces on the slates. 'I only wanted to see what would happen,' Maurice whined to Sylvie afterwards. 'Well, now you know,' she said. She was finding Pamela's hysterical reaction to this incident more than a little trying. 'We are in the middle of a war,' she said to her. 'There are worse things happening than a broken ornament.' Not for Pamela there weren't.\n\nIf Ursula had allowed Maurice the little knitting doll, made of unbreakable wood, then the crinoline lady would have been saved.\n\nBosun, soon to be dead of distemper, nosed his way into the room that night and laid a weighty paw on Pamela's coverlet in sympathy before groaning into sleep on the rag rug between their beds.\n\nThe next day, Sylvie, reproaching herself for her heartlessness towards her children, acquired another kitten from the Hall farm. Kittens were in continual abundance on the farm, there was a kind of kitten currency in the neighbourhood, they were bartered for all kinds of emotional regret or fulfilment by parents \u2013 a doll lost, an exam passed.\n\nDespite Bosun's best attempts to keep a guardian eye on the kitten, they had only had it a week when Maurice stepped on it, during a vigorous game of soldiers with the Cole boys. Sylvie swiftly scooped up the little body and gave it to Bridget to take elsewhere so that its death throes could take place off-stage.\n\n'It was an accident!' Maurice screamed. 'I didn't know the stupid thing was there!' Sylvie slapped him on the face and he started crying. It was horrible to see him so upset, it really was an accident, and Ursula tried to comfort him which only made him furious and Pamela, of course, had moved beyond all notion of civilization and was trying to rip Maurice's hair from his head. The Cole boys had long since scarpered back to their own house where emotional calm was the general order of the day.\n\nSometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.\n\n'Headaches,' Sylvie said.\n\n'I'm a psychiatrist,' Dr Kellet said to Sylvie. 'Not a neurologist.'\n\n'And dreams and nightmares,' Sylvie tempted.\n\nThere was something comforting about being in this room, Ursula thought. The oak panelling, the roaring fire, the thick carpet figured in red and blue, the leather chairs, even the outlandish tea-urn \u2013 all felt familiar.\n\n'Dreams?' Dr Kellet said, duly tempted.\n\n'Yes,' Sylvie said. 'And sleepwalking.'\n\n'Do I?' Ursula asked, startled.\n\n'And she has a kind of _d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu_ all the time,' Sylvie said, pronouncing the words with some distaste.\n\n'Really?' Dr Kellet said, reaching for an elaborate meerschaum pipe and knocking the ashes out on to the fender. It was the Turk's-head bowl, as familiar somehow as an old pet.\n\n'Oh,' Ursula said. 'I've been here before!'\n\n'You see!' Sylvie said, triumphant.\n\n'Hm...' Dr Kellet said thoughtfully. He turned to Ursula and addressed her directly. 'Have you heard of reincarnation?'\n\n'Oh, yes, absolutely,' Ursula said enthusiastically.\n\n'I'm sure she hasn't,' Sylvie said. 'Is it Catholic doctrine? What _is_ that?' she asked, distracted by the outlandish tea-urn.\n\n'It's a samovar, from Russia,' Dr Kellet said, 'although I'm not Russian, far from it, I'm from Maidstone, I visited St Petersburg before the Revolution.' To Ursula, he said, 'Would you like to draw me something?' and pushed a pencil and paper towards her. 'Would you like some tea?' he asked Sylvie, who was still glaring at the samovar. She declined, mistrustful of any brew that didn't come out of a china teapot.\n\nUrsula finished her drawing and handed it over for appraisal.\n\n'What is it?' Sylvie said, peering over Ursula's shoulder. 'Some kind of ring, or circlet? A crown?'\n\n'No,' Dr Kellet said, 'it's a snake with its tail in its mouth.' He nodded approvingly and said to Sylvie, 'It's a symbol representing the circularity of the universe. Time is a construct, in reality everything flows, no past or present, only the now.'\n\n'How gnomic,' Sylvie said stiffly.\n\nDr Kellet steepled his hands and propped his chin on them. 'You know,' he said to Ursula, 'I think we shall get on very well. Would you like a biscuit?'\n\nThere was one thing that puzzled her. The photograph of _Guy, lost at Arras_ in his cricketing whites was missing from the side table. Without meaning to \u2013 it was a question that raised so many other questions \u2013 she said to Dr Kellet, 'Where is the photograph of Guy?' and Dr Kellet said, 'Who is Guy?'\n\nIt seemed even the instability of time was not to be relied upon.\n\n'It's just an Austin,' Izzie said. 'An open-road tourer \u2013 four doors though \u2013 but nowhere near as costly as a _Bentley_ , goodness, it's positively a vehicle for hoi polloi compared to _your_ indulgence, Hugh.' 'On tick, no doubt,' Hugh said. 'Not at all, paid up in full, _in cash_. I have a _publisher_ , I have _money_ , Hugh. You don't need to worry about me any more.'\n\nWhile everyone was admiring the cherry-bright vehicle, Millie said, 'I have to go, I have a dancing exhibition tonight. Thank you very much for a lovely tea, Mrs Todd.'\n\n'Come on, I'll walk you back,' Ursula said.\n\nOn the return home, she avoided the well-worn shortcut at the bottom of the garden and came the long way round, dodging Izzie speeding off in her car. Izzie gave a careless salute in farewell.\n\n'Who was that?' Benjamin Cole asked, skidding his bicycle into a hedge to avoid being killed by the Austin. Ursula's heart tripped and skipped and flipped at the sight of him. The very object of her affection! The reason she had taken the long way round was on the unlikely chance that she might engineer an 'accidental' meeting with Benjamin Cole. And here he was! What luck.\n\n'They lost my ball,' Teddy said disconsolately when she returned to the dining room.\n\n'I know,' Ursula said. 'We can look for it later.'\n\n'I say, you're all pink and flushed,' he said. 'Did something happen?'\n\nDid anything happen, she thought? Did anything _happen_? Only the most handsome boy in the entire world kissed me _and_ on my sixteenth birthday. He had walked her back, pushing his bicycle, and at some point their hands had brushed, they had blushed (it was poetry) and he said, 'You know I do like you, Ursula,' and then right there, at her front gate (where anyone could see), he had propped his bicycle against the wall and pulled her towards him. And then the kiss! Sweet and lingering and much nicer than she had expected although it did leave her feeling \u2013 well, yes... _flushed_. Benjamin too, and they stood apart from each other, slightly shocked.\n\n'Gosh,' he said. 'I've never kissed a girl before, I had no idea it could be so... exciting.' He shook his head like a dog as if astonished by his own lack of vocabulary.\n\nThis, Ursula thought, would remain the best moment of her life, no matter what else happened to her. They would have kissed more, she supposed, but at that moment the rag and bone cart appeared round the corner of the lane and the rag and bone man's almost incomprehensible siren moan of _Enraagnbooooooone_ intruded on their budding romance.\n\n'No, nothing happened,' she said to Teddy. 'I was saying goodbye to Izzie. You missed seeing her car. You would have liked it.'\n\nTeddy shrugged and pushed _The Adventures of Augustus_ off the table and on to the floor. 'What a load of rot it is,' he said.\n\nUrsula picked up a half-drunk glass of champagne, the rim of which was adorned with red lipstick, and poured half of it into a jelly glass that she handed to Teddy. 'Cheers,' she said. They chinked their glasses and drained them to the dregs.\n\n'Happy birthday,' Teddy said.\n\nWhat wondrous life is this I lead!\n\nRipe apples drop about my head;\n\nThe luscious clusters of the vine\n\nUpon my mouth do crush their wine...\n\n'What is that you're reading?' Sylvie asked suspiciously.\n\n'Marvell.'\n\nSylvie took the book from her and scrutinized the verses. 'It's rather lush,' she concluded.\n\n' \"Lush\" \u2013 how can that be a criticism?' Ursula laughed and bit into an apple.\n\n'Try not to be precocious,' Sylvie sighed. 'It's not a pleasant thing in a girl. What are you going to do when you go back to school after the holidays \u2013 Latin? Greek? Not English literature? I don't see the point.'\n\n'You don't see the point of English literature?'\n\n'I don't see the point of _studying_ it. Surely one just _reads_ it?' She sighed again. Neither of her daughters bore any resemblance to her. For a moment Sylvie was back in the past, under a bright London sky, and could smell the spring flowers newly refreshed by rain, hear the quiet comforting clink and jingle of Tiffin's tack.\n\n'I might do Modern Languages. I don't know. I'm not sure, I haven't quite worked out a plan.'\n\n'A plan?'\n\n*\n\nThey fell into silence. The fox sauntered into the silence, insouciant. Maurice was forever trying to shoot it. Either he was not such a good shot as he liked to think or the vixen was cleverer than he was. Ursula and Sylvie tended towards the latter view. 'She's so pretty,' Sylvie said. 'And she has such a magnificent brush.' The fox sat down, a dog waiting for its dinner, her eyes never leaving Sylvie. 'I haven't got anything,' Sylvie said, upturning her empty hands to prove this fact. Ursula bowled her apple core, gently underarm, so as not to alarm the creature and the vixen trotted off after it, picking it up awkwardly in her mouth and then turning tail and disappearing. 'Eats anything,' Sylvie said. 'Like Jimmy.'\n\nMaurice appeared, giving them both a start. He was carrying his new Purdey cocked over his arm and said eagerly, 'Was that that damned fox?'\n\n'Language, Maurice,' Sylvie reprimanded.\n\nHe was home after graduation, waiting to start his training in the law and irritatingly bored. He could work at the Hall farm, Sylvie suggested, they were always looking for seasonal workers. 'Like a peasant in the field?' Maurice said. 'Is that why you've given me an expensive education?' ('Why _have_ we given him an expensive education?' Hugh said.)\n\n'Teach me to shoot, then,' Ursula said, jumping up and brushing off her skirt. 'Come on, I can use Daddy's old wildfowler.'\n\nMaurice shrugged and said, 'May as well, but girls can't shoot, it's a well-known fact.'\n\n'Girls are absolutely useless,' Ursula agreed. 'They can't do _anything_.'\n\n'Are you being sarcastic?'\n\n'Me?'\n\n'Pretty good for a novice,' Maurice said reluctantly. They were shooting bottles off a wall, near the copse, Ursula hitting her target many more times than Maurice. 'You're sure you haven't done this before?'\n\n'What can I say?' she said. 'I pick things up quickly.'\n\nMaurice suddenly swung the barrel of his gun away from the wall and towards the edge of the copse and before Ursula could even see what he was aiming at he had pulled the trigger, blasting something out of existence.\n\n'Got the damned little blighter at last,' he said triumphantly.\n\nUrsula set off at a run but long before she reached it she could see the pile of ruddy-brown fur. The white tip of her beautiful brush gave a little flicker but Sylvie's fox was no more.\n\nShe found Sylvie on the terrace, leafing through a magazine. 'Maurice shot the fox,' she said. Sylvie rested her head back on the wicker lounger and closed her eyes in resignation. 'It was always going to happen,' she said. She opened her eyes. They were glistening with tears. Ursula had never seen her mother cry. 'I shall disinherit him one day,' Sylvie said, the idea of cold revenge already drying her tears.\n\nPamela appeared on the terrace and raised a questioning eyebrow at Ursula, who said, 'Maurice shot the fox.'\n\n'I hope you shot _him_ ,' Pamela said. She meant it too.\n\n'I might go and meet Daddy off the train,' Ursula said when Pamela had gone back inside.\n\nShe wasn't really going to meet Hugh. Ever since her birthday she had been seeing Benjamin Cole in secret. Ben, he was now to her. In the meadow, in the wood, in the lane. (Anywhere out of doors, it seemed. 'Good job the weather's been nice for your canoodling,' Millie said, with much clown-smirking and raising up and down of eyebrows.)\n\nUrsula discovered what an excellent liar she was. (Didn't she always know that, though?) _Do you want anything from the shop?_ or _I'm just going to pick raspberries in the lane_. Would it be so dreadful if people knew? 'Well, I think your mother would have me killed,' Ben said. ('A Jew?' she imagined Sylvie saying.)\n\n'And my folks, too,' he said. 'We're too young.'\n\n'Like Romeo and Juliet,' Ursula said. 'Star-crossed lovers and so on.'\n\n'Except we're not going to die for love,' Ben said.\n\n'Would it be such a bad thing to die for?' Ursula mused.\n\n'Yes.'\n\nThings had started to get very 'hot' between them, a lot of fumbling fingers and moaning (on his part). He didn't think he could 'hold back' much longer, he said, but she wasn't sure what he had to hold back from exactly. Didn't love mean they shouldn't hold back anything? She expected they would marry. Would she have to convert? Become a 'Jewess'?\n\nThey had made their way to the meadow where they had lain down in each other's arms. It was very romantic, Ursula thought, apart from the timothy grass that was tickling her and the ox-eye daisies that made her sneeze. Not to mention the way Ben suddenly shifted himself until he was on top of her so that she felt rather as if she were in a coffin filled with earth. He went into a kind of spasm that she thought might be a prelude to death by apoplexy and she stroked his hair as if he were an invalid and said, with concern, 'Are you all right?'\n\n'Sorry,' he said. 'Didn't mean to do that.' (But what had he done?)\n\n'I should be getting back,' Ursula said. They stood up and picked off grass and flowers from each other's clothing before walking home.\n\nUrsula wondered if she had missed Hugh's train. Ben looked at his watch and said, 'Oh, they'll have been home for ages.' (Hugh and Mr Cole travelled on the same London train.) They left the meadow and climbed over the stile into the dairy herd's field that ran alongside the lane. The cows hadn't returned from milking yet.\n\nHe gave her a hand down from the stile and they kissed again. When they broke free of each other they noticed a man making his way across the field, from the other side where it led into the copse. He was heading towards the lane \u2013 a shabby creature, a tramp perhaps \u2013 hobbling along as fast as he could. He glanced round and when he saw them he hobbled even faster. He stumbled on a tussock of grass but quickly recovered and was up again, loping towards the gate.\n\n'What a suspicious-looking fellow,' Ben laughed. 'I wonder what he's been up to?'\n\n'Dinner's on the table, you're very late,' Sylvie said. 'Where have you been? Mrs Glover has made that awful veal _\u00e0 la Russe_ thing again.'\n\n'Maurice shot the fox?' Teddy said, his face a picture of disappointment.\n\nAnd so it went on from there, a bad-tempered argument between everyone at the dinner table just because of a dead fox, Hugh thought. They're vermin, he felt like saying but didn't want to fuel the furore of emotions that had been unleashed. Instead, he said, 'Please, let's not talk about it over dinner, it's difficult enough trying to digest this stuff.' But talk about it they would. He tried to ignore them, ploughing his way through the veal cutlets (had Mrs Glover ever tasted them herself, he wondered?). He was relieved that they were interrupted by a knock at the door.\n\n'Ah, Major Shawcross,' Hugh said, 'do come in.'\n\n'Oh, goodness, I don't want to interrupt you at table,' Major Shawcross said, looking awkward, 'I just wondered if your Teddy had seen our Nancy.'\n\n'Nancy?' Teddy said.\n\n'Yes,' Major Shawcross said. 'We can't find her anywhere.'\n\nThey didn't meet any more in the copse, or the lane or the meadow. Hugh imposed a strict curfew after Nancy's body was found and anyway both Ursula and Ben were stricken with guilty horror. If they had come home when they were supposed to, if they had crossed that field even five minutes earlier instead of lingering, they might have saved her. But by the time they meandered ignorantly back Nancy was already dead, lying in the cattle trough in the top corner of the field. So, indeed, just like Romeo and Juliet it had ended in death. Nancy, sacrificed for their love.\n\n'It's a terrible thing,' Pamela said to her. 'But you're not responsible, why are you behaving as though you are?'\n\nBecause she was. She knew it now.\n\nSomething was riven, broken, a lightning fork cutting open a swollen sky.\n\nIn the October half-term she went to stay with Izzie for a few days. They were sitting in the Russian Tea Room in South Kensington. 'A terrifically right-wing clientele here,' Izzie said, 'but they do the most wonderful pancake things.' There was a samovar. (Was it the samovar that set her off, with its shades of Dr Kellet? It would seem absurd if it was.) They had finished their tea and Izzie said, 'Just hang on a sec, I'm going to powder my nose. Ask for the bill, will you?'\n\nUrsula was waiting patiently for her to return when suddenly the terror descended, swift as a predatory hawk. An anticipatory dread of something unknown but enormously threatening. It was coming for her, here among the polite tinkle of teaspoon on saucer. She stood up, knocking over her chair. She felt dizzy and there was a veil of fog in front of her face. Like bomb-dust, she thought, yet she had never been bombed.\n\nShe pushed through the veil, out of the Russian Tea Room on to Harrington Road. She started to run and kept on running, on to the Brompton Road and then, blindly, into Egerton Gardens.\n\nShe had been here before. She had never been here before.\n\nThere was always something just out of sight, just around a corner, something she could never chase down \u2013 something that was chasing _her_ down. She was both the hunter and the hunted. Like the fox. She carried on and then tripped on something, falling straight on to her nose. The pain was extraordinary. Blood everywhere. She sat on the pavement and cried with the agony of it all. She hadn't realized there was anyone on the street but then from behind her a man's voice said, 'Oh, my, how awful for you. Let me help you. You have blood all over your nice turquoise scarf. Is that the colour, or is it aquamarine? My name's Derek, Derek Oliphant.'\n\nShe knew that voice. She didn't know that voice. The past seemed to _leak_ into the present, as if there were a fault somewhere. Or was it the future spilling into the past? Either way it was nightmarish, as if her inner dark landscape had become manifest. The inside become the outside. Time was out of joint, that was for certain.\n\nShe staggered to her feet but didn't dare to look round. Ignoring the awful pain, she ran on and on. She was in Belgravia before she finally flagged completely. Here too, she thought. She had been here before. She had never been here before. I give in, she thought. Whatever it is, it can have me. She sank to her knees on the hard pavement and curled up in a ball. A fox without a hole.\n\nShe must have passed out because when she opened her eyes she was in a bed in a room painted white. There was a big window and outside the window she could see a horse-chestnut tree that had not yet shed its leaves. She turned her head and saw Dr Kellet.\n\n'You broke your nose,' Dr Kellet said. 'We thought you must have been attacked by someone.'\n\n'No,' she said. 'I fell.'\n\n'A vicar found you. He took you in a taxi to St George's Hospital.'\n\n'But what are _you_ doing here?'\n\n'Your father got in touch with me,' Dr Kellet said. 'He wasn't sure who else to contact.'\n\n'I don't understand.'\n\n'Well, when you arrived at St George's you wouldn't stop screaming. They thought something terrible must have happened to you.'\n\n'This isn't St George's, is it?'\n\n'No,' he said kindly. 'This is a private clinic. Rest, good food and so on. They have lovely gardens. I always think a lovely garden helps, don't you?'\n\n'Time isn't circular,' she said to Dr Kellet. 'It's like a... palimpsest.'\n\n'Oh dear,' he said. 'That sounds very vexing.'\n\n'And memories are sometimes in the future.'\n\n'You are an old soul,' he said. 'It can't be easy. But your life is still ahead of you. It must be lived.' He was not her doctor, he had retired, he said, he was 'merely a visitor'.\n\nThe sanatorium made her feel as if she had a mild case of consumption. She sat on the sunny terrace during the day and read countless books and orderlies ferried food and drink to her. She wandered through the gardens, had polite conversation with doctors and psychiatrists, talked to her fellow patients (on her floor, at any rate. The truly mad were in the attic, like Mrs Rochester). There were even fresh flowers in her room and a bowl of apples. It must be costing a fortune for her to stay here, she thought.\n\n'This must be very expensive,' she said to Hugh when he visited, which he did often.\n\n'Izzie is paying,' he said. 'She insisted.'\n\nDr Kellet lit his meerschaum thoughtfully. They were sitting on the terrace. Ursula thought she would be quite happy to spend the rest of her life here. It was so gloriously unchallenging.\n\n' _And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge_...' Dr Kellet said.\n\n'... _and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing_ ,' Ursula provided.\n\n' _Caritas_ , of course, is love. But you will know that.'\n\n'I'm not without charity,' Ursula said. 'Why are we quoting Corinthians? I thought you were a Buddhist.'\n\n'Oh, I am nothing,' Dr Kellet said. 'And everything too, of course,' he added \u2013 rather elliptically, in Ursula's opinion.\n\n'The question is,' he said, 'do you have enough?'\n\n'Enough what?' The conversation had quite got away from her now but Dr Kellet was busy with the demands of the meerschaum and didn't answer. Tea interrupted them.\n\n'They do excellent chocolate cake here,' Dr Kellet said.\n\n'All better, little bear?' Hugh said as he helped her gently into the car. He had brought the Bentley to pick her up.\n\n'Yes,' she said. 'Absolutely.'\n\n'Good. Let's get home. The house isn't the same without you.'\n\nShe had wasted so much precious time but she had a plan now, she thought, as she lay awake in the dark, in her own bed at Fox Corner. The plan would involve snow, no doubt. The silver hare, the dancing green leaves. And so on. German, not the Classics, and afterwards a course in shorthand and typing and perhaps the study of Esperanto on the side, just in case utopia should come to pass. The membership of a local shooting club and an application for an office job somewhere, working for a while, salting money away \u2013 nothing untoward. She didn't want to draw attention to herself, she would heed her father's advice, although he hadn't given it to her yet, she would keep her head below the parapet and her light under a bushel. And then, when she was ready, she would have enough to live on while she embedded herself deep in the heart of the beast, from whence she would pluck out the black tumour that was growing there, larger every day.\n\nAnd then one day she would be walking down Amalienstrasse and pause outside Photo Hoffmann and gaze at the Kodaks and Leicas and Voigtl\u00e4nders in the windows and she would open the shop door and hear the little bell clanging to announce her arrival to the girl working behind the counter who will probably say _Guten Tag, gn\u00e4diges Fr\u00e4ulein_ , or perhaps she will say _Gr\u00fcss Gott_ because this is 1930 when people can still address you with _Gr\u00fcss Gott_ and _Tsch\u00fcss_ instead of endless _Heil Hitlers_ and absurd martial salutes.\n\nAnd Ursula will hold out her old box Brownie and say, 'I don't seem to be able to spool the film on,' and perky seventeen-year-old Eva Braun will say, 'Let me have a look for you.'\n\nHer heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around. She was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.\n\nWhen everyone was asleep and the house was quiet, Ursula got out of bed and climbed on the chair at the open window of the little attic bedroom.\n\nIt's time, she thought. A clock struck somewhere in sympathy. She thought of Teddy and Miss Woolf, of Roland and little Angela, of Nancy and Sylvie. She thought of Dr Kellet and Pindar. _Become such as you are, having learned what that is_. She knew what that was now. She was Ursula Beresford Todd and she was a witness.\n\nShe opened her arms to the black bat and they flew to each other, embracing in the air like long-lost souls. This is love, Ursula thought. And the practice of it makes it perfect.\n\n# Be Ye Men of Valour\n\n# _December 1930_\n\nUrsula knew all about Eva. She knew how much she liked fashion and make-up and gossip. She knew that she could skate and ski and loved to dance. And so Ursula lingered over the expensive frocks in Oberpollinger with her before visiting a caf\u00e9 for coffee and cake, or an ice-cream in the Englischer Garten where they would sit and watch the children on the carousel. She went to the skating rink with Eva and her sister Gretl. She was invited to dinner at the Brauns' table. 'Your English friend is very nice,' Frau Braun told Eva.\n\nShe told them that she was improving her German before she settled down to teach at home. Eva sighed with boredom at the idea.\n\nEva loved to be photographed and Ursula took many, many photographs of her on her box Brownie and then they spent their evenings sticking them in albums and admiring the different poses that Eva had struck. 'You should be in films,' Ursula told Eva and she was ridiculously flattered. Ursula had mugged up on celebrities, Hollywood and British as well as German, on the latest songs and dances. She was an older woman, interested in a fledgling. She took Eva under her wing and Eva was bowled over by her new sophisticated friend.\n\nUrsula knew, too, of Eva's infatuation for her 'older man' whom she made sheep's eyes at, whom she trailed around after, sitting in restaurants and caf\u00e9s, forgotten in a corner while he conducted endless conversations about politics. Eva started to take her along to these gatherings \u2013 Ursula was her best friend, after all. All Eva wanted was to be close to Hitler. And that was all Ursula wanted too.\n\nAnd Ursula knew about Berg and bunker. And really she was doing this frivolous girl a great favour by inserting herself in her life.\n\nAnd so, just as they had got used to Eva hanging around so they became accustomed to seeing her little English friend as well. Ursula was pleasant, she was a girl, she was nobody. She became so familiar that no one was surprised when she would turn up on her own and simper with admiration at the would-be great man. He took adoration casually. To have so little self-doubt, she thought, what a thing that must be.\n\nBut, ye gods, it was boring. So much hot air rising above the tables in Caf\u00e9 Heck or the Osteria Bavaria, like smoke from the ovens. It was difficult to believe from this perspective that Hitler was going to lay waste to the world in a few years' time.\n\nIt was colder than usual for this time of year. Last night a light dusting of snow, like the icing sugar on Mrs Glover's mince pies, had sifted over Munich. There was a big Christmas tree on the Marienplatz and the lovely smell of pine needles and roasting chestnuts everywhere. The festive finery made Munich seem more fairy-tale-like than England could ever hope to be.\n\nThe frosty air was invigorating and she walked towards the caf\u00e9 with a wonderful purpose in her step, looking forward to a cup of _Schokolade_ , hot and thick with cream.\n\nInside, the caf\u00e9 was smoky and rather disagreeable after the sparklingly cold outdoors. The women were in furs and Ursula rather wished that she could have brought Sylvie's mink with her. Her mother never wore it and it was left permanently mothballed in her wardrobe these days.\n\nHe was at a table at the far end of the room, surrounded by the usual disciples. They were an ugly lot, she thought, and laughed to herself.\n\n' _Ah. Unsere Englische Freundin_ ,' he said when he caught sight of her. ' _Guten Tag, gn\u00e4diges Fr\u00e4ulein_.' With the slightest flick of a finger he ousted a callow-looking acolyte from the chair opposite and she sat down. He seemed irritable.\n\n_Es schneit_ , she said. 'It's snowing.' He glanced out of the window as if he hadn't noticed the weather. He was eating _Palatschinken_. They looked good but when the waiter came bustling over she ordered _Schwarzw\u00e4lder Kirschtorte_ to eat with her hot chocolate. It was delicious.\n\n' _Entschuldigung_ ,' she murmured, reaching down into her bag and delving for a handkerchief. Lace corners, monogrammed with Ursula's initials, 'UBT', Ursula Beresford Todd, a birthday present from Pammy. She dabbed politely at the crumbs on her lips and then bent down again to put the handkerchief back in her bag and retrieve the weighty object nesting there. Her father's old service revolver from the Great War, a Webley Mark V. She made fast her heroine heart. ' _Wacht auf_ ,' Ursula said quietly. The words attracted the F\u00fchrer's attention and she said, ' _Es nahet gen dem Tag_.'\n\nA move rehearsed a hundred times. One shot. Swiftness was all, yet there was a moment, a bubble suspended in time after she had drawn the gun and levelled it at his heart when everything seemed to stop.\n\n' _F\u00fchrer_ ,' she said, breaking the spell. 'F\u00fcr Sie.'\n\nAround the table guns were jerked from holsters and pointed at her. One breath. One shot.\n\nUrsula pulled the trigger.\n\nDarkness fell.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\n_Rap, rap, rap_. The knocking on Bridget's bedroom door wove itself into a dream that she was having. In the dream she was at home in County Kilkenny and the pounding on the door was the ghost of her poor dead father, trying to get back to his family. _Rap, rap, rap!_ She woke with tears in her eyes. _Rap, rap, rap_. There really was someone at the door.\n\n'Bridget, Bridget?' Mrs Todd's urgent whisper on the other side of the door. Bridget crossed herself, no news in the dark of the night was ever good. Had Mr Todd had an accident in Paris? Or Maurice or Pamela taken ill? She scrambled out of bed and into the freezing cold of the little attic room. She smelt snow in the air. Opening the bedroom door she found Sylvie bent almost double, as ripe as a seed-pod about to burst. 'The baby's coming early,' she said. 'Can you help me?'\n\n'Me?' Bridget squeaked. Bridget was only fourteen but she knew a lot about babies, not much of it good. She had watched her own mother die in childbirth but she had never told this to Mrs Todd. Now clearly wasn't the time to mention it. She helped Sylvie back down the stairs to her own room.\n\n'There's no point in trying to get a message to Dr Fellowes,' Sylvie said. 'He'll never get through this snow.'\n\n'Mary, Mother of God,' Bridget yelped as Sylvie dropped on all fours, like an animal, and grunted.\n\n'The baby's coming now, I'm afraid,' Sylvie said. 'It's time.'\n\nBridget persuaded her back into bed and their long, lonely night's labour commenced.\n\n*\n\n'Oh, ma'am,' Bridget cried suddenly, 'she's all blue, so she is.'\n\n'A girl?'\n\n'The cord's wrapped around her neck. Oh, Jesus Christ and all the saints, she's been strangled, the poor wee thing, strangled by the cord.'\n\n'We must do something, Bridget. What can we do?'\n\n'Oh, Mrs Todd, ma'am, she's gone. Dead before she had a chance to live.'\n\n'No, that cannot be,' Sylvie said. She heaved herself into a sitting position on the battlefield of bloodied sheets, red and white, the baby still attached by its lifeline. While Bridget made mournful noises, Sylvie jerked open the drawer of her bedside table and rummaged furiously through its contents.\n\n'Oh, Mrs Todd,' Bridget wailed, 'lie down, there's nothing to be done. I wish Mr Todd was here, so I do.'\n\n'Shush,' Sylvie said and held aloft her trophy \u2013 a pair of surgical scissors that gleamed in the lamplight. 'One must be prepared,' she muttered. 'Hold the baby close to the lamp so I can see. Quickly, Bridget. There's no time to waste.'\n\nSnip, snip.\n\nPractice makes perfect.\n\n# The Broad Sunlit Uplands\n\n# _May 1945_\n\nThey were at a table in the corner of a pub on Glasshouse Street. They'd been dropped in Piccadilly by the American army sergeant who'd given them a lift when he saw them hitch-hiking at the side of the road outside Dover. They had crushed themselves on to an American troop transport ship at Le Havre instead of waiting two days for a flight. It was possible that, technically, they were AWOL, but neither of them gave a damn.\n\nThis was their third pub since Piccadilly and they were both agreed that the two of them were very drunk but had the capacity to get a good deal drunker yet. It was a Saturday night and the place was packed. Being in uniform they hadn't paid for a single drink all night. The relief, if not the euphoria, of victory was still in the air.\n\n'Well,' Vic said, raising his glass, 'here's to being back.'\n\n'Cheers,' Teddy said. 'Here's to the future.'\n\nHe had been shot down in November '43 and taken to Stalag Luft VI in the east. It hadn't been bad, in that it could have been worse, he could have been Russian \u2013 the Russians were treated like animals. But then at the beginning of February they were roused from their bunks with a familiar ' _Raus! Raus!_ ' in the middle of the night and made to set out on the march west, away from the advancing Russians. Another day or two and they would have been liberated, it seemed an especially cruel twist of fate. There followed weeks of marching on starvation rations, in the freezing cold, minus twenty degrees most of the time.\n\nVic was a rather cocky little flight sergeant, the navigator of a Lancaster shot down over the Ruhr. War made strange bedfellows. They had kept each other going on the march. It was a comradeship that had almost certainly saved their lives, that and the very occasional Red Cross package.\n\nTeddy had been shot down near Berlin, only managing to escape from the cockpit at the last minute. He'd been trying to keep the plane level to give his crew a fighting chance to bail out. A captain didn't leave his ship until everyone on board had left. The same unspoken rule applied to a bomber.\n\nThe Halifax had been on fire from end to end and he had accepted that it was over for him. He had begun to feel lighter somehow, his heart swelling, and he suddenly knew that he would be all right, that death when it came would look after him. But death didn't come because his Aussie wireless operator crawled to the cockpit and clipped Teddy's parachute on his back and said, 'Get out, you stupid bastard.' He never saw him again, never saw any of his crew, didn't know if they were alive or dead. He jumped at the last minute, his parachute had barely opened when he hit the ground and he was lucky to fracture only an ankle and a wrist. He was taken to a hospital and the local Gestapo came and arrested him on the ward with the immortal words, 'For you the war is over,' which was the greeting that nearly every airman had heard when he was taken prisoner.\n\nHe had dutifully filled in his Capture card and waited for a letter from home, but nothing came. He was left wondering for two years if the Red Cross had him on their list of prisoners, if anyone at home knew he was alive.\n\nThey were on the road somewhere outside Hamburg when the war ended. Vic had taken great pleasure in saying to the guards, _'Ach so, mein Freund, f\u00fcr sie der Krieg ist zu ende_.'\n\n'So, Ted, did you get through to your girl?' Vic asked when Teddy came back from sweet-talking the landlady behind the bar into letting him use the pub phone.\n\n'I did,' he laughed. 'I'd been given up for dead, apparently. I don't think she believed it was me.'\n\nHalf an hour and another couple of drinks later, Vic said, 'Aye up, Ted. By the smile on her face I would say that woman who just came through the door might belong to you.'\n\n'Nancy,' Teddy said quietly to himself.\n\n'I love you,' Nancy mouthed silently to him across the din.\n\n'Oh, and she brought a little friend along for me, how thoughtful,' Vic said and Teddy laughed and said, 'Watch it, that's my sister you're talking about.'\n\nNancy was clutching her hand so hard that it hurt but the pain meant nothing. He was there, he was actually there, sitting at a table in a London pub, drinking a pint of English beer, as large as life. Nancy made a funny choking sound and Ursula stopped herself from crying out. They were like the two Marys, dumb in the face of the Resurrection.\n\nThen Teddy spotted them and a grin split his face. He jumped up, almost knocking over the glasses on the table. Nancy pushed her way through the crowd and threw her arms around him but Ursula stayed where she was, worried suddenly that if she moved it would all disappear, the whole happy scene break into pieces before her eyes. But then she thought, no, this was real, this was true, and she laughed with uncomplicated joy as Teddy let go of Nancy long enough to stand to attention and give Ursula a smart salute.\n\nHe shouted something to her across the pub but his words were lost in the hubbub. She thought it was 'Thank you,' but she might have been wrong.\n\n# Snow\n\n# _11 February 1910_\n\nMrs Haddock sipped a glass of hot rum, in what she hoped was a ladylike way. It was her third and she was beginning to glow from the inside out. She had been on her way to help deliver a baby when the snow had forced her to take refuge in the snug of the Blue Lion outside Chalfont St Peter. It was not a place she would have ever considered entering, except out of necessity, but there was a roaring fire in the snug and the company was proving surprisingly convivial. Horse brasses and copper jugs gleamed and twinkled. The public bar, where the drink seemed to flow particularly freely, was an altogether rowdier place. A sing-song was currently in progress there and Mrs Haddock was surprised to find her toe tapping in accompaniment.\n\n'You should see the snow,' the landlord said, leaning across the great polished depth of the brass bar counter. 'We could all be stuck here for days.'\n\n'Days?'\n\n'You may as well have another tot of rum. You won't be going anywhere in a hurry tonight.'\n\n# _Acknowledgements_\n\nI would like to thank the following:\n\nAndrew Janes (the National Archives in Kew)\n\nDr Juliet Gardiner\n\nLt Col M Keech BEM R Signals\n\nDr Pertti Ahonen (Department of History, Edinburgh University)\n\nFrederike Arnold\n\nAnnette Weber\n\nAnd also my agent, Peter Straus, and Larry Finlay, Marianne Velmans, Alison Barrow and everyone at Transworld Publishers, as well as Camilla Ferrier and everyone at the Marsh Agency.\n\nTo know more about the writing of this book (including a bibliography), please visit my website, www.kateatkinson.co.uk.\n**Kate Atkinson** won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, _Behind the Scenes at the Museum_ , and has been a critically acclaimed international author ever since. Her four most recent bestsellers featured the former private detective Jackson Brodie: _Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?_ and _Started Early, Took My Dog_. She was appointed MBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours List.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n_Dedicated to Tony and Elizabeth Duquette\u2014who made this all possible._\n\n## Foreword\n\n_Magic_ was the highest word of praise that Tony Duquette could bestow upon object, experience, or person. He was a design alchemist who could take base materials\u2014fish bones, snail shells, tree bark\u2014and transform them into objects of wonder and delight. \"I want everything to have spontaneity, to move and laugh,\" he once said, and as a young artist, his exceptional gifts soon saw him taken up by the chic Hollywood decorators Billy Haines and Jimmy Pendleton. Erelong, Duquette was the prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of the even more celebrated Lady Mendl, whose career as the actress Elsie de Wolfe was distinguished only by the \u00e9lan with which she wore the latest fashions on stage. She found her true calling, however, as the blue-rinsed doyenne of interior design taste. Mendl encouraged Duquette to create a \"moible\" for her and the resulting _meuble_ \u2014a grand _lacca povera_ secretary filled, as _Vogue_ noted at the time, with his \"jeweled fetishes\"\u2014became a centerpiece of After All, Mendl's trendsetting Los Angeles home, and a calling card for his talents.\n\nThe great Gilbert Adrian was one of those who came calling. Adrian, as he was known, honed his art as the fashion director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, shaping the on-screen style of Garbo, Crawford, Lombard, Shearer, and Hepburn. In the early 1940s, with America cut off from Paris fashion news during the Occupation, Adrian astutely began to bring his talents to off-screen fashion, selling his designs via the most exclusive department stores across the country\u2014and his own high-style salon\u2014to a legion of deep-pocketed customers who weren't afraid to make an entrance. \"Amaze me!\" was Adrian's injunction to Duquette, and the young artist obliged with decors for the designer's salon and fashion shows of eclipsing fantasy and charm. Duquette was made for Tinseltown, the land of illusion, and for the director Vincente Minelli he created movie decors as fanciful as the homes that he invented for himself and his wife, the ethereal artist Elizabeth Johnstone.\n\nDuquette was fearless. He built Dawnridge in a cleft in the hills above the rolling, palmy lawns of Beverly Hills and created a universe of his own where Venice met Shangri-La. I can never forget walking into what seemed to be a candlelit anteroom to a palace here. It was elaborately paved in faceted antique mirror, which on closer inspection\u2014and if truth be told, really only when it was pointed out to me\u2014was in fact made from the pressed aluminum foil dishes in which the Chinese take-out orders were delivered, and did not lead to the promised imperial splendors but to a useful tool shed instead. With a wave of Duquette's wand, a collection of industrial lamps, stacked one above the other, was thus miraculously transformed into a sacred object that might be found dangling from a temple ceiling in Lost Horizons, and served to illumine the lights of elephant-high obelisks crusted with abalone shells. Next to these wonders, old-fashioned trash cans were mounted one above the other and pierced with gothic openings until they resembled ancient Cairene minarets. Through tricks of scale and trompe l'oeil and false perspectives, a distant pavilion across a broad lake was, in reality, little more than a set-builder's facade artfully set into a shallow ledge in the ravine on the far side of a modest _basin_ of water. Inside, Duquette's eye-tricking skills with a paintbrush created convincing simulacrums of malachite and lapis and porphyry, and of jaguar spots and ermine tails and angel wings, when there was nothing but cloth and plaster and wood and canvas and pipe cleaners and a great, roiling ocean of imagination.\n\nHutton Wilkinson, Duquette's pupil, prot\u00e9g\u00e9, and collaborator since the early seventies, and now his spiritual heir, worked with the master for clients including Dodie Rosekrans, for whom they evoked a maharajah's throne room in a prim apartment on Paris's rive gauche, and transformed the _piano nobile_ of the storied Palazzo Brandolini on a majestic turn of the Grand Canal in Venice. Here, the Duquette-Wilkinson interventions included a bedroom like a mermaid's grotto with walls of iridescent net layered over Mary Pickford's Chinese wallpaper. The curves and volutes of elaborate, impasto eighteenth-century plasterwork framing the mirrors in the immense reception gallery, meanwhile, proved insufficiently whimsical to Duquette's purpose, and so he and Wilkinson spent laborious hours embellishing it with a thousand tendrils of deep-sea coral\u2014not, as it happens, plucked from the sea but instead carved in Thailand from rattan.\n\nHutton Wilkinson, the acolyte turned master, who learned the craft at Duquette's side through the decades, has subtly transformed the original structures of Dawnridge into a sort of shrine to the Duquettes and their works that Wilkinson has been gifted or assiduously sought out through the years\u2014sleuthing the auction rooms and _antiquaires_ around the country. They now form a unique collection that is a work of art in itself and serves as a moving testament to Tony and Beegle Duquette's febrile and unbridled imaginations, their invention, and their artistry.\n\nTo set off these imaginatively presented works, Wilkinson has rationalized Dawnridge, spiriting away its cobwebs and dust and letting in the diamond California light. Original fabrics have been rewoven from fading scraps to replicate their intended splendor, and Wilkinson has re-edited Duquette pieces such as the free-form gilded consoles that writhe like great sea serpents and the pagoda lamps that seem to have been fashioned from Brobdingnagian blocks of pale jade or alabaster, but are, in a Duquette-ish sleight of hand, cast from workaday resin.\n\nHutton, his wife, Ruth, and their scampering dogs have no need of living in a museum, so he has created a second stage set for themselves, a new house that hovers in the clouds above Dawnridge, and showcases his own dashing brand of Duquetterie, with its leopard underfoot and gold leaf overhead, and lacquered cinnabar in the great heights in-between. Here, ancient icons are mounted on Japanese screens in a riot of old gold, scarlet, and ebony paint and lacquer; Chinese pictures hang against carved Chinese screens glimmering with shards of mother-of-pearl; and a series of Venetian paintings depicting\u2014what else\u2014the Festival of the Redentore, with its gondolas and fireworks and moon-lit splendors, are set against a wall of gold. The alchemy continues.\n\n\u2014HAMISH BOWLES\n\n## A LIVING HOUSE\n\nAfter Tony Duquette's death in 1999, I took a trip to Hong Kong. One night, my friend Charlie Garnett gave a party for me at the China Club, where I was persuaded by friends to visit a psychic who'd recently set up shop on Hollywood Road. I went to see what all the fuss was about early the next day. Arriving at my destination, I put down my one hundred dollars and went into the room where the fortune-teller waited. \"Is your name Anthony?\" she asked me immediately.\n\n\"My business partner's name was Anthony,\" I said.\n\n\"He's not with us anymore is he?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, he passed away not too long ago,\" I replied.\n\n\"You're very involved in a house project right now,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes, I am,\" I answered. That house was Dawnridge, and upon my return to Los Angeles, I would be facing the removal of all its valuable antiques for an auction to settle Tony's estate and the daunting task of redecorating it for an upcoming benefit we were hosting for the Decorative Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I had my work cut out for me and hoped I hadn't bitten off more than I could chew. \"Some people would think that the garden is more important than the house!\" the psychic insisted.\n\n\"Some people would,\" I agreed.\n\n\"Anthony's in the garden . . . he's very happy and approves of everything you're doing,\" she told me, and I smiled.\n\nBefore he died, I promised Tony that I'd try to save Dawnridge. I said that Cow Hollow, his house in San Francisco, and Sortilegium, his ranch in Malibu, would probably have to be sold, but because Dawnridge was the only property that he'd built from scratch, I would do everything in my power to keep it intact. After the Duquette auction, my wife, Ruth, and I redecorated Dawnridge as a loving tribute to our darling mentors and friends, Tony and his wife, Elizabeth, also known as \"Beegle.\" We like to think that if Tony and Beegle were to come back for a visit they might not recognize the rooms, but they would certainly recognize all of the objects. We deliberately redecorated the house using paintings, sculptures, and furniture that they created, mixing them with antiques, in a style we think they would approve of.\n\nIt has been our pleasure to save the life of this fabled house and to continue the tradition of creative hospitality that Dawnridge is known for. As Tony would say, \"We do these things for our pleasure, and hopefully, to inspire individuality and creativity in others through the art of living and the living arts.\" Dawnridge is a living house, constantly changing and evolving. It is the dearest hope of mine and my wife Ruth's\u2014and hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul\u2014that Dawnridge will continue to inspire, enchant, and inform for generations to come.\n\n\u2014HUTTON WILKINSON  \nDawnridge, 2018\n\nDawnridge, 1949. The iron obelisks on each side of the front door were moved to the Tony Duquette Studio on Robertson Boulevard where they were covered with abalone shell. The obelisks returned to the gardens at Dawnridge in 1975.\n\n## CHAPTER ONE\n\n## The Dream\n\nDawnridge, 1975. Tony covered the fa\u00e7ade with lattice and painted it pink with white trim and coral edges; In 2018, I painted the lattice emerald-green and covered it with ivy.\n\nTony at his parents' home in Three Rivers, Michigan, c. 1920.\n\nTony Duquette grew up between Three Rivers, Michigan, and Los Angeles, California. As a child, he would amuse himself by building \"estates\" in the side yards and empty lots next to his family's homes. These miniature constructions made of twigs and painted cardboard were theatrically lit with birthday-cake candles. After construction was completed, The Witch Boy (as his friend Eudora Welty later called him) would invite his family and friends to an \"unveiling,\" where he would dramatically light all the tiny candles, creating a brief moment of magic. \"I would invariably become small, becoming one with my miniature worlds,\" Tony once told me. \"I could play for days within the realms of my imagination and fantasize an entire culture living within the boundaries of my estates. I would spend days creating streets and houses, while imagining the lives that went on there.\" He never told me if these estates had names.\n\nLater in life Tony would amass ten fully furnished houses, all of which he did name: Fiddler's Ditch, later renamed Dawnridge; Cow Hollow (his pre-1916, San Francisco birdcage Victorian); Beeglesville; Frogmore; Ireland (named for the home's fa\u00e7ade, which was salvaged from an eighteenth-century Irish storefront); Doorchester (which was constructed entirely out of old paneled doors); Horntoad; China (a conglomeration of gilded Chinese carvings); Hamster House; and Chat Thai. Through these houses, he brought the magic of his childhood estates to life. To achieve some of these he needed an architect and found one early on, even before he owned land to build upon.\n\nCaspar Johann Ehmcke was born in Munich, Germany, in 1908, making him older than Tony by six years. When Caspar was nineteen, he moved to Stuttgart to study architecture at Stuttgart Technical University. After graduating, Caspar immigrated to the United States, and shortly after arriving in Los Angeles in 1938, got a job at Bullock's department store where he specialized in store planning and design. It was through Bullock's\u2014where Tony worked designing store interiors\u2014that the two future collaborators would meet. As fate would have it, Tony and Caspar rode the streetcar together to and from work each day. It was during this time that Caspar would tell Tony of his Bauhaus-style, modernist training in Germany and his plans to build streamlined houses in Los Angeles. Tony, in turn, would tell Caspar of his ideal house: a pavilion d'amore, a small Venetian palazzetto, a folly de luxe. What Tony described was the antithesis of anything Caspar had ever dreamed of building. \"Someday, you'll build it for me,\" Tony insisted. It was a dream Caspar hoped Tony would forget.\n\nCaspar Ehmcke (left) and Tony walk to work at Bullock's department store in downtown Los Angeles, c. 1938; The engraved invitation newlyweds Tony and Elizabeth would send out for parties at Fiddler's Ditch, c. 1949.\n\nWhile Caspar worked away at store planning and design, Tony's job at Bullock's was to change the store interiors four times a year. His directive from the store's owner, P. G. Winnett (my great uncle), was to make the customers forget about Southern California's lack of seasons. \"In those days, if women in New York were wearing tweeds and furs, the women in Los Angeles were also wearing tweeds and furs, even if it was one hundred degrees in California,\" Tony said. \"The minute the customers walked through the doors, it was my job to dupe them through the store interiors, temperature, and music into thinking it was summer, winter, spring, or fall!\" Tony's remuneration for conjuring up the seasons like a modern-day Merlin was an extravagant paycheck of fifteen dollars per week, on which he fed, clothed, and housed his mother, father, and three siblings.\n\nTony left his secure job at Bullock's after meeting Elsie de Wolfe, the first lady of American design, in 1940. De Wolfe, also known as Lady Mendl, had fled the Nazi occupation of Paris with her husband, Sir Charles Mendl, and eventually made a new life in Los Angeles after briefly living in New York. A very young eighty-five, she told her friends who begged her to stay that she \"was moving to Hollywood to be with the royalty of America . . . the movie stars!\" As fate would have it, de Wolfe was introduced to Tony through their mutual friends William \"Billy\" Haines, James Pendleton, and director Vincente Minnelli, and the rest was history. After claiming Tony as her exclusive discovery\u2014and proclaiming him a genius\u2014she hired him to decorate her new house in Beverly Hills, which she named After All. Taking Tony under her wing, Elsie made it her mission over the next ten years to make him famous worldwide.\n\nTony met his wife, Elizabeth Johnstone, in 1942. He was in the army, and she was a freelance artist working for Disney. They fell in love and moved in together. Elizabeth was nicknamed Beegle by Tony because she encompassed the industry of the bee and the soaring poetry of the eagle\u2014she was an artist whose talents seamlessly complemented his own. One day in 1949, their friend Mary Pickford told them, \"If you'd just get married, I'll pay for the wedding!\" That was all Tony had to hear; a free wedding sealed the deal and the couple was married at Pickfair, Pickford's fabled estate, in Beverly Hills. Pickford was the matron of honor and her second husband, Academy Award\u2013winning actor Charles \"Buddy\" Rogers, was best man. All of Hollywood was in attendance, including Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Cobina Wright, Gloria Swanson, Agnes Moorehead, Vincente Minnelli, Adrian, and Arthur Freed. Sir Charles and Lady Mendl were also there.\n\nTony in his studio at Bullock's with the giant posters he created for a Mexican-themed event, c. 1937.\n\nElizabeth at Dawnridge, 1949.\n\nIt was with marriage in mind that Tony finally commissioned Caspar to build his dream house, Dawnridge, as a gift for his bride. Caspar had left Bullock's the same year as Tony to complete a housing project for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and would eventually work on the new Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Navy Test Facility, and an earthquake-proof high-rise for the Sears Roebuck department store. In 1945, he had started his own practice that focused primarily on commercial buildings, including a new recording studio for Decca Records. When a friend of Tony's, photographer Johnny Engstead, announced plans to build a new studio for himself, Tony insisted that the only architect for the job was Caspar Ehmcke. When Tony made an aesthetic proclamation, his friends always heeded his advice.\n\nBefore Ehmcke could go to work on Dawnridge, Tony had to purchase the land. Independently, two good friends\u2014one a real estate agent, the other a banker\u2014had approached Tony and said, \"When you're ready to build your dream house, call me!\" Shortly thereafter, Tony found a canyon lot high above Beverly Hills, just up the road from Pickfair, and told them about the property. All their friends thought Pickford had given the Duquettes the land as a wedding present, but that was not the case. When Tony showed the lot to the real estate agent, she said, \"I love you too much to sell you that property. It doesn't have a front yard; it's on a hillside. You're an artist, and you obviously don't know what you're doing. If you buy this property, you're going to lose your shirt. I refuse to sell you the property.\" Undeterred, Tony went to the banker, who said, \"I love you and Beegle too much to lend you the money to do this project. You're an artist, and you obviously don't know what you're doing. It has no front yard, it's on a hillside, and you're going to lose your shirt. I won't lend you the money; it's too risky.\" \"But for $1,500?\" Tony asked. The land was only $1,500 in 1949. A child of the Great Depression, Tony understood value, and despite his friends' warnings, he purchased the property and proceeded to build the house. That's when his parents jumped in. \"Don't build the bedroom wing,\" they told him. \"You're going to lose your shirt.\" And so, unfortunately, he heeded their advice and didn't build the bedroom wing.\n\nDawnridge was to be Ehmcke's first residential commission, but built to Tony's very Venetian specifications. It was a thirty-by-thirty-foot box that was divided into a large twenty-by-thirty-foot salon that Tony called the Drawing Room and three ten-by-ten-foot boxlike rooms across the front: the entrance hall, its adjoining vestibule with a small powder room, and the kitchen. A staircase in the double-height Drawing Room led up to a ten-by-thirty-foot balcony above the entrance hall and its adjoining rooms that had originally been intended to access the bedroom wing that wasn't built. Instead, it opened onto a small terrace above a one-car garage, an amenity that didn't interest Tony, who soon turned the garage into a dining room. Under the staircase to the balcony was a staircase leading down to two tiny bedrooms and bathrooms built into the slope of the hillside. \"It's like an apartment on its own ground,\" Tony used to say euphemistically about the house.\n\nThat was Dawnridge, originally christened Fiddler's Ditch after the ravine that ran through the back of the property. It was an elegant, small house that magazines called \"the Grandest House in Beverly Hills,\" and when Tony's society friends saw it, they all wanted one too, albeit bigger. Ehmcke went on to design dozens of Hollywood Regency\u2013style houses, as well as a handful of Modernist residences, for those friends, but his first residential commission was destined to become his most famous. Tony and Beegle hosted a whirlwind of parties and visitors during their first year in the house, including the famous French collector of houses Paul-Louis Weiller (Tony would later design a house for him in Paris), the Mendls, Mary Pickford, Marion Davies, Arthur Freed, Fred Astaire, and Loretta Young. The guest lists were formidable. Fiddler's Ditch was christened with a Bal de Derri\u00e8re, or a Bustle Ball, where all the ladies wore gowns with bustles. The Bal de Derri\u00e8re was followed by numerous dinner parties, replete with divertissements such as the noted Indian dancers Sujata and Asoka, as well as Balinese dancers, balalaika orchestras, and troupes of Chinese acrobats. At the events, the house servants wore eighteenth-century liveries that Tony had purchased from Baroness Catherine d'Erlanger, who moved to Los Angeles during the war from her home, Palladio's historic Villa Malcontenta in Italy.\n\nNewspaper clippings about the Duquette wedding at Pickfair, c. 1949.\n\nThe Duquettes only lived at Dawnridge for one year before moving to Paris, where Tony was invited to exhibit his work in an unprecedented one-man exhibition at the Pavillon de Marsan of the Louvre Museum. When they returned from Paris, Tony and Beegle moved into their old studio on Fountain Avenue and, in 1956, they purchased the former Norma Talmadge Film Studio at the corner of Robertson Boulevard and Keith Avenue, an area adjacent to Beverly Hills known as Sherman (now West Hollywood). Their plan was to turn the abandoned and condemned building into their studio, work-rooms, and residence. Tony immediately commissioned Caspar to draw up the plans for the new Tony Duquette Studio, where the couple would live and work for the next twenty years before moving back into their beloved Dawnridge.\n\nThe Duquettes stayed close friends with Caspar, often recommending him to friends such as Technicolor executive Pat Frawley and his wife, Gerry, and Tony always used him when he needed an architect for a design job\u2014like when working for Doris Duke at Rudolph Valentino's Falcon Lair. In the 1970s, Tony and Elizabeth asked Caspar to design a house at Sortilegium, their Malibu ranch. The Duquettes were enthralled with an eighteenth-century church they'd seen in Austria that was laid out in a trefoil design, and Caspar drew up plans for an incredible house and built an interesting model, but the Malibu house was never realized.\n\nBetween 1950 and 1975, while the Duquettes lived in their grand studio, Dawnridge was home to a series of distinguished tenants, including Marlon Brando, who rented their house while he was filming _Julius Caesar_ ; Eva Gabor and her husband Dr. John Elbert Williams; and Glynis Johns. Nancy Oakes (Baroness Hoyningen-Huene) also rented the house. The last long-term tenant in the house was the notorious Hollywood agent Sue Mengers, who provided us with plenty of stories to dine out on.\n\nThe invitation to, and newspaper clippings regarding, the Bal de Derri\u00e8re, or Bustle Ball, given by the Duquettes with their friends Mr. and Mrs. William T. Riley, 1950.\n\nBeegle (far left) with screenwriters Richard Sale and Mary Anita Loos during a party at Dawnridge, 1949.\n\nFlamenco guitarist at Dawnridge, 1949.\n\nIndian dancer Asoka provides the entertainment after dinner, 1949.\n\nTony later asked Vincente Minnelli to hire Asoka and his partner, Sujata, to dance in the MGM film _Kismet_ , for which Tony designed the costumes; A footman waits by the front door with his mural counterpart, 1949.\n\nCatherine d'Erlanger, 1945.\n\nTony and Beegle in front of Dawnridge, c. 1949.\n\nIn the 1960s the Duquettes acquired the house next door to Dawnridge, which they called New Dawnridge. They furnished and rented it to celebrities and friends, such as agent and film producer Freddie Fields. In 1974, after Tony had just finished redecorating Dawnridge following Mengers's ten-year tenancy, New Dawnridge burned to the ground, the first of four major fires that the Duquettes endured. I was working for Tony and Beegle at the time of the fire, when a body was found in the debris. I told the Duquettes, \"Wait until they discover that the person was dead before the fire started.\" And she had been! After the fire, Tony, Beegle, my future bride Ruth, and I high-tailed it to South America to avoid the coroner's inquest and get away from all the complications. I recently found the telegram that our secretary sent us while we were in Lima, Peru, stating that the death was incurred at the hands of another rather than by accident. It was foul play that involved the two men who were renting New Dawnridge.\n\nWhile it was a hardship, the destruction of New Dawnridge opened up space for the garden terraces that would truly transform Dawnridge into a large estate. Meanwhile, more immediate plans were in motion. Tony and Beegle had decided to move back to Dawnridge, and in 1975 they commissioned Caspar to design the bedroom wing\u2014actually, just a two-car garage with a bedroom above it\u2014that had been set aside when the house was first built. Day by day, as the Duquettes moved in their favorite collections, I watched the house become more personal. Dishes that had been used by high-paying tenants were replaced with eighteenth-century Chinese export porcelains, antique carpets covered the floors, and the interiors were filled with precious objects and antiques. Rooms evolved: The small downstairs bedrooms were expanded by glassing in the area beneath the Drawing Room's exterior balcony, a new kitchen extension and a glassed-in porch were built onto the new garage, the old kitchen became a larger powder room, and the old garage became a dining room.\n\nTony outside the Louvre during his one-man exhibition, c. 1951.\n\nAn article published about Nancy Oakes, who rented Dawnridge from Tony and Elizabeth, 1950. Nancy was the daughter of the gold mining tycoon and governor of the Bahamas, Sir Harry Oakes, whose mysterious murder has yet to be solved.\n\nTony Duquette Studios, as remodeled by Caspar Ehmcke, c. 1956.\n\nBeegle surveying the destruction after the fire at New Dawnridge, 1974.\n\nAfter the Duquettes moved back to Dawnridge, the studio on Robertson Boulevard continued as the headquarters for their business and the venue for parties, where they entertained in great style. Dawnridge became more private; only their closest family friends were invited for intimate dinners. However, there were exceptions to the rule\u2014sometimes they would open the doors, throwing caution to the wind, and host fabulous parties, like the one Tony gave for his goddaughter Liza Minnelli. These were star-studded and spectacular, like old Hollywood in its most tinseled days. Like his mentor, Elsie de Wolfe, who didn't believe in dining rooms, Tony would serve dinners all over Dawnridge\u2014in the Drawing Room, on the balcony, and in the one-car garage, which had been magically transformed into a mirror-and-malachite-encrusted dining room. The garden, now arranged on three levels and studded with fantasy pavilions and sculptures, was where alfresco lunches and dinners took place. At night, chandeliers and lanterns sparkled from the branches of flowering trees.\n\nTony's vision for the garden was singular. Using architectural fragments rescued from the backlot of MGM, he created a series of pagodas and temples, garden follies, platforms, terraces, a tree house, and dozens of lit sculptures. The garden was the scene of legendary parties over the years, with guests including Glenda Bailey, Miuccia Prada, and Angela Missoni. At one party, George Hamilton donned Tony Duquette jewelry, and at another Italian _Vogue_ editor Grazia d'Annunzio was so enchanted by the ambiance that she came back to photograph Tony and Dawnridge for Italian _Vogue_ , _L'Uomo Vogue_ , and _Vogue Gioiello_. Jean Howard, Loretta Young, Jean and Maggie Louis, Rudolph Nureyev, John and Dodie Rosekrans (who went home with fifteen original Tony Duquette necklaces), James Galanos, Gustave Tassell, Irene Dunne, Mary Martin, and Janet Gaynor were also constant visitors.\n\nTony Duquette Studios, with the original obelisks from Dawnridge placed on each side of the stage, c. 1965.\n\nTony and Beegle, 1970.\n\nTony with his goddaughter Liza Minnelli, c. 1990.\n\nBeegle (far left) with my wife, Ruth, and me, c. 1980.\n\nStepping into the garden, people were apt to ask, \"Where am I?\" Tony loved this about the property, and said, \"It's only minutes from the Beverly Hills Hotel, but it's impossible to tell that you're not in Japan, Austria, or Southeast Asia!\" Tom Ford was so impressed by what he saw that he used the house as a location for a Gucci campaign. Other companies followed suit: Bulgari with Julianne Moore, Abercrombie & Fitch with Bruce Weber, and Gucci, once again, with Tom Hiddleston.\n\nIn 1985, Tony and I purchased a massive historic synagogue in San Francisco. It didn't take us long to remodel the vacant, vandalized, and condemned building into the Duquette Pavilion, where we would showcase Tony's work. During the remodeling, Tony and Beegle moved to their house in San Francisco, Cow Hollow, and rented Dawnridge to his client and friend Beverly Coburn, the ex-wife of Academy Award\u2013winner James Coburn, whose house Tony had decorated in the 1970s. While she was in residence, and just a few weeks after the Duquette Pavilion in San Francisco burned to the ground, Dawnridge caught fire again. This was Tony's third fire at all of his properties, and the damage to the house was severe. It was at this time that Tony, Beegle, and I redecorated Dawnridge to the way it would appear in the 1990s.\n\nElizabeth Duquette died in 1995, four years before Tony. In 1990, Tony and Beegle had given Ruth and me the contents of Dawnridge as a gift and paid the gift tax on it. After Tony's death in 1999, we purchased Dawnridge. Ruth and I felt strongly that we ought to preserve Tony's unique works and residence. In order to settle the estate taxes and satisfy obligations to Tony's heirs, we decided to sell our household goods to get the money to buy the property. To do this, we had Christie's hold the largest house sale in American history. The exhibition was kicked off with a gala for five hundred guests that raised $1 million to benefit the Decorative Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The sale took place over three days in a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, where more than two thousand objects were sold.\n\nThe gardens at Dawnridge, 1980.\n\nThe Monkey Room, 2018. Tony never had the opportunity to enjoy the space that overlooked the gardens, as he had only used it for storage.\n\nAfter the sale, I redecorated Dawnridge using objects, furniture, and works of art created by Tony and Beegle, mixed with some of their favorite antiques that I had kept. I once asked Tony, \"Why don't you show your own work in your house?\" He didn't have an answer, but I imagined he thought that if he surrounded himself with valuable antiques, people would assume he was rich. Of course, he was wealthy, but only because of his investments in real estate. He once told his friend William Matson Roth, who owned Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, \"With all my talent, the only thing that's made me rich is my real estate.\" Roth said, \"That was your talent!\" which made Tony laugh. He never tired of telling that story.\n\nRuth and I used Dawnridge for parties while we continued to live in Hollywood, but after several years, we finally decided to build a house next door. We sold our Tycoon Georgian and moved into Dawnridge while our new home, Casa La Condesa, was under construction. In 2011, when Casa La Condesa was finished, we turned Dawnridge back into a party house and made it the headquarters for our decorating and jewelry business.\n\nThe only regret I have is that Tony was never able to enjoy the glassed-in porch that became the Monkey Room. Tony always had a pressing need for storage, and after he created the room, he put embroidered Indian tent panels on the ceiling and filled it with stuff. After he died, it only took me a few hours to clear the room and turn it into a sitting room. At the time, I thought about how much Tony would have liked sitting in that room, with its three walls of glass overlooking the gardens. It was the only room at Dawnridge that was never finished in his lifetime. Today, it's used as a dining room. One night, I asked our friend Terry Stanfill, \"Why are the dinners in this room always so successful?\" She answered, \"It's because the ceiling is so low, and the oval table is conducive to conversation.\" She opened my eyes. The low ceiling\u2014a mere seven-and-a-half feet high\u2014caused the guests to feel as if they were \"tearing from the same beast,\" as Tony used to say. \"It's primordial, with the votive candles lighting the guests' faces from below, like the flames from a campfire.\"\n\n\u2014H.W.\n\n## CHAPTER TWO\n\n## Dawnridge\n\nThe entrance hall, 2018. On either side of the front door are ironic columns, which are made from discarded air filters, and hold Tony Duquette electrified crystal girandoles.\n\nThe entrance to the Drawing Room is now flanked by two French display cabinets, which were originally at the Robertson Boulevard studio.\n\n### The Entrance Hall\n\nIn 1949 Tony and Elizabeth covered two walls in the entrance hall with eighteenth-century citrine-colored damask backed with paper; the other two walls were paneled with squares of antique mirror. Beegle painted the door frames and crown molding with a fantasy faux marble in shades of yellows and blues. They created the doors leading into the Drawing Room from a pair of eighteenth-century French armoire doors, paneling the backs with sheets of clear mirror; antique Venetian bronze hands were used for the front and back door pulls. In the corners, on either side of the front door, there were two eighteenth-century Italian columns holding urn-shaped lamps with shades. Next to one of the lamps was a portrait of an eighteenth-century gentleman framed with seashells; below, a miniature bracket held an antique Spanish colonial retablo surrounded by a silver sunburst. On the opposite wall, on each side of the doors leading into the Drawing Room, a pair of eighteenth-century Italian polychromed figural stands purchased from designer James Pendleton held Tony Duquette coral-encrusted electrified crystal girandoles. The floor was made of black-and-white marbleized linoleum laid out in a checkerboard pattern. The back of the front door was painted by Beegle with the figure of a footman in eighteenth-century livery; the two pocket doors led into a vestibule and powder room on the the left, and a compact kitchen on the right. These doors also featured her artwork\u2014images of ladies in court gowns, one leaving the kitchen with a tray of food and the other seen from the back entering the powder room.\n\nThe entrance hall, 1949. Two of the walls are covered with paperbacked eighteenth-century yellow silk damask, and standing on both sides of the front door are eighteenth-century Italian fruitwood columns that hold carved and gilded urn-shaped lamps.\n\nAfter Tony and Elizabeth moved back into Dawnridge in the 1970s, the only major change to the entrance hall was the addition of blue grosgrain ribbon around the silk damask and the placement of three wooden panels over the doors, which were also enhanced with edges of decorative trim. When the house next door burned down in 1974, the heat in Dawnridge's entrance hall was so intense that it caused the paint on the ceiling to blister and peel. Tony liked this visually . . . so he lacquered over the damage and it remains that way today. Beegle then painted the trompe l'oeil tassels on either side of the front door to disguise water stains caused by the humidity in the room after the fire. During this time, the Duquettes also removed the Italian columns by the door, replacing them with a pair of Roman stools with silk velvet upholstery that had been worn down to the nap.\n\nWhen my wife and I purchased the house in 1999, we had to rearrange the entrance hall because most of the antiques had gone to Christie's. We replaced Pendleton's stands with French vitrines\u2014which used to stand on either side of the entrance to the ballroom at the Duquette Studio on Robertson Boulevard\u2014and we filled them with objects including Tony's wire-and-plaster figurines; ostrich eggs on Venetian glass stands; the Tony Award for Best Costume Design which he won for the original Broadway production of _Camelot_ ; cat skeletons, seashells, and corals; and the stuffed toads playing musical instruments that Tony and Beegle had purchased in Tijuana and painted to look like blue-and-white porcelain. Also displayed are the rocks the Duquettes picked up on the Malibu beach when they were beachcombing with their pal, artist Eugene Berman, who later painted faces on them and signed them _E. B. 1944_. Best of all are the two masks Tony constructed around the frames of a pair of antique Chinese fans, which he painted in 1951 for himself and Elizabeth to wear to the Vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles's ball La Lune Sur La Mer in Paris. Sitting on the same shelf are a Ming figure of Buddha in turquoise-glazed ceramic and a gilded bronze toad.\n\nThe entrance hall, 1975. Gone are the Italian columns, now replaced by a pair of eighteenth-century Roman stools where Tony conveniently threw his favorite straw hat with a feathered band.\n\nOn each side of the front door, I've placed what I call ironic columns\u2014instead of Ionic columns. I made these from discarded air filters, which I stacked together and gilded. These hold a pair of Tony Duquette electrified crystal girandoles, which were salvaged from Cow Hollow, the Duquette house in San Francisco. The amber cups covering the light bulbs are made from plastic drinking glasses purchased from Pic 'N' Save. Photographer Tim Street-Porter once said, \"Tony is the only man I know who can spend $999 in one visit to the 99\u00a2 store!\" The carpet is antique Chinese and sits on top of the new, more graphic linoleum floor, which is similar to the material first selected by Tony in 1949. Finally, I removed the sliding pocket doors\u2014painted with Beegle's figures\u2014because they were forever hiding within the walls. They were moved to new locations and are now installed as swing doors.\n\nDetails of the French display cabinet, 2018. The cabinet holds a number of objects cherished by Tony, including ostrich eggs on Venetian glass stands and a gilded bronze toad (top), three rocks picked up while beachcombing in Malibu with Eugene Berman (bottom), and a wire-and-plaster figurine made by Tony to display jewelry (next).\n\nView from the bar across the entrance hall and into the Camelot Room, 2018. Originally a vestibule, I converted the space into a bar in 2000.\n\nThe vestibule, 1949\n\nThe bar, 2018. I removed the pocket door painted by Beegle and installed it as a swing door that leads into the new kitchen.\n\n### The Bar\n\nIn 1949 Tony decorated the vestibule with a nineteenth-century black lacquer papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 table inlaid with mother of pearl, which he purchased from Jimmy Pendleton and later sold to Agnes Moorehead. On top of the table was a bead-encrusted Chinese pagoda designed by Tony as a Christmas decoration. He also created the mirror on the wall by framing an antique remnant of embroidered-and-bead-encrusted satin and then having only a portion of the glass \"silvered\" to show the textile's elaborately worked borders. Elizabeth painted the pocket door (pushed into the wall) with the figure of a lady entering the room.\n\nThe former vestibule is now a bar. I moved the pocket door painted by Beegle and installed it as a swing door leading into the new kitchen. The room is decorated with paintings by Beegle, including one she created for the MGM film _The Sandpiper_ , directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Elizabeth created all the paintings for that film, in which Taylor played an artist living on the beach in Big Sur, California. Against the wall is an eighteenth-century suede-upholstered mahogany director's chair. The carpet is from Nepal and was purchased by Tony and me during our last trip around the world before Tony died in 1999.\n\n### The Camelot Room\n\nThe space that is now the Camelot Room was originally the kitchen when the house was built. In 1975, Tony transformed it into a glamorized anteroom, with his 1950s antler-and-abalone console and mirror as a prominent feature. The antlers came from Hearst Castle and were gifted to him by the Hearst family when he and Beegle were guests at La Cuesta Encantada. The console held eighteenth-century Chinese lacquer coral branches from the collection of Elsie de Wolfe, a set maquette created by Tony for MGM's _Lovely to Look At_ , and a Spanish colonial statue. Tony also decorated the room with an eighteenth-century black-lacquered and ormolu-mounted French desk, an antique French bracket clock, a Venetian settee, and eighteenth-century Neapolitan cr\u00e8che figures.\n\nMy first go-round on the Camelot Room, which I named for Tony's theatrical designs on display there, was in 2000. I kept the antique Chinese window, which Tony had installed in the 1970s, in place, overlooking the dining room beyond. That window is now mirrored and part of the Venetian powder room. After the Duquette Collections sale at Christie's, I brought in the red-lacquered cabinet to replace the eighteenth-century black-lacquered and ormolu-mounted French desk. On top of the cabinet I placed a collection of geodes surrounding a maquette by Tony he called _Two Deer from Morgan Le Fay's Dominion_ , which was created for \"The Magic Forest Ballet\" sequence in the original Broadway production of _Camelot_ , starring Richard Burton, Robert Goulet, and Julie Andrews. After begging the show's creators, they obliged and allowed Tony to create _The Magic Forest Ballet_ , in which all the animals in Morgan Le Fay's Dominion took on human attributes and danced a little jig. Of course, it was a detour from the show, and people said, \"It's the only musical where you leave whistling the costumes and sets.\"\n\nThe Camelot Room, 2018. I created the Camelot Room in 2000 and decorated the space with Tony's theatrical designs. The painted door at the end of the room leads into the Venetian Powder Room.\n\nThe Camelot Room, 2000; The room previously included a Venetian settee (above), which had once been at the historic Larkin House in Monterey, California, and featured an antique Chinese window (next) that Tony had installed in the 1970s and looked into the dining room.\n\nI purchased this figurine (one of a pair), which was made by Tony in 1941 for Elsie de Wolfe and later displayed at the Mitch Leison Gallery in 1947.\n\nBecause Tony had placed set maquettes for both _Lovely to Look At_ and _Camelot_ in this room, I decided that it should display more of his theatrical designs, like his Tony Award\u2013winning costume sketches for _Camelot_. To complete this theme, I included some of Tony's earliest bas-reliefs, jeweled statues, and wire-and-plaster figurines, which had attracted the attention of Billy Haines, James Pendleton, Vincente Minnelli, and Elsie de Wolfe in 1941. I also presented the ermine tail\u2013upholstered Marsan chair that he had created for his one-man exhibition at the Louvre in 1952 on a velvet-covered dais. A similar chair, which Tony made for his one-man exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (and which I discovered under a pile of rags at a Santa Barbara garage sale), sits in the corner. Tony called the needlework upholstery he designed for this chair \"The Flies of Texas.\" Tony and I purchased the tiger and dragon carpets in Nepal on our last trip around the world. The door in the Camelot Room, painted by Elizabeth in 1949 as a pocket door, is now installed as a swing door and leads into the new Venetian powder room I created in 2005.\n\nTony Duquette mermaid figurine, c. 1947.\n\nThree-dimensional costume sketch by Tony Duquette, c. 1960.\n\nThe sketch was created for the original Broadway production of _Camelot_ , and sat atop a red lacquered cabinet in 2000.\n\nThe Camelot Room, 2018.\n\nTony Duquette's original 1950s antler and abalone console and mirror still holds pride of place in the room. It features Venetian glass coral branches set into gilded wooden urns and a maquette created by Tony for the film _Lovely to Look At_.\n\nThe mirror hung in the card room at Elsie's home, \"After All,\" c. 1941.\n\n### The Venetian Powder Room\n\nIdecorated the Venetian Powder Room using fragments from an eighteenth-century Venetian cabinet; old teal, green, and gold Venetian moldings; and remnants of emerald green silk moir\u00e9, velvets, and cottons printed to look like shagreen. Tony created the iconic mirror hanging over the sink for Elsie de Wolfe's house, After All, in Beverly Hills, and I later purchased it from a junk shop in Long Beach. The Venetian paneling is hung with the skull of a crocodile and a shadow box of Tony's exhibition _Our Lady Queen of the Angels_ is set into an antique ivory inlaid frame. A framed Elizabethan tapestry has become a luxurious panel on the back of the door, and the walls are hung with a collection of early Tony Duquette watercolors and drawings.\n\nVenetian Powder Room, 2018. I created this space in 2005 and decorated it with many shades of green fabric. The room includes a mirror that was originally in Elsie de Wolfe's Beverly Hills house, which she decorated with a young Tony Duquette in 1941.\n\nView from the Drawing Room into the entrance hall, 1949. The carved seventeenth-century door surround was a wedding present from Adrienne and Cissy Hellis.\n\n### The Drawing Room\n\nThe Drawing Room started out as a very formal room that the Duquettes decorated with antique French furniture, Aubusson carpets, silk damask draperies, and old master paintings, many of which Tony purchased on his first trip to Europe with Elsie de Wolfe in 1947. What made the traditional d\u00e9cor unique was the addition of Tony and Beegle's personal touches, including the painted and molded ceiling decorated with bouquets of flowers, soaring doves, and rococo traceries in silver-gilt, bronze-greens, and jewel tones. Over the next sixty years, the room was transformed as the house changed from a rental property in the 1960s to a personal residence in the 1970s to a place for entertaining in the twenty-first century. When the Duquettes moved back to Dawnridge in 1975 and completely redecorated it for their own pleasure, they brought in things more beautiful than they were valuable. Tony always said, \"Beauty, not luxury, is what I value.\" The original rococo carved decorations on the stair railing were exchanged for carvings from Thailand. The carpets were replaced with jade green, low-pile wool velvet with celadon-green borders.\n\nThe carved seventeenth-century Spanish door surround was a wedding present from Adrienne and Cissy Hellis, the daughters of a Greek shipping tycoon. When Tony and Elizabeth were married at Pickfair, they said, \"We're going to give you a silver tea set for your wedding.\" Tony said, \"I don't want a silver tea set; I want the front doors of your house.\" The Hellis sisters not only sent over this magnificent carved doorway, but also sent two pairs of fourteenth-century Spanish doors that Tony installed as the entrance to his studio on Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles. The old master painting would remain over the door until it was sold at the Christie's Duquette Collections sale; it was then that I replaced it with a sheet of mirror and Tony's one-eighth scale model of his _Primal Sun_ sculpture.\n\nThe chandelier Tony created using antique elements\u2014simple tubular metal arms and Peking glass mixed with beaded French glass flowers\u2014hung from the center of a giant plaster sunburst that matched the giant sunburst over the front door on the exterior fa\u00e7ade. The original chandelier shattered due to the heat of the fire next door, but it was refurbished with new Venetian glass lilies in 1975. Other Duquette touches included the lambrequins over the windows, which Tony created by dipping T-shirt jersey into a vat filled with plaster mixed with white glue and then draping the saturated fabric into his desired shape. After the fabric dried, Beegle painted the hardened cloth to resemble tooled leather, and Tony crowned the entire concoction with repouss\u00e9 silver urns from Spain and eighteenth-century Italian carved wings. With the addition of a few coral branches\u2014and likely a mystical or magical incantation like \"abracadabra\"\u2014they had lambrequins _de luxe_.\n\nDrawing Room, 1975. Tony replaced the original Rococo-carved decorations on the stair railing with carvings from Thailand.\n\nDrawing Room, 2000. The old master painting, which hung above the door, was replaced with a sheet of mirror and Tony's one-eighth scale model of his _Primal Sun_ sculpture.\n\nDrawing Room, c. 1960. Tony redecorated Dawnridge as a rental property in 1960. In this corner, he used eighteenth-century French panels framed as eighteen-foot-tall screens and reupholstered the sofas in white linen.\n\nIn 1949, the Duquettes installed floor-to-ceiling panels of antique mirror squares, one between the windows and the other at the far end of the room. The mirrored panel between the windows was centered by an antique Boulle bracket and clock inlaid with tortoise shell and etched brass decorations. On each side of the mirrored panel, Tony placed his sunburst torcheres made with eighteenth-century Italian candlesticks, convex mirrors, and gilded Italian sunbursts. The other mirrored panel was anchored with a long, eighteenth-century Louis XVI\u2013style, Venetian-gilded-and-polychromed console table. With these in place, the rest of the room was ready to furnish. The original colors of the walls were Adrian green, a pale celadon color favored by Tony's friend and client Gilbert Adrian of MGM fame. The eighteen-foot-long, coral-colored, silk damask draperies were discovered at the Paris flea market in 1947 and purchased with Dawnridge in mind. Add to this Duquette's one-of-a-kind plaster-decorated folding screens and the eighteenth-century portraits of Roman emperors hung high up near the crown molding, and the mise-en-sc\u00e8ne was set for a party. In front of one of the screens, a long custom sofa, which almost ran the width of the room, was paired with a set of four eighteenth-century Louis XVI berg\u00e8res upholstered in their original Aubusson tapestry coverings.\n\nThe Duquettes redecorated Dawnridge as a rental property in the 1960s, and Tony used eighteenth-century French panels framed as eighteen-foot-tall screens in this room. The sofas were reupholstered in white linen, and the lamps and shades were replaced with crystal girandoles, which Duquette created out of old cast-iron French urns.\n\nDetail of the chandelier, 2018. The original chandelier was damaged by the fire in 1974. At that time, Tony replaced the Peking glass flowers with Venetian glass flowers blown to resemble Pillemont lilies.\n\nTony Duquette sitting in front of his bas-relief screens, 1949.\n\nNorth corner of the Drawing Room, 1949. In the center of the wall is a panel of antique mirror squares with Tony's sunburst torch\u00e8res on either side. His original mirror and plaster bas-relief screens stand in the corners.\n\nView of the north corner of the Drawing Room from the balcony, 1949. Hanging from the ceiling is the original Peking glass flower chandelier with electrified votive lights nestled into the bouquets.\n\nNorth wall of the Drawing Room, 1975. Tony redecorated the space after moving back into the home and replaced the French panels with an eighteenth-century mural depicting a scene in Porto Mauritius.\n\nTony Duquette shell grotto in cast resin, c. 1960. Tony created this as a party decoration for an Undersea Ball.\n\nIn front are the eighteenth-century Venetian dolphins from the collection of Misia Sert, which were given to the Duquettes as a wedding present and later placed in the Drawing Room in the 1980s.\n\nIn 1975, as you entered the room, the first thing you saw was the pair of eighteenth-century Venetian dolphins from the collection of Misia Sert flanking a pillow-strewn eighteenth-century Italian settee. The settee, upholstered in apple-green silk, was placed in front of the new fifteen-foot-tall clear mirror panel that had replaced the antique mirror squares installed when the house was built. Later, I would replace the dolphins with the original sunburst torch\u00e8res that had stood in the room in 1949; Tony's biomorphic console and mirror would stand in place of the settee, positioned on a dais like an object in a museum.\n\nEast wall of the Drawing Room, 2018.\n\nI later added recreations of the original sunburst torch\u00e8res, which had stood in the room in 1949, and replaced the eighteenth-century sofa with Tony's biomorphic console and mirror presented on an upholstered stand.\n\nNorth wall of the Drawing Room, c. 1990. Tony layered his portrait by Marion Pike on top of the eighteenth-century mural.\n\nOn the east wall, Tony placed an immense twelve-foot-long banquette sofa designed by his friend Billy Haines, which he purchased from a charity sale and reupholstered in sap-green satin, then covered it with a throw of patchwork forest-green suede. Tony followed his friend Syrie Maugham's advice when she told him: \"A sofa should never look like a sofa, but rather should look like a pile of rich stuffs and carpets, piled high on the prow of a pirate's ship.\" He also replaced the tall screen of eighteenth-century painted French panels that he'd made for the rental house with a magnificent eighteenth-century mural depicting a scene in Porto Mauritius. The mural was purchased from the Baroness Catherine d'Erlanger; Tony later mounted it as a folding screen. In the 1990s, Tony would eventually layer the panels with his portrait, circa 1960s, by Marion Pike. In the corner, Tony placed an African Ekoi mask, which had been on display at LACMA as a loan from the Duquettes; it was later sold by Christie's to Dodie Rosekrans, and I later placed it in her palazzo in Venice.\n\nTwo of eight seventeenth-century paintings of Venice by Joseph Heintz the Younger, which Tony and Beegle had purchased from the Baroness d'Erlanger, were prominently placed on the stair wall, and a prized Piedmontese desk inlaid with ivory was positioned beneath one of the paintings. Tony would later change out the desk\u2014having sold it to John and Dodie Rosekrans to use in their Venetian palazzo\u2014in favor of the famous cabinet he made for Elsie de Wolfe in 1949. The decorated doors of the cabinet would even inspire a printed linen fabric: Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson \"Duquetterie.\" Next to the cabinet he placed his own Ghost Snail electrified sculpture, saying, \"I'm always trying to get light into a room without using lamps and shades. Look around, you won't see very many lamp shades here.\" In 1990, the Aubusson chairs were replaced with ebonized Louis XV berg\u00e8res upholstered in stri\u00e9d emerald green velvet.\n\nThe room originally included a Piedmontese secretary desk flanked by Italian fruitwood pedestals.\n\nTony would eventually sell it to John and Dodie Rosekrans in 1999, replacing it with the desk he made for Elsie de Wolfe in 1941.\n\nDetail of the Elsie de Wolfe cabinet, 2018.\n\nThe Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Duquetterie linen fabric was inspired by the two decorated doors of the cabinet, 2008.\n\nNorth wall of the Drawing Room, 2001. Following the Christie's sale, a door was cut through the wall connecting the Drawing Room with the library. I created the sunburst screens using metal hubcaps to replace the wall of eighteenth-century Italian paintings and added artwork by Tony above the doorway.\n\nOne of the two three-dimensional costume sketches by Tony Duquette for the 1952 San Francisco Opera production of _Der Rosenkavalier_.\n\nSince the Christie's sale in 2000, I've redecorated the Drawing Room a number of times. The first time, I replaced the seventeenth-century Venetian paintings on the left wall with Tony's watercolors of Venice, which had been exhibited at the Louvre. I also replaced the wall of eighteenth-century Italian paintings with the sunburst screens featuring metal hubcaps. I cut a door through the wall, connecting the Drawing Room with the library beyond, and flanked the new mirrored doorway with the stands and plaster heads Tony created for the Cobina Wright residence in 1952. Tony's multimedia assemblage of window screen, Mylar, and rhinestones\u2014known as _A Fragment of a Priestess' Robe or A Specimen of Rhinestone Disease_ \u2014was hung above the door. The walls were reupholstered with an iridescent bronze to gold lam\u00e9 fabric, which we also used at the Palazzo Brandolini, and the Ottoman banquette, originally designed by Tony for Cow Hollow, their house in San Francisco, was brought into the Drawing Room. Other objects in the room include Tony's _Phoenix Rising From Its Flames_ sculpture in the right-hand corner, as well as two of his three-dimensional costume sketches for Der Rosenkavalier, which are displayed in Plexiglas cases around the room.\n\n**Above and next:** North corner of the Drawing Room, 2018. The upholstered seating area has been replaced with a draped table surrounded by four Louis XVI\u2013style chairs upholstered in quilted Fortuny. On the table are three Tony Duquette plaster figurines, c. 1941. Each holds an abalone shell with a votive light inside.\n\nOne of a pair of plaster heads created by Tony to hold flowers, c. 1940s.\n\nIn 2017, I rearranged the room as more of a gallery or reception room than a sitting room. To create this mood, I removed the seating area and added a round table draped in Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Feu d'Artifices handwoven silk. The four Louis XVI\u2013style chairs surrounding the table are upholstered in old quilted Fortuny, and the table is set with Tony Duquette reclining figurines that are holding abalone shells with votive lights in them. The mother-of-pearl bowl contains Venetian glass coral branches and a display of Duquette's gilded _Modern Fruit_ from his exhibition at the Louvre.\n\nThe south end of the room has not undergone changes as extensive as the rest of the Drawing Room. In the 1980s, Duquette placed an eighteenth-century French commode with ormolu mounts where the original long Venetian Louis XVI\u2013style console had always held pride of place; he moved the console upstairs to the balcony. After a few years, Tony sold the magnificent French commode and replaced it with...yet another chest of drawers\u2014an eighteenth-century Portuguese piece in the Chippendale taste from the collection of the Duquettes' friend Frances Elkins. On top of this new furniture, Tony placed electrified resin pagodas modeled after a set of nineteenth-century Regency ceramic pagodas he'd found in Ireland when decorating Barretstown Castle for Elizabeth Arden in the 1960s. In the 1980s, Tony also added eighteenth-century paintings to the room, paneling the walls with them from the baseboards to the crown molding. It was at this time that a Chinese red lacquer screen and an Italian settee upholstered in striped white satin also made their appearance in the Drawing Room. Tony and I worked closely on this redecoration and placed a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 table in the corner, with a Venetian gondola scene painted in the center of its top; we later sold this treasure to Dodie Rosekrans for her dressing room at Palazzo Brandolini in Venice.\n\nThe seating area, c. 1980, was also removed from this side of the room. An antique Venetian chest of drawers now stands in place of its eighteenth-century French counterpart.\n\nSouth wall of the Drawing Room, 2018.\n\nSouth corner of the Drawing Room, c. 1980 and 2018. Tony first placed a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 table in the corner next to an eighteenth-century red-lacquer Thai shrine.\n\nThe furniture was eventually removed and replaced by me with a Burmese shrine.\n\nOne of the two three-dimensional costume sketches by Tony Duquette for the 1952 San Francisco Opera production of _Der Rosenkavalier_.\n\nIn 2000, I painted the turquoise silk satin curtains with red, gold, and pink spray paint, making an interesting ikat type pattern. When Chad Holman from Jim Thompson saw those painted curtains, he asked me where I got them. I told him I'd painted them during the weekend. When he asked me why, I facetiously told him that I couldn't afford to replace them, and I couldn't afford to clean them, so I painted them. That's when he asked me to make a collection of fabrics for Jim Thompson. Today, the curtains are Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson \"Feu d'Artifices\" handwoven silk. Recently, I placed the furnishings around the walls to give the space the feeling of a ballroom. An antique Venetian chest of drawers sits under the mirror where the old Portuguese one used to be, and a carved and gilded Japanese table has been placed under the staircase. On top of both pieces, I've placed Tony Duquette's three-dimensional costume sketches for the 1952 San Francisco Opera production of _Der Rosenkavalier_. Around the room, Louis XV chairs, upholstered in Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson \"Royal Ermine,\" have been pushed against the walls, and a Burmese shrine, with its gilded bronze Buddha and eighteenth-century Chinese lacquer coral branches, sits in the corner. Oil paintings by Beegle have now replaced the eighteenth-century artwork on the walls, along with water-colors and bas-reliefs by Tony.\n\nSouth wall of the Drawing Room, 2018. The window has been removed, creating a passageway that connects to the Green Room beyond. The old master paintings have been replaced with oil paintings by Elizabeth Duquette and watercolors and bas-reliefs by Tony.\n\n### The Balcony\n\nTony used the balcony as a sitting room, and occasionally dining tables were set up there. It had a wood-burning stove in the shape of a truncated obelisk at the end, and a carved Indian blackwood settee that Tony painted turquoise. Tony would later use this piece for Adrian's fashion show finale in MGM's _Lovely to Look At_. The center of the balcony was dominated by the oculus of the house\u2014a large round opening in the floor surrounded by a low railing that looked into the entrance hall below. This was an obvious copy of the oculus at the Ch\u00e2teau de Groussay, the amazing country house of Tony's friend and well-known amateur decorator Carlos de Beistegui. Duquette knew Beistegui through Elsie de Wolfe and was a frequent guest at Groussay in 1947, 1950, and again, with Beistegui's nephew and heir Juan, in 1977. Tony's biggest regret was not being able to accept Beistegui's invitation to the Black and White Venetian Ball he hosted in 1952 at the Palazzo Labia on the Grand Canal, although Tony did supply several of the masks worn by guests that night in Venice.\n\nThe balcony, 1949. The room featured a wood-burning stove\u2014one of Tony's original designs for the house\u2014that had crystal feet and was studded with brass fleur-de-lis.\n\nThe balcony, 2001. The space included a Venetian console table, an old master painting, and a turquoise rhinoceros American merry-go-round figure, which stood in front of the glass-topped oculus of the house that looks down into the entrance hall below.\n\nThe balcony, c. 1980. The black-lacquered double doors lead into the Winter Bedroom. To the right is one of the treasures of the Duquette collection, a sixteenth-century red-lacquer Burmese Buddha.\n\nThe room has been redecorated and now features antique Chinese picture carpets, Tony Duquette's scale model of the California Sunburst proscenium curtain made for the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center, and his original abalone chandelier that was created for his one-man exhibition at LACMA in 1952.\n\nIn the 1980s, Tony and I removed the draperies, which could be closed to separate the two areas, and installed the mirror on the ceiling. The red lacquer Buddha to the right of the door is sixteenth-century Burmese.\n\nWhen redecorating the room, I placed Chinese carpets over the original bronze wool carpeting and installed the abalone chandelier that Tony had created for his one-man exhibition at LACMA in 1952. On the left wall, I hung the scale model for the proscenium curtain at the Los Angeles Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion; on either side are two Tony Duquette figural lamps originally created for Cobina Wright's home in the 1950s.\n\nPast the bronze head of Buddha, antique Chinese doors disguise a closet where the old wood-burning stove used to sit in 1949, and the doors to the right of the closet lead to the Winter Bedroom, which the Duquettes added to the house in 1975. The walls are paneled with Chinese Coromandel screens, the carpet is Tibetan, and the closet doors are appliqu\u00e9d with antique trims and hand-painted decorations from Bhutan.\n\nThe library, 2018. Located off the Drawing Room, the library is often used for entertaining, either as a bar or a place to set up four tables of eight for seated dinners.\n\n### The Library\n\nOne of the first things we did after purchasing Dawnridge was create an enfilade between the Drawing Room and the library. Prior to this, we had to go through the vestibule off the entrance hall and wind our way around to get to the library. It was not exactly the most dramatic or glamorous way to get from point A to point B, so we cut a door between the two rooms. This change was important because it allowed us to convert the library into a dining room on occasion\u2014a necessity as the house had no formal dining room. Our original plan was to leave the library permanently set up with a dining table covered in books and objects, and use the adjacent Monkey Room as a sitting room that looked out over the gardens. However, after our first dinner party, we realized that the library was too close to the kitchen; there was no butler's pantry between the rooms to muffle the sounds of cooking, clanking dishes, and chattering servants. Because of this, we immediately moved the dining table\u2014an oval, which I learned from experience is the best shape for conversation as it allows everyone at the party to participate\u2014into the Monkey Room and returned the library to a sitting room, which on occasion is converted for dining.\n\n### The Monkey Room\n\nThe Monkey Room was named for the frieze of papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 monkey masks which frame the embroidered and appliqu\u00e9d ceiling that is upholstered with Indian tent panels. To create the illusion that the ceiling extends to the exterior of the glassed-in porch, Tony placed ninety-nine-cent mirrors from Pic 'N' Save over the windows. The curtains are Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson printed cotton in the Tibetan Sunburst pattern. Opposite the window overlooking the gardens, Tony built bookcases and filled them with a small sampling of his extensive art and fashion library.\n\nThe monkey theme is also reflected in figurines that I've placed around the room. On his seventy-fifth birthday, Tony's friend Cynthia Lindsay gave him three dressed monkeys by Oliver Messel. Two of the monkeys were lost when the Duquettes' Malibu ranch burned to the ground, but one survived. I found another monkey by Messel, dressed in a tricorn hat, at the Leo Lerman sale in New York, and added it to the room, along with a pair of figurines made by Tony in the 1940s for the fashion designer Adrian, who used these alongside a perfume or shoe display at his store in Beverly Hills.\n\nThe Monkey Room, 2002. Here, the table has been set with gold lam\u00e9 cloth, vermeil chargers, cups, bamboo-style cutlery, and antique Chinese rose medallion porcelains. Covered Peking enamel bowls, Venetian glass goblets, and a centerpiece composed of a nineteenth-century vermeil palm tree candelabra surrounded by ceramic pagodas and eighteenth-century Chinese lacquer coral branches complete the look.\n\nDetail of the built-in bookcases, 2018. The walls, like the ceiling, are upholstered in embroidered and appliqu\u00e9d Indian tent panels and layered with antique Japanese tassels.\n\nOne of a pair of figurines created by Tony for the designer Adrian, c. 1940.\n\nAdrian used these, which Tony sketched out for him first (above), as part of a display at his store in Beverly Hills (next).\n\nMonkey figurines by Oliver Messel, c. 1950. Tony received three dressed monkeys for his seventy-fifth birthday from his friend Cynthia Lindsay. Only one survived following the fire at the Duquette Ranch in 1993, and is now displayed in the Monkey Room.\n\nI purchased another Oliver Messel monkey figurine with the tricorn hat from the Leo Lehrman estate to add to the d\u00e9cor.\n\nTable setting in the Monkey Room, 2018. Rock crystal votive lights cast a glow on guests' faces, as Tony liked to say, \"like the light from a campfire.\"\n\nThe Monkey Room, 2005. The curtains are made with Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Tibetan Sunburst fabric.\n\nFor our dinner parties, we set the tables with an eclectic mix of antiques and objects made by Tony: vermeil chargers, antique Chinese porcelain in a pink and green lotus pattern on gold, holding abalone soup bowls; antique Baccarat crystal glasses etched with stars; custom-made seashell and coral salt and pepper cellars; and antique silver, Mythologique-patterned cutlery. A Tony Duquette wood-and-crystal girandole holds black candles \"so that the flames look like they're floating in midair,\" as Tony used to say, surrounded by coral-clad nautilus shells sporting Venetian glass coral branches. Vermeil lobsters stand guard at each end of the table, and Tony's signature rock-crystal votives are placed to cast a soft glow onto the guests' faces.\n\nThe Winter Bedroom, 1975. The bed hangings are stri\u00e9d silk taffeta bordered in Thai silk; Japanese tassels hang from the corners of the bed curtains. The alligator at the foot of the bed is from the South Sea Islands.\n\n### The Winter Bedroom\n\nIn 1975 the Duquettes built a new two-car garage and added a master bedroom above it. They called their new chamber the Winter Bedroom, where they moved when the weather turned cold, as opposed to the original downstairs bedroom, which they called the Summer Bedroom. The Winter Bedroom connected with the balcony over the Drawing Room. With my help, Tony decorated the room with antique Georgian furniture and paneled the bed wall using an antique Coromandel screen. The ceiling was covered in gold lam\u00e9, and the walls were upholstered in a bronze-colored stri\u00e9d linen. The bed was hung in coral-colored Thai silk with a pelmet adorned with Tibetan tassels. At the foot of the bed we conveniently placed a carving of an alligator from the South Sea Islands as a place to throw your robe on.\n\nAfter we purchased Dawnridge, Ruth and I used the Winter Bedroom for guests. We changed the bed hangings, using bolts of coral and saffron yellow Thai silk that were left over from Tony's _Camelot_ costumes, and covered most of the walls from floor to ceiling with bookcases. The bed's valance was salvaged from the Duquettes' canopied bed in their San Francisco home, along with the silk tasseled bedspread, hand-painted with birds and flowers. On each side of the bed we placed Spanish colonial _varguenos_ and topped them with the fabulous figural lamps Tony made for his exhibition at the Louvre in 1951. Recently, we added even more pieces to the room including a loveseat and a small upholstered armchair designed by the Duquettes' friend, English designer Syrie Maugham.\n\nTwo pairs of antique Chinese carved teak doors, to which Tony added panels of old Chinese silver damask and frames consisting of several rows of passementerie trim, separate the Winter Bedroom from both the vestibule and sleeping alcove. The Winter Bedroom's sleeping alcove holds an original Syrie Maugham sleigh bed. This bed\u2014a favorite of the Duquettes\u2014was commissioned from Maugham by the actress Ina Claire, who played Grand Duchess Swana in _Ninotchka_. Ina was a great friend of the Duquettes, as well as Ruth's and mine. Over the years, we were able to purchase a lot of fine furniture from Ina, who had collected wonderful pieces not only from Maugham but also from Elsie de Wolfe. Tony hung a Ming Dynasty panel over the sleigh bed and added a nineteenth-century black-and-gold lacquer chair that he purchased on a trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand.\n\nIn 2000, the sleeping alcove was completely redesigned after we walled up a window and upholstered the walls with printed raw silk that we found in our warehouse. The bolts and bolts of fabric had been made for Tony by Jim Thompson himself in the 1960s, and were never unpacked. I added a French desk; a Victorian chair; a Chippendale Chinese-mirror from the 1960s featuring an orchestra of carved musicians from Thailand that I affixed myself; and a pair of circa 1940s Tony Duquette figural lamps. The frame around the skylight is made up of Chinese carvings appliqu\u00e9d with woven passementerie trim, as well as tassels made by Tony using Chinese coins and silk, which he dipped in plaster and painted pink and blue.\n\nThe Winter Bedroom, 2018. The original bed hangings have been replaced with curtains made of coral and saffron colored Thai silk. On either side of the bed are Spanish colonial varguenos with Tony Duquette figural lamps, c. 1951, originally created for his one-man exhibition at the Louvre.\n\nThe Winter Bedroom, 1975. An antique terracotta lion perches on the balustrade outside the Winter Bedroom's French doors.\n\nDetail of the antique Chinese carved teak doors separating the Winter Bedroom from the sleeping alcove, 2018.\n\nThe sleeping alcove, 1975. The Duquettes purchased the nineteenth-century black-and-gold lacquer chair on a trip with Jim Thompson to Chiang Mai, Thailand. A Ming Dynasty panel hangs over the bed.\n\nThe alcove was redecorated with fabric that was printed for Tony by Jim Thompson in the 1960s.\n\nTony Duquette figural lamps, c. 1940, were also added to the room.\n\nThe bathroom is located off the Winter Bedroom, and a malachite-painted commode now stands where the tub once was.\n\nThe original master bedroom, 1949.\n\n### The Summer Bedroom and Guest Bedroom\n\nDawnridge originally had only two tiny subterranean bedrooms\u2014situated downstairs just under the Drawing Room\u2014with windows that opened onto a terrace surrounded by an elegant balustrade overlooking the ravine below. The original master bedroom had walls covered in silver lam\u00e9 with wall-to-wall carpeting on the floor. Tony decorated the room with old pine doors that had been bleached and pickled, and hinged together as folding screens. There were yellow linen draperies on the French windows, a vicu\u00f1a throw on the bed, and a pair of carved Indian camels as night stands. An elegant secretary desk, which Tony had studded with nail heads and sequins, centered the wall across from the windows, and next to this was an eighteenth-century French chair.\n\nIn 1975, after the new Winter Bedroom was completed, the original master bedroom would become the Summer Bedroom. Because it was built into the hillside on three sides, it was naturally cool in the summer and even colder in the winter. The new space upstairs was a warmer place to sleep in the winter, so the Duquettes moved their quarters with the seasons. In the stairway leading to the bedrooms, Tony paneled the walls with antique grillworks and mirrors and carpeted the stairs with his signature leopard carpet. He even installed an antique nineteenth-century Chinese pagoda as a newel post in this newly Orientalized stair hall. It was at this time that Tony replaced the wall-to-wall carpet in the Summer Bedroom with red lacquer squares topped with a custom Portuguese covered needlework rug in a leopard pattern. He draped the bed in antique Chinese embroideries and upholstered the walls with pink Thai silk. The headboard was covered with Tony's precious tiger skin patterned silk velvet. At the foot of the bed, Tony placed an antique Chinese grape-root table, part of a set he purchased from the Hearst collection, which he layered with leopard skin.\n\nThe staircase leading down to the summer and guest bedrooms, c. 1980. Tony paneled the stairway with antique grillworks and mirrors and carpeted the stairs and hall with his signature leopard-print carpet.\n\nThe room's walls were upholstered in silver lam\u00e9, and folding screens, made from antique paneled doors, were placed in each of the four corners.\n\nThe Summer Bedroom, 1975. When Tony moved back to Dawnridge, the master bedroom became the Summer Bedroom. The room's original bed coverings featured Chinese embroidery over imperial yellow satin; carvings from China and Thailand helped complete the mise-en-sc\u00e8ne.\n\nThe Summer Bedroom, c. 1980s. Tony redecorated the bed alcove using an antique gold embroidered bedspread and installing silk hangings embroidered with silver threads overlaid with pink gauze.\n\nThe guest bedroom, 1949 (above) and 1990 (next). Tony transformed the guest bedroom into his dressing room in 1975 and decorated it with antique Asian carvings, bronze Buddhas, and red lacquer.\n\nThe Summer Bedroom was only a fifteen-foot square, but the guest bedroom next door was even smaller\u2014a mere fifteen-by-ten-foot hole in the wall. Tony used to say that the only benefit of this room was that \"if you fall down, you can't hurt yourself because you'll definitely fall onto the bed!\" He covered the First Empire bed with woven black-and-white Mexican carpets; the walls were covered with hand-painted eighteenth-century Chinese wallpaper. He also hung one of his original chandeliers decorated with Venetian glass flowers from the ceiling and placed two of his floral lamps on the chest of drawers. Tony used the guest bedroom as a dressing room, while Beegle had her own wardrobes and bathroom just off the adjacent master bedroom.\n\nIn 1975, Tony turned the guest room into a proper dressing room, creating a direct entrance through the Summer Bedroom next door. A pair of antique doors, covered with malachite-printed cotton, ecclesiastical trim of woven gold thread, and panels of antique Chinese damask now separated the two spaces. On either side of this new doorway, Tony placed gilded Thai stands holding cast-resin pagodas which he lit from within. The door pulls were antique Damascus steel inlaid with silver. Tony decorated the newly enlarged dressing room with antique Asian carvings, bronze Buddhas, and oriental rugs layered over the wall-to-wall leopard carpeting, a look that he and Doris Duke earlier christened as \"Chow Fun.\"\n\nEntrance to the dressing room, 1990. A pair of antique doors, with gilded Thai stands on either side, lead from the Summer Bedroom into Tony's expanded dressing room.\n\nThe dining room, 1949. Originally a one-car garage, the space was instead used for dinners and entertaining. Arched French doors from a wrecking yard were installed to create the feeling of a garden pavilion.\n\n### The Green Room\n\nThe Green Room started out as a one-car-garage in 1949. Tony immediately turned it into a dining room. In its original incarnation, the garage door\u2014which is still in place\u2014was hidden behind a drapery of old Fortuny printed cotton. In front of this, Tony placed a large oyster-veneered seventeenth-century English cabinet to hold china and linens. Arched French doors\u2014salvaged from a demolition\u2014were installed to take advantage of the room's southern exposure and to give the former garage the feeling of a garden pavilion. Beegle painted the decorative moldings with ermine tails, while Tony placed brackets on the walls to hold antique carved and gilded urns from Italy. Of course, the entire mise-en-sc\u00e8ne was lit by one of Tony's original floral chandeliers in Peking glass, which sparkled in the many mirrors strategically placed to enhance the perspective of the magical space.\n\nThe room was tiny, but Tony was able, on occasion, to set up three tables of eight, so that twenty-four guests could be seated for dinner. As I've already mentioned, Tony liked to say, \"People enjoy being crowded together at dinner parties. Sitting elbow to elbow, cheek by jowl, revives a primordial memory deep within them of sitting around a campfire and tearing from the same beast.\" At Dawnridge, before 1990, tables were always round and draped to the floor with ever-changing cloths. Tony and Beegle had a beautiful set of early nineteenth-century Venetian gondola chairs that he'd stripped and bleached. If additional seating was needed they'd add in gilded ballroom chairs.\n\nAfter the fire in 1974, the arched French doors were replaced with large paned windows. Tony also added a pair of upholstered sofas to form a seating area at the end of the room, which was newly paneled with vintage Chinese doors and a mirror. In the 1990s, the dining chairs were bamboo finished in black lacquer and upholstered with Indonesian ikat\u2013covered cushions.\n\nThe dining room, c. 1975. After the fire from the house next door burned out the dining room, the arched windows were replaced with large paned windows. A pair of upholstered sofas form a seating area paneled with old Chinese doors and mirrors.\n\nThe dining room, c. 1990. The table is set with rock crystal votives holding an eighteenth-century gilded nef in the form of a Spanish galleon.\n\nThe Green Room, 2005. I transformed the old dining room into the Green Room, and made the folding screen (below) at the back of the room by blowing up an eight-by-eleven-inch pen-and-ink drawing of Venice created by Tony in 1947 on his first visit to Europe with Elsie de Wolfe.\n\nAt their dinners, the centerpieces were rarely floral\u2014instead, they were made of large rock crystals paired with pearls on wires, coral branches in lacquered bowls, or Chinese figures, all surrounded by votive candles that \"lit your face up . . . like the light from a campfire.\" Tony would constantly repeat this, and then remind me, \"We don't eat by candlelight because it's romantic, but because it takes us back to the cave where we used to sit around an open fire and tell stories.\" Eighteenth-century papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 temples of love; figurines he designed himself made of dipped plaster and rhinestones; seashells, taxidermy, and precious antique objects all appealed to his sense of theater whenever setting a table for a festive occasion. To create a different look each time guests were at dinner, sets of dishes were used on a revolving basis; Tony would pair them with vermeil chargers engraved with his crest, simple painted tin plates from Haiti, or priceless Chinese porcelain dishes. In the 1950s Tony and Beegle took every piece of silver that they could lay their hands on to Tiffany's to have it gold-plated. He often patted himself on the back, telling me of his prescience at knowing that gold was actually cheap back then. Because of this, they had sets and sets of cutlery to choose from. Crystal and Venetian glass goblets were paired with gold-plated silver cups that were always used for water.\n\nAfter Ruth and I purchased Dawnridge, we converted the old dining room into the Green Room, named for its dominant color scheme, and today it's most often used as a place to serve cocktails before dinner. Part of the ceiling is still mirrored\u2014just as Tony had designed it\u2014with malachite-patterned fabric-covered beams studded with antique Chinese carvings and panels of abalone. We covered the ceiling on the side of the room closest to the garden with Mylar, and then overlaid it with dark green painted lattice and finished it with an antique French copper valance. We overlaid the dark green board-and-batten walls with strips of Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson malachite-printed cotton and installed a Tony Duquette malachite-patterned silk carpet. At the back of the room, we installed a folding screen that Tony created for his first one-man exhibition in 1947. The screen was later used by Adrian before being sold to Tony's client and best friend Patricia Hastings Graham. It recently returned to Dawnridge as a gift from Mrs. Graham as part of her estate. Our recent redecoration of the room included the expansion of Tony's collection of antique birdcages, which are now hanging all over the ceiling. The new Green Room curtains are Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Gemstone printed cotton in lapis lazuli blue. A black-and-white-checkered floor has also been installed on the diagonal, and the addition of three conversation groups of furniture and a table for dining completes the look.\n\nThe Green Room, 2018. The room now includes a folding screen created by Tony Duquette for his first one-man exhibition in 1947.\n\nDuquette standing in front of his screen at his exhibition at the Mitch Leison Gallery, 1947.\n\nThe centerpiece on the skirted table features Tony's _Modern Fruit_ , which he created for his one-man exhibition at the Louvre in 1951. The skeletal fruit in gilded brass has been placed in a mother-of-pearl bowl surrounded by Ming parrots, rock-crystal votives, and abalone shell salt and pepper shakers. I painted the carved Indian blackwood furniture white, and placed antique Asian artifacts on the side tables.\n\nThe Green Room, 2018. In the corner, Tony's rose chest has a number of objects on display, including a carved Indonesian figure sitting on top of a Chinese imperial yellow porcelain stand, a nineteenth-century lacquer box holding a Lalique Buddha, and carved Indian parrots perched on red-lacquer stands from Thailand.\n\nA Tony Duquette _Insect Man_ sculpture poses in front of the lapis luzuli Tony Duquette Gemstone curtains by Jim Thompson.\n\nIn one corner of the Green Room, near the door leading out to the terrace, I added the Rose Chest, which was Adrian's favorite piece of furniture and used by Cecil Beaton in Mrs. Higgins' house in the film _My Fair Lady_. Hanging directly above the Rose Chest\u2014and around the room\u2014are the late Julian La Trobe's paintings of Dawnridge and a pair of eighteenth-century floral French sconces. The tablescape on top of the chest includes a carved Indonesian figure sitting on top of a Chinese imperial yellow porcelain stand; a nineteenth-century lacquer box holding a Lalique Buddha; and a pair of carved Indian parrots perched on red lacquer stands from Thailand.\n\nI placed an antique French desk painted in a malachite pattern by Scarlett Abbott in front of the window. The desk\u2014flanked by a pair of Chippendale Chinese \u00e9tag\u00e8res holding blue and white porcelains\u2014has a tablescape which includes a stuffed cockatoo wearing a miniature Thai crown, a pair of wire-and-plaster lizards made by Tony for his client Cobina Wright, Tony's _Insect Man_ sculpture, a small painting by Elizabeth Duquette, and a 1940s Duquette Ashtray Man holding a votive candle. Two coral-painted birdcages and an antique Chinese lantern have been electrified to bring light into the space. The two Venetian stools on each side of the desk are upholstered in Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Royal Ermine.\n\nAnother corner of the Green Room, near the entrance to the Drawing Room, includes a sofa designed by Tony for Doris Duke's Falcon Lair and Louis XV chairs upholstered in Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Gemstone fabric in lapis lazuli blue. Chinese glass cabinets on each side of the door display _Talismans of Power_. Opposite the cabinets are a Thai spirit house and Tony's original giant clam shell \u00e9tag\u00e8res holding cascading spider plants. The \u00e9tag\u00e8res were originally designed for the producer Arthur Freed to display Phalaenopsis orchids in. As a final touch, I created the coral branch, Lucite, and iron chandelier to hang above the newly expanded space.\n\nThe Green Room, 2018. By the window is an antique French desk with ormolu mounts that was painted for Tony Duquette by Scarlett Abbott in a malachite pattern. The desk holds bibelots including a stuffed cockatoo wearing a miniature Thai crown in a Lucite case.\n\nThe Green Room, 2018. The sofa was designed by Tony Duquette for Doris Duke's \"Falcon Lair\" in 1952, paired here with Louis XV chairs. I created the coral branch, Lucite, and iron chandelier for this space in 2005.\n\n## CHAPTER THREE\n\n## The Gardens\n\nThe Upper Terrace, 2018. Lunch alfresco is often served here. Antique copper columns recycled from Los Angeles streetlamps hold up the lattice ceiling, and birdcages, carved Indian elephants, and a collection of antique Chinese ceramic pots complete the decoration.\n\nThe original terrace located off the bedrooms at Fiddler's Ditch, 1949.\n\n### Upper Terrace\n\nThe gardens at Dawnridge are laid out on three levels. The 15-by-40-foot upper terrace is really an extension of the Green Room; here, when the weather is fair, lunches and dinners are served at a long table under the green lattice trellis which is supported by pillars made from recycled copper streetlights and hung with antique birdcages and cast-resin Chinese lanterns that glow at night. Among the plants in diverse vessels\u2014from antique Chinese ceramic pots to mundane black plastic containers, some direct from the nursery, others stenciled by Tony in gold with patterns of lace\u2014that line the terrace are Tony's giant clamshell \u00e9tag\u00e8res, antique Thai spirit houses elevated on metal army surplus stands, Indian birdhouses, and a 1930s store-display cabinet that holds a terra-cotta lion.\n\nBeegle and her brother Ronald Johnstone on the Upper Terrace, 1975. Ronald Johnstone was a respected art director in New York City. As a student at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, he worked for Tony on special projects at Bullock's Department Store. It was Ronnie who introduced his sister to Tony.\n\nThe Upper Terrace, c. 1980.\n\nStaircase leading down from the upper terrace to the middle terrace. In the 1980s, the staircase was flanked by two carved wooden deer from Thailand. These have since been replaced with two objects: a wire, resin, and glass pagoda made for Adrian in the 1940s and a giant iron and resin obelisk made by Tony for the Los Angeles Opera Guild production of _The Magic Flute_.\n\nThe Middle Terrace, 2018. Tables are set under the Tony Duquette crystal and mirror ball chandelier, which he created for the James Coburn residence in the 1970s.\n\n### Middle Terrace\n\nThe large 30-by-100-foot brick middle terrace is dotted with pavilions and shaded by pine and eucalyptus trees. This is where we stage large dinners, under the crystal chandelier that Tony created for the James Coburn residence in the 1970s. (I received the chandelier as a gift from the new owners after the house was sold.) Hidden here and there are carved wooden Indonesian statues of toads holding umbrellas, bronze Garuda birds from Thailand, and numerous Southeast Asian birdcages and spirit houses. Tony's monumental 28-foot-tall _Phoenix Rising From Its Flames_ sculpture\u2014the centerpiece of his one-man exhibition for Los Angeles's Armand Hammer Museum of Art in 1984\u2014is prominently featured at the end of the terrace. There are two pavilions: The Tree House, which is built between two pine trees, and an Asian-inspired structure made from found objects that leads to a shady platform overlooking the lake. At night, all of these structures, statues, and objects are artistically lit, creating a magical environment suitable for entertaining.\n\nThe Middle Terrace, 2018. The garden is dotted with intricate sculptures and carved statues. One of them\u2014a giant carved wooden elephant from India (previous)\u2014was too large to fit inside the warehouse, so it ended up in the garden.\n\nTony Duquette's 28-foot-tall sculpture, _Phoenix Rising From Its Flames_ , 1995.\n\nEntrance to the swimming pool, 1995. The iron obelisks, which originally stood at the entrance to Dawnridge in 1949, were placed in the garden next to eighteenth-century Chinese grape-root grotto chairs from the Hearst Collection.\n\nThe Middle Terrace, 2018. The swimming pool was eventually bricked in to create a dance floor. The area is surrounded by walls of carved Indonesian gates, and includes organic leaf chairs created by Tony in the 1960s for the Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel.\n\nThe swimming pool, c. 1978.\n\nIn the 1970s Tony and Beegle put a swimming pool at one end of the middle terrace. The entrance to the pool was flanked by iron obelisks that had originally stood sentry on each side of the front door of the house in 1949. Tony later covered the obelisks with abalone shells and moved them to the ballroom on Robertson Boulevard before bringing them back to Dawnridge. At the far end of the swimming pool, he placed a small bridge\u2014purchased at an army-navy sale\u2014that held a shrine made of Thai carvings topped with a conglomeration of a sunburst, a cast resin whale vertebrae, and caution reflectors normally used on freeways. All of this and more went into the creation of this unique architectural feature. After I purchased the home in 2000, I removed the pool, replacing it with a dance floor, but left the obelisks and the bridge. Tony surrounded the swimming pool, now the dance floor, with arches made from Indonesian carvings. Before the Duquette Collections sale at Christie's, a pair of eighteenth-century Chinese grape-root grotto chairs from the Hearst Collection sat on each side of the entrance to the swimming pool.\n\nThe garden is studded with Tony's original pagoda-shaped lamps, which he created with electrical fixtures\u2014purchased from an army-navy surplus store\u2014stacked one on top of the other. Used oil drums, which Tony had pierced with designs and intricately painted, serve as towers dramatically lit from within, and decorative tassels made from discarded electrical fixtures and painted gun shells hang from beams and cornices everywhere you look. The contents of a defunct skateboard factory\u2014a fortuitous find\u2014provided Tony with an enormous supply of orange-painted skateboard platforms stenciled with black flames. He used these painted elements to create friezes and cornices on many of the garden structures at Dawnridge. With Balinese umbrellas and eighteenth-century Chinese grotto furniture added to the mix, the style is indescribable!\n\nThe Middle Terrace, 1995. The pavilion serves as an archway onto a platform that hangs over the raven below.\n\nThe garden path leads to Casa La Condesa.\n\n### The Tree House\n\nThe pavilion at the far end of the middle terrace from the pool is called the Tree House, as it is situated between two pine trees. I've had to rebuild it twice, using the same architectural elements originally chosen by Tony. The only items that constantly change in this space are the chandelier, the tablecloths, and the chairs; otherwise, the Tree House remains the same cool, shaded refuge conceived by Tony and Beegle for dining alfresco.\n\nThe Tree House, 2018. This space is used for lunch and dinner all summer long. The grape-root and glass table is draped in Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Golden Sunburst fabric, and is surrounded by chairs designed by Tony and upholstered in malachite-printed cotton.\n\nThe Tree House, 2005. I installed Tony's Splashing Water chandelier and sconce for Remains Lighting. The table is set with Thai covered dishes and abalone shells on antique Chinese porcelains.\n\nThe Tree House, c. 1980s. Tony originally installed a pagoda chandelier, but would later move it to his Malibu ranch where it was destroyed during the fire in 1993.\n\nOutside of the Tree House, c. 1980.\n\nBromeliads, pagodas, and Tony Duquette Phoenix sculptures decorate the garden on the middle terrace, 2018.\n\nThe Garden Room, c. 1980. Although Tony never used the room as his office, he filled it with his favorite possessions, including his French desk, eighteenth-century apothecary boxes, Chippendale Chinese chairs, and oversize red-lacquer pagodas.\n\n### The Garden Room\n\nThe Garden Room, across the terrace from the Tree House, was built by Tony as an office, but it was merely an excuse for him to decorate a room with some of his favorite things, such as his Louis XV black-lacquered and ormolu-mounted French desk, his collection of eighteenth-century apothecary boxes, a pair of antique Chippendale Chinese chairs, and an oversized pair of red lacquer pagodas. He never used this room\u2014not even once. It was built around the brick fireplace of New Dawnridge, the only part of the destroyed house left standing after the fire. In 1995, he redecorated his garden office adding a pair of his original Phoenix sculptures and a pair of modern Snow Flake screens that he constructed using plastic fast-food baskets, the kind that hamburgers are often served in. Tony had his collection of antique beaded Chinese tassels petrified in resin, and placed a few of them in the office and lit them from behind. I've always thought the Garden Room was haunted by the ghost of the corpse found in the ruins after the fire at New Dawnridge, but if there is a ghost, she is benevolent, as the room is a calm and restful space and a beautifully cool place to relax on a hot summer day. Also, in the event of an overflow party crowd, the newly christened garden room gives us an additional area to set up dining tables.\n\nLooking into the Garden Room from the middle terrace, c. 1980. The entrance is flanked with antique Thai roof ends, Balinese parasols, Chinese pots, and a bronze Garuda bird.\n\nChat Thai, c. 1980, with its Thai roof ends, Gothic spires, and gables made of plastic materials used in the late 1970s to separate computer wires under office building floors, was used as a guest house down in the ravine at Dawnridge.\n\nThe three-tiered pagoda was used for outdoor dining by the Duquettes and their friends.\n\nTony on the roof terrace at Chat-Thai, c. 1980.\n\nThe white _Winter Sun_ and red _Summer Sun_ sculptures by Tony Duquette are situated in the ravine between the Chat Thai and Beeglesville.\n\n### Chat-Thai\n\nChat-Thai is the whimsical name of the Thai-style guest house that Tony built on the garden's lower level, in the ravine. Because it was a Thai house, to which Tony added Gothic spires and other architectural fragments\u2014and because our dear friend Patty Graham, who had also lived in France and whom we called \"the cat lady,\" lived there\u2014the house was christened Chat-Thai instead of _chateau_. The name was our double entendre for _Thai cat_ in French. The two-story house, with one large high-ceilinged room upstairs and an eat-in kitchen, bedroom, and bath downstairs, was linked to the middle terrace by a causeway known as the Bridge of Sighs. There was also a long ramp, called the Freeway, that descended from the house's second-floor balcony into the ravine. Every night, Patty would smooth out the sand beneath her bedroom window, and in the morning, she'd check for paw prints to see what critters came to visit in the night. In those days, there were many deer, rabbits, chipmunks, and raccoons living in the ravine, but with all of the construction in the neighborhood over the past twenty-five years, that is no longer the case. A few months after Ruth and I purchased Dawnridge in 2000, there were eight days of rain and a little puff of wind. The storm caused one tree to fall down, hitting another tree, and then another . . . like dominoes, until eight large trees fell and smashed Chat-Thai into firewood. The house was completely destroyed, but I was able to save the old red lacquer Thai roof ends to use on future constructions.\n\nThe Folly, c. 2000. After Chat-Thai was destroyed by falling trees, I built the lake at the bottom of the ravine and constructed a temple made of Indian carvings on the foundation of the old house.\n\nA detail of the iron spiral staircase leading up to the second-floor balcony, c. 2000.\n\nThe destruction of Chat-Thai gave me the opportunity to create a lake at Dawnridge\u2014something I had wanted to do since I first saw the property in 1972. One day, shortly after the lake was completed, while driving down Melrose Avenue, I saw the most amazing boat in a shop window. I slammed on the brakes, parked, and went inside, telling the proprietor, \"I'll take that boat.\" After I purchased it I asked, \"What is it?\" He told me, \"It's a Vietnamese wedding boat.\" I brought it home, painted it red and green, placed a carved lotus flower on its roof as a finial, and added two of the old Thai roof ends from the recently destroyed Chat-Thai, front and back, and launched it on the water. The boat immediately flipped over, and I realized it had not been built for the water; and probably came from the buffet table of the Siam Hilton. Its un-seaworthiness caused me to mount my diminutive yacht in a metal saddle, fixing it in place like the ornament it always was.\n\nThe folly on the shore of the lake, which I call the Temple, is nothing more than a stage set\u2014four feet deep\u2014with a wide deck for musicians and dancers to perform upon at parties. Chat-Thai was gone, and a viewpoint was needed. In my warehouse were three coral-colored arches that I'd purchased in India. I realized that they were carved on both sides, so I split them down the middle, making six arches, enough for the upstairs and downstairs of the temple. I also had eight copper spires for minarets, and purchased from India, I culled my collection of carved Indian screens and copper finials to create the balustrade. I decorated the iron spiral staircase with the leftover tops of the screens.\n\nThe sitting room, c. 2000. Tony stacked the eighteenth-century carved Chinese mirrors to create an elongated panel between the bookcases.\n\n### Beeglesville\n\nBeegle's painting studio, which we called Beeglesville, was also in the ravine. This was where Beegle painted the ethereal paintings\u2014oil on canvas and acrylic on board\u2014that delighted her friends and collectors. Beeglesville is a Chinese-style house with pagoda roofs salvaged from a Buddhist temple Tony liberated from the old Warner Ranch, where _Robin Hood_ and other epic Hollywood films were shot. The exterior was painted in jewel tones of jade green and coral, but it was the interior that was most distinctive. On the ground floor, there was an entrance hall with a ceiling decorated with panels made from gold plastic catering trays and mirrors. The hall also held an intricately carved antique Chinese opium bed, decked out with silk brocades and embroideries, along with Chinese lanterns for good measure. The floors throughout the house were layered with antique oriental carpets on top of a jade-green, wall-to-wall, flat-weave rug. A long Louis XV bench covered in leopard skin acts as a step up to the cozy pillowed and tasseled sitting area. This large room was outfitted with bookcases and Chinese giltwood mirrors carved with representations of Portuguese sailors, and furnished with sofas upholstered in Imperial yellow damask. The d\u00e9cor combined blue-and-white porcelain, taxidermy birds of paradise under glass, and eighteenth-century Vizagapatam ivory objects. An elegant antique French wrought-iron railing led visitors upstairs to the large painting studio, which was stacked to the ceiling with Beegle's canvases in various stages of completion. Here, sturdy English Regency tables, Victorian cane-work chairs, and brass-shaded bouillotte lamps set the mood. The bedroom, which was never used for sleeping, held a fourteenth-century Italian canopied bed from the collection of the Baroness d'Erlanger, which sat in the middle of piles of books that blocked admission to all but the most intrepid.\n\nThe entrance hall, c. 1980. The hall contained a pillowed and tasseled sitting area, complete with a carved antique Chinese opium bed covered in silk brocades and embroideries.\n\nThe sitting room, c. 1980. Tony set a taxidermized bird of paradise in a glass case, his poor man's version of the diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald creation he had seen in the house of his friend the Maharani of Cooch Behar. Tony's abalone chandelier, which now hangs from the balcony's ceiling at Dawnridge, was originally created for his one-man exhibition at LACMA where it was purchased by his client Mary Gross, and later repurchased by Tony to decorate Beeglesville.\n\nThe north end of the entrance hall gallery, 2018. The black lacquer and gold Chinese screens conceal our home office on the left directly across from the library on the right. The pagodas on stands are by Tony Duquette; the light fixture is a Tony Duquette \"California Sunburst\" for Remains Lighting.\n\n## CHAPTER FOUR\n\n## THE CASAS\n\n### CASA LA CONDESA\n\nIn 2011, Ruth and I moved into the house that we designed and built on an empty lot next door to Dawnridge. Unlike the other lots on the street, where the land had been graded to make room for tennis courts and swimming pools, ours, just like Tony and Elizabeth's before us, was not much more than Fiddler's Ditch. Our dream was to have a house with southern exposure, at least one high-ceilinged room, three bedrooms, and three bathrooms. We struggled with the lot; we considered building two pavilions connected by a bridge over the ravine and other ideas that ultimately didn't excite us. Finally, after many unacceptable go-rounds, we discussed our plight with our friends Kacey and Peter McCoy over dinner. Peter, who's considered the best builder in Los Angeles, came up with a simple solution: \"Go downstairs to the drawing room. Use the ravine to its best advantage.\" With those words of wisdom, the entire project instantly fell into place. I drew exactly what I wanted and handed my scale drawings to Sid Drasnin, a noted Los Angeles architect who'd been a young draftsman in my grandfather's architectural office. Sid was then in his eighties, but he ran with my ideas and drew my plans so that they could actually be built. What emerged was Casa La Condesa, named for Ruth, the Spanish Countess of Alastaya.\n\nThe house has a formal entrance\u2014accessed through eighteenth-century Spanish gates\u2014that's suitable for gala parties. As guests climb a short flight of red-carpeted steps into the garden, they're able to see festivities happening within. To the left is a treillage pavilion, which on occasion holds an orchestra, and to the right, the red carpet leads across a causeway to a door that opens onto the interior stairs. The doorway is framed by palm trees that Don Loper designed for the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. We purchased these iconic 1940s architectural elements when the hotel was redecorated by its new owner, the Sultan of Brunei.\n\nOur daily entrance, which is used constantly and requires no fanfare other than the ringing of a bell, is reached from the street through a gated courtyard and opens into the entrance hall. The front doors are tall sheets of glass studded with eighteenth-century Venetian bronze blackamoor door pulls; I even added my own bronze sunburst escutcheons, specially made to enhance them.\n\nThe fa\u00e7ade of Casa La Condesa, 2018. I created the gates using iron window frames from an old Spanish house and added Napoleonic French iron decorations and door pulls from Syria. The windows above the entrance door\u2014with their nailed Moroccan grillwork shutters\u2014echo the windows on the front of Cow Hollow, the Duquettes' house in San Francisco.\n\nThe entrance hall, 2018. The walls are paneled with carved teakwood screens in a traditional Chinese snowflake pattern and lined with mirror. An eighteenth-century miniature Lacca Povera Venetian desk is featured prominently in the hall.\n\nPowder room, 2018. The powder room is located behind one of the teakwood and mirror jib doors in the hall, and paneled with slabs of Brazilian amethyst. Tony's abalone-and-amethyst-encrusted chandelier, c. 1960s, hangs from above.\n\n### The Entrance Hall\n\nFor years, Tony and I had discussed making a room in black, coral, and gold, but we never did. One day, I suddenly realized that I had done just that\u2014subconsciously\u2014and I smiled. The floors are polished black granite, and the color scheme throughout the house is predominantly black, coral, and gold.\n\nThe walls of the entrance hall are paneled with carved teak-wood grills, which act as jib doors. Behind one of these secret doors is a powder room paneled with slabs of Brazilian amethyst. Here hand-tinted nineteenth-century prints of the Brighton Pavilion are displayed, as well as another view of Brighton embroidered in black silk on white satin; there is also a panel of cut velvet Chinese tribute silk on the back of the door. The jewel, however, is Tony's abalone-and-amethyst-encrusted chandelier, circa 1950, which hangs from a silver-gilt sunburst on the ceiling. The other jib door leads to an elevator hall and coat closet.\n\nAcross from these hidden doors is the entrance to the dining room. I don't like looking into a dining room the minute you walk through the front door, but sometimes it can't be avoided. In the case of Casa La Condesa, I solved the problem with a pair of sliding grillwork doors that disappear into the wall. I then backed the grills with a two-way mirror so that people entering the house can't look into the dining room and see the table _en fete_ . . . but whoever is inside the room can look out. The entrance hall features a Tony Duquette for Remains Lighting California Sunburst chandelier; also a miniature eighteenth-century Venetian Lacca Povera desk, placed on a dais; a pair of Chinese vases on lighted stands; and a little skeletal Italian saint who warns people to watch their step to avoid tripping up into the stair hall. Opposite the entrance to the library is an antique chinoiserie lacquered screen mounted as pocket doors, which open to reveal our home office. On either side are white Tony Duquette pagoda lamps presented on tall octagonal bamboo stands.\n\nOne of a pair of antique Chippendale Chinese mirrors hangs over one of the two ebonized Victorian console tables on either side of the stair wall.\n\n### The Stair Hall\n\nThe stair hall\u2014with its twenty-foot-high window looking out over Dawnridge's gardens, the infinity-edged swimming pool, and the lake with its enchanting Vietnamese boat below\u2014is adjacent to the entrance hall. From here, if you are arriving at a party, you can look down into the Drawing Room and see the guests and what they're wearing before descending the staircase and making an entrance. It's also from this vantage point that you can look across the drawing room and see into the library on the left and the dining room on the right. Otherwise, if you choose, you may look over the stair railing down to the dolphin table or up to the cascading chandeliers that hang one after another, repeating five times for three stories. At each end of the hallway is a console table, which I created by cutting an ebonized Victorian center table in half, mounted on a black lacquered stand. The antique gilded Chippendale Chinese mirrors hanging above were painted white by a previous owner; the Chinese cache pots in a celery pattern are part of our extensive collection of export porcelain.\n\nFrom the hallway, guests can look over the balcony to the drawing room to see who's there and what they're wearing before going down to the party and making an entrance.\n\nI have hung the library with ancestral portraits and family heirlooms from the Spanish Counts of Alastaya. Our portraits hanging on each side of the stairs are by Juan Fernando Bastos. These were commissioned after His Majesty, King Juan Carlos of Spain, recognized me as the hereditary Count of Alastaya, a noble title passed down through my mother's family since 1760.\n\n### The Library\n\nThe library looks directly across the drawing room to the dining room, and the ceiling spans all three rooms\u2014without any crown molding breaking up the space\u2014giving it the feeling that it's a one-room house. The walls of the library were painted coral, and the ceiling, like the rest of the street-level rooms, a soft amethyst. We had originally planned to fill the room with books, but I later changed my mind and displayed a collection of Spanish colonial paintings inherited from my family. My Spanish ancestor, Don Gonzalo Nieto Principe, came to the New World in 1635 as the perpetual governor of Potos\u00ed, a town in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia. At the time, Potos\u00ed was the richest city on Earth, thanks to its silver mines, and larger than Paris or London. My South American family didn't move away until 1928, when my mother and her brothers came to Los Angeles. All of my South American treasures came from the various haciendas\u2014a total of ten\u2014that my family owned in Bolivia and Peru.\n\nWe added a sofa that was designed in the 1950s for Doris Duke and eighteenth-century Venetian chairs in patchwork suede. The cocktail table is made of petrified wood slices and topped with a petrified tortoise surmounted by an articulated vermeil lobster on a Lucite stand. The carpet is an antique Chinese picture rug; the curtains are made with Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Asia Major woven silk. In the left corner, the bookcase holds an eighteenth-century Spanish colonial statue of St. Joseph dressed in a silver repousse costume. The painting hanging above depicts my ancestor, the second Conde de Alastaya, and his wife praying like crazy that they won't go to hell. In the opposite corner, a number of my South American treasures are displayed: Spanish colonial columns holding figures of archangels dressed as conquistadors, a seventeenth-century Venetian traveling desk with a red lacquered chinoiserie painted interior, photographs of my family, antique ivory Chinese pagodas, an antique ivory tower from India, and a twentieth-century Chinese bone horseman.\n\nView from the library over the drawing room and into the dining room beyond. The sofa, positioned between the two bookcases, was designed by Tony Duquette for Doris Duke in the 1950s and is paired with eighteenth-century Venetian chairs and a cocktail table made of petrified wood with a gilded articulated Japanese lobster atop a petrified tortoise shell as decoration. Hanging above both bookcases are more ancestral portraits and heirlooms.\n\nThe library, 2018. Framing the fireplace alcove are two eighteenth-century Venetian dolphins from the collection of Misia Sert, and hanging directly above the hearth is my family coat of arms, as well as a portrait of King Carlos III of Spain.\n\nThe fireplace alcove is made of sandblasted travertine and holds two eighteenth-century Venetian dolphins from the collection of Misia Sert. Above the hearth hangs the original eighteenth-century rendering of my family's coat of arms, created in Spain in 1769 for the Counts of Alastaya. Below that is an accompanying portrait of King Carlos III of Spain holding a document in his hand that reads, \"To my friend, The Count of Alastaya.\" In 2008, King Juan Carlos of Spain bestowed the hereditary Spanish titles Conde y Condesa de Alastaya to my wife and myself.\n\n### The Dining Room\n\nAlso located off the entrance hall is the dining room, which is centered by a large oval glass-topped table, the base of which I created by placing two of the palm tree capitals from the Beverly Hills Hotel together, back-to-back. The chairs are eighteenth-century Venetian in a coral lacquer and gold finish, upholstered with Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Asia Major in coral silk. The walls are painted in coral, with the indented areas in gold leaf. The late seventeenth-century Venetian paintings hanging in the room are part of a series of eight; the other six are in the Drawing Room. The ceiling fixture is a Tony Duquette for Remains Lighting cast-resin sunburst placed over a recessed light. A monumental twelve-panel, eighteenth-century Coromandel screen was purchased from the venerable Los Angeles antiques dealer Joel Chen, and then split apart into groups of three to be placed in the four corners of the room. A swing door opens into a black lacquer and mirrored butler's pantry, which leads into a large kitchen, paneled in white oak and decorated with blue-and-white Chinese porcelains.\n\nThe dining room, 2018. The glass-topped dining table was created by putting two gold palm tree capitals from the Beverly Hills Hotel lobby together to form a pedestal. Surrounding the table are eighteenth-century Venetian coral lacquer dining chairs.\n\nThe dining table, 2018. The palm tree centerpiece is by Codognato and paired with silver obelisk form salt and pepper cellars made by Tony Duquette for Dawnridge, rock crystal obelisks, and gilded carvings of Indian potentates riding elephants. The table is set with antique Coalport china, French silverware, and Venetian glass and old Baccarat crystal goblets.\n\nThe dining room, 2018. The console table was also made with one of the gold palm tree capitals from the Beverly Hills Hotel lobby, and holds an assortment of objects, including a collection of antique Chinese lacquered coral branches from the collection of Elsie de Wolfe.\n\nThe table is set with vermeil chargers, antique Coalport china, Gorham Mythologique silver flatware, and Baccarat crystal. The centerpiece\u2014depicting Egyptians and a pond studded with lapis lazuli scarabs and a large gilded palm tree in the center\u2014was made along with the other eight candlesticks by the vaunted Venetian jeweler Codognato. I added the rock-crystal obelisks, Tony's original salt and pepper shakers in the form of obelisks, and a group of gold-leafed Indian potentates on elephants to better evoke the exotic mysteries of the East.\n\nThe gold-leafed alcove includes two of the eight seventeenth-century paintings of Venice by Heinze. The console table was also made using one of the palm tree capitals originally in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and it now holds a collection of antique Chinese lacquered coral branches, a gilded nef on a persimmon lacquer Japanese table, and antique gold rats from Japan. Tony told me that in Japan, if you're rich enough to leave crumbs on the table for rats to eat, then you're considered really rich.\n\nThe drawing room, 2018. The stairs leading to the drawing room end on a raised platform with a small table and sitting area for intimate dining. The trunks of the famous Beverly Hills Hotel palm trees act as decorative moldings.\n\n### The Drawing Room\n\nDescending the staircase, you pass beneath fantasy murals of Venice painted by Los Angeles artist Scarlett Abbott. I asked Scarlett to make them \"a little bit De Chirico,\" and she did. I told the contractor that the staircase should look \"like a sculpture, no matter what it cost,\" so the entire construction of the stairs was engineered and built as if it were a musical instrument. The railing, which I designed, took four different companies to complete\u2014the iron mongers dropped like flies trying to get it right.\n\nThe stairs end on a raised platform with a seating area for intimate dinners and room for a folding bar. There is also a banquette under the stairs, reserved for seduction. A door on the left leads to a powder room, which doubles as a bathroom for the swimming pool. The door on the right leads to a catering kitchen that allows us to serve parties all the way out to the gardens at Dawnridge.\n\nStepping down into the drawing room, the stairs are flanked by a pair of enormous seven-foot-tall narwhal tusks, a gift from the fashion designer Gustave Tassell. The walls are painted coral, and the indents that hold the Venetian paintings have been gold-leafed. There are two seating arrangements using sofas designed by Tony for Doris Duke, paired with eighteenth-century French fauteuils that have a whitewashed finish and are upholstered in Tony Duquette for Jim Thompson Royal Ermine. The other four antique French armchairs are upholstered in silk velvet, resembling tiger skin, woven in Lyon, France, on looms created for Marie Antoinette. Tony purchased a bolt of this extraordinarily rich fabric on a trip to Lyon with Hubert de Givenchy. Tony always kept the bolt of fabric in a vault for future use. \"It's my money in the bank,\" he said, and it was always too good for him to use. The minute he died, I upholstered everything I could lay my hands on with that fabulous fabric.\n\nThe drawing room, 2018. The space includes two symmetrical seating arrangements, with sofas designed by Tony, circa 1950s, and eighteenth-century French chairs. The late seventeenth-century paintings by Heintz are from the collection of the Baroness d'Erlanger and hang on gold-leafed walls.\n\nThe coffee tables, which I created, are inset with eighteenth-century panels of imperial yellow Chinese brocade woven with five-clawed dragons. The four corners of the room are dominated by two pairs of eighteenth-century Venetian blackamoor statues. These seven-and-a-half-foot-tall statues were purchased for my clients John and Dodie Rosekrans. It took four men to move them into their Tiepolo drawing room at the Palazzo Brandolini on the Grand Canal in Venice. I originally bought only two, but when I took them back to the palazzo, I realized that they were both left-handed. I called the dealer and asked, \"Are there any more? These are both left-handed.\" She checked with the prince at Palazzo Balbi, and he said, \"Yes, there were four. I gave two to my sister and kept two for myself.\" Well, the prince had broken the pair! Fortunately, the dealer was able to get the other two from the sister. After Dodie passed away, I purchased all four from her family and now they are happily ensconced at Casa La Condesa. Truth be told, the room was designed around my collection of Venetian paintings and my dream of eventually getting these blackamoors. I believe in creative visualization; it has worked for me not just where blackamoors are concerned, but in every aspect of my life.\n\n### The Staircase\n\nClimbing the elliptical staircase from the Drawing Room, you pass under the two-story family tree of the Counts of Alastaya, which was painted on the wall by Scarlett Abbott to my specifications. The mural traces the lineage of my noble and illustrious ancestors from 1769 to the present. I don't feel any family tree is complete without the addition of monkeys, rodents, lizards, and at least one hornet's nest, so I made sure these were all included in the finished mural. Reaching the top of the stairs, you arrive at a wide landing that doubles as a twelve-foot-tall library in emerald-green lacquer. In the corner is one of my favorite Victorian chairs. Standing at the railing you can look out the window and see a straight-on view of the rose garden and gazebo to the north. There is a large oval skylight that mirrors the shape of the staircase below; hanging from its center, through a silver-gilt sunburst, are five matching chandeliers that cascade down, one after the other, for three stories.\n\nThe staircase, 2018. Artist Scarlett Abbott painted the Giorgio de Chirico-esque mural that spans three stories, and includes the family tree of the Counts of Alastaya.\n\nThe stair landing, 2018. The third-floor stair landing has become a green lacquer library, and features the magnificent chandelier that cascades down to the drawing room.\n\nVestibule, 2018. One of the two vestibules painted by Scarlott Abbott.\n\n### The Vestibules\n\nThere are two doors that lead to small vestibules\u2014painted with fretwork by Scarlett Abbott\u2014which open into three bedrooms, with attached bathrooms and dressing rooms. Ruth and I use one bedroom to sleep in, and we each get a bedroom and dressing room to make a mess in. Ruth's sitting room is more organized than mine; hers is always neat and very pretty. Mine is always a mess of magazines, dogs, and scraps of paper. What more can I say?\n\n### Hutton's Sitting Room\n\nI chose the bedroom to the right of the vestibule for my sitting room. This is where I can make a mess (which is what I usually do), watch television, and take a nap when necessary. My room is carpeted wall-to-wall in zebra stripes, and the ceiling is gold-leafed. The draperies are natural linen shot with gold Lurex; they cover sliding glass doors that open onto terraces on both sides of the room.\n\nI paneled the room with book-matched mahogany and installed my prized prints of Yuanming Yuan, the pleasure palace designed by Giuseppe de Castiglione for the Chinese emperor Qianlong. Castiglione, an Italian Jesuit priest, told the emperor about Versailles, and the old boy\u2014as emperors are wont to do\u2014decided that he wanted one just like it! During the Second Opium War in 1860, the incredible palace was partly destroyed by the English, French, American, and German armies under the command of Lord Elgin. Whatever was left\u2014and it was a lot\u2014was totally obliterated by the Western armies as a punishment for the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The destruction of this Chinese cultural treasure is considered one of the greatest acts of vandalism of the first half of the twentieth century.\n\nSitting room, 2018. My sitting room is paneled with a collection of twenty prints depicting my favorite seventeenth-century Chinese palace Yuanming Yuan.\n\nMy Art Deco-inspired black marble bathroom, 2018. The walls are upholstered in faux crocodile and hung with my collection of verre \u00e9glomis\u00e9 Chinese reverse paintings on glass to mimic Elsie de Wolfe's own bathroom at Villa Trianon. The carpet is Chinese imperial, and the fixtures are gold nuggets made by P.E. Guerin, which is something I wanted since I was eighteen.\n\nOn his first trip to Paris in 1947, Tony visited Misia Sert, and she shared the legend of this half-French, half-Chinese palace\u2014she famously owned bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit that had been pillaged from one of its fountains\u2014which he later told me. Many years later, while walking in the Place des Vosges, we stopped in our tracks, riveted by an art gallery window. \"Look, Tony,\" I hollered with excitement. \"It's what we've always been looking for\u2014that Chinese palace you're always telling me about!\" We went inside and discovered that it was not an art gallery, but a book publisher called Le Jardin de Flore. When Emperor Qianlong completed his palace, he'd commissioned twenty of the finest engravings on the finest paper and created a folio to send to all the crowned heads of Europe to prove he was not a barbarian. There are only three of the original folios left in the world\u2014one at the Louvre, one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and one in a private collection. Le Jardin de Flore published a facsimile in an edition of two hundred at $200 each. That was a very expensive book in the 1970s, but we splurged and purchased two copies\u2014one for me and Ruth, which we immediately framed and hung in our dining room in Hollywood, and one for the Duquettes. Tony never opened his, and after his death, Dodie Rosekrans bought it for $17,000 at the Christie's sale. After Dodie's death, the book sold in her Sotheby's auction for $20,000. I've never visited the ruins of Yuanming Yuan near Peking, the remains of one of the only examples of reverse chinoiserie in the world, but I'm still obsessed with it.\n\n### Ruth's Sitting Room\n\nRuth's sitting room is much grander than mine. Besides the fact that it has its own fireplace, the room is entirely muraled with images by Elizabeth Duquette. We purchased the two paintings hanging on the mirror over the fireplace at auction, and I decided to have them blown up ten feet tall to create the murals. It was only later that I realized these diminutive paintings were studies for the murals Beegle created for the Twentieth Century Fox film _Goodbye Charlie_. I knew the actual murals well, as I had sold the 15-foot-tall originals to the late Leona Helmsley for her house in Arizona.\n\nMy other triumphant adaptation was the fireplace. I needed a 4-foot-wide marble fireplace and couldn't find one for love nor money. Finally, I found a charming trumeau mirror and realized that if I cut off the bottom it would become a perfect Georgian fireplace, so that's what I did. A collection of Meissen porcelain powder boxes decorates the top of the mantel. The eighteenth-century Louis XVI _lit \u00e0 la Polonaise_ was the first piece of furniture Ruth ever purchased; it was from the collection of actress Ina Claire, who purchased it from Elsie de Wolfe. Ina told us that she had based her character Grand Duchess Swana in the movie _Ninotchka_ on her pal Elsie de Wolfe. There are lots of pretty things in this room, not least of which are the pair of eighteenth-century Venetian blue lacquer armchairs from the collection of Adrian, the three tiny eighteenth-century children's chairs, and the water drop chandelier, circa 1960, by Tony. This is the place where Ruth hangs out with our two West Highland White Terriers, Piper Dundee and Kippy of the Cavendish.\n\nRuth's bathroom is a symphony of green Persian marble reflected in three mirrored walls. Scarlett Abbott painted the crown moldings and the back of the door to match this marble, and she also decorated the cabinets on each side of the bathtub with elaborate scenes. Across the top of the doors and sides, she depicted the four seasons as separate bouquets of flowers, and under these she painted four continents: America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. America is represented by a painting of our former Georgian house in Hollywood; Asia by the Taj Mahal; Europe by our beloved St. Mark's Square; and Africa by the Temple of the Winds, which we visited in Tunisia. These designs are subordinate to the main thrust: portraits of our four puppies, two on each cabinet. Jip, our first, is no longer with us; his brother Argyle, our second, is also deceased; and Piper Dundee and his sister Kippy of the Cavendish. Between the portraits are their coats of arms, featuring dog bones and Scottish plaid. The inside panels are painted with the Cavendish coat of arms\u2014heralding _Bonefide_ \u2014and the Dundee coat of arms with the inscription _Barke Dieum_. Completing the iconographic program, also painted by Scarlett, are vignettes of many of Ruth's favorite things, including Venetian glass vases, an eighteenth-century beaded pomandore, her bottle of Poiret Nuit de Chine perfume, and a carved malachite bear. Scarlett also decorated the vanity with Ruth's cipher and representations of Neptune and Venus in decorative oval plaques.\n\nSitting room, 2018. Ruth's sitting room includes murals created from enlarged photographs of Elizabeth Duquette's original paintings, two eighteenth-century blue lacquer Venetian chairs from the designer Adrian, and an eighteenth-century Louis XVI lit \u00e0 la polonaise.\n\nRuth's Persian green marble bathroom is mirrored on three sides, and features painted cabinets and murals by Scarlett Abbott.\n\n### The Master Bedroom\n\nThe master bedroom sits between our dressing rooms and sports hand-painted wallpaper that was created for us in India to resemble the Gardens of Shalimar, replete with exotic birds and flowers. The two Louis XVI\u2013style chests were also made for us in India and are covered with repouss\u00e9 metal that has been gold- and silver-plated. The two chinoiserie mirrors are from the 1960s, and the antique _lac burgaut\u00e9_ mother of pearl inlaid cabinets on both sides of the bed are Korean and were purchased from the Doris Duke estate sale. The bedspread is composed of antique Chinese embroideries that have been cut out and reapplied on quilted satin. The armchairs are by Billy Baldwin in their original emerald-green velvet. The bronze doorknobs in the form of hands were purchased on our first trip to Venice in 1977; we stored them until we finally had just the right house to use them.\n\nMaster bedroom, 2018. I had the wallpaper hand-painted on silk to my specifications to portray murals inspired by the Gardens of Shalimar. The bedspread was created from antique Chinese embroideries that were cut out and appliqu\u00e9d onto quilted satin.\n\nThe pavilion, 2018. The structure was made to hold an onion dome from the 1959 MGM film _The Gazebo_ , and was constructed entirely out of wrought iron, except for the dome. I found the iron caryatid columns in a pile at Tony's ranch and designed the pavilion around them.\n\n### Gardens and Terraces\n\nWhile Casa La Condesa was under construction, we purchased the property next door, a double lot that gave us another garden to the north and a three-bedroom guest house. Connecting Casa La Condesa to the new garden proved to be a challenge. The elevation of the garden was higher than the house, and there was a gully between them. Our friend Juan Prieto, who was visiting from Boston, stepped in and suggested that we build a causeway between the garden and stair landing. This was a simple solution that conjured up visions of one of my favorite places in India: Akbar's Tomb. In that wonderfully exotic place, one can look down from causeways onto a Mughul garden where giant stars are bordered in marble. In the days of Shalimar, those marble-bordered stars would have held fragrant roses and other flowering plants. The experience at Casa La Condesa is similar, although the marble-framed stars seem to have eluded us.\n\nThe rose garden is now a second ceremonial entrance for events at the house. The pavilion was constructed using an onion dome from the 1959 MGM film _The Gazebo_ , starring Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds. I created the columned metal frame using antique cast-iron caryatid columns, which I found in a pile of architectural fragments at Tony's Malibu ranch.\n\nThe pool terrace, 2018. The terrace features two jacaranda trees alongside coral-colored grotto chairs molded in cast resin from the eighteenth-century originals, which were part of the Hearst Collection.\n\nLunch on the terrace is set up using malachite and lapis lazuli-painted Limoges and Baccarat crystal.\n\nMeanwhile, a narrow strip of land to the south of the house holds the swimming pool terrace, consisting of a paved deck with two planters holding jacaranda trees and jasmine. The coral-colored grotto chairs were molded in cast resin from the eighteenth-century originals Tony purchased from the Hearst Collection in the 1950s. There are also raised planters on both sides of the black granite landing near the Drawing Room doors, filled with giant bird-of-paradise, jasmine, and bronze-colored flax. Another raised planter running under the lattice-covered retaining wall contains more giant bird-of-paradise, blue agave, jade trees, and jasmine; the antique Chinese pots surrounding the infinity pool and lining the terrace hold agapanthus, geranium, flax, and ficus trees. On festive occasions, glowing Indian lanterns hang from the trees, while Moroccan lanterns line the pool and the red carpeted stairs leading down from the Drawing Room. We often invite friends over for cocktails at our house, and then lead them past the swimming pool and into the Dawnridge garden next door for dinner followed by dancing upstairs in the original Duquette house. But sometimes we reverse the process and have cocktails at Dawnridge, then proceed down to the garden for dinner and over to Casa La Condesa for dancing, just to break up the monotony.\n\n### CASA DEL CONDE\n\nForty years ago, Tony told me that there was a house up the street that had eighteenth-century French boiseries installed in the dining room; the owner turned out to be an Italian gentleman, Ambassador Conti. One day, I was driving to a decorating job in Santa Barbara when my cell phone rang. It was my real estate agent, Nandu Hinds, calling to tell me that the house had just been put on the market. My immediate response was, \"Buy it.\" \"What do you mean?\" she asked me. I said, \"Buy it. Offer them full price, all cash, no contingencies, and no exceptions.\" She did, and the offer was immediately accepted. I was leaving for Europe three days later, so told Nandu, \"I'd really like to see what I bought before I leave town.\"\n\nAn appointment was made for the day before my departure, and Ruth and I saw for the first time what we were getting. It was a charming south-of-France style house in white stucco, which lent itself beautifully to antique French furniture and decoration. In fact, there was eighteenth-century French paneling in the dining room, so Tony's story from so many years ago was accurate. There were three bedrooms and bathrooms and an expansive garden, which we immediately decided to annex onto the still-under-construction Casa La Condesa next door. Dawnridge had become an interesting compound of three united properties, and Casa del Conde would serve as the guest house. After several years, I decided it was time to make the most of what we had at Casa del Conde, and we added a courtyard entrance and a garage.\n\nI consider the courtyard entrance to the house as its own room. For me, this area\u2014with its glamorous oval swimming pool and flickering gas light illumination\u2014is for all intents and purposes the entrance hall.\n\nEntrance hall, 2018. The courtyard was created by constructing a new garage in front and building an oval Jack Wolfe-inspired pool in the center. It's a cool, shady place to relax. The north and south terraces, which are more private, are reserved for sunbathing. The area is decorated with iron furniture from Italy, framed mirrors, and Art Deco sculptures of sea horses in white plaster.\n\n### The Entrance Hall\n\nI consider the new courtyard, with its oval-shaped pool and water-spouting dolphin, to be the entrance hall of the house. This elegant outdoor room is decorated with framed mirrors, panels of antique Portuguese _azulejos_ , Art Deco seahorses, and an iron chandelier hanging from a tree near the front doors. There are tables and chairs, chaise longues and marble-topped side tables\u2014enough furniture to comfortably entertain a large group of friends. The rooms that can be accessed off the courtyard include a large family room, a mud room leading to the kitchen, and the actual entrance hall. Glass front doors lead directly into the drawing room through a Coromandel-paneled vestibule.\n\nA pair of carved wood statues depicting Thai dancers on stands preside over the two corners of the hall.\n\n### The Drawing Room\n\nThe large drawing room is separated from the Coromandel vestibule by mid-century metal screens featuring fleur-de-lis decorations that I found in Tony's collection of architectural fragments at his Malibu ranch. The ivory-and-blue-colored Coromandel panels on either side of the fireplace are antiques purchased in Paris from C. T. Loo, the venerable Chinese dealer off the Boulevard Haussmann. Inspired by Elsie de Wolfe's famous ivory Coromandel screen, I commissioned Scarlett Abbott to paint an antique screen from my collection to match the ivory-and-blue panels in the living room. The fireplace is surmounted by an eighteenth-century Venetian mirror and is flanked by eighteenth-century figural stands holding Chinese foo dog\u2013patterned ginger jars. The room is furnished with a pair of custom banquettes placed diagonally across from each other, French armchairs, woven zebra rugs, blue agate tables, and simple lighting. Paintings by Elizabeth Duquette have been placed throughout the house, with two strong examples at the end of the drawing room, flanking the doorway into the dining room.\n\nThe drawing room, 2018. The fireplace is framed by two eighteenth-century figural stands from the collection of James Pendleton; an eighteenth-century Venetian mirror is positioned above.\n\nHanging above one of the two custom-designed corner banquettes are antique ivory Coromandel panels from C.T. Loo and a painting by Elizabeth Duquette. The coffee tables were created from a large slab of blue agate set in an iron framework.\n\nThe dining room, 2018. A Venetian screen, painted by Elizabeth Duquette, was placed in the corner to mimic the curved wall opposite it and create the illusion of a circular dining area.\n\n### The Dining Room\n\nThe dining room is paneled with eighteenth-century French boiseries that were brought in by the original owner in the 1930s. I updated the paneling by painting it a mouse-gray color, but I left the door that leads into the kitchen the original wood finish. The ceiling is painted a Schiaparelli pink, and the corner banquette features a linen slipcover in the same color. There's a mirrored bar behind the double doors, and silver-leafed Chinese Chippendale cabinets hold a collection of ceramic dishes, tureens, and covered bowls. The paintings in the room are by Elizabeth Duquette, as is the painted Venetian screen, which I've placed in the corner, creating a similar curve to the window facing it. This illusion of a circular end to the room allowed me to put a round carpet under the Lucite and glass table, providing a sense of symmetry to a room that is not at all symmetrical.\n\nThe dining room, 2018. The eighteenth-century French boiseries were installed in the 1930s by the original owner. In the corner, a banquette creates an area to enjoy cocktails near the bar.\n\nA pair of silver-leafed Chippendale display cabinets surmounted by ebony mirror frames inlaid with bone flank the eighteenth-century carved French door leading to the kitchen.\n\n### The Family Room and Kitchen\n\nA large modern kitchen is accessed from the dining room through the eighteenth-century paneled door. Besides all the modern conveniences, including a hidden laundry room and a bar counter with stools, this space has room for a round table and eight chairs, as well as a sofa for watching television.\n\nThe wide hall leading from the kitchen passes through a slate-tiled mud room just off the family room. This comfortably decorated space doubles as a media room and can easily convert to a guest bedroom that has its own closet and bath. With sliding glass doors looking onto the swimming pool on one side, and its own private courtyard for sunbathing on the other, it is one of the most serene rooms in the house.\n\nThe kitchen, 2018. At Casa del Conde, the kitchen is the hub of the house. Located between the family room and the dining room, it is where guests congregate for breakfast to plan their days.\n\nThe family room, 2018. The family room, which has its own bathroom, has come in handy as an additional bedroom, and because it's centered between the swimming pool terrace and a sunbathing terrace, is in use all day long as a media room when guests are present.\n\nMaster bedroom, 2018. This room is always reserved on a first-come first-served basis because not one of our visiting friends is more important to us than any of the others. With its own wood burning fireplace and little garden, the master bedroom is a comfortable escape when the house is full.\n\n### The Master Bedroom\n\nIf you take two steps down from the entrance hall and turn right, you'll come to the master bedroom, arranged for the pleasure of our guests. We restored the original fireplace\u2014which a former owner had covered over\u2014and the large bathroom was rearranged as a sybaritic retreat. As in all the other rooms, our extensive collection of paintings by Elizabeth Duquette decorate the walls. We added a pair of 1930s chinoiserie ivory-painted bedside tables and some of our favorite chow fun Asian antiques, including a red-lacquer-and-gold cabinet and a pair of ivory-inlaid tables holding Satsuma porcelains and turquoise ceramic foo dogs.\n\n### The South Terrace\n\nCasa del Conde has terraces on three sides. The south terrace\u2014a sunny place perfect for entertaining and relaxation\u2014can be accessed from all of the main rooms. It's paved in green slate and decorated like an exterior living room with iron furniture from Italy imported by our friends, the late John and Louise Good. Chinese ceramic pots hold succulents, geraniums, and bromeliads, while greenery cascades out of tall iron stands.\n\nThis terrace is set up like a living room with its slate floor and comfortable Italian iron furniture. Accessible from almost every room in the house, the south terrace is a sunny and inviting place for entertaining whether it's breakfast, lunch, cocktails, or dinner.\n\n## Afterword  \nTHE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY\n\nFestivities in the garden at Dawnridge are always special. Today, our staff wears gold lam\u00e9 coats with feathered turbans to set the mood. Parties with themes like \"Return to the Raj,\" \"Tropical Nights,\" \"Walk like an Egyptian,\" and anything \"Venetian\"\u2014not to mention dozens of black-tie affairs\u2014are _de rigueur_ at Dawnridge. There is always music in the garden, whether it's piped in or provided by musicians: jazz bands, balalaika players, flamenco guitarists, ten-piece dance orchestras, troupes of African drummers, or Balinese dancers with their accompanists. The entertainment is always diverse and the d\u00e9cor constantly changing.\n\nOur friend Eleanor Phillips, the West Coast editor of _Vogue_ , once described us as \"professional party givers.\" We are not, although we love to entertain, and on occasion we have been hired to supply themed decorations for private balls and charity events around the country. We also host lunch for visiting friends daily at Dawnridge, which is served by our extraordinary housekeeper and cook, Flory Vargas. Just as she did for Tony and Beegle before us, she continues to make the best Mexican food in Los Angeles and has mastered all of our favorite Western, Indian, and Chinese dishes as well. My father's side of the family was from Alabama; my mother's side from South America; and Ruth and I were born in Southern California\u2014I think our sense of Southern hospitality comes naturally. We like to entertain semi-formally, even if it's just a buffet for forty, but for groups above that we rely on outside caterers. Seated dinners from eight to one hundred and twenty are not unusual here, and often include dancing.\n\nWhat Ruth and I hate most are people who are brought for the first time as someone else's guest and announce when introducing themselves, \"You know, I've never been here before.\" To which I invariably answer, \"Come to think of it, I've never been to your house before either.\" Strangers can't figure out that Dawnridge is a private residence. We rarely have parties here that are not our own. We have lent the house for charity events and have weakened on occasion when friends ask if they can have a wedding or other special occasion here, but it is never open to the public except by invitation.\n\nThe fa\u00e7ade of Dawnridge was entirely covered with a painted backdrop, turning the house into the Amber Palace at Jaipur for our Return to the Raj Ball, 2015.\n\nDinner was served on the middle terrace at Dawnridge for the Return to the Raj Ball, 2015.\n\nNautch girls entertain during dinner to the delight of international guests Miranda Reise Williams, Manfred Flynn Kuhnert, and Rebecca de Ravenal at the Return to the Raj Ball, 2015.\n\n### MENUS AND RECIPES OF THE TONY DUQUETTES'\n\n_From the pages of_ Vogue, _April 15, 1957_\n\nRECIPES\n\n_Dinner in the Kitchen_\n\nGUACAMOLE\n\n_Served with Fries_\n\nCHICKEN LIVERS\n\nALB\u00d3NDIGA SOUP\n\nBARBECUED CHICKEN\n\nCHILES RELLENOS WITH SAUCE\n\nFRIJOLES\n\nFRIED RICE\n\nGREEN SALAD\n\nBEL PAESE CHEESE\n\nMAC\u00c9DOINE OF FRUIT\n\n_Buffet in the Supper Room_\n\nCREAMED CHICKEN AMANDINE\n\nSTUFFED ZUCCHINI\n\nGREEN SALAD WITH CHOPPED\n\nARTICHOKE HEARTS AND AVOCADO\n\nCHERRY AND KIRSCH ICE\n\nPETITS FOURS\n\n**GUACAMOLE**\n\n2 ripe avocados\n\n1 ripe tomato\n\n\u00bd onion, minced fine\n\nJalape\u00f1o peppers, chopped\n\nLemon juice\n\nChiles\n\nSalt and pepper\n\nMash the avocados with the ripe, peeled tomato. Add minced onion, a little lemon juice, chopped jalape\u00f1o peppers. Season with salt and pepper. Use chiles to taste, for desired spiciness. Serve with Fritos; for six to eight.\n\n**ALB\u00d3NDIGA SOUP**\n\n4 tablespoons oil\n\n1 onion, minced\n\n\u00bc cup tomato sauce\n\n3 quarts chicken stock\n\n1 pound fresh peas\n\n\u00bd pound string beans, chopped\n\n3 tablespoons cooked rice\n\n\u00bd pound ground pork\n\n\u00bd pound ground beef\n\n6 mint leaves\n\n\u00bc cup chopped parsley\n\n1 egg, slightly beaten\n\nSalt and pepper\n\nFry onion in oil 5 minutes, then add to tomato sauce and stock. When mixture is boiling, add peas and string beans. Prepare meat as follows: mix cooked rice into meat, adding chopped parsley and mint leaves, egg, salt and pepper, and form into balls. Drop into boiling stock, cover tightly, and let simmer half an hour. Serves six to eight.\n\n**CHILES RELLENOS**\n\n8 Ortega's green chiles\n\n8 oblongs of cream cheese,\n\n2 x \u00bd x \u00bd inches\n\n4 eggs\n\n4 tablespoons flour\n\nShortening\n\nStuff each whole, peeled green chile with an oblong of cheese. Separate eggs, beat whites until stiff, then add yolks. Add flour. Dip chiles into batter, one at a time, and fry in hot shortening. Brown on both sides; drain on absorbent paper. Serves eight.\n\n**SAUCE (one quart)**\n\n2 cups tomatoes, lightly stewed\n\n2 cups chicken or beef stock\n\n1 onion\n\n1 clove garlic\n\n1 \u00bd teaspoons salt\n\n\u00bd teaspoon pepper\n\n\u00bd teaspoon oregano\n\nStrain stewed tomatoes through a sieve. Fry onions in hot oil, 1\u00bd inches deep, but do not brown. Add onions and chopped garlic to tomatoes. Pour in chicken or beef stock and boil. Once bubbling, add oregano, salt, and pepper. Pour a little sauce on each chile.\n\n**CREAMED CHICKEN AMANDINE**\n\n1 six-pound chicken\n\nEnough stock to cover chicken\n\n\u00bd cup chopped carrots\n\n\u00bd cup chopped white turnips\n\n\u00bd cup chopped green celery\n\n2 leeks\n\n6 sprigs parsley\n\nSprig of thyme\n\n2 bay leaves\n\n5 cloves\n\n6 peppercorns\n\n\u00bd pound fresh mushrooms\n\n2 large green peppers\n\n\u00bd cup canned pimiento,\n\ndrained\n\n2 tablespoons butter\n\nSalt\n\n8 patty shells or a vol-au-vent\n\nMake a stock of carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, parsley, bay leaves, thyme, cloves, peppercorns, and salt to taste. Put the chicken in the stock mixture and simmer slowly for 2\u00bd to 3 hours. Then let the bird cool in the broth. Discard skin and bones; dice the meat.\n\nSlice the mushrooms, green peppers, and pimientos, all thin. Saut\u00e9 in butter; drain off the butter. Add the chicken meat. Keep the mixture hot while preparing sauce. Serves eight.\n\n**SAUCE**\n\n3 cups medium white sauce\n\n3 egg yolks\n\nSalt\n\nWhite pepper\n\nNutmeg\n\n\u00bc cup dry sherry\n\n1 cup almonds\n\nAdd beaten egg yolks to white sauce; combine with chicken and vegetables. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Reheat, without boiling, and stir in the sherry, and almonds, blanched, toasted, and shredded. Serve in patty shells or a vol-au-vent.\n\n**STUFFED ZUCCHINI**\n\n6 zucchini\n\n\u00bd cup chopped raw spinach\n\n2 tablespoons minced onion\n\nParmesan cheese\n\n2 tablespoons butter\n\n1 cup bread crumbs\n\nSalt and pepper\n\nCook zucchini in boiling salt water for 10 minutes. Cut zucchini in boat shapes and scoop out centres. Mix pulp with raw spinach, minced onion, Parmesan cheese, and remaining ingredients. Fill zucchini shells and bake in 350\u00b0 oven for 15 minutes. Serve with bacon. Serves six.\n\n**CHERRY AND KIRSCH ICE**\n\n\u00bd cup sugar\n\n\u00bd cup sauterne\n\n1 cup pitted, ripe black cherries\n\n\u00bc cup light honey\n\n2 tablespoons kirsch\n\n\u215b teaspoon salt\n\nBoil the sugar and sauterne together for 5 minutes, counting from the time the first bubbles appear. Set aside to cool. Press the cherries through a sieve, then strain through a double layer of cheesecloth. Beat together the cherry juice, the sugar syrup, and the honey with a rotary beater and add, during the beating, kirsch and salt. Freeze. Serves six.\n\n## Index of Searchable Terms\n\nAbbott, Scarlett\n\nAdrian, Gilbert\n\nbed curtains\n\nBridge of Sighs (Dawnridge)\n\nBustle Ball (Bal de Derri\u00e8re) of 1950\n\nCasa del Conde\n\ndining room\n\ndrawing room\n\nentrance hall (courtyard)\n\nfamily room\n\nkitchen\n\nmaster bedroom\n\npool\n\nsouth terrace\n\nCasa La Condesa\n\nbalcony\n\nbathrooms\n\ndining room\n\ndrawing room\n\nentrance hall\n\nfa\u00e7ade\n\ngardens and terraces\n\nHutton's sitting room\n\nlibrary\n\nmaster bedrooms\n\npool terrace\n\npowder room\n\nRuth's sitting room\n\nstair hall and staircase\n\nstair landing\n\nvestibules\n\nDawnridge. _See also_ gardens (Dawnridge)\n\nad campaign location\n\nbalcony\n\nbar\n\nbathrooms\n\nbuilding of\n\nCamelot Room\n\ndining room\n\nDrawing Room\n\ndressing room\n\nentertaining at\n\nentrance hall\n\nfa\u00e7ade\n\nas Fiddler's Ditch\n\nfire damage\n\nfloor plans and layout\n\nGreen Room\n\nguest bedroom\n\nlibrary\n\nmaster bedrooms\n\nmiddle terrace\n\nMonkey Room\n\nstairway\n\nSummer Bedroom\n\nVenetian powder room\n\nWinter Bedroom\n\nde Wolfe, Elsie\n\nDucommun house\n\nDuke, Doris\n\nDuquette, Elizabeth \"Beegle\" (wife; n\u00e9e Johnstone)\n\ndeath of\n\nentertaining at Dawnridge (1949-1950)\n\nlegacy of\n\nmeeting Duquette\n\nnickname\n\npainted doors by\n\npainted screens by\n\npainting studio (Beeglesville)\n\npaintings by\n\nphotographs of\n\nwedding of\n\nDuquette, Tony\n\ncareer\n\nchildhood\n\ndeath of\n\ndrawings by\n\nlegacy of\n\nmirrors by\n\npagodas by\n\npaintings by\n\nphotographs of\n\nscreens by\n\ntheatrical designs of\n\nwedding of\n\nDuquette Pavilion\n\nEhmcke, Caspar Johann\n\nfabrics\n\nAsia Major pattern\n\ncurtains\n\n\"Duquetterie\"\n\n\"Feu d'Artifices\"\n\nGemstone print\n\nGolden Sunburst pattern\n\nmalachite pattern\n\n\"Royal Ermine\"\n\nTibetan Sunburst pattern\n\nas wall covering\n\nFiddler's Ditch. _See also_ Dawnridge\n\nfires\n\nfurniture, by T. Duquette\n\nbookcases\n\nconsole\n\ndesk\n\nRose Chest\n\nsofa\n\ngardens (Casa La Condesa)\n\ngardens (Dawnridge)\n\nBeeglesville\n\nChat-Thai\n\nGarden Room\n\nmiddle terrace\n\nstaircase\n\nswimming pool\n\nTemple (Folly)\n\nTree House\n\nupper terrace\n\nvision for\n\nHearst collection\n\nHeintz paintings\n\nlighting, by T. Duquette\n\nchandeliers\n\nfigural lamps\n\ngirandoles\n\npagoda-shaped lamps\n\ntorch\u00e8res\n\nMalibu ranch\n\nmenus and recipes\n\nNew Dawnridge\n\nPendleton, James\n\nrecipes\n\nRemains Lighting\n\nReturn to the Raj Ball\n\nRosekrans, John and Dodie\n\nsculptures, by T. Duquette\n\nfigurines\n\n_Insect Man_\n\n_Modern Fruit_\n\nobelisks\n\n_Phoenix Rising From Its Flames_\n\n_Primal Sun_\n\nshell grotto\n\n_Summer Sun_\n\n_Talismans of Power_\n\n_Winter Sun_\n\nSert, Misia\n\nSortilegium (ranch)\n\nStanfill, Terry\n\nStreet-Porter, Tim\n\nTony Duquette Studios\n\nWilkinson, Hutton\n\nWilkinson, Ruth\n\nwood-burning stove (T. Duquette)\n\nYuanming Yuan\n\nThe Green Room at Dawnridge, 2018.\n\n## Photo Credits\n\nIllustrations by Juan Bastos: This page\n\nFernando Bengoechea: this page\n\nShirley Burden: this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page\n\n\u00a9 Christie's Images\/Bridgeman Images: this page, this page, this page\n\nDuquette Archives: this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page\n\nOberto Gili: this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page\n\nFred Iberri: this page\n\nChristin Markmann: this page\n\nCourtesy Scott Mayoral and Remains Lighting: this page\n\nTim Street-Porter: this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page\n\nCourtesy Jim Thompson, Thai Silk: this page\n\nDanforth Tidmarsh: this page\n\nDave Welch: this page\n\nEvery reasonable effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders for individual images. In the event a copyright holder has been missed, the author and publisher would be glad to rectify the situation.\n\nRuth's sitting room at Casa La Condesa, 2018.\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nWhen I first approached Eric Himmel at Abrams about making a book detailing the compound at Dawnridge, I was delighted with his enthusiastic response to my suggestion. When Eric told me that he would be my editor for the project, I couldn't have been happier. Working with Eric on this book was a dream for me\u2014then, when he brought Sarah Massey on board to keep me in line, I realized that it was a dream come true. My thanks to Eric and Sarah and all the people at Abrams who made this dream a reality cannot be expressed in words. Eric's selection of Emily Wardwell to design the book couldn't have been better. Emily's patience while working to make everyone happy is a testament to her artistic abilities and diplomatic skills, a combination of talents which have made her preeminent in her field.\n\nI have to thank Tim Street-Porter, Tony Duquette's favorite photographer, for coming back to Dawnridge yet again to update his previous images from the '80s, '90s, and 2000s. As always, Tim was the easiest person to work with, although I'm not sure that he'd say the same about me.\n\nHamish Bowles, an old friend of mine and Tony Duquette's, was kind enough to agree to set aside his work for _Vogue_ just long enough to write the foreword for this book. A brilliant journalist and collector, Hamish has the greatest and most in-depth knowledge of the world of design, and the deepest appreciation of Tony Duquette, his work, and his peers, making him our first and most logical choice to write a piece for us.\n\nSpecial thanks to my portraitist and friend, Juan Bastos, for creating the watercolor map of the property as well as the floor plan of the house. It is Juan who gave the property the nickname \" _Condelandia_ ,\" after King Juan Carlos of Spain bestowed my grandfather's Spanish title, Conde y Condesa de Alastaya, on me and my wife, Ruth, in 2007.\n\nI want to thank my clients and friends for helping to make this book happen. But for their constant interest, enthusiasm, and support for me and my work, there would be nothing left of Dawnridge today, as the land would probably have become the building site for three Beverly Hills\u2013style, _Tusciranian_ villas. You know who you are, and how much you've done for me and how much I really love you.\n\nMy daily thanks go to Tony and Beegle for entrusting me with the beautiful world they created at Dawnridge. Without the help of the Duquettes, and now my faithful housekeeper and major domo, Flory Vargas (who has worked at Dawnridge for more than thirty years), nothing that I have done could ever have happened. I cannot thank Flory and her husband, Jorge Vargas\u2014who is my property manager and head gardener\u2014enough for keeping Dawnridge alive, literally and figuratively, as they continue to pick up and put back all the pieces whenever disaster strikes. Thank you as well to Fred Iberri, who runs the office at Dawnridge and supervises the many photo, movie, and television shoots we have here, while juggling a million of my other projects like a circus performer, never letting any of them fall down.\n\nLife at Dawnridge wouldn't be half as glamorous or amusing without our dear family of friends, many of whom knew Tony and Beegle personally, including, Terry and Dennis Stanfill, Wendy Goodman, Manfred Kuhnert and Peter Iacono, Glenda Bailey and Steve Sumner, Tom Britt, Juan Prieto, Joe McCormack and Gary Hunter, Ken Downing, David Hoey, Shane Ruth, Joe and Terri Ebert Mendoza, Charles Tolbert, Holly Moore, Lyn Schroeder, Suzanne Rheinstein, Chad Holman and Keith Traxler, David Duncan and Michael McGraw, Mai N. Vejjajiva, Bill Booth, Eric and Waan Booth, Jennifer Smith Hale, Pamela Fiori, Val and Terry Magro, Patty Crews, Louis and Shane McCoy Fermilia, Peter and Kacey Doheny McCoy, David and Alexandra Calligeros, Charles Garnett, Col. Scott Ables, Todd Sessa, Skip Rumley, Parker Goss, Regan Iglesias, Laura Holland, Donald Bustran, Diane Vonderheide, Walter and Lee Doyle, Elizabeth Wahler, Michelle and Bernard Nussbaumer, Bryan Batt, Charlotte Jackson, Scarlett Abbott, Brett Leemkuil, Newell Turner, Clinton Smith, Carolyn Englefield, Carol Black, David Patrick Columbia, Anna Roth, Tony and Kristin Krantz, Judith Krantz, Liz Morton, Cat Pollon, Carol and Hugh Klotz, Jeff Caldwell, Debra Kanabis, Bryan Curran and Kevin MacLellan, Kathleen Smith, Nick and Amanda Stonnington, Grazia d'Annunzio, Mike and Sheila Wilkins, Joy Venturini Bianchi, Tristan Butterfield, Emmylou Harris, Beth de Woody and Firooz Zahedi, Nina O'Hern, Harvey and Gail Glasser, Stellene Volandis, James and Dede Caughman, Dara Caponigro, Steven Puschel, Andree Caldwell, Anna Griffin and Joe Speigleberg, Charles and Ann Johnson, David and Alexia Leuschen, Isabel Goldsmith, Kelly Williams and Andrew Forsyth, Richard and Marcia Mishaan, Mary Randolph Ballinger, Bob and Michelle Bradway, Frank and Carol Nickell, Lenny, Rachel and Julian Feder, Mary Anna Ajemian, Jerry and Linda Bruckheimer, Kelli and Jerry Ford, Reed Krakoff, Craig and Barbara Barrett, Doug and Caroline Brown, Pag Sampatisiri and the entire Bodiratnangkura family: Dang, Tat, Lek and Pat. I couldn't have done any of this without your generous friendship and patronage.\n\nTo all of those who helped me on this book either directly or indirectly whom I have omitted inadvertently, I apologize profusely, and, along with Tony and Beegle, thank you for your friendship and support. And to my darling Ruth, Piper, and Kippy\u2014thank you for putting up with me. You are all champions, and as I've told you often\u2014without you I am nothing.\n\n\u2014HUTTON WILKINSON\n\nDawnridge, Beverly Hills, California, 2018\n\n## Appreciation\n\nAlthough I had photographed one of Tony's iconic interiors\u2014for the actor James Coburn for British _Vogue_ \u2014back in the 1970s, it was not until the 1990s, when Hutton Wilkinson introduced me at a drinks party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, that I met Tony in person. At the time, he was elderly and intriguing looking, but perhaps a little lost and in need of someone to talk to. We started chatting, and soon we were invited up to Dawnridge.\n\nIf Tony seemed sad at that drinks party, it was for a good reason. A few months earlier, he had returned to Los Angeles after many glamorous years in San Francisco. There he had been a fixture in the city's social and cultural worlds, designing costumes and sets for the opera and ballet and creating extravagant balls, as well as decorating houses and hosting fantasy parties at his lavishly appointed studio, the Duquette Pavilion, a converted former synagogue. But this highly productive episode had been dramatically terminated by a fire that destroyed the studio and much of its irreplaceable contents.\n\nWe became firm friends after Tony discovered that we had just bought a house in the Hollywood Hills where Adrian, the costume designer, had lived in the early 1930s, before marrying actress Janet Gaynor. Adrian, along with Elsie de Wolfe, was one of Tony's original mentors.\n\nI had never experienced anything remotely like Dawnridge. Here was the creation of an artist rather than a decorator. Tony had constructed extraordinary fantasy environments, always with a sense of order and with an underlying coherent vision. Nothing was arbitrary or disguised. He scoured auctions at a nearby naval base for perforated metal helicopter landing pads, which he then openly used to construct the gazebos and Thai-inspired pagodas in the ravine below the house. In the palatial Drawing Room, he and his artist wife, Beegle, fashioned ornamented pelmets of cloth for the windows, dipped them in gesso and plaster, and then hand-painted them to look like eighteenth-century tooled leather.\n\nI soon realized the importance of photographing Dawnridge, along with many of his remaining other design projects, as I became familiar with his relatively undocumented archive. In this spirit, I shot his house in San Francisco as well as a guest house on an island in Northern California, a St. John the Baptist church in Arcadia, and eventually current projects like the apartment for John and Dodie Rosekrans in Paris.\n\nThe Tony Duquette abalone chandelier, created for his 1952 one-man exhibition at LACMA, hangs in the balcony at Dawnridge, 2018.\n\nTony Duquette's _Phoenix Rising From Its Flames_ in the gardens at Dawnridge.\n\nOne morning, around ten, he called me and asked, \"Are you free today?\" Luckily, I was. The 1960s Ducommun house was about to be dismantled and sold, and strategically placed paintings by Modigliani, Braque, and Klee, as well as sculptures by Calder and Duquette, were being removed that same afternoon. Working quickly, I managed to photograph everything. This proved to be the only record of Tony's very best decorating, for clients who had given him complete creative freedom.\n\nEncouraged by my interest in his creations, Tony found himself working again, beginning with his 55-acre ranch, Sortilegium, which rose Xanadu-like from a dry mountaintop high above Malibu. Soon, a pattern emerged: I would show him a set of freshly taken 4-by-5 transparencies, and he would follow up a few days later to say that he had made a few changes to the room, and could I possibly take a few more pictures? Happy to oblige, I repeated the process, and soon he was transforming the ranch\u2014and looking noticeably happier. A sizeable crew of workers arrived, working seven days a week, trying to keep up as Tony threw himself into new landscaping projects and the construction of new pavilions, one of which he very kindly gave us to stay in whenever we wished. Reviewing progress with Tony over Sunday lunch with the latest batch of transparencies, I became aware that I had unintentionally kick-started his creative engine.\n\nTony proved to be an unstoppable shopper, constantly on the hunt for raw materials for future projects. Wherever he traveled, containers of newly found treasures would be shipped back to Beverly Hills. When we joined Hutton and Tony in Bali one year, we immediately identified his villa, its forecourt piled to the ceiling with brown paper\u2013wrapped boxes tied with string. He had been shopping since the moment he arrived, with Hutton complaining that he was not even allowed to stop for lunch.\n\nMeanwhile Dawnridge was also receiving its share of transformations, and it was wonderful to witness his mind at work, day by day, like an artist breathing fresh air into a familiar canvas. One of my last photos at Dawnridge during Tony's lifetime was of _Phoenix Rising From Its Flames_ , a large sculpture he had just placed in his garden after his 1995 exhibition at the Hammer Museum. This was created after his Malibu ranch burned to the ground\u2014a symbol of rebirth and continuance that showed Tony's extraordinary resilience and creative drive.\n\n\u2014TIM STREET-PORTER\n\nEditor: Sarah Massey  \nDesigner: Emily Wardwell  \nProduction Manager: Anet Sirna-Bruder\n\nLibrary of Congress Control Number: 2017956932\n\nISBN: 978-1-4197-3262-1  \neISBN: 978-1-68335-420-8\n\nText copyright \u00a9 2018 Hutton Wilkinson  \nPrincipal photographs copyright \u00a9 2018 Tim Street-Porter\n\nJacket Front: Tony Duquette's Phoenix Rising From Its Flames sculpture in the gardens at Dawnridge  \nJacket Back: The staircase at Casa La Condesa.  \nBoth photographed by Tim Street-Porter.\n\nJacket and cover \u00a9 2018 Abrams\n\nPublished in 2018 by Abrams, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.\n\nAbrams books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.\n\nAbrams\u00ae is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.\n\n**ABRAMS** The Art of Books  \n195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007  \nabramsbooks.com\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}