It was on the tip of my tongue to say that a real dinner had never been cooked in that kitchen, at least not while it was the ancestral family home of the Walsh clan and while Mum was at the helm of the nourishment ship, but I stopped myself from saying it just in time.

"It's no big deal, Mum," I told her. "I'll just do some pasta or something."

"Pasta," she breathed, still with the faraway look in her eyes, as if recall- ing another life, another time, another world. "Yes." She nodded, some kind of recognition appearing in her eyes. "Yes, I remember pasta." (She was still using the sort of voice where you would expect her to say "aye" instead of "yes.")

"Jesus!" I thought in alarm. "Has she been so traumatized

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in the past by her encounters with cooking that this suggestion has un- hinged her totally?"

"So is it all right if I borrow the car to go down to the shopping center to buy some stuff?" I asked her, feeling a bit nervous about it.

"If you must," she said faintly, resignedly. "If you must."

She gave me the car keys and we put Kate on the back seat in her car seat. Mum stood on the step and waved me off as if I was going away forever, instead of just down the road to the supermarket.

But it was a bit of an adventure. I hadn't left the house in weeks. It was an indication that I was on the mend.

"Have a good time," she said. "And remember, if you change your mind about making the dinner, don't worry. No harm done. You won't be letting any of us down. We can have the usual. No one will mind."

Why did I get the idea that she didn't want me to cook anything? I wondered as I drove away.

I had a really lovely time in the supermarket, strolling the aisles, pushing my cart, with Kate in a sling on my front. Buying the provisions for myself and my child, playing happy families, even if it happened to be happy single parent families.

I bought another twenty tons of Pampers for Kate. Mum and Dad had been so good, buying all the baby provisions while I had been prostrate with either grief or alcohol. But it was time for me to be responsible. I would be the one who took care of Kate from now on.

I flung all kinds of frivolous and exotic food into my trolley. Galia mel- ons? Yes, I'll have a couple of them. A box of handmade fresh cream chocolates? Why not. A bag of highly over-priced glamorous lettuces? Go right ahead.

I was having a great time.

Hang the expense. Because I was going to pay by credit card.

And where did the credit card bills get sent to?

That's correct. My apartment in London.

So who was going to have the responsibility of paying it?

Right again.

James.

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I smiled at other young and not-so-young mothers who were also doing their shopping.

I must have seemed just like one of them. A young woman with a new baby. With absolutely nothing to worry about except perhaps the possibility of not getting a full night's sleep in the next decade. There was nothing to indicate that my husband had left me.

I no longer carried my humiliation like a weapon.

And I didn't begrudge anyone else her perfect life. I didn't hate every other woman in the world whose husband hadn't left her.

How did I know that the woman I exchanged smirks with over the avo- cados was blissfully happy?

How did I know that the woman I gently jostled as I got my bottle of honey and mustard dressing off the shelf was completely free of all con- cerns?

Everyone had their own worries.

Nobody was perfectly happy.

I hadn't been singled out especially by the gods for misery to descend on me.

I was just an ordinary woman with ordinary problems, doing her shop- ping, among other ordinary women.

I passed the alcohol department and I caught a glimpse of rows and rows of bottles of vodka, glittering and shimmering, silver light glinting off them. Almost as though I could hear them all calling, "Hey, Claire, over here! Pick me, pick me! Can we come home with you?" I instinctively turned my trolley in that direction.

And then turned it away again.

"Remember Auntie Julia," I told myself sternly.

A little bit shaken, I cruised the frozen desserts aisle. When I was pregnant I'd eaten frozen chocolate mousse by the truckload. In fact, it used to really annoy James.

So I thought I'd get myself one for old time's sake.

And as a mark of defiance.

I held Kate up to show her the rows and rows of boxes of chocolate mousse.

"Meet the family," I said.

I took out a box and held it for her to see.

"You see that?" I told her. "Without that you probably

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wouldn't be here." She looked at it with her round blue eyes and reached out her fat little arm to touch the condensation on the box. Obviously something in her blood was calling out to the chocolate mousse, something as old as mankind, recognizing something that had befriended her mother through rough times.

I went and paid, gaining a lot of pleasure from the astronomical amount that James would be charged on the credit card.

And home we went.

On the way we stopped at the bank. As soon as Anna got home I was going to give her back every penny that I owed her. At least now she could pay her dealer. And thereby continue to have an intact pair of kneecaps.

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nine

I had to ring the doorbell when we arrived back home as I had left without a key. Mum answered.

"I'm home," I said to her. "We had a great time, didn't we, Katie?" Mum watched me as I carried plastic bag after plastic bag into the kitchen, circling me suspiciously while I unpacked the groceries onto the kitchen table.

"Did you get everything you needed?" she asked tremulously.

"Everything!" I confirmed enthusiastically.

"So you're still going ahead with this idea of making them their dinner?" she said, sounding on the verge of tears.

"Yes, Mum," I told her. "Why are you upset about it?"

"I really wish you wouldn't do this," she said anxiously. "You'll give them notions, you know. They'll expect cooked dinners all the time after this. And who'll be expected to do it? Not you, that's for sure. Because by then, you'll have gone off back to London."

Poor Mum, I thought. Maybe I was being insensitive, showing off my fancy cooking in her kitchen.

She paused while I cheerfully put some fresh pasta on a shelf in the fridge. "Are you listening to me?" She raised her voice, as her view of me was blocked by the fridge door.