My beautiful fantasy of a drooling and contrite James was interrupted by Helen saying loudly, "What have you done to your ears?"

"What's wrong with them?"

"They're kind of purple."

"Oh, that's just the hair color. I suppose we'd better take my hair back down to cover them," I said sorrowfully. I had very quickly grown attached to this sophisticated look.

"No, no, we'll think of something," said Helen with a bit of a gleam in her eye. "Stay there." And off she went.

She arrived back with Anna, who whistled when she saw me, and a couple of cloths and a bottle of turpentine.

"You do that ear," instructed Helen. "And I'll do this one."

I went to meet James with ears that were red, raw and almost bleeding, instead of a rich, glossy, chestnut color.

But my hair remained up.

288

twenty-eight

I have to say that walking into that restaurant was one of the most grati- fying experiences I'd ever had. James looked up from whatever he was reading and he literally, literally, did a double take.

"Er, Claire," he said, all of a fluster, "um, you're looking wonderful."

I smiled in what I hoped was a mysterious, enigmatic, sophisticated way. "Thank you," I purred.

That'll teach you to leave me, you bastard, I thought as I swung into my seat, giving him an eyeful of my thighs in my sheer, shimmering stockings and my short tight black dress.

He couldn't take his eyes off me.

It was wonderful.

I had got a few funny looks as I had walked from where I had parked the car to the restaurant. I suppose I was a bit overdressed for a bright Monday evening in April, but who cared.

The waiter, a youth in an ill-fitting dinner suit--an alleged Italian, but with a Dublin accent--came rushing over and spent an unnecessary amount of time patting my napkin onto my crotch.

"Um, thank you," I said when I felt that it had gone on far too long.

"You're welcome," he drawled, as Italian as bacon and cabbage. He winked at me over James's head.

Honestly!

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And then I got really paranoid.

Maybe he thought I was a hooker.

Did I look like a prostitute?

I knew my dress was too short.

Oh what the hell, I decided.

James smiled at me. A beautiful, warm, admiring, approving smile. And for a moment I saw the man I'd married.

Then he noticed the young waiter bending down so he could get a better look at my legs under the table and the smile vanished, leaving me feeling bereft.

"Claire." He frowned like a Victorian patriarch. "Cover yourself. Look at the way the waiter is looking at you!"

I reddened.

I felt foolish and embarrassed now in my short dress, instead of sexy and sassy. Fuck James for making me feel like this! Behaving like a bloody Amish person.

He hadn't always been like that, you know. I could remember a time when the shorter my dress was, the better he liked it. Well, times, as they say, had changed.

I put my head down and spitefully looked for the most expensive thing on the menu.

"I suppose we should talk about money," I said after the waiter had gone away.

"It's all right," he said. "I'll pay. I'll put it on the card."

"No, James," I said, wondering if he was being deliberately obtuse. "I mean, we have to talk about our money. You know, yours and mine, our financial situation."

I spoke slowly and deliberately, as if I was talking to a child.

"Oh, I see." He nodded.

"So, do we have any?" I asked anxiously.

"Money? Of course we do," he said, annoyed. I'd hit him where it hurt. Casting aspersions on his ability to provide for his wife and family. Or should I say his wife and families.

"Why wouldn't we have any money?" he asked.

"Well, because of my not working and only getting maternity pay and with you paying the mortgage and then the rent on another apartment and..."

"What do you mean, paying the rent on another apartment?" he said in loud and annoyed tones.

290

"You know, the apartment that you and...and...Denise live in," I said. It nearly killed me to say her name.

"But I've moved back into our apartment," he said, looking at me in a slightly baffled way. "Didn't you know?"

Several things occurred to me at once.

Could I fatally wound him with a fork?

Would a woman judge be more lenient?

What would prison food be like?

How would Kate turn out if her mother murdered her father?

James's voice swam toward me through a haze of murderous rage.

"Claire," he was saying anxiously. "Are you feeling okay?"

I realized that I was gripping my butter knife so hard that my hand hurt. And, although I couldn't see my face, I knew it had gone bright red with fury.

"You mean to tell me," I finally managed to hiss at him, "that you've moved that woman into my home."

I thought that I would choke or vomit or do something antisocial.

"No, no, Claire," he said. Sounding hurried, anxious, afraid that--heaven forbid--I might cause a bit of a scene. "I've moved back into our apartment. But Deni...er...she hasn't."

"Oh."

I was totally flabbergasted. I didn't know what to say. Because I didn't know how I felt.

"I'm not...er...you know...with her anymore. I haven't been for some time."

"Oh."

In a way that was almost worse.

I still wanted to strangle him.

To think that he threw away our marriage, our relationship, for something that hadn't survived even two months of living together. The waste. The sense of pointless loss was almost unbearable. Then I burst out, "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

What had happened to the highly efficient bush telegraph system that my friends and I operated?

James spoke to me soothingly.

"Maybe nobody knows yet. I haven't made much of a fuss

291

about it. And I haven't seen much of anyone over the past month," he ex- plained, obviously keen to keep me calm.

He must be having a nervous breakdown, I thought. He'd become a spooky, shadowy, Howard Hughes-type reclusive figure.

"I've been away on business," he continued.

"Oh."