'Getting that way,' said Levi, rounding out his shoulders. He didn't smile. He knew about Claire Malcolm, Jerome had told him, and, with his usual judicious ability to see both sides of a thing, he had felt quite reasonable about it. He felt bad for his mom, obviously, but he also understood his father's position. Levi tOO had loved girls dearly in the past and then played away with other girls for less than honourable reasons and saw nothing heinously wrong with the separation of sex and love into two different categories. But, looking at Claire Malcolm now, he found himself confused. It was yet another example of his father's bizarre tastes. Where was the booty on that? Where was the rack? He felt the unfairness and illogic of this substitution. He made a decision to cut the conversation short as a sign of solidarity with his mother's more generous proportions.

'Well, you look great: chimed Claire. 'Are you performing tonight?'

'Not definitely. Depends. My boys probably will: said Levi, flicking his head back in the direction ofhis companions. 'Anyway, I guess I better be getting down there. Eleven thirty: he repeated to Zora and walked on.

Claire, who had not missed Levi's silent chastisement, poured herself another large glass of wine and put her knife and fork together over her half-eaten salad. 'We should probably go down too: she said quietly.

The ethnography of the basement was not as it had been on previous visits. From where Claire sat she could see only a few other white people, and no one at all of her own age. This state of affairs need not change things particularly, but it was not quite as she'd expected and it would take a little while to feel comfortable. She was thankful for yoga; yoga allowed her to sit cross-legged on a floor cushion like a much younger woman, camouflaged among her students. On stage, a black girl in a tall headwrap rhymed brashly over the bluesy swing ofthe small live band behind her. My womb, she said, is the TOMB, she said, ofyour precious misconceptions I KNOW the identity ofyour serenity When YOU claim my hero was blond Cleopatra! Brother, that's plain wrong I HEAR the Nubian spirit behind the whitewash Oh, gosh My redemption has its OWN intention. And so on. This was not good. Claire listened to her students' lively discussion about why this was not good. In the spirit of pedagogy she tried to encourage them to be less abusive, more specific. She was only partly successful in this.

'At least she's conscious: said Chantelle, a little guardedly. She was shy of the weight of opinion on the other side. 'I mean, at least it's not "bitch" this and "nigger" that. You know?" 'This stuff makes me want to die: said Zora loudly and put both hands on the top of her head. 'It's so cheesy.'

'My vagina In Carolina Is much finer Than yours: said Ron, walking close (Claire felt) to the racial line, with his exaggerated impression ofthe girl's feisty head movements and sing-song intonation. But the class fell into hysterics, Zora leading the laughter and so, in a vital way, sanctioning it. Of course, thought Claire, they're less sensitive about all that than we were. If it were 1972 this room would be as silent as a church.p> Through the laughter and conversation, the ordering of drinks, the opening and closing of toilet doors, the girl kept going. After ten minutes the fact that the girl was not good stopped being amusing and began, as Claire heard her students put it, 'getting old'. Even the most supportive members in the audience stopped nodding. Conversation grew louder. The M C, who sat on a stool by the side of the stage, switched his mike on to intervene; he begged them for quiet and attention and respect, this last word having some currency in the Bus Stop. But the girl was not good, and soon enough the chatter started up again. Pinally, with the ominous promise 'And I WILL rise', the girl stopped. A spattering of applause came.

'Thank you, Queen Lara: said the MC, holding his mike very close to his lips like an ice-cream. 'Now, I'm Doc Brown, your MC this eve'nin', and I want to hear you make some nOisefor Queen Lara ... Sister was brave to get up on this stage, takes some guts to do that, man ... to stand up in front ofeverybody, talk about yo'womb and shit...' Doc Brown allowed himself a chuckle here but then played the straight man once more: 'Nah, on the real, tho, that takes some guts, sho' nuf ... right? Am I right? Oh, come on, man, put yo hands together, now. Don't be like that. Let's hear it for Queen Lara and her conscious lyrics -now that's better.'

Claire's class joined in the reluctant clapping. 'Bring on the poetry!' said Ron, meaning it as a joke, just for his friends, but he had pitched it too loud.

'Bring .on the PQetry?' repeated DQC BrQwn, wide-eyed, IQQking intQ the darkness fQr the mystery vQice. 'Shit, nQW hQW .often yQU get to hear that? See, that's why I love the Bus Stop. Bring on the poetry. I know that be a WellingtQn kid...' Laughter detonated thrQugh the basement, IQudest amQng Claire's class itself. 'Bring on the poetry. We gQt SQme educated brQthers in here tQnight. Bring on the poetry. Bring on the trigonometry. Bring ON the algebra -bring that shit ON: he said, in the 'nerd' vQice with which black cQmedians sQmetimes imitate white peQple. 'Well ... yQu're in luck, yQung man, 'CQS we abQut tQ bring .on the PQetry, the SpQken WQrd, the rap, the rhyming -we gQn' dQ aHa that fQr yQu. Bring on the poetry. I IQve that ... NQw: tonight it's up to y'all whQ wins -we gQt a jeroboam .of champagne -yeah, thank YQU, Mr WellingtQn, there's . yQur vQcabulary wQrd-fQr-the-day -a jeroboam .of champagne, which basically means a whole lot of alcohol. And yQU guys gQt to chQQse whQ wins it -all yQU gQt tQ dQ is make some nQise fQr yQur favQurite. We gQt a shQW fQr yQU tQnight. We gQt SQme Caribbean brothers in the hQuse, we gQt SQme Afiican brothers in the hQuse, we got peQple gQnna hit it in French, in Portuguese -I am reliably infQrmed we gQt the United NatiQns .of SpQken WQrd up in here tonight, SQ, yQU peQple be privileged in the extreme. Yeah, that's right: said DQC Brown, resPQnding to the whQQPs and whistles.

'We getting international .on yQ' ass. YQU knQW hQW we dQ.'

Thus did the shQW begin. There was supPQrt fQr the first artist, a yQung man whQ rhymed stiffly but sPQke elQquently .of America's latest war. After this came a gawky, lanky girl with ears that thrust thrQugh the PQker-straight curtains .of her IQng hair. Claire suppressed her .own hatred .of elabQrate metaphQr and managed tQ enjQy the girl's cruel, witty verse abQut all the useless men she'd knQwn. But then three bQys, .one after anQther, recQunted machQ tales .of street life, the final bQy speaking in PQrtuguese. Here Claire's attentiQn petered .out. It happened that ZQra was sat right in frQnt .of her at an eVQcative angle, her face presenting itself to Claire in profile. With .out wanting tQ, Claire fQund herself examin ing it. HQW much .of the girl's father was here! The slight .overbite, the IQng face, the nQble nQse! She was getting fat, thQugh; inevitably she would go the way of her mother. Claire rebuked herself for this thought. It was wrong to hate the girl, as it was wrong to hate Howard, or to hate herself. Hate would not help this. It was personal insight that was required. Twice a week at six thirty Claire drove into Boston, to Dr Byford's house in Chapel Hill, and paid him eighty dollars an hour to help her seek out personal insight. Together they tried to comprehend the chaos of pain Claire had unleashed. If one good thing had come out of the past twelve months, it was these sessions: of all her psychiatrists over the years, it was Byford who had brought her closest to breakthrough. So far this much was clear: Claire Malcolm was addicted to self-sabotage. In a pattern so deeply embedded in her life that Byford suspected it of being rooted in her earliest babyhood, Claire compulsively sabotaged all possibilities of personal happiness. It seemed she was convinced that it was not happiness that she deserved. The Howard episode was only the last and most spectacular in a long line of acts of emotional cruelty she had felt impelled to inflict upon herself. You only had to look at the timing. Finally,jinally, she had found this wonderful blessing, this angel, this gift, Warren Crane, a man who (she could not help but list his attributes as Byford encouraged her to do): (a) Did not consider her a threat.

(b) Did not fear or dread her sexuality or gender.

(c) Did not wish to cripple her mentally.

(d) Did not, at a preconscious level, want her dead.

(e) Did not resent her money, her reputation, her talent or her strength.

(f ) Did not wish to interfere with the deep connection she had with the earth -indeed, loved the earth as she did and encouraged her love ofit.

She had come to a place ofpersonal joy. Finally, at fifty-three. And so naturally it was the perfect time to sabotage her own life. To this end she had initiated an affair with Howard Beisey, one of her oldest friends. A man for whom she had no sexual desire whatsoever. Looking back on it, it was really too perfect. Howard Belsey -ofall people! When Claire leaned into Howard's body that day in the conference room ofthe Black Studies Department, when she clearly offered herself to him, she had not really known why. By contrast, she had felt all the classic masculine impulses and fantasies surge through her old friend back towards her -the late possibiliry ofother people, ofliving other lives, ofnew flesh, ofbeing young again. Howard was releasing a secret, volatile, shameful part of himself. And it was an aspect of himself with which he was unfamiliar, that he had always presumed beneath him; she could sense all ofthis in the urgent pressure of Howard's hands on her tiny waist, the fumbling speed with which he undressed her. He was surprised by desire. In response Claire had felt nothing comparable. Only sorrow.

Their three-week affair never even met with a bedroom. To go to a bedroom would have been a conscious decision. Instead, in the regular course of their college business, their thrice-weekly after-hours meeting in Howard's office, they would lock the door and gravitate to his huge squishy sofa, upholstered in its ostentatiously English, William Morris ferns. Silently and fiercely they fucked among the foliage, almost always sitting up, with Claire sat perfunctorily atop her colleague, her little freckled legs wrapped about his waist. When they had finished he had a habit of pushing her backwards until she was lying beneath him. Curiously, he laid his big flat hands on her body, on her shoulders, on her flat chest, on her stomach, on the backs ofher ankles, on the thin, waxed line ofher pubic hair. It seemed a kind ofwonder; he was checking that she was all there and this was all real. Then they would get up and dress. How did that happen again? They often said this or something like it. A stupid, cowardly, pointless thing to say. Meanwhile sex with Warren was newly ecstatic and always completed with guilry tears, which Warren misinterpreted, in his innocence, as joy. The whole situation was vile, the more so because she couldn't defend it, even to herself; the more so because she was terrified and humbled by the long reach of her miserable, unloved childhood. Still clasping its fingers round her throat all these years later!

Three Tuesdays after the affair began Howard came into her office to tell her it was over, It was the first time either properly acknowledged it had begun, He explained he'd been caught with a condom, It was the same, unopened condom at which Claire had laughed, that afternoon of their second assignation, when Howard had produced it, like an anxious, well-intentioned teenage boy CHoward, darling -that's sweet of you, but my reproductive days are over'), Upon hearing his retelling of it, Claire had wanted to laugh again -it was so typically Howard, such an unnecessary disaster. But what followed was not so funny, He told her that he had confessed, telling Kiki the minimum that needed to be told that he had been unfaithful, He had not mentioned Claire's name, This was kind, and ClairI' thanked him for it, He looked at her oddly, He had told this lie to save his wife's feelings, not Claire's face, He finished his short, factual speech, He wobbled a little on his feet. This was a different Howard from the one Claire had known these thirry years, No longer the steely academic who'd always (she suspected) found her slightly ridiculous, who never seemed quite certain what the point ofpoetry was, That day in her office Howard had looked as if a good, comforting piece of verse was just what he needed, Throughout their friendship, Claire had satirized his scrupulous intellectualism, just as he had teased her about her artistic ideals, It was her old joke that Howard was only human in a theoretical sense, This was the general feeling in Wellington too: his students found it near impossible to imagine that Howard should have a wife, a family, that he went to the bathroom, that he felt love, Claire was not as naive as the students; she knew he did love, and intensely, but she also saw that it was not articulated in him in the normal way, Something about his academic life had changed love for him, changed its nature, Of course, without Kiki, he couldn't function -anyone who knew him knew that much, But it was the kind of marriage you couldn't get a handle on, He was bookish, she was not; he was theoretical, she political. She called a rose a rose, He called it an accumulation of cultural and biological constructions circulating around the mutually attracting binary poles of nature artifice, Claire had alwaysp> been curious how a marriage like that worked. Dr Byford went so far as to suggest that this was exactly the reason Claire had chosen to get involved with Howard after all these years. At the moment of her own greatest emotional commitment she intervened in the most successful marriage she knew. And it was true: Sitting behind her desk, examining this abandoned, rudderless man, she had felt perversely vindicated. Seeing him like that had meant she was right, after all, about academics. (And shouldn't she know? She'd married three of them.) They had no idea what the hell they were doing. Howard had no way ofdealing with his new reality. He was unequal to the task of squaring his sense ofhimself with what he had done. It was not rational, and therefore, he could not comprehend it. For Claire, their affair was only confirmation of what she knew of the darkest parts of herself. For Howard, it was clearly revelation.

It was horrendous thinking about him, having him refracted through Zora's features. Now that Claire's part in Howard's indiscretion was no longer a secret, the guilt had moved from private indulgence to public punishment. Not that she minded the shame; she had been the mistress on other occasions and had not been especially cowed by it then. But this time it was infuriating and humiliating to be punished for something she'd done with so little desire or will. She was a woman still controlled by the traumas of her girlhood. It made more sense to put her three-year-old self in the dock. As Dr Byford explained, she was really the victim of a vicious, peculiarly female psychological disorder: she felt one thing and did another. She was a stranger to herself.

And were they still like that, she wondered -these new girls, this new generation? Did they still feel one thing and do another? Did they still only want to be wanted? Were they still objects of desire instead of -as Howard might put it -desiring subjects? Thinking of the girls sat cross-legged with her in this basement, of Zora in front of her, ofthe angry girls who shouted their poetry. from the stage -no, she could see no serious change. Srill starving themselves, still reading women's magazines that expliCitly hate women, still cutting themselves with lirtle knives in places they think can't be seen, still faking their orgasms with men they dislike, still lying to everybody about everything. Strangely, Kiki Belsey had always struck Claire as a wonderful anomaly in exactly this sense. Claire remembered when Howard first met his wife, back when Kiki was a nursing student in New York. At that time her beaury was awesome, almost unspeakable, but more than this she radiated an essential female nature Claire had already imagined in her poetry natural, honest, powerful, unmediated, full ofsomething like genuine desire. A goddess ofthe everyday. She was not one ofHoward's intellectual set, but she was actively political, and her beliefs were genuine and well expressed. Womanish, as they said back then, not feminine. For Claire, Kiki was not only evidence of Howard's humaniry but proof that a new kind of woman had come into the world as promised, as advertised. Without ever becoming intimates, she felt she could honestly say that she and Kiki had always been fond of each other. Never had she resented Kiki or wished her ill. And here Claire emerged out ofherself; refocused on Zora's features so that hers was again a sovereign face and not a blur ofcolour and personal thoughts. It was not possible to make the last leap -to consider what it was Kiki now thought of Claire. To do that was to become subhuman before yourself, the person cast out beyond pity, a CaIiban. Nobody can cast themselves out.

A commotion was going on by the stage. The next act was waiting for Doc Brown to finish his introduction. The group was huge. Nine, ten boys? They were the kind ofboys who make three times as much noise as their actual number. They jostled each other, shoulder to shoulder, on the way up the steps, and struggled to reach a collection of five or so microphones on stands in front ofthem -there would not be enough for all. One ofthem was Levi Belsey.

'Looks like your brother's up,' said Claire, poking Zora lightly in the back.

'Oh, God,' said Zora, peeking through a gap in her fingers. 'Maybe we'll get lucky -maybe he's just the hype man: 'Hype man?'

'Uke a cheerleader. But for rap,' explained Daisy helpfully.

Finally all the boys were on the stage. The band was dismissed.

This group had their own tape: a heavy Caribbean beat and jangly keyboards over the top. They all began to speak at once in a loud Creole. That wasn' t working. Further jostling decided that one guy should begin. A skinny guy in a hoodie came forward and gave it his all. The language barrier had an interesting effect. The ten boys were clearly eager that their audience understand what was being said; they jumped and whooped and leaned into the crowd, and the crowd could not help but respond, although most understood nothing bar the beat. Levi was indeed the hype man, picking up his microphone every few bars and shouting 'Y O!' into it. Some of the younger black kids in the audience rushed the stage in response to the sheer energy of this performance, and here Levi came into his own, encouraging them in English.

'Levi doesn't even speak French: said Zora frowning at the performance. 'I don't think he has any idea what he's hyping.'

But then came the chorus -sung by everyone together, including Levi, in English: 'AH-RIS-TEED, CORRUPTION AND GREED, AND SO WE ALL SEE, WE STILL AIN'T FREE!'

'Nice rhymes: said Chantelle, laughing. 'Nice and basic.'

'Is this political?' asked Daisy with distaste. After fWO outings, the chorus thankfully dropped back into the manic Creole ofthe verse. Claire struggled to simultaneously translate for her class. She soon gave it up under the weight of too many unfamiliar terms. Instead, she paraphrased: 'They seem to be angry about America's involvement in Haiti. The rhymes are very ... crude, is the best way to put it.'

'We have something to do with Haiti?' asked Hannah.

'We have something to do with everywhere: said Claire.

'And how does your brother know those guys?' asked Daisy.

Zora widened her eyes. 'I have absolutely no idea.'

'I can't hear myself think: said Ron, and got up to go to the bar.

The fattest boyan the stage now took his tum with a solo. He was also the angriest, and the other boys dropped back in order to give him the space he needed for whatever it was he was angry about.

'It's a very worthy effort: shouted Claire to her class above the unbearable noise of another chorus. They have the power of the troubadour voice ... But I'd say they have a little to learn about integration ofidea and fonn -you break a fonn in two ifyou have all this undigested political fury in it. I think I'm going to go up for a cigarette." Deftly she rose without the need of putting her hands to the floor.

'I'll come up too,' said Zora, and made heavier work of the same movement.

They made their way through the crowds in the basement and restaurant without conversation. Claire wondered what was coming. Outside, the temperature had dropped another few degrees.

'You want to share? Be quicker." 'Thank you,' said Claire and accepted the Cigarette she was passed. Her fingers trembled a little. Those guys are wild,' said Zora. 'It's like, you so want them to be good, but -'

'Right."

'Something to do with trying too hard, I guess. That's Levi all over: They were silent for a minute. 'Zora,' said Claire, letting the wine take her along, 'are we 0 K?' 'Oh, absolutely,' said Zora with a certainty and speed that suggested she'd been waiting for the question all night. Claire looked at her doubtfully and passed back the cigarette. 'You sure?' 'Seriously. We're all adults. And I have no intention of not being an adult."

Claire smiled stiffly. 'I'm glad."

'Don't mention it. It's all about compartmentalization."

'That's very mature of you."

Zora smiled contentedly. Not for the first time when talking to Howard's daughter Claire felt estranged from her own being, as if she were indeed just another ofthe six billion extras playing in that fabulous stage show, the worldwide hit called Zora's Life.

'What's important,' said Zora, her voice turning excessively diffident, 'is finding out, you know ... whether I can actually do this thing, writing.'

'That's a daily discovery,' said Claire evaSively. She felt Zora's avid stare; she sensed something important was about to be said. But now the door of the restaurant was thrown open. It was Ron. The diners behind him complained of the draught.

'Oh my God -you've got to see this guy. He's amazing. Downstairs. He's blowing everybody away.'

'This better be good -we're smoking.'

'Zoor -I'm telling you. He's like Keats with a knapsack.'

The three made their way back downstairs. Once in the basement, they could get only a foot further than the double doors and had to stand. They could hear but not see. The whole audience was on its feet swaying together, the music passing through the crowd like wind through a cornfield. The voice that was so exciting this room expressed itself with precision (it was the first time all night that nobody missed a word) and threw out complicated multisyllabic lines with apparent ease. The chorus was a simple repeated line, sung flat, yet sweetly: But it ain't like that. The verses, by contrast, spun a witty, articulate tale about the various obstacles in the spiritual and material progress of a young black man. In the first verse, he was trying to prove he had Native American blood in order to get into the top colleges in the country. This close to the bone in a college town -drew broad laughter. The following verse, concerning a girlfriend who had gone ahead with an abortion without informing him, included the follOWing rhymes, completed without obvious pause for breath, and at incredible speed: My life to you seems wrong I Here's me trynta to do these songs I When you paged me I To say 'Carl, baby, I'm two weeks gone' I Dropped the pager I In my teamp I start to feel I could redeem this I Now I know I need to treat ya I Neat and sweet and never cheat ya I in a week I went to see ya I No need to drag my ass on 'Leeza' I Was gonna get my Dr Spack on I Dat's the medic, not the Klingon I But you already spoke with yo' girls at work I And done decided I'm a jerk I Now, since when does workin' Macca D's I Make this bitch the new authority I On my goddamn paternity? Say what, Boo? Excuse me? I And yeah, I know you figured I'd be pleased Depopulated by decree -But it ain't like that.

It elicited a spontaneous basement-wide gasp, followed by more laughter. People whistled and clapped. 'Oh, that's quite brilliant,' said Claire to Ron, who in response held his head with both hands and pretended to swoon.

Zora found a Moroccan footstool and climbed on to it. From this vantage point, she gasped and wrung Ron's hand by the wrist. 'Oh my God... I totally know him.'

For it was Carl, dressed in an old fifties-style football sweater and wearing a neat little multicoloured knapsack. He was pacing the stage in the same relaxed, homely manner with which he'd accompanied Zora to the gates of Wellington College, and he smiled prettily as he spoke, the complex rhymes tripping off his luminous teeth as if he were crooning in a barbershop troupe. The only sign of exertion was the river of sweat that came down his face. Doc Brown, in his enthusiasm, had joined Carl on the stage, and now found himself reduced to hype man, Yo-ing like Levi in the tiny syllabic gaps Carl left in his wake.

'What?' said Ron, unable to hear anything, not even Carl any more, over the roars and whistles of the audience. 'I KNOW THAT GUY.'

'THAT GUY?'

'YES.'

'OH MY GOD. IS HE STRAIGHT?'

Zora laughed. The alcohol had done its work on all of them now. She smiled in a knowing way about things she did not know, and swayed with the beat as much as her footstool would allow.

'Let's try to get closer to the stage,' suggested Claire, and in the last minute, following Ron's unabashed elbowed course through the audience, they reached their original seats.

'OH -MY -WORD!' yelled Doc Brown, as Carl's tape finished. He held up Carl's right hand like a prizefighter's. 'I think we have 23 1.

a winner -correction: I know we have a champion -' But Carl released himself from Doc's grip and jumped lightly off the stage on to the floor. Somewhere, underneath the cheering, you could hear the discontented boos of rival factions, but the cheers won out. The Creole boys and Levi were nowhere in sight. From all sides people clapped their hands to Carl's back and rubbed his head fondly.

'Hey -you don't want your jeroboam? Brother's shy -don't want his prize!' 'No, no, no -hold my champagne: shouted Carl. 'Brother got to wash his face, though. Too much sweat is too much.' Doc Brown nodded sagely. 'Well said, well said -gotta be fresh and clean. Ain't no doubt. OJ, spin it for us in the interim.' Music started up and the audience ceased being an audience and softened into a crowd. 'Bring him over here: insisted Ron, and then to the class: 'Zora knows that boy. We need him over here.'

'You know him? He's very talented: said Claire.

'j know him this much: said Zora, signitying an inch between her forefinger and thumb. Just as she said this, she turned and found Carl in front of her. He had in his face the elated buzz of the performer, just landed back in the plebeian world of his public. He registered her; he grabbed her face; he delivered an enormous sweaty kiss full on her mouth. His lips were the softest, most luscious part of a human being she had ever felt against her own skin.

'See that?' he said. 'That was poetry. J got to go to the john.'

He was about to pass on to the next back slap, the next head rub, when riny Claire moved into his path. Her class, wary of the potential shame here, cringed behind her.

'Hi!' she said.

Carl looked dOwn and found the obstruction.

'Yeah, thank you, man -thanks: he said, presuming her message was the same as everybody else's. He tried to get by her, but she caught him by the elbow.

'Are you interested in refining what you have?'

Carl stopped and stared at her. 'Excuse me?'

Claire repeated her question.

Carl frowned. 'How d'you mean refining?'

'Look, when you get back from the bathroom: said Claire, 'come and talk to me and my kids. We're a class, a poetry class, in Wellington. We'd like to taik to you. We have an idea for you.' Her class wondered at her absolute confidence -this must be what comes with age and power.

Carl shrugged and then broke into his smile. He'd won at the Bus Stop. He'd killed at the Bus Stop. All was good with the world. He had time for everybody.

'A'ight: he said.

Just before Thanksgiving, a lovely thing happened.

Zora was in Boston, leaving a second-hand bookstore she had never visited before. It was a Thursday, her free day, and, despite a prediction of gale-force winds, she'd gone into town on a whim. She bought a thin volume ofIrish verse, and was holding on to her hat and stepping out to the sidewalk, when a cross-country bus pulled up in front ofher. Jerome stepped off. Home a day early for the ThanksgiVing weekend. He hadn't told anyone how he was coming back or when. The two held each other, as much for stability as for delight while a huge gust tore through them, sending dry leaves into the air and tipping over a garbage can. Before they had a chance to speak, a loud cry of ,Yo!' came from behind them. It was Levi, delivered to their feet by the wind.

'No way: said Jerome, and for a while the three simply repeated rhis phrase, hugging each other, blocking the sidewalk. It was freezing; the wind was enough to upend a small child. They should all have gone inside somewhere and had coffee, but to leave the spot would have been somehow to abandon the miracle of it, and they weren't quite ready to do that yet. They each felt a powerful need to stop people on the street and explain what had happened. But who would believe it? This is insane. I don't even ever come this way. I usually get the train!'

'Man, that's freaky. That's just not right: said Levi, whose mind naturally lent itself to conspiratorial and mystical phenomena. They shook their heads and laughed, and to relieve the sense offreakiness recounted their journeys to each other, taking care to assert common-sense arguments like 'Well, we're often in Boston towards the end of the week' and 'This is nearest to the T-stop we usually use', but nobody was especially convinced by this and the wonder co!'tinued. The urge to tell someone became acute. Jerome called Kiki on his cell. She was sitting in her cubicle (decorated with photographs ofthese three children), typing doctor's notes into the Beecham Urology Ward's patient records.

'Jay? But when d'you get back, baby? You didn't say anything.'

Just now -but isn't that amazing?'

Kiki stopped typing and concentrated properly on what she was being told. It was so blustery outside. The window by her cubicle was lashed every few minutes by slick leaves plastering themselves across the glass. Every word ofJerome's came to her like a cry from a ship in a storm.

'You bumped into Zoor?'

'And Levi. We're all standing here -right now -we're freaking out!'

In the background Kiki could hear both Zora and Levi asking for the phone.

'Well, I can't believe that -that's crazy. I guess there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio -right?' This was Kiki's sole literary quotation, and she used it for all uncanny incidents and also those that were, in truth, only slightly uncanny. 'It's like what they say about twins. Vibrations. You must feel each other's presence somehow.'

'But isn't that insane?'

Kiki grinned into the mouthpiece, but real enthusiasm failed her. There was a residual melancholy connected to the thought ofthese the anatomy lesson three newly coined adults walking freely about the world without her assistance, open to its magic and beauty, available for unusual experiences and not, explicitly not, typing doctor's notes into the Beecham Urology Ward's patient records.

'Isn't Levi meant to be in school? It's rwo thirty.'

Jerome relayed this query to Levi and offered him the cellphone but now Levi stepped back from it as ifit were primed to explode. Placing his legs wide apart and trying to keep his balance in a fierce crosswind, he began energetically mouthing rwo silent words.

'What!' said Jerome.

'Levi: repeated Kiki, 'School. Why isn't he in school?'

'Free period: said Jerome, correctly translating Levi's rrume. 'He's got a free period.' 'Is that so. Jerome, can I talk to YOut brother, please?' 'Mom? Mom -you're breaking up, I can't hear you. It's like a tornado out here. I'll call you back when I'm out of the city: said Jerome, which was childish, but for the moment he and his siblings formed an inviolable gang of three, and he would not be the one to break the delicate bond into which a little coincidence had delivered them. The Belsey children repaired to a nearby cafe. They sat on stools lined up against the windowpane, looking out over the blasted heath of Boston Common. They caught up with each other's news casually, leaving long, cosy gaps of silence in which to go to work on their muffins and coffees. Jerome -after rwo months ofhaving to be witty and brilliant in a strange town among strangers -appreciated the gift of it. People talk about the happy quiet that can exist berween rwo lovers, but this too was great; sitting berween his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel -before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by pullY tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider ifor how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.

'Remember that?' Jerome asked Zora, nodding at the Common across the way. 'My big reconciliation idea. Dumb idea. How are they anyway?'

The scene of that family outing was presently stripped of all its leaves and colour in such a radical fashion it was difficult to imagine any ofit growing green again.