"But he was a little pissed off. If I'd said yes, we'd have gone right back to me being number five or six on his priority list. Wouldn't I?"

"Maybe he's learned his lesson."

But what if he hadn't? "I'd have had to go through all this again at some stage. I've already done ten days of agony. I can't waste them."

MaryRose tried to top up Katie's glass, even though it was brimming over.

"I just have to keep going." Katie managed a watery smile. "When you think about it, my life is so good. I have my friends and my sister and my job-"

"And shoes! You have such beautiful shoes."

"Yes-"

"And cake! Not much in life that can't be fixed by cake."

"Cake, yes, cake."

But after an uneasy pause, Katie toppled forward until her forehead was almost on her knees. "I'm always going to be the childless woman who has to read bedtime stories to other people's kids."

"You could have a baby! If that's what you wanted."

"It's just that now there's no chance of . . . anything." Katie addressed her lap. "I might as well be dead."

"But you don't have to be childless or dead or in Nantes with that Hortense-Conall asked you to marry him! He's learned his lesson, he loves you, he's serious about a future with you."

"But what if he isn't, MaryRose? What if I'm just fooling myself? And I think I am, you know. Fooling myself, I mean. Oh God, I don't know what to do!"

Day 37 . . .

Dinner, telly, cookies, more cookies, bed-didn't they ever get bored, Matt and Maeve? No wonder Maeve had to risk her life every day on her bike; it was the only way to ensure she got a bit of excitement.

They were lying on their couch, watching a holiday-home-in-the-sun show, but Maeve's mind was far away, thinking, for some reason, about when she and Matt had got engaged.

Before they told anyone, Natalie had guessed.

"Fast work!" she said.

"It's been five months."

Indecently soon, perhaps.

"But when you know, you know, right?" Maeve said.

"Congratulations." Nat grinned. "Throw the bouquet my way."

"You're a star, Nat, so you are," Maeve said.

"Poor David's not going to be happy," Nat warned. "He's still waiting for the two of you to break up."

"Oh God." Maeve shoved her face into her hands. "You know, I think I'm going to leave Goliath and try to get a job someplace else. It's too tough on David, seeing Matt and me every day."

"He really hasn't forgiven you." Natalie made it sound almost funny.

"I know and the guilt is wrecking my head." David was still refusing to talk to Maeve-and, of course, Matt-and he showed no interest in hooking up with any other girls.

"It's his ego," Natalie said. "He just couldn't believe a newbie like you would dump him."

"Don't say that. He's entitled to his feelings. But I want to keep this engagement business as low key as possible, I don't want to be rubbing his nose in it."

However, all that changed when Hilary Geary insisted she absolutely must throw an engagement party in her gracious Carrickmines home. "It would be a sin not to mark this happy, happy occasion!" Hilary said. "We'll greet the guests with champagne cocktails," she said, writing in her notebook. "And we'll have a full bar in the dining room. And you must invite everyone from your work! It's not every day that the most beautiful girl in the world agrees to marry your son!"

Maeve had a pretty good idea that she wasn't exactly the kind of girl that Hilary Geary would have picked for her son (she'd probably have preferred someone who was more into clothes and manicures and table arrangements), but if Hilary had reservations about Maeve, you'd never know. Hilary kept going on about how gorgeous Maeve was, what wonderful skin she had, how perfect she was for Matt and how beautiful she'd be in her wedding dress.

Maeve quite liked the idea of a party-except for the worry of David.

"We can't," Maeve told Matt. "It would upset David too much."

"We have to. We haven't a hope of stopping Mum," Matt said. "Any excuse for a drink. I mean it-I know what she's like. That party is happening, one way or the other."

So should they invite David or should they not? Maeve agonized.

"It'd be a right poke in the eye not to invite him, but will it look like we're gloating if we do?"

"Look, just invite him and let him make up his own mind," Matt said.

"No, Matt, please . . . it's not so simple. He's upset."

"It's like this, Maeve: he wanted you, I wanted you, I got you. End of. Time for us all to move on."

"You're too pragmatic."

"That's right. I'm brutal." He nudged her and she smiled in response, then said ruefully, "Matt, have a heart, think of his feelings."

"I have been thinking of his feelings. I've done it for the last five months. And, actually, for the three months before that as well. That's enough."

"Okay, I'll invite him."

When he hadn't responded one way or the other by the day of the party, Matt said, "I guess we can take that as a no." Maeve wasn't so sure. She half-expected the guests to arrive and find their way into Hilary and Walter's beautiful detached home barred by David and a group of his sympathizers, carrying pickets and noisily urging them to boycott the event.

But it all went off fine. David didn't come and Maeve didn't know whether to be sorry or relieved.

Day 37 . . .

The real pisser, Lydia felt, was that Ellen had the ability to hold it together for short periods of time. When she guided her mum into the office of William Copeland, she almost had to stop herself from saying: Here's my mum, just give us the referral for the scan and we'll be on our way. But the neurologist insisted on "drawing out" Ellen, who responded by chatting charmingly. In response to his gentle questioning, she correctly name-checked the president, then-and this is what killed Lydia-she could do basic sums. The woman who was lining the pockets of half of Boyne by not being able to recognize a tenner, was able to multiply six by twelve. Then, oh fecking then, she aced a short-very easy, Lydia noted anxiously-IQ test.

"Everything looks good here," Dr. Copeland said.

"The test was very simple."

"It's standard."

"But Mum, she's been so . . . different."

"Example, please."

"She doesn't understand money any more."

"She's just demonstrated that she does."

"She's only being polite. Because you're a doctor-"

"Consultant."

"Consultant, then. When we leave here, she'll turn into a madzer again."

"Madzer isn't a term I'm comfortable with."

"Nutjob, then." When he didn't show any sign of warming up, she said, "Can we send her for a scan?"

"I see no reason."

"She thinks I'm her dead sister."

"Do you think that?" He addressed Ellen.

"Lydia looks almost identical to how Sally looked when she died," Ellen said quietly. "Sometimes the wrong name slips out."

Dr. Copeland nodded. "Sometimes I call my son Sophie. The dog's name."

"She's stopped cleaning the house," Lydia said. "It was always, like, perfect, really clean and that."

"She's entitled to kick back a little. Don't you think she worked long enough taking care of you and-" he consulted his notes-"your brothers?"

That's just what Ronnie had said.

"But the place gets disgusting. Sorry, Mum, but it does. Like, abnormal. I'd be worried about rats and things."

Ellen chuckled gently. "I've seen your flat. Yourself and Sissy live in a pigsty."

"But Mum, I'm twenty-six. I'm irresponsible. I don't care about things being clean. That only happens when you get older. And," she added, in distress, "I don't live with Sissy any more. I moved out two months ago. That's another thing you've forgotten."

Dr. Copeland was doodling on his pad. He seemed to be wrestling with an unpleasant choice. Eventually, he looked up and spoke. "Lydia, let me tell you something. I get adult children in here, worried because their parents are suddenly going on a trip to Australia and, quote, 'spending their inheritance.' They tell me their parents have taken leave of their senses."

It took a moment. "I'm not trying to get Mum sent to some bin so I can steal all her money! There isn't any. Mum doesn't even own the house she lives in."

Copeland gazed hard, like he was trying to mind-bend Lydia into confessing to the crime of false accusation, and Lydia suddenly remembered what everyone knew: all head-doctors were nutters, far madder than their patients.

After another long pause, Dr. Copeland said, "Lydia, what do you want for your mother?"

"I just want a name. Like, of whatever is wrong with her, then she can be given tablets and she'll be grand again."

"And start cleaning the house again?"

"Be back to her old self."

Day 37 . . .

Naomi was wrong to say that Conall had never gone on holiday with Katie. There had been a weekend in Budapest, four days in a fabulous hotel in Ibiza (which ended up being only two because of a delayed flight), but Katie's fondest memory was of their first trip away. They'd been going out with each other less than a month when Conall showed up with tickets to Tallinn. He was still trying to make amends for the Glyndebourne fiasco. "I picked Tallinn because they have a six-hundred-year-old apothecary," he explained. "And I know you love drugstores."

They'd arrived late on a Friday night and the very first thing they did the next morning was go directly to the apothecary. Actually, it was more like the third or fourth thing they'd done, she remembered. They'd woken up in the curved, carved bed and had long, languorous sex, then they'd had breakfast with champagne and strawberries, because, say what you like about Conall, call him flashy if you must, but he knew how to do things in style. Eventually, they'd got dressed and had a chat with the concierge about maps and locations. Well, Conall did. Katie had no interest in that sort of stuff. She thought it was only for men: they loved it-highlighter pens, x marks the spot, all that. When the discussion ended, Katie headed toward the door and the sunlight outside, only to discover that she was being steered by Conall back toward the stairs.

"A few moments of your time," he'd murmured, a gleam in his eye.

They'd tumbled back into the suite they'd just left, falling noisily across the room and on to the bed, where they had an unexpected but very sexy quickie.

"Okay." Conall had got Katie to her feet and helped her to put her bra back on. "Visit to the drugstore, take two."

It was the Taj Mahal of dispensaries, a beautiful, old-fashioned apothecary. The walls were lined with small square wooden drawers, and high up on shelves were brown glass jars labeled with chemistry symbols. The light, reflected by fly-blown mirrors, was dim and respectful. But this was a working drugstore and, to Katie's pleasure, a plethora of modern-day products were also on display.

"Come on," Conall asked, "please walk me through this." He pulled her to him. "Are you . . . look, don't be embarrassed."

"Of course I'm embarrassed," she said. "I'm the only person I know who browses in drugstore."

"But I browse in hardware shops. For our next holiday we'll be going to the world's biggest widget outlet. And we both browse in stationery places."

"Are you really sure you're interested?"

"I swear to God. I want you to show me the things you love." He picked up a box. "So what's this here?"

"A special soap to prevent acne." Nothing special.

She didn't linger on the skin and hair products-no matter how energetically he nodded, she suspected he was faking it. Anyway, her favorite was the first-aid section. They were so cunning, all these developments.

"What's this?" He picked up a plastic cylinder.

"Oh Conall." She couldn't prevent her enthusiasm spilling over. "It's a wound wash, and it's brilliant. Remember when you were a kid and you'd fall and cut your knees and there'd be bits of stone and grit, and how awful it was, having it cleaned with a disinfectant. None of that now. You just spray this on, and I think it must have a mild local anesthetic, and of course it's antibacterial."

Conall studied the instructions. "I see, it washes out 'foreign matter'. Is that-"

"-the stones and grit. Exactly!"

"Christ, I actually wish I was injured so I could give it a go."

She flicked him a glance and they both began laughing and he exclaimed, "Katie, I'm not making fun. I do think this is interesting. And what's this here?"

"Spray-on plaster. For awkward areas, where you can't get one to stick. All you have to do is just spray it on."

He pressed the nozzle and a drop of liquid hissed on to his finger. "It's dry! Already! See." He waved his hand at her. "And that acts just like a Band-Aid?"