"I'll go home and sort it out."

"Don't go back there, Julie; I really don't think you should see him."

I grab a doughnut. When I glance at her to check if she thinks I'm being incredibly greedy, I find her frowning at the magnolia plant I bought yesterday.

She turns back to me. "What's a plant doing on your dressing-table?"

"It's supposed to make a woman more beautiful."

"Oh, don't tell me."

"What?"

"Feng Shui."

"Well, yes."

"You're turning into a Feng Shui Feng Shui hippie. All those candles you got as well. They're not for a blackout at all, are they? I worry." hippie. All those candles you got as well. They're not for a blackout at all, are they? I worry."

"I happen to have a booklet on the subject handy."

"You'll end up like her if you're not careful."

"Like how?"

"She has a screw loose."

"I don't know."

I turn towards the window. I sense her eyes latching on to me.

"Do you think otherwise, Julie?"

I can feel myself reddening. "Well..." I begin, sipping my coffee. "She's not...exactly...a bad bad person in her own right...as such..." person in her own right...as such..."

I sip my coffee again.

"Do I still detect a note of sympathy for her case?"

"You do not."

I start nibbling a second doughnut. I don't want this conversation right now. Even if I am grateful to be in the middle of guzzling most of Sylvana's breakfast.

"You just said 'as such'."

"I met her yesterday."

She turns her head and smiles into the distance with mute forbearance, as if she's wondering what I'll tell her next.

"She called me," I insist.

"And that makes it okay."

"She just needed someone to talk to. She's all messed up. She's been badly hurt."

"She's a bitch, even if she's a saint compared with him."

"It's not really her I blame."

"Julie, you're not well."

"Don't be ridiculous. Anyway, I only wanted to find out...information."

"You plan to go back to Ronan, don't you?"

"Now what do you you think?" think?"

She says I must stick by my decision to embrace my new life and my new apartment and my new freedom. She advises me to do all the things I insisted Nicole should do. She forbids me to see either of them again. She says she's more than happy to mediate for me, regarding the Porsche.

I have to get out of here.

I reach for my mobile and input for messages. Ronan has left one, at nine o'clock this morning, informing me that he is currently in a taxi on his way to the surgery. (Is he about to discover a new angle on Chi Chi, at long last?) He says that this is simply 'not acceptable' because one, he's going to be late for his patients and two, he already has a car and he would like to know what the hell I have done with it.

The poor boy is chauffeur-driven to work and he's complaining.

There's a message from Mother, left this morning an hour after Ronan's. She's commanding me to come home and sort out my husband who has suddenly returned from work in dangerously 'Cyclopic' form. And if I don't come home now and bail her out, she threatens, I could be putting my own tropical marine fish in danger of liquefaction. She actually says that! She can be so droll.

I throw the bedclothes off me and jump on to the floor.

"Where are you going?" demands Sylvana.

"Home," I reply.

"But why do you...?"

"Because I have nothing but the highest regard for tropical marine fish."

"What do you mean?"

"Madeleine Albright wants to see me."

44 44.

When I get home, Mother is in the kitchen manipulating sausages and rashers on the grill with a wooden spoon. She looks funny in her green apron and long light-blue dressing-gown and the huge pink furry Teletubby slippers I got her as a joke last Mother's Day but one, not guessing she'd actually wear them.

"He's inside," she says, flipping the contents of the grill on to a plate.

"I guessed. How is he?"

"I bumped into him this morning," she says. "He got up a little earlier because he had to take a taxi to work."

"Did he say anything?"

"He muttered something all right. I wouldn't swear to it, but it sounded strikingly like 'good morning'."

"So he's still tormenting you."

"He returned from work just now, for whatever reason. I passed him in the hall. He didn't even look at me. He went straight into his bedroom and shut the door. I'm convinced it's male hormones."

It's Chi Chi, that's what it is.

She puts the mixed grill down on the table in front of me.

"Mother, I've just had a huge breakfast with Sylvana."

"What did you have?" she asks accusingly.

"Three Danish pastries and coffee."

"Dear God, child, you've never lost your innocence. Sit down there, now, and eat some proper food."

Grudgingly, I sit down and pick up my knife and fork.

"But what are you going to have?"

"Toast."

"But you made this grill for yourself."

"Motherhood, Julie, is all about sacrifice."

Stony silence.

"What are you saying? That I should be a mother?"

"No, Julie. I'm saying that I am your mother and you haven't been home in three days, and I know something's wrong between you and Ronan. Now I realize that it's none of my business and I don't wish to pry."

Translation: I do wish to pry because it is all of my business.

"Can we talk about it later?"

"I hope you're not planning on separating."

I cease sawing a rasher in half and look up at her amazed. "Why?"

"Because," she eyes me with a strange glint, "I refuse to live here on my own with him."

"We're just having an argument. Sometimes it's healthy to take a short break away from your spouse."

"I wouldn't blame you. Even Prudence dislikes him."

"Prudence has extraordinary psychic powers," I observe, rouge-ing at this mention of the cat.

What I will do is this: finish my breakfast and slip out and nab the cat box from under the tarpaulin and wrap it in a black bin bag and steal it out of the apartment for disposal, before she or Ronan gets wind of it, literally.

"Oh, by the way, Julie," she says, as if reading my mind. "Where is is Prudence? I haven't seen him anywhere." Prudence? I haven't seen him anywhere."

"Oh..."

"Have you seen him?"

I have indeed seen Prudence. He's out on the balcony, decomposing.

I jump up to shove a slice of bread in the toaster. Mother is difficult to lie to, mere inches away. Three metres' distance and you stand a better chance.

"Don't worry about the cat, Mother. I got rid of him."

She's nodding now. "How did you do it?"

"Mother, I got rid of the cat in the sense that I handed it back to its rightful owner."

"You don't really think I bought that story."

"What story?"

"That Sylvana owns Prudence."

"Of course she does."

"Then how come she didn't know the cat's sex?"

"Can we just forget this conversation?"

I pour her more tea.

A second later Ronan walks in the door.

45 45.

He leans against the wall, arms folded, glaring at me through eyes cold and scathing.

I know what this is about.

This is about Chi Chi.

"So it's come to this, Julie," he says.

"Is something wrong?" I wonder, casually buttering some toast.