No, she replied, he was also conceited, opinionated and false. And 'irresponsible'. Had he not, after all, put his dentistry career on hold while he skipped off to Paris to study aesthetics and the history of art?

From that day on I felt I had to prove something to her. Ronan had turned into a kind of crusade.

We got married. We honeymooned in Paris, city of our dreams. He took me by the hand and led me through yellow streets adorned with ancient jewels; bright, sun-washed boulevards lined with trees and cheered by corner cafes with red awnings; high, dark alleyways with crooked shutters and slanting roofs; the scents of hot bread or gaufres gaufres or coffee. or coffee.

We laughed and joked and conversed and planned for our future together in the bustling cafes, the elegant restaurants, the cobbled walkways, the museums and the parks of the city. And in the privacy of our bridal suite we shared the intimate secrets of life and love.

For once in my life I began to believe in something I never thought it possible for me to believe in.

Trust.

Passing the Martello Tower beside the wide expanse of Sandy-mount beach, I take the next left. I drive past Cherbury Court and park in the next street up. Climbing out of the car I immediately lose my balance, lurching over and practically ending up in handstand position. Post-Traumatic Whiskey Disorder.

I open the boot and extract the ice-pick from our picnic box, slide it into my pocket and start walking.

Trust.

Why did I trust Ronan? Simply because I fell in love with him? Because I adored his company? Because I married him? What sort of reasons are those to trust someone?

I squeeze my fingers hard against the sharp tip of the ice-pick. When I feel the pain cutting into me I squeeze even harder. I walk into Cherbury Court. A row of terraced two-storey red-brick houses with front doors painted in luxuriant reds and greens and blues. Narrow strips of garden. Railings in front, well-sheared hedges. Driveways with expensive-looking new cars. Classic middle-class territory.

Unevenly, I walk towards number two. On top of both gateposts are the stone heads of dogs. The narrow gravel driveway is empty. The front garden is neat and lush, enclosed by a clipped hedge and a row of conifers along the front wall. Curved flowerbeds, a small round pond with a fountain in the centre, a pretty bird stand topped by a wooden platform with enough room for, say, two blackbirds to have dinner together.

I approach the front door. On each side stands an evergreen plant in a heavy terracotta pot. Just above the door there hangs a small red octagonal disc with a round mirror in the middle and gold-embossed sign language at the edges. Must be to ward off evil spirits like me.

The front door has a stained-glass panel in the middle, with a picture of a red sailing boat in a blue sea under a yellow sky.

I ring the bell several times.

No one at home.

My fingers clasp the handle of the ice-pick.

Checking first over both my shoulders, I extract the weapon from my pocket and start smashing.

8 8.

The metal blade bounces off the glass like a pencil.

I stop for breath. I smash again, but again it glances off the sailing boat. A quality sailing boat indeed.

There's no sound from inside. And there's no suspicious movement from outside. Me apart.

One more blow and the ice-pick goes straight through the middle of the tall red sail. Very functional ice-pick, this. I wait for the alarm to go off. It doesn't. So I stand on my toes and stick my arm through and open the latch.

The earthenware-tiled hallway at the bottom of the stairs is bright and warm. Just inside the front door is a bright orange curtain and to the right is a small wooden table. On top is a vase containing a two-foot-high jasmine plant. I break it in two like a stick of celery. Hanging on the wall above the table is a pretty watercolour depicting an empty beach with strong waves.

I hack into it, punching a hat-trick of holes into the canvas.

Directly in front of the door is the stairway. On my way into the main room, I hack off a wooden bannister. I pull and pull until it dislodges like a tooth. It falls to the floor. Would make great firewood.

I enter the sitting-room now, close the curtains and start smashing everything in sight. Whole minutes pass.

When I'm done I sit on the lemon-yellow couch, exhausted.

I survey the jungle of devastation around me.

It's like the aftermath of Gallipoli: there's a hole in the TV.

The two rhododendrons which flank the TV have been decapitated: large Jurassic leaves lie scattered around the floor. The gold-framed mirror above the mantelpiece is distinguished by impressive Milky Way impressions. The small vase containing one red carnation, which once stood on this same mantelpiece, is nowhere to be seen, although the carnation itself is stuck to the sole of my left shoe. A golden wall light swings from a flex. Silverware and trinkets of all kinds lie strewn about the floor. The stone fireplace is flavoured by the stench of alcohol. Glass fragments sparkle across the room, and over there I spy this most elegant and lovely drinks cabinet. I seem to recall it recently had glass in it.

Anyone would think, looking at all this chaos around me, that I have not been exceptionally well brought-up.

I havethis is the exception.

In one corner I notice two orange porcelain ducks perched all alone on a narrow table. They remain completely untouched. I just didn't have the heart.

I am now in the process of observing the coffee table. Humiliated and glassless, it is lying on the floor alongside a scattering of magazines and books: Cosmopolitan, Time, House and Home, Aromatherapy Journal, Amateur Gardening, DIY Home Repair Manual, Woodworker Cosmopolitan, Time, House and Home, Aromatherapy Journal, Amateur Gardening, DIY Home Repair Manual, Woodworker.

She must be living with a man, then. A brother, perhaps? A flatmate? A partner? A husband?

There are some books too: Buddhism Buddhism by Christmas Humphries, by Christmas Humphries, The Road Less Travelled The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck, by M. Scott Peck, The Power of Positive Thinking The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, by Norman Vincent Peale, How to Make Friends and Influence People How to Make Friends and Influence People by you'll never guess, by you'll never guess, How to Kill Your Husband and Get Away with It How to Kill Your Husband and Get Away with It by yours truly. by yours truly.

Most of these I have read. The great search for Meaning in this Life, to which my family history drove me, has not totally passed me by. Despite any recent impressions to the contrary.

Only one self-help book ever succeeded in majorly pissing me off. It was a paperback from America which suggested that when persons or things cause you annihilative anxieties (i.e. you want to kill or destroy them), you should attempt to focus positive thoughts on the entities in question. This supposedly frees up powerful psychological energies. I fed the book into the latest hi-tech paper shredder in the Law Library. I clogged up the machine bigtime, which I must say was a nicely ironic footnote on deblocking energies.

I lean over from the couch and pick up a pocket-sized book called Feng Shui: transform your life with ancient Chinese wisdom Feng Shui: transform your life with ancient Chinese wisdom. It's full of photographs of rooms and gardens. The blurb says it's important to harness chi chi or energy in order to achieve peace and harmony in your home or office environment. or energy in order to achieve peace and harmony in your home or office environment.

I have a real problem with this: how can a woman crave to live in harmony and communion with ancient Chinese wisdom and at the same time nonchalantly misappropriate husbands?

I pocket the booklet, get up and go over to the teak drinks cabinet on the off-chance that in this archaeological ruination of glass bottles there might still remain one unscathed. My optimism is rewarded: a small Cointreau bottle peeks from the corner of the cabinet, concealed by a fractured bottle of Martini.

While I am polluting my insides with the stuff, I notice these raggedy bloodstains on the armrest of the couch where I've just been sitting. I quickly examine my hands. Cuts everywhere. Serves her right.

I walk towards the only brittle object in the room which has survived my onslaught, bar the orange porcelain ducks and the orange Cointreau: the fish tank, which I have studiously ignored until now.

It's a stunning community aquarium, more beautiful even than our own. It contains a magnificent aquascape. On a gravel of coral chips and coral sand rises up a structure of pale tufa-rock boulders with crevices and caves, arches and terraces. There are a few light-green living rocks: that one there, for instance, is an Atlantic anemone, populated by an utterly mouth-watering invertebrate melange of tubeworms, fanworms and soft corals.

And the fish? They're just so cute. I bend down to look. The first one is having a little stroll. Possibly he's on a reconnaissance mission. I think I'll say hello.

Hello little Hyphessobrycon erythrostigma! Hyphessobrycon erythrostigma! How could they call you that? Your nickname is so much nicer: bleeding-heart tetra, what with the stabbed bloodshot look in your pretty eyes. How could they call you that? Your nickname is so much nicer: bleeding-heart tetra, what with the stabbed bloodshot look in your pretty eyes.

Oops! There is your cousin rounding the corner. Also, there's a lemon-peel angelfish or should I say, a Pterophyllum scalare Pterophyllum scalare, poking its nose into the glass in a fairly doomed attempt to make contact with me. That lemon-yellow colour againit's a real obsession with her. Behind it flutters a yellow tang (the Latin escapes me) possibly on a food crusade. The tangs are great lettuce eaters, though they won't find too much lettuce in there right now.

Moving on to the right side of the tank, there's a game of rounders going on between this humbug damselfish, which resembles a zebra with fins and prefers bloodworms and shrimp for dinner, and several guppies.

That's when I spot the solitary tiger barb, an aggressive, revolting-looking fish with green and black scales, and a huge fanlike fin bearing red and black tiger markings. This woman is not great on aquatic politics. She ought to know that you should never never mix the tiger barb with the guppy. Give them a day or two and they will be minus a fin or two. mix the tiger barb with the guppy. Give them a day or two and they will be minus a fin or two.

On that point, lemon-peel angelfish eat newborn guppies for breakfast. What d'you bet I'll soon see a piranha cruising the joint waiting to pick up some floating breakfast?

Still. This is, truly, a marvellous aquatic tapestry.

My ice-pick seems to crash all by itselfeffortlesslyinto the glass, sending torrents of cold water over my legs and feet, and as I watch its life draining out before me I am totally unmoved to see a squad of fish sucking desperately against the drenched woodblock floor, fins flapping uselessly against their pale bellies. A guppy is trapped at the bottom of the tank, poor waterless, thankless thing.

God, I'm drunk! Drunk like a fish.

Leaving them there flippering on the floor, I exit the room, thinking: I have waved goodbye to what was once a self-image of decency and temperance. I am a destroyer. An anarchist. A hooligan. An Antichrist. A savage. An ogre. A Goth. A hag.

A terrorist, actually.

And it's giving me this warm, happy glow inside.

Upstairs, I enter a tidy lavender-smelling bedroom. There is a double bed, cosy and plump with pillows, with a man's shoes underneath the bed-end. The jilted husband?

On top of the built-in dressing-table is a magnolia plant, and a photograph of a woman and a man. It's her. She has the same long, wavy, golden hair. In the photo she's shy and feminine-looking, if slightly girly. She's got these large, sparkling eyes and a nice smile. She's got freckles and I know some people would call her cute. The man, certainly in his mid-thirties, is strong and wolf-like.

I ascend a narrow metal ladder to the attic. I penetrate the darkness above and flick on a nearby switch. It is a tiny cramped space, smelling strongly of timber, paint and white spirit. Just beneath the V-shaped rafters is an easel on its stand carrying an unfinished painting: a formless wash of colours splashed together like a patchwork quilt. There are paintbrushes lying on a fold-up table alongside paint tubes and palettes, and sticking out of jamjars. On the floor, perched against the brick partition wall, are a few dozen canvases and a few framed paintings.

I am heartened by the first painting: entitled Foetus Foetus. Its naivety beggars belief. This is funny. I have to call Sylvana.

When she answers, I tell her I'm in Nicole's home.

"Oh," she says after a long pause, "I was just wondering."

"I'm in the attic, right?"

"Why not?"

"I'm staring at this painting..."

"She's an artist?"

"Could you please refrain from abusing language. Slobbering on canvas, Sylvana, does not constitute art. Now, this glorified muck, which I am presently holding in my hands, is supposed to represent a foetus, okay?"

"She's probably pregnant."

"It is pinky red and has two tiny white blotches, which are supposed to be the hands, and a large round white blotch with a dark thing in the middlethat's supposed to be the head. Are you with me so far?"

"I'm with you."

"Now this...blob which is meant to be a foetus although it looks more like a shrimpis surrounded by all this red stuff..." which is meant to be a foetus although it looks more like a shrimpis surrounded by all this red stuff..."

"I like the symbolism," she remarks.

She's trying to tease me.

I snatch up another canvas. On the back are scrawled the words Wind and Water Wind and Water. Wind and piss more like it.

"Julie," she says in a more serious voice, "I think you should leave now."

A third canvas is more intriguing. It consists simply of eight small figures spaced randomly all over it. Each figure resembles a face: each is composed of patterns of parallel strokes like the ones I saw on that mirror thing hanging outside the front door.

I describe it to my friend.

"She clearly has talent," Sylvana observes.

Cursing, I switch off my mobile and fling Foetus Foetus at the water tank, causing a dull booming sound. I now glare at each painting in turn, ranged along the wall, verbally tagging each one with a juicy linguistic crudity. at the water tank, causing a dull booming sound. I now glare at each painting in turn, ranged along the wall, verbally tagging each one with a juicy linguistic crudity.

What if Sylvana has a point? What if the tart does does have talent? What about those portrait sketches of Ronan? They worry me because they suggest (but no more than that) that she has something vaguely resembling a brain, and Ronan admires and respects women with brains. have talent? What about those portrait sketches of Ronan? They worry me because they suggest (but no more than that) that she has something vaguely resembling a brain, and Ronan admires and respects women with brains.

I could destroy all this 'art' shite with one swipe. I could do it. I could take each painting in turn, apply a spoonful of white spirit and cause a small fire sensation.

But I don't.

Why not?

Because I have just heard the sound of a vehicle in the driveway.

I know I should be concerned, but I can't seem to find the energy. So I redescend the ladder at a fairly leisurely paceprobably the Cointreau.

I walk to the front bedroom and look out. Oh yes, I'm thinking, how interesting. There's a man out there in the front driveway, climbing out of a Land Rover. He reminds me a lot of the man in that photograph. Fancy that!

Calmly I descend the stairs.

You can hear his footsteps on the gravel.

I run out to the fitted kitchen and unlock the kitchen door into the garden, my eyes glancing off a magazine on the table. I stop and look again a second time. On the cover is this huge pink face of a grinning baby. It is entitled Your Baby and You: help and advice through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood Your Baby and You: help and advice through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood.

She has a baby?

Sound of the front door opening.

Might as well steal the magazine too.

I grab it, shove open the back door, race down the garden and take a running jump for the top of the back garden wall but I more or less flatten my nose against the plaster so I try a running jump again. This time I scramble over and hit the ground head first. I'm in an alleyway. I pick myself up and run in any direction.

Wandering around the locality for at least a half-hour, drip-drunk, I eventually locate my MG. I realize I've been carrying the ice-pick the whole time, in full view. That's what you get when you pump alcohol into your bloodstream: stupid.

I lock myself inside the car, ignite, accelerate and zoom away like I have a whole squadron of police cars after me.

And maybe I do.

9 9.

By the time I've driven back to our apartment complex at top speed, my bloodstained fingers are beginning to sting against the steering wheel. Evidencethat highly irritating disincentive to crime.

Catching a sudden glimpse of Ronan walking out of our condo, I pull the reins and screech into the nearest parking bayone up from our own. He turns, but before he sees me I'm gone. He must be on his way into town to meet me in La Boheme's for six, dutiful husband that he is.