I pull into an empty parking space and switch off the engine. There he is, his head bobbing like a buoy over the hedge top as he approaches his vehicle. He stops. He is standing with his back to me in the far corner of the car park underneath a cherry tree whose leaves are the colour of violent purple.

He appears to be observing something. His Porsche, at a guess. I scroll down my window and wait, and watch and listen with a nice little fizzle of anticipation.

He is now circling a large object in a broad arcvery cautiouslylike hunters circling a freshly slain lion. He is examining a large object, which I cannot imagine ever moving again. Now he's glancing around him with darting, suspicious movements, but there is no one in sight and although I'm sitting crouched in the only black MGF 1.8i in these suburbs, the poor man still doesn't see me.

He goes to the edge of the car park, beyond which lies a football pitch. On it a soccer match is being waged by teenagers wearing a colourful assortment of jerseys.

Now you can hear something that is sheer joyful music to the ears. It is a Vivaldi quartet awakening the buds of an Italian springtime. It is a Mozart aria cutting through the glassy air of Salzburg. It is a Debussy sonata filling your head with mystifying sadness as you tread the silent back alleys of Paris.

It is the sound of Ronan roaring.

I open the car door to improve the reception. He is screaming at those poor lads. The subject? His recently deceased Porsche. My heart goes out to him at this difficult time, for his soul is suffused with agony. What a horrible deed. What an appalling offence against his property.

My pining husband is still hurling accusations at those youngsters. They in turn are answering back, as is their constitutional right. You can hear their high-pitched voices pierce the air in stupefied rebuttal. The poor things. They who have taken time out to enjoy an innocent game of footie and thus in their own way to recreate the meaning of life. I regret having put them in this position, but there you are.

Ronan marches back to his car, utterly defeated-looking. He should lighten up and join the boys for a game of football; he'd know all about defeat then. A chimpanzee would make it to the first eleven sooner than Ronan.

Now he is leaning with both arms against the roof of his car, lamenting, head bowed, shoulders hunched, grief-struck as if someone has just died on him.

There's a term in ancient Greek, frequently on Ronan's lips whenever he rambles on about dramatic structure in Sophocles.

This is the term: tragedy.

How very appropriate.

Point of information: how will he get into town to meet me in La Boheme's? Will he take a taxi instead?

I'll ask him. Out comes my mobile. I input.

Out comes his own mobile, which he raises to his head. "Oh, it's you," he says.

"Jesus, don't sound so enthusiastic."

"I'm not."

"Am I calling at a bad time?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm going straight home: I don't feel like dining out tonight."

Creepy silence.

"What do you mean you're going straight home?"

"I mean: I'm going in the opposite direction to away."

"Stop being a bloody idiot, Julie."

"I apologize."

Ronan is normally so composed, so soft-spoken. He prides himself on never raising his voice, on sublimating any annoyance through the cool channel of his so-called intellect.

"We made an arrangement," he says.

"It's an argument, I grant you that."

I pay him the courtesy of explaining that on account of the acidification of my digestive tract I just don't feel up to eating dinner in a restaurant tonight, and it suits me better to go home directly and await his return.

I hear this great sigh-heave. "Julie, I've already arrived in town."

"How did you manage that?"

"What?"

"So you're in town?"

"We had a date. I booked a table overlooking the canal."

"How romantic."

"They're doing Duck Provencale tonight."

Has he any idea how ridiculous that sounds?

"That's romantic too, although not for the duck."

"It's your favourite dish, Julie."

How well he understands my weakness for quack-free Provencale-sauce-dunked duck.

"I'm sorry, Ronan. I have to go home."

Pause.

"Jesus," he says then, "you're about as dependable as a..."

I know what he's thinking. He's thinking something disparaging about my hormonal system: I'm unreliable, unpredictable, liable to spontaneous bursts of scattiness, mercuriality, irresponsibility, insanity...cantankerosity? It's the usual put-down.

"...as a hysteric on...Prozac," he concludes lamely.

"Ouch."

"I can't respect people who fatuously cancel arrangements."

I crave to tell him that I can't respect people who flaunt their marriage vows, but I refrain.

There's an ominous silence on the line.

"What's the matter with you today, Ronan? Is it the piles?"

Further portentous pause.

"If you must know, my car had a slight accident."

"An accident."

"Just now."

"Where?"

"In our car park."

"I thought you were in town?"

"I am."

"I see. What happened?"

"Oh, it got a bit smashed up. Vandals. Just some thugs who couldn't handle the idea that some people work for a living and drive nice cars."

I'm a vandal now. And a thug.

"What did they do?"

"Oh," he says, minimizing, "tossed a few bricks at it, that's all."

Pause.

"Is that all?"

"It's enough."

"Have you called the police?"

"They were on their tea break."

"But the police work in shifts."

"No, Julie, I didn't call the police. Nor do I intend to."

I find this somewhat reassuring.

He starts complaining now: "This would never have happened but for the colour. I mean, green or blue or black would have been fine. But yellow? yellow? As it is, I feel like I'm Elton John driving this thing." As it is, I feel like I'm Elton John driving this thing."

Ronan is insinuating that his car was victimized because of its hilarious yellow visibility. And since I am the one who chose the yellow colour through a surreptitious last-minute change, I am somehow to blame for its being trashed.

It's a scandalous accusation. "So you're saying that I'm responsible for having your car smashed."

He tells me to stop being paranoid.

"Paranoid? Did I hear somebody use that word?" Did I hear somebody use that word?"

"Relax, Julie."

Everything stops for five seconds. 'Relax' is another word nobody nobody uses in my presence. uses in my presence.

"Okay, Julie. I'm sorry. Of course you're not responsible for what happened to my car. Now will you meet me in town?"

I'm not? Did I just hallucinate bashing in his car? Did I? God, I think I need therapy to remind me that I'm going sane.

"You actually think I'm paranoid, don't you?"

He softens his tone immediately and insists that we have a nice romantic meal together at La Boheme's. I interrogate him as to whether this means I am paranoid or I am not paranoid.

There's just this tremulous silence.

I inform him then that I wouldn't dream of inflicting a paranoid squid on him for dinner, that I've far too much respect for him to do such a thing.

"Julie," he groans. "Let's just meet in La Boheme's, okay?"

"One point, Ronan."

"Yes."

"Did you actually drive your trashed Porsche into town?"

He clears his throat. "Yes, Julie."

"It must have been painfully embarrassing."

"Look, forget the car. Just meet me in town. Half-six. Okay?"

"Okay," I lie.

He hangs up.

I see him disappearing behind a tall bush. I feel like a guardian angel peering over his shoulder.

Next thing I hear a car engine bursting into action, followed by an almighty revving and screeching of brakes, and suddenly this bright apparition flashes through the hedge to my left. There's more brake-screeching and tyre-wailing as the car stops abruptly at the main road, then the noise vanishes.

He should have more sense than to be embarrassing himself in public, driving a wreck like that.

But where is herself?

Is she still in the apartment? Cleaning up after the picnic?

I get out of my car, baby book and ice-pick under my arm.