"I'm serious. You and Debbie. For a while."

Shaking her head, she says she doesn't deserve anything nice. She says she deserves what she got: losing Ronan, losing her career as an artist, losing her tropical marine fish, losing the love of her father and stepmother, having had an awful love life. Given everything she did to me, she says, she got her just deserts.

She says she doesn't even deserve Debbie.

"Please, Nicole, don't do yourself down. You deserve the best of everything and I consider you a friend. Stay with me. I mean it, Nicole. You can't take Debbie to Amsterdam. Do you think your brother wants a squawking baby in his house? Do you want Debbie to grow up a Dutchwoman? Selling flowers or chopping cheese? You're not Dutch. You belong here."

I want to tell her: I like you, Nicole, I really do. You're fun, you're gentle, you're sweet, you're kind, you're good to be with I like you, Nicole, I really do. You're fun, you're gentle, you're sweet, you're kind, you're good to be with.

But across Nicole's sympathetic face there has fallen a dark shadow of unhappiness. I want to see the sunshine gleaming once more from her eyes, I want to see her sad countenance dancing once more with laughter.

There's this silence between us now. The surrounding buzz of the airport has faded away like dying music, there's the distant sound of a loudspeaker making an announcement, it contains the word Amsterdam but I don't care, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that Nicole agrees to take Debbie home with me where we can all at least discuss things.

But she's resisting. I know it.

"Come back to my place, Nicole. You can stay for as short or as long as you like. There are two spare bedrooms. If you want you can use the second spare bedroom as an artist's studio. I still have your easel from that time you painted the park. Mother's minding it for you. It's a little scarred but it's basically okay. Think of it, Nicole, you could paint the park every day if you wanted. You could even use a little green! And you know, despite what I might have told you in Paris, I think you're actually a very very good painter..." good painter..."

"Thanks, Julie," she says, sheepishly shaking her head.

"...And you wouldn't have to pay rent. The place is easily big enough for three. And you'd love my roof garden during the spring and summer: in just ten hours, you can get a three hundred and sixty degree suntan. Stop laughing, Nicole, I'm serious!

"Well? What do you think? Stop saying that, Nicole, of course course you deserve it, it's not as if you can't do anything in return, I mean, what about those you deserve it, it's not as if you can't do anything in return, I mean, what about those Feng Shui Feng Shui consultations you told me about? I was hoping to redecorate my apartment and I could do with some ideas about colour and design..." consultations you told me about? I was hoping to redecorate my apartment and I could do with some ideas about colour and design..."

She laughs at this.

"I've got that Feng Shui Feng Shui book which I consult from time to timeI'm keen to learn more about energy flows and furniture positioning. Oh, and by the way, when I told you that time in Paris that book which I consult from time to timeI'm keen to learn more about energy flows and furniture positioning. Oh, and by the way, when I told you that time in Paris that Feng Shui Feng Shui was a whole lot of codswallop, I didn't mean it, Nicole. I was simply...I was a whole lot of codswallop, I didn't mean it, Nicole. I was simply...I know know you don't hold it against me. It's just that I was a bit annoyed at the time..." you don't hold it against me. It's just that I was a bit annoyed at the time..."

"Sometimes I think I took all that Feng Shui Feng Shui stuff too seriously." She smiles weakly. stuff too seriously." She smiles weakly.

"And I'm mad about tropical fish too. I actually miss having an aquarium: Mother insisted on keeping ours. She had this strange idea that the fish weren't safe in my hands..."

Nicole laughs in that tinkly, musical way of hers.

"...I was thinking of buying a proper goldfish bowlI suppose I've built up a kind of debt to fish over the last few months. You could come and help me choose someoh, it's just an idea..."

She agrees that it would be wonderful if I had a goldfish bowl.

"Besides." I laugh. "Aren't goldfish supposed to improve your finances? Not that I'm doing too badly right now, but I could always use another million or so."

And again I'm looking through her eyes and she through mine, and she is semi-laughing at me, semi-sobbing, and she says she can't understand why I'm being so nice to her. I should be pulling her hair (she says). I reply that I wouldn't in a million years dream of pulling her hair because I think she's a wonderful person, because she's been hurt more than I have, but still there is not a cynical bone in her body. She is incapable of hating, of being snide, ruthless, harsh.

Compared with me? I stand here and admit openly to her that I have destroyed things she loved. I have plundered her living-room like a born-again Vandal, stolen her books, liquidised her already dead fish, burnt her art, destroyed her loving relationship with Ronan who only happened by an odd quirk of fate to be my husband. (I find myself painfully unable to tell her the truth about Max.) And what kind of person does that make me? me?

And not just that: I tell her how I have insulted her intelligence, slagged off her looks, taken pleasure in her misfortune, taken her for a ride, been cunning and deceptive and spiteful, and for the most part totally nasty and horrible.

"Oh, no!" she urges. "Please don't say that."

Nicole refuses to allow me to say these things about myself.

She is trying to tell me I'm a good person. How can everyone be so deceived about me? How can everybody fly so blatantly in the face of the most obvious, quadruply corroborated, damning character evidence?

Nicole is beseeching me to speak well of myself. At the same time, there are tears trickling from the corners of her eyes. I put down my plastic bag, take a handkerchief from my jacket pocket, raise it to her face and pat it over her cheeks and dry her eyes, holding her shoulder. Despite all the awful things I did to her, she lets me do this. Despite everything, she still looks upon me with kindness, in a way that forgives me completelythat's assuming she ever blamed me for my atrocious behaviour in the first place.

She's like a dream, a mirage. Do people like her really exist? Am I staring at an illusion? An illusion like Ronan was an illusion?

"Stay in my place, Nicole. You and Debbie. Sylvanathat's Imeldathinks you should stay as well. She said she thought you were a howl. And my mother can't wait to meet you. You'll like her a lot. She's a total fruitcake, a true original. Also, she's crazy about babies and has been for quite some time. She plays the piano. You could play duets together. I was thinking of buying a piano for my new place. And having it installed on the roof garden. You could give concerts to people in the park below. Why not? You could play Chopin on it all day if you wanted. Prudence...Max loves the piano. I swear he does. He used to sit right on top of the strings and lick himself."

"How is the poor thing?" she wonders.

"He's great," I reply very quickly. "He misses you a lot, Nicole. Anyway, as I was saying, if I do go ahead and buy a piano, you could always give me lessons. And you needn't worry about Debbie. She can roam free, subject, of course, to the french windows being closed at all times in case she falls out. I shouldn't have said that. And if you wanted to go out alone I wouldn't mind babysitting. I actually like babysitting, you know, I used to do it at college. And of course I was married for two yearsthat counts too. Anyway, I'm quite good with babies. Did you see me back there with Debbie?"

I bend down and take Debbie's tiny hand and shake it and say how do you do, and Debbie gurgles something uninterpretable. The feeling surges through me once again that I want to pick her up and smother her with love, so much so that she won't ever want to let go of me. Ever.

When I stand up again I can't help feeling like breaking down.

Nicole is holding my arm again.

"So look, Nicole, if you're coming with me I think you'd better come now."

I'm looking down at Debbie, the bundle of love sleeping peacefully at our feet. When I raise my eyes again, I find Nicole staring at me with concern, speechless, crushed.

"I'm fine," I reassure her and I must look like a right idiot wiping the wet from my face, trying to tell her I'm fine.

"All I'm saying is...none of what happened has to matter. It doesn't have to matter that the most important person in my life and in your life will no longer be around. It doesn't have to matter that I haven't a husband any more, or that you don't have Ronan, or that Debbie doesn't have a father, all I'm saying is...all I'm saying is..."

Nicole doesn't want to stay with me. I know it.

I trail away, miserable, and stare out. A plane is moving very quickly across the runway. It whizzes past us at an astonishing rate. Still its wheels are in contact. Now it's poking its nose into the air. Now it's airborne...

"You'd better go now, Nicole. I'm just being silly. Go."

She comes to me with this beautiful smile on her face, puts her arms around me and squeezes. My head is pressed into her shoulder. I can feel my nose running onto her bushy apricot-scented hair, which expands to fill every last crevice and I'm holding on to her very tightly, but I don't care and she doesn't seem to care either. There's a tenderness emanating from her that seems to enclose me like a soft boiler jacket, and isn't Nicole really dumb? I mean a real softie to let me weep like a deluge on her shoulder like this, because there's all this make-up and mascara smudging on to her cream sweater and she's going to have to send it to the dry-cleaners after me, which is a fine way to begin her time in Holland. But she doesn't seem too worried about this and she's still stroking my back and telling me to shush, shush shush and I don't mind this at all because, like I said, it's almost as if Nicole understands. and I don't mind this at all because, like I said, it's almost as if Nicole understands.

When I pull away from her I notice that Nicole's cheeks have tiny wet tracks running down them, and for no particular reason I kiss her on the forehead and then I hug her, and I'm biting my lip hard, telling her to have a lovely time in Amsterdam, not to worry about me, that I'll be fine, telling her that she's to take care of herself and Debbie, and she's to drop me a line any time she wants, if ever she's feeling lonely or things aren't going well.

Suddenly Nicole pulls away from me and picks the carrycot off the floor, and she doesn't ask me for my new mobile number and for some reason I am unable to give it to her, and I just hold out the plastic bag containing the jasmine plant and she takes it off me and seems touched by my present, although she doesn't yet know what it is and now Nicole is gone, gone, gone, running, running to the departure gates fifty metres away with Debbie in the carrycot and the jasmine plant in the plastic bag. She flashes her boarding card and without looking back once she proceeds to the electronic metal detector where she drops her small red rucksack on the moving belt. Then, with extreme caution, she places the jasmine plant on the belt as if there's a bomb inside when in actual fact all it is is a celebration of friendship, not a devotion to airborne terrorism...

And I rush across the departure area right up to the thick glass wall to wave at her, but she doesn't look back, she goes through the electronic door, collects the rucksack and the jasmine from the conveyor belt and I'm holding my hand up against the glass. It's crazy but all I want is for her to turn round and give me one last wave, but she doesn't. At all. Not once. I watch her disappear towards the duty-free shops illuminated with names like Ralph Lauren and Armani and Givenchy, running, running quickly because now her name is being called out on the loudspeakers saying that the flight gate is just about to close and I wonder if she'll miss her flight, and now she's disappeared.

And as I stare through the glass partition at the place where Nicole was, an illusion vanished, my heart fills with longing and emptiness, and a terrible, dragging pain in my chest.

I stand there for a long time.

Eventually my hand slides back down off the glass. I walk back slowly through the airport and, although it's still bustling with people, it feels as if the rush of excitement is going on in another dimension of space and time outside me, which I cannot access, which cannot affect me.

Inside it's as if I'm about to cave in.

I stop to look at the huge green Christmas tree, decorated with red, blue, green and gold baubles and flashing lights. Underneath are large presents wrapped in Christmas paper and tied with bows. Behind the tree, Santa Claus is flying across the sky. 'Wish I was at home for Christmas' is playing from a hidden source, the bugles bugling the trumpet sound of joy. All around me the world seems lit up by smiles.

I walk out into the cold afternoon.

63 63.

Winter!

How well the slump in the seasons gels with my disposition.

I am the winter! The outer branches of my being are shivering with frost. The overlocked, brooding sky is wetting the face of the earth with its salt-free tears, the sun is a passing ghost casting its dreary, uncaring light onto the world. My heart is locked like a bulb underneath the ground.

The park has emptied itself of its few quiet strollers, wrapped stiff with thick coats, hardly delaying to observe its denuded frailties. The trees are bare prick-clumps, the lake leaf-clogged, the grass uncut, the place will have to wait out its three long months of bleak purgatory.

Sunday.

The slump of the week.

On the other side of my roof garden is the street below, with its closed shops and restaurants, and apartment blocks. Like a curfew, Sunday has shorn the world of its life. There's nothing to do. Where have all the people gone?

I know: to early-evening Mass. As I stand here alone, a good chunk of Dublin is presently praying to the Lord to forgive them their sins, to bless their loved ones, to prepare their way to heaven and while He's at it, to make them choose the correct numbers in the next Lotto.

God must be driven demented on Sundays with all those church services to attend, all those special intentions to honour, all those prayers to flip through. What a hectic social life He has on this day of rest. I haven't seen much of it, though. Let's just say, he's not exactly making his presence felt.

Mother rang me just now, dying for me to reassure her that Ronan was now truly rid from her poor tormented life. After congratulating me for my star performance with him this afternoon and demanding that I fill her in on anything she might happen to have missed, she requested that I drive her to evening Mass.

I smelt a rat. Under pressure of cross-examination, she was forced to admit she'd already been to Mass this morning. I polished her off with the remark: "Why, then, Mother, do you need to go again?" Truth is, she imagines that the only way to cure my marriage blues is for me to enter the house of the Lord and take Jesus into my heart.

I asked her if Ronan had left yet. She replied that he stayed in the lounge for a long time, while she and Sylvana remained in the kitchen hogging the biscuit tin.

"Then he came in to say goodbye. He was very graceful about it, I must admit. He was polite and friendly for the first time ever. A good boot up the arse. It's what he always needed."

"Did he ask for my number?"

"No."

It surprised me and kind of annoyed me to learn that Sylvana was still in the kitchen with Mother instead of over here comforting me with her arm round my shoulder, which she has been known to do on infrequent, strictly necessary occasions.

Then again, she's crazy about old 'Gertie' as she calls her behind her back. She says she's one of the only women in life she truly relaxes with and she adores her sense of humour. She made a comment about Mother, the same evening that she served Ronan the fishpaste. "You know, Julie," she said, "your mother is a real howl."

"Whatever you do," she added, "don't sell her to Oxfam."

At least they have each other.

Sylvana rang me then. She announced that she wouldn't be leaving me on my own tonight. I replied that I wasn't alone; I'd hired a rent-boy for the evening.

There was a pause on the line.

"I'll be fine, Sylvana," I said then, a little sheepishly.

She was persuaded I'd survive till dawn. Then, my trusted alarm clock would do the rest.

Truth is, I needed time to myself.

I've decided to take a soak.

The warm water is lapping round my shoulders, the foam bubbles sparkle against my face. My knees are sticking up in the aircold and bare like a twin Matterhornso that I don't burn my feet in the thin water column of the hot tap.

I have solved the bath problem: how to maintain the same water temperature despite the law of nature which says that heat left to itself must turn to cold but not vice versa. The solution is to keep a thin column of hot water running into the bath. Nothing worse than waking up in a bath, freezing.

I want to feel the warm arms of this heat hugging me for ever.

I could call Ronan now. I have his number though he does not have mine. My mobile sits on the toilet seat, condensation-dewed, within easy reach.

But what would be the point? What could I say to him? Reassure him that what I did was the best thing for us both? Tell him we can still be friends? No. I refuse to pick up the phone and quote meaningless verbiage at him.

What then? Tell him I forgive him? And give him one last chance to wind himself slyly back into the heart he has so bruised, a heart he surely still needs? I don't think so.

Besides, do do I forgive him? What does it mean to forgive? Does forgiveness begin when the crushing need to punch him in the teeth abates? Or is it possible to forgive first and then, as a small consolation prize, go punch him in the teeth? I forgive him? What does it mean to forgive? Does forgiveness begin when the crushing need to punch him in the teeth abates? Or is it possible to forgive first and then, as a small consolation prize, go punch him in the teeth?

We speak a different language. He speaks Chinese and I speak Irish. Communication is by indicating things and naming them. Points of contact are on the exterior only; inside, there's nothing to unite.

So no, I will not call Ronan. Ever again.

I will programme myself to forget his mobile number.

I'm moving up and down in the bath now like a sea monster bathing in some great geyser, to distribute the heat of the water around me. I soak the sponge in the foamy rinse and squeeze it over my head so that it trickles past my ears and spreads heat over my face. Around me is a dulling haze of steam. I sink down into the depths, submerged, warm like the womb, the water a mother, comforting, nourishing. I could give myself to it now and never re-emerge...

Sylvana.

Her life philosophy: nobody can make you happy because life is the meaning you give it yourself. Take responsibility, for nothing is impossible. The world is full of possibilities.

But is that real? Is the mind so free of the heart? The mind, surely, is bound to the heart like a mother to its baby. When the child demands attention, can the mother wander? But with Sylvana, there is no baby. She can feel, yes, but she will never be bound by feeling.

That's why she can't understand what this is like. She's never been hurt in love. She has stripped all need out of love. For Sylvana, a woman is already in possession of the benefits a man can supposedly afford her. Therefore a woman can experience complete enjoyment of these benefits without him. Money, sex, companionship. Above all, intelligent conversation.

She's lucky.

I, on the other hand, am cursed by an emotional marrow. I feel emotion like a jagged saw across a live tree trunk. Weakened, cheated. I am strong, yet I need a man to help make me strong. I yearn for a reason to live, yet I am without baby. I am a space shuttle that has just run out of fuel, floating precariously in the stratosphere, oxygen dwindling, any minute now threatening to fall, fall, fall, down like Alice fell down, tumbling head-over-heels, life flashing past me into the vortex, the void of heat and hope-loss.

I don't have a piano on whose velvet sound I can key in the minutiae of my woe!

Most pathetically, I yearn for the innocent company of Max.

I drag the bar of green seaweed soap across my scalp and build up a lather with my fingernails. I sink down gorgeously into the hot bath again.

Nicole.

She would understand, but what use is that now? She has her sights elsewhere. She refused even to consider staying here. I feel stupid, now, for suggesting it.

I allowed myself to be carried away. I deluded myself, fooled myself into imagining I was someone special in her book, someone whose friendship she valued. I am even naiver than she. She would have confided those things in whoever was prepared to listen. My own vanity postulated her friendship. The gift of the mandarin ducks. What do they prove? Her guilt, merely. To soothe herself with a token gesture, so she could return to the Continent in good conscience.