"Hello." He grinned. "You're only fifteen minutes late. You're obviously getting the hang of this."

"Shut up." I smiled. "Sorry."

It was wonderful to be with him.

"Hello, angel," he said, looking at Kate in her little pouch.

Although I preferred to think that he was just using this as an excuse to look at my tits.

Kate said nothing.

And in we went for coffee, fighting our way through the hordes of agitated and excited people.

It was Saturday afternoon and madness was abroad. It was as though people were afflicted with some kind of lunacy. Shopping syndrome, or something. I'm sure there's a fancy medical name for it.

I suppose it must be something akin to the Mistral that 180 descends every so often on villages in, is it Italy? All the men hit their wives and the dogs howl and the hens won't lay and the women shout and cry (well, fair enough-their husbands are hitting them, after all) and refuse to do any housework. As though the entire village was afflicted with PMS.

The Mistral madness seemed to be child's play compared to the goings-on this particular Saturday afternoon.

I once read somewhere that shopping has a huge effect on one's adrenaline levels. Sending blood pressure levels soaring and causing one to hy-perventilate and making one's eyes bulge and all kinds of other effects. It made perfect sense to me-all that excitement!

Apparently this in turn affects one's blood sugar levels. Which is why everyone needs strong sweet tea or coffee after-or indeed even during-their shopping orgy.

A bit like a postcoital cigarette, I suppose.

As a result of excessive shopping, Dublin was full of hyperventilating, bulgy-eyed, red-faced (that's from the high blood pressure) maniacs with hundreds of shopping bags affixed around their persons and wallets full of credit cards that were positively humming and zinging after all their activity.

So if it's a cup of coffee that you're after, as Adam, Kate and I were, don't hold your breath while you're waiting for a seat. We stood in the middle of the crowded cafe as pitiful hollow-eyed souls roamed past carrying trays of coffee and doughnuts. They had obviously been there several weeks and still hadn't secured a chair for themselves. But Adam, being Adam, found the only table that had been vacated in the last three weeks or so.

That was one of the many advantages of having a tall man around. And after he made sure that Kate and I were sitting comfortably, he went off to get coffee.

What a hero!

He was back in record time with a tray overflowing with pastries.

"I didn't know what kind you liked," he explained. "So I got you one of each."

"Oh Adam," I said. "You shouldn't have! You're a penniless student."181.

I was so touched I could have cried. He had probably just spent his entire summer term grant on buns for me. "And I'll never eat them all," I lied.

"Well, don't worry about it," he said, smiling and looking really gorgeous.

"I'm sure I'll eat whatever you don't."

Then he sat down and turned all his attention to me. "How are you?"

he asked. And he managed to make it sound as if he really was interested.

"Fine," I said, smiling shyly and feeling all silly and girlie.

What is it?

The moment you realize that you like someone you turn into a complete half-wit.

Well, at least I do.

"Can I hold Kate for a while for you?" he asked.

"If you like," I said, taking her out of the sling and tenderly passing her over to his gentle arms.

The lucky bitch!

What a pity that she can't talk yet, I thought regretfully. Otherwise I could debrief her fully on exactly what it felt like to be held in Adam's arms.

We sat there chatting idly while the tides of humanity, with their fluctuating blood sugar levels, swirled and washed and ebbed and flowed around us.

Adam, Kate and I were an oasis of calm in the chaos of Dublin.

As though the three of us were in our own little world.

We didn't really talk that much. We just sat in relaxed silence, drinking coffee, eating buns, my shopping strewn all around us.

Adam was busy playing with Kate, admiring her, and examining her tiny little fingers and touching her cute little face.

He had such a look of intense wonder, almost of yearning, on his face that I got slightly alarmed.

Never mind Laura, I thought, is Adam a child molester!

"Do you reckon," he said thoughtfully, talking to me but still looking at Kate, "that if people didn't know better, they'd think that I was Kate's dad?

You know, that we're just a typical nuclear family, as they say in my anthropology tutorials, out shopping on a Saturday afternoon."182.

He looked up and smiled at me.

And although I had been thinking almost exactly the same thing myself, I felt a little bit, I don't know, funny, yes funny and sad, about Adam's saying that.

Disloyal, that's the way I felt.

I was glad that Adam seemed to be so fond of Kate.

But Adam wasn't Kate's father.

James was Kate's father.

And James wasn't here.

It was all so funny and mixed-up and strange and sad.

Why couldn't Adam be her father?

Or why couldn't her father care?

"Would you like to have children?" I asked Adam. "I don't mean now, but, you know, someday?"

He stopped what he was doing and sat very still for a minute. Then he turned and looked at me.

There was such an odd expression on his face. He looked very sad. Lost almost. But before he answered me we were interrupted by girls' voices.

"Hey look, it's Adam," "Great, where?" "Adam, how are you?" "Oh hi, Adam, where were you last night?"

Three beautiful young women, obviously classmates of Adam's, had arrived at the table and were clustering around him.

The way women did around Adam.

They were like beautiful exotic birds. Very colorful and very noisy. They oohed and aahed loudly at Kate and then lost interest in her completely when they discovered that she wasn't Adam's child.

Although why should she be? I wondered.

Adam introduced us all.

"Meet Kate," he said, picking up her little pink hand and waving it at the girls.

It looked so gorgeous, my little girl and this beautiful man, that I thought my heart would break.

Why can't James be here to do this? I wondered.

Even when I was happy, the sadness was only a moment away.

"And this is Claire," he continued.183.

"Hi." I smiled gamely at the girls with their young translucent skin and their outrageous clothes, trying not to feel like an old hag.

"And these are..."

And he said three names that might have been Alethia, Koo and Freddie.

Or could have been Alexia, Sooz and Charlie.

Or then again might have been Atlanta, Jools and Micki.

Odd names. Cool names.

And, I was prepared to take my oath, made-up names.

The three of them kind of looked the same.

They all had short hair.

And I do mean very short hair.

Sooz/Koo/Jools was nearly totally bald.

And Atlanta/Alexia/Alethia looked like a very unugly duckling, with her little cap of blond fluffy hair.

She looked a bit like Kate, to be honest.

Which means that Adam, the suspected pedophile, is probably mad about her, I thought sourly.

I was feeling a bit jealous.

All four of them talked away about some party that had been on the previous evening. I really wished that they would leave, so I could have Adam all to myself and Kate again, but I tried to be grown-up and adult about these three gorgeous young women clamoring for Adam's attention.

My face hurt from trying to look as if I was good fun too, that I didn't mind being ignored as they chattered and laughed charmingly and effort-lessly. It looked as if the three of them were settling in for a long stay.

My heart sank to my (new) boots as all three pulled over chairs and gathered around our tiny little table, each of them practically sitting on Adam's knee.

They hadn't even bought a cup of tea among them.

But, really, I wasn't being judgmental.

I knew what it was like to be a poor student.

They had to save their money for beer and drugs.

Of course I understood.

But when Freddie/Charlie/Micki started to eat one of the pastries, one of my my pastries, I nearly burst into tears. I wanted 184 pastries, I nearly burst into tears. I wanted 184 to stamp my foot and shout hysterically, like a child throwing a tantrum, "That's mine. Adam bought it for me me!"

I swallowed hard.

I was totally out of place here. It was silly to think that someone like me could have any place in someone like Adam's life. He was young and handsome and had a full and happy life.

And I felt tired and old and silly and foolish.

As Adam continued to talk animatedly to the girls, I stood up and put Kate's sling back on. Then I leaned over and took Kate rather brusquely from Adam's arms (Give me back my child!), interrupting a lively conversation about someone named Olivia Burke, who apparently had given Malcolm Travis a blow job at the party last night in full view of the guests.

Even through my self-pity and misery I was pleased to hear that Adam wasn't being in any way judgmental about Olivia Burke's behavior. His censure was reserved for Malcolm because apparently Malcolm had a steady girlfriend named Alison. And Olivia didn't know about her.

"That guy is so low," Adam said. "He's being disrespectful to the two women at once by behaving that way."

Right on, brother!

Kate started to cry when I took her from Adam's arms. I didn't blame her.

Adam turned and looked at me with a surprised look on his face.

"You're not going, are you?" he asked.