I didn't find a cure for cancer.

I didn't invent run-proof stockings.

And I'm ashamed to tell you that I didn't even call James.

I know, I know! I'm sorry. I know that I should have. I knew that I was avoiding my responsibilities.

But I felt so empty and lonely.

Sad and alone and all the other emotions coming under the genus "Loss,"

subspecies "rejection."

Anyway I did did get up on Thursday. get up on Thursday.

Not only that, but I called James.

And I wasn't even nervous.

I had Adam to thank for that, because I approached calling James with the attitude of "Huh! Don't think that you're anything special. Because you're not. You're not the only man who can make me feel sad and lonely and rejected. Oh217.

no! There's millions millions of others who can do exactly what you did. So there!" of others who can do exactly what you did. So there!"

Perhaps not an ideal attitude from a self-esteem point of view, but whatever...at least when I dialed the number in London, my hands didn't shake and my voice didn't quaver.

How interesting, I thought.

James no longer had the power to reduce me to a quaking wreck. Well, at least dialing his office number no longer had the power to reduce me to a quaking wreck.

Let's not get carried away here.

In a confident and steady voice I asked the receptionist in his office in London if I could speak to him. I felt as if London was a million miles away.

As remote as another planet. You'd never have thought that I saw it every evening on the news. The receptionist sounded very far away, very foreign.

Mirroring the way I felt. My life with James had become very far away, very foreign. Or maybe it was because the receptionist was Greek.

Either way, I was perfectly calm as I waited to speak to him.

I mean, what was the big deal?

What did I have to lose?

Nothing.

As someone once said-a miserable, sardonic, misanthropic someone-freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Up until I heard that I'd thought freedom was being able to go swimming when you had your period.

How misinformed I was.

Of course, you believe anything when you're about twelve.

Did you know that you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up?

Honestly, it's true.

And did you know that you can can have a baby if you suck the man's thing? have a baby if you suck the man's thing?

But the twelve-year-old me knew that would never happen to me because I'd never do anything as disgusting as suck the man's thing. And I didn't believe for one moment that anyone, anywhere, would do something so revolting and alien.

I could weep for the innocent child, the idealistic twelve-year-old, that I once was.218.

Oh, sorry, sorry, you want to know what happened with James.

Oh, didn't I say?

He wasn't in.

At a meeting, or something.

And, no, I didn't leave my name.

And, yes, you're right if you suspect that I was a bit relieved at not having to talk to him.

But I was in an unimpeachable position.

I'd called him, hadn't I?

I defy anyone to say that I hadn't.

Was it my fault that he was unavailable?

No, indeed it was not.

But it meant that I could stop feeling guilty for a couple of hours.

So spirits were high around Thursday lunchtime.

Happily, I picked Kate out of her bassinet and twirled her around. What a beautiful picture we must make, I thought. The beautiful child being lovingly held by her devoted mother. Kate just looked frightened and started to cry, but never mind.

I meant well. My heart was in the right place, even if Kate's center of gravity wasn't.

"Come on, darling," I said. "Let's put on our best outfits and go into town and see the people."

And so Kate and I went into town. I couldn't, in all conscience, buy any more clothes for me, but I could buy clothes for Kate.

Every day I was finding out more good things about Kate. She continued to enhance every aspect of my life.

I bought her the tiniest, most beautiful denim dress. Even the smallest one was too big for her, but she'd grow into it. It was gorgeous gorgeous.

And I got her the sweetest little jumper, light blue, patterned with dark blue polka dots and-get this-a matching little jacket with zip front and a hood.

So that she'd fit in if she ever met any cool street kids.

And the socks!

I could go on for hours about the socks I got her. So tiny 219 and fluffy and snuggly and warm and soft, to cover her tiny, tiny, tiny little pink feet. Sometimes I got such a rush of love for her that I wanted to squeeze her so hard I actually feared for her safety.

Then we wandered around a bookshop for a while. My adrenaline started pumping any time I was within about a hundred yards of a bookshop. I loved books nearly as much as I loved clothes. And that's saying something.

The feel of them and the smell of them. A bookshop was like an Aladdin's cave for me. Entire worlds and lives can be found just behind that glossy cover. All you had to do was look.

So the entire world and life that I chose to enter belonged to someone called Samantha, who apparently "had it all." A palazzo in Florence, a penthouse in New York, a mews house next door to Buckingham Palace, more priceless jewels than you could shake a stick at, a publishing house or two, a Lear jet, a hot boyfriend, some count or duke or something, and the absolutely essential dark secret and hidden tragic past.

My money was riding on her having been a lesbian prostitute before her luck changed.

I could have bought an "improving book," I suppose.

Something by one of that Bronte crew. Or maybe even a bit of Joseph Conrad. He was always good for a laugh.

But I wanted something that wasn't very taxing. So, just to be on the safe side, I bought complete trash.

After I came out of the bookshop, clutching my child and my gold-em-bossed best-seller, I just happened to be passing the cafe that I had gone to with Adam the previous Saturday and I just happened to have an hour or two to kill so I just happened to sit there and-guess what?-Adam just happened to walk in only an hour and a half after I arrived.

What a coincidence!

Well, I suppose I had better come clean.

I had kind of, I suppose, nursed a little hope that maybe, just maybe, if I were to go into town that maybe, just maybe, I might run into Adam.

So I suppose that, when he finally walked in, I couldn't call it either a spiritual or a metaphysical event.

I could even be said to have engineered our meeting.220.

Although, dammit, that's not fair.

God helps those who help themselves.

God can't drive a parked car.

If I had stayed at home in bed with the chocolate and the Marie Claire Marie Claire would I have met him? would I have met him?

The answer has got to be no.

I was sitting there, with half an eye on Samantha's takeover bid and the other eye on the door. Although I was hoping that he'd come in and even half expecting him to appear, I wasn't prepared for how I felt when he actually did arrive.

He was so, he was so...so gorgeous gorgeous.

So tall and strong-looking. But at the same time so boyishly cute.

"Easy, easy," I told myself. "Take deep breaths."

I resisted the urge to dump Kate on the table and run over and fling myself on him.

I reminded myself that I had used up my neuroses quota on him and that it might be a good idea to behave like a normal well-balanced woman.

Hell, after a bit of practice I might even become one.

So I sat there, poised and perched, trying to exude calmness and well-balancedness and unneuroticness.

Finally he saw me.

I held my breath.

I waited for him to rear and neigh like a startled horse and then make for the door like the hounds of hell were after him. I expected him to run like a hare through the cafe, knocking over tables and chairs, spilling pots of tea and cups of coffee over innocent bystanders, his hair standing on end, his eyes wide and staring, and shout at anyone who'd care to listen, stabbing his finger wildly at me and Kate. "She's crazy, that one, you know.

Pure mental. Have nothing to do with her."

But he didn't do anything of the sort.

He smiled at me.

I have to admit that it was a bit of a wary smile.

But it was a smile.

"Claire!" he said, and came over to the table.

"And Kate," he continued.

Correct on both counts.221.

Not much got past him.

He kissed Kate.

He didn't kiss me.

But I could live with it.

I was just so glad to see him, gladder still that he wanted to speak to me.

I really wasn't that concerned with which one of us he kissed.

"Why don't you sit down and join us?" I said politely.

Poised. Polished. The hostess with the mostest, that was me.