A giraffe baby? God, sometimes I worry about you!"

My head was spinning. What did this mean? When had all this happened?

Why hadn't Adam told me?

"But is it a new baby or what?" I asked. I didn't even try to keep the desolation from my voice, but Helen, with her customary sensitivity, didn't seem to notice.

"No," said Helen. "I don't think so. She doesn't look like Kate. She has hair and she doesn't look like an old man."

"Kate doesn't look like an old man!" I said hotly.

"Yes, she does." Helen laughed. "She's bald and fat and hasn't any teeth."348.

"Shut up!" I said viciously. "She'll hear you. Babies can understand these things, you know. She's beautiful."

"Keep your panties on," said Helen mildly. "I don't know what you're so touchy about."

I said nothing.

This was all a terrible shock.

"It was hilarious," continued Helen. "Adam brought the girl and the baby into college and half my class are talking about killing themselves.

And he can forget about passing any of Professor Staunton's exams. The look she gave him! I swear to God, she hates hates him." him."

"So, um, hadn't you met this girl before now?" I asked, trying to make sense of this. Had he been going out with her while he was leading me on?

Well, he must have been. You don't just go out and buy a baby with hair in a supermarket. These things take time.

"No, we hadn't," said Helen. "Apparently they had some big fight ages and ages ago and he hadn't seen her or the baby for a long time. But now they're all reunited."

Helen began singing at the top of her voice. Some awful song about being reunited and it feeling so good. She waltzed up the stairs, still singing.

"Wait!" I wanted to shout after her. "I'm not finished. There's lots more that I want to ask you."

But she went into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

I could still hear her singing, but it was a bit fainter now.

I stood in the hall, feeling desolate.

"I can't think about it now," I told myself. "I must forget it. I'll think about it some other time when everything is different. When I'm happy and things are worked out. But not now."

I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I went to the room in my brain where all my thoughts about Adam lived and disconnected the electricity and boarded up all the doors and windows, so nothing could get in or out.

Obviously it was very unsightly. There were bound to be complaints from the neighboring thoughts. But I had no choice. I was trying to sort out my marriage, one way or the other, and I could do without any distractions.349.

Mum eventually found the keys to the car. Kate, Mum and I piled in and we drove to the airport. We didn't speak. I could tell that Mum was itching to ask me what was going on. But thankfully she kept her mouth shut.

It was miraculous, but I really did stop thinking about Adam. I was so upset and angry about James that I suppose there just wasn't any room in my head left to worry about anything else. My worry arena was packed to capacity with thousands and thousands of thoughts worrying about James.

And there wasn't even standing room left for any thoughts that might have hoped to get in and worry about Adam.

Unfair, perhaps. But it was on a first-come, first-served basis.

Leaving Kate was awful, but I had to do it. It wouldn't have been right to bring her. I believe it has a terrible effect on children if they happen to witness their mother murdering their father.

I kissed Kate good-bye at the departure area. "See you soon, darling," I said.

I hugged Mum.

"Can I ask you just one thing?" she said anxiously, inspecting my face for any imminent explosions of rage.

"Go on," I said, trying to sound nice.

"Has James gone back to that Denise woman?" she asked.

"Not that I know of." I smiled bitter reassurance at her.

"Thank God," she said, breathing out with relief.

Oh dear. Poor Mum. If only she knew. Denise wasn't a problem. But there was was a problem. A problem that was much bigger than Denise. And, hey, that was really saying something. a problem. A problem that was much bigger than Denise. And, hey, that was really saying something.

Honestly, wouldn't you think that by now I might have begun to forgive and forget? Wasn't it time that I stopped being nasty about Denise?

It's just that it was so easy.

I turned on my sexy high heels and tried to march purposefully across the departure area. It wasn't easy to be purposeful when I kept colliding with all kinds of easygoing people who stood around chatting, surrounded by suitcases and bags, rest-350 ing their elbows on their carts, as if they had all the time in the world. As if this wasn't an airport at all and nobody had a flight to catch. Certainly not one departing in the next decade or so.

I tried briskly to reserve a flight to London.

But it wasn't possible.

The pleasant, laid-back Aer Lingus rep would only allow me to make my reservation in a relaxed, easygoing fashion.

In between a discussion on the Russian presidency (isn't the drink a scourge?) and a chat about the weather (let's hope the dry spell lasts), I just happened to get myself a standby on a flight leaving shortly for London.

There were no problems at all. Which I thought was an awful waste because it wasn't often that I was in a filthy mood and able to stand up for myself and insist on my rights and cause trouble and all that and today would have been just ideal to do it.

I was all fired up for a good fight.

But everybody was so decent and accommodating and it all went beautifully.

Damn it.

It was ten minutes past five.

The flight was uneventful.

It would have been great if the important-looking business-man beside me had tried to talk to me, or even better, tried to flirt with me, just so that I could take full advantage of my bad mood.

Honestly, I was so childish. I was just itching itching for a chance to say something mean. I thought I might like to experiment with a Joan Collins-type voice. You know, all posh and scary, my words sounding like pieces of ice dropping into a glass. And say something like, "I really wouldn't bother trying to talk to me. I'm in a very bad mood, and I'm not sure how long I can be polite to you." for a chance to say something mean. I thought I might like to experiment with a Joan Collins-type voice. You know, all posh and scary, my words sounding like pieces of ice dropping into a glass. And say something like, "I really wouldn't bother trying to talk to me. I'm in a very bad mood, and I'm not sure how long I can be polite to you."

But apart from giving me a vague "Sorry" as he fumbled around my hips for his seat belt, he totally ignored me. He just opened up his impressive-looking leather briefcase and in no time at all had his nose buried in a Catherine Cookson novel. I'm sure you know it. It's the one about the ille-gitimate351.

girl with the wine-colored birthmark, whose cousin falls in love with her, who gets scourged with a riding crop by her stepmother and raped when she is thirteen by the lord from the Big Hall and, while escaping from him, gets her foot caught in a rabbit trap and has to have it amputated and the wound cauterized by a red-hot poker while her screams echo throughout the slag heaps.

Or is that all of them?

Anyway, the man was far more interested in Catherine Cookson than he was in me and that made me a bit fidgety. I was dying to exercise my bad mood. Limber up, as it were, for the real nastiness that I'd be involved in later. But nothing doing.

And then I felt ashamed of myself and tried to strike up a conversation with him, smiling above and beyond the call of duty at him when he passed me my food tray, gently offering to open his little container of milk for him when he ran into difficulties, giving him my mint to bring home to his little girl, even thought he ate his own-that kind of thing.

He turned out to be a lovely man. We discussed the book he was reading.

I recommended a couple of other writers to him. And by the time we landed at Heathrow, we were on first-name terms. We shook each other's hand, said that it had been a pleasure to meet each other and warmly wished each other a safe onward journey.

Then I was on my own again. On my own with my thoughts and fears and anger.

Apart from the ninety billion other people in Heathrow I was completely alone in London.

Now if this was a film instead of a book, you'd be shown shots of red buses and black cabs passing the houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and policemen with funny hats directing traffic outside Buckingham Palace and smiling girls in very short skirts standing underneath a "Welcome to Carnaby street" sign.

But as this is a book, you'll just have to use your imagination.

Heathrow was, well...it was busy. That's one way of putting it.352.

It was totally crazy.

I couldn't believe that there were so many people. It was like a Renais-sance painting of the Day of Judgment come to life.

Or like the opening ceremony at the Olympics.

People of all nationalities, with all manner of exotic outfits, rushed past me, speaking every language under the sun.

Why was everyone in such a hurry hurry?

And the noise was deafening. Announcements over the loudspeaker.

Small boys lost. Grown men lost. Expensive luggage lost. Patience lost.

Tempers lost. Marbles lost. You name it and there was a good chance that it was lost.

I had forgotten that London was like this. There was a time when I would operate at this kind of speed with the greatest of ease. But I was now on Dublin tempo so I had slowed down and kicked back and chilled out. I stood in the arrivals area, terrified, looking like a hick from the sticks, feeling overwhelmed by the number of people, feebly apologizing as people bumped into me and tisked loudly at me.

Then I pulled myself together. This was only London London, after all.

I mean, I could have been somewhere really scary.

Like Limerick, for example. Sorry, no, only joking.

And everywhere I looked, everywhere everywhere, were small clusters of businessmen.

Standing around in their nasty suits, either waiting for their bags or waiting for a flight, their briefcases that were probably full of porn mags by their feet.

They were all drinking beer, out-glad-handing each other, determinedly exuding "nice-guyness" and bonhomie, having competitions to see who could laugh the most uproariously and who could make the most disparaging remark about his wife or the most vulgar remark about any of the women at the conference they had just been to or were just about to go to.

"I wouldn't throw her out of the bed for farting" and "Nah, her tits are too small" and "Everyone's had her, even the guys in the mailroom" drifted over to me from the various groups.

I wonder what the collective noun for a group of businessmen is? Surely there's got to be one.353.

A conference of businessmen? A briefcase of businessmen? A meeting of businessmen? A polyester of businessmen? A pinstripe of businessmen?

It's no good. None of those words really conveys the nastiness nastiness of the little groups. How about an insincerity of businessmen? A disloyalty of businessmen? An infidelity of businessmen? of the little groups. How about an insincerity of businessmen? A disloyalty of businessmen? An infidelity of businessmen?

I caught a man from one of the groups leering over at me. I looked away hastily. He turned back to the four or five men he was with and said something. There was a big burst of laughter and they all started bending and stretching and craning their necks to get a good look at me.

The bastards! I wanted to kill them!

And they were all so unattractive and nondescript. How dare they be so arrogant about me? Or any woman, for that matter. They should be grateful that any woman would touch them with a stick. Fuck them! I thought furiously.

Time to leave.

I had no bags to collect. I wasn't planning on staying long enough to need them. So at least I was spared the carousel hell.

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, set my jaw firmly and started to push through the arrivals area. I was heading in the direction of the subway station, determinedly making my way through all the other human beings, like an Amazon explorer hacking his way through dense under-growth.

I finally got to the station. Japan was obviously holding its national census there. After waiting for what seemed like several years while the sons of Nippon figured out how to operate the ticket machines-I thought they were all supposed to be technological wizards?-I bought myself a ticket and boarded a train for central London. Funds didn't run to a taxi. The train was full and every nation on earth had a representative on it.

I don't need to go to an Emergency Council meeting of the United Nations. I've already been there.

The journey was so crowded and uncomfortable and unpleasant that in a way it was a godsend. Even if I hadn't already been feeling totally hom-icidal before I got on the354.

train, there was a good chance that I would be when I got off.

A fellow passenger was kind enough to take my mind off my forthcoming antler-locking with James by pressing his erection against me every time the train turned a corner.

And at about ten minutes to eight I arrived at my station.355.

thirty-four.

When I came out of the station and onto the road where I lived, my stomach gave a sudden lurch. Everything was so achingly familiar, the newsagents, the launderette, the liquor store, the Indian takeout restaurant.