HOW IT ENDS

I said, ‘What’re you saying, Billy?’

He looked directly at me, spoke deliberately, ‘You know what I’m saying.’

That was the start of it.

A taller, leaner version of me, a year younger, pale and dark haired, his skin smelling of soap, his tongue tasting of coffee, his prick cut and salty. I stayed the night with him, fucking and talking, mostly talking; the sex, or rather the penetrative element, was over and done with in a watery pea-sized emission. He told me he had been afflicted for weeks with a strange, strangling, somehow portentous, case of dry ejaculation, so pea-size was quite a triumph for him, for both of us; reversely, its meagerness and insipid appearance was even more critically reassuring given our failure to deploy any prophylactic due to the unplanned, impetuous nature of the encounter. OK, due as much to a prudent desire to establish, at least in our own minds, an absence of premeditation, lay down some proof against the horrors of remorse.

In the morning, he stripped the bed even as I was dressing. How indelicate of him, I thought, not waiting for me to leave before starting on the clean-up. As I walked up the hill toward home, I considered what a good friend I was to Alessia and Billy. I had visited her in the hospital, refrained from criticising her choice of rhinoplasty as the way to mark her birthday. And I had kept a sisterly, watchful eye on Billy the one night he had to forgo what passed in his commitment-phobic fashion for conjugal coitus. Better me than some noxious streetwalker, I reasoned; not that I would ever express such a view to Alessia. And Billy got to put it in me. A sort of one-off bonus following on almost four years of relentless touring.

He wasn’t that different to the range of men I usually tolerated in my bed, all taking out their little revenge on me, their stilted little intrusions into my sex, their greedy hot breath in my ear, punishing me for whatever life had denied them – beauty, talent, wealth, celebrity, hair, a sympathetic wife, a tolerant accommodating mistress – calling me darling, doll, bird, bitch – worse – cunt, whore, and lying about love, until I came to believe that’s what you get out on the edge or wherever it was I was dissipating my life. And I had to absorb it all without showing a trace of true emotion or affect. I had to play the part their desire decreed, I had to feign arousal and moan a cocktail of delight and terror as they unzipped and flourished, if you could call it that, their average domestic puniness. Such dribbled insignificance was partially how I tolerated them. Their sad pathetic inadequacies, their so-called manliness, simply made me want to roar with glee and continue the endless search for the surely mythical ‘something better’.

The day after we’d slept together, the day after Alessia went to have her nose done, Billy tells me he’s getting married to someone else, someone other than Alessia, someone certainly not me. The shock is enhanced because I never expected I was so vulnerable, but it’s the same as if he’s driven an axe without warning deep into my chest and worked it there, his foot one moment on my hip for leverage, then on my throat, pushing and pulling on the handle, prising apart the bone cage until my heart is exposed, and then he reaches in and rips it out, holds it high, a crimson spouting prize with ribbons of vein and artery trailing, dripping and sighing, a gory spectacle in the chatter and tinkle of the terrace bar where we’ve agreed to meet, the sigh of the breeze through the trees, high umbrellas of pine, deep skirts of willow, swaying and billowing, the cry of an outboard on the streaming tide below, like it’s another estuary entirely and nothing to do with me and my life or what he’s telling me. For the first time in years I’m homesick for the past, the landlocked interior of my childhood when all was uncompromised and life unsullied, and now I’m forlorn, a mess, and no one so much as bats an eye, sees anything amiss, all these placid featured effigies, day-trippers, foreigners, locals, a smattering of saints and martyrs by the look of some, looking, not looking, tears searing in my eyes, a veil of smoke, and tremulous choking in my throat, so much that I believe I’m drowning, half drowned already, unable to comprehend why no one comes to my aid, merely persist with sipping their drinks and smoking their poison and voicing their own inflated inanities, and right then I know that I’m done for. Three days later I’m in LA, staying with Pearl Mundy, where a vestigial shard of vanity mixed up with a whole trailer-load of atavistic fantasy, along with Pearl’s gentle wheedling, suggests there’s a better than fair chance I’m going to run into Brad Pitt, or Russell Crowe, or George Clooney, or, let’s face it and fuck it – which according to several people I could mention has always been my preferred mode of blitzing seduction – Robert Downey Jr. But I’m feeling older than life, and frankly, if I had a father worthy of the name he would take a gun and shoot Billy through the quick for my sake, and as it seems, here I am, fairly bereft where fathers and romantic delusions are concerned, why should I be surprised or act surprised, and this seems to ensure that I don’t run into anyone even vaguely famous, or wealthy, or talented, or cute enough to want to sleep with them and prove some important things to myself, other people.

Eddie Pope plays this enormous accordion, swings his mane of blond hair, showering the stage with his sweat, is this compelling force-field. Pearl describes the music as Gothic Christian Country, but that doesn’t bother me, the sweep of the sound gets me past all that, and I hardly register the lyrics or the fact that Eddie Pope doesn’t look my way even once. No one cares enough to let us see that anyone here tonight might be interested. At one point, this dark-suited kid leans between us but it’s only to light his cigarette from the tea light burning on our table. He looks in both our faces, and he’s tall and lean, and there’s something strained in the tightness around his fierce blue eyes, and after he takes a drag he moves away back into the shelter of the crowded floor, and immediately he’s pursued by three, four bouncers who surround him, make him put out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe, and pocket the butt.

Which is the moment when Pearl recognises him, saying, ‘That’s Scott Weaver.’

‘No,’ I say, trying to sound impressed.

It all seems so exciting, to be in this club, like I belong here, like no one cares that I’m not at home here, that without Billy by my side I’m unfocused, lacking identity or purpose. After the show, Pearl leads me backstage, introduces me to Eddie Pope, who, towelling his chest and neck, asks how long I’m going to be in town, dimly expresses a wish to meet up sometime. Someone else is here, poised in the shadows, whispering, just as we’re about to leave, echoing my name, his hand reaching for me, brushing the unflattering softness of my hip as I pass.

Another night we boldly go to The Smog Cutter, this karaoke bar in a less than savoury part of Echo Park, where a blanket covers the upper half of the doorway leading to the street, and this Thai, or Vietnamese, bargirl, I can’t tell which, Asian anyhow, dark and sleek, who’s called Rainbow, cries, ‘Awesome,’ after I take a shot at ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, and the applause gives me a boost but it doesn’t take long before I discover that Rainbow cries ‘Awesome’ whenever anyone sings. Apparently everyone is awesome in Rainbow’s eyes. And even here, on the wall, in a clutter of unframed photos – there’s no escape – I find a picture of Billy, looking wasted, his arms around Clive and Will, guys from the band, all three of them leering at Rainbow.

Pearl works hard at keeping me distracted. She drives me up the coast. She drives me down the coast. She drives me into the desert. She drives me out to Zabriskie Point where we encounter pilgrim Italians who avert their eyes and fail to clamour for my number, or a date, or even to have their picture taken with me. Mostly Pearl brings me shopping. And one day, having called ahead and booked a parking space, we drive to the Getty which is strangely disappointing, a museum after all is what it is, crowded with old art, and scarcely ambulatory aged people. Some sign of life would not go amiss, some toxic antics, sumo wrestlers in the courtyard, fly-fishing instruction by the ornamental brook, rubbers in the washrooms to cater for those visitors improbably impassioned by the surroundings.

In a bookstore on Sunset I buy Pearl a book of Araki photographs. Women with love in their eyes. Knickerless women. Women bleeding from thimble-berry nipples. Women beset by toy plastic dinosaurs. Women bound and suspended from trees, from roof beams. Pregnant women with garden hoses snaking from their painted vulvas. Hirsute women. Sad women. Baby women. Hopeless women. Dead women. I suspect there’s a significant lesson somewhere in Araki but as of now it escapes me.

Neither of us speak about why I left London in such a rush, nor about me and Alessia, about me and Billy, about the abrupt demise of Anaconda, about Billy’s plans to forge a solo career, marry some faceless creature – why marry for Heaven’s sake? – or why I precipitously chose to come out here, or what I might find to do with the rest of my life, or why I insist on returning to London at all; and through all of this, all this glum toing and froing, Pearl never lets on to be the least burdened by my presence.

The night before I’m due to fly out, we eat tuna at Chez Ray’s on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, and Ray joins us for a moment, informs us how he’s seventy-something, has a forty-something daughter, a thirty-something wife, a twelve-year-old son. He looks fifty-something, agreeable, charming, reminds me a little of what Billy possesses. Even so, he’s hardly what I’m looking for. Afterwards we go down the street for drinks at two adjacent hotels – Shutters on the Beach and the Casa del Mar. Pearl confesses there’s a slight chance the inscrutable, fabulously talented, elusive Eddie Pope is going to drop by. As soon as we arrive at each hotel, she insists we go up on the roof to look at the swimming pools, beautiful, deserted, calming, tiny, lit like jewels, the out of doors balmy, seductive. No one stops us as we make our way along hotel corridors, no one asks us where we think we’re going, or comments on how we wear our unease, our need, our hurt, like ill-fitting basques. Downstairs, we take in the lounges, one larger than the other, one with a real fireplace burning real logs, the other with live piano music which somehow reminds me of the Hotel Quisisana on Capri where we visited with Alessia’s family, and Billy upset the piano player by drawing attention to the melancholy woman who lingered so needily after her friends had gone to their rooms for the night.

There are plenty of men sitting around here but again none of them cares enough to make a move despite the clarion signals of availability we seem to be broadcasting. I begin to suspect my aura has acquired this damaged, aggrieved air which deters them, never mind renders Pearl miserable. So, I excuse myself, make my way to the restroom, conscious all the way of striving to appear decorous, in keeping with the ambience.

I check my reflection, see that I no longer look like myself but someone bloated, tired and vanquished, and I have no idea what I’m doing in LA, no idea why I’m still alive. I admire the neat pyramid of rolled white cotton hand towels arranged by the basin, another flatter greyer stack of paper towels beyond. The light in here is sepulchral, seems to slow time, invite appraisal of my predicament. For all I know there might be gnomes, swift tiny feral creatures secreted in the stalls behind me, poised to leap on me and quiz, probe, judge, diminish, infect, dismiss me, just the way a husband or a traitorous lover does. And there’s a faint noise from the shadows, and I turn, certain that someone is there, and I whisper, ‘Billy?’ and a stall door creaks and slowly swings open to reveal a gleaming ceramic perch, unoccupied, and I wonder what Pearl might have heard from London as regards my behaviour, my troubles, my plight, and I wonder why she never made any effort while I was out here to encourage and facilitate a proper meeting with the much-hyped Eddie Pope. From which it’s only another small step to realising that Pearl has been bringing me to all the wrong sorts of place if finding a man is what you’re interested in, all you’re interested in, apart from vindication, validation, some tortured variation on justice, a blind lunge at secret self-annihilating revenge.

I touch up my eyes, adding shadow a little hastily; gaze overlong at the suddenly regrettable magenta lipgloss; my cheeks burning of their own accord, no need to pinch or burnish, apply anything; turn on my heel, precariously enough – five-inch pencil heels, a Corona with dinner, three daiquiris on top of that; and reaching the door, haul it open only to step into an overwhelming cloud of Cuban bluey grey darkness and the waiting, easeful arms and chest of . . .

‘I know you,’ I snaffle, trying to keep myself from falling into his blue eyes, bluest blue, lit it seems from inside and out. ‘You’re . . .’

And he says, ‘Serge.’

Something wrong here, the name, the cigar, the beautiful boy in his gleaming white T-shirt and faded chinos, the daiquiris catching up, the fact I know I look tired, this is the wrong time for something like this, but it seems like I don’t have any other choice, all the optimism gone from my heart, the confidence from my manner, the elasticity from my skin, my pores exposed, and still he lingers. Maybe he’s not Scott Weaver. Maybe he really is someone called Serge. Maybe all Californians now look alike to me. These beautiful children with their serenity, their teeth, their flawless profiles, their refusal to countenance anything other than light and innocence. I look around to see who else is here in this tiled passageway, manipulating this cutesy encounter. No one. Just the two of us. And he’s in no rush to release me.

I try again. ‘Sergio, you said?’

And he says, ‘It’s Serge.’

And I say, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Serge,’ he says, repeating himself, a languid instructive air, phoney as the scuffed heavy work boots he wears. This one definitely never hewed lumber, hauled rock, poured patio, dug ditch in his young pampered life.

‘What’ve you got,’ I say, ‘with the cigar, some sort of death wish?’

‘Only for humankind,’ he says.

And I say, ‘Such, what’s the word, morbidity in one so young.’

And he says, ‘You’re intrigued.’

And I say, ‘Isn’t it against the . . .’

And he says, ‘Law?’

And I say, ‘Isn’t it?’

And he says, ‘So far as I know.’

And I try again, saying, ‘You’re Scott Weaver.’

And he sticks to his guns, showing his teeth, saying in this drawl, ‘I’m Serge.’

‘Aw,’ I go, disappointed now he won’t come clean, although recognising it’s some part of the celebrity game, and accepting it’s possibly a critical element of the prelude to whatever lies ahead for both of us.

‘And you remind me of someone,’ he says.

And I persist, ‘Aren’t you?’

And he says, ‘You’re not going to tell me?’

And I say, ‘Lee Annis.’

And he says, ‘Who?’

And I say, ‘That’s what they tell me.’

And he says, ‘You’re not from Texas? Why do I think you’re from Texas?’

And I say, ‘Some people think I’m Danish.’

And he says, ‘So, tell me.’

And I say, ‘You are Scott Weaver, aren’t you?’

And he says, ‘Look, why don’t we step outside so I can finish with this over-priced stogie, and I’ll tell all if you promise to come clean and explain who you are, what you’re doing here, why I’ve never seen you here before.’

And I say, ‘I’m afraid my friend is waiting for me at the bar.’

And he says, ‘He’ll keep a couple more minutes, won’t he. Even lousy cigars cost money. It’d be a shame to waste it, don’t you think?’

‘Sinful,’ I say, faltering, neither indifferent nor brave enough to correct him as to who’s waiting at the bar for me; increasingly anxious that Pearl will appear at any moment and not just ruin the illusion he at least lets on to bear regarding my companion but disrupt the easy dynamic we’ve established. So I allow him to escort me to a little alcove which leads through a glass door out onto a flagged walkway, and then onto the beach where the night rumbles easily, with the ocean battering the shore, all part of the deal.

Two steps into the deep, soft sand, and I need to crouch to undo my shoes. He watches as I unbuckle the tiny straps, and when I straighten, the shoes dangling from one hand, my purse in the other, a smile glides easily onto my face, the skirt of the blue and grey dress swirling now, billowing, and I’m ambushed by images from that recent afternoon meeting with Billy on the river – why the river? – where did he think we could go and fail to be discovered, recognised, billowing, that horrible feeling in my stomach, calling for my hands to press it against my thighs, the relentless way he got through all that he had to say, battening it down as best I can, the front rising, cold-hearted, like a stone, now the back, and he walks on, turning once to face me, the rich wake of cigar smoke, wanting to luxuriate in it, before hurrying toward the foaming line of water, intoxicated, compelled, this annihilating need to be held, vaguely aware of the off-shore phosphorescence, wondering if that’s his voice saying something to me lost in the roar, walking after him, no longer Billy, his T-shirts, his jeans, so like this Californian with his casual way, all the occasions when I followed him, attended him and Alessia, the others, all the stories in the papers of his ambition, his talent, his professional ferocity, his unremitting focus, the saga, the reports and rumours of his dalliances, countless infidelities, pitching his lean body forward a little as if the wind decrees it, hurrying now to catch up to him, trying to keep my step light on the sand even as he turns goofy, labouring clownishly, exaggerating the cloying heaviness of the beach the closer we get to the ocean. And when I catch up to him, conscious of all my exposed flesh, stippled with goose bumps, teeth chattering lightly, he faces me, quickly leans into me, kisses my neck, sucking until he knows he’s marked me, and I pull away, laughing, breathless like, what else, a schoolgirl, revitalised, aching to let him know everything there is to know about me, silly, giggling, crouching, fending off imaginary chill, acknowledging his eyes, amused, my hands busy, pressing shoes and purse against my kiting skirt, then throwing myself to my knees, and he joins me, his hands slapping at my dress, pushing me all the way to the ground, rolling me over, palming sand onto me as if I’m in flames.

Lying here, side by side, the dark sky over the ocean before us; the glow of the city behind us; our heels, our backs, our shoulders, all planted on sand; our fingers, our hips, touching.

Without looking at me, he says, ‘Can I tell you something?’

‘You can talk to me,’ I say, ‘say anything you like.’

‘You know you’ve got a pretty smile.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You should smile more.’

‘I try my best.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean to . . .’

‘That’s OK. What, what did you want to say? You wanted to tell me something.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You remind me of someone.’

‘I do?’

‘You know who you look like?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Libby Elapida.’

‘Who?’

‘Libby, Libby Elapida, movies, she’s, used to be, she’s, you know . . .’

‘The actress?’

‘Yes.’

‘You think I look like an actress?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh.’

Games, all these games, like I doubt there’s anyone out there doesn’t know who Libby Elapida is, doesn’t know who he is, this boy, the reason why he’s come onto me in the first place, because I know, everyone knows, everyone keeps telling me, in fact, OK, I even used to cultivate years ago a sort of Libby Elapida impression, a look, down to once going so far as to buying the colour to brighten my quim a whole mess of shades, the other end of the spectrum in fact, in order to match that golden honey coiffured slick Libby showed the world when she spilled juice, preserves, paint – blood, was it? – on her skirt and simply took it off to rinse it out, standing there, bare beauty, doing her soliloquy in what was the name of that, was it an Altman picture, no, that was redhead Julianne Moore in, that was a different picture, but the bold detail was virtually the same, yet I know what he means, I’ve always known everyone is someone else, maybe more, so that he mightn’t be who he says or thinks he is, any more than who I think or say he is, but other people entirely, all together, and at once.

Of course I wake just as she’s about to tongue me – part of a rococo scenario involving gold-digging lesbian vampires – to find the room flared, distorted by noise, floors and walls reverberating, easing now, inflating again, waves of sound from outside, music, voices, tyres squealing, motors shrieking, seems to be coming from not much further up the narrow canyon. A party exporting its heaving message. Wonderland Avenue choked at this point like a railway cutting, houses higgledy-piggledy, a tunnel roofed with trees and eaves and overhanging rock-face causing sound to reverberate, booming, percussive. The boy, Serge, or Scott, or whoever he is, naked, pacing the floor, gesturing vividly, talking on the phone. I try to remember how old he is – I must have read it somewhere, Movieline, Premiere – eighteen? twenty-one? somewhere in that range. After a while it’s all the same to me, I can’t take my eyes off him, so like a child, jutting hip bones, pale skinny legs, hairless chest. I can barely make out what he’s saying, his voice so small beneath the backdrop of noise, his words dopplering against my drowsiness as he strides back and forth, something about he needs his sleep, how he’s got a big day tomorrow, early start flying out of state on location, the house in question, the source of all this unwelcome bedlam, is unoccupied, he knows for certain his neighbours are in Europe on culture safari, no one told him they’re back ahead of schedule, besides they live like mice, not a squeak out of them, and now there’s some sort of orgy going on over there, even a slaying for all he knows, full blood, involving animal sacrifice, children at risk maybe, and why does he pay taxes, why, so he needn’t have it on his conscience come morning should it transpire something demonic in fact occurred right next door, so do something about it, won’t you, before it’s too damn late for some mother out there can’t afford to lose another child to whatever horrible excess, OK.

Nothing about me, not a word about having a guest stay over, a bona fide guest, more or less, not a whisper about me, the far from restful sleep I’m being denied. That’s how it is. I know the score. Time to move. I stretch, noticeably pale flanked, relieved it’s not that easy working up a tan, even after a week in California, forever trying to dodge the sun, now attempting to ease all these diffuse aches, telling myself I’m too sad, too old, for this type of fleeting encounter. At this stage I need, deserve, some degree of finesse, meaning, significance. These sheets I notice too could do with laundering. He’s no clean sleeper. Some mothering nerve-tail has me twitching, instantly compiling a list of what needs doing, a roster to straighten out his domestic situation, guide his life toward some minimal equilibrium. The effort of rousing myself from the comfortable bed, finding my clothes, dressing, the prospect of the long drive back to Pearl’s house, all make me wish I could lie on, stay here, but apart from his having an early start, I appreciate how ravaged I will seem to him come morning, how my presence must disturb his seamless self-devotional household.

He throws himself violently onto a chair, shudders as cold leather hits warm skin, then stretching his hands over the sides, one empty, the fingers curled, the phone balanced on the fingertips of the other. From this angle, in that pose, his tummy a little sprung, nothing off-putting, simply heartrending, cute, an actor after all and not an athlete. Wondering whether he’s eating the right kind of food, nutritional fruit, greens, none of that comforting tasty high-fat junk, knowing he must live his life chasing his own tail, can’t be good for him. Looking at him, it’s possible he might still be growing. What is he? Six-one? Six-two? Where’s his mother? Where’s Libby? What kind of . . . ? Why doesn’t she . . . ?

He says, ‘You’re leaving?’

And I say, ‘Would you call me a taxi?’

‘There are no taxis,’ he explains with a thin smile, watching me shake out my dress and underwear before fitting them on.

Not caring whether there are no taxis, I can walk, can’t I. All the way back to Venice Beach? I can tell he’d like to see me try that at one in the morning through this sick metropolis. Shaking the dress, scattering microscopic traces of sand we can neither hear nor see as it peppers the boards of the floor.

‘I’d like you to stay,’ he says.

And I say, ‘You’re sweet but I’ve this early flight, I really have to go.’

‘It was something, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I say, and as soon as I finish adjusting straps, smoothening my skirt with the archetypal mom gesture, brow furrowed, leaning forward, swiping from opposite hip to knee, the back of my hand to the back of the skirt, a thumb flicking at the bodice, he pops to his feet, drags on chinos, buttons, not all, no more than two from five, searches for and finds car keys, stands there barefoot, bare-chested, hair-tussled, while I finger-brush the insole of each shoe before slipping them on, nails painted damson carefully, thinking of my mother’s six toes on each foot, the sign of a witch she used to say, though few noticed or commented, part of her ineluctable magic. I wonder whether he’s going to put on a T-shirt, a sweater, something to ward against the night air. I lean low, close into a mirror, catch a flash of someone else’s sex-blanched skin, a stranger’s muddy eyes, and searching for neatness, run fingers through hair all sticky and stubbornly wrong shaped, an aura of struggle, a hint of salt, thinking how awful, conjuring up, flashing this flip thumbnail of some sort of primitive priestess figure, Etruscan, pre-Etruscan, what do I know about that, murky outlined Ur-witch, cursed, sorry to have put him through this whole ordeal.

He starts to say something, ‘Listen,’ he says.

And as I wait for him to say what he has to say, something, anything, even if it’s just my name, an offer to drop me off, a request to see me again, I realise how much I wish there were some men in the world that are not the men I always meet.

Of course I need not lie and wait in the background in the manner of some minor appendage. I could as easily go stand alongside the boys or some distance down line, and blast away contentedly like some of the women are tolerated to do so long as they don’t happen to outperform their men or anyone at all owns a peenie. But Edward doesn’t like for me to butt in when he’s gunning competitively with his buddies. Not that Edward is some throwback ignoramus same as you’d find plenty of on any one of a thousand ranges throughout the West. He’s a surgeon, a registered, upstanding Republican, with plastics his game and Vegas the stage. He likes to remind me, there is nowhere better to play that particular game. Money in the bank and all that carpetbagging twaddle.

Now, this moment, on impulse, feeling the sun warming my inner thighs, I shuck those shorts, and pinch these high-cut briefs, also utterly white, though merely freshly laundered as opposed to fresh from the store, until they lie modestly, comfortably enough about those various orifices, generative and voidive, which men spend so much of their lives in blind devotional pursuit of. I close my eyes, demurely cock one knee halfway over the other, relax, proceed to toast. I picture myself going in Neiman’s and the haughty birdlike women working there flocking and trotting in my wake, nodding and agreeing for once with all my selections, squealing, ‘Yes, Mrs Pirie. Good choice, Mrs Pirie. You’re a paragon, Mrs Pirie.’ And now I’m having that flying dream that leaves you with a sinking feeling all the way from your eyeballs to the pit of your tummy, making you want to gasp and shriek at the same moment, and my foot flicks out, Ellesse tennis shoe and all, finding nothing but dry Nevada air, and I’m certain I’m falling, plummeting, mile after mile, but it’s only Edward, his fist on my arm, hurting me, yanking me awake.

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘it’s time. We’re going.’

And I sit up too quickly, wipe a hand over my face, dislodging my shades so they dangle a moment from my ear. My mother always told me I’d these dainty pert ears, and so far as I know they haven’t altered that much over the intervening years. Now my mouth’s dry and the sun’s in my eyes. I’m confused, drowsy, like it’s post-op recovery, asking croakily, ‘What time’s it?’

Edward doesn’t even look at me. He’s gripey, standing off by the towel-draped tailgate of the truck, speed-packing his Colts in their hard plastic carry cases, like, I’m guessing, Les or Calvin must have had better figures on their targets. He just whines in the baleful way he thinks women sound, imitating me, going, ‘What time’s it?’

I allow him that much for his shooting eye being off, tell him I’ve had the strangest dream.

‘Swear it, Lee,’ he says, ‘I’m not the least interested in hearing your dreams right now, OK.’

Sure. OK. But I wish he’d keep it down a little. Maybe hiss at me. Instead of this barking and bawling like a rabid dog. It’s not proper or gentlemanly. Not for a doctor. Not for my husband.

‘And put some clothes on,’ he says, ‘for Christ’s sake, flashing your bonus like this is Girls Girls Girls, and Les and Calvin’re paying clientele. You’re a mother, you need to start acting like one.’

I suck on my bottom lip as I tug up those shorts, and believe I must cry. Of course I understand what he’s telling me and realise that he’s partly right. So I drag myself, all arms and hair akimbo, into the T-shirt, and trot over to climb in the truck. Here, in the warm, green-tinted air, sitting, waiting for him, it comes to me, one of those uninvited thoughts you could scarcely deny – if Edward is partly right then he also has to be partly wrong. This is a cataclysmic realisation for any adoring young wife to make. So much so that I immediately put it to one side for later consideration.