'Ssh.' My maman slipped out of her shorts and into the deliberately crumpled blue silk overall she had carried in her handbag. 'They'll hang us if they find us out.'

There was nothing for my father to do but get into the suit.

When they were both changed, my mother took him by the hand and set off, not along the road, but along a narrow path of the sort made by cattle. She had played this kind of game before birthdays, anniversaries and Bill guessed they would soon come to a village or at least a filling station where she would have arranged a rent-a-car.

Their destination, however, turned out to be an unprepossessing building 200 yards away. It was larger than the little fishing shacks beside it, but just as rusty. It was only as they came to the steps of the wide veranda that he noticed the details, the crispness of finish, the spare teak-framed doorways cut into the thickly insulated corrugated skin.

It was a small hotel, very Efican in its modesty expensive, of course, but affecting, in its skin, the artful camouflage of rural decay.

Bill's hand went to his slashed face, feeling the raw, rough ridge.

'You don't like it.'

'No,' he said. 'Good heavens, no. The opposite.'

And as they walked to their suite he gesticulated and congratulated, admired the view of the mudflats, the red and blue hangings of old Indienne, but he could not keep the shadow of depression out of his eyes.

'It's a lot of money, I know,' she said when the concierge closed the door to the room and they were at last alone. 'It's very bourgeois.'

'It's wonderful.' Bill held his arms wide. The room was white and spare, the floor teak. 'It's very tasteful.'

'Tasteful?' She raised her eyebrows.

'Wonderful. Truly wonderful. It's such a treat.'

'It'll be our last night for eight months, mo-chou. I wanted it to be nice.'

'It's wonderful.'

When Bill and Felicity lay in bed after their bath, she said, again, 'I wanted you to remember Efica like this.'

They could look down their long pink naked limbs and see, behind the rifle sights of their toes, the inky blue clouds of a thunderstorm, the low lines of brilliant green mangroves, the long flat mudflats glistening pink in the late sun and the spindle-legged birds gathering their evening meal.

They had soaked in the hot tub and soaped each other, but now they lay naked, side by side, neither sought the other.

'Are you OK, Billy-fleur?' Felicity turned on her side and began to slowly rub his smooth wide chest with the flat of her hand.

'I guess.'

'Depressed?'

'Nah ...' He held his hand over his eyes. 'I'm OK.'

'What's the matter?'

She peeled the hand back from the eyes, playfully.

He pulled his hand away with a roughness that surprised even him. No sooner had he done it than he was stroking her hand and apologizing.

Felicity stroked his neck but her hand came clumsily close to his face and he turned his head away from her.

'Is it your face?' she said suddenly. 'Of course, I'm sorry. You're upset about your face.'

In his late thirties, interviewers, women particularly, would like to ask the question about the small pale line that ran from the corner of Bill's mouth to the point of his chin. There would be something s.e.xual about this mark whose story the Sirkus performer would never tell. They would extend a finger sometimes, as if they would have liked to touch it, and he would rest his own forefinger on the pale silky little path of tissue, and smile.

But when Bill smiled at my mother, the scar was ridged, raw, purple, and destroyed the symmetry of his archer's-bow lips.

'Let's have a good time,' my mother said. 'It's our last night for a year.'

Bill held up his gla.s.s, smiling. My mother filled it. Bill sipped the champagne and placed it carefully beside the bed, but once that was done, he was quiet and she could feel nothing had changed. She put her hand out to the scar and this time touched it deliberately.

'You know how you've worked worked to convince me that this didn't matter to you?' to convince me that this didn't matter to you?'

'So think: why would I act like that?'

'Well, it's not so crazy ...'

'... so you'd admire me.'

She looked across at him. He turned his head towards her, his mouth loose, his chin a little soft.

'So you'd admire admire me,' he repeated. me,' he repeated.

She shook her head. She could feel all his upset broiling and churning away beneath the surface.

He lay on his back again, staring up at the carefully finished teak ceiling. She lay propped up on her elbow, watching him. He said, 'Your whole life you are surrounded by people doing things so you'll admire them. Moey does a high-wire act. Your son tries to kill himself in a pine tree. I pretend this doesn't matter.'

'You get yourself slashed ... for me.'

That isn't what I said, but still: who put me on the poster?'

'Bill, that's not even logical. You're so angry.'

'I'm not angry. I'm not angry at all. This has been happening to you all your life,' he said. 'You should let yourself see it.'

She sat up again and sipped her drink. 'This is nothing to do with me. It's all to do with you.'

'What?' He also sat up and raised his eyebrow at her. He also sat up and raised his eyebrow at her.

'You're angry. You're looking for something to let your anger out on.'

'Of course I am f.u.c.king angry. You would be angry too. I got my face slashed for nothing.'

'Hunning, it's going to be fine. It looks horrible now, but you told me what the doctor said ...'

'A tour like this. What's it for? If there's an election tomorrow ...'

'There's one on January 22 ...'

'All right. If there's an election next month, what have you affected?'

My maman looked at him a long, long time, her forehead creasing, a shadow appearing in her eyes.

'People come,' she said at last. 'They laugh, they cry, their minds are engaged.'

'Why are you so wilful? Why are you so deliberately not understanding? You know who these people are that come. They're converts. You come down out of the sky like some angel of f.u.c.king light. They love you before you get there. Nothing changes.'

'So why are you you here?' here?'

'I don't see that it is worth it,' Bill said. 'I said a group of performers who feel they are beyond criticism, who elevate sloppiness to a style of acting.'

'You think our work is poor?'

'It's perfectly fine.'

'Don't patronize me.'

'I'm not patronizing. I'm saying: it is perfectly fine. It's like this champagne ...'

'You don't like the champagne ... ' champagne ... '

'Well, actually it is not champagne ... You cheer up the lonely liberals, you annoy the fascists. It entertains. It educates.'

'But you despise it.'

'No, I don't despise it. It's just not worth getting myself slashed for. I feel a fool. I feel like I've been in a theme park, acting out some heroic role, and now it's time to go home and ...'

'Have I become provincial?'

'All art is provincial.'

'That's an evasion.'

'Well, what do you mean?'

'I always thought I'd know if I was becoming second-rate.'

He shrugged. It took only a second. She did not ask him to explain it. She did not need to.

'I always thought I'd know.'

He took her hand and held it. 'You know what you should do? Tartuffe. Tartuffe. Costumes, the works. Have some fun. You might even make money. There's a great French video of Bernstein's Costumes, the works. Have some fun. You might even make money. There's a great French video of Bernstein's Tartuffe. Tartuffe. It's a little campy, but very nicely done.' It's a little campy, but very nicely done.'

'You've thought this, all through the tour?'

'You're too smart to waste your time like this.'

She looked at him, her brow furrowed.

'You thought all this, when you were giving notes?'

'I've fooled myself,' he said. 'It's like some kids' game. I got too excited and let myself believe it was real.'

'You little snot,' she said.

'What?'

'You little snot. You shallow, vain, posturing little snot. Don't you dare act out your vulgar Sirkuses and come and tell me that what we do here does not matter. '

'I don't think you should talk to me like that.'

'Why? What will happen to me?'

'I might not be interested in coming back.'

'Why would I want you back?'

'To fill the seats,' he said. 'You had me on the f.u.c.king poster, so don't you curl your lip and say "Oh dear" to me, and never never, not ever ever do I want you to use that word about me again.' do I want you to use that word about me again.'

And so on.

Some time before dawn Bill and my mother stumbled back along the narrow cattle path, dehydrated from the wine, heavy with sleep, trying to avoid blackberry tangles in the dark. At the camp site, they felt their way carefully through the tethered horses and crawled into the bus.

'Are you OK, Billy-fleur?' she asked him.

'I'm fine,' he said.

'Did you kiss your little boy goodnight? He's been so happy to have his father home.'

'I didn't mean it,' he said. 'The work is really wonderful.'

26.

I boarded the Haflinger next morning ignorant of my future. I sat next to Bill Millefleur and put my hand in his. I had no idea, as I fiddled with the ornate silver ring on his left hand, that he was breaking up with my mother and therefore ipso facto was breaking up with me.

His eyes were puffy, his mouth disconsolate.

'Are ... you ... tired?' I asked him.

'Yes,' he said.

Then my mother came on to the bus.