"You know, Artem was just new married. He was needing somewhere to live."

"With Naomi?"

She avoided my eyes. "It was the wartime. German bombings. People running everywhere."

Above our heads there was a clang of copper pipes and a tirade of words. Chaim and Mr Ali must have got back from B&Q. There was suddenly a lot of running up and down stairs and clattering and shouting going on in the background.

"So they moved in?"

"Such a beautiful house, isn't it? Even a piano. Bechstein. Sometimes Mutti Mutti and I came to play on it. He played on the violin, we accompanied mit the piano." and I came to play on it. He played on the violin, we accompanied mit the piano."

"Two brown eyes."

"You know, Georgine, I was only a young girl. I didn't know anything-I knew only that I was in loff." She pursed her lips and puffed a couple of smoke rings; they drifted towards the fire on the warm draught, and vanished in the flames. "When you are in lofF, when you heff an idea in your head, you are not always thinking about the consequence."

My mind tripped back to my conversation with the Scarlet-mouthed s.l.u.t, her tentative apology that I'd accepted with such bad grace.

"You thought being in love made it okay?"

"I thought only that I could not live without him. And she was no good for him, that one. Always she was nagging him to go to Israel. A poor man like this with ruined lungs. What use he will be in Israel?"

"So she went on her own?"

"She was blazing like a person on fire. She could not sit still. Always talking of Zion-of making a homeland for all the Jews of the world. But he wanted only to die in peace." A bit of wood shifted on the fire and clouds of ash drifted on to the fender. "Already he was dust."

"Didn't you feel...?"

She shrugged and tossed her head in a vague gesture. "I was looking after him. He could not be on his own. He was saying he will go there when he is better."

What I really wanted to ask was-did she feel guilty? For stealing Naomi's husband, and Chaim's father.

"She wrote to him from Israel, didn't she?"

She nodded. "Yes. Those letters. I burned them all." Her face was turned away towards the fire, so I could not read her expression. "Not all of them."

45.

The dance of the polymers It wasn't until I got home that evening that I realised I still had the s.p.a.ce Invaders Easter egg in my bag. I unwrapped it and put it at the back of the cupboard. It was so vile that I couldn't bring myself to give it to Stella or Ben.

"Who was that man?" Stella asked as we were clearing up together after a Thai curry dinner. We were alone together in the bas.e.m.e.nt kitchen. Rip and Ben were watching football upstairs.

"What man?"

"That smooth creepy guy in the Jag who came round this afternoon while you were out?" Her lip curled with disapproval.

"Oh, he must have been the estate agent. He wants to buy a house from an old lady I know who lives at Totley Place. Why?"

"Daddy answered the door. They both seemed a bit surprised to see each other." She gave me a hard look. "He had a bunch of flowers. White roses."

"Really? They were probably for someone else."

"No, he left them. They're in my room. I told Daddy they were for me."

"Thanks, Stella. You can keep them. I don't want them."

She grinned, a quick glimmer of a grin.

Next day Rip gave me a peck on the cheek before he left for work, and maybe that's what made it difficult to write about Gina's revenge. Although I had some glue stuff to catch up on, I was determined to finish Chapter 8, so I set my laptop aside and opened up my exercise book.

The Splattered Heart

Chapter 8.

GINA'S REVENGE continued Disguised as an itinerant window cleaner rag-and-bone woman itinerant window cleaner rag-and-bone woman Avon lady she made her way to Holty Towers and in the dead of night, she tiptoed through to the luxurious Avon lady she made her way to Holty Towers and in the dead of night, she tiptoed through to the luxurious ensuit onsite ensued ensuit onsite ensued (b.l.o.o.d.y Microsoft!-1 was using the spellchecker on my laptop because my dictionary was still propping up a shelf in the mezzanine study) bathroom and got the deadly (b.l.o.o.d.y Microsoft!-1 was using the spellchecker on my laptop because my dictionary was still propping up a shelf in the mezzanine study) bathroom and got the deadly tube vial tube vial phial out of her Avon box and squeezed a thin layer of extra strong adhesive on to the seat of the phial out of her Avon box and squeezed a thin layer of extra strong adhesive on to the seat of the toilet toilet lavatory. Then she turned the cold tap on in the basin lavatory. Then she turned the cold tap on in the basin so so that it ran in a steady stream. Tinkle tinkle tinkle. A smile suffused her rosy lips that it ran in a steady stream. Tinkle tinkle tinkle. A smile suffused her rosy lips.

But something wasn't right. I was starting to feel a bit sorry for Rick. Okay, so he had his flaky moments, but there was something endearing about him, wasn't there? Those blond tumbled curls. The vulnerability of the sleeping man. And Gina-wasn't she a bit off the rails too, falling for that dodgy mandolin player? What a pair of idiots Rick and Gina were. Why couldn't they just sort their differences out and stick together? I realised that something inside me had shifted-I was no longer very interested in revenge. I was ready to move on.

I closed my exercise book and clicked open the Adhesives Adhesives doc.u.ment I was meant to be working on. "The Chemistry of Adhesive Bonding." On New Year's Eve, when we'd joined hands, like molecules grabbing hold of each other, and sung 'Auld Lang Syne', I'd had a flash of insight into polymerisation. Now I discovered something even better-polymerisation depends on sharing. An atom which is short of an electron looks out for another atom that's got the right sort of electron (it's called covalency, for the chemically inclined), then the atom grabs the electron it needs. But no theft or nastiness is involved. The two atoms end up sharing the electron, and that's what holds all the atoms together in one beautiful long endlessly repeating dance-the beauty of glue! doc.u.ment I was meant to be working on. "The Chemistry of Adhesive Bonding." On New Year's Eve, when we'd joined hands, like molecules grabbing hold of each other, and sung 'Auld Lang Syne', I'd had a flash of insight into polymerisation. Now I discovered something even better-polymerisation depends on sharing. An atom which is short of an electron looks out for another atom that's got the right sort of electron (it's called covalency, for the chemically inclined), then the atom grabs the electron it needs. But no theft or nastiness is involved. The two atoms end up sharing the electron, and that's what holds all the atoms together in one beautiful long endlessly repeating dance-the beauty of glue!

Canaan House was still on my mind, and I started thinking about the two Naomis, each trying to grab Artem. Had there been sharing and dancing? Or was it a case of theft and nastiness? Would Artem have made a different choice if he'd read Naomi's letters? Would Ella's heart have been broken instead? Burning the letters seemed such a monstrously wicked thing to do; yet I couldn't think of her as a wicked woman. It's as though love gives you a special licence to do anything you like. In the end death, the ultimate fracture line, split Ella and Artem apart. And Canaan House itself had been part of the dance, too, shared by one couple, then another. But whom did it really belong to? There were still some parts of the story that weren't clear. There must be a way of finding out.

After lunch-four radishes and half a bagel with a bit of crusty cheese was all I could muster from the fridge-1 nipped up to use the loo, and that's when I realised the other thing that was wrong with Gina's Revenge. Men and women-we're different. Men stand up to pee.

In the afternoon the rain stopped long enough for me to pull on my Bat Woman coat and wing off down to the library on Fielding Street just off Holloway Road. The reference library was up on the top floor, a hushed high-ceilinged room susurrating with the nasal snifflings of damp people and the dry rustle of pages being turned. The wet weather had brought in all the homeless folk, whose moist unwashed smell mingled with the musty odour of books and the munic.i.p.al aroma of wax and disinfectant. Silent hunched figures eyed each other furtively above the pages. Ms Firestorm would have a field day in here.

"I'm trying to find out the history of a house near where I live. It's called Canaan House. In Totley Place."

The woman at the counter raised her eyes from her computer.

"That's an interesting name. There was quite a fashion in Victorian times, you know, to give places Biblical names. There's no end of the Bethels and Zions. And there's a Jordan Close in Richmond. Different Jordan, of course," she giggled mousily.

"Are there some old maps or anything like that?"

"They've moved the local history archive to the Finsbury Library. We've just got a small local history section over there on the right."

Of the twenty or so volumes, the only specifically local book was one called Walter Sickert's Highbury Walter Sickert's Highbury. I flicked through the chapter headings and ill.u.s.trations. On page 79 was a lithograph of a large house with a tree in front of it-the more I stared, the more sure I was that it was the same house with the same monkey puzzle tree, but much smaller. The caption read: "The Monkey Puzzle House, home of Miss Lydia Hughes, whose portrait he painted in 1929 when he was living in nearby Highbury Place." Perhaps the name of the house had been changed. I looked in the index and browsed through the chapters, but there was no more information.

Then my eye fell on a slim booklet in a yellow card cover: A History of Christian Witness in Highbury. It was obviously self-published. I took it through to the reading room and sat down at one of the desks. The book was mainly a rather dull list of Anglican and Catholic churches with scratchy line drawings, but the last chapter was devoted to what the author called the 'sects': Methodists, Baptists, Congrega-tionalists, Quakers, Unitarians, Presbyterians, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Sandemanians, Christadelphians, Swedenborgians, Latter Day Saints, Plymouth Brethren. So many different faiths all waiting, as Ben was, for the Day of Judgement that would bring about a new Heaven and a new Earth-not just over there in that dry, th.o.r.n.y, tortured land, but here in damp, leafy Highbury. Still waiting. Well, let them wait, I thought.

Towards the end of the book was a short entry that read: "A Teresian community was established in the late 19305 in a house in Totley Place. It was evacuated following an air raid in 1941 and the community dispersed." I felt a rush of excitement-this could be it! But there was no more. The author was a Miss Sylvia Harvey. The book was published in 1977, thirty years ago. I scribbled the details on a piece of paper. The room was so quiet that you could hear the squeak of my pen as I wrote. There was no other sound apart from the snuffling and rustling and an occasional intermittent gurgle of the water cooler, like a dyspeptic gut. It reminded me that Dad's operation had been due today. I wondered how he'd got on.

Over in the far corner by the magazines and newspapers, a tall heavily built man was wrestling with the Financial Times Financial Times. He was sitting with his back towards me. He had curly grey hair-no, it was blond, streaked with grey. I stared. At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but there was no mistaking him. It was Rip. Beside him on the floor were his briefcase and our large blue thermos flask. I wanted to rush up to him and put my hands over his eyes to surprise him, but something held me back-something about the way he was sitting-that sagging posture, staring straight ahead, his big shoulders hunched. He looked defeated. He wasn't even reading the newspaper, I realised, he was just pa.s.sing the time. He was pa.s.sing the time in the library because he didn't want us to know he wasn't at work.

I took the book across to the desk.

"How can I trace this author?" I asked in a low voice.

The woman smiled vaguely. "You could try the telephone directory. Or the internet. Would you like me to have a look?"

"No, it's all right. Thanks for your help."

I gathered my things together as quietly as I could and tiptoed out through the door.

46.

Smoke circles I'd already started cooking dinner when Rip came in just before six o'clock. It was something elaborate involving tofu and lemon gra.s.s. Stella was out and Ben was stretched out on the sofa with a book. Since his seizure, he'd been avoiding the computer, and only watched television occasionally.

"D'you want a hand, Mum?" he shouted down to me. His voice sounded deeper, less croaky, than a couple of weeks ago. How quickly he'd changed.

"It's okay," I shouted back.

I liked to see him with his nose stuck in a book, as I'd been at his age, though when he came down to eat later on, I saw that the book was Revenge of the Busty Biker Chicks Revenge of the Busty Biker Chicks.

"Hi, Ben! Hi, Georgie!" Rip called as he came in, then he went straight up into the mezzanine study. I could hear him pottering around in there, playing music. Half an hour later, I stuck my head round the door.

"Dinner's ready."

"What's all this, Georgie?"

He was standing in the middle of the room holding a B&Q carrier bag in his hand.

"Where did you find that?" Then I remembered. I'd shoved it in the cupboard when Mark Diabello came round.

"Are you planning a bit of DIY?" He was looking at me intently, curiously. I could feel myself turning red.

"No, not DIY. Collage."

"Collage?"

I smiled inwardly at the incredulity in his voice.

"You know-sticking things. It's a form of art."

Our eyes met. He grinned. I grinned. We stood grinning at each other across a bridge of lies. I would never tell him that I'd seen him in the library. In all our years together, I'd never before glimpsed his vulnerability. I'd always thought he was the strong one in our relationshjp. I reached out my arms and took a tentative step forward. There was a faint crackle and a smell of scorching, and Ben called from the kitchen: "Come on, you two! The rice's burning!"

Dad always used to say, "I like a bit of burned," which was just as well, because Mum often obliged. Sometimes she went too far, like the first Sunday lunch Rip had with us at Kippax, when she placed a charred and blackened chicken in front of Dad for him to carve.

"Poor little b.u.g.g.e.r looks like 'e's been cremated," said Dad.

"Nowt wrong wi' cremation," said Mum. "Keeps you regular."

I hadn't told Mum yet that Rip had moved back in-1 didn't want to tempt fate-but I rang her after dinner to find out how Dad's operation had gone. She was in an ebullient mood.

"They did a biopic. Doctor says it in't cancer."

"Oh, that's good. How's he feeling?"

"Full of chips. Food were lovely in 'ospital. Got into a blazing argument with the bloke in the next bed about Iraq. Keir's coming home, by the way. Did I tell you?"

"No, you didn't. That's good news, too."

It would be good to see Keir again. Since he'd joined the army, our worlds had drifted apart; nowadays all we had in common was our shared childhood, but Mum resolutely held us together like the family glue.

"She sent us some lovely flowers, by the way, your Mrs Sinclair. And a card. Best wishes for your recovery."

"I didn't know she knew about Dad."

"Oh, we keep in touch. She rings up from time to time. Or I ring her."

"Really?"

This was complete news to me. I tried to imagine what Mum and Mrs Sinclair would talk about. Then I realised they probably talked about us.

I poured another gla.s.s of wine and put my feet up on the sofa while Rip and Ben put the rice pan to soak and cleared up in the kitchen. Then the phone rang.

"Georgine, come quick! We heff an invitation!"

Mrs Shapiro's breathy voice shrilled down the telephone, but I was going nowhere.

"What've we been invited to?"

"Wait! Let me see-aha, here it is! We are invited to a funeral!"

My heart lurched. The last thing I needed was bad news.

"Oh, dear. Who is it?"