There was an edge of irritation in his voice.

"Kippax, not kippers. It should really be called Oven Chippax." Even as I said it, I felt a pang of shame at my disloyalty.

"If only people would would stick to food when they talk about homeland. At least we could argue about sensible things. They could build a wall down the middle of Kippers. Kippers with chips on one side. Kippers with toast on the other. And checkpoints if you want to cross over." His voice had softened. "Which side would you be on, Georgia girl?" stick to food when they talk about homeland. At least we could argue about sensible things. They could build a wall down the middle of Kippers. Kippers with chips on one side. Kippers with toast on the other. And checkpoints if you want to cross over." His voice had softened. "Which side would you be on, Georgia girl?"

I laughed. "I'd be on both sides, stuffing my face. It's just that people go on about their homeland as if it was the biggest thing in their lives. It seems strange to me..." I could hear Nathan's p.r.i.c.kly silence on the other end of the phone. But when he spoke, his voice was sad, not p.r.i.c.kly.

"That was Tati's generation. Zion was their big dream. It was a good dream, too. But they found you can't build dreams with guns. Just nightmares. Does that answer your question?"

I paused. It did and it didn't. "I expected the Jews would be...you know, after all that suffering...more compa.s.sionate."

"Why would suffering make anyone compa.s.sionate? It doesn't work like that, Georgia. Abused children often grow up to become abusers themselves. It's what they learn."

"Mmm. But..."

"And if you've convinced yourself that you're really the victim, or even just potentially the victim-well, it gives you a free rein, doesn't it? You can kill as many people as you like."

But we didn't bully Carole Benthorpe because we'd been abused, I wanted to say. We did it because we believed that something-something higher than us-gave us the right. Then I remembered the article I'd edited.

"It's like glueing a joint, isn't it? Surface attraction is increased by roughing up the surfaces to be bonded. Like an abusive relationship. It's the mutual damage that holds the two sides together."

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and I was starting to regret my outburst of showing-off, when Nathan said, "If you carry on like that, Georgia, I shall have to give you a pay increase."

Gay. What a shame!

Our conversastion stayed in my head after I'd put the phone down. But we didn't have a wall in Kippax, I was thinking. When the strike ended the community was split, and the bitterness of betrayal and defeat was on everyone's mind. People badmouthed their neighbours. Taunts and bricks were thrown, cars were scratched, drunks and kids picked fights. But still life went on. You had to go to the same schools, shop in the same shops, dig in the same allotments, sit eyeball to eyeball in the doctor's surgery-and after a while the habit of living together slowly turned into peace. Eventually a generation comes along that doesn't remember what the conflict was ever about. Maybe forgiveness isn't such a big deal, after all. Maybe it's just a matter of habit.

All this mental activity was making me thirsty. I put the kettle on and nipped down to the bakery for a Danish pastry. Then on the way back I had a sudden thought-Danish. She She was Danish. I knew nothing at all about Denmark except the pastries. And Hamlet, of course. Why had she left Denmark? What had happened there during the war? was Danish. I knew nothing at all about Denmark except the pastries. And Hamlet, of course. Why had she left Denmark? What had happened there during the war? I'd I'd have to ask Nathan next time. To get myself in the right frame of mind, I munched the Danish pastry very thoughtfully with my tea. have to ask Nathan next time. To get myself in the right frame of mind, I munched the Danish pastry very thoughtfully with my tea.

In the end, the party was neither a musical soiree nor a garden party-it was a barbecue. That was Ishmail and Nabeel's idea, and they got so excited about it that no one had the heart to argue with them, though personally I thought the combination of scorched half-raw meat, bugs from Mrs Shapiro's kitchen and barbecue lighter fuel was potentially lethal. Anyway, they built an improvised barbecue in front of the house out of spare bricks and some metal racks they got out of an old oven which Mrs Shapiro had spotted on a skip. They got a job lot of cheap Halal lamb chops and chicken wings from a butcher on Dalston Lane and Mrs Shapiro produced some discoloured burgers of unknown provenance from the depths of her fridge. I made a mental note to avoid those.

I'd suggested that Mr Ali invite his wife, but apparently when she heard that Ishmail and Nabeel were involved she declined.

"Give her headache," Mr Ali explained.

However, she sent along a huge bowl of hummus laced with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh coriander leaves.

"What is this thing?" Mrs Shapiro poked her finger in and licked it, wrinkling her nose, then I saw a smile of pleasure spread across her face.

Have you ever noticed the similarity between BBQ and B&Q? My theory is that that's why men feel the urge to take over the cooking on these occasions. It's what Rip would call synergy. At one point all four of them-Chaim, Mr Ali, Ishmail and Nabeel-were crowded round the smoking barbecue, puffing and flapping to try and get it lit. Ishmail and Nabeel took turns splashing squirts of lighter fuel on to the smouldering charcoal, then jumping back howling with laughter as the flames flared up. In fact they managed to splash a fair bit of lighter fuel on themselves, too. Probably Mrs Ali was wise to stay away. I watched them from the window of Mrs Shapiro's bedroom, where I was trying on the red-and-white spotted dress, while Mrs Shapiro fussed around for the right shade of lipstick.

We were blessed with the weather. The sun came out after lunch, and stayed out all afternoon. The thrush was up on his tree, his chest puffed out, singing his war song, and all seven of Mrs Shapiro's cats, plus a few guests from the neighbourhood, were circling, attracted by the smell of the cooking meat. Mrs Shapiro and I chopped up salads and split pitta breads and set out plates and gla.s.ses on the white UPVC table. A spare table from the study, and some dining chairs had been carried out on to the gra.s.s, too.

Nathan and his Tati were the first to arrive. Nathan had brought two bottles of Blind River Pinot Noir, and his Tati had brought a bunch of blue irises for Mrs Shapiro.

"Thenk you so much!" Her bright blue eyelids fluttered ecstatically. That was a good start. "Will you heff a drink?"

She was wearing the same brown slacks and striped jersey in which she'd first entertained Mr Wolfe, with her high-heeled slingbacks that kept sticking into the gra.s.s as she tottered about. Her hair was freshly dyed and elaborately pinned up with three tortoisesh.e.l.l combs. In fact she looked quite elegant. I was wearing the little red-and-white number. Nathan looked me up and down.

"Nice dress."

"Thanks. I like your trousers. We match."

He was wearing red trousers with what looked like a white waiter's jacket.

Ms Baddiel, when she arrived, was wearing a flowing muslin garment which might have been a coat or a dress or a skirt and top-it was impossible to say how it all fitted together-tie-dyed in swirling shades of amber, bronze and gold. It fluttered lightly in the breeze, making her look delicate and ethereal, despite her size. I saw Mark Diabello eyeing her with interest as she came up the path, and felt a small stab of annoyance. Okay, so I'd given him the push, but he was supposed to be eyeing me me, not her. He was wearing the same dark suit as always, the white handkerchief winking invitingly in his jacket pocket. The Shameless Woman poked her head up briefly, and thought an utterly shameless thought: I bet they don't do the red open-gusset panties in her her size. size.

"Nice dress, Georgina. Suits you." He pecked me on the cheek and handed me a packet of Marks & Spencer's sausages and a bottle of champagne.

"Oh, lovely. Mrs Shapiro'll like those."

"Is your hubby coming?"

"Yes, later," I lied. Actually I hadn't invited him. It wasn't because of Mark. It was because he'd have come out of a sense of duty and then complained that he was missing the football. Besides-1 don't know-1 just wanted to keep Canaan House and its eccentric inhabitants to myself.

"Nick's coming later, too. He had some...er...work to catch up on."

"Mark, there's something I think you should know. Something you and Nick should know. Only...I don't know whether I should tell you."

He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"You're being very mysterious, Georgina."

If I hadn't already had a couple of gla.s.ses of wine I might have kept quiet, but I blurted out, "The deeds to the house...there aren't any. Her husband just moved in. It was abandoned. After a bombing raid. Actually, I don't think he was even her husband."

A strange look came over him. His eyes flickered through many changes of colour, and the smile-creases in his cheeks twitched furiously. He looked as though he was about to explode. Then I realised he was trying to stop himself from laughing.

"No t.i.tle! Wait till I tell Nick!"

"But can't she...I don't know...what about squatter's rights?"

He burst into a chuckle. "No t.i.tle! Ha ha! No, maybe on second thoughts I won't tell him! Where's the old lady?"

Mrs Shapiro and Tati had disappeared into the house. They'd opened the window in the study and moved the old gramophone up to it, so we could hear the music in the garden. Now they were poring through Mrs Shapiro's collection, trying to decide what to play. You could see them through the window, talking and laughing together. They chose an orchestral piece that sounded vaguely familiar. It might have been one of Rip's old vinyls. What will she say, I wondered with a pang of conscience, when I ask to have them back?

"Penny sends her apologies." Nathan sidled up to me. "Her cousin Darryl's getting married."

"That's nice." I felt a small p.r.i.c.k of regret.

"Who's the guy in the brown suit?"

Over by the barbecue, Mr Ali and Chaim Shapiro were cooking and arguing. Seeing them together like that, I was struck by how alike they were. Chaim was stabbing at the chicken wings to see whether they were done. Mr Ali shoved a mouthful of lamb chop into his mouth and beamed as he caught my eye, patting his tummy.

"XXL."

"Trouble wit you Arabs," Chaim was saying, "is you always pick bad leaders."

"You Jews put all the good ones in prison."

Mr Ali speared another lamb chop on a skewer and brandished it in the air. The chicken wings were beginning to smoke. Chaim flipped them over.

"We put only terrorists in prison."

"You not heard of Nelson Mandela? You want peace you free Marwan Barghouti," said Mr Ali, emphasising his point with the skewered lamb chop.

"This Barghouti-is he Hamas or Fatah?" Chaim picked up a smoking chicken wing with his fingers-ouch! hot!-and bit into it with a crunch, sucking cool air into his mouth.

"Hamas, Fatah-all listen to Barghouti!" The lamb chop flew off Mr Ali's skewer and whizzed over our heads. It landed on the ground and he speared it up, covered with bits of gra.s.s, and started flashing it about again. "He only can bring peace."

"Mr Ali, Chaim, this is my colleague Nathan Stein," I b.u.t.ted in. They stopped in mid-sentence, and turned towards us.

"Come! Eat something!" Chaim waved a chicken wing at him.

"We are discussing politics," said Mr Ali. When he looked round at us, I could see he had a grin on his face and bits of barbecue sauce in his beard. They both looked as though they were enjoying themselves. On the barbecue, things were sizzling away.

"Discussion is the better part of valour!" added Chaim.

In the middle of the gra.s.s, Mussorgsky and the Stinker were fighting over a chicken bone. The neighbourhood guest cats, the ones which had proper homes to go to, were looking on askance at this display of bad behaviour.

"Very tasty." Nathan took a bite of the chicken wing.

"Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp piece of gla.s.s, eh?" said Chaim, and bellowed with laughter at his own joke.

Denmark, I reminded myself. Mustn't forget to ask him about Denmark.

Ishmail had rigged up an ingenious rotating spit, but the chops and wings were too bony to spear, and the sausages just split. Brainy but useless. It's often the way. Now he and Nabeel were racing about with plates of charred meat as it came off the barbecue, flashing their smiles as they offered it around. They were in a skittish mood, and kept on barging into each other and dropping bits on the floor. Wonder Boy was in the bushes attempting to rape one of the visiting guest cats (little did he know that it was to be his last fling!), Mrs Shapiro was sitting on one of the white chairs with her feet up on another, smoking a cigarette and discreetly feeding the raw M&S sausages to the cats. The cats were s.n.a.t.c.hing and snarling. Tati was sitting at the table beside her, slugging back red wine and eating a burger-it must be one of the ones from the back of her fridge-I hoped he had a strong const.i.tution. Mark Diabello was topping up the gla.s.ses. Ms Baddiel was keeping everyone supplied with tissues.

"I work mainly with old people," I overheard her explaining peachily to Mark Diabello. "Sorting out their housing needs to enable them to live independently."

"Fascinating," he murmured. "I'm in housing myself."

The music poured out into the garden, wheeling and soaring above it all.

Everything that happened next happened very quickly, so I may have got the order of events slightly wrong, but it was something like this. The thrush started it. From his perch in the ash tree he'd spotted a piece of pitta bread that had fallen on to the ground. Wonder Boy, having satisfied his l.u.s.t, was lurking in the bushes watching the bird. As the thrush swooped down Wonder Boy flattened his nose to the ground and wriggled into pouncing position, his tail twitching. The bird went for the bread. The cat went for the bird. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand-it was a lamb chop-and lobbed it at Wonder Boy. It arced through the air spinning like a boomerang. Normally I'm hopeless at throwing, but this time I scored a direct hit. Wonder Boy let out a yowl and leapt sideways right under the feet of Nabeel who was carrying a plate of chicken wings up the garden. Nabeel barged into Ishmail, who lurched and stumbled against the barbecue, which collapsed scattering hot coals everywhere, setting fire to the barbecue lighter fuel that hadn't been screwed up properly and had spilled on the ground right under the open study window, where a curtain was flapping in the breeze. The cats fell on the scattered chicken wings in a frenzy. Wonder Boy grabbed the biggest one and raced off down the path. The wind gusted; the curtains caught and blazed. Mark Diabello sprayed champagne over the flames, but it was too little too late. Outside on the lane there was a screech of brakes and a thud. The flames leaped through the window. Nick Wolfe appeared at the gate, holding up Wonder Boy's limp lifeless body gingerly by one leg. Mrs Shapiro screamed and fainted. Tati tried to give Mrs Shapiro mouth to mouth resuscitation. The fire spread from the curtains to some loose papers on the bookshelf under the window. The music slurred and stopped. Mr Ali phoned the fire brigade on his mobile phone but failed to make himself understood. The fire roared through the study and into the hall. Nathan phoned the fire brigade on his mobile phone, and did manage to get through. I just stood there watching, clenching my hands into fists, wishing I could recall the flying lamb chop, and feeling terribly terribly terribly guilty.

Hours later, after the fire brigade had been and gone, and Mrs Shapiro had been carted off into temporary accommodation accompanied by Ms Baddiel, and Ishmail and Nabeel had gone home to Mrs Ali, and Chaim had gone home with Nathan and his Tati, and Wolfe and Diabello had finished off the booze and slunk off back to their lair, I walked home through the balmy dusk. In-two-three-four. Out-two In-two-three-four. Out-two - -three-four. I breathed deeply, noticing that the air, despite its taint of London traffic, carried the sweetness of rising sap and fresh growth. I noticed peonies in the front gardens, and the greenness of leaves newly uncurled. I noticed that my hands were clenched into fists, and that my palms carried deep imprints of my fingernails. I uncurled them and let them relax. They hung like new leaves. When I got to my front door I noticed that Violetta was there beside me.

Ben and Rip were home already. They'd been out to the football, and now they were drinking a beer and watching the television-a round-up of the week's news.

"Good party?" asked Rip without looking up.

"Great." I came and slumped on the sofa. Violetta jumped up on to my lap, purring.

"Look at this," said Rip, pointing at the screen. "Who would have believed it?" Two men were being interviewed, grinning in front of a bank of cameras and microphones. One of them looked a bit like the Reverend Ian Paisley. I had no idea who the other one was. "Those two old b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

"Who are they?"

"Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness," said Ben, who'd been watching the item from the beginning. "They've done a deal."

"Really? You mean, in Northern Ireland?"

I tried to think back to a time when that conflict hadn't been in the news. How had this peace thing happened? How come I hadn't noticed? I remembered something about a woman whose hair fell out. She'd died while Rip and I were still living in Leeds, hadn't she?

"Who'd have thought it was possible? Peace has broken out!" Rip turned to face me. He was smiling, then the smile broadened into a lop-sided grin. "What the f.u.c.k are you wearing, Georgie?"

"Oh, I thought I'd dress up for the party."

My jeans and jumper and Bat Woman coat had been swallowed up by the blaze-or even if they were still there, the firemen had barred access to them.

"You...You've changed, Georgie. You're different."

He was still staring at me, as though he hadn't seen me before.

"Less...?"

"More..."

"I've been experimenting..." I hesitated. How could I explain that in the last six months I'd been Georgine, Georgina, Georgette, Mrs George and Miss Georgiana? Not to mention Ms Firestorm and the Shameless Woman. "...with different ways of being myself..."

"It suits you, Mum," said Ben. "Sort of retro."

Later that night, after the football highlights on TV had ended, and the thud-thud of Ben's music was quiet, and Violetta had wolfed down a tin of tuna and curled up on the sofa, I lay in bed, reflecting on what had happened at Canaan House that day, and tuning in to the silence around me. And that's when I heard a faint crackling sound-so faint that if I consciously tried to listen, it disappeared-it was the crackle of brainwaves coming from the mezzanine study. I put on my slippers and dressing gown and went to investigate. There was a sliver of light under the door. I tapped softly.

"Come in."

Rip was sitting at the computer in his boxer shorts, a cold cup of coffee at his elbow, staring at the screen.

"You're working late."

"Got a report to finish," he said, without looking round.

"Progress Project?"

"No. I'm done with the Progress Project."

I glanced over his shoulder and I could see quite clearly on the monitor that he was working not on a report but on his CV. He didn't even try to close or minimise the window.

"Is it...are you okay, Rip?"