“I’m sorry,” he said.

I didn’t want to get into all that.

“So my computer is fully functional,” I said brightly, finishing my mug of coffee.

“What is it? Three years old?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It used to belong to a friend of a friend.”

“I don’t know how you can use it. Isn’t it like walking through a swamp wrapped in cotton wool?” Morris said. He looked at it with narrowed eyes. “You need some memory. Faster hamsters. That’s what it’s all about.”

“I beg your pardon? Faster hamsters. What are they?”

He grinned. “Sorry. An expression.”

“I had a hamster when I was a girl. It wasn’t at all fast.”

“All I mean is that your machine is a Stone Age implement, anyway.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“For a grand you could have a machine that was a thousand times more powerful. You could be on-line. You could have your own Web site. There’s a spreadsheet that could handle all your own accounts. I could set it up for you if you like. You could see me being a grown-up computer consultant.”

I started to feel a little dizzy.

“That’s fantastically nice of you, Morris, but I think you may have got me mixed up with a woman who can cope with the world.”

“No, Nadia, you’re wrong. A proper system will make everything easier for you. It will put you in control.”

“Stop,” I said firmly. “I don’t want a computer that can do more; I want one that can do less. I don’t want a Web site. I’ve got six months’ ironing to do.”

Morris looked disappointed. He put his coffee mug down on the table.

“If you change your mind,” he said. “Then you’ve got my card.”

“I certainly have.”

“And maybe, we could, you know, maybe we could meet for a drink sometime.”

There was a ring on the front doorbell. Zach. Thank God. It is a statistical fact that seventy-nine percent of male people I meet ask me out. Why don’t I intimidate men more? I looked at him. The harps were not playing. No.

“That’s my partner,” I said. “I’m afraid we’re going to rush out. And…” I gave a sensitive pause. “I’m feeling a bit wobbly at the moment. I’m not quite ready. I’m sorry.”

“Of course,” Morris said, not meeting my eyes. “I completely understand.”

That was nice of him. He followed me to the door. I introduced Morris to Zach as they passed in the doorway.

“This is a man,” I said, “who comes and fixes computers for nothing.”

“Really?” said Zach, looking interested. “I’m totally baffled by mine. Any chance of taking a look?”

“Sorry,” said Morris. “It was a once-only offer. Never to be repeated.”

“That’s what I always seem to find,” said Zach bleakly.

Morris nodded at me pleasantly and was gone.

I have found her. My perfect third. She is small, like the others, but strong, full of energy. She glows with it. Skin like honey, glossy chestnut hair, but all in a tangle, green-brown eyes the color of a walnut, copper-colored freckles scattered over her nose and cheeks. Autumn colors for the end of the summer. Firm chin. White teeth. She smiles easily, tips her head back a bit when she laughs, gestures when she speaks. Not shy, this one, but at ease with herself. Like a cat by the fire. Her skin looks warm. Her hand was warm and dry when I shook it. I knew as soon as I saw her that she was right for me. My challenge. My sweetheart. Nadia.

THREE

“We ought to have another trick or something.” Zach frowned at me over his frothy pink milk shake. “Something new, anyway.”

“Why?”

“If we get invited back to a house.”

I have two magic tricks (three if you count the wand that collapses into segments when I depress a little lever at the base, amazing to anyone under the age of four). The first one involves putting a white silk scarf into an empty bag-the children know that it is empty because several of them have put their grubby little hands in it before I start-and then, hey presto, when I pull it out it’s turned a tie-dyed pink and purple. In the second, I make balls disappear and reappear. They’re basic tricks. Extremely basic. Rudimentary. But I’ve perfected them over the years. The point is to make the audience look in the wrong direction. Then if they gasp, resist the temptation to repeat it. And don’t tell anybody-even curious parents-how they’re done. I once told Max. I did the balls and he was amazed. And curious. How d’ye do it? How d’ye do it? He went on and on. So I showed him and I watched his face fall in disappointment. Was that all? What did he expect? I shouted at him. It’s a fucking trick.

I can juggle, too. Only with three balls, like everybody else. Nothing hard. But I don’t use just multicolored beanbags; I can juggle with bananas and shoes and mugs and teddy bears and umbrellas. Kids love it when I break eggs juggling. They assume that I do it on purpose, that I’m just clowning around.

Zach is much better at the puppet shows than I am. I can only do two different voices and they sound exactly the same. Sometimes we do cook-a-meal parties-you come along with all the ingredients and teach a group of children how to make fairy cakes and sticky icing and hamburgers and how to cut circular ham sandwiches with pastry cutters. Then they eat everything while you clear up the mess. And if you’re lucky the mother makes you a cup of tea.

I’m the clown, the jester, noisy and bright and chaotic and falling over my own feet. Zach’s the glum, serious sidekick. We’d just been to the party of a five-year-old called Tamsin-a roomful of tyrannical little girls in dresses that looked like meringues-and I was sweaty and exhausted after all my animated screeching. I wanted to go home, have a nap, read a newspaper in the bath.

“Insects,” Zach said suddenly. “I heard of a guy who takes bugs and reptiles to children’s parties and the children just touch them. That’s all there is to it.”

“I’m not keeping insects and reptiles in my flat.”

He slurped his milk shake and looked wistful.

“We could get some sort of insect that would bite the children. No, that wouldn’t work. We’d be prosecuted. What would be better would be one that passed on a serious disease to the children, so that they got very ill, but only much later.”

“Sounds good.”

“Don’t you hate ‘Happy Birthday’?” he said.

“Hate it.”

We grinned at each other.

“And you were terrible at juggling today.”

“I know. I’m out of practice. They’ll never invite us back. But that’s fine, because Tamsin’s dad put his arm around me.” I stood up to go. “Do you want to share a cab?”

“No, it’s okay.”

We kissed each other and wandered off in our separate directions.

Going back to the flat has been strange for the past few weeks, since Max left. I had only just got used to him being there: the toilet seat up instead of down, the wardrobe full of his suits and shirts, freshly squeezed orange juice and bacon in the fridge, another body in the bed-at night telling me I was beautiful, and in the morning telling me to get the fuck up because I was late again-someone to make meals for, someone to make meals for me and rub my back and order me to eat breakfast. Someone to make plans with and alter my life for. I had occasionally resented it, the limiting of my freedom. He’d nagged at me to be neater, more organized in my life. He thought I was a slob. He thought I was too dreamy. The things he had once found charming about me had begun to irritate him. But now I found that I missed sharing my life. I needed to learn to live alone once more. The delights of selfishness: I could eat chocolate in bed again, and make porridge for supper, and see The Sound of Music on video, and blue-tack notes to the wall, and be in a bad mood without worrying about it. I could meet someone new and begin the whole dizzying, delicious, dismaying round again.