That name was sudden in my mind, and stabbing. Nick. He was just a child. I’d bellowed at him like he was some monstrous adult, a stand-in for those who’d let me down. I’d scared him off. I’d scared him, perhaps, to death.

For a moment it was as if I might find him in the bushes there, or the flowerbed, there. Hiding, relieved to see me, eager to emerge. I wanted to hold out my hands to him, and raise him to standing. I think that was the first maternal instinct of my life. I think that was the first moment of not being the child myself.

I dialled Harry. The ringing went on forever. Then, our machine. He would still be at the pub. “Harry,” I said. “Harry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve been horrible. Harry. I’m at this place. Rose Cottage. The directions are on the computer. I need a lift. I’ll wait for you to come. I’ll wait for you. Please come. I want to… I want to change everything. I want to be different. I want to… throw things away, and move house, and start something new. With you. We should start new together. I know what happened today. I understand it. I don’t care about it. I don’t care. I’m going to get rid of the money, Harry.” This decision surprised me to hear coming out of myself, but it was right. It was necessary. “I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want anything from her. We can put it all to charity. Tomorrow. Quickly. I want it gone. Oh, God-” I remembered. “Oh, God, your birds, Harry. I’m sorry. Oh, God-” But the machine had clicked off. A sixty-second limit.

He would never forgive me. It was impossible. When I heard the car an hour later, his car, I knew there was rage inside. That’s all it could possibly be; I’d waited for it. I walked toward the road; I stood on the last of the lawn before the dirt track. The headlamps angled to face me. I could see them, like the bright lights of the Centre for Mathematics. I regretted never having seen his face.

The inevitable acceleration hummed rather than shrieked. I thought about all the times in my life that that had been true: things that ought to rate a fanfare, or applause, some volume, some notice, but happen quietly, too quietly, without the yelling and pointing they deserve.

The bumper hit me lower than I expected, around the knees. I’d illogically expected more of a punch in the stomach. My legs bent the wrong way, like deer legs, bent backward. But instead of crumbling, I sailed.

This too stretched. My arc blazed long. At the top of it, my head opened up like a net, catching in it old memories and random thoughts from the air. I knew. Suddenly I knew everything.

Her name was Eleanor. That was certain, and clear. Eleanor. I’d called her that sometimes. Sometimes, even in Brussels, I’d called her Mummy.

Eleanor borrowed Gin’s perfume. Eleanor wore Linda’s clothes. She was soft-skinned but hard-boned; she stood up to Linda about me. She made rabbit shadows with her hands. She let me sit on her lap on the train to see out the window. She gave me sips from her cup. She loved me. She worshipped Linda.

She’d been pretty to me, in her gift clothes and borrowed cosmetics. Eleanor had been pretty to me. But Linda had been astonishing to both of us.

One night, Linda had modelled dresses for us. She was dressing for an evening out. I sat on Eleanor’s lap, and we clapped and cheered at each successive outfit. There was one that Eleanor had particularly admired: It was girlish, layers of skirt and tight on top. Linda stepped out of it and tossed it to Eleanor. “Try it on,” she said. “I don’t like it anymore.” Eleanor undressed, curling herself up modestly, holding the dress up so its skirt made an impromptu curtain. It fit in size but not in shape. The waist stretched too tight, the bust sagged. She looked terrified in it. Linda said, “It looks good.” Eleanor puffed up; the pride in her risen chest almost made it fit.

The doorbell rang, and Linda, in just a slip, said, “I’m too tired to go out with him. You go.” Eleanor cowered. She shook her head, hard.

Linda said, “Tell him to go away, then.” She went into the bedroom and closed the door. The doorbell chimed on. It was a nice doorbell, not one of those harsh ones. It had a ring, a real ring. I sang along with the tune as it repeated, and swung my short legs back and forth under my chair.

Eleanor said, “Gretchen, you tell him. Tell him I can’t go.” Then she locked herself in the bathroom.

I stayed in my chair. The bell sang me songs. Then it stopped. Later, Eleanor came out. She still had the dress on.

She read to me from a storybook illustrated by Marc Chagall. I was still young enough to see. I put my face right up to those pictures. His happiest people always float in the air. Goats too. Happy people, floating goats.

Eleanor loved books. She made me love them too; it was inevitable that anyone who lived in our house would become an expert in literature, whether they wanted to be or not. She loved adventure in books. She loved men in books. She was in awe of people who created books the way religious people are in awe of God.

Chagall contained happiness like that: colour and captured motion, tethered by a frame or windowpane. His figures aren’t limited to feeling happiness inside; they float and fly, arc through the sky. And their goats fly with them.

The downward half of my arc sped up, rushing me toward the rutted road. I passed a goat. I trailed colour. Suddenly I was in the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the paintings were all Chagalls, from that storybook. Eleanor was there. Wearing that dress.

Part 5. Liv

CHAPTER 10

Nick became a calendar.

Wednesday December second became: The Day Before Nick Was Gone.

I carried around his gloves most of the day; I finally got a chance to hand them over to him at Gretchen’s house. Then Gretchen and I had a fight, and he stayed to fix it. He was gallant. I had to go, and he was doing something else later. It was all, “See you tomorrow!”

Then, tomorrow, Nick was gone. That was Thursday, which became Day One, but we didn’t know that yet.

It was the choir dinner. I knew he’d be there. It was black tie, not academic gowns. I had secondhand dresses I’d gotten cheap from the charity shops on Burleigh Street. Old May Ball dresses from last year. That’s where I shopped with Polly when we were friends. Then we’d eat at the café of the public library, outside on the high-up deck: cheap baked potatoes, cups of tap water, and the tower cranes building the Grand Arcade swinging not too far overhead. We’d read our borrowed books. It had been enough. Someone’s old clothes, borrowed books, and cheap potatoes. It was very La Bohème, a starving-student sort of thing. It was fun. I didn’t mind.

But there’s a boutique on Magdalene Street, just by the entrance to college. They have shoes and purses, and dresses. Not Cinderella-type fuss, just real modern, feminine dresses, in my face, every day.

There were two other customers in the shop: a tiny elderly lady indulging in a really great pair of shoes, and another Magdalene student whom I’d seen around. I knew she had money. She was buying three dresses and a purse. I could tell from the conversation that she knew the sales clerk.

I waited for her to leave. Then I asked the clerk, who had beautiful straight blond hair, if she had the dress in the window to fit me. She took a long time to consider, and all I could think was: She’d fit into the bitty one in the window. Finally she went in the back and there was one in a normal, human size for me. I tried it on behind a curtain. The dress was knee-length and white, with a splash of red poppies clustered at the hem. The top was ruched around my chest, with smaller flowers scattered there. A skinny red ribbon traced the waist. I’d never had on anything so pretty.