blood from stones; with time she would have love from this hateful thing, or know the 
reason why.
    
    
    EIGHT
    
    1
    There was thunder that night. A storm without rain, which made the air smell of steel.
    Kirsty had never slept well. Even as a child, though her mother had known lullabies 
enough to pacify nations, the girl had never found slumber easy. It wasn't that she had 
bad dreams; or at least none that lingered until morning. It was that sleep itself-the 
act of closing the eyes and relinquishing control of her consciousness-was something she 
was temperamentally unsuited to.
    Tonight, with the thunder so loud and the lightning so bright, she was happy. She had 
an excuse to forsake her tangled bed, and drink tea, and watch the spectacle from her 
window.
    It gave her time to think, as well-time to turn over the problem that had vexed her 
since leaving the house on Lodovico Street. But she was still no nearer an answer.
    One particular doubt nagged. Suppose she was wrong about what she'd seen? Suppose 
she'd misconstrued the evidence, and Julia had a perfectly good explanation? She would 
lose Rory at a stroke.
    And yet, how could she remain silent? She couldn't bear to think of the woman 
laughing behind his back, exploiting his gentility, his naivete. The thought made her 
blood boil.
    The only other option was to wait and watch, to see if she could gain some 
incontrovertible evidence. If her worst suppositions were then confirmed, she would have 
no choice but to tell Rory all she'd seen.
    Yes. That was the answer. Wait and watch, watch and wait.
    The thunder rolled around for long hours, denying her sleep until nearly four. When, 
finally, she did sleep, it was the slumber of a watcher and waiter. Light, and full of 
sighs.
    
    2
    The storm made a ghost train of the house. Julia sat downstairs, and counted the 
beats between the flash and the fury that came on its heels. She had never liked thunder. 
She, a murderess; she, a consorter with the living dead. It was another paradox to add to 
the thousand she'd found at work in herself of late. She thought more than once of going 
upstairs, and taking some comfort with the prodigy, but knew that it would be unwise. 
Rory might return at any moment from his office party. He would be drunk, on past 
experience, and full of unwelcome fondness.
    The storm crept closer. She put on the television, to block out the din, which it 
scarcely did.
    At eleven. Rory came home, wreathed in smiles. He had good news. In the middle of the 
party his supervisor had taken him aside, commended him for his excellent work, and 
spoken of great things for the future. Julia listened to his retelling of the exchange, 
hoping that his inebriation would blind him to her indifference. At last, his news told, 
he threw off his jacket and sat down on the sofa beside her.
    "Poor you," he said. "You don't like the thunder."
    "I'm fine," she said.
    "Are you sure?"
    "Yes. Fine."
    He leaned across to her and nuzzled her ear.
    "You're sweaty," she said matter-of-factly. He didn't cease his overtures, however, 
unwilling to lower his baton now that he'd begun.
    "Please, Rory-" she said. "I don't want this."
    "Why not? What did I do?"
    "Nothing," she said, pretending some interest in the television. "You're fine."
    "Oh, is that right?" he said. "You're fine. I'm fine. Everybody's fucking fine."
    She stared at the flickering screen. The late evening news had just begun, the usual 
cup of sorrows full to brimming. Rory talked on, drowning out the newscaster's voice with 
his diatribe. She didn't much mind. What did the world have to tell her? Little enough. 
Whereas she, she had news for the world that it would reel to hear. About the condition 
of the damned; about love lost, and then found; about what despair and desire have in 
common.
    "Please, Julia"-Rory was saying-"just speak to me."
    The pleas demanded her attention. He looked, she thought, like the boy in the 
photographs-his body hirsute and bloated, his clothes those of an adult-but still, in 
essence, a boy, with his bewildered gaze and sulky mouth. She remembered Frank's 
question: "How could you ever have married such a dullard?" Thinking of it, a sour smile 
creased her lips. He looked at her, his puzzlement deepening.
    "What's so funny, damn you?"
    "Nothing."
    He shook his head, dull anger replacing the sulk. A peal of thunder followed the 
lightning with barely a beat intervening. As it came, there was a noise from the floor 
above. She turned her attention back to the television, to divert Rory's interest. But it 
was a vain attempt; he'd heard the sound.
    "What the fuck was that?"
    "Thunder."
    He stood up. "No," he said. "Something else." He was already at the door.
    A dozen options raced through her head, none of them practical. He wrestled drunkenly 
with the door handle.
    "Maybe I left a window open," she said and got up. "I'll go and see."
    "I can do it," he replied. "I'm not totally inept."
    "Nobody said-" she began, but he wasn't listening. As he stepped out into the hallway 
the
    lightning came with the thunder: loud and bright. As she went in pursuit of him 
another flash came fast upon the first, accompanied by a bowel-rocking crash. Rory was 
already halfway up the stairs.
    "It was nothing!" she shouted after him. He made no reply but climbed on to the top 
of the stairs. She followed.
    "Don't..." she said to him, in a lull between one peal and the next. He heard her 
this time. Or rather, chose to listen. When she reached the top of the stairs he was 
waiting.
    "Something wrong?" he said.
    She hid her trepidation behind a shrug. "You're being silly," she replied softly.
    "Am I?"
    "It was just the thunder."
    His face, lit from the hall below, suddenly softened. "Why do you treat me like 
shit?" he asked her.
    "You're just tired," she told him.