"It's not quite what I expected," Julia commented as they stood in the hallway. It 
was twilight; a cold day in August. Not the ideal time to view a house that had been left 
empty for so long.
    "It needs work," Rory said. "That's all. It's not been touched since my grandmother 
died. That's the best part of three years. And I'm pretty sure she never did anything to 
it towards the end of her life."
    "And it's yours?"
    "Mine and Frank's. It was willed to us both. But when was the last time anybody saw 
big brother?"
    She shrugged, as if she couldn't remember, though she remembered very well. A week 
before the wedding.
    "Someone said he spent a few days here last summer. Rutting away, no doubt. Then he 
was off again. He's got no interest in property."
    "But suppose we move in, and then he comes back, wants what's his?"
    "I'll buy him out. I'll get a loan from the bank and buy him out. He's always hard up 
for cash."
    She nodded, but looked less than persuaded.
    "Don't worry," he said, going to where she was standing and wrapping his arms around 
her. "The place is ours, doll. We can paint it and pamper it and make it like heaven."
    He scanned her face. Sometimes-particularly when doubt moved her, as it did nowher 
beauty came close to frightening him.
    "Trust me," he said.
    "I do."
    "All right then. What say we start moving in on Sunday?"
    
    2
    Sunday.
    It was still the Lord's Day up this end of the city. Even if the owners of these 
well-dressed houses and-well-pressed children were no longer believers, they still 
observed the sabbath. A few curtains were twitched aside when Lewton's van drew up, and 
the unloading began; some curious neighbors even sauntered past the house once or twice, 
on the pretext of walking the hounds; but nobody spoke to the new arrivals, much less 
offered a hand with the furniture. Sunday was not a day to break sweat.
    Julia looked after the unpacking, while Rory organized the unloading of the van, with 
Lewton and Mad Bob providing the extra muscle. It took four round-trips to transfer the 
bulk of the stuff from Alexandra Road, and at the end of the day there was still a good 
deal of bric-a-brac left behind, to be collected at a later point.
    About two in the afternoon, Kirsty turned up on the doorstep.
    "Came to see if I could give you a hand," she said, with a tone of vague apology in 
her voice.
    "Well, you'd better come in," Julia said.
    She went back into the front room, which was a battlefield in which only chaos was 
winning, and quietly cursed Rory. Inviting the lost soul round to offer her services was 
his doing, no doubt of it. She would be more of a hindrance than a help; her dreamy, 
perpetually defeated manner set Julia's teeth on edge.
    "What can I do?" Kirsty asked. "Rory said-"
    "Yes," said Julia. "I'm sure he did."
    "Where is he? Rory, I mean."
    "Gone back for another vanload, to add to the misery."
    "Oh."
    Julia softened her expression. "You know it's very sweet of you," she said, "to come 
round like this, but I don't think there's much you can do just at the moment."
    Kirsty flushed slightly. Dreamy she was, but not stupid.
    "I see," she said. "Are you sure? Can't...I mean, maybe I could make a cup of coffee 
for you?"
    "Coffee," said Julia. The thought of it made her realize just how parched her throat 
had become. "Yes," she conceded. "That's not a bad idea."
    The coffeemaking was not without its minor traumas. No task Kirsty undertook was ever 
entirely simple. She stood in the kitchen, boiling water in a pan it had taken a quarter 
of an hour to find, thinking that maybe she shouldn't have come after all. Julia always 
looked at her so strangely, as if faintly baffled by the fact that she hadn't been 
smothered at birth. No matter. Rory had asked her to come, hadn't he? And that was 
invitation enough. She would not have turned down the chance of his smile for a hundred 
Julias.
    The van arrived twenty-five minutes later, minutes in which the women had twice 
attempted, and twice failed, to get a conversation simmering. They had little in common. 
Julia the sweet, the beautiful, the winner of glances and kisses, and Kirsty the girl 
with the pale handshake, whose eyes were only ever as bright as Julia's before or after 
tears. She had long ago decided that life was unfair. But why, when she'd accepted that 
bitter truth, did circumstance insist on rubbing her face in it?
    She surreptitiously watched Julia as she worked, and it seemed to Kirsty that the 
woman was incapable of ugliness. Every gesture-a stray hair brushed from the eyes with 
the back of the hand, dust blown from a favorite cup-all were infused with such 
effortless grace. Seeing it, she understood Rory's doglike adulation, and understanding 
it, despaired afresh.
    He came in, at last, squinting and sweaty. The afternoon sun was fierce. He grinned 
at her, parading the ragged line of his front teeth that she had first found so 
irresistible.
    "I'm glad you could come," he said.
    "Happy to help-" she replied, but he had already looked away, at Julia.
    "How's it going?"
    "I'm losing my mind," she told him.
    "Well, now you can rest from your labors," he said. "We brought the bed this trip." 
He gave her a conspiratorial wink, but she didn't respond.
    "Can I help with unloading?" Kirsty offered.
    "Lewton and M.B. are doing it," came Rory's reply.
    "Oh."
    "But I'd give an arm and a leg for a cup of tea."
    "We haven't found the tea," Julia told him.
    "Oh. Maybe a coffee, then?"
    "Right," said Kirsty. "And for the other two?"
    "They'd kill for a cup."
    Kirsty went back to the kitchen, filled the small pan to near brimming, and set it 
back on the stove. From the hallway she heard Rory supervising the next unloading.
    It was the bed, the bridal bed. Though she tried very hard to keep the thought of his 
embracing Julia out of her mind, she could not. As she stared into the water, and it 
simmered and steamed and finally boiled, the same painful images of their pleasure came 
back and back.
    
    3