she felt. Instead she took his bloody hand in hers and, while he looked away, prized the 
palm from the cut. It was sizable, and still bleeding profusely. Deep blood, dark blood.
    "I think we'd better take you off to the hospital," she told him.
    "Can you cover it up?" he asked, his voice devoid of anger now.
    "Sure. I'll get a clean binding. Come on-"
    "No," he said, shaking his ashen face. "If I take a step, I think I'll pass out."
    "Stay here then," she soothed him. "You'll be fine."
    Finding no bandages in the bathroom cabinet the equal of the staunching, she fetched 
a few clean handkerchiefs from his drawer and went back into the room. He was leaning 
against the wall now, his skin glossy with sweat. He had padded in the blood he'd shed; 
she could taste the tang of it in the air.
    Still quietly reassuring him that he wouldn't die of a two-inch cut, she wound a 
handkerchief around his hand, bound it on with a second, then escorted him, trembling 
like a leaf, down the stairs (one by one, child) and out to the car.
    At the hospital they waited an hour in a queue of the walking wounded before he was 
finally seen, and stitched up. It was difficult for her to know in retrospect what was 
more comical about the episode: his weakness, or the extravagance of his subsequent 
gratitude. She told him, when he became fulsome, that she didn't want thanks from him, 
and it was true.
    She wanted nothing that he could offer her, except perhaps his absence.
    
    4
    "Did you clean up the floor in the damp room?" she asked him the following day. 
They'd called it the damp room since that first Sunday, though there was not a sign of 
rot from ceiling to skirting board.
    Rory looked up from his magazine. Gray moons hung beneath his eyes. He hadn't slept 
well, so he'd said. A cut finger, and he had nightmares of mortality. She, on the other 
hand, had slept like a babe.
    "What did you say?" he asked her.
    "The floor-"she said again. "There was blood on the floor. You cleaned it up."
    He shook his head. "No," he said simply and returned to the magazine.
    "Well I didn't," she said.
    He offered her an indulgent smile. "You're such a perfect hausfrau," he said. "You 
don't even know when you're doing it."
    The subject was closed there. He was content, apparently, to believe that she was 
quietly losing her sanity.
    She, on the other hand, had the strangest sense that she was about to find it again.
    
    
    FOUR
    
    1
    Kirsty hated parties. The smiles to be pasted on over the panic, the glances to be 
interpreted, and worst, the conversation. She had nothing to say of the least interest to 
the world, of this she had long been convinced. She'd watched too many eyes glaze over to 
believe otherwise, seen every device known to man for wheedling oneself out of the 
company of the dull, from "Will you excuse me, I believe I see my accountant," to passing 
out dead drunk at her feet.
    But Rory had insisted she come to the housewarming. Just a few close friends, he'd 
promised. She'd said yes, knowing all too well what scenario would ensue from refusal. 
Moping at home in a stew of self-recrimination, cursing her cowardice, and thinking of 
Rory's sweet face.
    The gathering wasn't such a torment as it turned out. There were only nine guests in 
toto, all of whom she knew vaguely, which made it easier. They didn't expect her to 
illuminate the room, only to nod and laugh where appropriate. And Rory-his hand still 
bound up-was at his most winning, full of guileless bonhomie. She even wondered if 
Neville-one of Rory's work colleagues-wasn't making eyes at her behind his spectacles, a 
suspicion that was confirmed in the middle of the evening when he maneuvered himself to 
her side and inquired whether she had any interest in cat breeding. She told him she 
hadn't, but was always interested in new experiences. He seemed delighted, and on this 
fragile pretext proceeded to ply her with liqueurs for the rest of the night. By 
eleven-thirty she was a whoozy but happy wreck, prompted by the most casual remark to 
ever more painful fits of giggling.
    A little after midnight, Julia declared that she was tired, and wanted to go to bed. 
The statement was taken as a general cue for dispersal, but Rory would have none of it. 
He was up and refilling glasses before anyone had a chance to protest. Kirsty was certain 
she caught a look of displeasure cross Julia's face, then it passed, and the brow was 
unsullied once again. She said her good-nights, was complimented profusely on her skill 
with calf's liver, and went to bed.
    The flawlessly beautiful were flawlessly happy, weren't they? To Kirsty this had 
always seemed self-evident. Tonight, however, the alcohol made her wonder if envy hadn't 
blinded her. Perhaps to be flawless was another kind of sadness.
    But her spinning head had an inept hold on such ruminations, and the next minute Rory 
was up, and telling a joke about a gorilla and a Jesuit that had her choking on her drink 
before he'd even got to the votive candles.
    Upstairs, Julia heard a fresh bout of laughter. She was indeed tired, as she'd 
claimed, but it wasn't the cooking that had exhausted her. It was the effort of 
suppressing her contempt for the damn fools who were gathered in the lounge below. She'd 
called them friends once, these half-wits, with their poor jokes and their poorer 
pretensions. She had played along with them for several hours; it was enough. Now she 
needed some cool place, some darkness.
    As soon as she opened the door of the damp room she knew things were not quite as 
they had been. The light from the shadeless bulb on the landing illuminated the boards 
where Rory's blood had fallen, now so clean they might have been scrubbed. Beyond the 
reach of the light, the room bowed to darkness. She stepped in, and closed the door. The 
lock clicked into place at her back.
    The dark was almost perfect, and she was glad of it. Her eyes rested against the 
night, their surfaces chilled.
    Then, from the far side of the room, she heard a sound.
    It was no louder than the din of a cockroach running behind the skirting boards. 
After seconds, it stopped. She held her breath. It came again. This time there seemed to 
be some pattern to the sound; a primitive code.
    They were laughing like loons downstairs. The noise awoke desperation in her. What 
would she not do, to be free of such company?
    She swallowed, and spoke to the darkness. "I hear you," she said, not certain of why 
the words came, or to whom they were addressed.
    The cockroach scratches ceased for a moment, and then began again, more urgently. She 
stepped away from the door and moved toward the noise. It continued, as if summoning her.
    It was easy to miscalculate in the dark, and she reached the wall before she'd 
expected to. Raising her hands, she began to run her palms over the painted plaster. The