But Angie, he discovered, was truly asleep, not shamming at all. The hand had fallen from her eyes and lay tangled in her damp, tumbled hair. She was drifting somewhere a long way from him, almost as though she’d floated away to the huge silvered landscape in his picture, had drifted away to the huge spinning rings of Saturn. All his exasperated, worried mutterings couldn’t bring her back, so after a while he pulled the blind down so the sun wouldn’t burn her face, shut the door behind him and went back dejectedly across the alleyway to Thelma’s house.

REDECORATING IDEAS:

• pink wallpaper with rose pattern

• mirror tiles in shower recess (fix hole in wall first)

• fluffy pink mat and matching towels from market

• turn bed into settee with rose cover and matching cushions

• row of potplants painted white on windowsill

• get decent cutlery and kitchen stuff

• new curtains—or stripey pink/white blind?

• paint wardrobe with gloss enamel, gold knobs

• waste paper basket covered with stickers

• cane rocking chair from secondhand shop painted gloss white

• patchwork cushion

COST?!!

Won’t be here all that long, anyway, waste of money!!!

TO HELL WITH IT!!!!

Angie,

Honestly, I’m sorry I was such a bitch on the phone, and maybe I shouldn’t have hung up on you, but—you’ve got a NERVE even asking. That bracelet was Grandma’s. Mum would notice straight away if I wasn’t wearing it or if it wasn’t around. No, I won’t let you borrow it! Take that as final! Plus all that bulldust about wanting to wear it somewhere special doesn’t fool me for one little moment, either. It would be the little pearl studs all over again, wouldn’t it?

Come on Angie, just when are you going to get yourself out of this rotten mess? Sometimes I get so MAD at you! When’s it all going to stop? Quit asking me to do things behind their backs, OK? I know all the stuff Gran left is pretty yuk, but she meant it to be passed on to you and me and then our kids, kept in the family. I won’t let you take any of it away.

Ange, if you don’t want to give Lakeview another try, there was this other place I read about in the paper. Run by some church, can’t remember what religion, but they’re all into meditation and health food and that. The cure rate they’ve got there is really high, 60% or something like that. I cut out the article and I’ll send it to you with this letter care of Judy, seeing I don’t know your new address. I don’t know why I bother, though. I get so MAD at you.