CC wanted to rip his arms out. Wanted to pluck his bulging eyes from their sockets, wanted to tear the flesh from his bones. She felt a power growing and aching in her chest and radiating out like a sun gone nova. Her hands strained to feel his heart throbbing in the veins of his neck as she throttled him. And she could. Even though he was bigger and heavier, she could do it. When she felt like this she knew nothing could stop her.

After a lunch of poached salmon and gigot d’agneau Clara and Myrna had split up to do their Christmas shopping. But first Clara was heading off in search of Siegfried Sassoon.

‘You’re going to a bookstore?’ asked Myrna.

‘Of course not. I’m going to have my hair done.’ Really, Myrna had grown quite out of touch.

‘By Siegfried Sassoon?’

‘Not him personally, but someone in his salon.’

‘Or his unit. I understand it’s the hell where youth and laughter go.’

Clara had seen pictures of the Sassoon salons and thought that while Myrna’s description was a little dramatic it wasn’t that far off, judging by the pouting, unhappy women in the photos.

A few hours later, struggling along rue Ste-Catherine, mittened hands grasping the ropes of bags overflowing with gifts, Clara was exhausted and pleased. Her buying spree had gone brilliantly. She’d bought Peter the perfect gift, and smaller items for family and friends. Myrna was right. Jane would be having fun watching her spend the money. And Myrna had also been right, though cryptic, about the Sassoon thing.

‘Nylons? Hershey bar?’ The lyrical, warm voice came up behind her.

‘I was just thinking of you, you traitor. You sent me out into the mean streets of Montreal to ask strangers where I could find Siegfried Sassoon.’

Myrna was leaning against an old bank building, shaking with laughter.

‘I don’t know whether to be upset or relieved that no one knew I wanted a dead poet from the Great War to do my hair. Why didn’t you tell me it was Vidal not Siegfried?’ Now Clara was laughing too, and dropped her bags onto the snowy sidewalk.

‘It looks great,’ said Myrna, stepping back to survey Clara, her laughter finally subsiding.

‘I’m wearing a tuque, you moron,’ said Clara and both women laughed again as Clara pulled the knitted pompom hat down over her ears.

It was hard not to feel light-hearted in that atmosphere. It was close to four o’clock on 22 December and the sun had set. Now the streets of Montreal, always full of charm, were also full of Christmas lights. Up and down rue Ste-Catherine decorations glowed, the light bouncing off the snowdrifts. Cars crawled by, caught in the rush-hour snag, and pedestrians hurried along the snowy sidewalks, occasionally stopping to look in a bright shop window.