When she put the phone down this time she laughed. Nobbi would have laughed too. He had said to her, "Star, if you want to jack that in, I can—well, you know, I'll see you're all right." He would have kept her and she would not let him. She valued her independence.

Well, that was that. No more library.

She had another bath. Like the tea and the Evian, this was her only nourishment; two or three baths a day. Perhaps a form of mental drowning in fluids.

The plastic duck, Charlie, sat on the water over her breasts, and she thought of Nobbi, and masturbated in the bath, and came, and wept.

/ suppose it'll stop sometime.

She thought of all the widows she had known. Cheery in their black, or not in black.

No, this would never stop.

A month after the girl told her of Nobbi's death, when he was presumably long buried—she found it hard to believe in any of that either, the funeral service, the burial—a candy-pink Daimler pulled up in the street below her window.

It was such a foolish, unlikely sight, it actually interested her for half a moment.

She was turning from the window when a youngish man got out of the Daimler, and crossed over the grass toward the flats.

Under the bleak sky, he was clad in a ghastly sort of acme of elegance, a pearly suit, a shirt of faintest primrose, and a tie one shade darker.

As he disappeared into the building, Stella knew. And when, quite soon, her doorbell rang, she went to open it in a dazed, limp fury.

Nobbi had had dealings with people like this. He had never really told her, but made no secret either.

What did this one want? To bump her off? Welcome.

"Yes?" Stella said. She was a sight. Life's playful opposite to him. Elderly jeans, jumper with a tea stain, unwashed hair, the Mask of Tragedy.

And he. A tan in winter. A silver wedding ring.

"You don't know me, Miss Atkins. My name's Luke. Used to be a friend of Norman's—Nobbi's."

"Come in," she said, "if it won't spoil your clothes."

Luke laughed charmingly. "Stella—may I?"

He entered, and, when she did not offer him a chair, sat down beautifully and crossed his legs. Hand-stitched shoes of pearl-gray suede. Pearly socks.

"Would you like a glass of water?" Stella said "That's all I've got. I haven't been shopping."

"No, please don't trouble."

"It's no trouble. It comes out of the tap."

A ghost of distaste crossed Luke's countenance Maybe he always got the nasty tasks.

"I'm not going to beat about the bush, Stella Nobbi's dead. That was a rotten bit of luck."

"Wasn't it just?"

"He'll be missed. But I have to tell you, we do know that you were Nobbi's friend. His close friend."

"His bit on the side," said Stella.