Probably not as often as she exasperates me. Oh botheration, what am I doing sitting here thinking about my mother?

I really want to work out the first moment when a wisp of doubt crossed my mind.

As the weeks went past …

The Gingerbread Woman

(continued)

As the weeks went past and spring turned into delicious early summer, I slowly closed all my faculties down. My life shrank to work, and my meetings with James. Three evenings a week he came to my apartment, laden with bags and bottles and flowers. I bought the candles. That was all I was expected to do. Twelve candles – red, green, white, yellow, sometimes even gold or silver. He became like an excited child when he entered my door; the trappings of New York tumbled from his shoulders as he unpacked his picnics, opening waxed paper parcels, laying the delicious prizes that he had brought on the table in front of me. We ate on those evenings food from Japan, Mexico, China, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Israel and India. We became connoisseurs of wine from all over the world. From seven-thirty to eleven three nights a week we became drunk with wine and laughter and love. He told me all about his life – school, Harvard, his father’s fairly recent death in a motor accident and his subsequent close and almost stifling relationship with his mother. His father’s death was still too recent for him to try to disentangle himself from her. She still needed, he told me, his constant attention, his presence, the reassurance of his total love. I understood. I promised him that I did. I really believed that I understood. As I mentioned, my faculties were closing down.

One day, round about the end of May, one of my colleagues, a woman called Sophie with whom I had been pretty friendly, bounced into my office, just as I was about to go home.

It was a James day.

My week by then went something like this: Jamesday, Tuesday, Jamesday, Jamesday, Friday. Most weekends he had to spend with his mother at her home in Connecticut, but he would ring me from time to time, when he was alone, usually late at night.

‘Hi Clara,’ she said.

‘Hi.’

‘Have you dropped off the edge of the world?’

I think I must have gone a little red. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We only see you in the corridors these days. Have we done something to upset you?’

‘No. What makes you think that? You’ve done nothing.’

‘You’ve been notable by your absence. We thought we’d take you out to dinner tonight, and assure you that we love you and miss your presence. What do you say?’

‘I can’t, I’m really sorry. I’ve …’

‘A date?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bring him with you. We’d love to meet him – check out his suitability. I take it he’s not a Faculty member, otherwise we’d know all about it.’