It had begun with one of those phone calls from her mother, rather like tonight’s, which prompted her to announce, “Mummy’s so manipulative. She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it half the time.” And then she seemed to sink into herself for a moment and said, “I’m not like her, am I?”

He shook his head no.

“I know I behave badly. Sometimes. Often.” She reached out and stroked his cheek. “I’m so frightened of turning into her.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re nothing like her.”

“She’s in me. It can’t be helped. No matter what I do. No matter how much I struggle against it. In fact, the more I try to be different from her, the more I turn out the same.”

He didn’t understand what she was talking about. But he liked the way she softened as she spoke. The air itself seemed to relax and purr, and they talked quietly for a long time, as they seldom did.

She hardly ever came to his bedroom, but that night she did. What a treat it was to have her lying in his arms in his bed. And there came a perfect moment. Her head on his chest. Her gentle breathing as she slid toward sleep. He felt he knew the precise second when she began to drift off. He wanted to keep her safe and warm, his Genevieve. Forever. He wanted…

“Honey?” he whispered. “Are you still awake?”

“Mm?”

He stroked her soft hair, playing with a few strands, putting them behind her ear. “I was thinking…”

“Uh.”

“Let’s have a baby.”

And that was it. Moment over. She went stiff in his arms, like a dead person. Then she was pulling away from him, muttering something about having to go to the bathroom. And he was left alone in the bed, gazing forlornly at the light shining through his half-open door, listening to the muffled thuds of her feet as she moved determinedly away—not to the bathroom, as she’d said, but to her own bedroom at the end of the corridor.

Robert was on to his third bourbon now and was winding himself up into a fury. He badly wanted a son. And she’d practically forbidden him to talk about it! How dare she make an Unmentionable of this most natural of desires?

He got up and started pacing the room, giving vent to two opposing impulses.

When your goddamn wife finally deigns to come home, said a voice in his head that sounded for all the world like Harry Mortimer, just drag her straight to bed and show her who’s boss! Before you know it, she’ll be pregnant and happy. There’ll be no more gallivanting about town. No more secrets with Lulu. She might think she doesn’t want a baby, but she’s a woman, after all.