The taxi dropped us on the pavement outside the house. This time Dad did not overtip the driver.
'He didn't seem to mind too much,' I said. I was trying to revive a conversation that had already ground to a halt earlier in the car.
'He did mind. He was just too polite to show it. Not something anyone could accuse you of. Honestly Petra, what got hold of you? I've never seen you like that.' Now we were home he sounded more shocked than angry.
'It was seeing him again, so suddenly.'
'I know you don't like him, but that's no excuse to drown the man.'
'I didn't mean to! I felt ill - it was an accident.' The words were just words. I couldn't bring myself to care if he believed them.
'You were well enough a minute before.' He fumbled with his key, getting it stuck in the lock as usual. 'Blast this thing!'
I made us both sandwiches and mugs of sweet tea. It didn't seem much compensation for a meal at La Primavera. 'I'm sorry Dad. I didn't mean to spoil everything.'
'It was on the way to being spoiled in any case.' He sat at the table with his cheeks cupped in his hands, and the jacket of his suit riding up at the shoulders. I knew this mood of his - too close to my own for comfort. The truce was over, and the tortuous descent to bad temper had started again. Nothing good would get said tonight.
He stared for a time at the sandwiches, then lifted the top of one cautiously, as if he suspected it might be boobytrapped. 'Salami!'
'Well, we did want to eat Italian, didn't we?'
He laughed despite himself. 'Not quite what I had in mind!'
I put my arm on his shoulder. 'There'll be other times. You said so yourself.'
It was the wrong move. He turned in his seat and looked me full in the face. 'You really don't understand, do you? I could lose my job over this.'
'Graham Cooke's not going to sack you because of an accident with a glass of tonic water!'
'Isn't he? You don't know him like I do.'
'I know him well enough! And he knows when he's on to a good thing.'
'Meaning what?'
'Meaning you're a good draughtsman, of course!'
'Meaning I'm a dupe!'
He turned back to his sandwich, took a bite, and pushed it away. 'You're not as grown-up as you think you are.'
There was only one direction this conversation could go, and I didn't have the energy to follow it there. 'I'm going to bed. I feel like I haven't slept in years.'
He nodded, but did not raise his head as I left the room. Then he called after me, like someone remembering a chore: 'Tomorrow. We'll have to talk.'
I called down the stairwell: 'There's really nothing to say.'
I'd reached the landing before I felt his eyes on my back. I turned to find him standing in the hall below. It was strange how far away he looked, how small and sad, with his jacket hanging loose, and his face drooping like a balloon that's had some of the air let out. Goodbye, I thought. As if the stairwell was an ocean, and I was drifting across it to a new life: Goodbye, goodbye forever. I wanted to say something to reassure him, to tell him I still loved him, but the words sat sourly on my tongue.
For a long time I lay with the bedside light on, neither asleep nor awake. Thoughts billowed up like smoke, and I watched to see the shapes they would make - the shapes of Dad and Graham Cooke, or one, or both, or neither. Mrs Campbell was there too, hands clasped in a desperate plea; but I was watching another person, in a silent melodrama of years ago.
The pomegranate earring was tap-tapping against my neck. I had forgotten to take it off when I undressed. Wearily I raised myself on my elbow, and fiddled with the catch. The mirror on the dressing table showed me in reverse, black hair falling about my head. So small, the figure on that bed, in the white nightgown. I had always been tiny, they said - pearl-small and moon-pale. I turned out the light and pulled the sheets up close. I was excited about something, but could not remember what. I sighed... If only Edmund and father would be friends. They would be friends: I should make them. Then we should all be happy. Oh dear. If only I didn't feel afraid. Oh dear.
What time was it?
I had just woken. Remnants of the dream lay about me - a dream in which my room had been different, and drowsy with flowers. I had been different. And now things were the same again. Up on the ceiling the Darkling looked familiar, its wide mouth muttering spells. 'Darkling,' I said, and searched for the charm to protect me. But for once I could not find it. And when I listened, the Darkling's words were not the usual Darkling words, made of wind and splashing water. Tonight there was another voice. I twisted the sheet tighter in my hand, and tried not to breathe. Perhaps it was just a trick of the wind. The wind could play some mean tricks, I knew, rushing through the walnut tree's thin branches. But in the lull that followed the voice came again, and I knew I was being called.
'Eurydice.'
