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the stairs, she could slide down the banister, she could skitter through every room, a jolly gaunt mouse on tip-tapping toes.
    It’s the absence of bass voice, heavy feet and sheer bulk that already lightens the house. Philip would have stomped around and banged doors if he’d pictured disappearing like this. What Beth glimpsed in his newly grey face this morning was nothing: like clay before it’s been cast into something useful or beautiful. Or like Beth’s own face some early mornings before she has prepared herself properly. A little too naked and raw is what she means, an encompassing vacancy. Beth could nearly feel sorry for him, but not quite. He was Philip after all, that leech, that appendage, that anchor now lopped from its attachment to Nora, unweighting her, leaving her free to fly upwards, helium-hearted herself.
    Not yet, of course. Patience, patience. Everyone’s still in the process of adjusting to a day no one expected, Beth does realize that. Nora is not away having a long lunch with Philip and Max. Sophie is not doing the laundry, or washing thekitchen floor (which now, with all the toast crumbs, needs at least a good sweeping), or paying bills, although she is spending a lot of time on the phone. Beth is not curled up in the living room with her new, lavish gift to herself, a huge, heavy, illustrated encyclopedia of herbs and roots and certain flowers and their various combinations in compresses and teas. There’s always something new to learn, no matter how long and intensively a person studies a subject; and also knowledge itself evolves and expands. It’s very complex. Has anyone noticed that fevers and chills, colds and aches, don’t last long in this household, and that none of the women has had cramps in the nearly two years since Beth arrived? It’s ages since Beth herself has had a period at all, with or without cramps.
    If she’d known, she might even have saved Philip last night, if he’d asked, if she’d cared to.
    Instead, right from its start, this day went off its predictable course. No wonder that in the tension of the moment, Sophie threw up. Sophie’s brilliant red hair is gloriously full of itself, every unruly strand with its own buoyant texture, good to touch, good to hold—of course Beth was happy to hold it and help. It’s useful that Sophie, recovered, is organizing the funeral, since Nora seems disinclined to and Beth would not know where to begin. Everyone has their own purposes. For her part, Beth will know how to bring Nora tea, and wine, and how to stroke her hair and embrace her shoulders and draw her head into the long space of Beth’s throat. Nora, with her neat dark cap of hair, her quick little plump body with its quick little plump limbs, will be glad for Beth’s angles, the sharp weaponry of her bones.
    Oh, Beth has some high, wild hopes today.
    She has spent enough time, several hours, in black. Much is silently spoken by shape, colour and style, and obviouslyshe’s not going to change into colours of jubilation, no bright yellows or reds or even purples or greens. The gossamery, pewtery dress that dips at the neckline and floats to mid-calf will be appropriate but not entirely grim. It will be respectful but not actively mournful. Another great thing about the language of shapes, colours and styles is that it can mislead, even lie.
    There are subtleties to beauty. Mysteries, too. Also worries. Beth is nearly thirty, and takes care to cream and massage her skin upwards, and not to smile or frown too hard or too often. She keeps herself thin. She concocts her strange flaky teas. She is aware—how could she not be?—that Sophie and even Nora prefer to suppose she notices little beyond her own beauty, but they ought to know better. Anyone with her knowledge of complicated combinations of teas can’t be any more dense than a pharmacist or a chemist.
    Still, beauty suits her. For the most part, it allows for smooth sailing.
    Beth’s room is the smallest