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deal.’ Grasping the table, she turned her head around. ‘So what? Why are you staring at me? Go and correct your homework, write your letters to the paper. Be off with you.’
    Fred looked at the two cups painted with cheerful animals and wondered how the three of them could sit at the table.
    Mrs Schöller staggered back into the kitchen.
    â€˜Give me Annette’s address and I’ll bugger off.’
    But Mr Schöller didn’t answer. His head thrown forward, his eyes on the ground, he seemed to have forgotten Fred. Mrs Schöller had won the jackpot: Professor Schöller’s bald patch would have gleamed in the back row of the classroom.
    Fred turned to the kitchen door. ‘Mrs Schöller, I’d like Annette’s new address.’
    When Mrs Schöller returned with milk and sugar, she said: ‘What a beautiful morning. We should sit in the garden.’
    â€˜Mrs Schöller, I…’
    â€˜Maybe we’ll play a game of Scrabble?’
    Fred watched her as she put the milk and sugar down, went to the shelf and pressed a straw hat on her head, took the Scrabble, sat down at the table and began pouring something into the cups that looked to Fred like hot water. To his own surprise, he turned round and sought help from Mr Schöller. But the place where he had stood was now empty.
    â€˜I’m sorry Mrs Schöller, but I really must be going now. I…I have an appointment with my probation officer.’ Fred nodded to her. ‘I’ll stop by one of these days.’
    Mrs Schöller sat in front of the two steaming cups and smiled. ‘Do you take sugar?’
    â€˜Mhmh,’ said Fred as he edged slowly towards the door, ‘two spoons.’
    â€˜Milk?’
    As the front door closed behind Fred, and he walked past the pots of sage and rosemary to the garden gate, he recalled Grandma Ranunkel saying you couldn’t live in Dieburg and behave as if you lived on the Côte d’Azur; at some point you’d wake up with empty hands and begin to detest yourself and your affectations. But was it a reason for cracking up? And why hadn’t Annette written to tell him of Mrs Schöller’s condition? And where in the hell were Annette and Nickel anyway? Why had they left him to wander around this insane place? Without turning round, he slammed the garden gate and hurried away from the terraced houses.
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    In the nearest phone booth he dialled the numbers of a few of Annette’s friends, until one finally replied and gave him a Berlin address and phone number.
    â€˜Would you happen to know if she had any plans to come to Dieburg round about now?’
    â€˜Definitely not. I phoned her last week and she’s up to her eyes in work. What’s your name again?’
    â€˜Tom.’
    Fred hung up. Nobody should know that he was looking for Annette.
    Yet again he was overcome by an uneasy feeling at the thought of hearing her voice. Phoning simply wasn’t the right thing after four years. Certainly not if you happened to have a heap of questions to ask. He kept seeing Mrs Schöller’s ravaged face next to the empty canvas. And there was something else: Annette was up to her eyes in work. In her letters it had said she was involved in movies. There was no mention of work. But even if it was the case, how long was this work business going to continue? He, for one, had no time to wait until she had dug herself out from under.
    He lit a cigarette, and through the glass he watched a man sharpening the tips of his wooden fence. No, phoning wasn’t a good idea now. And it certainly wasn’t Magic, no Grand Entrance, no glamour. Nevertheless, he had to know whether Annette was in Berlin. Several cigarettes later the confusion in his head had cleared.
    He dialled Annette’s number.
    â€˜Megastars Film and TV Production. Hello.’
    Fred didn’t dare breathe: it was her. Her voice hadn’t changed. He felt hot,