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she laughed so much when she saw him fold up the hotel counterpane, and when she saw him shake out and put his pajamas on his side of the bed, she had laughed even more. It had seemed as if she was going to cry. Later, in the night, she said she was sorry for laughing,that it was all her fault, laughing the way she did. All her life, she explained to him tenderly, she had been a nuisance, laughing at the wrong times, at school in particular. Daphne could tell him.
    â€œGood heavens, yes,” Daphne’s deeper voice bore witness on many occasions. Daphne was not given to shaking with helpless mirth during times of crisis. Edwin thought she bore up wonderfully well under Cecilia’s often inexplicable behavior. He often relied on Daphne. He, though he would never have asked, wondered if Cecilia had ever had to leave the labor room or the operating table when, just for an example, she was removing something internal and vital, doubled up with the giggles, as she sometimes had to leave their dining room when visitors were present. Like the time he was helping the wife of his own head of department to dislodge a king-size prawn from where it had dropped. Cecilia’s unsuccessful attempts at smothering her laughter (she was hidden, her face buried in her old Girl Guide uniform, behind the kitchen door) were fortunately drowned by Daphne, who, rising to her feet, proposed in immense tones a recitation from Shakespeare and a toast to the Great Bard, as he was called at St. Monica’s. The prawn ultimately escaped from its temporary mooring and the meal continued, Cecilia, demure, solemn and pretty, placing Icebergs, exquisite chocolate-coated buds, in front of every guest in turn as if to make up, to appease.
    Dear sweet Cecilia, how sweet and kind she was their first night together, all naked and new and young, saying she would love him forever. Edwin often turned to the relevant pages in the notebook of the intangible. He enjoyed rereading all the sweet things Cecilia had said when they were first together. He had noted them all, word for word.
    The telephone started to interrupt them immediately, for she was always on call. They blamed the phone.
    â€œOh! Stupid old phone!” Cecilia said. And, singing, she dressed so quickly Edwin was hardly aware of her leaving the room. Though he recalled on all subsequent disturbed nightsthe sound of the car in reverse as he had heard it on their first night in their own house, after the honeymoon.
    All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above . Edwin thought he heard the words when Cecilia sang. He never heard more words, as she hummed the rest. If she had shown a tendency towards religion, he thought, she could have been praying or singing inside herself with angels, a sort of hidden choir.
    â€œWhat is it you sing when you go out?” he asked her once.
    â€œOh, do I sing?” Cecilia, suppressing mirth, was surprised. “Perhaps,” she said, “it’s something I sang at school. I can’t remember.” Perhaps, Edwin thought, she did pray as she set out to deliver another child. He respected her privacy too much to question her more.
    He looked at the quotation from Jason and at the passage he wanted from a certain novel, where a father lifts up his naked baby son to his lips in the presence of a woman who has come to take the baby, to buy him if necessary. Finding material for his lectures sometimes made him the more aware of his loss. Life seemed altogether brittle and without meaning then and he longed to give up, once for all, the habits of pleasure, which included overeating and stupid excessive drinking. Some literary references made the idea, the idea of having children, very desirable. It comforted him to linger near the children’s playground on his way home from the university. He often stood for some minutes watching the children as they climbed and jumped and scrambled. Children’s bodies were loose and free in their