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me by text message.”

There was a further silence at the other end of the line. Then: “By text? My God, Jenny! That’s … that’s hateful.” There was a pause. “And to think … Saturday. That’s the day I walked out on him. You didn’t know that, did you? I was phoning to tell you because I thought that you might get a very different version from you-know-who. I thought I’d set the record straight.”

Jenny’s heart gave a leap. “You dumped him? You dumped Oedipus?”

“Yes. You know we went down to Rye?”

“Yes, I put it in the diary.”

“Well, we were down there and the scales fell from my eyes. Over breakfast, to be precise. I was sitting there at the table and the scales fell from my eyes.”

“Well done.”

“And I feel much better. I can’t tell you how much better I feel. I’ve already met somebody else, by the way, but that’s another story. Now, look …”

William, listening to one side of the conversation but pretending not to, stared at the inside of his coffee cup. He had problems of his own—with Eddie, and, to an extent, with Marcia. And here were these two women talking about their own problems with that nasty Snark character. Was anybody’s life straightforward, he wondered, or did one have to go into a monastery for that? To be a monk and keep bees and make wine for the abbot and lead a life of quiet order and contemplation. Was it still possible, he wondered, or had the world become too complicated, too frantic, to allow such peace of mind?

Jenny and Barbara finished their conversation. They would meet for lunch the following week. Barbara had a proposition that she wanted to put to Jenny. Something to do with Oedipus. Something to do with justice, she said.

60. Going Home

THE HOSPITAL AUTHORITIES in Cheltenham were doubtful at first, but there was pressure on beds and Terence Moongrove seemed to have made a remarkable recovery from his near-death experience.

“Ideally, we’d like to keep you under observation, Mr. Moongrove,” said the doctor who had attended him, “but you seem to be pretty bright and breezy. How would you feel about going home?”

“It’d suit me very well,” said Terence, sitting up in bed. “I feel fully restored, both in karma and in body.”

The doctor smiled. “I gather that your sister is staying with you at present. She told me that she’d see that everything is all right.”

“She’s very helpful,” said Terence. He could not think of any way in which Berthea was particularly helpful, but she had saved his life, he had to concede, and that was helpful, he supposed.

“Well then,” said the doctor. “I think we can probably discharge you. But you will be careful, won’t you? Electricity is very dangerous.”

“Oh, I know that,” said Terence. “What happened was … Well, it was an accident really. I think that there was something wrong with my car battery. I’ll get my garage man to get me a new one.”

The doctor frowned. “You tried to charge it, your sister said. Was the charger faulty?”

Terence looked away. “Perhaps,” he said.

“You have to be terribly careful with these things,” said the doctor.

“Oh, I am, doctor. I’m very careful. But … Well, thank you so much for bringing me back from the other side.”

The doctor smiled. “That’s what we’re here for. We try to keep people from … going to the other side before their time.” He laughed. “I suppose that’s our job.”

Terence looked thoughtful. “It was very peaceful over there,” he said. “It was exactly the way I had seen it described.”

The doctor looked at his watch and excused himself while a nurse helped Terence out of bed and took him to a small compartment where his clothes had been stored. Shortly afterwards, Berthea appeared and accompanied Terence to the car park, where a taxi was waiting for them. In less than fifteen minutes they were on the driveway of Terence’s house. There, in the open garage, was the Morris Traveller, with the fatal cable leading away from it. While Terence went into the house, Berthea coiled the cable away. The incident had thrown the fuse switch and everything was quite safe, but she handled the cable with evident distaste: this, after all, was the instrument of her brother’s near demise. He really was useless, poor Terence; imagine connecting the mains directly to the battery! What could he have been thinking? And would she ever be able to leave him now without worrying that