She tottered off.

“Will you please tell Frannie that I don’t appreciate her putting photos of my children on the Net,” said Nick. That detached, pompous voice was back.

“Tell her yourself!” said Alice. Nick adored Frannie. The old Nick would have been off to accost Frannie for a spirited debate. At family functions they argued about politics and played cards together.

Nick sighed heavily. He massaged his cheeks as if he had a toothache, pushing the flesh up around his eyes, causing them to crease oddly, so that his face looked like a gargoyle.

“Don’t do that,” said Alice, pulling on his arm.

“What?” said Nick. “Jesus, what?”

“Oh my goodness,” said Alice. “How did our relationship get so prickly?”

“I should go,” said Nick.

“What happened to George and Mildred?” said Alice.

Nick just looked at her blankly.

“The sandstone lions,” Alice reminded him.

“I have no idea,” said Nick.

Chapter 27

“Oh, Alice,” said Alice to herself.

It was the morning after the Family Talent Night. The children had been safely delivered to school and she was sitting at the desk in the study, searching for things to help jog her memory. She’d just stumbled upon the reason why Mrs. Bergen wasn’t speaking to her.

She sat back in her chair, put her feet up on the desk, and leaned right back on the chair so she was staring up at the ceiling. “What were you thinking?”

It seemed that Alice was an active member of a residents’ committee lobbying the local council to have their street rezoned to allow the building of five-story apartment blocks. Mrs. Bergen was heading up the committee of residents fighting the rezoning proposal.

She took her feet off the desk and pulled out the next piece of paper in the file, biting into a Twix bar to fortify herself. (She had stocked the pantry with essential chocolate. The children were delirious about this, even while they pretended this was nothing out of the ordinary.)

It was a clipping from the local paper with the headline KING STREET RESIDENTS CLASH, showing pictures of Mrs. Bergen and Alice. They had photographed Mrs. Bergen in her front garden, next to her rosebushes, wearing her gardening hat, holding a mug and looking sad and sweet.

“This proposal is an outrage. It will ruin the character and heritage of this beautiful street,” said Mrs. Beryl Bergen, who has lived in her King Street home for the past forty years and raised five children there.

“Of course it will,” said Alice out loud.

The photo of Alice showed her sitting in the very chair she was sitting in now, looking grim and officious and definitely forty.

She groaned out loud as she read her own words.

“It’s inevitable,” said Mrs. Alice Love, who moved into the area ten years ago. “Sydney needs high density housing close to public transport. When we purchased this home, we were told the rezoning would happen in the next five years. We took that into account as part of the property’s investment potential. The council can’t go back on its word and leave people out of pocket.”

What? What was she talking about? They had no idea that rezoning was a possibility. They had talked about growing old in this house. They had not talked about selling it to a developer to knock it down and build some horrendous modern apartment block.

She read on, and somehow she wasn’t surprised when she came to the final paragraph.

Alice Love has taken over as president of the Residents for Rezoning Committee following the tragic death of its founder, Gina Boyle.

Of course. Gina. Bloody Gina.

She stood up decisively and went into the kitchen, where a tray of freshly baked chocolate brownies was cooling.

“Have I ever made these for you?” she had asked the children the night before, showing them the photo in the recipe book. “I asked you once,” said Olivia, “but you said they were full of sugar.” “Well, yes, but so what?” Alice had asked, while Olivia giggled and Tom and Madison shot each other worried, grown-up glances.

She got a Tupperware container, filled it with chocolate brownies, and, without stopping to think about it, marched next door and rang the doorbell.

Mrs. Bergen’s welcoming smile vanished when she saw Alice and she dropped the hand that was about to open the screen door by her side.

“Mrs. Bergen,” said Alice. She pressed her hand to the screen door as if she were visiting her in jail. “I am so, so sorry. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy I was delivering a one-day seminar today called “Using Direct Mail to Beef Up Your Sales!” to the Retail Butchers Association.

No, I’m not kidding. Any businessperson or professional can use direct mail to their advantage. Even you could, Jeremy.

Feel like driving your car into the nearest telephone pole? Therapist Jeremy Hodges can steer you in a better direction. FREE bottle of antidepressants for the first 10 appointments.

Or something like that. I’m a bit off my game.

Anyway, the butchers were a friendly, interested lot. There was much industry banter going across the room, and some surprisingly astute questions. (I thought the butchers were going to be sort of simple, red-faced, and jolly, but I think that’s an act they put on to sell more sausages.) The seminar was going well. It is impossible to feel suicidal when you’re explaining how to inject personality into a letter about lamb cutlets.

Then I saw someone sitting in the audience with a very unbutcherlike appearance.