He was so close, she could see tiny black whiskers on his chin and smell him: toothpaste, washing powder. (Nick smelled of coffee, aftershave, last night’s garlic.)

Up close, his eyes were the same liquid chocolate as his son’s. (Nick’s were either hazel or green, depending on the light, the irises were rimmed with gold, and his eyelashes were so fair, they looked white in the sun.)

Dominick leaned in closer. Oh sweet heavens above, the school principal was going to kiss her, and it would be wrong to slap his face because she might have already kissed him before.

No. He pressed his thumb in between her eyebrows. What was he doing? Was it some sort of weird middle-aged-people ritual? Was she meant to do it back to him?

“You’ve lost your frown,” he said. “You always have this little frown right here, as if you’re concentrating, or worrying about something, even when you’re happy. Now it’s . . .”

He took his thumb away. Alice exhaled with relief. She said, “I don’t know if you’re meant to tell a woman she has a permanent frown.” It came out sounding flirtatious.

“Either way, you’re still gorgeous,” he said, and put his hand to the back of her head and kissed her.

It was not unpleasant.

“I saw that!”

Jasper stood in front of them, his helicopter dangling by a rotor from one hand. His eyes were wide and delighted.

Alice put her fingers to her mouth. She’d kissed another man. She hadn’t just let him kiss her; she’d kissed him back. Out of nothing more than interest really. Politeness. (Maybe the teeniest flicker of attraction.) Guilt blossomed like heartburn across her chest.

Jasper chortled. “I’m going to tell Olivia that my dad kissed her mum!” He danced on the spot, punching his fists in the air, his face screwed up in an ecstasy of pleasure and disgust. “My dad kissed her mum! My dad kissed her mum!”

Goodness. Were Alice’s own children like this? Sort of . . . demented?

Dominick touched Alice gently and respectfully on her arm, and stood up. He grabbed Jasper and held him upside down by his ankles. Jasper shrieked with gasps of laughter and dropped his helicopter.

Alice watched them and felt a weird sense of dissociation. Did she really just kiss that man? That shy school principal? That jolly dad?

Maybe it was her head injury that made her do it. Yes, she had a medical reason. She was not herself.

Then she remembered there was no need to feel guilty, because of Nick’s affair with that Gina girl. Right. Now they were even.

Jasper noticed that a part of his helicopter had broken off and he yelled and squirmed as though in terrible agony. Dominick said, “What? What is it, mate?” and turned him upright.

Alice’s head began to ache again.

When was Elisabeth coming back? She needed Elisabeth.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Dr. Hodges As I was driving back over to Alice’s place, I thought about Gina. I often think about her now. She has acquired an aura of mystery. Once upon a time I just found her irritating.

I’m not sure why I disliked her so much from the beginning. Maybe it was just because it was clear that she and Michael and Alice and Nick had formed such a cozy foursome. They used to be in and out of each other’s places all the time. No need to knock. Lots of private jokes. Feeding each other’s kids. Gina would walk straight over from her house in her swimming costume—no T-shirt, no towel wrapped under her armpits—just entirely unselfconscious, like a child. She had a softish, round, mocha-colored body. Beautiful jiggly br**sts that dragged the men’s eyes along with them. I think I remember some story about them all getting drunk and swimming naked in the pool one summer’s night. So very seventies of them.

She and Alice were all bright and giggly and swilling champagne, and I was a stiff cardboard cutout. My laugh was forced. It seemed to happen so quickly that she knew my sister better than me.

Gina’s kids were IVF pregnancies. She asked lots of expertly interested questions. She would sympathetically rub my hand (very touchy-feely type, soft, sweet-smelling kisses on each cheek every time you saw her; I once heard Roger say to her, “Oh, I do like the way you European ladies kiss hello!”). Gina said she understood exactly what I was going through. And quite probably she did, except that it was all behind her now. I could tell her memories were rose-colored because of the happy ending. You’d think I would have been inspired by her—she was a success story. She’d traveled across the infertility minefield and got safely to the other side. But I found her patronizing. It’s easy to think the minefield wasn’t that bad once you’re safely watching other people get blown up. She couldn’t imagine her children not existing. They were too real, filling up her mind. I felt like I couldn’t complain to Alice because Gina was probably in her ear, telling her, with the benefit of experience, that it wasn’t that bad and I was just whinging and being melodramatic.

One night I called Alice to tell her that we’d lost another baby.

I had terrible nausea with that pregnancy. I gagged every time I cleaned my teeth. I had to run out of a cinema because the smell of the woman’s perfume sitting next to me (Opium) combined with her popcorn made me retch. I’d thought for sure it must be a sign that this one was going to be the lucky one. Ha-ha. It meant nothing.

When I rang Alice, she answered the phone laughing. Gina was in the background, yelling out something about pineapple. They were inventing cocktails for some school function. Of course Alice stopped laughing when I told her the news and put on her sad voice, but she couldn’t quite stamp out the leftover laughter. I felt like the boring sister with yet another boring miscarriage, ruining the good times for everybody with her slightly disgusting gynecological bad news. Alice must have signaled to Gina, because her laughter stopped like a switch had been turned off.