6.

The police, bless them, favour this café. They come in on their breaks, line up at the counter, drink lattes and eat muffins. Model citizens. They are there when she arrives, filling up two small tables in the middle of the room, weighted down like divers by belts studded with equipment. The child is with his father on a visit: they are expected in a few minutes. She waits, drinking milky coffee.

M, as she knew she would, arrives too. M looks just as usual: short pink face, the greying crewcut touched with darkness at the temples. The look of a small, surprised animal in the neat alert head and wide-set ears. Her usual outfit: button-down, khakis, pull-on Australian boots. M affects surprise. What on earth is she doing here, M wonders aloud. M decides that if she wants to say hello to her child it’s fine. She stares stolidly at a point on the wall. Then the lights of the car belonging to her child’s father, sliding across the far wall of the café as it turns in. She stands up and walks to the table full of officers.

Excuse me, she says. This woman, pointing to M, insists on speaking to me.

The officers show no surprise. Two of them stand up, lead the women separately to the thin strip of sidewalk outside the café. It has begun to rain again: she can see the widely spaced dashes on the concrete. A spotty, insinuating rain, an irritant. The voices of the officers as they ask their questions are low, intimate. Words bubble: psychiatrist, assault, restraining order. A third policeman intercepts her child’s father as he stands up from the inside of the car. There were scenes like this, worse in fact, in her own childhood: shrieking adults in the driveway, cars and parents coming and going. Never again, she swore.

What is going on? the child’s father demands, striding at last into the cafe. Darkness has fallen, the windows to the outside turned glossy slate. The police have cleared out. Even M has gone. Only she and the child remain, survivors on a raft, fortifying themselves with hot sweet drinks.

There’s been a bit of a . . . She hesitates delicately. Now that it is all over, now that she has her child by her, she feels faint, like a heroine of olden times.

Apparently you’ve been acting crazy? You look pretty sane to me. Ah, sanity. Such a subjective opinion. He’s the one who went last time around. She recollects her shattered apartment, his words of rage. Now here he is, confirming her soundness of mind. She’s even grateful. Imagine that.