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couldn’t force him. It was hopeless.”
    â€œSo you left him,” said Donna.
    Suzy nodded.
    â€œA week later, I’d had enough. However I felt about Jaz, I couldn’t live with him anymore. Oh, and you should have heard Julia and my mother. Between them, they must have said ‘told you so’ at least a million times. Worst of all, they automatically assumed I’d go running home to them. Tuh, I’d rather have stuck needles in my eyes than do that.” Suzy shuddered. “Anyway, I was pretty miserable, as you can imagine. So I moved in next door, into the apartment above Fee’s. She was brilliant.”
    â€œAnd Jaz stopped drinking,” said Donna.
    â€œGood grief no, nothing so flattering.” Suzy swung her legs, idly drumming her heels against the side of the desk and pushing back her hair. “If anything, he drank more . So that was it, our marriage was over, and I was single again. I went out on a few dates, half hoping it would make him jealous and kick-start him into getting his act together, but he was beyond all that. He couldn’t have cared less.” She paused and checked her watch; the client was late. “Anyhow, six months later, I’d started seeing this guy named Marcus, and one night, we bumped into Jaz in the bar at the Avon Gorge. He said he was glad I was happy and didn’t I think it was about time we got a divorce? And Marcus said he thought that was a great idea, so Jaz put his lawyers onto it. He told me he had to go over to the States for a couple of months to work on an album but that by the time he got back, it would be all done. We didn’t fight about money,” Suzy explained. “It was all very amicable. So Jaz disappeared, the divorce went through, and ten weeks later, he came back…and that was when we found out he hadn’t been working on an album at all. He’d booked himself into detox without telling a soul—some clinic in the middle of the Nevada desert. And he did it,” said Suzy. “He actually did it. And he hasn’t had a drink since.”
    â€œJust like that,” Donna marveled, her kohl-rimmed eyes wide. “Easy.”
    â€œNot easy at all. But he’d made the decision for himself, without being bullied and blackmailed into it. And look at him now. If there was anyone I’d have said could never do it in a million years, it’d be Jaz. But he did.”
    â€œAnd what happened to Marcus?”
    â€œOh, him .” Suzy’s tone was dismissive. “He was only after me for my alimony. I chucked him a couple of months after Jaz got back.”
    â€œWeren’t you ever tempted? You know, to try again with Jaz?”
    â€œThere was never really the opportunity.” Sighing, Suzy said, “It wasn’t long before he developed that malignant growth on his arm.”
    Donna’s eyes almost popped out.
    â€œMalignant growth? I didn’t know he had a malignant growth!”
    Suzy pulled a face at her. “I’m talking about Celeste.”
    * * *
    The weird thing about putting a funeral notice in the paper was not having the faintest idea who would turn up. It was like sticking up posters advertising a rave, thought Suzy, and waiting to see what happened… Would the place be besieged by ten thousand teenagers ready to party, or would five grungy hippies pile out of a van, mumbling, “Hey, man. Like, where’s the action?”
    Still, there’d been a pretty decent turnout today. The chapel was full and no grungy hippies had turned up, which had to count as a bonus.
    Not that this had cheered up Julia, her incredibly proper older sister, who could always be relied on to find something new to be offended about. Although, strictly speaking, Suzy amended, the thing currently upsetting her wasn’t new at all; it must be thirty years old at least.
    Behind them the rest of the mourners sang “All Things Bright and