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and red. A small dressing table contained a pretty array of creams and powders—less attractive objects remained in their drawers.
    It was here, in this narrow, dark room that I kept the items belonging to Elizabeth. The high heels—black patent. Two silk slips—one olive green, one black—to which I had made some alterations, to suit the different requirements of my body. Stockings. A hairbrush, a new acquisition. A beret. Also new.
    I was aware of the sexual connotations of many of these items and of the purpose to which I might put them. However, even these most intimate accoutrements did not imply a lust for Elizabeth’s body. No, I was much more demanding. Elizabeth never seemed to miss these items. Would you? Such small things? Over years?
    Initially, in the early days of my marriage, I was very secretive—hiding them under layers of clothes. Or placing them, with care, at the back of drawers. But as time passed, my dressing room became more and more my private domain, never to be invaded. I relaxed. These “items” were not for normal wear.
    They were for secret times. Times when I gazed in fascination at my Elizabeth-decorated body and walked around my dark kingdom in a kind of trance.
    The pattern of my early relationship with Dominick continued in marriage. I became increasingly fascinated by my power over him. It was, I knew, a small achievement. A small art. But then I was never ambitious. Few people are. Perhaps there is in us some inherited, ancient knowledge. The majority do not desire the world—knowing on some primitive level that it disappoints. They are quite content to let the blind few pursue their path to wisdom. And to watch those trapped by genius forced to sacrifice themselves, and those trapped by talent to emulate them. Much better to be in the audience, watching the actors find the surprise ending.

TEN
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    Perhaps I was numbed by motherhood. I moved through time, as though in a fog. And five years slumbered on to the telephone call.
    A call to Lexington, where Elizabeth and I, our husbands both away on business, had decided to spend the weekend.
    I took the call. I listened. Then I carefully put down the receiver. I stayed for a long time, alone, in the sitting room. Then finally and very slowly I went to find her. She was cutting roses in the garden.
    She turned and saw my face. Something told her to run away from me. From the terrace she ran across the lawn. Half-walking, half-running through parkland, she stumbled through the bushes and staggered on and on towards the lake. Trying to escape from the knowledge I had. The knowledge I would bring to her. When I caught her. Or when she stopped. Which would happen sooner? It was a question of courage. Hers.
    And of course finally, magnificent, she turned to me.
    I whispered the words.
    â€œNo. No.” She screamed.
    And she fell—the body’s truth in the great moments of life.
    Of all those who could have brought her such a truth, I was the messenger. Selected by chance—Dominick’s trip to California; my parents’ visit to London. I stood and watched her as the knowledge wound itself around her. And I listened, as she made the high, thin sounds of a woman mourning. Razor-sharp sounds that cut the air.
    And then, on her knees still, she beat the ground for him. But it resisted. Or if it softened at all, it was only to receive him later.
    She was defeated. A defeat so instant, so total, that her past life died in a second. And her new one came screamingly alive. She was stunned alive by an expert, and death had taken her protection away. I saw it all in a second’s pitiless pity. Then, I knelt beside her and comforted the tragic widow. And I thought that I would never break them now. Or ever know her through Hubert. In a sense I had been robbed of my prey.

ELEVEN
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    We bury with many different emotions. Rarely with intimations of mortality. “Buried” is the ultimate