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that our men were so obliging,’ she added, and we laughed together, the kind of conspiratorial laughter women share when we discuss our men.
    She handed the seahorse to me. I tapped it with my nail. The tinkling sound was as pitched as a tuning fork. I imagined a shoal of pregnant males, their slender exclamation-mark spines camouflaged against wavering sea grasses, their taut, tight bellies pulsing with life.
    Her seahorses have names and personalities. Some areexquisitely etched and encrusted with gems. Others have a more practical design and can be used as bookends, framed on walls or attached to bathroom mirrors. The mobile is one of the most popular items in her collection.
    Carla Kelly has one hanging in her nursery. I saw it in Pizzazz. That magazine may be devoid of intelligent content but old habits are hard to break and I buy it every month. I used to check it regularly to see which of my clients had been included when I worked for Carter & Kay. Sometimes they didn’t make it. Not prestigious or interesting enough. The editor was ruthless when it came to deciding who should feature on her pages. Carla Kelly now obviously fits this profile.
    She wrote a ‘before and after’ feature about the house in Ranelagh where she and her husband live. The before shots look horrendous but the after photography is pure Pizzazz and allows her to do what she does best. Her face leaps from the pages and dominates them to such a degree that the furnishings and décor are insignificant props in the background.
    That night at the fashion show, she shuddered when I mentioned Edward Carter’s name. She covered it up but I watched her composure slip for that instant and I knew she was back there again, with him, intent on destroying what they had so wantonly and carelessly created. I wonder if her husband knows. Probably not. There’s something hard and unforgiving about his eyes.
    No sign of him in the Pizzazz shoot. It’s not his kind of magazine. Gloss and dross. Back in those days, apart from the advertisements, Carla Kelly never appeared in her own right. She was just another face, another model climbing on the backs of the older ones, juggling for space in the tabloids. Titbits and gossip, she loved the camera and it loved her. Then she got her lucky break with the lingerie campaign.She’s changed now, of course. Pregnancy has given her credibility. Celebrity and credibility, an unbeatable combination.
    She painted the walls yellow for her baby, a neutral colour to suit either gender. A white cradle sat in the centre of the room, muslin curtains trailed the floor. She sat by the window in a white wicker chair, her hands resting below her stomach, her face in profile. Outside the window, a tree was visible, bronze leaves beginning to turn. Her expression was serene, her head bent slightly so that the light streamed through the blonde tendrils. The eternal Eve. I almost expected a serpent to coil from the branches behind her. Signs and omens, they keep appearing.
    The whispering voices awaken me at night and insist that I listen to the tinkling call of the seahorses that Miriam fuses in the raging heat of her furnace room; the molten globs are suspended, swelling, mutating. It has to be more than a coincidence.

Chapter Five
Carla
November 1993
    Shortly after their marriage, Carla was crossing O’Connell Bridge on her way to a luncheon fashion show when she saw her husband at work. The wind, blowing harshly off the Liffey, tossed her hair across her face, and he had almost passed her by before she became aware of him. A junkie, she thought, summing him up in a glance, his baggy tracksuit bottoms, the grubby trainers minus laces, and the way he hunched into his nondescript anorak, his pale face protected by the hood. More like a dealer, she decided, as his eyes, darting and shifty, sized up everything around him. For an instant, she was swamped in his gaze as his eyes flashed with recognition. Then he was gone, swiftly