The clock over the fireplace told me it was ten past eleven, and I felt a surge of panic – I was late for work. Then I remembered that there wasn"t work to be late for any more.

"Donna!" I shouted hoa.r.s.ely. But she was gone, she had things to do. That was good, because I needed to think things over, and do a few too – there was a trail of mud leading from the front door to the sofa.

I staggered to the famous Italian kitchen and made myself a mug of coffee, drank a scalding sip, ran to the bathroom and threw up, then went through the remaining morning ablutions. The hairspray was gone from the mirror – Donna was very particular about keeping the mirror clean nowadays – but the thin trail of talc.u.m powder was still there. She was one of those people that rarely look under their feet.

The coffee was cold by the time I got back to the kitchen. I made a fresh mug, and then made an effort to think about the previous night"s events. I remembered flagging a cab from Bollicker"s and riding halfway home, changing my mind and telling the driver to head downtown. I faintly recalled going into Pompeii, a trendy bar, consuming several drinks there, and deciding to go in search of Tad – the drinks had made me confident that I"d find him sooner or later, bent over a table while a girl with a pierced nostril whispered something into his hair. I was determined to find him and apologize – my lies had cost him his job.

I visited many bars; I had a dim memory of the curious stares I drew, in my jacket-and-tie ensemble, and of being mistaken for a producer in search of new talent – a mistake that led to more drinks in the company of two, possibly three girls, one of whom might have even had a pierced nostril. The rest was blackness, a blank, which was just as well.

It was a beautiful day outside. The strong sun lit the fresh snow with a thousand lights, green, purple, orange, constantly changing, some coming on, others going out. I watched this friendly winking and didn"t feel so bad about getting fired any more. I knew I didn"t have a chance of landing another job in the very near future, not with agencies firing people left, right, and centre. But I decided I"d let Stuart Jerome Stuart, the adbiz agent who fixed the SB&B job for me, worry about that. I also quickly decided I"d put the whole business aside for at least a couple of weeks. Christmas was coming. I could maybe use some of my free time to improve things with Donna. I"d be able to find a job sooner or later, and in the meantime she was making twice what I did, anyway.
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The sunshine made me confine my cleanup effort to dropping the muddy shoes onto the shoe mat. Then I got dressed and went out. The sun felt almost as hot as in the summer. Birds twittered busily on the naked, wet branches; everything looked so pretty. Even the ragged old crow sitting on a nearby tree looked good, although its plumage resembled a well-worn overcoat: matted here, smooth and shiny there.

I walked to the nearest corner, turned, and realized with a little start that I hadn"t been on that particular street since the day Donna and I toured the neighborhood when buying the G.o.dd.a.m.n house. It was just a hundred yards from where I lived, but it was off the route to work. I looked around with interest: everything was strange yet familiar. Well, the houses were practically the same - what could you expect, after all it was part of the same housing development.

The houses were all silent, their interiors hidden by blinds and curtains. Their inhabitants were all at work. This was a residential area; there was nothing to do here but reside.

I shook my head, stopped, swiveled round on my heel, and looked around, taking in the curtained, blinded windows. I was the only person on the street. It was a f.u.c.king ghost town. Everyone who lived around here - well, they didn"t live, they just slept and spent weekends here. Not all weekends: we were all the kind of people that go away for the weekend; mostly childless, hard-working couples. Working at work, working out, working at relationships... f.u.c.king work again.

I was standing there with hands thrust into my pockets, thinking strange new thoughts, when a little figure strode silently into view around a corner at the far end of the street. It approached with odd, jerky movements that reminded me of a speedwalker"s. Then it turned briskly into a driveway and mounted the front steps of a faraway house. Metal clinked and rattled, the sound somehow rusty and dirty as it spread over the glittering snow. The toy man ran down the steps and cut across the white lawn like a trapper in a hurry; I made out the outline of a big shoulder bag. Of course! The postman.

I set off in his direction, timing things so that we met at the intersection. I asked him about mail; he frowned, dug his hand into the bag, and pulled out a slim wedge of envelopes held together by a rubber band.

"Here you go," he said, thrusting it at me. "Rubber courtesy of Canada Post."

I faked a smile, said goodbye, and slipped the band off. Donna"s book club, the bank, a couple of solicitations from charities (I thought I knew the guy who wrote one of those – he liked writing copy for charities – he claimed they paid well). Finally, a standard office envelope with my name on it. So soon? And that wasn"t SB&B stationery -

I ripped it open and pulled out a single sheet of paper, blank except for this:

Your wife is f.u.c.king someone else

The envelopes slipped from my hand and fluttered down to the already melting snow. I bent and scrabbled around for them, finding astonishing comfort in the activity. I almost wished I"d dropped more.

I folded the single letter that I"d opened and stuffed it back into its envelope, then put all the mail in a pocket and started walking away from home.

So.

She was f.u.c.king someone else. Or was she?

I kicked a lump of dirty snow and it exploded with a wet, gritty sound. If only I could feel shamelessly angry. But I couldn"t, because I was guilty too. I did it just once, but once is enough.

I kept walking as if in a trance. In the end, after maybe fifteen minutes of residential streets, I came to a big collector road. The visible traffic consisted of two vehicles, and that was counting a bicycle freak riding along the siding, the bike slicing through snow and water like a motorboat. I looked left and right, trying to decide where to go next. I was quite sure I didn"t want to go back home, not just yet.

There was a small building on the corner that had a sign saying "Joey"s", and under that, "Restaurant". There was something inviting about the name, something that spoke to me personally. Of Course! "Joey"s reminded me of my old pal Joe. It probably reminded lots of other people of the Joes that they knew.

I crossed the road and looked at the cards stuck to the windows from the inside. One of these, an unmistakably ma.s.s-produced nightmare of orange letters on black background, claimed Joey"s was home to the best hamburgers and steaks in town; it seemed mandatory for every greasyspoon in town to sport a sign like that. I went in.

There was a sour smell of old beer and smoke tinged with pine air freshener. A couple of older guys were sitting at the bar, half-full beer mugs in front of them; their poses suggested they"d been sitting like that for quite a while. I glanced at the beer mugs as I pa.s.sed: the foam on the inside rim had dried in a frost-like pattern; these guys were going at half a beer per hour, and it didn"t look as if they could afford to drink any faster.

I caught the barmaid"s eye in the mirror – she was hunched over the cash register, her back to the room, examining her right hand with suspicious distaste. She held it with the fingertips of her other hand the way one holds a bag of dogs.h.i.t, and peering at it like a concerned dog-owner looking for evidence of worms. I waited patiently. Eventually, the register drawer clanged shut.

"I blew ten bucks on that sad excuse of a manicure," she told me. Then she added, as an afterthought:

"What would you like?"

I ordered a beer – a Heineken – and sat down in an orange plastic chair at a small steel table, suddenly gripped by a renewed, acute awareness of my jobless status – it was paying for the beer that did it. In a way it was a relief, because it made me stop thinking about Donna sucking strange c.o.c.ks and f.u.c.king faceless men. I stared at the old guys at the bar instead, wondering if that was the future I was headed for - nursing a mug of tap slop for hours on end, silent, eyes woodenly fixed on the TV set suspended above the bar...

The one nearer me must have felt my gaze burning through his green nylon windbreaker. He looked at me over his shoulder; he was too far away for me to see his eyes, but when our gazes met I got the impression his was watchful and alert. He had thick hair dyed black and greased into a discreet Presley pompadour - those f.u.c.king alkies, they always have rugs like Astroturf. He grinned at me; his mouth was a war zone; countless tank divisions had gone hither and thither as the front lines shifted, leaving just a few crooked yellow stumps. His grin seemed to say, well hi there pal. Glad you could join me in Joey"s.

I drank up quickly and went home, to deal with the mud.