“Of course, Marny. Hi. No, I wasn’t busy. I just came in, that’s all. Had some trouble getting the door open. How are you? Is anything wrong?”

“Why should anything be wrong? Can’t I call you without something being wrong?” She brayed with meaningless laughter.

“No. But the last time you called something was, remember?”

“Oh, that. Yeah. Well, thanks for your help. It all worked out okay, so everything’s fine now. But no, nothing’s wrong. It’s just that we’re having a party tomorrow night and we thought maybe you’d like to come. For old time’s sake, you know. It’s B.Y.O.B. but there’ll be plenty, so you don’t have to worry about that. And there’ll be lots of food and mix. We decided today that what we all needed was a party. Things are really dead around the office—except Jenny just got a promotion. Did you know that Miriam’s moving to Vancouver because Ken got transferred? So she’s leaving, and Jenny got her job. Anyway, that gives us an excuse.” Once again she exploded into laughter. Jane waited with the phone some distance from her ear for the racket to subside. “It’ll be at my place, tomorrow night at 8:30.” Then she paused, and asked casually, “Do you think you could get hold of some stuff by then? I mean, the guys would take care of it—we’re not asking you to donate it or anything.”

Jane said nothing for a long while. “Well, that’s pretty short notice. I’m not even sure I can make it to the party. I’m working these days, teaching; you can’t just stay up every night and hope no one notices you’re half asleep.”

“Come on, Jane. That’s not like you. We all know about working. But you don’t have to stay long. And do you think—”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t stay long. Look, I’ll see what I can do. If you don’t hear from me before the party I’ll be coming, okay? That’s all I can promise.”

“But you’ll try, won’t you?” The discordant voice pleaded in her ear. “All the guys will be there. I promised them you’d come.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll try.” With a slight twitch of distaste on her lips, she cut off the connection and began to dial. She waited, looked at her watch, and hung up. She took off her raincoat and put it carefully away in the closet, picked up her briefcase and spread the contents on her desk, then looked at her watch again. As she reached once more for the telephone, it pre-empted her by ringing under her hand. She picked it up rapidly.

“Hi. Oh, it’s you.” She paused slightly. “What do you want?” And paused again. “I don’t give a shit if I sound as if I didn’t want to hear from you. I’ve got all kinds of business to get through tonight on the phone. What do you want, Grant?” She listened carefully, picked up a pencil, jotted a few abbreviations down on a pad by the phone, and nodded. “If I can, sure. Are you going to Marny’s tomorrow night? Oh. Well, my car will be outside her place from around nine until maybe eleven.” She shook her head impatiently. “I’ll call you if there’s a hitch. Now get off the phone, will you?”

Once more she dialed and waited, this time with more success. She spoke quickly and concisely, glancing at the jottings on her pad, nodded and hung up. She looked once more at her watch. Five o’clock. She should be able to get to Paul now without too much trouble from his secretary. She’d put Jane’s call through without thinking on her way out the door. But she had to get through before that woman left. He’d never bother answering unless he was expecting a call. She dialed rapidly, jerkily. The phone rang: once, twice, three times. Damn! She’d gone. At six times, a breathless voice hissed into the receiver. Sorry. He was at a meeting. Would she like to leave a message?

You’re damn right she’d like to leave a message, you stupid bitch. “Please. Ask him to call Jane Conway at home. As soon as possible.” And she slammed the phone down, patches of nervous colour burning in her cheeks. At nine o’clock Jane slammed her books shut, scooped up all the papers on her desk, and shoved them into her briefcase. She poured herself a Scotch and took out a small green three-ring binder. She flipped through to the end of the alphabet at the back of the book: Wilcox, Paul. There were three numbers neatly listed: Law office; Parliamentary office; home (unlisted, emergencies only) She took a deep gulp of her drink and dialed.

The phone rang four times before a cool female voice answered. Yes, of course she would call Mr. Wilcox. In the long pause, Jane could hear waves of sound, bursts of laughter punctuating the low murmur of conversation. Her heart throbbed painfully, and her breath seemed to catch in her throat. Finally a hurried voice said, “Paul Wilcox here.”

“Hi, Paul,” she said steadily. “It’s me. When you didn’t call last week I thought maybe something had happened.”

“Look, baby. I can’t discuss it now. There’s a huge crowd of people here—can’t you hear them? This is an impossible phone to discuss anything from anyway. I’ll call you tomorrow after work—no, not tomorrow, better make that Wednesday. I have your number. Now, for God’s sake, get—” Suddenly his voice changed to cool and oily. “Very sorry. I really don’t have that information here. I’ll have to call you tomorrow morning from my office. Yes, I do have your number. In the meantime, don’t worry too much about it. I’m sure that we can resolve the situation without any trouble. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Goodbye.”

A tall, composed-looking woman was walking slowly into the lushly paneled study, carrying a drink in each hand. “Here you are, love,” she said. “I brought you your drink in case you were on the phone for hours. Who was that? She certainly picked a wonderful time to call.”

He smiled affectionately at her as he took the glass. “Just a journalist lady who’s offering some flattering free publicity in exchange for some pull in front of the Municipal Board. We must change this unlisted number. The whole world seems to be on to it. It must be posted up at all the newspaper offices by now. What do you think? Should we get a new number and a little peace and quiet?”

She shook her head firmly. “It would be simply too much trouble to get that new number to everyone. The kids would have a fit. As it is, they complain all the time about it.”

He continued to smile sweetly. “As you wish, sweetheart. Although perhaps we should give this number to the children and get another unlisted number for ourselves. And the kids’ number could go onto the answering service. They’d get a charge out of that, I think.”

She shook her head doubtfully and turned to go back to the party. “No,” she said finally, as they were leaving the room. “You’ll have to put up with these people bothering you. After all, you’re not home that often, and I would find it a terrible nuisance to have to disrupt my own life to save you a bit of trouble.” Her smile was sweet, distant, and final.

Jane stared at her reflection in the mirror critically. Her current state of exhaustion showed in the dark hollows under her eyes, and her face seemed puffy and formless, all the firm gauntness of cheek and chin that she worked so hard to maintain was slipping away no matter what she did. But carefully made up she didn’t look too bad, really. She was just applying her eyeliner when the phone rang; the pencil jumped, making a blur in the clean outline. Damn. It was probably that idiot Mike again. She leaned around the corner from the bathroom and picked up the phone from beside the bed. “Hi. Oh, it’s you.” Her voice became cautious. “I wasn’t really expecting you to call. Now? That’s impossible. I have to turn up at Marny’s party tonight. I said I’d be there half an hour ago.” She looked at her watch. “You can always talk to me there.” There was a mildly explosive noise in the receiver. “Well, I don’t know how you want to spend your time. I know it’s crowded there. Some other time, then.” She flipped open her green notebook as she spoke. “Okay. Tomorrow’s not bad. But remember, I work, and I can’t possibly get home before four at the earliest. No. This is a teaching job I have. You can’t just walk out early and tell some secretary that you’ll be back in an hour or so. Okay. I’ll see you some time after four. ’Bye.” After she had hung up, she smiled in satisfaction, picked up her raincoat and purse, and walked out of the apartment. She left the building by a back door and got into her old VW, parked along with eight other cars in the cramped lot.