224 wivesbehavingbadly

. oh , were absolutely fine , i heartd myself say into the phone to mrs . jenkins who had  rung up to ask if i needed extra help with the boys . or , that would be such fun when millie's mother rang up to invite us to a picnic on the common , giving the impression that the boys and i were thoroughly enjoying nathan's being dead .
i never found nathan's diary although i searched his drawers and files , i went through the the car , his pockets . i went through the bookshelves . at the finish , i was forced to concede i had lost the tussle between us  . nathan had decided to deny me the intimacies revealed on its pages and i grieved for that too .
yet there was a curious beauty to grief , a haunting , solitary beauty that was hard to describe and more than a little alarming . it was almost a oleasure .
meanwhile . i worked steadily throgh the letters in the study , determined to reply  to them all .
when got round to sorting out the piles of newspapers that had accumlated since nathan's death which i had never read  . i came across an ad in one of the supplements for the shifiaka exhibitation  that gisela had taken me to see . i examined the painting . a series of tree brushstrokes created a forest glade , a mixture of deciduous and pine . imposed on the mesh of foliage were the lines of trunks and branches so rigid and black they added an air  of menace to what should have been a traquil vista . i showed this to felix , who said ," ugh ."
" why ugh , felix ?"
"because  there are nasty things , looks , mummy ."
felix had seen instantly that the leaves on the trees were withered  and the outcrops on the tree trunks were clumps of insects , not natural growths . printed at the bottom of the painting was the legend : " only beestles survive the nuclear winter ..."