‘And time for us to go as well. Need a lift?’ Myrna asked Ruth.

‘No, I’m here to the bitter end. All you rats, don’t feel bad. Just leave me here.’

‘Saint Ruth Among the Heathens,’ said Gabri.

‘Our Lady of Perpetual Poetry,’ said Olivier. ‘We’ll stay with you.’

‘There once was a woman named Ruth,’ said Gabri.

‘Who was getting quite long in the tooth,’ said Olivier.

‘Come on, let’s go.’ Myrna dragged Clara away, though Clara was quite curious to see what they’d come up with to rhyme with ‘tooth’. Mooth? Gooth? No, probably better if it’s an actual word. Being a poet was harder than it looked.

‘There’s one quick thing I need to do,’ said Clara. ‘It’ll just take a minute.’

‘I’ll get the car and meet you outside.’ Myrna rushed off. Clara found the small brasserie in Ogilvy’s and bought a panini and some Christmas cookies. She also bought a large coffee, then headed for the escalator.

She was feeling badly about the homeless person she’d stepped over to get into Ogilvy’s. She had a sneaking, and secret, suspicion that if God ever came to earth He’d be a beggar. Suppose this was Him? Or Her? Whatever. If it was God Clara had a deep, almost spiritual feeling that she was screwed. Getting on the crowded escalator up to the main floor Clara saw a familiar figure descending. CC de Poitiers. And CC had seen her, she was sure of it.

CC de Poitiers gripped the rubber handrail of the escalator and stared at the woman getting on at the bottom. Clara Morrow. That smug, smiling, self-righteous villager. That woman always surrounded by friends, always with that handsome husband, showing him off as though it was more than some freak of nature that she’d landed one of the Montreal Morrows. CC could feel a rage building inside her as Clara approached, looking so wide-eyed and happy.

CC gripped harder, willing herself not to launch herself over the sleek metal divider and onto Clara. She balled up all her rage and made a missile of it and, like Ahab, had her chest been a cannon she’d have fired her heart upon Clara.

Instead, she did the next best thing.

Turning to the man next to her she said, ‘I’m so sorry, Denis, that you think Clara’s art is amateur and banal. So she’s just wasting her time?’

As Clara passed CC had the satisfaction of seeing her smug, arrogant, ugly little face crumple. A direct hit. CC turned to the baffled stranger beside her and smiled, not really caring whether he thought she was nuts.

Clara got off the escalator in a dream. The floor seemed a very long way off and the walls receded. Breathe. Breathe, she ordered herself, a little frightened that she might actually die. Murdered by words. Murdered by CC. So casual and so cruel. She hadn’t recognized the man next to CC as Fortin, but then she’d only seen pictures of him.

Amateur and banal.

And then the pain started and the tears, and she stood in Ogilvy’s, the place she’d been yearning to enter all her life, and wept. She sobbed, and lowered her precious presents to the marble floor, and placed the sandwich there and the cookies and the coffee, carefully, as a child places food for Santa. Then she knelt there herself, the final offering, a tiny ball of pain.

Amateur and banal. All her suspicions, all her fears had been true. The voice that whispered to her in the dark while Peter slept hadn’t lied after all.

Her art was crap.

Shoppers swirled around her, no one offering to help. Just as, Clara realized, she hadn’t helped the vagrant outside. Slowly Clara gathered herself and her packages up, and shuffled through the revolving door.

It was dark and cold, the wind and snow now picking up and surprising her warm skin. Clara stopped to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

There, under the window, still slumped on the ground, was the bum.

She approached the beggar, noticing the vomit had stopped steaming and was frozen in place. As she got closer Clara became convinced the beggar was an old woman. She could see a scraggle of iron-gray hair and thin arms hugging the crusty blanket to her knees. Clara bent down and caught a whiff. It was enough to make her gag. Instinctively she pulled back, then moved closer again. Putting her weight of bags on the ground she laid the food next to the woman.

‘I brought you some food,’ she said first in English, then in French. She inched the bag with the sandwich closer and held the coffee up, hoping the bag lady might see it.

There was no movement. Clara grew concerned. Was she even alive? Clara reached out and gently lifted the grime-caked chin.

‘Are you all right?’