Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Red Hat painting

Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Red Hat paintingDiane Romanello Windsong paintingDiane Romanello Weeping Willows painting
Pamela's taboos: jokes about her background, mentions of whisky-bottle "dead soldiers", and any suggestion that her late husband, the actor Saladin Chamcha, was still alive, living across town in a bed and breakfast joint, in the shape of a supernatural beast.
These days, Jumpy -- who had, at first, badgered her incessantly about Saladin, telling her she should go ahead this pretence of widowhood was intolerable: what about the man's assets, his rights to a share of the property, and so forth? Surely she would not leave him destitute? -- no longer protested about her unreasonable behaviour. "I've got a confirmed report of his death," she told him on the only occasion on which she was prepared to say anything at all. "And what have you got? A billy-goat, a circus freak, nothing to do with me." And this, too, like her drinking, had begun to come between them. Jumpy's martial arts sessions increased in vehemence as these problems loomed larger in his mind.