Babs gave her glorious throaty chuckle. "No, I don't hate her. I don't feel that strongly about her — what a terrible waste of energy that would be. But I do so love to tease. And it's so much fun, you see, because she bobs so magnificently." Her green eyes gleamed. "And isn't that what life is all about? Having fun?" She drained her glass and picked up her beach bag. "And now I must leave you girls. You'll want to unpack and set your easels up — I can't wait to see what you're doing, by the way — and I'm going to walk back along the beach while the tide's out. It'll be turning soon. Toodle pip!" She gave us an enormous wink and slid her bony bottom off the bar stool, elegant in her poncho and espadrilles. Swinging her basket, her little dog trotting after her, she departed. She gave us a last dinky wave.

"I like her," Celia said, moving to the open French windows to watch her go down the garden and across the dunes. “She's got style."

"I knew you would," I said, sipping my drink. “She's another reprobate."

"And does Belinda know?" she said, still watching her.

“She must do. Mum says she must do, everyone else does. But it's never talked about. It's been going on for years. I mean, donkey's years."

“Really?" Celia turned back to me. “So why doesn't he leave her and shack up with Babs, then?"

“Mum says neither of them wants that. Once, perhaps, Babs might have done, but Mum thinks increasingly not, these days. Thing is, Celia, Roger is a genuinely nice man. He doesn't want to split up the family and desert his wife, and Belinda is a thoroughly determined woman. This is all she ever wanted, being Lady Many-Acres, and she's quite tough. Admirably tough, if you ask me. My feeling is, she knows — she's not an idiot — but she thinks, I'll live with it. A lot of women do, you know. Some men, too, look at Lloyd George in The Crown. It's sort of stiff upper lip and old-fashioned. And actually, for all her teasing and taunting, Babs is quite happy with the arrangement. She has a gorgeous house along the coast you'll see — her own life, loads of friends, Roger now and then, and countless admirers, mostly quite young, who are just that, I think: admirers. But Babs likes nothing more than sitting in the local with her colorful coterie getting thoroughly drunk and staggering home without having to cook supper for someone. She only once cooked for Roger and she was cleaning her tropical fish out at the same time. Roger pulled two fish skeletons from his beef stew, apparently. They couldn't stop laughing."

"I love her."