“I told you, I’ve been in Norfolk, with friends.”

“How very kind of them,” said Joan. “I expect they were frightfully understanding.”

“We were a family,” replied Enid. “We worked together. We took care of each other. Some people do, you know.”

“Did you wear sackcloth?” asked Pat.

Enid picked up her knife and buttered her toast with quick, precise movements. “Quite the experts, aren’t you, on being a mother. What it’s like to be shut up all day, day in day out, in a villa. If you refuse to get dressed they call it a lark. When I did it they called a doctor.”

Joan came back to the table, sat down and rubbed her eyes. “Can’t you get hold of your allowance?”

“I haven’t been to the bank yet.”

“Then get a room on tick.”

“You could at least tell me where he is.”

“How should I know?” said Joan.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t seen him? You must have seen him. He has the children. He must be somewhere. Hasn’t he been in touch? Mother must be going spare.”

“Mother is perfectly well.”

“Then where is he?”

Pat said, without looking up, “Can’t you reach him at his club?”

So casual at the family table, so very at ease at someone else’s expense. Enid snapped, “I thought he might be here.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“If Cherry Trees is shut up then he must be somewhere.”

Pat got up and fetched a silver pewter from the sideboard. She poured more hot water into her cup. “We thought you’d dropped off the edge of the world.”

“I don’t understand what business it is of yours,” said Enid.

“You dropped off the edge of the world,” said Joan, “and now you turn up as if you’ve a right to ask questions.”

“Someone could have tried to look for me.” Enid spoke to the table, her plate, the congealed skin on her egg.

“Douglas did try. He couldn’t trace you. How was he to know you were in Norfolk? Mother nearly had a coronary. None of us knew what to do.”

“And since when was it up to you?”

Joan shook her head and laid her hands flat on the table. “I was there.”

Pat turned a page of the paper. “We had to cancel our trip to Khartoum. I, for one, shall never forgive you.”

“He’s been back a month,” said Joan, getting up. “You can find him at his club.”

“Back from where?”

“Port Elizabeth. He looks rather well on it. I’m going to bathe.”

Enid said, “He’s not living here, is he?”

“He’s taken a house in Hertfordshire somewhere.” She was at the door.

“And the children?”

“They’re with him,” replied Joan, not looking round.

But it took Enid three days to realise that Joan had neglected to finish her sentence.

Enid, 1926

24

Enid, 1926