But it was Douglas. “May I come in?” He opened the door a fraction as if giving them time to dress or get untangled or whatever it was he thought they did. Joan didn’t mind him but he was so simple, so tan – that was the word Pat used. Terribly nice, terribly easy to push around, you could wear him with anything. How he’d ended up in their family – well, it wasn’t a mystery, was it, it was anything but mysterious. It was just another example of a bloody stupid accident. Spilling – that’s what Enid had called it. Why did you have to spill? as if news of her secret engagement had bubbled up uncontrollably and breached Joan’s mouth. I was going to cancel him – as if he’d been theatre tickets or supper at The Ritz. Enid had said a lot of things and Joan hadn’t spilled. She’d thought she was saving her. Telling their mother was the only thing to do. As it turned out, she should have done it sooner, before he told his own mother and the whole thing exploded in The Times.

“Only if you’re wielding two large gins,” said Pat, getting back into bed.

“’Fraid not,” said Douglas, closing the door behind him and standing in the middle of the rug as if he hadn’t thought his entrance through.

“Come in, come in,” said Joan. “We’re huddling against mother’s summer chill.”

“Have you called down for drinks?”

“You can share mine if you give me a cigarette,” said Joan.

“The sitting room fire’s not lit. I thought you two might be getting one in early.” He took the armchair by their fire.

“You look like you’ve had a rocket,” said Pat.

“I suppose Joan’s told you the full blasting.” He ran his hand through his hair.

“Poor Fagus,” said Joan. “What are you going to do?”

“God knows,” said Douglas.

“I don’t know why you stick with her,” said Pat.

“It wasn’t her fault,” said Douglas. “She hasn’t been right since he was born.”

“That makes two of them,” said Joan.

“She’s been completely off her head. I’m sure you’ve noticed, or perhaps you haven’t.”

“We never see her.”

“She never comes to town,” said Pat.

“It’s as if she’s on some sort of lockdown. Bunkered, we used to say in France. Ever since he was born.”

“You hardly knew her before he was born,” said Joan.

“That’s not quite fair,” said Douglas.

“Italy,” said Joan. “That frightful house party, the even more frightful party in the library—”

“I wouldn’t have called that a party.”

“I was being sarcastic, Douglas. Banished till the war put a stop to everything and then you were off.”

“They must have met at the altar,” said Pat.