“She was a hell of a girl when I met her. You remember. You were there.”

“She seduced you.”

“I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“I would. Enid could get anyone she wanted. Men fainted when she came in the room. Father said the trouble with her was that she was too perfect.”

“She was mad about God,” said Douglas.

“God, wasn’t she.” Joan put her hand to her head. “Mooning about, that’s what mother called it. Enid, will you stop mooning about.”

“I didn’t know she wouldn’t settle down,” said Douglas. “I thought having babies would quieten her.”

“How well you know the female sex,” said Pat. “Mothers are the least quiet people of any I know.”

“I didn’t know she’d turn into – that she’d – I don’t know, not cope in some way. Fagus—”

“She was not coping quite a long time before that, Douglas.” There’d been a fever pitch to Enid in those years, the men away, the war on. She hadn’t got a job. She’d sat in her villa and screamed.

“Your father—”

“We all missed my father,” said Joan.

“I just wanted a quiet life,” said Douglas.

“Then you shouldn’t have married a Campbell,” said Pat. “I don’t want quiet. I want life just as it is.”

He looked quickly at Joan, and then flicked his eyes to Pat in bed behind her. “I’d better bathe.” He stood up.

“She won’t come down, you know. It’ll be just us for supper as usual,” said Joan.

“Just the girls.” He patted his pockets.

“Isn’t it always?” said Pat. “I say we need a few more men around here.”

“See you at dinner,” said Joan.

“Right-oh,” he replied.

After he’d gone, Joan lay down beside Pat again. “Poor Fagus.”

“Are you going to carry on like this all evening?” Pat got out of bed.

“When we get back I’m going to tell mother that we’d like to get a flat. Get out of all of it. Don’t you think?”

“You know perfectly well what I think,” said Pat, kissing her. “If you want to be free, the only thing to do is to be free.”

She took a towel from the rail, stuffed Joan’s bathing turban on her head, and left the room.

Enid, 1921

9

Enid, 1921