She’d made sure she was ready. She’d swallowed the carrot and rested her cutlery on her plate, she’d said it as clearly and as honestly as she could, but instead of raising his eyebrows or storming out or giving any other outward sign that their mother had broken his heart again, he just cut another small piece of lamb and popped it in his mouth.

“I am sorry.” She leaned forward quickly. “Does it matter terribly? She hasn’t changed and I can get the picture. I am really, frightfully sorry. I shouldn’t have . . .” she trailed off.

He put his knife and fork together.

Finetta did the same. “I mean, to turn up unannounced is one thing, but – you see I – I just can’t see what good could come of it now, now that you’ve been announced and – and, well, you’ve said there’s nothing you want from her, apart from the picture, and I can get that for you. You needn’t go through it at all, honestly you needn’t. I just don’t think you should. She’s old, do you see, and the nurses said she was really quite—” what was the word? Mad? Spiteful? They’d said shaky. “—adamant. Need you come? She’ll never forgive me if—”

“You go against her wishes?”

“You said you didn’t want fuss.”

The waitress removed their plates. Ian looked at his watch. “Shall we have pudding?”

“You do agree, don’t you?” She wanted pudding. She wanted sweetness to chase it all away. “I am sorry,” she said again.

“There’s no need to be,” he said to her, and to the waitress, “I’ll have the jam roly-poly.”

The waitress wrote it down and turned to Finetta. “And what’ll you have, madam?”

Madam. She didn’t feel like a madam. She felt six. “Have you the fudge?”

“We’ve assorted ice cream.”

“Vanilla,” said Finetta.

“And two coffees,” said Ian. He ran the fingers of his left hand over the knuckles of his right.

The dining room had filled up while they’d been talking. At another table, a woman was picking daintily at a prawn cocktail, while her large companion dug into a scotch egg. On the further side a child swung his legs, while his mother told him to eat up.

Ian’s roly-poly arrived making the table smell of the nursery. Her ice cream was the colour of daffodils.

After coffee he walked with her to the car park. They touched cheeks lightly as they said goodbye.

Enid, 1926

22

Enid, 1926