“What sort of thing would you be interested in?” he asked solemnly, respectfully, although he must have known how narrow the possibilities would be.

“I’m not sure,” I said vaguely, “something maybe helping people, some kind of social work. Or maybe something in an art gallery or a library, something I could care about.”

“Interesting,” he said. He looked at me as if I had shown him a side of my personality he could admire. “Interesting. Why social work?”

“So I could help people. Get involved with them, I guess.” I began to feel tongue-tied, ridiculous, putting into words these absurd formulas that I knew were just romanticizing, the picture of myself as the middle-class angel of mercy swooping down on the poor, giving to them my love and generosity, fighting for them, winning what they wanted, glowing from their gratitude, being a second mother to their children, so that they came to love me, and I could have them to my home, afternoon tea with me while their children played happily with my children, everyone learning that we’re all the same, it’s just a question of money and the breaks, and they would be so eternally grateful.

Bullshit. I knew it was bullshit, that these ghostly poor would be more likely to spit at my condescension, and their children would beat my children and break their toys, and later, in the middle of the night they would come back and steal away all the things I had that they didn’t. And they would be right to do it, my fairy godmother fantasies deserved that.

“Well, maybe not social work after all,” I said hesitantly. “I don’t have any qualifications. And anyway, I’d get too involved, it would be like having dozens of families to worry about instead of just one. It wouldn’t be a good idea, really.” I sat there in defeat, wanting it to end.

But Stephen plunged on. “Well, an art gallery doesn’t sound like a bad idea. You do have experience selling. You could just sell paintings instead of dresses.” There was a small eruption in me, no-meaning words triggering rage. Why?

I saw myself in a gallery, hanging paintings, dusting sculptures, and the people drifting in, pointing at the paintings, touching the sculptures, talking about them with that awful art critic jargon, pretending they understood, me pretending that I understood. And the others, looking for something for over the fireplace to match the wallpaper, and do I think this artist’s works would be a good investment, so that if they ever got the living room redone, they could sell them for more than they paid? Ringing up sales — do they use real cash registers in art galleries, or is everything done much more discreetly in a back room somewhere with no tell-tale ring to announce it?