There was a gala spirit in the ship that night. Though it meant rising at dawn to pack, everyone was determined that for this one night he would enjoy the luxury the storm had denied him. There was no solitude. Every corner of the ship was thronged; dance music and high, excited chatter, stewards darting everywhere with trays of glasses, the voice of the officer in charge of tombola – ‘Kelly’s eye – number one; legs, eleven; and we’ll Shake the Bag’ – Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander in a paper cap, Mr Kramm and his bandages, the two Japanese decorously throwing paper streamers and hissing like geese.

I did not speak to Julia, alone, all that evening.

We met for a minute next day on the starboard side of the ship while everyone else crowded to port to see the officials come aboard and to gaze at the green coastline of Devon.

‘What are your plans?’

‘London for a bit,’ she said.

‘Celia’s going straight home. She wants to see the children.’

‘You, too?’

‘No.’

‘In London then.’

—

‘Charles, the little red-haired man – Foulenough. Did you see? Two plain clothes police have taken him off.’

‘I missed it. There was such a crowd on that side of the ship.’

‘I found out the trains and sent a telegram. We shall be home by dinner. The children will be asleep. Perhaps we might wake Johnjohn up, just for once.’

‘You go down,’ I said. ‘I shall have to stay in London.’

‘Oh, but Charles, you must come. You haven’t seen Caroline.’

‘Will she change much in a week or two?’

‘Darling, she changes every day.’

‘Then what’s the point of seeing her now? I’m sorry, my dear, but I must get the pictures unpacked and see how they’ve travelled. I must fix up for the exhibition right away.’

‘Must you?’ she said, but I knew that her resistance ended when I appealed to the mysteries of my trade. ‘It’s very disappointing. Besides, I don’t know if Andrew and Cynthia will be out of the flat. They took it till the end of the month.’

‘I can go to an hotel.’

‘But that’s so grim. I can’t bear you to be alone your first night home. I’ll stay and go down tomorrow.’

‘You mustn’t disappoint the children.’

‘No.’ Her children, my art, the two mysteries of our trades.

‘Will you come for the week-end?’

‘If I can.’

‘All British passports to the smoking-room, please,’ said a steward.

‘I’ve arranged with that sweet Foreign Office man at our table to get us off early with him,’ said my wife.

CHAPTER TWO

It was my wife’s idea to hold the private view on Friday.

‘We are out to catch the critics this time,’ she said. ‘It’s high time they began to take you seriously, and they know it. This is their chance. If you open on Monday, they’ll most of them have just come up from the country, and they’ll dash off a few paragraphs before dinner – I’m only worrying about the weeklies of course. If we give them the week-end to think about it, we shall have them in an urbane Sunday-in-the-country mood. They’ll settle down after a good luncheon, tuck up their cuffs, and turn out a nice, leisurely full-length essay, which they’ll reprint later in a nice little book. Nothing less will do this time.’