Half-way down the lane she came upon the offices of The Pleasure Craft and Riverage Company. In their window were faded notices of sailing dates and various kinds of cruises. While she was reading these a man in shirt sleeves, looking larger than life in the confined space, edged his way towards the window and attached to its surface with sticky paper, a freshly-written card.

He caught sight of her, gave her a tentative smile and backed out of the window.

She read the card.

‘M.V. Zodiac. Last minute cancellation.

A single-berth cabin is available for this day’s sailing. Apply within.’

Placed about the window were photographs of M.V. Zodiac in transit and of the places she visited. In the background hung a map of the river and the canals that articulated with it: Ramsdyke. Bullsdyke. Crossdyke. A five day cruise from Norminster to Longminster and back was offered. Passengers slept and ate on board. The countryside, said a pamphlet that lay on the floor, was rich in historical associations. Someone with a taste for fanciful phrases had added: ‘For Five Days you Step out of Time.’

She had had a gruelling summer, working for her one-man show and was due in a few weeks to see it launched in Paris and afterwards New York. Her husband was in America and her son was taking a course at Grenoble. She thought of the long train journey south, the gritty arrival, the summer stifle of London and the empty stuffy house. It seemed to her, afterwards, that she behaved like a child in a fairytale. She opened the door and as she did so she heard something say within her head: ‘For five days I step out of time.’

II

‘There is,’ wrote Miss Rickerby-Carrick, ‘no bottom, none, to my unquenchable infamy.’

She glanced absently at the tip of her propelling pencil and, in falsetto, cleared her throat.

‘For instance,’ she wrote, ‘let us examine my philanthropy. Or rather, since I have no distaste for colloquialism, my dogoodery. No!’ she exclaimed aloud, ‘That won’t wash. That is a vile phrase, Dogoodery is a vile phrase.’ She paused again, greatly put out by the suspicion that these observations were not entirely original. She stared about her and caught the eye of a thin lady in dark blue linen who, like herself, sat on her own suitcase.

‘“Dogoodery”,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick repeated. ‘Is that a facetious word? Do you find it so?’

‘Well—it depends, I suppose, on the context.’

‘You look startled.’

‘Do I?’ said Troy Alleyn, looking startled indeed. ‘Sorry. I was a thousand miles away.’

‘I wish I were. Or no,’ amended Miss Rickerby-Carrick. ‘Wrong again. Correction. I wish I were a thousand miles away from me. From myself. No kidding,’ she added. ‘To try out another colloquialism.’

She wrote again in her book.