‘No, they won’t. They’ll last for ages. You know Daphne, fond as I am of you, I wouldn’t leave you alone in this flat for anything. You’ve a personal hatred of my muscipula. You’d like to destroy it.’

‘I’ll put the coffee on,’ said Daphne.

Merle phoned for a taxi. Then she put her little red address book with all the phone numbers in it into her scarlet patent leather handbag along with her lipstick and her gold compact and her keys, her cheque book and four five-pound notes.

‘We could have walked,’ said Daphne.

‘No, we couldn’t, dear. When I have a day at the shops I like to feel fresh. I don’t want to half-kill myself walking there. It’s not the cost that’s worrying you, is it? Because you know I’ll pay. I appreciate the difference between our incomes, Daphne, and if I don’t harp on it it’s only because I try to be tactful. I want to buy you something, something really nice to wear. It seems such a wicked shame to me those men of yours didn’t see to it you were well-provided for.’

‘I’ve got quite enough clothes, Merle.’

‘Yes, but all grey and black. The only bright thing you’ve got is that red hat and you’ve stopped wearing that.’

‘I’m old, Merle dear. I don’t want to get myself up in bright colours. I’ve had my life.’

‘Well, I haven’t had mine! I mean, I . . .’ Merle bit her lip, getting scarlet lipstick on her teeth. She walked across the room, picked her ocelot coat off the back of the sofa, and paused in front of the Fly Trap. It’s soft flame-coloured mouths were open. She tickled them with her fingertips and they snapped shut. Merle giggled. ‘You know what you remind me of, Daphne? A fly. That’s just what you look like in your grey coat and that funny bit of veil on your hat. A fly.’

‘There’s the taxi,’ said Daphne.

It deposited them outside a large overheated store. Merle dragged Daphne through the jewellery department, the perfumery, past rotary stands with belts on them, plastic models in lingerie. They went up in the lift. Merle bought a model dress, orange chiffon with sequins on the skirt. They went down in the lift and into the next store. Merle bought face bracer and cologne and a gilt choker. They went up the escalator. Merle bought a brass link belt and tried to buy Daphne a green and blue silk scarf. Daphne consented at last to be presented with a pair of stockings, power elastic ones for her veins.

‘Now we’ll have lunch on the roof garden,’ said Merle.

‘I should like a cup of tea.’

‘And I’ll have a large sherry. But first I must freshen up. I’m dying to spend a penny and do my face.’

They queued with their pennies. The ladies’ cloakroom had green marble dressing tables with mirrors all down one side and green washbasins all down the other. Daphne sat down. Her feet had begun to swell. There were twenty or thirty other women in the cloakroom, doing their faces, re-sticking false eyelashes. One girl, whose face seemed vaguely familiar, was actually brushing her long golden hair. Merle put her handbag down on a free bit of green marble. She washed her hands, helped herself to a gush of Calèche from the scent-squirting machine, came back, opening and shutting her coat to fan herself. It was even hotter than in her flat.