“No, I’m not. It’s just the impression I give. Not worrying or telling other people not to worry, being calm and steady, it’s all a front. I could seem to be that way because I had money. And money that’ll never stop, that’ll always keep coming whatever happens and whatever I do. Look at it like this, I need never work. I wouldn’t do very well, I’d just rub along, but I’d have the life thousands have on just that amount, only they have to work for it. I can lead a life of leisure. Ambition needn’t be in it, nor much hope. And I’ve got this place too. I pay my parents, but let’s face it, it’s a nominal rent I pay.

“There’s only one way out of it. Give it away. I can do that. I can make it over to anyone or any charity, say, I choose. I haven’t the nerve. That’s the truth of it, Clo. I know it would be better for me to do that, better in every way, but I haven’t the strength of will. Not yet. I will one day.”

Did I believe him? Probably. I was starry-eyed and idealistic in those days. And if I believed him my faith wouldn’t have been misplaced, for he did give that income of his away, or most of it, and he did give up the flat. We had come a long way from why he let Jonny live there. I kissed Silver and held him for a while but we didn’t make love that night. I went home, creeping down the iron staircase at three in the morning, having no premonition, of course, of the strange events that were to take place the next day.

Chapter 15

15

THE SIGHT OF SELINA gave me a shock. She was sitting in old Mrs. Fisherton’s armchair in old Mrs. Fisherton’s living room, holding Daniel’s photograph in her hands. I walked in, having been shopping in Clifton Road, and there she was, beautifully dressed as usual, this time in a jade-green silk suit with puffed shoulders and bead embroidery around the skirt hem, her curvy little legs crossed at the knees, her feet in green shoes with stiletto heels. She looked up from studying the photograph with some puzzlement but made no excuses for treating the place as her own. Well, I suppose it was her own.

“There was a cat in here when I first came, darling. I shooed it out. If you leave windows open down here, cats will come in. And you don’t want that, do you? It isn’t as if we had mice.”