I wonder what she stands to gain from this curious transaction? Oh I do hope I don’t … you know … all over my clean suit. Should I pass her the handkerchief in my waistcoat pocket? Or would that be ungallant? The social politics of these situations are quite literally a minefield. A minefield! And she a poor widow! And me a poor widower (come to that)! I need to be immensely sensitive – kind – charitable. This situation wants – needs – demands prodigious levels of tact.

I confess to having had quite mixed feelings about this whole torrid/intimate exchange from the outset. But what was the alternative? A polite rejection? And how to time it? And what to say? And how to maintain eye contact afterwards? And what then the likelihood of tears/bitterness/recriminations/suicidal urges (she calls herself a poet for heaven’s sake!)? She would have been mortified, surely? Utterly mortified (Just wave those fascinating private diaries – which you don’t even want – a quiet toodle-oo, Frankie-boy). I mean to reject her, curtly, brusquely, out of hand. Is that gentlemanly? For it to be made so … so abundantly clear that she’d overstepped the mark? Which she so patently had?! Human decency alone forbids this course.

I suppose Miss Hahn did have a point about the whole ‘I’m moving into Henry James’s old house and therefore my awful poems about bluebells and feelings and lace and chiffchaffs will somehow be magically transformed – transubstantiated (is that an appropriate use?) into Serious Art’ thing. ‘Embarrassing’ (was that the word she used?) is certainly a little harsh. But ‘suspect’? ‘Gauche’? ‘Naive’? ‘Utterly unfounded’?

In terms of our future relationship (Ha! What future relationship?) (To be absolutely brutal) I think I can probably get away with acting as if the entire, curious interlude has been a strange – almost psychedelic – dream. My grief is my shield in this regard. I’m not thinking straight. How could I be? I am vulnerable. Poor Franklin. Poor, dear Franklin. So giving. So open. So kind. So generous. But so … so immensely vulnerable.

If Miss Hahn (damp cardboard, dead starfish) would just … Oops!

Gracious me!

There we go!

Oh, very well managed, Mrs Sage! What a pro!

Uh … Right. Good. Wonderful.

Another cup of your delicious espresso, my dear? Might I possibly … uh … use the bathroom? First door on the right? What an amazing shine on the parquet! Is the panelling original?

Ah. Yes. Uh …

Wasn’t it The Ambassadors he penned here? In this very room, you say? The Golden Bowl? Oh. I must confess to never having got around to …

Lord Give Me Strength! How soon before I can make my excuses and head home?

18

Miss Carla Hahn

An awful catalogue of catastrophes! For starters I left the money (for Mr Huff, like a fool) on the bus. In my purse. In my string bag. Luckily, another passenger, the wife of the nice man who fixes electricals in Ore (the seventh person today to say, ‘Excuse me, but did you happen to know that there’s something … uh … a dark mark/a blotch/a smudge on your …?’ Oh yes, yes. I do know. And it’s indelible, I’m afraid. Thank you so very much for telling me, though …), kindly alerted the driver and he promptly stopped the bus (a breach of all regulations, apparently), jumped out and bellowed after me. I ran back over the Sea Road to retrieve it (puce-cheeked) and was almost hit by an oncoming cyclist. ‘Clipped’ I suppose you’d say. He swerved so violently to avoid me that he came flying off his bike and skidded several feet across the tarmac on his side. I was slightly winded (it was more the shock of it than anything) and sustained (at worst, in all likelihood) a tender, little bruise on my shoulder.