Gossip, thought Matilda, paying for her whisky, never varied much. She edged back to the door, noting three conversations about sailing, two about cars, another husband and wife complex. Nobody, she thought as she regained her place outside, was talking about plane, train or car crashes, terrorists, Guerillas or Earthquakes. They were so saturated with horrors they were immune to catastrophe.

Her watch said 8.30. Time creeping on. She put her whisky on the table, not wanting it now, and sat with her legs stretched out watching the passers-by.

On the whole, she reflected, the human race was unbeautiful although some of the girls in long skirts, were lovely as they passed, holding their lovers’ hands, looking up into the ordinary faces of their men who, whether their noses were large, snub or crooked, were transformed by the girls’ love to beauty. Matilda remembered Gus’s beak and sighed. ‘A great hooter.’ She wondered how he was faring among the strange geese and took a sorrowful sip of whisky.

Stub’s nose had been long, sad, black, Prissy’s a tender pink. Matilda allowed her thoughts a brief recollection of those companions, very brief, for to think of Stub and Prissy made her think of Tom. There, the thought was there. Tom, Tom, Tom, she said in her mind. Tom, Stub, Prissy, all dead. She had said it to herself. Dead, dead, dead, those three and Gus she had betrayed. Matilda had another sip of whisky and looked down towards the harbour.

I am a great betrayer, she thought. That is my sin. I am not a sticker. I betray from laziness, fear and lack of interest.

Beyond the harbour the sea was growing dark, on board the boats were lights and laughter. The sailors had returned from the pubs to cook their suppers.

Matilda stood up, leaving her whisky unfinished, pulled her bag over her shoulder. Inside the bar the musak was turned up and with it rose the decibels of conversation as she started down the street. The voices cried, ‘Ignition’, ‘It’s only the money!’, ‘If we altered the spinnaker’, ‘I really think a Jag is best never mind the Japanese’. Matilda went down to the harbour.

She reached the bridge where the river joined the sea. Peering over the parapet she could see that the tide was up, about to turn. A feeling of intense excitement almost made her cry out. She gripped the parapet, stared down at the water, secret, black; soon with the tide running out there would be ripples, as sweet flowed into salt to be drawn out to sea, swing west with the current far beyond the cliffs, round the bay a long way out under the sickle moon.

Suddenly she felt furiously hungry.

She looked at her watch, luminous in the dark. Too late. She felt cheated.

‘No Brie, no rolls, no Beaujolais. Damn’, muttered Matilda, ‘Damn and blast!’