‘Oh, you’ve been shopping! Let’s have a peep.’ Anne’s voice was the tone of a daily communicant who has caught a lapsed friend coming out of Mass. It combined surprise with forgiveness. Matilda showed her the dress and dancing slippers.

‘It’s not you, you know, is it the new mode? Those baby shoes?’

‘Yes. I lunched with Lalage yesterday.’

‘Darling, she mostly talks about her face you know.’

‘I noticed. How is the family?’

‘All right. Peter’s in Greece, Humphrey is sailing. So boring, and death to one’s hair. He always asks me to go too but it’s not on, is it?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, one feels sick, one gets bored, one’s hair goes the most dreadful carrot, you know, and it’s difficult to get back to normal, you know.’

‘How would I know?’

‘Well, love, you can wear it white but at this moment in time one can’t, you know.’

‘How is Vanessa?’

‘Vanessa has some dreadful man in your part of the world. You probably know him, Bobby something. She’s been on the bed thing with him, someone said she even does it on the beach. She wants to marry him. You know what girls are like, you’ve got two.’

‘Oh yes, the penny’s dropped. I saw her on the beach. They were going to have a barbecue. She swam naked and kept saying everything was super, super.’ Matilda accepted an offered sherry.

‘“Super” is her latest word. How one hates these expressions! At this moment in time its “super”. One never had these verbal tricks oneself, one was prevented by one’s parents.’

‘Have you been seeing a lot of Princess Anne?’

‘Why should I? We don’t move in those circles, though one’s not far off you know. How is Claud?’

‘I thought you might ask after Louise.’

‘Why? One’s more interested in Claud. So like Tom isn’t he – his manners, habits, you know.’

‘What habits?’

‘One supposes it’s the genes, you know. Claud has inherited Tom’s – you must have noticed – it’s all genes.’ Matilda listened for an unspoken ‘you know’ hovering at the end of the unspoken sentence. What am I doing here? Who is this dreadful woman? Where is the Anne who was once young, pretty, full of life. Who is this bore?

‘Claud lives in the States. I never see him.’

‘One couldn’t very well go and see him, could one? One sees that.’

‘Sees what?’

‘One sees in Claud what you never seemed to notice in Tom. You carried it off marvellously. We all thought so, you know.’

‘Are you implying Tom was a bugger?’

‘Matilda!’

‘Well, Claud is, “one” knows that. You seem to imply Tom was too.’

‘Didn’t you know?’

Matilda grinned. ‘No, and nor did you. I bet you tried to get Tom into bed and he refused, so now you say he was a bugger.’