Matilda stood at a basin letting the cold tap run over her hands, wondering how to fill the afternoon until she could go back for dinner with John. The running water made her want to pee again. Sitting on the lavatory seat she remembered periods at parties when nobody had wanted to talk or dance with her and she had spent much time in cloakrooms. There had been one party which was different. She tried to remember why, in what way it had been different. Where was the party? When? What year? The memory escaped. I can’t sit here the whole afternoon. This is ridiculous. She left the lavatory, washed her hands again then sat in the hall to collect herself. She felt angry that yesterday Lalage had sniped and hit and today Anne. They had attacked like birds when a member of the flock is wounded. They wanted to kill me, thought Matilda. How shocked they would be if they knew I mean to kill myself. I am already extinct, a Polish Fowl, a Tufted Hamburg. She smiled and caught the eye of an old man who was sitting near by. He winked infinitesimally. He was listening to his daughter. She must be his daughter since she addressed him as ‘Papa’, speaking French. Papa was to sit here and rest while she did her shopping at Fortnum’s and Elizabeth Arden and Liberty’s. He could rest, order tea, she would be back in an hour. Meanwhile he must rest. She went off with a cheerful wave, high heels trotting.

‘Is being old very boring?’ said Matilda in French.

‘Je m’emmerde, madame.’

Matilda moved to the chair beside him.

‘May I tell you what I am going to do about it for myself?’

‘Je vous en prie,’ politely.

‘I am not going to get old,’ said Matilda. ‘I am going to kill myself.’

‘You have cancer, perhaps?’

‘No, no. I just refuse to suffer the horrors of age. I have had all I want. I have decided to stop.’

‘How will you stop?’

Matilda outlined her picnic.

‘I wish I could accompany you,’ said the old man, ‘but I have waited too long. I cannot walk without help, I can do nothing without help. It is undignified. Only my cat understands. I have a cat in Paris.’

Matilda told him about Gus.

‘That presents a problem.’

Matilda agreed, thinking of Gus, his honking and his feet slapping on the path. She had forgotten Folly as she had forgotten Hugh.

‘My daughter has gone to the shops. I must sit here and wait. I can no longer go myself. I am a prisoner of age.’

To amuse him Matilda told him about her shopping, her choice of presents for her children, of the dress she had bought that morning for the girls to quarrel over.

‘That does not sound like a death wish.’

‘All my cheques will bounce.’

‘And you will be gone when they do?’