"I'll stay over with Sandy. Get an early start in the morning." Poor old Marilyn. "We'll go up The Fantail tomorrow night," said Nobbi.

Marilyn always liked to go out, although they did so two or three times every week. She brightened.

He left her looking at the blue pool, and went to liberate his Jag from the double garage.

Nobbi drove over the river.

As he went through the winding streets, he found himself looking here and there, and once he saw a slim little girl with long curling sunny hair. But it was not his Tray.

The sun was low, slanting sherry-colored through the parched green of the trees in tiny gardens, and sheeting the dim walls with apricot. Indian summer. Why did they call it that?

The gray Jaguar turned down the road with the launderette, fish shop, and Pakistani grocers. It came to a halt outside the three-story block of flats.

Nobbi got out, and glanced up at the windows.

Marilyn always liked notice if anyone was coming.

She even preferred it if Nobbi gave her a call to say what time he would be in. Tray used to drive her mad.

But here, there had never been any awkwardness like that.

He walked up the path over the square of grass and opened the outer door. Then he walked up the two flights, although it brought on his cough.

Flat 5A had a cream door that could do with another coat, and he ought to see to that fairly soon.

He rang the bell.

He knew what would happen, but he never got tired of it.

The door opened about two inches, and a thin face peered out. The face was framed by dead black hair cut level with the jaw. It was without makeup, strained and thin-lipped, with two enormous black-brown eyes. There was nothing about the face, nothing, until it saw him. And then it blossomed like a flower. It became flushed and almost pretty, and the door and the eyes opened much wider and the lips softened and parted.

"Nobbi! It's you! Nobbi, darling."

"Hallo, Star. I'm sorry, I didn't bring nothing for you. I forgot."

"I don't want anything. Only you."

And Nobbi went into the flat, and Star flung her arms around him and kissed his face with lots of quick light kisses.

Her actual name was Stella Atkins. She spoke well, and that always pleased him. He liked that sort of accent, the kind that was without any accent at all. She was a library assistant, clever.

He supposed that maybe she never minded when he arrived because she was always prepared. She was always bathing, and never put any cosmetics on her face. Her nails were bitten down like a girl's, although she was thirty-five. She was thin like a girl, too, and not very big on the bust. But she had lovely skin, smooth and pale.