Christopher Peel, sitting beside his wife Helen driving their BMW, noticed Laura as she parted from Nicholas. Craning his neck the better to look back, he reflected not for the first time that there were compensations in having a wife who did not trust one’s driving. One could see what was going on without being accused of risking an accident.

‘That’s Laura in another garish outfit,’ said Helen, who was suspected by some of having eyes in the back of her head. ‘God knows why she wears such an outrageous combination of colours; somebody should tell her.’

‘Why don’t you tell her?’ Losing sight of Laura as Helen accelerated through the traffic, Christopher slewed his eyes towards his wife. A greater contrast than Helen’s clothes with Laura’s would be hard to find, he thought, appraising Helen’s sensible sludge-coloured sweater and shirt, matching corduroy slacks, dull green waxed waterproof jacket with corduroy collar, brown felt hat. ‘Sludge,’ he said, assessing his wife’s complexion (nothing worse than a fading suntan with mouse-coloured hair, he thought). ‘Sludge.’

‘What?’ said Helen.

‘Nothing.’ (I bet she heard me.)

‘I wonder what she is doing down here, she hardly ever visits Emily and Nicholas for more than day,’ said Helen.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Christopher, who knew quite well that Laura came down oftener than was generally known. ‘Perhaps she feels responsible for the old people.’

‘Responsible! Laura?’ Helen snorted.

‘Well—’

‘She must be up to something if she’s down for more than a day—’

‘She’s got her pad in the Old Rectory.’

‘Is she having an affair with that red composer?’

‘What red composer? I thought he was the conductor.’ Christopher betrayed himself.

‘Don’t be dim, Christopher, the man who wrote that awful stuff we had to sit through at the charity concert; that man.’

‘How would I know?’ (Sitting in the wine bar with that boy. If she’d been on her own as she usually is, I would have gone in and asked her why the hell she—)

‘She’s an old flame of yours.’

‘Not that again! Oh God, Helen, why can’t you lay off? Any small flicker I may have had with Laura was twenty-five years ago.’

‘More than that.’

‘So you know it all. Why don’t you tackle Laura yourself? Tell her you don’t like her clothes, ask her who she is sleeping with, why she visits her mother, why—’

‘No need to fly off the handle.’ Helen changed gear.

‘I am not flying—’

‘You are so touchy about Laura.’

‘It is you who are touchy about Laura, Helen, you never stop, you—’

‘I never mention Laura. I just happened to notice her at the concert the other night and to make a small observation just now. No need to blow it up—’

‘Christ, Helen, Laura and I were practically brought up together. We were childhood friends, she was constantly in our house, she—’

‘She would have married you if your father hadn’t put his foot down. I don’t suppose your mother had a clue—so wrapped up in herself, her bloody dogs and her ridiculous garden.’