What a futile, sneaky life I lead, thought Martin. He wondered, as he had for many months, whether to chuck his job, find a more congenial occupation, or drift on a little longer? He was supposed to be in Washington by the weekend on a fresh assignment. Should he resign now, as he had already suggested he might to his masters, or after the American tour? He liked Washington. He liked the museums and galleries. It was plain that there was no future in a pursuit of Laura. In the urbane Phillips Gallery, lolling on one of the sofas, he might shed thoughts of Laura Thornby. He particularly liked the Phillips Gallery. Even so, he thought, drifting into sleep to the sound of rushing water, there was no harm in thinking it would be fun to bring Laura to this idyllic place, imagine sharing with her a delicious meal, then bringing her up to this room into this bed. He was wryly amused that in his mid-forties he was still capable of romantic fantasy.

‘You are such a sidelong girl,’ said Claud, aware that Laura was avoiding his eye. They had been introduced at the concert the previous evening, he reminded her; up to then he had known her by sight only, he said.

‘I am in my forties.’ Laura, not the sort to be flattered by being called a girl, continued doing what she had been doing when accosted, picking over the vegetables on the organic stall, much to the irritation of the stall-holder. ‘If I live to be ninety, which is the current mode, God help us, I am now into middle age.’

‘You certainly don’t look it,’ said Claud, wondering whether the expression ‘sidelong’ had caused offence.

‘One should look one’s age,’ said Laura, her long fingers pinching garlic bulbs. ‘How much—some of these are powdery?’ she asked the stall-holder.

The stall-holder weighed the garlic. ‘Ninety pee.’

‘You don’t half charge,’ said Laura, returning the garlic to its heap. ‘I shall buy the less healthy French kind from my vegetable shop; it’s fatter, juicier, fresher, cheaper—’

‘Now, now,’ said the stall-holder, ‘think of the muck it’s grown in, sheer poison.’

Claud tried again. ‘You have allowed experience to etch those delicate laughter lines,’ he suggested, peering at the skin round Laura’s eyes.

‘That’s about it. How much is the broccoli?’ she asked the stall-holder.

Claud resisted an inclination to kick Laura on the shin; she was wearing strong leather boots; talking to two people at once bordered, in his book, on bad manners. ‘Most women enjoy flattery,’ he said.

‘I am not most women.’ Laura was now picking over the broccoli. ‘All right, I’ll have a couple of pounds, Brian.’ She smiled at the stall-holder.

‘What an idea!’ exclaimed Claud. ‘You are strikingly original.’