“Oh dear. How is Margaret? I often think of her.”

“It’s my day to see her tomorrow, so I’ll find out. I pick her up from Luna Street at ten and take her back at six, so the whole day is ours.”

“Have you been inside?”

“No, I prefer not to. But Gretchen comes to the door and it’s all very . . . cordial.”

His face clouded and Jean could tell that the maintenance of this civilized behavior was not without effort.

“What will you do tomorrow?” she asked, tearing open another packet of breadsticks, showering the table with crumbs.

Howard was fiddling with a packet of Lucky Strikes.

“She wanted to go swimming, but she can’t because of keeping the dressing dry. So we’re going to drive down to Aunt Edie’s and have a bonfire in the garden. You could come if you like,” he added, suddenly hopeful.

“I can’t leave Mother two days in a row,” said Jean, pierced with regret. “It sounds fun, though.”

Always her mother, the obstacle to any such spontaneous act.

“She was quite taken with you—Edie.”

He offered her the last of the olives and she took it to please him, wondering if like tea without sugar it was a taste that came with practice.

“I can’t imagine why. All I did was guzzle her apple brandy and almost pass out on her lawn!”

They laughed at the memory—that day seemed long ago now, chased into the past by the dramas of recent weeks.

“That wouldn’t necessarily have counted against you.”

The waiter arrived with the soup and they ate for a while in silence.

“Have you told her about . . . Gretchen?” Jean said presently.

“Yes. I couldn’t keep anything from her; she’s far too sharp.”

“Was she very shocked?”

“No—nothing rattles Aunt Edie.” He laid down his spoon and looked at her. “In fact, she said: ‘Gretchen was never going to make a Tilbury. That other girl would have been much more suitable.’’

“Girl.” Jean shook her head. “I’ll be forty next month.”

“Then we must do something to mark the occasion. There are few enough reasons to celebrate, so we must seize them where we can.”

“We’ve never made much of birthdays,” said Jean. “My uncle in Harrogate sends me a money order and I get a card from Dorrie, but that’s about it. Perhaps I’ll exert myself and bake a cake.”

She remembered as she said this that baking was another area, along with not being forty, in which Gretchen had the advantage.

They finished the soup and the waiter brought them grilled sardines, crisp and crusted with salt and quite unlike the limp and soggy tinned fish that Jean was used to. She had expected potatoes and vegetables as a matter of course, but none were forthcoming and Howard didn’t seem troubled by this omission. Instead, she ate the sardines unadorned by anything but a squeeze of lemon and was surprised to find them not only delicious, but also quite sufficient. She wondered how her mother would react if she took to serving an unaccompanied slab of fish or a pork chop for dinner.