‘Yes it is,’ said Viola, ‘I keep telling you it’s all the rage now, red lipstick, you just have to try it.’ And then she looked curiously at her mother. ‘You look as if you’ve been laughing till you cried,’ she said, surprised. ‘What have you been laughing at?’

Pauline got up from her deckchair, linked her arm with Viola’s and all three walked up the lawn to the house. Her face had resumed its usual calm look.

‘The vagaries of this profession you’re joining,’ she said, putting the lipstick in her pocket, ‘and yes there is food, I’ve made a chicken and melon salad,’ and then, like a truce, to Molly, ‘stay if you like.’

But Molly missed the gesture, was still cold, in spite of the hug from Viola, in spite of the day; something.

‘I have to go,’ she said, ‘Banjo’ll be home. You look lovely Viola,’ and she rummaged in her bag, ‘I hoped I’d see you,’ and out of her bag she brought what she’d been bringing for Viola since she was a little girl and had played Molly’s daughter in the TV series: the special butterscotch Viola loved. Molly had stopped for it at the special shop on her way to Chiswick.

‘Oh Moll!’ cried Viola, like a child. ‘Oh no one’s found this for me for years, you’re the only one that still remembers, thank you,’ and she kissed Molly again.

‘I like your hair long like that darling,’ said Molly to Viola. ‘See you at the garden party and we’ll have a good long gossip then.’ She felt in her bag again for her car keys. ‘Thanks for the talk Pauly. I expect it was foolish to think it was anything to do with me,’ and she waved quickly, and was gone past the roses to the avenue. She looked back once, just as she got into her car: Pauline and Viola were still arm in arm, their heads close together, looking towards the river.

*

Driving back to Clapham in her beloved Citroën she played jazz loudly, blocking out thoughts of Pauline, Anthony, Portia, Viola, Terence Blue; if music was loud enough, she had found many years ago, she could make herself think of nothing. Only the bleak memory hovered there, behind the saxophone, of the rainy depressed afternoon and the school pedestrian crossing and the mothers and Pauline with the pram. I couldn’t have had a life like that, she thought, I would have turned into my mother.

But as she turned at last towards Clapham, as her arm lay across the open window and as the jazz soared upwards in the warm evening, it wasn’t Pauline or Anthony or Viola who still stayed in her mind. It was Banjo. She knew that what she had chosen for her life was not necessarily what he had chosen for his.