‘Good-morning, Mr Polkinghorn,’ said old Miss Langlands.

‘Good-morning, Miss Langlands. You are looking well.’

Could it be that she liked him?

Entered for the right school, Polkinghorn had acquired manners. That he distinguished himself scholastically, people had forgotten. His mother would sit below the dais, waiting for afterwards, waiting for him to heap the prizes in her arms.

They sent him over to Cambridge, too. Dad had agreed. Polkinghorn trod warily at first. In his second year he had invited two or three men to tea and crumpets. They had not come again. But Charles was immersed in all that he had discovered. He took a degree, with honours. Only a second, it must be admitted. If that hour of amnesia hadn’t occurred in the course of his final paper, his tutor considered he might have managed a first. Charles was quietly crushed. He had cherished the prospect of a prolonged affair with the Romance languages in some academic backwater. Curiously enough, languages enabled him to communicate – discreetly, though – with other people.

But all that would have been impossible, of course. For other reasons.

His mother had written:

... did not cable, because I understand the greater shock cables can give. You will be happy at least to know, dear, that Dad died painlessly, in his sleep. Only the suddenness of it! I expect it will take me quite a time to recover, but I shall throw myself into as much as I can. There is always the Firm to consider. Cousin Ken and Mr Beddoes are, mercifully, towers of strength. Dad had the greatest confidence in them, but Charles, darling, it was always his dearest wish that his son ...

Charles returned.

She was not at the boat to meet him, preferring to stage their reunion away from the hurly-burly, in the setting they both loved.

She had come down the steps towards him, offering her face which tears had tightened. Her eyes astonished by their blueness. She patted his arm, lingering on it for a moment to enjoy the texture of English tweed.

Charles Polkinghorn at that stage was what is called a dapper little man, with his small, evenly-divided moustache, discretion in his clothes and cuff-links. In those days he could still tell a story. Cigarette smoke acted as a screen. The music had not begun to throb. One or two girls had even looked him over at dances.

‘Tell me,’ his mother asked, offering her face, ‘there must be someone.’

‘Someone? Who?’

‘Why,’ she laughed ‘you silly old boy! Some charming girl!’

Charles Polkinghorn was thunderstruck.

‘But,’ he said, ‘I thought I had done everything that was required of me.’

On leaving the room he mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.

His mother had to wet her lips. And to return on frequent occasions to the inquisition. Her eyes were at their bluest then.

‘Surely,’ she said, ‘I cannot believe there isn’t some lovely girl. Otherwise it just isn’t natural.’

She watched his mouth as it tried out shapes.