“No. It hasn’t changed much. There was a phase when it seemed smaller: when I was seventeen or so I used to come back here and think that it had shrunk. But then it grew again. After the war it grew again.

“It was your expectations that had shrunk.”

“How well you put it. Yes, that was exactly what had happened. When I was seventeen I wanted everything. But after the war I was glad to see a house standing.”

“It makes me feel a child to hear you talk of the war.”

“You are a child.”

“No. Not quite. I have children of my own.”

“Emma.”

“Yes?”

“Talking of shrinking, I think you must have been deceiving me.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, I trust you won’t mind my mentioning it, but when I first saw you I remember thinking. Here is an extraordinary girl, she’s as thin as a stick everywhere else, but she has the most terrific breasts. And now they don’t seem terrific any more. In the size sense, I mean. Size-wise.”

I started to laugh.

“Do you mean you only asked me out because I was a freak?”

“Not at all. You’re a freak anyway, breasts or no breasts. But tell me what happened to them, why did I get the impression that they were so splendid?”

“Oh, it’s very simple, really, the explanation. I stopped feeding Joseph, that’s all. Breast-feeding, ever heard of it? They go down again when you stop, quite suddenly. Didn’t you know?”

“I suppose I must have known. I never thought of it, that’s all. I’ve never seen anyone feed a baby. Except my sister, and she gave it up after a week; she didn’t like it, or something. Do you mean to say they just collapse, straightaway?”

“More or less. They don’t collapse, really, you know, they just go back to where they were before. Don’t you like them now?”

“Of course I like them. I like you altogether. It’s just that what I said to myself was, Here’s a girl with no blood in her veins and big breasts and as thin as a stick and taller than I am. Provocative, don’t you think?”

“That’s what Dave used to say, that I had no blood in my veins. One day he got his razor blade and cut my wrist, just to see.”

“What happened?”

“It bled. That was before we were married.”

“Of course.”

“Of course.”

“Emma.”

“Yes?” “Undo your coat. Undo your dress. I won’t touch you, I just want to look at you.”