That night, while David was out, Wyndham rang. He was sorry he hadn’t let me know he was going, he was sorry he hadn’t got in touch with me before, he’d been in London discussing the next production with its author, Edmund Carpenter, and would I like to go out with him the following Wednesday? I said no, Wednesday was Pascal’s day off. What about Thursday? I said no, on Thursday I had a friend coming round for the evening. What about Friday then? he said, and I agreed, as I could hear that that was the last invitation that I was going to receive.

We went to the restaurant that we had been to before, and he told me some boring stories about Edmund Carpenter and his wife, and some interesting stories about his sister, who had married a very rich man and who could not forgive Wyndham for having made so much money on his own account, as she had once had visions of helping him along in his unsuccessful artistic career. I began to piece together, almost despite myself, his background: a father from a distinguished family, neither quite as wealthy nor quite as talented as he might have been, a mother longing for London in a style that she could not afford, a sister out to be able to afford anything and Wyndham wanting neither money nor hard work, but some kind of easygoing fame, which I thought he had well enough achieved. He had been born not exactly with a silver spoon, but with many other advantages. We were talking at one point about ambition, and I asked him what and how much he still wanted, and he said he was too lazy to take his profession seriously. I did not know whether this was the truth or an excuse. Then he said:

“I used to think, when I was younger, that nothing could be worse than wanting something and not getting it, something like greatness, or fame, or a knighthood, or a lead in a film, but I don’t see things that way any more. The more I do, the more limitations I find in myself, the happier I am. I’ve got to like it, the warm cozy feeling of defeat.”

It seemed improbable, this account of himself. I did not understand it, it did not appeal to me, but I remembered it.

We went to the same restaurant on the same day the week afterwards, and he told me some of the same stories and some different ones, and remarked unfavourably on my habit of eating three plates of hor d’oeuvres instead of a main dish.

“What you need,” he said, “is a good red steak. Most of you girls live on nice big steaks, you’re a bloodthirsty lot; no wonder you look so colourless compared with all the rest.”