I had just served the spaghetti out in soup plates and was looking for the Parmesan when Sophy appeared in the doorway and asked if she could help: a well-timed entrance. She was a little tight: she had been at the whisky, and she kept one hand on the wall as she watched me. I must say that she was most amazingly beautiful. Even standing there she seemed to fill the kitchen with her lavish bounce. Her skin against her black dress had an extraordinary golden full-blooded bloom, like fruit; she had a technicolor brightness. After watching me in silence for a few moments she said:

“It really is most frightfully sweet of you to give us all supper like this, Emma.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” I said as I pierced holes in the cheese canister.

“I suppose you must have an awful lot of people round all the time, don’t you?”

“Oh, now and then.”

“You know, I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before. Did you used to be an actress or something?”

“No, I’ve never been an actress.”

“Don’t you ever want to go on the stage, hearing about it all the time like this? I’m sure I should if I were married to an actor.”

“No, I can’t say the idea of being an actress has ever appealed to me particularly.”

“Where is it that I’ve seen you then? Surely I must have met you somewhere? At a party or something?”

“Perhaps, I said, beginning to feel an obscure need to establish myself as something other than the housewife which she clearly hoped I might be, “perhaps you’ve seen my photograph somewhere. I used to do a little modelling for the Coronet.”

“Not really. Christ.” That had gone straight to her tiny shiny heart, I could see. “I knew you must have been something, the way you’re dressed. I’ve never seen such a fantastic blouse, where on earth did you get it? And what about that hat you were wearing? I’ve never seen anyone in a hat before, nobody I know would wear a hat.”

“Didn’t you like it?”

“Of course I liked it. It was the most beautiful hat I’ve ever seen. I’ve just never seen one like it before, that’s all.”

“That’s probably because it’s about sixty years old,” I said, wondering why I should warm to her appreciation: I was confronted once more with the question of audience and performer. And yet the fact that she applauded did in a sense commend her.

“Is it really? Good heavens, no wonder it looked out of this world. And you say you used to do modelling, however did you get in on that? I thought that it was supposed to be a closed world and all that.”