“Well, it was only a phrase, I know it’s different for you when you’re involved, but it still is the kind of a thing that can’t drag on forever, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I do mean it,” I said, “I do mean it. It was a blessing in disguise, I can tell you. The night after she died, my father—I don’t know”—and I looked for another weighty, serious cliche—“my father seemed ten years younger. He really did. It would have killed him, too, if it had gone on any longer. And now I’ll go and make us a cup of tea.”

“Oh, please, don’t bother, not for me,” she said, but she sat back and waited, and I went off into the kitchen, trying to recall with accuracy what the Scotts used to have for tea, all that time ago. I could remember sandwiches, and cake, and biscuits—I thought I had a packet of biscuits—and oh yes, thinly sliced bread and butter, and jam in cut glass dishes. Rapidly I started to slice bread and butter, and to put jam in jam dishes, of which I happened to have two, though David had always used them as ashtrays. Indeed, it had never occurred to me before what they could be; but now, shining bright and full of apricot and black currant jam, I suddenly saw them for what they were. I had just discarded a second slice of too thinly cut bread, which had lost its crumb, when the doorbell once more rang. Once more my heart turned over, for I was expecting one person and one person only, and if the first ring had not been for him, then the second must be; but it was not, it was Sophy Brent.

“Hello, darling,” she said. “I just thought I’d drop in. You don’t mind, do you? You’re not doing anything, are you? I’m at such a loose end, when I’m not rehearsing there’s nothing to do at all, is there? I’ve seen both the films once. I can’t very well go and see them again, can I? Elvis Presley and The Flight of Hannibal. Have you seen Hannibal? It’s jolly good really, there’s some fabulous bits where the elephants all fall down a precipice, and a smashing Italian girl with the biggest bust you ever saw, who gets captured or something”—and as she arrived at the top of the stairs and saw Mary through the open door—“Oh gosh, I didn’t know you’d got anyone here, I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“Not at all,” I said. “This is Mary Summers, an old school friend of mine. Mary, this is Sophy Brent.”

“Hello,” they both said, and as I excused myself to make the tea I heard Sophy rushingly continue.