“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Kids are being massacred all over the place every day, in all sorts of ways.”

“Very funny.”

“Don’t be so bloody stupid.”

“Bloody stupid yourself. Selfish great oaf,” I said, and left the room, with no profound increase in dignity or sentiment.

An hour later a telegram arrived for me. By pure chance I got to the door first and managed to read it before anyone else saw that it had arrived. It said PLEASE RING FLAT TWELVE THIRTY, FARRAR. I put it in my pocket, and David called from his room:

“Who was that at the door?”

My mind was as blank as paper. I pretended not to have heard. He called again, and I went into the kitchen. Silence was the most convincing conduct I could assume. And for the next hour I tried to think of some way of leaving the house at the precise hour at which I always do the children’s lunch, in order to go to the phone box on the corner. How simple and how impossible it would be to walk out and do it can hardly be imagined by anyone used to living alone. I peeled the potatoes and invented many elaborate excuses to myself, all of which seemed out of the question; and yet it seemed equally out of the question to be defeated at this, the first and simplest innocent step. How on earth could anyone even contemplate a concealed affair, or even a concealed emotion, without being able to leave the house for five minutes?

At twenty-five past twelve I left the lunch cooking on the stove, asked Flora if she would like to go for a little walk, told Pascal to keep an eye on Joe and set off down the stairs. I made no excuse at all: I walked out and I was trembling like a leaf. When I got to the phone box, Flora insisted on putting the pennies in, and then sat on the floor and started to read the directory. Wyndham answered almost immediately.

“This is Emma,” I said.

“Emma. Thank God you rang. I tried to get you on the phone, but I only got that husband of yours.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Did he know it was me?”

“No. I worked it out. What’s the matter?”

“The most frightful farce imaginable. Too ghastly for words. You know the woman who gave all the money for this place, that crackpot who thinks she’s some descendant of Garrick?”

“Mrs. Von Blerke.”

“You do know about her. She was on that plane that went down in the Atlantic last night.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“Is she dead then?”