“Well, what do you think?” Sally was watching me with a look of her old mischief.

“Sally, it’s bliss—I’m thrilled for you. It certainly isn’t what I expected.”

“Of course, it isn’t. But do you recognise it?”

“In a way. Don’t tell me it’s been on television?”

“I hope not. Think hard.” When I gave up, she cried triumphantly: “It’s just like Shepperton!”

“Where? My old dump?”

“Yes! Don’t look so stunned. I thought of you and the pixies when we furnished it.”

“Sally … I can’t believe it. So all along I was a complete suburbanite without realising it.”

“Of course you were. If you’re going to bring up children there’s only one way to go about it.”

“Yes … the children decide that, all right. I can’t wait to see little Jackie.”

“She’s a love, I’d die without her. Edward’s bringing her back from a kiddies’ party.”

“And Edward, too.”

“You’ll be impressed. He’s years younger than me but he’s so mature. Sometimes I think he’s my father.”

“I’m glad…” She had spoken without any thought of the past, as if all memories of her Bayswater flat and the stock-car tracks of east London had vanished forever. “Sally, it’s wonderful here.”

“I’ve bought the whole package—station wagon, big dogs, sheepskin jackets, church fêtes. I should have moved in with you years ago. Now, tell me about the pixies.”

She poured tea, happily showing off her mother’s silver tea set. We settled back on the sofa and brought each other up to date. She had met Edward, a physics lecturer at the University of East Anglia, while he was on a year’s sabbatical at Berkeley. I imagined Sally as one of the morose, chain-smoking ex-hippies sitting on the kerb along Telegraph Avenue, but in fact she had been the manager of a small bookshop and had begun to settle down long before meeting her husband. Watching her, I felt that the past years had slid away down some chute in her mind. She was young again, confident of herself and the world, the sunlight and this cheerful, untidy room. In her middle thirties she had been able to rendezvous with the eighteen-year-old self she had last seen at Idlewild airport in 1962, catching a plane to Europe.

Another Sally Mumford had gone off to join the sixties, had taken too many overdoses and fallen into the doubtful company of arts administrators, TV psychologists, and impresarios of car-crash exhibitions. Happy for her, I listened as she described Jackie’s latest crazes. At the same time, I wondered how long all this would last, whether it was another momentary fantasy, a dream that would founder when it struck the first hard wave …

*   *   *