And Aubrey, she said, this is something more difficult. If you’d lend me fifty pounds. It’s a lot. But it’s only a matter of time, and you’ll have it back.

Then she looked at him, he made her, for the first time, there was no suggestion of evasion in the attitude of Aubrey Silk.

Yes, he said. Fifty pounds.

Thank you, she said.

Whether he knew or not, she was grateful for his silence, which did not quite cover his eyes.

And Mother, to Mother I’m staying with Valerie Stevenson, I shall come here every day. Do you understand? she said. You see, Aubrey, Mother’s sometimes difficult. Sometimes I feel I’ve got to get away. Even if only for a week.

She could feel the sweat on her forehead.

Don’t let your coffee get cold, she said.

The villa in Ealing was no different from those on either side, except that its blankness was arrested by the drooping of an eyelid over the right eye, the pale membrane of a half-drawn blind, either negligent or intentional. Otherwise No. 2 St Georges Villas was expressionless, uninformative, no plate even to announce the face, the plump white pouchiness, the straying hair, that became on acquaintance Mrs Moya Angelotti.

Mrs Angelotti billowed through her house, overflowed with a kind of Irish expressiveness that left no room for other inmates, swallowed these, existing or not. Sometimes there were sounds, a far murmur under the full orchestration of Mrs Angelotti’s brogue. There was also a face, the face of a Miss Teece, who assisted, Mrs Angelotti said, or who dusted and swept, who ran at Mrs Angelotti’s voice, her Teece, Teece, slip an’ make a cup of tea, Mrs Stevens likes her cup of tea, an’ sure I’ll take one with her if you don’t mind.

Yes, Mrs Stevens, said Mrs Angelotti. It’s many that’s in a like position. I wouldn’t be for prying into your private affairs. Don’t think for a minute, dear. But.

She picked a dead frond from a fern. With plump fingers she prodded at the mould.

Your own business is your own, Mrs Angelotti said.

What? Oh yes, said Mrs Stevens.

She was tired. The sheet that she pulled up, its harsh, foreign texture, sawed roughly under her chin. Mrs Angelotti waited, her breath held pigeonwise, she seemed to swell over her almost white apron, to encroach, to increase. Mrs Stevens closed her eyes. Soon it will be over, she said.

In a couple of shakes, said Mrs Angelotti. Now dear, open your eyes. Just a minute. To swallow this down. It’ll be like one long Saturday night. Mrs Stevens! Dear!

Eden Standish opened her eyes. She was a different person, she was the Mrs Stevens chosen in the bus. She swallowed down a draught, and it was a different throat. A thick, yellow sunlight flowed beneath the pale blind, or at night the lamp, the greenish lamplight. She measured time, this otherwise unbroken week, by the ebb and flow of light. It gave her some bearing in the flat fly-buzz, the fly that followed a frieze of fruit, or was it pumpkins, anyway, pink, that drooped down into her head, or not the head, the stupor, that alternated with the pain. Into this, into the arid white days, pushed the face of Mrs Angelotti, or the hand of Miss Teece that became a sponge. Then she closed her eyes again. She wanted to be left.