Molly and Kay, they share this flat. Kay’s got a guy, a racing motorist. He’ll be the one with the broken nose. Name of Arthur Chance. You should see the cups and things he’s got.

You should hear the, you should see yourself, you should see the face of Aubrey Silk. Mrs Standish sat up to resist the rocking of the taxi-cab. It went with a beat, the voice, the cab, that was not unlike the rhythm of the saxophone. And this, she knew now, was something that had always made her afraid, blowing from some country where she had never really been. She wondered also what she could say to Kay and Molly.

Then the meter jarred, she heard.

Wally began to whistle, as if he was nervous. He whistled thinly up the stairs, over the basic threads that were showing through the carpet nap. On the first floor a smell of canned tomato soup, above, on the second, the noises that the door just failed to contain.

This is it, said Wally, or his tie, it came out chinward, cannoned off an arranging hand.

You waited. You waited for a bell to connect. You searched for your lost personality.

Why, Wally! screamed the open door.

As if she was surprised. Or perhaps she would always be surprised. This was part of her policy.

Hello, Molly, I want you to meet, this is Mrs Standish, he said.

Mrs Standish put out a hand, touched a hand that was too cool.

Come and let’s see, Molly said. They’re all stinking, but you won’t mind. They’re –! Oh, pardon. Wally, whatever will your friend –?

Not that it mattered in so many eyes. Molly walked with assurance, inside the limitations of gin, threading a way, that dictatorial behind, and three white carnations that she wore on top of her head.

Oo-oo, Molly called. Here’s Who’s-This. You wouldn’t know!

Shouted, it was only a small contribution to what the room already held, the walls groaning, you felt, flapped to the gramophone, faces formed with some ingenuity in smoke.

If it isn’t that sucker Collins!

Hello, Kay. Hello, Arthur.

And you’re Mrs Standish, she said.

More sultry than the white carnations, she was also more explorative. Kay, of the sick mother, visualized a physical fact. No, really, well, said Kay.

Wally’s told me about you, she said. In between talking about himself.

Hey, wait on, Kay.

He tried to stop her mouth. She let him.

Mrs Standish stood on her own small island, realized that all activity had ceased, apart from the gramophone, its hiccuping over an endless scratch, all activity flowed just so far, up to her own shore. She was responsible for this. It was satisfying in a way, even if that way, as she gathered, was detrimental to herself. She listened to a blues hiccuping. She looked at the fingers that had clicked a time, frozen by her to an attitude, smiles still unaimed above a glass, waiting, waiting for release. They waited for something that she didn’t know how to give, their secret sign that she hadn’t learnt. Evenings she had spent at home returned, Mme de Sévigné and lime flower tea. There were the two shores. Then somehow she had fallen into midstream. Feebly, she watched, saw herself not even struggle, drift on the sweet smell of gin, the smell of fish paste under curled bread, the smell of powder over body. On the mantelpiece were a pair of inordinately ugly elephants.