Julia was intrigued by line breeding, and asked the cat about his heritage as she fondled his anthracite coat. But Winston only offered his inscrutable gaze. His genes were a mystery, but from his musical soirees in the early hours, he was obviously leaving his mark on the neighbourhood.

Julia, who never carried a bag, reached into her pocket and drew out the keys with a slow intake of breath similar to the one which preceded her eighty-mile-per-hour serve, and plunged the key into the lock.

Phyllis, in a cotton slip, had her head bowed in front of a steaming kettle, reviving her curls. Had she been witness to an incident earlier in the day, she might have been in need of more serious resuscitation.

The flower seller outside Green Park was not particularly imaginative in his choice of flowers, and Phyllis, rather than walk to the stall in Bond Street and add fifteen minutes to her journey, had taken it upon herself to educate him a little. He was not unresponsive and his selection of wares soon took a more adventurous turn.

The evening of the dinner being a Friday—the day Phyllis treated herself—she was leaving the office in Stratton Street when a man in a green linen suit pushed past her, without apologising, into the building. Phyllis, knowing the manners of the young English and preoccupied with denying the urge to pull the after-work cigarette from her bag, paid no heed. She also missed the upward-looking group on the pavement opposite her building. She brightened a little when the flower man produced the bunch of cream anemones he had put by for her. At the precise moment that Phyllis rummaged in her purse for coins, the man in the green suit reached the eighth floor, and made a desperate lunge for a friend who was just about threatening to toss himself over the balustrade. The suicidal man moved slightly, and the crowd below watched green-suit’s rugby tackle become a swallow dive. Phyllis had just handed over the money, with instructions to keep the change, when the florist’s thanks froze on his lips. The flash of green caught his eye, and a “Gawd” escaped his lips on the thud of impact. Phyllis gave the florist an odd look—it was only a twenty-pence tip, she thought as she joined the throng heading down into the station. Wrong Man Leaps From Building was how one paper headlined the incident the next day.

Julia was admiring the anemones placed alongside the framed snap of Miss Sage when Phyllis came in from the kitchen.

“They’re probably grown under glass, but they are nice.”

“Like you,” said Julia, turning to her.

“You’re cutting it a bit fine for eight, aren’t you?”

Julia took Phyllis’s face between her hands and kissed her.

Phyllis, already suspicious said, “You going like that?”