“Our” bedroom door was opened and the window. The curtains moved a little and a faint sweetness came from the bowl of primroses and seemed a token of universal indifference. Blessed be indifference! Henry moved out of a corner, his cheerfulness if anything less subdued than usual, less subdued than his voice, however, which was little more than a whisper.

“She had no pain. The liver, you see.”

Lucky, lucky Elizabeth! Of numberless exits to have been awarded that one!

All the appropriate things had been done. The nurse or Henry or both had worked fast and well. Her watch and her mother’s ring lay on the occasional table by the bed. She was monumental under the white sheet. Henry moved forward towards the bed. He turned and invited me silently. Thus enslaved by what was evidently one of the rituals of death I moved forward and stood beside him. He drew the sheet down to her breast and held it there.

Elizabeth looked quite astonishingly and unnervingly like herself. Someone had wiped off the scarlet slash of lipstick and her unadorned face was minatory. I found myself wondering why I had braced myself for changes. It was nothing, the fall of a leaf.

Her eyes snapped open and they stared up at me. The whole world swam round me for a moment and was covered in mist.

Henry was tut-tutting. He was bending over her and doing something, a trick of the trade. He drew the sheet up again.

I found my voice.

“Pennies. Drachmas. Obols.”

Henry put his hand under my elbow and turned me. We marched away together and downstairs. I went to the appropriate cupboard and got not wine for us but whisky. I offered some to Henry without thinking, but he smiled and shook his head. I took a pull at the whisky which went the wrong way. What with shock and coughing I was nearly sick. Henry patted my back. The resources of science.

Presently I straightened up and he beamed at me.

“Better?”

I examined myself. There wasn’t any question of being “better”.

“I suppose so. Yes.”

Henry smiled delightedly.

“I’ll take care of everything, er, Wilf.”

“Yes. I suppose so. Thank you, Henry.”

“Well. I’ll be going, then.”

Still beaming he withdrew.

I went into the garden and pushed through the bushes. Emmy was sitting on the stone seat and peering into the woods across the river. I stood behind her.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know. You’ve left it a bit late, haven’t you? No. I don’t think so.”

“People will have to be told. Relatives.”

“And the vicar. She was C. of E. every now and then.”

“Is he the young chap in jeans, a sweater with a hole in it and an eighth of an inch of clerical collar?”

“That’s him, Douglas. He’s all right. Last week she was sounding off about me in front of some people. Later he murmured to me, ‘Suffering doesn’t always improve people.’ Down to earth.”