Caught in the kitchen with Rick L. Tucker and the piece of paper, I was led to do the one thing to which I was wholly unaccustomed; that is, I made a clean breast of everything. Contrary to all expectations (particularly as illustrated by novels), Elizabeth understood but did not forgive. On mature reflection (old man sitting in the sun), I think she only wanted the excuse. Our rows were fiercer than duels. We were sophisticated but uncivilized. I went and stayed at the sleazier of my clubs, telling her that she was welcome to the house, garden, paddocks, horses, cars, boat, limited company, anything, but I couldn’t stand it any more. The club had a strict limit for the number of consecutive nights you could sleep there. So when I went home to be forgiven, I found she had gone off herself. She had left a note saying that I was welcome to the house, garden, paddock, horses, cars, boat, limited company, anything, but she couldn’t stand it any more.

Even then we might have come together and continued our necessary wrangle until age and indifference had granted us a mutual sense of humour. But that horsy creature Capstone Bowers appeared on the horizon. Julian sorted it all out in time—the goods and chattels and messuage or whatever it is—and the marriage came to as much of an end as any marriage of that length ever does. The only damaged party, I think, was our poor little Emily. I met Humphrey Capstone Bowers only once, by appointment, at that same sleazy club, the Random. They—we—are an odd lot and connected with paper, from advertising and children’s comics all the way through to pornography. You might say that apart from me our most celebrated member is Anon. Capstone Bowers looked down his nose at the crowd—he must be the last Englishman to wear a monocle—and muttered that he hadn’t seen such a lot, ever. Pressed severely by me, he remarked that we were all rather bush. To give you a completer picture of the man, he shot big game all over the world and targets at Bisley. Towards the end of our brief conversation which we were holding to, as he said, “sort things out”, I was building myself up to the point where I would employ my ample linguistic resources to tell him what I thought of him, when he said with the simplicity of absolute candour, “You know, Barclay, you’re such a shit.” You can see the sort of man he was. I mean.

Well.

Freedom at fifty-three! What nonsense. What bloody nonsense! Freedom was what faced me. My advice is, don’t try it. If you see it coming, run. Or if it tempts you to run, stay put. Believe it or not, my head was full of anticipated sex, and with imagined girls young enough to be my granddaughters, very nearly. That may have been why I didn’t mind Capstone Bowers moving in with Liz one little bit. It was nothing to do with our unbreakable, unbearable connection. Poor little Emily minded. She ran away and had to be fetched back by the police. I could understand her bolting. From what I’ve heard since, even the horses hated Capstone Bowers.