I wished I had brought dog for company. But dog, after a very short while, would have had to be carried, and there were difficulties implicit in carrying both dog and a parcel of meat. I was very sad that day. No gleam showed through the fabric that separates us from eternity, and I felt mortal, carnal and disposed to decay. Perhaps it was merely because I was going to the butcher. He was brisk as ever behind his counter, wielding his cleaver, smiting through the bones and joints of dead animals and addressing his customers with his usual bonhomie. Butchers are more aggressively cheerful than any other tradesmen, and I wondered why. I had come across melancholy bakers, grimfaced and truculent grocers, and all female shop assistants seemed reluctant to be in that position, aggrieved and resentful at the necessity of having to serve the public, but butchers always appeared pleased with life, positive and willing in their attitude. I wished I knew some undertakers to see if proximity to death had the same effect on them—not, of course, when they were actively engaged in their trade, but when they were at home with their families or out with the boys.

I was relieved to meet Mrs Raffald outside the newsagents as I walked home with a pound of stewing steak and a sheep’s heart for dog.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, with a kind of fond disapproval.

‘Shopping,’ I said humbly, pleased to have my thoughts interrupted.

‘You should’ve asked me,’ she said. ‘If you’d wanted something I’d’ve got it for you.’

‘I felt like a walk,’ I said. ‘I get stiff sitting at home all day.’

‘You just missed Lili,’ she said. ‘The butcher says "Who’s that tart staying up with them at The Oaks?"’ She smiled.

‘She does give that impression—’ I began and stopped, for surely nothing demanded that I should dissemble to Mrs Raffald: not female nor class solidarity.

‘She is a tart,’ I agreed and ended lazily, ‘but she’s got a heart of gold.’ Mrs Raffaid would not scorn my clichés. She understood Lili, I was sure, as well as I did and no refinement of expression, no careful character analysis were needed from me in order to shelter Lili’s worth in the eyes of my charwoman.

Mrs Raffald justified my assessment. ‘I like her too,’ she said.

She walked with me to the end of the Street and I felt better. I forgot about undertakers, which was fortunate, for at my age it does not raise the spirits to dwell too closely on their raison d’être.

One Saturday I went for another walk. Not to the shops this time. I went along the path by the bottom of the gardens, taking dog as a treat. He waddled among the dead leaves looking, I suppose, for dead things to devour. I was thinking about something I had once said to a man who loved me, that we had grown too close and must be sundered, and wondering why I had said it. In truth I was again thinking about Margaret, for I sensed in her a revulsion from intimacy. I felt tired and I walked slowly.