Dinner seemed endless with those ghastly old chops. Monica had graciously permitted me to make the soup and that was all right. I’d used up the spinach she’d been going to serve with the chops and put a lot of garlic in it too. I liked doing a little bit of cooking when I didn’t really need to, but Monica had hung around making critical queries—‘Do you have to use so much garlic? Why are you taking all the ribs out of the spinach?’—and I decided I wouldn’t help in the kitchen any more. We could always eat out quite a lot, Robert and I. It took him ages to cope with his chop and his gravy and potatoes. I felt quite impatient, for it was the sort of food he’d been brought up on. He should have learned how to eat it by now. Margaret drank too much and didn’t say anything. Nor did Monica, and I think Syl was sulking, so Robert and I did our world-famous double-act, performed before all the crowned Heads of Europe and the East. Sometimes I thought that together we might be the reincarnation of Abu Nowwâs. Robert told anecdotes and I added to them. We’d dined out that way more times than I could count. I was beginning to get fed up with it so I was glad when Margaret went to bed. Robert went to bed too and Syl went home and I was left to help Monica clear the table. I didn’t offer to help wash up. What if I broke one of her wedding present plates? It is very difficult being a guest. The best thing is to be amusing and keep out of the way.

I offered an added bonus and suggested she leave the washing-up till the morning. ‘Come and sit down,’ I said, ‘and tell me all about everything.’

‘I’m a bit tired,’ said Monica, sitting in an armchair and sagging. ‘This wedding...’

‘You’re obviously doing too much,’ I said in a solicitous voice. ‘Poor darling, it doesn’t seem fair.’ I don’t know what I meant by that, but it went down well.

‘Oh Lili, you’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘Bringing up a child on your own is no joke.’

‘No, it can’t be,’ I said. Why should it be? No, I didn’t say that. I just thought it.

I said rather warily: ‘Margaret seems a good girl though.’ I wished to compliment Monica’s skill in raising this good girl without making light of her achievement in doing it all by herself. ‘She’s a credit to you,’ I added, inspired. ‘A really nice girl.’ This was praise enough for Monica to allow herself to express some misgivings.

‘She’s so quiet,’ she said. ‘She seems to have no go in her at all. I thought when I sent her off to stay with Marie Claire it would do her good—make her see something of the world, make her come out of herself. You know...’