‘Oh Monica,’ I said, as we closed the garden gate on the mud and the broken toys.

‘I suppose she does her best,’ said Monica in a tone of contentment.

I was so glad to be back in Croydon. I know that must sound strange but it’s true. I am a little afraid of poverty in all its forms—actual and spiritual. I wonder sometimes what would become of a person who had lost everything; how she would even begin to think about how to begin again if she had nothing at all to sell and nothing to offer freely. It didn’t bear thinking about. Monica, admittedly, did not go in for oriental luxury, but her house was a dream of cleanliness and comfort compared with Cynthia’s. It didn’t frighten me. I could not have stayed a moment longer in Cynthia’s house without bursting into tears of fear and depression. This would have been most unlike me. Perhaps I was catching a cold. Perhaps I was growing old. Well, I wasn’t a mess. Cynthia was a mess. Her house was a mess, her children were messes, her husband was worse than any mess. Her clothes were almost worse than anything. I was tired. I had to have a drink. Monica had a drink too, but for the other reason. There are two reasons for drinking as far as I’m concerned—because you’re happy or because you’re sad. Monica was happy now she knew that Derek lived in the dust.

‘I want a drink too,’ said Margaret. It was really too early for all this drinking, but—so what. I went to the cloakroom in the hall and nearly fell over the cleaning lady’s bucket. She had a most disconcerting way of appearing out of nowhere. She had her hat on, so was on her way home. ‘Careful,’ she said. And then she said, ‘You want to watch that husband of yours.’ She was looking towards the drawing-room door as she spoke—looking at Margaret slumped in an armchair. She couldn’t have said that, could she? I knew she rather liked me. I had seen her grinning to herself at things I had said while she mopped and dusted, but we had never actually spoken directly to each other. Why should we? Why should she now say such a thing to me? For my sake or for the sake of Margaret? Was that really what she had said? I couldn’t ask her. I had already smiled at her and moved back to the drawing-room. When she opened her mouth to speak I had assumed that she would say ‘Good-evening-lovely-weather-for-the-time-of-year’ and it was to that expected remark that I had responded—not ‘You should keep your eye on your husband’ or whatever it was she’d said. I couldn’t think how I should respond to such a remark from the cleaning lady. Did she mean to imply that Robert had spent the day pursuing Abishag the Shunamite round the house? I really couldn’t quite visualize this happening. For one thing it seemed to me that Margaret wouldn’t run. She would sit there gazing in incomprehension at any male who showed signs of getting up speed in her direction. So, naturally, he would wind down again and pretend that he had merely been trying to take a moth out of her ear. Maybe that’s what had happened. Oh hell, what did I care. I did care. Nobody in the world, as long as I lived and all through eternity should ever know how much I minded about Robert. Certainly not Robert. Certainly not Marie Claire, the cow.