I changed my mind, I thought I would take them to another restaurant, but Monica said, ‘What about Robert? What will Robert do about dinner?’ and I remembered the picture of Marie Claire in her dreadful bedroom, and I thought of how smug Monica could be, and I thought—oh, so what the hell. What the flaming hell. And I drove to the restaurant of the assignation with Syl. I sang as I drove.

It all fell flat. We sat there in the little restaurant discussing the menu over one of those nasty candlesticks, dripping with wax, and nothing happened. Syl stuck his head round the door but when he saw three of us he bolted like a rabbit. Men are such cowards. Stupid too, I’d been going to smile at him so sweetly, and tell him I’d arranged all this as a little extra celebration. If he’d kept his head he could have carried it off but guilt had lent wings to his heels. I did smile as I thought of him flying down the street clutching Robert’s picture, his heart pounding; head in a whirl—all confused. ‘What is Lili up to?’ he would be asking himself. ‘What’s her game?’ Let him stew. I choked on a mouthful of moules marinières as something occurred to me. Speaking literally, Syl would be allowed to keep his head, unlike the male relations of the lover of the silly Sultana.

Monica said, ‘I could have sworn that was Syl—he opened the door and looked straight at me and went straight out again.’

‘Perhaps it was him,’ I said. ‘He works somewhere round here, doesn’t he?’

‘Can’t have been,’ said Monica. ‘Why would he go like that? What are you laughing at?’ I caught Margaret looking at me and I had the feeling that she knew what I’d been doing. Knew about the assignation and everything. Didn’t care. Somewhere inside me I worried about Margaret. She was not fit to take part in these games. She was not like the rest of us. Don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t think she was too good for the game—not better than the rest of us—only not designed for the game. And I felt that if I was going to bring her into the game then I should have to wash my hands. Yes—here it came, that annoying feeling that one must not sully innocence. Even the knowledge that one is capable of sullying innocence is annoying. It makes one feel corrupt—and old.

I sang all the way home too—out of spite.

Damn. I did feel corrupt. It was all Margaret’s fault. Little milky mouse with sad eyes. She looked at me so mournfully sometimes with those eyes, as though she wanted me to save her. To march in and pick her up and send her back to Mother Joseph and the clear fountain. How could I? How was I to explain to Monica the nature of vocation? I wasn’t too sure about it myself—it was nothing I’d ever experienced. If Mother Joseph wanted her, let her come and get her. Nothing to do with me. I wasn’t her mother. I rather needed a mother myself. I went to see Syl’s one. I ran there.