‘Ach, no,’ I said, ‘he’d neverforgive her. He’d hate her, and every time she displeased him he’d tell her she was no good. Hopeless. A deformed, unnatural and filthy thing to be used and abused as the fancy took him...’ OK. That wasn’t tactful either. Not to speak so to a mother of her son, but I knew it was true. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. Anyway, there wasn’t going to be a wedding, so there was no point at all in telling Syl such a thing about a person who soon would be a stranger to him.

Syl’s mother was rightly offended. ‘Syl isn’t like that,’ she said. But he was. A lot of men were like that, and Syl certainly was. I knew. I did not, however, insist. Syl’s mother went on worrying about it.

‘Are you sure she doesn’t remember?’ she said.

I was certain. Margaret had wanted to tell me things about Nour and love and sorrow—and I hadn’t let her. I knew about love and sorrow and the subject of nasty little Nour bored me. If she’d remembered what her father had done she’d have tried to tell me about that. I wouldn’t have let her because there really are some things I don’t want to know. If she’d remembered she’d have been determined to tell me. She trusted me. Oh, oh.

Mrs Monro gave up. ‘What are you making?’ she asked.

‘I am making wedding decorations,’ I said. ‘Secret ones,’ and she began to cry. ‘Oh, Lili,’ she said.

Now you might not have thought it but I can’t bear to see people cry—not children or dogs or men or old ladies. This is partly why I hasten so about the world, because I cannot stay and see people cry. I always feel I should do something about it and this is inconvenient. I particularly didn’t like to see Syl’s mother cry. She was supposed to be a dry old lady; a brave and funny old lady of the sort I would be myself if I lived that long. I held her hand and I said, ‘There won’t be a wedding.’ I promised her. So that was that. Boats burned, bridges crossed.

She opened another bottle of whisky and I had another drink and another cigarette and then I left her and went back to the summerhouse because Monica’s cleaning lady had arrived. She was Mrs Monro’s cleaning lady too. I sometimes felt a bit haunted by her. Margaret had gone. Back to bed probably.