Everything about Cynthia annoyed my mother, including the confusion attending her arrival. We stood in the doorway watching as she backed out of the car, immediately reaching into the back seat to extract her children. With them came carrier bags, dolls, bears, sandwiches, apple cores, orange peel and biscuit packets. A roll of lavatory paper fell on the drive and unravelled. My mother sighed. Then my father opened the boot. He had not so far looked at us waiting, a welcome party, in the doorway. Cynthia dropped a bag, out of which fell a beach bail and a clockwork mouse. My mother rolled her eyes but we stepped forward to help.

‘Well, here we all are,’ observed my father, forced into recognition of our presence.

Lili kissed him first, elaborately on both cheeks. Then she kissed Cynthia in the same fashion. Cynthia was surprised by this and dropped another bag. Then Lili kissed the children, who appeared less startled than alarmed. One of them stumbled over the beach ball and set it moving, and some of us ran after it. My father kissed my cheek in passing and asked how his little girl was.

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘I’ve put you in the Blue room,’ my mother told Cynthia, ‘and the children in the dressing-room next door to it.’

None of the rooms was usually referred to in this stately manner, but my mother was determined to wring some enjoyment out of the situation. It was a little too early however to start frightening Cynthia, for she was engrossed with getting what seemed to be all her household effects upstairs.

‘Bring Christopher’s you-know-what,’ she instructed my father, and my mother gave the object in question a meaningful glance. I gathered that in her opinion Christopher was now far too old to need a portable pot. Unfortunately Cynthia intercepted the look and explained. ‘He won’t do jobbies without it,’ she said worriedly, going upstairs empty-handed while my father followed with the luggage.

‘Aaugh,’ observed Lili, lighting a cigarette, ‘what a revolting thing to say.’

My mother looked gratified.

‘I suspected she was unbalanced,’ said Lili, ‘when I saw that she had ashtrays fixed to leather straps on the arms of her chairs.’

‘And no linen hand-towels in the bathroom,’ said my mother with satisfaction.

Poor Cynthia, I thought, but my sympathy was wasted. Cynthia was oblivious of everything but herself and the children. This being the case I foresaw that she would inevitably go on putting her foot in it. The preoccupied frequently do, since their minds are not on the manners and mores of polite society and they express their anxieties without thought of the likely consequences. I was different, having no preoccupations apart from self-consciousness. This did not prevent me from making gaffes, but mine were in a different category—errors not merely of taste but of spirit—and in the main mine were sins of omission. I knew that it was inadvisable to attempt to paddle in deep waters. I tried always to stand quite still in the illusory shallows.