I remembered one day what she had been saying all those years ago, seated on the hummock of harsh grass. She had been speaking of love and I hadn’t understood her, and she had waved her cigarette, and Robert had asked her if she would rather live for the rest of her life without smoking or without love, and she had replied, ‘What do you think?’

My only regret is that no one answered her, and now I shall never know.

THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD

I hadn’t given her a thought for years. I had had no reason to think about her—not really. I was old Mrs Monro and my life was over.

Monica called one morning to ask if I wanted anyone else put on the guest list and said, as though it didn’t matter, that she was coming to stay for the wedding. She said ‘Lili’s coming’, and I put my cup down very carefully in its saucer. It was winter and I was cold. I could see my fingers trembling and put my hands in the pockets of my cardigan. Winter gets worse as you get older.

‘Have some more coffee, Monica,’ I said. ‘Are they back then?’ I remembered the relief when they had left. It was years before, but I still remembered the relief.

She said, ‘Robert has an exhibition arranged. They’ll be staying for a few weeks.’

‘A few weeks,’ I said. ‘How nice.’ I poured her another cup of coffee and put my hands back in my pockets.

At some point my flesh had ceased to be of much significance to me, and it was my bones of which I was always conscious. My bones were cold and they ached, perhaps to remind me that before too long they would be all that remained of me: the neglected skeleton’s revenge, as the pampered flesh decayed away. I was reflecting thus gloomily because I was unfairly enraged with Monica, and spite and unhappiness frequently go together. I could not reach over and slap her for bringing Lili back into my life, but I could break a less stringent social taboo and embarrass her with talk of my age and impending death. I could remark reflectively, ‘I suppose, after all, we are all only skeletons in our own cupboards, waiting to be revealed.’ That’d serve her right, I thought, but I kept silent. Such subtle aggression would be wasted on Monica. She would respond with some bromide and make me even crosser. Years had gone by since I’d been able to say things as they came into my head, knowing that I should be understood. The people who would have understood had all gone away. Sometimes I made Syl laugh but he was my son and it was different. I had missed those who had been my friends for so long now that deprivation had become my element. I had adapted like some Darwinian prototype to loneliness and now could never revert to what I had been. I was sorry for myself; but I would have died rather than let anybody know. Dislike was preferable to pity since people mostly dislike from a distance. They seldom bother to come to you in order to dislike you, whereas pity brings them thronging, eager to express this gratifying emotion and gain whatever is to be gained of credit—in time and eternity. I had not, of course, always been so cynical.