I stayed in the summerhouse while it rained. The rain of winter was like the tears of the old: not sorrowful and not kind, bitter. Self-pity was a wearisome emotion. I wished I was dead, but I had been too well brought up to snatch at death without being invited. It was not there for the asking but had to be deserved or—sometimes—offered as a gift. I thought it remarkable how few people appreciated this offer. Did they like the rain and the pain and the boredom which constituted life? Perhaps the death-fearers perceived life differently from me. For me it was being a vessel of evil afloat in a sea of evil. If I broke, it would take the power of God to separate my elements from the elements of the sea—and why, I asked myself, should he bother, since if I took my own life it would be in full knowledge of what the act entailed? I drifted on a sluggish tide of badness unable to see help or hope, and silent: blind as a worm, as a bottle, faceless and limbless, incapable of any cry or gesture or expression that might call the rescuer to me. I reminded myself that she who has scuttled the ship cannot in all conscience summon the lifeboat, even were she able. I waited.

Lili had gone to the gallery, for Robert’s exhibition was over and there were things she had to discuss with the owner. My mother had said earlier that Lili must remind him not to forget the wedding. ‘What?’ I had asked, thinking it impossible that she would have invited a virtual stranger—of whom she had been determined to disapprove—to my wedding. She had ignored me and I hadn’t repeated my question.

‘I think you should see Syl,’ said my mother. ‘He’ll cheer you up. Perhaps he’ll take you out to dinner or for a drive.’

Oh God. I said, ‘Mother, I am truly all right. I don’t want to go out to dinner or for a drive. I don’t want to see Syl.’ I don’t want to see Syl.

‘Rubbish,’ said my mother, going to the telephone.

‘Hallo?’ she said. ‘Ah, Mrs Monro.’

Serve you right, I thought. Now you’ll have to talk about the weather and she may go on to complain about the government.

But the conversation was very brief.

‘Oh,’ said my mother. ‘Oh, all right. Thanks.’

She put the telephone down slowly and I could see her wondering what to tell me.

‘Has he gone out?’ I asked.

‘Er, yes,’ said my mother. She paused. ‘He had to see a client.’

‘I didn’t know solicitors saw clients in the evening,’ I said. I was beginning to cultivate an air of fausse naïveté to disguise my real ignorance of the world and I wouldn’t have blamed my mother if she’d thrown the decanter at me.