“It’s ludicrous! Like everything else Adrian takes up. Have you seen him recently? He’s developed this irritating habit of nodding knowingly at everything you say—as if he sees a hidden message behind it. I find it infuriating.”

“Do you think it will help him?”

You snort.

“Only because it gives him someone to blame! You do realize it’s all our fault. We ignored him when we were children and this led him to repress his feelings.”

“That’s absurd!” I remember Adrian as a child and sigh. “I suppose we could have done more for him.”

You cast me a withering glance.

“Don’t you start. I’ve heard more than enough about thwarted desires from Lytton. Why is everyone suddenly talking about Freud? I don’t even want to think how his theories apply to Adrian.”

I giggle.

“Perhaps it’s because you threw your breakfast eggs at him.”

“Of course! All that dribbling yellow yolk and sullied white! His psychoanalyst must be having a field day.”

We both roar with laughter. You make a few more caustic comments about Adrian, then return to your book. I find a pencil and sketch a pot of late-flowering geraniums on the terrace. The drawing is not a success. I misjudge the angle, fail to catch the play of light. To my relief, Elise brings out the letters. I sort through the envelopes, seizing on one with a Cambridge postmark.

“It’s from Julian,” I announce, loudly, ostentatiously, tearing it open. I gulp down Julian’s account of a supper party, a new tutor, a boating expedition on the Cam. His words revive me. Your reading of Proust, all your books, recede to their proper size.

“He’s doing very well. His tutor has said some encouraging things about his essays. He predicts a first.”

I prattle without thinking. You look at the letter lying open on my knee.

“Let me see.”

I know as soon as I have handed it to you that it is a mistake. The letter has caught you off-guard. You have always been jealous of Julian. I watch you read with a sinking heart.

“He mentions the copy of Orlando I sent him.” Your voice is casual, light. “I wish he would say how he likes it. Did I tell you Leonard estimates we have made £2,000 already from its sales?”

Your barb hits home. I feel it ripping through muscle and sinew. You know perfectly well that I make almost nothing from my painting, that I can scarcely afford to pay my models. You finish Julian’s letter and give it back to me. I hide it in my pocket.

9