I decided to dust. I’ve found before that ceaseless menial work calms the rat-cage of the mind. I had to stop worrying and speculating for long enough to make a sensible plan. I needed peace and peace was not a quality I had come to know.

It was while I was scrubbing away the last of Miss Havisham that I found some letters to Louise from the hospital where she had gone for a second opinion. The letters were of the mind that since Louise was still asymptomatic no treatment should be considered. There was some swelling of the lymphatic nodes but this had remained stable for six months. The consultant advised regular checks and a normal life. The three letters were dated after I had left. There was also a very impressive document from Elgin reminding Louise that he had been studying her case for two years and that in his humble opinion (‘May I remind you Louise that it is I and not Mr Rand who is best qualified to make decisions in this uncertain field’) she needed treatment. The address of his Swiss clinic was on the letterhead.

I telephoned. The receptionist didn’t want to talk to me. There were no patients at the clinic. No, I couldn’t speak to Mr Rosenthal.

I began to wonder if the receptionist was one of Inge’s.

‘May I speak to Mrs Rosenthal?’ (how I hated having to say that).

‘Mrs Rosenthal is not here any longer.’

‘Then may I speak to the doctor?’

‘Mr Rosenthal’ (she underlined my faux pas) ‘is not here either.’

‘Do you expect him?’

She couldn’t say. I slammed down the phone and sat on the floor.

All right. Nothing else for it. Louise’s mother.

Louise’s mother and grandmother lived together in Chelsea. They considered themselves to be Australian aristocracy, that is, they were descended from convicts. They had a small mews house from whose upper floors they could see the Buckingham Palace flagpole. Grandmother spent all of her time on the upper floors, noting when and when not, the Queen was in residence. Occasionally she broke off to spill food down her front. She had a steady hand but she liked to spill. It made work for her daughter. Louise was rather fond of her grandmother. With a little twist to Dickens, she called her The Aged Pea, peas were what grandmother spilled the most. Her only comment on Louise’s separation from Elgin had been ‘Get the money.’

Mother was more complicated and in a very unaristocratic fashion worried about what people would say. When I announced myself at the entryphone she refused to let me in.

‘I don’t know where she is and it’s no business of yours.’

‘Mrs Fox, please open the door, please.’

There was silence. An Englishman’s home is his castle, but an Australian’s mews house is fair game. I banged on the door with both fists and shouted Mrs Fox’s name as loudly as I could. Immediately opposite, two coiffured heads popped into the window like Punch and Judy in their box. The front door flew open. It wasn’t Mrs Fox but The Aged Pea herself.