right to abet him in this. You know it’s wrong, probably illegal.” Toye stroked his beard, and regarded him sardonically.
“I’ll change their names,” Frank said sulkily. “I wish I’d never told you, Colin. You’re spoiling it.”
“Yes, and I’m right to spoil it. This could have serious consequences, and not just for you. Some client—these clients—may be suffering because the file’s missing. And someone’s job may well be in jeopardy, if things go wrong. Even losing the file is bad enough, but it was obviously pure accident—and some poor young woman—or man,” he added hastily, “won’t be able to do their job properly without it.” He leaned forward, his face reddening. “Give it back, Frank, hand it in, for God’s sake.”
Frank sprawled back in his chair. “Client,” he murmured. “He knows all the jargon.”
Frostick leaned over Colin and refilled his glass. “Calm down,” he said.
“Yes, calm down, Sidney,” said Toye. “You’re spoiling the party.”
“I don’t give a damn about the party.” Colin crashed his fist down on the table. “Give that file to me.”
There was a silence. From the other end of the table Sylvia implored him. “Please, Colin, what does it matter to you?”
“It does matter, because—I happen to know—Oh, Christ.”
“Know what?” Elvie said.
“Frank’s heart’s set on it,” Charmian added sentimentally.
“Never mind,” Colin growled. He dabbed his mouth with his napkin, as if there were blood on his lip. He would, indeed, have liked to lean over the table and punch Frank as hard as he could manage. Frank was what he had always suspected. He was a blind, antisocial egotist, and not fit to have charge of the young. He should have known it was useless to appeal to any residue of morality left in Frank. And no other kind of appeal was open to him, without giving himself away. Was there any possibility that he was mistaken? No, not a chance. That was Isabel’s file, and Isabel’s error that Frank was hoping to blazon to the world. And of course, Frank would succeed in his project. Frank and the Frosticks and Edmund and Charmian between them could write any number of books. He glared at Elvie Frostick, now glowing like a bulb above her lampshade of a dress. Elvie probably took shorthand.
Colin reached for his glass, drained it. He put it back on the table, and quite suddenly, instantly, he was drunk. Around him the conversation resumed, louder, crueller; he heard it in snatches, above his own thoughts, clattering after logic like some unoiled and primitive engine.
A door was creaking. In time, in time, Evelyn’s figure appeared below her at the foot of the stairs, her hand fumbling for the lightswitch that still worked. She snapped it down, and as light burst over Muriel, a frenzy of pain burst out in her body, an unstemmable riot of pain, hers and hers alone.
Evelyn mounted the stairs. “Get up, get up,” she said. “Do as I tell you. You have to. I’m responsible. I’m in charge of you.”
So every day is Mother’s Day, Muriel thought. Her eyes half-closed, she regarded the old woman. Evelyn reached out and took Muriel under her armpits, trying to pull her to her feet. Muriel allowed herself to be lifted, her body hanging like a sack filled with bricks. Evelyn’s chest rose and fell audibly, with a creak that was very like that the furniture made, but which seemed strange from a human person. Her lips turned blue, her face grew pinched, flesh fell away from the bones. When Muriel was good and ready, she put her hands on Evelyn’s shoulders and heaved herself upright.
“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” Evelyn said. “I’m only telling you.”
For years she had been of the opinion that Muriel didn’t feel pain. She got bruised and bled, but she didn’t feel it like any normal person. What was agony for some could be just a twinge for her. Tonight even her twinge must be regarded.
“I got this dress on the island of Kos,” Elvie was saying. “We went there on honeymoon. It was very cheap, this dress.” A sort of complacent savagery crept into her voice. “But I think it’s rather special. It’s my colour, scarlet. It was too long, you know, so I made them shorten it, there and then. That’s what I call service.” She looked around, ready for a challenge. “That’s what’s wrong with Britain today.”
“Ah,” Edmund said, “how does it feel, I wonder, to be twenty.”
“After we’d been to Kos,” the girl said, “we visited Malta. On both islands we saw all the historic sites.”
“I did the swim,” Frostick said, “the famous swim. As in history.”
“It’s got to be done in armour,” Frank said.
“Where would I get armour from?” Frostick demanded.
“Well, you say swim,” said Edmund, “you say armour, but I question whether it is possible to swim in armour.”
“Not what you would think of as armour,” Frank explained. “Not plate armour. A leather jerkin with things sewn on it. Chain links.”
“Oh, that,” Toye sneered.
“My friend fell in the canal wearing her suede coat,” Gail Colman said. “She sank like a stone.”
Colin pushed his chair back and stood up.
“You can’t go to the lavatory, because I’m going.” Elvie Frostick hoisted herself to her feet, looking belligerent. She thrust her chair away and swayed across the room, her face incandescent; it could be seen that she was in fact little more than a dwarf.
Colin edged himself around to Frank and bent over him, whispering.
“Do you think I could make a phone call?”
“Of course.” Frank gestured expansively. “You don’t have to ask permission, you know where it is.”
