September

A step on the stair behind her. She turned. Alexa stood there, in her crumpled cotton clothes looking much as she had always looked. Yet different. 'Have you lost weight?' Virginia had asked, but she knew now no diet was responsible for that indefinable radiance about Alexa that she had noticed the moment she saw her.

Their eyes met, and Alexa's were steady. She did not look away. There was no guilt there, no shame, and Virginia was glad for her.

Alexa was twenty-one. It had taken long enough, but now it seemed that, at last, she had grown up.

Standing there, she remembered Alexa as a child, as she had first known her, so shy, so unsure, so eager to please. Then, the newly married Virginia had trod with the greatest of care, chosen her words, always painfully aware of the pitfalls of impetuously saying or doing the wrong thing.

It was the same now.

In the end it was Alexa who spoke first. She said, 'I was going to tell you to use the downstairs loo.'

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.'

'You didn't have to. It's pretty obvious.'

'Do you mind me knowing?'

'No. You would have found out sometime.'

'Want to talk about it?'

'If you like.'

Virginia came out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Alexa said, 'Let's go back downstairs and I'll tell you there.'

'I haven't been to the john yet.' And all at once they were both laughing.

'He's called Noel Keeling. I met him in the street. He'd come to dinner with some people called Pennington-they live a couple of doors down-but he'd got the wrong night, so he was at a loose end.'

'Was that the first time you'd ever seen him?'

'Oh, no, we'd met before that, but not very memorably. At some cocktail party, and then I did a directors' lunch for his firm.'

'What does he do?'

'He's in advertising. Wenborn and Weinburg.'

'How old is he?'

'Thirty-four.' Alexa's face became dreamy, the very picture of a girl able to talk at last about the man she loves. 'He's… oh, I can't describe him. I was never any good at describing people.'

A pause fell. Virginia waited. And then, in an effort to get

Alexa back to the point of the story, said, 'So, he'd come to dine in Ovington Street on the wrong night.'

'Yes. And he was tired out. You could see how tired he was. He'd just flown in from New York and he hadn't had any sleep, and he looked so down in the mouth, I asked him in. And we had a drink, and then something to eat. Chops. And then he went to sleep on the sofa.'

'You can't have been very entertaining.'

'Oh, Virginia, I told you. He was tired.'

'Sorry. Go on.'

'And then the next evening was the night he was meant to have dinner with the Penningtons, so he dropped in for a moment first, and brought me a great bunch of roses. A sort of thank-you. And then a couple of nights later, we went out for dinner. And… well, it sort of snowballed from there.'

Virginia wondered if 'snowballed' was, under the circumstances, an appropriate word. But she said, 'I see.'

'And then a weekend came along and we drove out into the country for a day. And it was very warm and blue- skyed, and we took Larry and walked for miles over the downs, and we had dinner on the way back to London, and then we went to his flat for coffee. And then… well… it was dreadfully late… and…'

'You spent the night with him.'

'Yes.'

Virginia reached for another cigarette and lit it. Snapping out her lighter, she said, 'And the following morning, you had no regrets?'

'No. No regrets.'

'Was it… the first time? For you?'

'Yes. But you didn't have to ask that, did you?'

'Oh, honey, I know you very well.'

'It made everything a bit embarrassing to begin with. Because I couldn't just let him find out. I couldn't pretend. It would have been like pretending you can swim frightfully well, and then jumping into the deep end and drowning. I didn't want to drown. So I told him. I was sure he would think I was dreadfully schoolgirlish or prissy. But do you know what he said? He said it was like being given a really splendid and unexpected present. And the next morning he woke me up by opening a bottle of champagne with a tremendous pop and a flying cork. And we sat in bed and drank it together. And after that…'

She paused, having apparently run out of both breath and words.

'More snowballing…?'

'Well, you know. We were always together, I mean when we weren't working. And after a bit, it seemed ludicrous, at the end of the evening, driving off in different directions or having to borrow the other person's tooth- brush. So we talked about it. He's got a very nice flat in Pembroke Gardens and I would happily have gone there, but I couldn't leave this house empty when it's so full of Granny Cheriton's precious things. And for the same reason I didn't feel very keen to let it. It was a bit of a dilemma but then Noel met up with these friends who'd just got married and wanted a place to rent until they'd found somewhere of their own. So he let them have his flat and moved in with me.'

'How long has he been here?'

'About two months.'

'And you never let on.'

'It wasn't that I was ashamed or secretive. It was just that it was all so incredibly marvellous, I wanted to keep it to ourselves. Somehow that was part of the magic.'

'Does he have family?'

'His parents are both dead but he's got two sisters. One's married and lives somewhere in Gloucestershire. The other's in London.'

'Have you met her?'

'No, and I don't really want to. She's much older than Noel and she sounds rather frightening. She's Editor-in- Chief of Venus, and terribly high-powered.'

'So when I get home, do you want me to say anything?'

'It's up to you.'

Virginia thought about it. 'It would surely be better to tell Edmund before he hears about it from some other person. He's in London a lot and you know how people talk. Especially men.'

'That's what Noel says. Would you mind telling Fa? And Vi? Would it be very difficult to tell them?'

'Not difficult at all. Vi's amazing. She takes everything in her stride. And as for your father, at the moment I don't really care what I have to say to him.'

Alexa frowned. 'What do you mean?'

Virginia shrugged. She was frowning. When she frowned, all the fine lines on her face sprang into relief and she no longer looked so young. '1 suppose you might as well know. We're not on the best of terms at the moment. We have a running row going on, no harsh words, but a certain frigid politeness.'

'But…' Noel was forgotten and Alexa filled with apprehension. She had never heard Virginia speak about Fa in that cold tone of voice, could not remember them ever having quarrelled. Virginia adored him, fell in with all his plans, agreed with everything he suggested. There had never been anything but loving accord, every evidence of physical affection, and always-even from behind closed doors-much laughter and chat when they were together. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about, and the stability of their marriage was one of the reasons Alexa returned home to Balnaid whenever she could grab a holiday. She liked to be with them. The very thought of their falling out, not speaking, not loving, was unendurable. Perhaps they would never love again. Perhaps they would divorce… 'I can't bear it. What's happened?'