‘Oh, Godfrey, you made me start.’
‘
‘Come and get warm by the fire,’ she said, ‘and take your coat off’; for she thought he had just come in from the street.
‘I am about to go
‘That was a pleasant young man who called the other day,’ said Charmian.
‘Which young man?’
‘From the paper. The one who wrote —’
‘That was five years and two months ago,’ said Godfrey.
‘Why can’t one be kind to her?’ he asked himself as he drove to Lettie’s house in Hampstead. ‘Why can’t one be more gentle?’ He himself was eighty-seven, and in charge of all his faculties. Whenever he considered his own behaviour he thought of himself not as ‘I’ but as ‘one’.
‘One has one’s difficulties with Charmian,’ he told himself.
‘Nonsense,’ said Lettie. ‘I have no enemies.
‘
‘The red lights,’ said Lettie. ‘And don’t talk to me as if I were Charmian.’
‘Lettie, if you please, I do not need to be told how to drive. I observed the lights.’ He had braked hard, and Dame Lettie was jerked forward.
She gave a meaningful sigh which, when the green lights came on, made him drive all the faster.
‘You know, Godfrey,’ she said, ‘you are wonderful for your age. ‘So everyone says.’ His driving pace became moderate; her sigh of relief was inaudible, her patting herself on the back, invisible.
‘In your position,’ he said, ‘you must have enemies.
‘Nonsense.’
‘I say
‘Well, perhaps you’re right.’ He slowed down again, but Dame Lettie thought, I wish I hadn’t come.
They were at Knightsbridge. It was only a matter of keeping him happy till they reached Kensington Church Street and turned into Vicarage Gardens where Godfrey and Charmian lived.
‘I have written to Eric,’ she said, ‘about his book. Of course, he has something of his mother’s former brilliance, but it did seem to me that the subject-matter lacked the joy and hope which was the mark of a good novel in those days.’
‘I couldn’t
Eric was his son. Eric was fifty-six and had recently published his second novel.
‘He’ll never do as well as Charmian did,’ Godfrey said. ‘Try as he may.
‘Well, I can’t quite agree with that,’ said Lettie, seeing that they had now pulled up in front of the house. ‘Eric has a hard streak of realism which Charmian never —Godfrey had got out and slammed the door. Dame Lettie sighed and followed him into the house, wishing she hadn’t come.
‘Did you have a nice evening at the pictures, Taylor?’ said Charmian.
‘I am not Taylor,’ said Dame Lettie, ‘and in any case, you always called Taylor “Jean” during her last twenty or so years in your service.
Mrs Anthony, their daily housekeeper, brought in the milky coffee and placed it on the breakfast table.
‘Did you have a nice evening at the pictures, Taylor?’ Charmian asked her.
‘Yes, thanks, Mrs Colston,’ said the housekeeper.
‘Mrs Anthony is not Taylor,’ said Lettie. ‘There is no one by name of Taylor here. And anyway you used to call her Jean latterly. It was only when you were a girl that you called Taylor Taylor. And, in any event, Mrs Anthony is not Taylor.’
Godfrey came in. He kissed Charmian. She said, ‘Good morning, Eric.’
‘He is not Eric,’ said Dame Lettie.
Godfrey frowned at his sister. Her resemblance to himself irritated him. He opened
‘Are there lots of obituaries today?’ said Charmian.
‘Oh, don’t be gruesome,’ said Lettie.
‘Would you like me to read you the obituaries, dear?’ Godfrey said, turning the pages to find the place in defiance of his sister.
‘Well, I should like the war news,’ Charmian said.
‘The war has been over since nineteen forty-five,’ Dame Lettie said. ‘If indeed it is the last war you are referring to. Perhaps, however, you mean the First World War? The Crimean perhaps …?’
‘Lettie, please,’ said Godfrey. He noticed that Lettie’s hand was unsteady as she raised her cup, and the twitch
