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sitting-room was elegant in shades of cream and white silk damask with eighteenth-century furniture, books piled on every surface and fresh flowers in every vase. Oriental carpets on the floors and contemporary paintings on the walls: Picassos and Renoirs shared the space with Soutines and Monets, Schwitters collages, a Motherwell, a Pollock, and in the bedroom, hanging over his bed, an Ingres of sumptuous naked odalisques. Charles had come from a long line of collectors of beautiful works of art. Silver-framed family photographs stood everywhere, the white concert grand lid a veritable gallery of them.
    Charles had taken the suite over from his father who had had it decorated in the 1930s by Syrie Maugham, first and only wife of Somerset, who had made the white drawing-room fashionable. The suite had been passed on like that, father to son, since the hotel opened in 1898, always a much-loved base for Charles’s family when they were in London. In Paris they kept a similar suite at the Ritz, their place in France. The family house had for centuries been and still remained a stately hundred-room palace on twenty thousand acres in Derbyshire. That was home life; otherwise it was travel and hotel residences everywhere else. The Grenfells had always known how to live well.
    From the first time Charles had taken Amy to the suite she had liked it, found it utterly charming. Nothing had changed. Charles went directly to the fireplace and put a match to the already laid fire. It caught at once, flared up, and he turned from the leaping flames to faceAmy. This was what he wanted: Amy, here in his life. He smiled at her, went to her and removed the shawl from round her shoulders and dropped it on a chair. He took her in his arms and kissed her, stroked her hair. She was responsive. She slid her arms under his open jacket and round him, caressed his back. His hands felt so good on her breasts. She kissed him back and leaned into his body. She sighed with contentment, then stepped ever so gently away from him. She placed a hand on his cheek. He took it in his own and kissed it. Amy moved away to warm herself in front of the fire. A kiss, a caress … that they still allowed themselves in this now platonic love she insisted upon.
    Charles rarely made an issue of their sexual estrangement; he had in the past and they had almost lost each other over it. He had learned to deal with his sexual ardour for Amy. He excused himself for a moment and went to the bedroom. Closing the door, he went directly to the telephone.
    When he returned Amy was sitting at the piano, tinkling the keys. He sat down next to her. They were both high on the Rothko. They had had a grand day.
    ‘Thank you,’ she told him.
    ‘No. Thank you.’
    And they kissed once more, this time the kiss of two friends who loved each other. Two people who knew they were thanking each other for more than a good lunch and viewing a great painting. She was thanking him for not forcing the sexual issue, he her for loving him the best way she could. They spoke about the Rothko untiltea arrived and the Lapsang Souchong was poured and cakes served.
    Over tea they talked of other paintings and painters. The excitement kept mounting for them both. Great art can do that: awaken you, transport you into realms other than your own.
    Even the telephone’s intrusion could not bring them down from their high. Life seemed suddenly more rich and valid. Charles answered the telephone, still with his mouth full of cake.
    He chewed and swallowed and tried to talk all at the same time. Amy rushed to his side with his cup of tea. He took a swallow and they both smiled for his greediness.
    ‘Yes, Mother, I am eating,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve caught me out.’
    Lady Mary spoke for some time. Charles sipped tea and smiled, sometimes interrupting her with a burst of laughter.
    He held his hand over the receiver and whispered across the room to Amy, ‘She’s being very amusing about her dotty