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can. She didn’t know if they had given themselves sufficient time to think things over before they married – that was the kind of question her sister Louise asked. Edward stayed in the Engineers for a bit, then came out and was not very successful in finding a job to suit him. That wasn’t his fault, and if anyone said that it was, Nenna would still feel like poking a hole in them. They got a flat. People who asked her why she didn’t make use of her talent and give singing lessons had perhaps not tried to do this while living in two rooms over a greengrocer’s, and looking after young children. But Edward was said by his friends to have business sense, and to be able to make things work. That was why the launderette was so evidently a good investment. It was quite a new idea over here, you didn’t do your washing at home but brought it out to these machines, and the courteous manager greeted you and put in the soap powder for you, and had the clothes all ready for you when you came back, but wasn’t alas, as it turned out, much of a hand at doing the accounts. The closing of the launderette had given rise to a case in the County Court, in which Edward and she had been held not to blame, but had been conscious of the contempt of their solicitor, who always seemed to be in a great hurry.
    This, no doubt, was the reason that Nenna’s thoughts, whenever she was alone, took the form of a kind of perpetual magistrates’ hearing, in which her own version of her marriage was shown as ridiculously simple and demonstrably right, and then, almost exactly at the same time, as incontrovertibly wrong. Her conscience, too, held, quite uninvited, a separate watching brief, and intervened in the proceedings to read statements of an unwelcome nature.
    ‘… Your life story so far, Mrs James, has had a certain lack of distinction. I dare say it seemed distinguished enough while you were living it – distinguished, at least, from other peoples’ lives.’
    ‘You put that very well, my lord.’ She realised that the magistrate had become a judge.
    ‘Now then … in 1959 your husband came to the conclusion, and I am given to understand that you fully agreed, that it would be a sensible step for him to take employment for fifteen months with a construction firm in Central America, in order to save the larger part of his salary …’
    Nenna protested that she had never exactly thought it sensible, it was the parting of lovers, which must always be senseless, but they’d both of them thought that David, Panama, would be a wretched place to take small children to. The words sounded convincing, the judge leaned forward in approbation. Encouraged, she admitted that she had been entrusted with their last £2000, and had bought a houseboat, in point of fact, the barge Grace .
    ‘The children missed their father?’
    ‘The older one did. Tilda didn’t seem to, but no-one understands what she thinks except Martha.’
    ‘Thank you, Mrs James, we should like you to confine yourself to first-hand evidencex … you wrote to your husband, of course, to explain the arrangements you had made in his absence?’
    ‘I gave him our new address at once. Of course I did.’
    ‘The address you gave him was 626 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea SW10?’
    ‘Yes, that’s right. That’s the address of the boatyard office, where they take in the letters.’
    ‘… giving him the impression, as indeed it would to anyone who did not know the district, that you had secured a well-appointed house or flat in Chelsea, at a very reasonable figure?’
    ‘Well-appointed’ was quite unfair, but Nenna’s defence, always slow to move, failed to contest it.
    ‘I didn’t want to worry him. And then, plenty of people would give a lot to live on the Reach.’
    ‘You are shifting your ground, Mrs James …’
    ‘When I sent photographs to my sister in Canada, she thought it looked beautiful.’
    ‘The river is thought of as romantic?’
    ‘Yes, that’s so!’
    ‘More