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myself’, said Hilda, ‘what she was doing in the fruit section of Marks
& Spencer’s? It’s not that anyone of that type and generation might not go
and buy her fruit there. But, as it happens, she was staying in a half-board
hostel at the time she met him. What would she want with fruit and vegetables?
She said vegetables — actually vegetables. She had her lunch out. Where would
she cook, and why? The story doesn’t hang together.’
    Chris
thought of her friend, already at this hour, up and about, sitting at a desk in
her London office.
    ‘Come
for lunch,’ said Chris. ‘I have jet-lag. We just got back from New York.’
    ‘I
can’t,’ said Hilda. ‘I can’t see you this visit. I’m leaving tomorrow but I’ll
be back in a few weeks’ time to see about their flat. That’s all I’m giving
them. A flat in Hampstead, full stop.’
    ‘It’s a
big enough “all”,’ said Chris.
    ‘That’s
what I say. They should be thankful.’
    Chris
said, ‘I’ll be giving a dinner round about the 17th, 18th of October. Will you
be here then?’
    ‘I don’t
know. I’ll ring. I don’t believe a word that girl says.
    ‘Murchie,
the name Murchie …’ said Chris, ‘it rings a bell. What are they like?’
    What
the Murchies were like was something Hilda didn’t want to discuss. It was not
that she didn’t trust Chris Donovan, but that she would have found it
impossible to explain what she felt. She was a decidedly practical woman, and
it wasn’t in her to flounder about with words. There had been more than one
occasion for her to experience a sensation of oddness in the two days she had
seen the Murchies before and after the wedding in St Andrews. But the wedding
itself, all their friends, were entirely conventional and friendly, just what
you would expect a wedding to be for a man like her son.
    Hilda
said to Chris before she rang off: ‘Oh, the Murchies are all right. I don’t
know them at all. On the whole, I’ll be glad to get away. Sometimes I think
Australia’s not far enough.’
    ‘If it
wasn’t for Hurley,’ said Chris, ‘I’d be with you.’
     
     
    Hilda Damien, aged
fifty-three, had a well-preserved look which was only possible to people of
her age who had surplus energy. It took energy, also stamina, to apply a
routine of physical upkeep such as Hilda had adopted as soon as she realized
she was going to have a successful life in her long widowhood. Artists,
musicians, writers and poets tend to neglect themselves and their appearance
while pursuing their burning and fugitive aims. With many types of business
people it is different; they know instinctively the value to their trade of
having been massaged and pummelled, groomed and creamed and slimmed, and they
give great, assiduous, attention to their smart appearance. Hilda had started
as a journalist and now, a real magnate, she took it as a matter of course that
she should rise earlier than anyone else so as to fit in the manicurist and
masseuse, or the hairdresser.
    Her
white hair undulated back from her tan-glow forehead, her teeth gleamed, her
good bones held up her facial features; she looked like a mild sunset, she had
a strong body.
    At
fifty-three, unbeknown to her children, she wanted to get married again, the
only reason for her secrecy in this respect being that she didn’t yet know
anyone whom she could marry. But she was convinced, and rightly, that she would
easily find a man, preferably a widower, rich, suitable, attractive.
    Hilda
was not a feminist. She was above and beyond feminism. She had no need of a
tame husband to help her with domestic chores, she had no domestic chores. She
needed an equal, a mate. And she had always been sexually shy, so she knew very
little about all that, without being unaware of the power of sexual attraction.
    Although
she had no idea whom she might marry she had a good sense of how to go about
it. She was relieved that William had got married, and, not expecting the
marriage to last, thought