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wives had put the car keys. They lingered at the front door saying that they must not let in the cold air, while the General’s old dog, which lived in single-minded expectation of the door opening, thumped its tail feebly on the shining floor; then their cars would not start and the prospect of some of them returning to stay the night grew perilously close; then the last spark ignited and they roared away, calling and waving, and the marsh wind could be heard again in the silence that followed.

3
    T HE next morning Florence prepared herself a herring – there was not much point in living in East Suffolk if one didn’t know how to do this – two slices of bread and butter, and a pot of tea. Her cooker was in the backhouse. This was the most companionable room in the Old House, white-washed, with not much noise beyond the sighing of the old bricked-up well in the floor. Previous residents had counted themselves lucky that they did not have to go outdoors to pump, luckier still when the great buff-glazed sink, deep as a sarcophagus, was installed. A brass tap, proudly flared, discharged ice-cold water from a great height.
    At eight o’clock she unplugged her electric kettle and plugged in her radio set, which immediately began to speak of trouble in Cyprus and Nyasaland and then told her, with a slight change of intonation, that the expectation of life was now 68.1 years for males and 73.9 years for females, as opposed to 45.8 for males and 52.4 for females at the beginning of the century. She tried to feel that this was encouraging. But the Warning To Shipping– North Sea, wind cyclonic variable strong becoming NE strong or gale sea rough or very rough – moved her to shame. She was ashamed of sitting in her backhouse and of her herring from the deep, and of the uselessness of feeling ashamed. Through her east-facing window she could see the storm warning hauled up over the Coastguards against a sky that was pale yellowish green.
    By mid-day it was clear. The sky brightened from one horizon to the other, and the high white cloud was reflected in mile after mile of shining dyke water, so that the marshes seemed to stand between cloud and cloud. After her morning errands she took a short-cut back across the common. The Primary School were having their second play out. Boys separated from girls, except for the top class, coming up to their eleven plus, who circled round each other. Entirely alone, a small child stood howling. It had been well sent out, with a scarf crossed over the chest and secured behind with a safety-pin, and woollen gloves fastened to a length of elastic passed round under the coat collar. Patently it was a Mixed Infant, unqualified to mingle with either boys or girls. She attempted to calm it.
    ‘You’re from the Infants, you oughtn’t to be playing out now. Are you lost? What’s your name?’
    ‘Melody Gipping.’
    Florence took out a clean handkerchief and blewMelody’s nose. A waif-like figure, with hair as fine as dry grass, detached itself from the Girls.
    ‘That’s all right, miss. I’m Christine Gipping, I’ll take her. We’ve got Kleenex at ours – they’re more hygienic.’
    The two of them strayed back together. The Boys were shooting each other dead, the Girls bounced old tennis balls, forming a wide ring, and sang.
    One, two, Pepsi-Cola,
    Three, four, Casanova,
    Five, six, hair in rollers,
    Seven, eight, roll her over,
    Nine, ten, do it again.
    Florence looked southwards, where the horizon was bounded by a dark stretch of pine woods. That was the Heronry, but in 1953, when the sea had drowned the woodlands in salt, the herons had flown away and no longer nested there.
    At the kissing-gate which led off the common, she saw approaching her, stalking her almost, with the sideways look of the failed tradesman, Mr Deben from the wet fish shop. He must have followed her up there, indeed he as good as admitted it.
    ‘It’s about my place, Mrs Green. It’s going up for auction, but