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And yet the day, as it wound its slow way towards evening, proved to be quite acceptable, neither better nor worse than any other Sunday, and peaceful, as Sundays were supposed to be. Very soon her disappointment was forgotten, and she was even rather glad that the excursion had not taken place. Walking back from the shops she had noticed a new tentativeness in her steps, which she attributed to tiredness, not wishing to attribute it to anything else. Physical decline was not to be contemplated, although it would come, whether she thought of it or not. Back in the flat she felt quite herself again. Nevertheless she looked forward to the time when she could go to bed, as she did more and more these days. They said that the old needed less sleep; what they did not say was that the desire for sleep was incremental.

In bed at last (and it had after all been a long day), it occurred to her that at some time in the future it might be pleasant to renounce her habit of rigorous early rising, to lie back on the pillows and while away a good part of the morning. At the end of this particular road, she knew, lay the ultimate refusal to get up at all, which was why temptation must be
fought at all cost. Yet she was always early for everything, a tiresome habit which irritated those who felt more comfortable with lateness. The amount of time she had at her disposal made it difficult for her to be late for anything, even for her own breakfast. And she suspected that even if she were to waste time she would still find a way to be entirely punctual, to the intense annoyance of those who had never mastered the art. For it was an art, less to do with courtesy than with modesty. Only grander personalities could afford to assume that others would wait.

And in the morning she felt uncertain, no longer obedient to her normal promptings. It had been a bad night, that she recognised. After a day which, though idle, had been filled with disconcerting reflections, she had gone to bed early and had slept almost at once, only to wake intermittently from a sequence of dreams which had flowed past her as if they had been projected on a cinema screen. In one of them Susie Fuller, wearing a rather cumbersome tweed suit, had been glimpsed in the doorway of their former office, and when hailed, in an access of fervent friendship which was uncharacteristic of either of them, had said, ‘I’m just off to South America. Why don’t you go away, Dorothea?’

In the dream Mrs May had experienced confusion: did Susie mean to dismiss her, or was she merely recommending her to take a holiday? Surely the latter, for in another dream, or possibly the same one, there was Henry, in his soft brown hat. ‘I’m going to Kitty’s,’ he said. ‘She’s been through hard times. It’s a pity you can’t come with me. I expect it’s the difference in our backgrounds.’ She had awoken with a sense of horror on hearing those words again, although she knew that she had been dreaming. But she also knew that she had been badly affected by Henry’s original remark, even if she had deliberately
misinterpreted it. Somehow, with the shadow of the dream upon her, she wondered whether this was in fact the case, whether they had both tacitly agreed to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what had in fact been revealing. She had felt foolish at the time, disarmed, unable to defend herself. How did one defend one’s birthright? She had never known, had never had to know. She said nothing, careful even then not to offend Henry by pointing out his tactlessness. In the dream she was convinced that he had committed a fault, that he was in fact guilty of extreme indelicacy. Alarm had woken her; only the return to consciousness persuaded her once again that it no longer mattered.

She had settled down once more with an audible sigh, but now her heart was thumping, somewhat out of its normal rhythm, and her hand reached out for her pills before she remembered their untoward effect. Somehow she slept, but this time it was as if she had taken everyone’s advice: ‘Why don’t you go away?’ She was shaking off her immobility, packing up as if for a long journey, but angrily, unwillingly, and yet as if she were not coming back. Huge piles of clothes had to be got into several suitcases, for before leaving on this holiday she had to move house. And there was no-one to lend a helping hand or to offer words of advice or consolation. If others knew of her plans they were discussing them out of earshot, among themselves. That was why she was so angry.

The application of this dream to her actual situation was so easy to understand that she wondered why she had not made it earlier. But she had, she reasoned: she had made it philosophically, tolerantly, with as much amusement as she could muster. And all the time she must have felt angry, betrayed. This was unwelcome news. And there was nothing to be done about it. She might as well get up and prepare her breakfast
and begin the day with her usual fortitude. ‘Be a brave soldier,’ her mother had said to her throughout her childhood, when she voiced a complaint. And, ‘Be a brave soldier,’ she had said at the end, her face white on the pillow, her lips tightening with pain. The implication was clear: there were to be no more complaints. And on the whole she had obeyed her mother’s injunction, had made it a point of honour not to weep, just as she made it a point of honour not to be late. But in truth honour belonged to the past, before the demands of society had imposed a measure of concealment, of blandness. Now she merely smiled politely. This perhaps had been the message of her dreams.

But her anger was also significant, revealing more than her conscious mind would have allowed. To travel back down that particular route would be to engage in fruitless recriminations against the very people who had made her what she was: her friend, her husband, even her mother. Her genuine distaste for this kind of investigation proved salutary: in no time at all she was able to remember them with her customary affection. Awake, it was herself she blamed, for not being more demonstrative, for not voicing her own desires more decisively. But in order to do so she would have had to become a different person, and the very people who loved her, or who professed to love her, would not have appreciated such a show of independence. Perhaps her mother might have understood, but even her mother had thought it best to suppress complaint. It was with a powerful urge to live her life more variously that she finally surfaced. The world and all its blandishments beckoned, while her life, her dull steady life, struck her anew as being of no importance. Her attachments were arrived at all too passively, or were imposed on her, like the tiresome Steve, who was so noticeably absent. She almost admired his indifference
to her hospitality, which was no more than he had perhaps come to expect. To take what others provided, without expressing gratitude, suddenly seemed to her the height of enlightened behaviour.

These speculations conferred a chill. She was cold, physically cold, and it seemed to her that the weather, or what she could see of it on this overcast morning, was distinctly unseasonable, no weather for a wedding, although Kitty and Austin would manage to create an atmosphere of light and heat. It was their great gift, this natural extravagance. That was why they should be appreciated, should not be criticised for their habitual lack of understanding. One should simply avail oneself of their bounty, which was what they desired and expected one to do. And if one could not repay them in kind, so much the better: it was right that one should be in their debt. This was what they were for. No doubt it mattered more in life to be effective than to be polite, obedient, peaceable, all those admirable negative qualities that somehow did not secure affection. She tried to recapture her recent moment of sympathy with those who broke the rules, but on this damp morning sympathy was lacking. On the contrary, she felt wearied by the depredations of others, feared their intrusion, flinched from bolder temperaments by instinct. Somehow she had condemned herself to a life of self-effacement—or maybe others had done that? The Henry of her dream came back to her but she dismissed him, as she had never done in life. She marvelled at the slyness of the sleeping mind: all she had never dared to feel formulated, as it were, during her absence.

She was aware of various presences, all of them phantasmal. But in the kitchen, very much in the flesh, sat Steve, drinking coffee and reading her discarded
Sunday Times
. ‘I thought I
heard something,’ she said, conscious of her unadorned presence. ‘When did you come in?’

‘You must have been asleep. I didn’t leave Cheltenham till after ten, got here about two. Want some coffee? We’re out of marmalade, by the way.’

‘I’ll get some later. Yes, we ought to think about food. I’m not cooking for you today, Steve.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll go over to Molly’s.’

‘To Mrs Goodman’s.’

He put up his hands in a propitiatory gesture. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

‘But seriously, Steve, you ought to have some plans of your own.’

‘Why? Do I
encroach?
’ The tone was camp, inviting her to some craven complicity, and at the same time warning her off.

‘Yes, you do rather,’ she said calmly, aware of how unseemly an advocate she must be, in her old dressing gown. ‘If you’re to go off on holiday with Ann and David perhaps it would be best if you took some of your things over to Molly’s, to Mrs Goodman’s, today.’

‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’

‘I hope I don’t sound unreasonable.’

‘You? Unreasonable?’ He looked waggishly shocked. ‘My dear Dorothea, you are reason itself.’

He is impertinent, she thought, vaguely frightened. She moved to the stove to pour herself some coffee, aware of him, not moving, behind her.

‘And how were your parents?’ she asked, sitting down at the table as if this were an ordinary morning.

‘Bizarre, as usual.’

‘But very pleased to see you, I’m sure.’

‘Possibly.’

‘How did you spend the day?’

‘Crashed out. Did the family lunch bit. My sister and her husband came over for tea, by which time I’d had enough.’

‘Yet you didn’t leave until ten.’

‘They had to give me the benefit of their advice, didn’t they? That took a couple of hours.’

‘They must be worried about you.’

‘I don’t see why. I’m not worried about them.’

‘But they haven’t seen you for quite some time …’

‘I rang them once or twice from David’s place. They just don’t accept that we’ve nothing in common. I feel more at home when I’m away from them. That’s what they don’t understand.’

‘And do you? Understand, that is?’

‘Look, Dorothea, I just want to get on with my life.’

‘Of course you do. I suppose all I’m trying to say is that it gets harder as you go on. That’s why it’s not wise to get rid of too many people. You seem to rely on David and Ann rather a lot, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t want to criticise your friendship, Steve. I just want to warn you that friendship does not automatically mean love and support. Friends do not always have your welfare at heart. That’s what your family is there for.’

‘Or not, in my case.’

But she was no longer interested in him, being transported back in time to the old house, to her quiet parents and their total acceptance of her. It was the last occasion on which she was conscious of security, the real thing, not the poor substitute she cultivated in these straitened times. She wondered if she were unnatural in thinking so much of her parents and so little of her husband, until she reflected that she was old, that
she was allowed to think as she pleased, that perhaps all women thought in these terms towards the end of their lives, that perhaps time itself was circular, returning her to the beginning. Perhaps it had not even been as idyllic as she remembered it: she had felt symbiosis rather than extravagant love. They had not been a demonstrative family, and she had had few conversations of any depth with her father. He had died first, in the street, of a massive heart attack, while her mother, at home, waiting to pour his tea, wondered what was keeping him. In some ways it was an acceptable death, causing no embarrassment, unlike her poor mother’s face on the hospital pillow. A brave woman, following her own advice. Henry had not been brave, though suffering from the same illness. Why should he be? His was not a reticent nature. Even at the very end his expression had been one of bafflement, as if some injustice had been done, as if he should have been spared this final indignity, as if, for a man with his natural flair, this death was altogether too plebeian.

There was one more death to come, her own. That should be instructive, she thought wryly. But there will be no witnesses, no attendants. Maybe that was the message of that last dream, the packing up. Those dreams were not about other people. Those dreams were about herself, and they were terminal.

‘I’m off, then,’ said Steve, offended by her sudden indifference.

‘What? Of course, you’re going to see David.’

‘I’ll probably eat there,’ he warned her, offering her a chance to make amends.

‘Yes, I think that would be best. Tell Molly—’

‘Mrs Goodman.’

‘Tell her I’ll ring her later. I imagine there are things we
ought to discuss, about the wedding, and so on. You’ll all be going to Paris later that same day, I take it?’

‘I’m leaving that side of things to David.’

‘Remember what I said about friendship, Steve. David will have a wife to look after.’

‘I get on all right with Ann.’

‘You must do. You’ve known her how long?’

‘About a year.’

‘Well, I should just think of the whole thing as a holiday, an extravaganza, if you like.’

‘We’ll work something out.’

She had annoyed him, she knew. But then she was unlikely to do anything else in her present guise, old, unkempt, unlovely. Her fantasy of being driven round Richmond Park now appeared to her as no more than that: a fantasy, and an unambitious fantasy at that. Just as well it had remained one, she thought. At some point there might have been some show of antagonism, the same antagonism as was palpable across the kitchen table. She got up abruptly, scraping her chair back. Moral discomfort invariably made her physically clumsy. Presumably his parents had given him some money. Nevertheless she asked, ‘Was there anything else you wanted? Besides the marmalade, I mean?’