MONDAY.

'HELLO, darling.'

'Hello.'

It was Monday evening. I was entering Clifford Larr's flat as usual.

The morning post had brought a letter from the headmaster of the school to which my letter to Mr Osmand had been forwarded, saying that Mr Osmand had left the school some time ago, but my letter had been sent on to his last recorded address.

I made a token appearance at the office. The excitement about my resignation and the accompanying rumours about me and Laura seemed to have died down. The latest wonders were that Edith Witcher was in hospital after falling off a ladder while putting up Christmas decorations, and that the pantomime had been cancelled. Instead, Finance Division were putting on a show of their own which had matured in secret, called Robin Hood in Whitehall. Reggie Farbottom was to make a guest appearance in the role of a comic taxman.

Clifford was in the kitchen stirring some brownish mess.

'What's for din-dins?'

'Veal escalope and braised endive, ice cream and fudge sauce.'

'Oh goodie.'

'The latter is a concession to your childish tastes.'

'How kind of you!'

'How are you, darling?'

'Fine.'

'How is your exciting life?'

'Thrillinger and thrillinger.'

'Tell.'

I watched him stirring for a while until his quizzical cold eyes came to quest into mine. 'Well?'

'Christopher has left my little world,' I said. 'Perhaps he is back in yours?'

'Back? That word implies a misunderstanding.'

'Really?'

'As a matter of fact, I am going to give Christopher some substantial financial help. He is trying to get this pop group going.'

'The Waterbirds?'

'Yes.'

'What selfless generosity.'

'What's the matter with you, darling, are you jealous? I'm not doing it to oblige Christopher and certainly not pour ses beaux yeux. I'm simply investing my money. I like making profits. I just think I shall get a better percentage out of the Waterbirds than out of Turner and Newall. Any objection?'

'No, none.'

'Have I relieved your mind?'

I smiled, watching the brown mixture thickening in the saucepan. I raised my eyes a little to Clifford's very clean striped shirt, unbuttoned, and the glimpse of his furred front where the signet ring hung down upon the chain, slightly moving in the thickish greyish hair as he stirred.

'I wonder who that ring belonged to.'

'You can wonder, dear.'

'I wish you'd invest in me.'

'What's the return, darling?'

'Don't forget you're leaving me the Indian miniatures in your will.'

'Tell me more things, the thrilling ones.'

'Tommy's left me.'

'She's always doing so.'

'She's getting married to a chap at King's Lynn. We've said good-bye forever.'

Clifford stopped stirring. 'Are you sorry?'

'Yes. However it certainly clears the deck.'

'What for? Come, let's sit down and drink some wine. I don't want to eat yet, do you?'

We sat at the table. Clifford poured out some Chateauneuf.

'Have you seen Gunnar again?'

'Yes.'

'It's becoming an addiction.'

'It was for the last time.' Was it?

'A lot of last times seem to be happening in your life. Is this the last time we shall sit together at this table?'

'No.' I stretched my hand across and he gripped it. I resumed my wine.

'What happened with Gunnar? Was it the great reconciliation scene this time?'

'Yes.'

'How touching. Describe it.'

'We talked together quietly like two sensible decent human beings.'

'Reminiscing. It must have been fun.'

'Do stop mocking. You always mock. It was good. He was kind to me. He saw it was partly accident, muddle - '

'Not wickedness.'

'I don't believe wickedness in that sense exists.'

'A convenient belief.'

'Anyway he - '

'Forgave you.'

'We forgave each other. And don't say "how touching".'

'I wasn't going to. I was going to say are you really such a pathetic dolt as to imagine that sentimental gestures of this kind mean anything at all?'

'Yes.'

'Have some more wine.'

'We talked about Anne. I told him she wanted to go back to him on that evening. We talked about dropping the burden, about how her ghost would go away - '

'Ghosts aren't so obliging. He hates you.'

'I don't think so.'

'And her. Have you seen her again?'

'Yes.'

'You've had a busy week. And letters via the servant, several?'

'One, two.'

'How enjoyable. And what did her ladyship want you to do?'

'She wanted me to make her pregnant.'

'What?'

I could not resist the temptation to startle Clifford out of his sardonic calm. Besides I wanted to rehearse the whole extraordinary business in someone's presence, and for these purposes Clifford was my only possible confidant. Arthur would have fainted.

'You're not serious?'

'She and Gunnar are childless. He can't have children only he doesn't know. She wants a child, so does he. I am a rather special agent in their lives - '

'You mean he'd know?'

'No, of course not! It would be a secret. But - because I'm me - because I'm a sort of - '

'Priest? I see the quaintness.'

'I can't think what, a sort of dedicated instrument, a tool - '

'A tool indeed!'

'Someone who owes them so much. It could be conceived of as a sort of reparation.'

'I shall scream. A reparation? Did she use that word?'

'No, but that's how she sees it. It's not so crazy as it looks at first sight, not quite anyway.'

'But Hilary, darling, my friend, my dear, you are not seriously considering presenting Gunnar with a child by this time-honoured method?'

'No,' I said. And I saw that of course I could not, it was impossible.

'I'm glad of that. I like my dear ones to be rational agents. So what will you do instead?'

'I don't know. She also suggested that we should all three be friends.'

'Dine together and play scrabble?'

'Yes. But I don't think that's really possible either.'

'Of course it isn't! So?'

'I think I shall just clear off.'

'There's a further possibility,' said Clifford. 'An old-fashioned secret liaison. Just for the fun of it, not for Gunnar and his progeny. Isn't that what the lady really wants with all this fishing about? She's a whore like the rest of them.'

'I considered this, I mean that that was what she wanted. No, I don't think so. I don't think she's reflected that far.'

'She must be pretty slow then. But will you?'

'Have a secret liaison? Certainly not.'

'So you're having a final parting with Lady Kitty too? When is it to be?'

'Tomorrow at six at Cheyne Walk.' I had now, with Clifford's help, seen it all. There was no other possible solution. As for Kitty's 'second plan', I had simply by telling Clifford of it revealed it as a lunatic fantasy. But now my heart ached terribly, and I knew that not far away, dulled for the moment by the wine, by Clifford's presence, by my own talkativeness, there was the sharpest and most crippling pain.