‘There you are.’

‘What do you mean – there you are?’

‘Has he got any children?’

‘A son. In the Guards.’

‘Forgot to tell you. I saw Dad the other day. He didn’t seem at all well.’

‘Oh? What’s the matter? Did he tell you?’

‘I was on the top of a bus in Oxford Street.’

‘Was Sally – ’ Antonia bit her lip. It still hurt, each time she recalled that her husband had left her for a young woman of Bethany’s age. What was it now? Nearly two years ago.

‘No, she wasn’t with him. He was walking by himself. He looked pale and haggard – older. I tried to phone later but no one answered.’

‘I wonder if – ’ Antonia began. If Sally’s left him, she was going to say but didn’t. Well, she’d always maintained that this kind of thing wouldn’t last. Richard, after all, was old enough to be Sally’s father. She felt a thrill at the thought that she’d been proved right, and she didn’t like it. She told herself it wouldn’t do to gloat – that giving way to schadenfreude was beneath her.

‘Do they allow women in the club?’ Bethany asked.

‘They didn’t use to, but now they do. Wives and sisters and, I suspect, mistresses. One can’t always tell which is which.’

‘Don’t mistresses have a certain… air?’ David said.

‘I don’t know. I may be entirely wrong, but I think they tend to laugh a lot. Exhilaration, exultation – or nerves. I don’t know. There are widows of club members too. One of them, Mrs Vollard, relic of Admiral Vollard RN, was rumoured to have started a secret brothel on the premises. It’s an apocryphal story. Part of the club mythology.’

‘Hookers or rent boys?’ Bethany said.

They all laughed.

Afterwards Antonia was to remember what a happy occasion it had been up till that moment. Emma had stomped around the place, keeping up her prattle of separate words, kissing her grandmother with exaggerated affection and allowing, nay demanding, to be kissed in return, being charming to Antonia’s two cats and generally lovable. Then, suddenly, and without the slightest provocation, it turned to tempestuous tears, shrieks, ugly anger and violence. Reaching out, she swept two teacups off the table, causing them to smash. She then kicked the pieces.