‘It’s been so misty and damp lately. The whole house felt clammy. I got Evans to light it before he went.’

‘The precious precious coke?’ said Patrick mockingly.

‘As you say, the precious coke. But otherwise there would have been the even more precious coal. You know the Fuel Office won’t even let us have the little bit that’s due to us each week-not unless we can say definitely that we haven’t got any other means of cooking.’

‘I suppose there was once heaps of coke and coal for everybody?’ said Julia with the interest of one hearing about an unknown country.

‘Yes, and cheap, too.’

‘And anyone could go and buy as much as they wanted, without filling in anything, and there wasn’t any shortage? There was lots of it there?’

‘All kinds and qualities-andnot all stones and slates like what we get nowadays.’

‘It must have been a wonderful world,’ said Julia, with awe in her voice.

Miss Blacklock smiled. ‘Looking back on it,I certainly think so. But then I’m an old woman. It’s natural for me to prefer my own times. But you young things oughtn’t to think so.’

‘I needn’t have had a job then,’ said Julia. ‘I could just have stayed at home and done the flowers, and written notes…Why did one write notes and who were they to?’

‘All the people that you now ring up on the telephone,’ said Miss Blacklock with a twinkle. ‘I don’t believe you even knowhow to write, Julia.’

‘Not in the style of that delicious “Complete Letter Writer” I found the other day. Heavenly! It told you the correct way of refusing a proposal of marriage from a widower.’

‘I doubt if you would have enjoyed staying at home as much as you think,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘There were duties, you know.’ Her voice was dry. ‘However, I don’t really know much about it. Bunny and I,’ she smiled affectionately at Dora Bunner, ‘went into the labour market early.’

‘Oh, we did, we didindeed,’ agreed Miss Bunner. ‘Those naughty, naughty children. I’ll never forget them. Of course, Letty was clever. She was a business woman, secretary to a big financier.’