1961

'You're sure she doesn't know,' said Georgie.

'Antonia? About us? Certain.'

Georgie was silent for a moment and then said, 'Good.' That curt 'Good' was characteristic of her, typical of a toughness which had, to my mind, more to do with honesty than with ruthlessness. I liked the dry way in which she accepted our relationship. Only with a person so eminently sensible could I have deceived my wife.

We lay half embraced in front of Georgie's gas fire. She reclined against my shoulder while I examined a tress of her dark hair, surprised again to find in it so many threads of a pure reddish gold. Her hair was as straight as a horse's tail, almost as coarse, and very long. Georgie's room was obscure now except for the light of the fire and a trio of red candles burning upon the mantelpiece. The candles, together with a few scraggy bits of holly dotted about at random, were as near as Georgie, whose 'effects' were always a little ramshackle, could get to Christmas decorations, yet the room had a glitter all the same as of some half descried treasure cavern. In front of the candles, as at an altar, stood one of my presents to her, a pair of Chinese incense holders in the form of little bronze warriors, who held aloft as spears the glowing sticks of incense. Their grey fumes drifted hazily to and fro until sent by the warmth of the candle flames to circle suddenly dervish-like upward to the darkness above. The room was heavy with a stifling smell of Kashmir poppy and sandalwood. Bright wrapping-paper from our exchange of presents lay all about, and pushed into a corner was the table which still bore the remains of our meal and the empty bottle of Chateau Sancy de Parabere 1955. I had been with Georgie since lunchtime. Outside the window and curtained away was the end of the cold raw misty London afternoon now turned to an evening which still contained in a kind of faintly luminous haze what had never, even at midday, really been daylight.