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    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Because,’ Archie said, ‘I don’t want Mrs de Breton to come to lunch.’
    â€˜Archie ,’ Liza said.
    â€˜Why not?’ Mikey said.
    â€˜Because.’
    â€˜How can you be so stupid in front of the children?’
    â€˜Easily,’ Archie said, and went off to the bathroom.
    When Sir Andrew’s city-clean Rover stopped in the drive, it was the children and the spaniel who ran out to greet him. He opened the driver’s door and Mikey and Imogen scrambled up to kiss him while the spaniel bounced barking on the gravel.
    Marina de Breton, who had scarcely seen the English countryside before and who was charmed by the rolling slopes of the Hampshire hills, said, ‘Well, Andrew, this is a welcome and no mistake.’
    Mikey looked at her. She seemed to him very golden. From his perch on the doorsill of the car, he surveyed her gravely across his grandfather.
    â€˜Marina,’ Sir Andrew said. ‘This is Imogen. And this is Mikey. And you two, this is Mrs de Breton.’
    â€˜Yeth,’ said Imogen.
    â€˜Hello,’ Marina said, smiling. ‘I am very pleased to meet you.’
    She had an American voice, like television. When she said ‘very’, she sounded just like television. Mikey gaped. Even her clothes were golden.
    â€˜Could you please let us out? Mikey, go round and open Mrs de Breton’s door. Come on, Imogen. Hop off.’
    Mikey trotted round the Rover bonnet and opened the passenger door. Marina de Breton rose out of the car like a swan.
    â€˜Thank you,’ she said.
    Her soft suede sleeve lightly brushed Mikey’s face. He wished he had not written ‘For Grandpa’ on the kestrel picture, so that he might have given it to Mrs de Breton. To his amazement, she took his hand. At six, he hated to have his hand held, but now he led Marina de Breton towards the house.
    â€˜Mummy,’ he said, feeling a sudden and uncharacteristic obligation to be hostly, ‘has put wild rice inside the lamb.’
    â€˜My,’ said Marina de Breton, ‘ wild rice. That’s Indian rice. Indians harvest that rice in boats. It’s very rare.’
    â€˜Red Indians?’
    â€˜Of course,’ Marina said. ‘What other Indians would they be that poled their boats along the lakeshore looking for wild rice?’
    What, indeed. Leading her carefully up the steps to the front door, Mikey fell deep into first love. In the hall, his parents were waiting.
    â€˜This,’ Mikey said, ‘is my mother and my father.’
    Marina held out her free hand.
    â€˜Who I am charmed to meet.’
    Liza took Marina’s hand in both hers in a futile attempt to convey that, if it hadn’t been for Archie, she too would have rushed out eagerly to greet her. Archie, amiable, equable, affectionate Archie, had abruptly thrown a fit of childish perversity and refused to leave the house when the Rover slid up the lane. And Liza, rather than risk a row at the moment of Sir Andrew’s arrival which would then poison the air with furious and exaggerated insults, chose, against her better judgement, to stay with Archie. She made this decision on the second of observing, quite suddenly, real misery beneath Archie’s defiance. He had glanced at her only for a moment, but that glance was full of unhappiness.
    So she said, ‘Truly, I don’t know what you are afraid of,’ and then she had stayed beside him in the hall for some minutes, and they neither of them spoke, and Liza felt very foolish. So, to make up for all this complexity, she greeted Marina de Breton with warmth.
    Archie took her hand with unexceptionable courtesy, and then, as was his wont, put his arm round his father’s shoulders and kissed him. Liza had never got used to this. She despised the terrified physical inhibition of her own family, yet was startled every time to see those scorned barriers broken down. And to kiss Sir Andrew, so