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incorporate themselves into the composite romantic blur of my impressionable aspiration. Thereafter, while Jacob consumes what remains of the afternoon working on his proofs, John Millet reads the Sundays in a deck-chair with his shirt off. I read Dr Seuss books to Sam and Annie, and Rosie borrows my earrings to try on upstairs. Jane plays the
Suite Italienne
with Roger, and Jonathan on his bicycle sets out to take his fishing tackle to the stream. With the heat of the day he has taken off his jeans and is wearing fraying shorts and nasty, algae-ridden tennis shoes. He gets to the gate but then wheels round, hunched over his racing bike which he controls with one hand since he has his fishing rod in the other. He stops in front of me.
    â€˜Want to come fishing?’ he says. He has a bold stare and big legs. He is the kind of schoolboy one avoided sitting next to on the bus home from school. ‘You could use Jane’s bicycle,’ he says.
    â€˜She might need it,’ I say.
    â€˜She can’t use it at the moment,’ he says. To be sure, Jane would have some difficulty squeezing herself in behind the handlebars in her condition. ‘If you’re scared, we can walk,’he says, ‘I don’t mind.’ Silently, I curse Jonathan for plucking out the truth and handing it to me with such offensive frankness. I last rode a bicycle at the age of nine. I fell off and broke my arm the day after my father died. Jonathan and Roger, by contrast, are the kind of people who use bicycles with the accomplishment of Vietnamese peasants, capable of carrying children on crossbars and luggage carriers – and simultaneously bringing home great loads of shopping in back-packs. The kind of people who inspire a belief in the future for intermediate technology.
    â€˜I’d need to find you some shoes you could sludge around in,’ Jonathan says, eyeing my strappy T-bars. I find it difficult to look back and realise that the single most important factor among my reasons for turning down Jonathan’s offer was the prospect of having to put on hand-on wellington boots from the laundry basket.
    â€˜I think I’ll just stay and listen to the music,’ I say. ‘I think catching fish is cruel, actually.’ Jonathan throws me a look of impatient contempt. ‘Spare a tear for the bait,’ he says, as he takes his leave.

Seven
    At six o’clock in the afternoon Jane brings us tea and toast on the grass. Jacob emerges from his work room for this pleasant ritual and Jonathan is back from his fishing. Rosie’s friend, who disappeared at the lunch-hour, has reappeared to continue improvements to the play tent. Roger, who is flushed from the effort of playing his violin, makes a tangram with a slice of toast as he stretches on the grass.
    â€˜Give it to Rosie,’ Jane says. ‘See if she can put it together.’
    â€˜Give it to Katherine, Roggs,’ Jacob says. Roger hands me the plate, lying on his belly in the grass, stretching out an arm. He watches me as I do it. It takes me some time, but I do it. John Millet applauds me. Roger averts his eyes self-consciously as I look back at him. On the bum pocket of his Levi’s he has a brightly coloured embroidered butterfly.
    â€˜We oughtn’t to be letting John know that us Goldmans eat pre-sliced, steam-baked bread,’ Jane says gaily. ‘John is a believer in superior food.’
    â€˜So are you, Jane,’ John says. ‘You cover it under a veil of inverted snobbery.’
    â€˜True enough,’ Jane says contentedly. ‘Each of us to his own necessary snobbery. We ought to make some music, all of us, before the day is out.’
    â€˜You have been doing nothing else all day,’ Jacob says, ‘but making music and cultivating your garden.’
    â€˜Producing food,’ Jane says. ‘Bringing you lunch and tea. What should I be doing, Jake? Taking a course in psychology at the Brighton