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           ‘It’s
a bit late to go looking for people of your own kind,’ I said. ‘Even if you’d recognize them when you came across them. Couldn’t you just put up with being comfortable?’ She said I always had been a
wet blanket and I apologized, though I had never been accused of such a thing
before. There was no shortage of money. Exon, who had died of a stroke, she
told me, the day after handing in a naval history of Providence to his publishers, had left her well
provided for. He had died very well insured, as people who live anywhere near Hartford tend to be. She could go anywhere, do
anything. It seemed to me that she had stayed where she was, four months
widowhood for every year of wifehood - a very high interest rate of
thirty-three per cent as if paying back with her own boredom, day by day, the
debt she owed sweet, tedious Exon. Now, recovering from whatever it was had to
be recovered from, she was preparing for her next dash into the unknown: only
at eighty-five, or -three, or however old she really was (she was always vague,
but had now reached the point where vanity requires more years, not fewer) the
dash must be cautious: the solid brick wall of expected death standing
somewhere in the mist, not so far away. She was sensible enough to know it, and
wanted my approval, as if paying off another debt, this one owed to the future.
I was touched. It was almost enough to make me want children, descendants of my
own, but not quite.
     

5
                 By
the afternoon Miss Felicity’s plunge into a new life had taken on a certain
urgency: Vanessa, one of the part-time real estate wives, called on her mobile
phone to say that she had a client she was sure would just adore the house, and
who was prepared to take it, furniture and all, and had $900,000 to spend but
would want to move in within the month. Miss Felicity, faced with the reality
of a situation she had brought upon herself, and too proud to draw back, and
moved by my advice (I had woken in the night with a mean and manic fear that
now we were getting on so well she would change her mind and want to come and
live in London, to be near me) had calmed down and decided she would like to
stay in the neighbourhood, and, what was more, had settled in to the idea of
‘congregate living’. She would start looking this very day.
                 Joy,
summoned for coffee, and today dressed in yellow velour and with a pink ribbon
in her hair, was alarmed at so much haste. Felicity might make more from her
house if she hung on, she shrieked. Joy’s brother-in-law might want to move
back into the neighbourhood, and maybe would be interested in the property:
these major life decisions should not be taken in a hurry. But Felicity,
meantime, unheeding, was unwinding the bandage round her ankle.
                 ‘What
are you doing?’ demanded Joy.
                 ‘Rendering
myself fit for congregate living,’ said Felicity. ‘I don’t want to give the
impression that I need to be assisted. Let’s see what there is around Mystic.’
                ‘Mystic!’ screamed Joy, teeth bared.
Every one of them a dream of the dentist’s art, but you can never do anything
about the gums. ‘You can’t possibly want to be anywhere near Mystic . Too many tourists.’
                 ‘I’ve
always just loved the name,’ said Felicity. Joy raised her plucked eyebrows to
heaven. What few hairs she allowed to remain, the better to reinforce the
pencilled line, were white and spiky and
tough.           .
                 ‘I
thought the whole point,’ yelled Joy, ‘was that you
wanted assistance. Assisted care. Someone
to help you take a shower in the mornings.’
                 ‘That
is definitely going too far,’ said Felicity and left the room, giving a little
flirtatious kick backward with one of her heels, while Joy forgot to smile and
ground her white teeth.