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fire. Then to the kitchen to put the kettle on, and next to the drinks table in the drawing-room to pour herself a small measure of malt. She drank it down in one swallow. The bite of it in her mouth felt good, warmed her at once, and she shrugged off the chill she had felt in the last few miles of her drive from the city in the open car. Yes, these autumn days demanded warmer clothes riding in an open car. Winter was not far off.
    Amy was still feeling exhilarated by her afternoon in London. It seemed a little fanciful but she simply couldnot shake off the presentiment that something had changed for her during their afternoon together. She could almost have said for them. How? When? Why? All unanswerable questions but she had some good guesses. Was it seeing the Rothko again? Being dazzled by the power of its greatness? Peter Smith? Had seeing him triggered something in her? Or had it been a reminder of being young and discovering sex and the endless pleasure it can be with someone who loves and adores you? Someone who is guileless and good, simple and sweet, yet wild and passionate as Peter had once been.
    Yes, maybe it had to do with seeing him again because after that unexpected encounter, and visiting the Rothko, for a moment there with Charles, in his suite, when he had caressed her breasts, she was aroused as she had not been for a very long time. And it was still with her, that desire for all things sexual with a man, something she’d thought over for her for ever.
    Could it be that it had never been over for her? That this celibate life she had been living these last few years was nothing more than a hiatus because there had not been the right man to give herself to? That she had wanted more than great sex with Charles, or any of the other would-be lovers she had hovering round her, and was stubbornly waiting for it to come along? She wanted sex with a man she could love with great passion, a full heart, as she had very nearly done once with Peter Smith – until she dumped him, coldly, ruthlessly, when she fell in love with Jarret.
    What tricks the subconscious can play on one! Todream of Jarret and have Peter appear. Peter, Rothko, Jarret … they represented the past, a time in her life that was high, bright and beautiful, and yet a time that ended for her in the depths of darkness and despair. Aloneness such as she had never known. She could hardly bear to remember those times nor how she had lived through them. She had been healed by time and success, real love from several good men. Now it was as if that time had happened to someone else.
    She felt enormously pleased that she had left the note for Peter. Whether he called or not, she knew it had been the right thing to do. Amy thought of him and his family, the thrill of having a daughter making her debut at Covent Garden, no matter how small the role. She was happy for him. And Charles? Inescapably he came to mind too – having sex with the beautiful young girl she had seen in the lift. How inevitable that he should have women like her, how lucky the girl was to have such a lover. And how right Amy was to have arranged things so that she might never suffer the humiliation of being set aside for a younger woman.
    It was difficult for even Amy to understand why it was so important to her to find a great and romantic passion. To be able to live to the fullest in it one more time – or else to give up sex altogether because she would settle for nothing less. Obviously it was rather more than important, something deep-seated, since celibacy had been so easy to sustain. In some ways it had been a relief to have taken a sabbatical from the erotic, living for pure pleasure and nothing else. At her age she needed morethan that. Or, as the case had been, less. Was that age or just maturity?
    She didn’t have the answer but she did have the good grace to laugh at herself. Age or maturity indeed! No amount of soul searching, the past edging in on her or an unwanted