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point. Warming herself at the conductor’s smile, the journey was made up Fleet Street, invisible behind cold rain, past Trafalgar Square, where lions loomed in a cold grey steam, and up to Piccadilly Circus, where the conductor sent her on her way with smiles, a wink, and an injunction to look after herself and enjoy her holiday.
    It was with Henry that she had first seen this place, on a clear gold evening, the sky awash with colour. She looked at the haphazard insignificance of it, and the babyish statue, and began to laugh.
    ‘My dear Martha? ’
    ‘This, ’ she tried to explain, ‘is the hub of the Empire.’
    For him a part of London one passed through, he attempted her vision, and smiled his failure: ‘Isn’t that rather more your problem than it is ours? ’
    ‘But, Henry, that’s so much the point, can’t you see? ’ For this exchange seemed to sum up hours of their failure to meet on any sort of understanding; during which nagged the half memory of aprevious failure-what, who, when? Yes, as a child, when her mother had laid down this attitude, this dogmatism, this ‘It’s right, it’s wrong’ and Martha, reacting, had examined, criticized, taken a stand, brought back a stand to the challenger-who had lost interest, was no longer there, had even forgotten.
    ‘Well, it’s quite a jolly little place, isn’t it? ’ he inquired, uncomfortably facing her-but only just.
    ‘Well, I suppose it’s the war again, ’ she said at last, ‘all that myth-making, all that shouting, the words -but you can’t say things like “jolly little place”.’
    ‘You’re a romantic, ’ he said, sour.
    ‘Ah, but you’re having it both ways, always-having it both ways, sliding out …’ She had, for a moment, been unable to conceal a real swell of painful feeling, all kinds of half-buried, half-childish, myth-bred emotions were being dragged to the surface: words having such power! Piccadilly Circus, Eros, Hub, Centre, London, England … each tapped underground rivers where the Lord only knew what fabulous creatures swam! She tried to hide pain, Henry not being a person who knew how to share it.
    She supposed she did hide it, for in a moment he was urging her into a pub, buying her drinks, talking about the war, and radiating relief that nothing was to be asked of him.
    ‘You know, Henry, after one’s been a week here, one simply wants to put one’s arms around you-oh no, not you personally.’
    ‘Oh dear, I was rather hoping …’ said he, laughing with relief that he would have to suffer no such demonstration. He had even involuntarily glanced around to see if there was anyone near that he knew.
    ‘No, the whole island, all of you.’
    ‘Oh but why? Do tell me!’
    ‘If I could, you see, there’d be no need to feel that.’
    The exterior of Baxter’s was in no way more distinguished than that of foe’s . A modest brown door had Baxter’s on it-just the word, nothing more. There was a window completely covered by white muslin that needed washing. Martha stood outside for a moment, holding this delicious moment known only to newcomers in a city: behind this door, which was just like so many others, what will there be ? A southern courtyard with a lemon-tree beside a fountain and a masked Negro lute-player asleep? A man with a red blanket slung across his shoulder, stands by a black mule? Apale girl in sprigged muslin goes upstairs with a candle in her hand? Two old men in embroidered skullcaps play chess beside a fire? Why not? Since what actually does appear is so improbable. Last week she had opened a door by mistake on a staircase in Bayswater and a woman in a tight black waspwaisted corset, pearls lolling between two great naked breasts, stood by a cage made of gold wire the size of a fourposter bed, in which were a dozen or so brilliantly fringed and tinted birds. Martha said: ‘I’m sorry.’ The woman said: ‘If you are looking for Mr. Pelham, he’s in Venice this week.’
    She went in A man