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living in Buenos Aires, might say that she'd got them all down there, but she was wrong. Clancy might say that, according to the local mavourneens, they were all over in Dublin, thank you very much. But she also was wrong. Even Elizabeth, an escapee from west Londinium like herself, but for quite different reasons, now up on some Outer Hebridean isle, could sometimes be a bit short about the male aspects of the community, but since this largely comprised her husband and a few goats, and since her views on the subject directly corollated to the state of their marriage, this was somewhat suspect.
    Puzzled, they reminded themselves that it was still largely the women who brought up the next generation. 'So why ’ they wondered, 'is the next generation of husbands and lovers not appearing to get any easier?'
    Angela, pondering her own experiences back on the market, shrugged and said, 'How can you redirect the next generation when you are still defending the barricades against the first?'
    'It is not a battleground,' said Rosa gently.
    ‘I know,' replied Angela, just as gently. 'And Stalingrad was just a little dust-up between mates
    The Lunatic Swains were definitely, definitely, clutched up in her small bit of west London. Solipsistic this might be, but Angela was sure of it. If the nastiness of the neighbourhood pygmy witch-women was silver-medal standard, the lunacy of the male rampant was gold cup for the championship ... This was the bit that the counsellor left out when exhorting her to get on with her life. What she should have added was: and preferably in a nunnery.
    'Perhaps you are setting your standards too high?' said Elizabeth, who was obviously back on her husband at the time.
    'Ah, yes ’ said Angela, 'you are probably right. I will instantly become a visitor at the Scrubs. Sure to find someone that way ...'
     
    'Angela!'
    'Elizabeth!'
    'Angela, that's not what I meant.' 'Oh, very well then. Hollo way.'

    Mrs Fytton's Swains. How Ian curled his lip as each one went down like a nine-pin. 'I cannot bear to see you getting so hurt,' he said. Trundling back to his bint.
     
    Bear to see? Bear to see? She watched him go, too stricken to object.
    Strange, she thought, how the vocabulary changes emphasis according to situation. Ian's 'cannot bear' was on a direct par with son Andrew's statement, during his summer holidays, that he was 'desperate to get a job'. 'Desperate' was used interestingly here. 'Desperate to get a job' comprised lying in bed until about 11.30 and then stumbling about for a bit before embarking on a fruitless amble around the immediate locale with several of his mates, calling in to shops on the off-chance and no doubt frightening the proprietors rigid with their gangling six-foot clumsiness, their menacing inar-ticulacy and their shuffling gait of the young homeless. 'Give us ten pounds, Mum. There are no jobs to be had anywhere.' 'Anywhere' in this situation was also an interesting variation on received meaning. Anywhere, apparently, could also mean 'this small bit of London in which we live'.
    Just to be fair, and not to imply that the sorority was hanging back in the matter of the changing shape of the English language, daughter Claire's linguistics were also interesting. To pick one at random, 'it's doing my head in' could be said of anything from the introduction to the household of cheaper shampoos to the imposition of a five-minute rule for the telephone - both of which were quite likely, in daughter Claire's head-done-in state, to contrive the failure of all three of her A-levels and a permanent pla ce under a blanket outside Wool worths.
    Now she knew that it was an inherited trait. Husband Ian's 'cannot bear' was in the same class. Meaningless. Though she wanted to believe it, how she wanted to. But subtext. What he actually meant by 'cannot bear' was that it made his life difficult having an upset dumped wife. Apart from making him feel guilty, which detracted from the quality of life