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show for it?’ ‘That’s just the point, you see,
Mummy.’ But Clara wouldn’t go as far as that. She gave Arabella a good deal of money, and when Arabella had spent it, and needed some more, she usually just provided it. Only sometimes,
she had a frenzy of going through Arabella’s bank statements or travellers’ cheques and complaining that she couldn’t understand how Arabella got through it so fast with so few
visible results, but this was usually only when she was tired of whoever she was living with – was venting some general discontentment about life upon her daughter.
    Well, she needn’t spend much in the country. She’d simply live on yoghourt, and take health-giving walks and help about the house or be nice to the servants whichever was applicable
and try to find out what the – what was their name? – Cornhills – were interested in and talk about it. She would play with their children and get them all to love her. She had
decided not to arrive until the evening to give herself more time to feel better, and although there seemed to be no signs of that, she always kept such promises made to herself. She’d
taken all her luggage to Paddington before going to that doctor, who even now was probably eating a hearty lunch in his rubber gloves to save time. It was only half past one. She decided to try and
find something to eat, and then to sit somewhere dark and cool like the Aquarium, or Reptile House, or that place where all the nocturnal animals had had their time shifted round for them, to get
through the next few hours. Self-pity was absolutely disgusting: it had no saving grace at all. Holding this firmly in mind (it was the only firm thing about her), she walked tremblingly to
the cafeteria.
    ‘It’s the weather, you see; there’s been a run on them. Everybody’s been wanting salmon trout – can’t get enough of them.’
    ‘Have you any salmon, then?’
    The Carpenter turned to the back of the shop, where the Walrus was scaling sole under a running tap. ‘Any salmon left, John?’
    The Walrus shook his shaggy head. ‘Might be a bit of frozen Canadian.’
    ‘Have some nice sole, madam. Lovely, they are.’ He picked one up and slapped it invitingly on the marble slab.
    Anne picked out two soles and bought a pint of prawns to dress them. Edmund was very fond of sole normande. That would have to do.
    ‘Tell him not to drive at such breakneck speed, Vani!’
    After he had picked up the speaking-tube and done so, the Prince said, with what was becoming his customary, faded malice, ‘I have again and again said to you, my darling, that to choose
chauffeurs for their appearance is a grave error.’
    ‘Don’t be so silly. Heythrop-Jones is utterly gay. Just what one needs. Concentrate on the game.’
    The game was Scrabble, but as, from his point of view, he was playing it in yet another of his foreign languages, and Clara played her transistor rather loudly at the same time, the journey used
up far too much of what remained of his energy. The Prince sighed, and wondered whether Heythrop-Jones would kill them on one of these travellings.
    Heythrop-Jones, who had slowed from eighty to seventy kilometres an hour, looked at the massive, waterproof watch given him by an ageing ski instructor (running to fat, poor Rudi was, and he
dyed his hair), and wondered whether he’d make Paris in time to collect that charming young waiter who worked the afternoon shift before he had found something – not better, but else,
to do. He increased their speed again with imperceptible cunning. No good arriving much after seven. He might as well be driving a hearse.
    Edmund lunched with his Senior Partner – an arrangement he had not the heart to get out of more than seventy per cent of the times he was asked. The old man was afflicted
with a deafness particularly noticeable in restaurants, which meant that Edmund had to shout, which in turn made him sound banal and tedious while everybody else