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self-righteous note to creep into her voice. ‘I wrote while I was on honeymoon. Honestly, Mum!’

    â€˜Sorry, darling. Let’s forget about Elizabeth, shall we? Where are we going?’
    â€˜Coolings, I thought. And I want to have a look in Russell and Bromley.’
    Several hours later, back in her flat alone, Lydia sank down on the sofa with a cup of tea and wondered how Gillian had managed to inveigle the rather expensive pair of loafers out of her. From a tiny child her only daughter had been able to wind her round her little finger, wheedle things out of her, and when Angus had left them Lydia had been even more tempted to spoil her in her anxiety to keep the child’s affection. She felt rather guilty when she remembered how she hadn’t hesitated to pour out her resentments and hurts to Gillian, knowing that this had influenced her against her father.
    Lydia made a face. After all, Angus had another family now and didn’t need Gillian as she did. A mother and a daughter could be friends and she and Gillian were so close. Look how she came up to Exeter so often and took her out shopping with her and bought her lunches and cups of coffee! Of course, she did find herself occasionally talked into forking out on little treats – such as the shoes today – and, as Lydia sipped her tea and brooded on her gullibility, a saying she had heard lately slipped into her mind.
    â€˜There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’

Four
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    GUSSIE CAME BACK FROM Nethercombe full of Henry’s plans for his courtyard development. When it came to Gillian, however, Nell was aware of a certain lack of enthusiasm on Gussie’s part that made itself apparent more in her reluctance to speak about her than in anything that she actually said. Nell was not aware how difficult Gussie found the return to her cramped flat and restrictive economies after the space of Nethercombe, nor how painful the decisions to accept or refuse Nell’s uncalculated generosity. Since Jack was away at school and Nell was not at all the sort of person to join clubs or societies, she found herself in none of the situations where acquaintances were struck up or friendships flourished. This didn’t particularly bother her for Nell had an inner life of reading and imagination to sustain her. Nevertheless, she enjoyed Gussie’s company and they had fallen into a habit of meeting most weeks for coffee or tea. Nell discovered early on that Gussie was not a dropper-in. She disliked being taken unawares, too, and Nell respected her feelings. She was like it herself although perhaps not quite to the same extent. They were both private people but Gussie had more to hide. She could no longer afford the small luxuries of life and if Nell had arrived unexpectedly to discover her wrapped in layers of clothing because she couldn’t afford to heat the flat, or to find that there was no biscuit with her coffee or piece of sponge with her tea, Gussie would have been humiliated.
    Nell did her best to protect Gussie’s pride. When she discovered
that Gussie loved Shakespeare she bought tickets for the Old Vic and then told Gussie that John was working and that it was a pity to waste the ticket. There were limits of course and even she had no idea of the sacrifices Gussie made when, in an effort to repay Nell’s kindnesses, she took Nell out to lunch or bought tickets for the ballet or insisted on paying for tea when they went on little trips in Nell’s car. Gussie, shivering by her unlit fire and trying to ignore the pangs of hunger, wondered how long she could continue to afford the luxury of a telephone and planned to sell the last few valuable pieces that she had inherited from her mother.
    Nell, meanwhile, was watching John even more closely than she was observing Gussie. At some point, as 1989 drew on, she sensed that his ebullience was becoming more of a bluster, that he was attempting to convince