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history itself, but on the myth and legend of history.
    In the end he had to tell them. Myra wasn’t there to do it. She was packing up in West Hampstead, telling the married man she had had a better offer, thank you very much, and when he had gone, crying herself to sleep.
    Dreading it, loathing the idea of it, working himself up to a pitch of fear and shame, which was the exaggerated state he always got into if he had to exert himself or be candid, Harold falteringly told his daughter that Myra wanted her and Pup to move upstairs. As is generally so in these cases, Dolly took it much better than had been expected. She didn’t scream or cry or attack him but was merely haughty.
    “I wouldn’t want to live in the same place as her anyway. I’d rather go up there. At least we’ll be on our own, we’ll be independent. I don’t want to associate with her more than’s strictly necessary.”
    “Don’t be like that, Dolly,” said Harold feebly.
    “I will be like it. You said you’d never get over Mother, that’s what you said.”
    “We’ll be all right on our own,” said Pup when he got home from work. “It’ll be nice.”
    “Yes, it will. It’ll be lovely, just you and me. We’ll be all right, won’t we, Pup? We’ll be happy, just the two of us.”
    “Of course we will, dear,” said Pup.
    Dolly wasted no time. Next morning she lugged up to the top floor everything she wanted, chairs and tables and mirrors and a cabinet and a desk, table linen and bed linen and china and glass as well as Edith’s sewing machine. Harold scarcely noticed. He never required more than a chair to sit on and a bed to lie on. Myra didn’t care, she was going to get new anyway. Mrs. Brewer had not been accurate when she said Myra had nothing; she had her Unit Trusts and her National Savings, getting on for 1,500 pounds, the way it had mounted up over the years.
    They were married in March. Harold came back from his honeymoon in Newquay to find Pup and Dolly moved upstairs and the house so silent as to give a false idea that it was occupied solely by his wife and himself. Myra made real coffee in the filter pot she had bought in St. Ives and open sandwiches with hard-boiled egg and tuna. Harold would have preferred Wall’s pork pies and tomatoes and a pot of tea but he was not a man who complained. He sat quietly reading the memoirs of Princess Marie-Louise for the third or fourth time.
    Next day father and son met in the shop just before 9:30. Pup was as kindly and polite as ever. He had run the business in his father’s absence and had run it efficiently, even keeping the books for the sales tax. Harold was teaching him how to service and repair typewriters and when he knew enough he said he was going to do outside servicing, visiting homes and offices. No other company in the vicinity was willing to do that and it was just the fillip they needed in this recession.
    They went home together. On the way they called at the library and Pup carried Harold’s books home inside his coat because it had started to rain. Myra ran from the kitchen to kiss Harold in the manner of a brand-new wife. There was a spicy smell of something made with peppers and curry that was as new to the house as Myra was. Not yet back at her job, she had had all day in which to cook and to beautify the place and herself, beginning as soon as Harold had left with a fresh application of henna to her hair.
    During their long affair, the married man had given Myra a lot of fairly good jewelry. She hung it on herself liberally and, when she was dressed up, without restraint. She was wearing the navy blue acrylic blouse and emerald-and-navy-and-white check skirt which formed part of what she called her “trousseau,” and round her neck, half-a-dozen gold chains from which were suspended a gold wishbone, a gold four-leaved clover, a gold and ivory dice and other such toys. She had her best gold watch on and her charm bracelet and her former lover’s ring with