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month. Damn them, how dare they? I opened the window and leaning out thumbed my nose at the traffic below.

3
    I called up Dody next day as soon as I awoke.
    “Honey, thank goodness,” she exclaimed when she heard who it was. “Such dramas at your hotel. They refuse to believe you’re staying there. I’ve been on to them all—desk clerk, hall porter, manager and back again each swearing you’re no such person. You’re not incognito by any chance?”
    I wonder now why I didn’t tell her I was. Of course it would have taken too long to explain. And I didn’t know her well enough. And I wasn’t clear myself why I was doing it. I suppose that’s enough reasons. Anyway I said that I hardly ever got messages (too true) and that there was doubtless some conspiracy at the switchboard.
    “Oh dear, English hotels,” she moaned, “I feel I should be apologizing for their inefficiency. Scotty would be I’m sure—but never mind about that. Listen, what are you doing this very minute? Could you come over as soon as possible. I’ve got to see you. I’ve something rather important to ask you.”
    I got a cab to her address in Mayfair. There were four bottles of milk standing outside her door when I rang Dody’s bell. And her husband had been gone less than two days. Dody was still in her dressing gown. She had lost her husband only two days ago and already she was a lost soul. She led me first into her bedroom and then apologized for the mistake and took me into the dining-room for no reason and finally into the living-room where it occurred to me watching her wandering aimlessly about picking up things and putting them down elsewhere that retracing her exact footsteps on paper would yield the blueprint of a rather interesting tango. She looked for cigarettes and all the boxes were empty. She stared at the goldfish bowl uncertainly. “I can never remember whether I’ve fed him or not,” she said suddenly. “I kept on feeding them and they kept on dying all the time. All but one. So I don’t know if he killed the rest or if I was over-feeding them or starving them or what. You’re supposed to give them a pinch of food every day. But how big is a pinch anyway? I don’t know, I—” It was an awful sight, someone so bang in the middle of suffering she didn’t even know it. “Oh goodness,” she sighed, “I haven’t even offered you anything to drink.”
    “There’s some milk outside,” I said.
    “Oh is there? Let’s see.” We went to the front door and picked up the bottles. “So that’s where it’s been,” she said. “No wonder there wasn’t any in the fridge.”
    The ice-box was empty except for five eggs, two tins of sardines (one opened), half a packet of butter and a withered head of lettuce. We put in the milk and Dody looked thoughtfully at its contents. “What with one thing and another we didn’t eat in at all during the last fortnight and I suppose I haven’t been eating much since. I always try to get some milk down though.” She poured out two glasses with shaking hands and we sat down at the kitchen table and drank them in silence.
    “It’s about this flat,” she finally said. “Don’t look at it now, it’s a mess.” She flew to a corner and picked up a pair of her shoes which had been left there and then she didn’t know what to do with them. She sank back into her chair and still clutching them blurted out the whole story. She was going to get a divorce. She was consulting lawyers. It was clear that he’d gone off with this other woman, this Indian woman. But there mustn’t be the slightest chance of a counter-suit said the lawyers. For instance, unless another girl came to stay with her it would be quite inadvisable for her to entertain men alone in her flat, and so she must get herself a flat-mate. And she didn’t know who to ask. She had the feeling all the girls who’d been their friends had also been his mistresses. She supposed she was being foolish, but there it