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any way really, except for some reason I feel that I know her very well.” (I thought: What is it? He makes me tell the truth.) “I told you—we were not even friends. If anything we were opposites. She reminds me of someone or something—I don’t know. I think that I write because I feel a little responsible for her disappearance. I wrote her a letter telling her she was a hypochondriac and she should pull herself together.
    â€œI prayed about it first. God often tells me what to do. Or He did.”
    â€œDo you often advise people who are not your friends?”
    I told him about working at The Hospice.
    â€œYou thought that you could help her in a medical capacity? Are you trained?”
    I hung my head and said that it was mostly washing-up but that I do believe myself sometimes called to fling myself at a pen and sound off to people.
    â€œWell, why are you so ashamed of it?”
    He lay back in his chair. The fire sparked and crackled with a new log. The Courvoisier caught the light as it tipped here and there in his glass. His hair shone silky and young. I thought: this is the man I have looked for all my life.
    â€œYou are obviously an excellent woman,” he said, and I burst into tears.
    â€œI am nothing of the sort. But I try.”
    â€œWhat—try to be an excellent woman?”
    â€œNo. Of course not. You’re cruel. Who could want that? Oh well—yes, I suppose so. I can’t help it. I try to be good. It’s the way I was brought up. I was too early for the self-fulfilment stuff, the ‘love thyself,’ the Germaine Greer feminism—too busy then, keeping Henry going. I know they all say I’m humourless and conceited and I talk too much and I’m self-righteous, but not even Lady Gant can say I don’t try. To be good.”
    â€œ Is there someone called Lady Gant?” He smiled contentedly. “And you try to do good?”
    â€œWell, of course. Why not? I can’t help it. It’s what I was taught.”
    â€œWell, why ever not. Another Courvoisier? Are you averse to getting sloshed? Tell me about Henry.” (A sharp glance at the portrait.) “You said he’d left you.”
    â€œI didn’t. Did I say that? Nobody knows that. He only did it at lunchtime.”
    â€œToday? At Christmas dinner? Well, big things do happen on Christmas Day—there are quite a lot of suicides. Did he do any washing-up?”
    â€œ Henry ? Well, there wasn’t much to wash-up. We none of us ate anything really. I knew something was brewing when he and Charles came in from Church. All of a sudden they just rose up and left. Before the pudding.”
    â€œThat does seem an inhuman act.”
    I sipped the Courvoisier and wanted to weep again; but, as I sat, I began to think, and having thought—the wine and brandy had not befuddled me, Joan, at all—as I thought, I realised that there were many things that might be said on Henry’s behalf.
    â€œThere wasn’t much for him to leave. It wasn’t exactly a convivial Christmas. I never managed a child for him. Neither of us has parents. Scarcely a relation between us and all our friends make their own plans. Charles sat like a dead fish, his wife in Bangladesh and not even a Christmas card from her. I have really nothing to say to Henry now. I haven’t had for years, although I do try always to keep a conversation going. I think that that may have been part of the trouble. I should have been enigmatic and silent. He is a very senior Civil Servant. My tongue tends to run away when we go to parties together and I haven’t been seen about with him for ages. He is exactly the same seniority as Charles and they have become close friends. They are both interested only in their work and their religion.”
    â€œWhat about love?”
    â€œLove?”
    â€œDo you and Henry love each other?”
    â€œLove each other? Well. I don’t—I