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of middle or late-middle age; some of them were undisguisedly and indisputably ancient. But all were wealthy, since that was the sine qua non of the business. How else could the management afford the princessly salaries of its four assorted hostesses? For (as the woman so often reminded herself) it was a big salary – far better than her former wages as a popular stripper in the Soho clubs, commuting with her bulky case of costumes from one cramped dais to another.
    It had been 10.35 a.m. when the man had come in. He’d wanted a sauna, he said; he wanted nothing else. That’s what they all said; but soon the moisture and the heat and the inhibitions slowly dissipating in a world of steam and relaxation would almost always lead to something else. And this man? He had assessed the four of them with an almost embarrassing thoroughness- their figures, their complexions, their eyes – and he had chosen her, thereafter being escorted to the steam-room, and thence to one of the private massage parlours (£20 extra) in which the expertly fingered and minimally clad girls would exercise their skills.
    He was sweating profusely under the belted white towelling that reached down to mid-thigh. She, for her part, cool and elegant, was dressed in the regulation white-cotton housecoat, with only the thinly transparent bra and pants beneath.
    ‘Would you like to lie down on the couch, sir? On your back, please.’
    He had said nothing at that stage, obeying her suggestions mechanically and closing his eyes as she stood behind him, her fingers gently massaging the muscles round his neck.
    ‘Nice?’
    ‘Lovely!’
    ‘Just relax!’ She insinuated her hands beneath the towelling and massaged his shoulders with the tips of her strong and beautifully manicured fingers, working down from the neck towards the armpits-repeatedly, gently, sensually. And then, as she’d done a thousand tunes before, she walked round the couch and stood at his side, leaning over him, the top two buttons of her tunic already unfastened.
    ‘Would you like me to undress while I massage you?’ Wonderful question! And almost invariably an offer that couldn’t be refused, even when the price of such an optional extra was clearly stated in advance.
    It was a surprise to the woman, therefore, when her apparently pliable and co-operative client had slowly sat up, swung his legs off the couch, leaned forward to fasten the buttons of her tunic, pulled the white towelling back over his shoulders, and said ‘No’.
    But there followed an even bigger surprise.
    ‘Look! I think I know you, and I certainly knew your father. Is it safe to talk here?’
    Her father! Yes, she could still remember him. Those interminable rows she had heard so often from her lonely bedroom when the amiable drunkard had finally reached home from the local-rows apparently forgotten by the following dawns, when the household moved about its normal business. Then, in 1939, he had been called up in the army, when she had been only eight years old; and his death, three years later, had seemed to her little more than the indefinite prolongation of an already lengthy period of absence from her life. There had been many reminders of him, of course: photographs, letters, clothes, shoes. But, truth to tell, the death of her father had been an event that was less than tragic and only dimly comprehended. But it had been otherwise for her mother, who had wept so often through those first few weeks and months. And it was largely to try to compensate for such an uneven burden of things that the young girl had tried so very hard with her schoolwork, helped so regularly with the housework, and even (later on) kept in check those symptoms of teenage rebelliousness that had threatened to swamp all sense of filial piety. As the years went by, she had gradually taken over everything from an increasingly neurotic and feckless mother, who had sunk into premature senility by her early fifties, arid into her grave