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Jefferson from Great Ormond Street at five, were already there, drinks for all already bought. In October it wasn’t warm enough to sit outside, so they crowded round the biggest table in the saloon bar and June read the minutes of the last meeting, adding that this was an extraordinary general meeting called because of the full agenda.
    They had barely begun on the business when Thea broke in to say she had seen Rad Sothern in Hexam Place earlier in the week. Very late at night, as it happened. ‘I wondered who he’d been calling on.’ Thea managed to pack a great deal of suggestive innuendo into this speculation. Sometimes she was bitchy to counteract her goody-two-shoes behaviour.
    ‘The Princess and me, as a matter of fact,’ said June.
    ‘You?’ It seemed almost too much for Thea to believe. ‘How on earth did you meet him?’
    ‘Meeting him wasn’t necessary.’ June could be icy when she chose. ‘He’s my great-nephew.’
    ‘That’s funny,’ said Montserrat. ‘If anyone had asked me I’d have said he’d be a relation of the Princess.’
    June raised her eyebrows. ‘HSH hasn’t got any relations, she’s all alone in the world but for me. And no one did ask you that I heard.’
    ‘There’s no need to be nasty.’
    ‘Sometimes there’s every need. And may I remind you all that this is supposed to be an extraordinary general meeting of the Saint Zita Society and the main item on the agenda is increasing street noise made by members.’
    ‘And I’ve got some Any Other Business,’ said Henry.
    Dex turned up at the meeting, or, rather, he walked into the Dugong while the meeting was going on and sat down at the big table where the others were already sitting. He bought himself a Guinness and, having nothing to say as usual, listened to the discussion while observing everyone. One of the women had red hair. She was one of those people whose eyes he could see, and see too that they were a bright blue. Otherwise her face was the usual blank, not very different from the rest of the faces. Another one was talking on a mobile. Maybe they had gods living in theirs too or just fruits, orange and blackberry and apple, Dex had heard. The others were talking about shouts in the street and shrieks of laughter and loud talking late at night. Dex always took advantage of any free food that might be about and now he dipped his fingers into the bowl of various-coloured crisps and fetched out a handful. He had noticed the woman called June looking at him and now she said, ‘Your hand is very dirty. Now you’ve touched those crisps no one else will want to eat them.’
    Dex didn’t mind if no one else ate them, there would be all the more for him. He made an effort to answer. ‘I like them,’ he said. ‘I’ll eat them.’
    ‘Well, really,’ said June. She raised the matter of a theatre visit but no one seemed interested.
    Henry’s other business concerned residents of neighbouring streets parking their cars in Hexam Place so that sometimes there was no room for Lord Studley’s car. ‘His Lordship has to walk round the corner to find me.’
    ‘Won’t hurt him,’ said June, in radical mode.
    Jimmy, whose kind employer would have walked half a mile to get into his car without complaining, said he couldn’t see any way this occupying of the Hexam Place parking spaces could be stopped. It was perfectly legal. Dex drained his Guinness glass and moved away to a small table to be by himself. He pressed some keys at random as he always did but starting with the London code of 020. Some notes of music came out and a woman’s voice saying the number had not been recognised. Dex knew this meant his god was busy and couldn’t speak to him now. That was all right, it often happened. He would try again later. He picked up the crisps bowl in his dirty left hand and poured its contents into his even dirtier right hand with a sigh of satisfaction.
    Thea, red-headed, blue-eyed, wearing a red-and-blue-patterned dress