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then she had begun to doubt: she
had never achieved intimacy enough with the wives of her
husband’s colleagues to ask if they too experienced this forbidden
place in their men, the area marked VERBOTEN , No Entrance–but she did observe, she noticed a good deal. No, she thought,
if you are going to take a child from its mother so young . . . She
lost the fight, and lost her son; who thereafter was polite, affable,
if often impatient.
    As far as she could see he did well in his first school, but Eton
did not go well. His reports were not good. ‘He does not make
friends easily.’ ‘A bit of a loner.’
    She asked him one holidays, manoeuvring him into a position
where he could not escape easily, for he did evade direct questions
and situations, ‘Tell me, Jolyon, has my being German made
problems for you?’
    His eyes seemed to flicker, wanted to evade, but he faced her
with his wide polite smile, and said, ‘No, mother, why should
it?’
    â€˜I wondered, that’s all.’
    She asked Philip if he would ‘talk’ to Jolyon, meaning, of
course, Please change him, he’s breaking my heart.
    â€˜He plays his cards pretty close to his chest,’ was her husband’s
reply.
    Her worries were in fact soothed by the mere fact of Eton,
the fact and the weight of it, a purveyor of excellence and a
guarantee of success. She had surrendered her son–her only child–to the English educational system, and expected a quid pro quo,
that Jolyon would turn out well, like his father. and in due course
walk in his footsteps, probably as a diplomat.
    When Philip’s father died, and then, soon after, his mother,
he wanted to move into the big house in Hampstead. It was the
family house, and he, the son, would live in it. Julia liked the
little house in Mayfair, so easy to run and keep clean and did not
want to live in the big house with its many rooms. But that was
what she found herself doing. She did not ever set her will against
Philip’s. They did not quarrel. They got along because she did
not insist on her preferences. She behaved as she had seen her
mother do, giving way to her father. Well, one side had to give
way, the way Julia saw it, and it did not much matter which.
Peace in the family was the important thing.
    The furniture of the little house, most of it from the home
in Germany, was absorbed quite easily into the Hampstead house
where in fact Julia did not seem to do nearly as much entertaining,
though there was so much space for everything. For one thing,
Philip was not really a sociable man: he had one or two close
friends and saw them, often by himself. And Julia supposed she
must be getting old and boring, because she did not enjoy parties
as much as she had. But there were dinner parties and, often,
important people, and she was pleased she did it all so well, and
that Philip was proud of her.
    She went home to Germany for visits. Her parents, who were
getting old, were so glad to see their daughter, and she liked her
brother, now her only brother. But going home was troubling,
even frightening. Poverty and unemployment, and the
communists and then the Nazis were everywhere, and gangs roamed the
streets. Then there was Hitler. The von Arnes despised in equal
measure the communists and Hitler, and believed that both
unpleasant phenomena would simply go away. This was not their
Germany, they said. It was certainly not what Julia remembered
as her Germany, that is, of course, if she forgot the vicious
rumourmongering during the war. A spy, they had said she was. Not
serious people, of course, not educated people . . . well, yes, there
were one or two. She decided she did not much like visiting
Germany these days, and it was easier not to, when her parents
died.
    The English were sensible people, after all, she had to agree
to that. One couldn’t imagine allowing battles between
communists and fascists in the streets–well,