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other people. Nobody, for instance, expects a tailor to be sitting down. But Pendel had long ago determined that P & B should be an oasis of tranquillity in a bustling world. Therefore he made a point of beingdiscovered in his old porter’s chair, most likely with a copy of the day before yesterday’s Times spread on his lap.
    And he didn’t mind at all if there was a tray of tea on the table in front of him, as there was now, perched among old copies of Illustrated London News and Country Life, with a real silver teapot on it, and some nice fresh cucumber sandwiches, extra thin, which Marta had made to perfection in her kitchen—where, at her own insistence, she was confined for the first nervous stages of any new customer’s appearance lest the presence of a badly scarred woman of mixed race should prove threatening to white male Panamanian pride in the throes of self-adornment. Also she liked to read her books there, because he had finally got her studying again. Psychology and Social History and another one he always forgot. He had wanted her to do Law, but she had refused point-blank on the grounds that lawyers were liars.
    â€œIt is not appropriate,” she would say, in her carefully honed, ironic Spanish, “that the daughter of a black carpenter should debase herself for money.”
    There are several ways for a large-bodied young man with a blueand-white bookmaker’s brolly to get out of a small car in pelting rain. Osnard’s—if it was he—was ingenious but flawed. His strategy was to start opening the umbrella inside the car and reverse buttocks-first in an ungainly crouch, at the same time whisking the brolly after and over him while opening it the rest of the way in a single triumphant flourish. But either Osnard or the brolly jammed in the doorway, so that for a moment all Pendel saw of him was a broad English bum covered by brown gabardine trousers cut too deep in the crotch and a twin-vented matching jacket shot to rags by rainfire.
    Ten-ounce summerweight, Pendel noted. Terylene mix, too hot for Panama by half. No wonder he wants a couple of suits in a hurry. Thirty-eight waist if a day. The brolly opened. Some don’t. This one shot up like a flag of instant surrender, to descend at thesame pace over the upper part of the body. Then he vanished, which was what every customer did between the car park and the front door. He’s coming up the steps, thought Pendel contentedly. And heard his footsteps above the torrent. Here he is, he’s standing in the porch, I can see his shadow. Come on, silly, it’s not locked. But Pendel remained seated. He had taught himself to do that. Otherwise he’d be opening and closing doors all day. Patches of sodden brown gabardine, like shards in a kaleidoscope, were appearing in the transparent half-halo of letters blazoned on the frosted glass: PENDEL & BRAITHWAITE , Panama and Savile Row since 1932. Another moment and the whole bulky apparition, crabwise and brolly-first, lurched into the shop.
    â€œMr. Osnard, I presume”—from the depths of his porter’s chair—“come in, sir. I’m Harry Pendel. Sorry about our rain. Have a cup of tea or something a little stronger.”
    Appetites, was his first thought. A quick brown fox’s eyes. Slow body, big limbs, one of your lazy athletes. Allow plenty of spare cloth for expansion. And after that he remembered a bit of music hall banter that Uncle Benny never tired of, to the insincere outrage of Auntie Ruth:
    â€œBig hands, ladies, big feet, and you all know what that means—big gloves and big socks.”
    Gentlemen entering P & B were presented with a choice. They could sit down, which was what the cosy ones did, accept a bowl of Marta’s soup or a glass of whatever, trade gossip and let the place work its balm on them before the drift to the fitting room upstairs, which took them casually past a seductive display of pattern books