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a surprising one, considering Imogen’s career. Underneath: “An excellent term’s work. Imogen has worked well but still seems acutely unhappy. I would be grateful for an opportunity to discuss Imogen’s future with Imogen’s parents. B.A. Form Mistress.”
    But Imogen always seems unhappy! Sally said.
    The papers on the treble end of the piano keys were actually browning with age. Nothing there. The picture—it was good—was more recent, but still slightly dusty. There was a film of scum on the water in the crookedly balanced pastepot at the other end.
    Here Sally noticed that Imogen had turned on the sofa to stare at her. Imogen’s eyes were large and a curiously dark blue. They had a way of looking almost blank, with, behind the blankness, something so keen and vivid that people often jumped when Imogen looked at them. Sally jumped now. They were, as she remembered agreeing with Cart, unquestionably the eyes of a genius.
    Imogen? Sally said hopefully.
    But it was the picture behind Sally that Imogen was staring at. “I like those brambles particularly,” she said. “The stalks are just that deep crimson—brawny, I call them. They almost have muscles—tendons, anyway—and thorns like cats’ claws.”
    â€œMy self-portrait,” Fenella said smugly.
    â€œIt’s not a self-portrait. You didn’t paint it,” said Imogen. “And it makes you look too brown.” She sighed. “I think I shall take up writing poetry.” A large tear detached itself from the uppermost of her dark blue eyes and rolled down the hill of her cheek, beyond her nose.
    â€œWhat are you grieving about now?” Fenella inquired.
    â€œMy utter incapacity!” said Imogen. A tear rolled out of her lower eye.
    Imogen’s grieving was so well known that Sally was bored before the second tear was on its way. There was going to be no letter down here. The place to look was the bedroom. She flitted to the stairs at the end of the room as Fenella said, “Well, I won’t interrupt you. I’m going to steal some tea.”
    Sally was halfway upstairs when the door was barged open under Fenella’s hands. Oliver’s huge, blurred head appeared on a level with Fenella’s face.
    â€œGet out, Oliver,” Imogen said, lying with a tear twinkling on either cheek.
    Fenella pushed at Oliver’s nose. “Go away. Imogen’s grieving.” Oliver took no notice. He simply shouldered Fenella aside and rolled into the room, growling lightly, like a heavy lorry in the distance. Where Oliver chose to go, Oliver went. He was too huge to stop. And he had detected that the peculiar Sally was here again. He shambled past Imogen to the foot of the stairs, alternating growls with whining.
    â€œSorry,” Fenella said to Imogen, and went out.
    Sally hung at the top of the stairs, looking down at Oliver. He filled the first four steps. She did not think he would come up any farther. Oliver was so heavy and misshapen that his feet hurt him most of the time. He did not like going upstairs. But she wished he would not behave like this. It was alarming.
    â€œImogen’s grieving again,” Fenella said to Cart in the kitchen.
    â€œDamn,” said Cart.
    Sally gave Oliver what she hoped was a masterful look. Go away. The result was alarming. Oliver growled until Sally could feel the vibrations in the stairs. The hair on his back came pricking up. Sally had never seen that happen before. It was horrifying. He looked as big as a bear. Sally turned and fled to the bathroom, where Oliver’s growls followed her but, to her relief, not Oliver himself.
    The bathroom was in its usual mess, with a bright black line round the bath and dirty towels and slimy facecloths everywhere. Sally retreated from it in disgust into the bedroom. Here, as seemed to keep happening, she found herself being startled by something she should have known as well as the