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afford the overheads, and when ‘Marjorie’ ceased to exist, was the saddest day of her life. She declined slowly after that; her limp became more pronounced and she spent lonely days athome, earning a living from her now somewhat dated skills as a dressmaker. Gradually she became more and more dependent on her sister Sybil. When I knew her she already looked old: her make-up was craggy and her hair dyed the colour of Mansion Polish. I rather liked her, as did my mother.
    The chief eccentricity of these two sisters was the fact that barely into middle life they made active plans for their old age. These plans were quite concrete: they were to take a flat, on which they had already put down a deposit, in one of those converted country houses that turn themselves into retirement homes for old people with money. They frequently visited this place, which was near the Dorset Coast, not far from Bournemouth, to see that their investment was in order. This despite the fact that Sybil was a married woman with a small daughter, Sarah. Somehow married life was expected to take second place to this plan of a lifetime, a fact apparently accepted by Sybil’s husband, Bertram Miller. ‘I expect you’ll go first, anyway,’ Sybil frequently assured her husband. Obligingly he did, slipping down silently behind the counter of the old-established jeweller’s shop in High Holborn which he ran with his brother Humphrey.
    Sybil was not much put out by this: she saw it as divine confirmation of her plans. With the demise of her husband she was able to make a home for her sister in their house in Parsons Green. As time went on the two women became closer to each other, viewing my mother with suspicion, although frequently telephoning her to ask her to mediate in some quarrel or other, or to go with them to Sarah’s school to ask why Sarah was doing so badly and was so disruptive, hurling other girl’s hats to the ground and stamping on them before the morning bell had stopped ringing. My mother’s calm and authority worked wonders on more than one ofthese occasions, but she had her reservations about Sarah, whom she thought privately even more odd than her mother and aunt put together.
    The connection did not stop with Bertram Miller’s death. His brother Humphrey, a melancholy bachelor in his late fifties, was inconsolable: tears often misted his eyes as he sold engagement rings to young couples in High Holborn. The young couples, thinking the tears were for them, pronounced him terribly sweet as they left with their purchases, whereas in fact he was simply lonely. For years the two brothers had run a successful business in wordless harmony. When Bertram married, Humphrey moved out of the family home and bought himself a flat behind Marble Arch, in a fusty, somnolent solid building which suited him very well. He saw his brother every day, so felt that nothing had really happened to alter their relationship. When Bertram died he aged considerably. His heart was no longer in the business, which was itself in decline, owing to extensive building works on either side, old-established premises like their own being knocked down to make way for smart new offices. He would have declined with it, had it not been for the sisters, his sisters-in-law, who came driving in every Sunday from Parsons Green, the back of the car packed with casseroles, pies, roast chickens, Marjorie’s special cake, and various other provisions which they calculated would take him through the week until their next visit. The girl Sarah occasionally accompanied them. Humphrey Miller was fond of her, as only a childless man of outstanding simplicity could be. She was always richer by a ten pound note when they left.
    I arrived home from a friend’s house one Saturday afternoon to find some kind of conclave taking place in my mother’s drawing-room. That the occasion was significant was advertised by the fact that although Sybil was formallydressed, as she always was, in