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thought no more of this sly transformation. Housework occupied a bare half hour; she was not untidy.Once a fortnight a cleaning firm turned out the flat, during which time she sat politely in the garden. She had got rid of her daily, Olive Gage, who was so devoted to Henry, because she could no longer endure her tearful reminiscences. The cleaners sent by the firm were Vietnamese and silent. This suited her much better. She was aware of herself as a selfish old woman, but she knew that her character, like her appearance, was unlikely to improve, might even deteriorate to the extent of asking other people to be quiet, in a voice now almost rusty from misuse. The only voices she really welcomed were those she heard on the radio, since no response was called for. Yet these days she listened only to the news, and a little music in the evening. She had grown used to her own company, paid it little attention. At the same time she was aware that the world made demands even on one as undemanding as herself.
    In these days of her solitude her own history reclaimed her, her life before Henry and her life since. She saw an intimate connection between the two, as if Henry had been an improbable interlude for which nothing had prepared her. On the contrary: his company, his presence had been a source of surprise as well as pleasure. It was in fact when she saw him buttressed by Rose, by Rose’s housekeeper, who always greeted her kindly, by Kitty and Molly and their husbands, that the breathtaking realisation struck her: these people are my relations. For her youth had been a long apprenticeship, her parents too busy, too abstracted, too conscious of each other, to satisfy any longings she might have had for gossip, for fantasy, such as she was to encounter in Kitty’s and Molly’s drawing rooms. Her youth had been an affair of studious long walks, trying to appreciate the wonders of nature in the dusty shrubs of her dull suburb; as soon as she was old enough shetook the bus to Kensington Gardens and walked round Hyde Park. This excursion usually occurred on a Sunday afternoon, when her parents settled down for their customary nap; her absence was tolerated unquestioningly, and on her return there would be a proper tea, with cake, as if the day had some significance after all. Now, her days once more unaccompanied, she remembered those timid celebrations (for that was what they were) with a sense of recognition that surprised her. Between the Public Library and her long walks she had preserved her youth in innocence, unaware of either happiness or unhappiness, unmarked by anguish or rebellion.
    She had been thirty-nine when she married Henry, still shaken by the death of her mother and hardly prepared for change. Yet she had acceded calmly to Henry’s surprising fervour, though it rather embarrassed her now to think of it. She was a born spinster, as the cousins shrewdly perceived; at roughly the same age as herself, or a little older, they were looking forward to further festivities, were in the throes of planning them, so that no time would be lost. She had sat with her cup of tea and listened to their news; it was as if they were showing her what she could never be. She intuited that they were severely put out by this union. Henry, having returned to the bosom of his family after his unhappy first marriage, was once again to leave them, and to leave them for this thin plain woman who compared so unfavourably with the petulant Joy. She had endured their baffled annoyance, until their better natures reasserted themselves. They made amends by giving her the names of their dressmakers, suggesting lunch in town. Yet they were kind women, if easily put out, and because they judged her to have passed some test of conformity, or obedience, because Henry appeared contented, because Rose was not neglected, they admitted her to their company,while privately expressing astonishment at the fact that she lived in Fulham. They saw immense