the pool into a copse, where the leaves filtered the sunlight and made
shifting patterns on the dry earth.
Felix said she was uninhibited, but of course he was wrong. She had
simply made an area in her life where constancy was sacrificed for the
sake of joy. Besides, it was no longer gauche to have a lover, provided
one was discreet; and she was extremely discreet.
The trouble was, she liked the taste of freedom.
She realized that she was at a dangerous age. The women’s magazines she
flicked through (but never actually read) were constantly telling her
that this was when a woman added up the years she had left, decided they
were shockingly few, and determined to fill them with all the things she
had missed so far. The trendy, liberated young writes warned her that
disappointment lay in that direction. How would they know? They were
just guessing, like everyone else.
She suspected it was nothing to do with age.
When she was seventy she would be able to find a lively nonagenarian to
lust after her, if at that age she still cared. Nor was it anything to
do with the menopause, which was well behind her. It was simply that
every day she found Derek a little less attractive and Felix a little
more. It had reached the point where the contrast was too much to bear.
She had let both of them know what the situation was, in her indirect
manner. She smiled as she recalled how thoughtful each had looked after
she had delivered her veiled ultimatums. She knew her men: each would
analyze what she had said, understand after a while, and congratulate
himself on his perspicacity. Neither would know he was being threatened.
She emerged from the copse and leaned on a fence at the edge of a field.
The pasture was shared by a donkey and an old mare: the donkey was there
for the grandchildren and the mare because she had once been Ellen’s
favorite hunter.
It was all right for them-they did not know they were getting old.
She crossed the field and climbed the embankment to the disused railway
line. Steam engines had puffed along here when she and Derek were gay
young socialites, dancing to jazz music and drinking too much champagne,
giving parties they could not really afford. She walked along between
the rusty lines, jumping from sleeper to sleeper, until something small
and furry ran out from under the rotting black wood and scared her. She
scampered down the bank and walked back toward the house, following the
stream through rough woodland. She did not want to be a gay young thing
again; but she still wanted to be in love.
Well, she had laid her cards on the table, as it were, with both men.
Derek had been told that his work was edging his wife out of his life,
and that he would have to change his ways if he was to keep her. Felix
had been warned that she would not be his fancy piece forever.
Both men might bow to her will, which would leave her still with the
problem of choice. Or they might both decide they could do without her,
in which case there would be nothing for her to do except to become like
a girl in a novel by Francoise Sagan; and she knew that would not suit
her.
Well, suppose they both were prepared to do as she wished: whom would
she choose? As she rounded the corner of the house she thought Felix,
probably.
She realized with a shock that the car was in the drive, and Derek was
getting out of it. Why was he home so early? He waved to her. He seemed
happy.
She ran to him across the gravel and, full of guilt, she kissed him.
KEVIN HART should have been worrying, but somehow he could not summon up
the energy.
The editor had quite explicitly told them not to investigate the Cotton
Bank. Kevin had disobeyed, and Laski had asked: “Does your editor know
you are making this call?” The question was often asked by outraged
interviewees, and the answer was always an unworried No–unless, of