He found her in her bedroom. Childhood spread out across a handknotted rag rug—one large doll, one small lacking its left arm, half a dozen Ladybird books, a dozen Collins Classics, a shrivelled bouquet of posies in a faded red ribbon, a bar of soap in the shape of Minnie Mouse … a couple of Anya Seton’s novels … Dragonwyck, The Hearth and Eagle … The Albatross Book of Living Verse, Warne’s Wayside and Woodland Trees—and adolescence … a scattering of Johnnie Ray 78s, a Vince Christy long-player: That Old Black Magic, Vol 2—and emerging adulthood … Orwell’s Animal Farm, Huxley’s Brave New World, The Catcher in the Rye … the Elgar Violin Concerto, recorded by Yehudi Menuhin circa 1932.
“Not much, is it?”
“But there’s more?”
“Not a lot. Mostly clothes I wouldn’t be seen dead in any more. And God knows there’s nothing like a visit to either of your sisters to make me feel like Fanny Frump.”
“Ignore them. Their taste is simply the Russian version of Milly-Molly-Mandy. Doesn’t require any idea of fashion or any sense of colour. You wear the same damn thing all the time. All you really need is an open cheque book and a good seamstress to look like my sisters.”
“I wouldn’t want to look like your sisters. That’s my point.”
“What do you want?”
“Now? Right now? I just feel like weeping.”
“Then in the words of your chosen pop idol, just go ahead and cry.”
She smiled, a sad smile that barely suppressed a tear.
She sat on the bed.
“Just hold me, you stupid sod.”
He did.
“I’m not going to cry. Really, I’m not.”