58

Marjorie, Grace and me! How do we grow old? How shall we die?

Marjorie has her pension fund, her insurance policies, and perhaps, presently, the inheritance of her mother’s Frognal house. She does not let her mind go further than that – she keeps it trained on practicalities. Her epitaph will be the affection of her friends, the regret of her colleagues, and a shelf or two of tapes in the library of the BBC – until eventually, in the interests of economy, they too are wiped for re-use. She hopes for nothing else.

Grace hopes to die suddenly, and soon, or so she says, before the shame of physical inadequacy overtakes her. She will not grow old serenely. She fights against it. Already she drinks too much. She is used to being admired, and only her looks are admirable. When they go, she goes, Grace says.

I, Chloe, put my faith in children for my immortality. When I die, they will remember me, as I remember my own mother – and Esther, who, like me, saved other women’s children, stealing them in passing. Of such maternal warmth, I think, legal or illegal, is immortality made. It seeps down through the generations, fertilizing the ground, preparing it for more kindnesses.