Virginia Fly did not share the same enthusiasm as her pupils for the holidays. To her, they were a tedious break. Term-time was hard, monotonous work, but at least it protected her from her mother’s day-long observations. And this holidays, what with the break-up with Charlie, Virginia’s new friend Mrs Thompson, and the mysterious night Virginia had spent in London, Mrs Fly had much to muse upon out loud.
It was Virginia’s custom to set her pupils A Holiday Task, and in the same way she solemnly set herself A Holiday Pleasure. This holidays the pleasure was to be Middlemarch and Van Gogh’s letters. The books gave her some measure of escape, but not much. Almost as soon as she had settled down to read in her room after breakfast, her mother would call up to her:
‘Coffee, Ginny?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes thank you.’
‘Fancy cottage pie for lunch?’
‘Lovely.’
‘I can’t hear.’
Virginia would put down her book and go to the top of the stairs.
‘I said lovely.’
‘I’m just off to the shops, then. Anything you want?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Take care.’
But even Mrs Fly’s shopping meant not more than half an hour’s peace. She preferred to go to the shop at the end of the road three times a day to get a few things every time rather than make one major expedition. Both her husband and daughter had pointed out to her that this was an uneconomic way of reserving her energies, but it was, she said, her way of doing things. She had always shopped like that, nothing would change her now, and anyhow she liked the little walks.
So when, unbearably soon, the small, sharp efficient pecking noises that Mrs Fly made in the kitchen started up again, Virginia slammed shut her book and decided to go for a walk. To relieve her mother of any anxiety she would have been bound to have felt had she found her daughter’s bedroom empty, Virginia made an effort to go through the kitchen.
‘I’m going for a short walk before lunch.’
Mrs Fly was releasing her meagre purchases from their string bag; half a pound of mince, a pound of potatoes, a tin of apricots.
‘Well, I’ve bought mince, potatoes, and apricots for a nice flan. That should see us through till this evening. Take care you don’t catch cold, now. There’s quite a nip in the wind.’
Virginia walked through the garden to the field. The pale April sun was quite warm and the breeze, far from being malicious, was barely strong enough to bow the few anaemic daffodils that had survived Mr Fly’s ruthless methods of gardening.
She took her usual walk: up the beaten path over the mild hillock, which she half despised because of the tameness of its form, and into the spinney. Everywhere the bracken was beginning to uncurl its small fists of bright green; the litter of last summer had rotted with the autumn leaves and there was a stirring of birds in all the branches. Virginia had taken the same walk hundreds of times, in all seasons, and yet still found herself almost as surprised and delighted by the changes as she had been as a child.
A huge oak tree at the highest point of the spinney marked the end of this routine walk. Years ago, its branches had been her secret retreat. She had spent many an afternoon with a book high up in a rustling green world that no one could find, content just to look at the changing patterns of sun on the leaves. Nowadays the lower half of the tree, at any rate, was no longer undiscovered. The Council had put up a sign on a nearby main road urging motorists to the ‘picnic area’ at its feet, and as further encouragement they had provided a wooden bench and table, and a litter bin. But for the moment the area was deserted, the litter bin empty. She went over to the trunk of the tree, put her hand on a space of uninitialled bark, and looked up at the huge tower of branches, hazy with new leaves.
‘Virginia Fly,’ she said out loud, ‘what is going to happen to you?’
For as long as she could remember, Virginia had, on occasions, asked herself questions out loud. They were always questions she was unable to answer, and it never occurred to her to try to answer them. To ask was consolation in itself. Feeling quite cheered, and a little ridiculous – as she always did, having asked herself such a question – she left the picnic area and thought of Ulick Brand’s wisteria tree.
The return walk was not half such a pleasure. For as soon as she was out of the spinney and descending the dip – you couldn’t call it a valley – there was the view of the back of Acacia Avenue’s ugly houses, fluttering their little strips of garden behind them, nestling up to their gloomy bushes of laurel and rhododendron. Going for the walk you could almost imagine you were in the country. Returning, the illusion was impossible.
Every day of the holidays Virginia dreaded lunch alone with Mrs Fly. The meal left her vulnerable to all her mother’s wildest suspicions, suppositions and speculations. To-day, Ulick Brand was on her mind.
‘What did you say was the name of the Chinaman you went out with a couple of weeks ago?’ She helped Virgina to the crustiest part of the potato to soften the inquiry.
‘I didn’t say he was Chinese. I said we went to a Chinese restaurant.’
‘Well, not that I’d mind of course. You know me, broad-minded to a fault – as long as you don’t bring home a Chinaman as a husband.’
‘I don’t know any Chinamen, so that’s not likely.’
‘And anyhow, I’ve never been able to see the attraction of all that chop-suey food, myself.’
Irritated by her mother’s stubborn train of thought, Virginia broke the ensuing silence.
‘I said the man I had dinner with that night was a friend of Mrs Thompson.’
‘Oh, blow me! So you did. What a memory. I get so muddled with all your friends.’ She dug at the corner of her mouth with a tiny corner of her napkin, wiping away flecks of mince meat which had gathered there. The refinement of the familiar gesture drove Virginia to such fury that over the years she had trained herself to look away as soon as her mother picked up her napkin from her lap. ‘Talking of Mrs Thompson,’ Mrs Fly went on, then paused. She picked up her glass of water and took a sip so small that, poured out, it wouldn’t have filled half a thimble. To add weight to the importance of her news Mrs Fly continued her silence for some moments.
‘Talking of Mrs Thompson,’ she said again, at last, ‘she rang up this morning. You were on your walk.’ She waited for some reaction from Virginia, but it didn’t come.
‘She asked how you were, of course, and wondered if you would be up in London again soon. She wanted you to go round for a meal. We had quite a little chat.’ She paused. Virginia took a long time to lever an apricot out of its custardy bed.
‘Oh? I’ll ring her back this evening.’
‘No need,’ said Mrs Fly. ‘She’s coming down here Sunday for the day. I asked her. I mean, I thought you’d be pleased, and your father and I would like to meet her. We like to meet your friends.’
Virginia said nothing, but looked straight at her mother. This time there was custard in the corners of her mouth.
‘I wish you wouldn’t make arrangements with my friends,’ she said, finally.
‘But I thought you’d be so pleased. I was only doing what I thought best –’
‘Quite. You always do what you think best.’
‘I shall enjoy meeting Mrs Thompson. There must be something very good-hearted about a person who writes to someone they’ve seen on television and asks them out.’
‘You may not like her. She’s not exactly your kind of friend.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Her appearance is a bit flamboyant for you. And she talks a lot.’
‘Just because I’m not an extrovert dresser myself, that doesn’t mean to say I don’t admire it in other people.’ Mrs Fly searched out the two remaining clean corners of her napkin to deal with the custard. ‘Well, we shall see.’
Far from being daunted by Virginia’s warnings, Mrs Fly was more determined than ever to like her daughter’s friend. Prejudice set in. By Saturday it would have congealed to the point that, whatever kind of character Mrs Thompson turned out to be, she could be assured of a great welcome from Mrs Fly.
Most of the week Mrs Thompson spent in a dither of happy anticipation. She rang her friend Mrs Baxter almost hourly to discuss finer points of the outing, and on Tuesday night, their regular night together, could talk of nothing else. Mrs Baxter, for her part, was unusually tolerant. She was jealous of Mrs Thompson’s coloured wine glasses, old ermine cloak and signed book of war memoirs by her employer the General. But she was not jealous of a day in Surrey: it was something she’d go out of her way to avoid. Anything beyond Barnes was a wilderness to her: she couldn’t be sure unless she had a solid pavement under her feet. However, if the idea of a day with the Flys, whoever they may be, gave Mrs Thompson any pleasure – and indeed she did seem to be unusually flushed with excitement – then she Mrs Baxter wasn’t one to damp her spirits. Besides, it made a nice change of conversation.
By instinct Mrs Thompson was no more a country lover than Mrs Baxter. She had little experience of the country: the odd roadside picnic with Bill on Bank Holidays, a couple of weekends with a farmer uncle in Worcestershire, a terrible tour of the Lake District with her elderly mother – none of these occasions she remembered with pleasure. Her present worry, faced with a rural day, was what to wear. Her wardrobe didn’t include any tweeds or brogues which, she felt, would have been appropriate. And Mrs Baxter was hardly a constructive help.
‘You don’t want to stand out too much against all those greens,’ she advised. Surrey was a jungle in her mind. ‘And you don’t want to wear a feathered hat. It frightens the birds.’
‘How about my rust jersey?’ Mrs Thompson held a dying dress against herself, posing in front of her long mirror. ‘I could dress it up with my coral spray.’
‘You don’t want to dress it up with anything, dear,’ said Mrs Baxter. ‘They dress down in the country, not up, I’m telling you.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Mrs Thompson. This was a big concession on her part. The zest in her relationship with Mrs Baxter was always to ask advice, but never to accept it. ‘You’re quite right. I’ll dispense with jewellery for the day.’ Mrs Baxter was made almost speechless by the rare event of her friend agreeing with her. Her voice went quite weak:
‘Well, you are right, dear. Like I said, it wouldn’t do anything for you, jewellery wouldn’t, in the country.’
It was one of the best evenings they had ever spent together.
Later, Mrs Thompson hung the rust jersey outside her cupboard, ironed it several times, polished her brown shoes, renewed the solid powder in her compact, set her hair and didn’t complain when Jo the lodger turned up his hi-fi too loudly. She wouldn’t admit it, even to Mrs Baxter, but for some reason she felt excited as a child.
Sunday morning Ted Fly finally broke to his wife something he had been feeling all week: that to-day was a good day to go down to a place he knew in Hastings to look for a second-hand mowing-machine. Mrs Fly was incensed.
‘But Mrs Thompson’s coming.’
‘I know.’
‘To-day of all days to choose to see a mower. She’s coming down from London, you know.’
‘I’ll fetch her at the station. Just go off for a bit once she’s settled.’
‘Haven’t we been talking about her coming all week?’
‘You have.’
‘Well, then. Really. What will she think?’
‘She’ll think I’ve got to go and see a mower.’ Mrs Fly sniffed. Some instinct told her husband not to weaken. ‘There’s a lovely machine going there for £10. It would be silly to miss it …’ He wouldn’t give in, but his wife’s face troubled him, all the same. ‘I’ll be back in time to take her back to the station, don’t worry.’
‘I should think so too.’ Mrs Fly slammed her knitting down on to her wide-slung knees. She found it difficult to lose battles graciously. But once Ted had become obstinate about something she knew there was nothing further she could do to make him change his mind. Well, more fool him, if he wanted to miss such a pleasant day.
As soon as she had got into his car, Mr Fly put his case to Mrs Thompson. He made it abundantly clear to her that, sad though it was, his journey to Hastings was imperative. The price of gardening equipment was going up all the time, and he’d be an idiot to miss such a snip, wouldn’t he? Mrs Thompson agreed he would. He was so charming, so concerned, Virginia’s father – probably the one from whom she’d inherited her nice quiet ways. Not for one moment would it have occurred to Mrs Thompson that her host’s urgent journey might have any suspect motives. He seemed the perfect gentleman.
In fact, by going away for the best part of the day, Mr Fly was only trying to make things easier for everyone. He had learnt from experience that, when his wife had a friend in for the day, his own day became a thing not to be considered. His presence seemed to annoy. His views, if asked for, were automatically contradicted. Even his offers of help – washing up, making tea, anything – were spurned. As soon as the friend left, of course, things returned to normal. Mrs Fly nagged and soliloquised, but was warm again. It never occurred to her that she had been in any way different while she entertained. Generous in his solutions, Mr Fly put down her strange behaviour to nerves. She didn’t know what she was doing. Still, it was confusing and, in the old days, hurting. So he had found the answer: make an infallible excuse to go out, and stick to it. In fact, as far as he could judge on the journey from the station, Mrs Thompson was a nice woman. Understanding. Must have been rather good-looking, once, too. For a moment he felt regretful about having been so insistent about the mowing-machine. But as soon as his wife met Mrs Thompson and guided her, touching her arm, into the sitting-room, that moment passed. No one said good-bye to him. He hurried away.
Mrs Fly had planned everything with customary precision. Presuming that the train wouldn’t be late, and guessing that her husband’s speed back from the station would be average, she managed to have the coffee percolator boiling just as the car drew up at the gate. She sped with her beautifully laid tray (frilly napkins, Dresden china, iced shortbread biscuits, little forks just in case – a credit to any butler) to the sitting-room, then arrived calmly at the front door just as Mrs Thompson came through the gate.
Although she knew that her guest lived in Ealing, Mrs Fly had convictions, based on no factual evidence, that Mrs Thompson was born, bred and used to a better part of London. Somewhere near Belgrave Square or Buckingham Palace, she imagined. Of course, a lot of people were moving out of the centre nowadays: it was understandable. And Mrs Thompson, being a widow, was probably not as well off as she had once been. Still, wherever she lived now, Mrs Thompson – you could tell just from the way she walked up the path – was a woman of breeding. Mrs Fly pursed her lips ready to break into a smile of welcome. She would see to it that Mrs Thompson felt at home.
Mrs Thompson, for her part, was finding pleasure in every moment. Both Mr and Mrs Fly, and their house, exceeded her expectations. Everything was warm and neat. The atmosphere filled her with well-being. What’s more, the choice of the rust dress had been right: Mrs Fly herself was also in a jersey dress, olive green, with a small opal brooch at the neck. This caused Mrs Thompson’s only regret: she shouldn’t have listened to Mrs Baxter about the coral spray. She should have worn it. But still. It was a small thing.
The two women sat side by side on the tweed-covered sofa, the sun shone on the Dresden and there was a strong smell of carnation scent that came from Mrs Thompson. Virginia, opposite them in an arm chair, could not help smiling at the contrast they made. If she half shut her eyes their heads were two strange balloons hanging from the ceiling – one, with a blurred, indistinguished sort of face, powdery round the mouth, brown hair rolled up at the ends like a document. The other, a bright, clinical face, hardened rather than softened by its careful make-up, downward lines round the mouth, a yellow puff of fibre-glass hair, a crumpled neck. The heads bobbed about smiling at each other: Mrs Fly’s smile was of melon pink gums frilled with pearly false teeth. Mrs Thompson’s was more rugged. Her plum lipstick made her own teeth seem less ochre than they really were, and when she laughed a flash of gold fillings and bridges revealed the precarious state into which they had fallen.
‘Isn’t this funny, how it all came about?’ she was saying. ‘You never know, do you?’
‘You never know,’ agreed Mrs Fly.
‘And what’s become of – I’ve been dying to ask – what’s become of Virginia and Ulick?’ Mrs Thompson addressed the question to Mrs Fly, not looking at Virginia.
‘Ulick? Ah yes. The Mr Brand. I get so muddled with her friends, don’t I Ginny? What’s become of Ulick? – They went to a Chinese restaurant, you know. Ginny chose it, she said. I don’t know how anybody finds those little helpings satisfying.’
‘Nor me,’ said Mrs Thompson. She turned to Virginia. ‘Come along, Ginny. You’re being a dark horse. What games are you and Ulick up to?’ She winked, with the eye farthest from Mrs Fly. A wink that explained whatever they were up to she understood and would support.
‘I haven’t heard from him any more,’ said Virginia. ‘There was no reason why I should have done.’ Mrs Thompson looked deflated.
‘Well, I expect he’ll follow up the meeting. They’re so unpredictable, these days, the young. That’s their trouble.’
Already Mrs Fly was beginning to sense that she and Mrs Thompson were getting on quite extraordinarily well. They understood each other. They felt the same. In appreciation of these feelings Mrs Fly’s blood rose in temperature – she could feel it like an incoming tide – all round her body, and her normally ashy cheeks slowly changed to the colour of a foggy plum. Hands shaking a little, she offered Mrs Thompson a cigarette. The tips of her fingers were quite red. She lowered her voice a little: she had been conscious of it rising since Mrs Thompson’s arrival.
‘The thing about Ginny is, she never exerts herself, do you Ginny? She never puts herself over, if you know what I mean.’
With a slight incline of her head which in no way indicated that she was taking sides against Virginia, Mrs Thompson conveyed that she knew very well what Mrs Fly meant.
An hour later they were calling each other Ruth and Rita, and Virginia was still listening. To break the monotony, she got up and poured them small glasses of medium-dry sherry.
‘Ah,’ exclaimed Mrs Thompson, ‘the very brand Ulick always buys me when I turn down the offer of a gin.’ She drank the whole glass in one. This degree of sophistication unnerved Mrs Fly who, as usual, was pecking at her drink with ridiculous little sips. Not to be outdone, she sipped a little faster.
Virginia, predicting that the subject of Ulick Brand would now be dwelt upon once more, decided to leave. Ulick’s house, tree, piano, dressing-room, face, gold cufflinks and crinkly smile had all been on her mind too much lately. She had tried to banish the thoughts, but they had persisted. Last night she had dreamt of him. They had played a duet on his piano together, kissing at the end of every bar. Still, now, at midday, she could remember his lips on hers. She had no wish to hear him discussed again. Quietly she left the room and went upstairs to fetch her purse. A wicked plan had come to her which would, perhaps, add a little spice to the tedious day.
When she arrived back at lunch time half the bottle of sherry had gone. Her mother and Mrs Thompson were in the kitchen, Mrs Fly draining the peas, Mrs Thompson sitting at the table smoking, chipping her ash on to the floor – a habit which, in the majority of people, Mrs Fly could not abide.
Virginia unwrapped her parcel.
‘I’ve bought a bottle,’ she said, gaily, ‘to celebrate.’ She put a bottle of Mateus Rosé on the table.
‘Ooh!’ Her mother gave a little whoop. ‘My favourite. How kind of you, dear.’
Mrs Thompson fingered the label on the bottle. ‘I suppose, Rita, that with your life, you enjoy a little glass of wine for lunch every day?’
Mrs Thompson hesitated.
‘Well, sometimes I do and I sometimes don’t,’ she admitted. ‘Depends. Of course, in the old days, with Bill, we’d crack half a bottle of champagne every Sunday morning at eleven o’clock.’
‘Really?’ This time Mrs Fly was suitably impressed.
At lunch, Virginia had one glass of wine. The others had several. But still a quarter of the bottle remained. Mrs Fly suggested they should finish it with their coffee.
By this time both she and Mrs Thompson were in good spirits. They drew chairs up into the french windows in the sitting-room, and opened them. A warm breeze came into the room. The sky was cloudless, grey-blue; the Surrey hillocks turning to light spring green – but still depressing, Virginia thought.
‘Lovely, lovely, lovely,’ said Mrs Thompson, plumping herself down into an armchair. ‘The softness of the air – it reminds me of Monte Carlo.’
If Mrs Fly felt that her new friend might be exaggerating, she did not show it.
‘Of course,’ she said, as the two things connected in her mind, ‘you must have been a débutante.’
Mrs Thompson smiled widely, her eyes very bright.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘in those days, you know, débutantes were débutantes.’
‘Indeed they were!’ Mrs Fly clapped her hands, but the clap went wrong. The fingers of one hand slipped into the palm of the other, scarcely making a noise. ‘Why, I remember I used to cut out pictures of all the beautiful girls in their ostrich feathers going to be presented.’
‘Ostrich feathers, such ostrich feathers,’ murmured Mrs Thompson. She stretched out her legs in front of her. Her stockings puckered over her knees.
Virginia broke the nostalgic silence.
‘Mrs Thompson used to have tea at the Ritz,’ she said to her mother.
‘The Ritz Piccadilly?’ Mrs Fly felt another rush of warm blood round her body, and was grateful for the breeze. Funny, she thought, how sometimes words just slid out all in one, before you had time to divide them up.
Mrs Thompson managed a modest voice.
‘Well, you know, the Ritz was the place to have tea. Always has been. I loved the Ritz. I loved theatre-going, too. Going to theatres. All the velvets, all the buttonholes. And supper afterwards somewhere you could dance.’
‘The Savoy?’ Mrs Fly had read about dancing at the Savoy, and the question was nice and short.
‘Places like that,’ said Mrs Thompson. She stared down the length of undernourished lawn, her eyes glazed with remembrance of those glamorous days. ‘And then my escort would escort me home,’ (she pronounced both words the same), ‘and we’d have a small drink and turn on the gramophone.’ She paused, then added: ‘Ah, the things I could tell you.’
Mrs Fly pressed her a little.
‘You mean you had your own flat?’
‘I had my own flat.’
‘That means you must have been very well off.’ Mrs Thompson considered. Then she said:
‘I managed to support myself in fine style, I will admit.’ The breeze was so soft, her face so warm, her mind so plastic, at that moment it would have been easy to admit anything.
‘But I thought débutantes in those days didn’t work?’ Mrs Fly, pouring the last of the Mateus Rosé into her own glass, was confused.
‘Ah.’
‘What did you work at?’ Mrs Fly persisted.
‘Ah.’ Again Mrs Thompson paused. ‘I suppose you could have called me an entertainer.’
‘Show business? I’ve always longed to know someone in show business. It must be such a world apart, I’ve always thought.’ Mrs Fly felt her eyelids drifting downwards. She snapped them up. ‘Stage door Johnnies,’ she said. ‘You must have been besieged by stage door Johnnies.’
‘There were men interested,’ agreed Mrs Thompson.
‘And you let them come back to your flat? You must have been very before-your-time.’ A mixture of shock and awe in Mrs Fly’s voice. Mrs Thompson drained her glass. She could never remember feeling like this on gin. It was all according to what you were used to, she supposed.
‘My dear Ruth. In my line of business, escorts have been escorting pretty young girls back to their flats for thousands of years.’
There. She had said it. After all these years of silence, it had slipped out. She turned to Mrs Fly, waiting to be struck, to be turned out of the house. But at the same time an immeasurable weight rolled away from her: her limbs, her mind felt lighter. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry, to dance, to sing, to shout out loud: Forgive me, Bill.
But it was Mrs Fly who began to giggle.
‘Oh, you’ll be the death of me, Rita! No wonder my mother disapproved of débutantes! Presented at Court then giving the chaperon the slip – such carryings on.’ She rocked back and forth in her arm chair. ‘You’ll be telling me next you – let them make advances!’ Then suddenly she was quiet. ‘To think what I missed,’ she said. ‘Ted came to tea every Sunday and we were only allowed to walk to church and back alone. He was the only man who ever courted me.’
‘What you missed, dear.’ Mrs Thompson let the giggles burst forth now. The irony of the situation was too much for her. ‘What you missed! The stories I could tell … You’d never believe.’
Both women squirmed in their seats with laughter, their hands sprawling over the wide chair arms, their legs sliding apart to reveal wedges of white thigh above stocking tops. Tears spurted from their cloudy eyes.
‘Oh, dear me.’
‘Oh, deary, deary me.’
Virginia crept away. They didn’t notice her going, or hear her laughter. Upstairs, she took out her diary. She wrote in it spasmodically, only noting things she thought worth recording. Nothing sad, or to do with herself. To-day, unbeknown to her, my mother befriended an old tart, she wrote. And then she felt foolish, laughing out loud to herself, and the joke, as is often the nature of unshared jokes, began to pall.
Mr Fly arrived home, as he promised, punctually at four. He unloaded his lawn mower into the garage slowly. If he timed things right he’d only have to be with the two of them for twenty minutes before setting off for the station again.
In spite of the breeze, the afternoon was muggy, the sky had turned quite grey. After the long drive Mr Fly was sweaty and tired. Thirsty. Mrs Thompson or not, he wanted his tea.
He went to the kitchen, washed his hands and patted his neck with water. It seemed to him that the place wasn’t its usual tidy self. But then he remembered and understood. His wife would naturally want to leave the washing up till Mrs Thompson had gone.
He went to the dining-room – it was always dining-room tea for visitors. But there, a far from average sight met his eyes. The table was still covered with congealed plates from lunch: chairs askew, nothing stacked, a nasty smell of cold vegetables.
Worried, now, Mr Fly ran to the sitting-room.
A few moments later Virginia heard him calling. She ran downstairs.
‘Ginny – whatever …?’
‘What are they doing?’
‘Asleep. I can’t wake them.’
They went to the sitting-room. It was getting dark. The two women, both with their mouths open, slept in their separate chairs. On the floor lay the upturned bottle of wine, and a few cigarette stubs that had fallen from the ash tray.
‘A most unusual sight,’ said Mr Fly. He put his arm round his daughter.
‘They’re friends for life,’ Virginia giggled.
‘Heaven forbid, Ginny.’
‘Well, at least I won’t have her after me any more.’
‘Nor you will – So untidy,’ he added, turning away from the scene.
They went to the kitchen. Virginia put on the kettle, fetched scones from the larder, strawberry jam and cream, which Mrs Fly considered bad for her husband and would not allow. Mr Fly watched his daughter, happily, rubbing together his hands.
‘We’d better let them sleep it off. Better not be there when they wake up, either. Funny, your mother, like this, you know. You wouldn’t call her even an average drinker, would you? She hardly touches a drop. Perhaps that Mrs Thompson is a bad influence, though she seemed a nice enough woman. Perhaps she has a dark past.’
‘She has,’ said Virginia. This made Mr Fly laugh. His daughter had a fine sense of humour. Must have got it from him. He stretched out a hand towards her.
‘Selfish though it may be, Ginny,’ he said, ‘I’m glad you’re here.’