Kitty could not pinpoint exactly when the idea first came to her. It had crept leisurely, piano, adagio, into the recesses of her mind. At the dining-room table, the dishes from her solitary dinner not cleared away (she carried her meal into the dining-room even when she was alone, Sydney would have liked her to, to keep up his standards), she faced the pad of notepaper, her pen in hand. Her leisure moments during the past week had been spent finalising her guest list, trying to fashion it within the limits imposed upon her by the Klopman confluence. By asking only those closest to her on the Ladies’ Guild and confining the helpers from the Day Centre to the one or two women whom she knew best, she had arrived, within a few either way, at her permitted number.

There was no reason, she thought, looking out of the window – the evenings were getting lighter, the days longer – why she should not invite Maurice to Rachel’s wedding. He was her friend. If only on air-mail paper. Maurice, she felt somehow (even at a distance of three thousand miles), knew her better than her children, was more familiar with her than her family, understood her better than had Sydney. He would not come. He was too shy. In Israel, other than at Yoske’s, he had scarcely spoken. Why should he cross an ocean to be present at the marriage of two people he did not even know? He wanted to send Rachel a present, true – he was a kind soul – but that didn’t mean he was prepared to go to the expense of coming to England to attend a function at which, apart from herself, he would know no one, to allow himself to be cast upon an alien sea of unfamiliar faces. A present was something different.

Kitty had found a sample bride’s list in a magazine, which she was going to show to Rachel, for whom she was now waiting. Together when Rachel could spare the time, they would select the items at one of the stores, although Rachel and Patrick had not at the moment any intention of setting up home. They had in fact asked Kitty if they could stay with her – the council flat had to be given up – after Carol’s children had gone, until December, when they planned to start on their global trip, South America, Australasia, The Far East. Hettie and Herbert, for a wedding present, were buying them a house but they would not hear of it until their return. Any gifts, Patrick said, which they might receive, would have to be kept in the Klopman attic. The list, in alphabetical order, for Rachel’s approval, was on the table beside Kitty. With Maurice’s request in mind, she looked at it. ‘Aprons’. She could not see Rachel in one. Her daughter’s cooking, as far as Kitty knew, was confined to the rock cakes she had learned to make at school and the brown rice and lentils, on which they seemed to subsist, which was generally cooked by Patrick. ‘Carpet sweeper’. Kitty’s mind boggled. ‘Grapefruit spoons’! ‘Ironing board’. Rachel seemed to manage without an iron. Perhaps, after all, she would not show the list to Rachel. ‘Vacuum Cleaner’. ‘Vacuum Flask’. Nothing there for Maurice. Wine Rack. ‘Wok’. She had an idea. She would ask Maurice to send Rachel a painting. Rachel would like that. She liked anything ‘real’, anything which had been created – rather than manufactured – lovingly by the sweat of one’s brow, by hand.

Kitty thought of the session, the interview with Unterman which had left him damp and pale, hardened as he was, as if he had survived an obstacle course. Which he had. Hettie, tanned from her cruise with a brown which was almost black, had given him no quarter. He had arrived with typed menus, consecutively numbered according to price – having to do with Cornets of Smoked Salmon, with Asparagus and Lamb Chops in Pastry, Roast Poussins, Cherry Pom-Pom, and Profiteroles – which Hetty would not contemplate. Canetons à la Bigarade, she suggested having scoured her recipe books, Capilotade de Poulet Paysanne. To Unterman’s credit, Kitty thought, he had not flinched. Yes, he could sauté his chickens with garlic and with parsley and with chervil; yes, with bitter oranges and lemons, with clarified butter (except that it would have to be Tomor margarine) and with sugar, could he anoint his duck. Kitty could see that he was not keen. That he was reluctant – despite the fact that money was apparently no object – to throw the Unterman catering staff, with the dishes they were accustomed to preparing, into disarray. Manfully, he agreed to serve a kosher Gâteau de Foies de Volailles à la Bressane, four hundred Sole Dorée du Guesclin (omitting the Dublin Bay prawns); to produce at the apposite moment, a Soufflé aux Fraises, or for those preferring a cold dessert, a Mont Blanc Glacé (with synthetic cream), and to subdivide the meal with a Sorbet of Citrons Verts. He assured Hettie that during the reception hour preceding the dinner there would be none of his run-of-the-mill ‘canapees’ (eight to a person), miniature Welsh Rarebits or hot mushroom vol-au-vents, pronounced too commonplace by Hettie. Instead there were to be Mousse de Saumon Fumé au Cresson – served with hot matzos – stuffed vine leaves, miniature spinach puffs, hot Danish tartlets filled with smoked roe. There were to be flowers, fresh fruit, printed menus and place cards (following the colour scheme) on all tables, a challa for the blessing over bread, satin skull-caps (not paper) for the men, and small, ribbon-tied boxes of Belgian chocolates for every lady guest. There was to be a banking of flowers in front of the top table, and a wedding cake (for which Unterman produced coloured photographs, supported by gold and turquoise pillars of icing, consisting of four tiers.

When the statutory time had elapsed following the meal, evening tea was to be served with miniature sandwiches, diminutive reception pastries, and a generous helping of raspberries with cream. Unterman was to provide a full bar (spirits and liqueurs, sherries and aperitifs, together with lagers, beers, fruit juices and soft drinks) and a Möet et Chandon which would of course be available throughout the evening. Volunteering that which Sydney had laid down in Issy Miskin’s cellar, Kitty was aware that it would be a veritable drop in the champagne ocean. Hettie did not protest.

Kitty looked at what she had written. It was a cheek. Why should Maurice want to come to Rachel’s wedding just because they corresponded, because they had spent a few hours in each other’s company in Eilat? She was about to strike out the sentence, to scratch it out so that it was obliterated, when Rachel rang the bell.

“You look terrible,” Kitty said, at the sight of her youngest daughter’s white face.

“I feel terrible. We had a Chinese take-away.”

“What did you eat?”

“Unmentionables,” Rachel said.

“I told you to come to dinner with me. I fried some liver…”

“Don’t!” Rachel groaned, peering at the table. “Who are you writing to?”

“May I bring Sandra?” Norman asked his Aunt Kitty on his next visit. He knew that to bring her to Rachel’s wedding meant running the gauntlet of the family, of subjecting Sandra to Kitty’s appraisal, to the critical eyes of his Uncle Juda, to Beatty’s tongue.

“Delighted,” Kitty said, and she was, as she saw Norman blossom, Norman reborn, Norman come alive.

Norman himself felt like a Goliath, as if the world were his to deploy, and that everything was within his power. There had been a bad time when he had felt himself regressing, descending once more into the pit of his old, untutored ways. Sandra had rescued him. At the moment of his going down for the third time in the sea of his despair, Sandra had taken him, unworthy has he had felt himself to be, firmly by the hand. The turning point had come on the night that she had lured him to make love to her in his mother’s bedroom – his bedroom now, he had taken it over – where she had with the body she so unstintingly yielded, slain the demons which had threatened to devour him. It had been neither quick nor easy, but Sandra was not pressed for time nor would she be deflected.

Norman had raised his head from Sandra’s lap as she sat on his mother’s bed, looking up into her face, golden framed in its diaphanous hair.

“Not in here!” Norman was aghast.

“In here!”

Norman could see Dolly, in the dressing-gown she had worn during her last illness, standing, reprovingly at the end of the bed.

Sandra, her flesh polished, cool to the touch, seemed unaware of the disparaging presence.

Norman’s girl friends had, when Dolly was alive, been pronounced ‘common’, ‘plain’, ‘no better than they should be’ (Della). He did not want Dolly to see Sandra.

“Come into my room!” He tried to pull her.

Sandra lay down on Dolly’s bed – where he had found her, morning-cold – in his mother’s hollow.

“Norman I can’t go on like this.”

He heard the ultimatum in her voice. Their love, in this house, in his mother’s house, had been troubled. Troubled, Norman looked at her. Her breasts, despite Hilton and Milton, were firm, when she walked they trembled, and were fruit heavy when he held them in his hands. Her belly undulated from its button, its down shimmering in the light that was operated by a string from above his mother’s bed. Her legs were not long, but athletic, useful, their toenails painted red. Norman recognised his Armageddon. That it had come. And that he must not lose Sandra as he had lost Della, sacrificing her upon the altar of his filial loyalty. He removed his clothes, slowly, putting them on the chair where as a baby Dolly had nursed him – how proud she had been of keeping that chair – and where at night she had lain the underwear which had embraced and supported her.

The bed – in protest Norman thought at the unaccustomed weight – creaked as he lay down next to Sandra. Cowardly, he reached for the light, but Sandra was there before him.

“No.” Her voice, in its velvet glove, was iron. Norman put out a hand and was surprised, when it made contact with Sandra’s flesh, that its fingertips were not singed. His touch was tentative. The voice in his ears, ‘Norman!’ – hurt, shocked, surprised, grieved – insistent. To silence it he buried his head in Sandra’s perfumed hair.

“Norman.” Tender, loving, it was another voice. “It’s all right Norman.” It charmed him with its reassurance, superimposing itself upon the other.

“It’s not that I don’t love you…” Norman’s fingers grew braver, his hands stronger. “I love you.” He wanted to prove it to her and their bodies drew close, making passionate silhouettes, coming together and parting, a magic show on the rose-trellised walls. They were a symphony; a single voice. Over the months they had learned the notes together, perfected them. Lately, Sandra’s performance had grown in strength, while Norman’s had faded away almost to extinction. Now his andante matched her rallentando, his melody her plainsong. The bedroom receded, as did their forms, whose inner core produced agitations and disturbances, impressions and sensations, depths and understandings, comprehended only by those who in their wanderings had found a mate for their souls. Ridge responded to hollow, places to pressure, secrets were given up. Then downstairs – caught by the wind which blew through the letter-box into the privacy of the hall – a door slammed.

‘Norman! Is that you?’

His mother’s voice, clear, unmistakable, sent Norman, from his space mission, back to earth. He raised his head from Sandra’s body.

“It was only a door,” Sandra said.

‘Norman, what on earth are you doing?’

His mother’s mouth was open, scandalised. He wondered, sometimes, how she had conceived him. He grew limp before her gaze, the room, which had been warmed by the sun of his passion, cold. Sandra was waiting. He could feel the suspension. Waiting for Norman. Disentangling his limbs from hers, he got up and moved to where Dolly was standing, followed her to the bed, on which she lay down to escape from him. With a grim determination Norman gathered Sandra up with arms so strong, so firm, she cried out as their grasp caressed her body then ravaged it, besieged it like a conqueror, made with it a solemn covenant on which he could not renege. With his heart he avowed, with his manhood he swore, with his passion he underwrote his love for her which was paramount and which he would not relinquish. Later, apologetically, in a spun web of silence, he reiterated it more gently, tears blinding his view of her, christening their happiness, baptising it. Weightless, they lay entwined in the womb of their world, until it was time for Sandra to leave. When she had gone Norman moved his possessions into his mother’s room.