When they went into dinner it was a private room, but large enough for the hundred or so guests, and what a delightful room it was, achieving what its designers had intended, that the privileged people who used it would not be able to say whether they were in Benares or Bogota or Senga.

Sylvia knew some faces from this morning in the café, but at others she had to look and look again... yes, Good Lord, there was Geoffrey Bone, as handsome as ever, and beside him the incendiary head, now subdued to a well-brushed russet, of Daniel, his shadow. And there was James Patton. For some people you have to wait decades before understanding what Nature has intended for them all along: in this case he had reached his culmination as man of the people, affable and amiable, comfily rotund, his right hand ever at the ready to reach out and clasp whatever flesh presented itself. There he was, a Member of Parliament in a safe Labour seat, and on this occasion a guest of Caring International, at Geoffrey's invitation. And Jill... yes, Jill, a large woman with a greyish coiffure, senior councillor in a London borough notorious for its mismanagement of funds, though the word corrupt could never, surely, be associated with this solid citizen whose police-bashing, rioting, American-Embassy-storming days were so long behind one could be pretty sure she had forgotten them or was murmuring, Oh, yes, I was a bit of a Red once.

Sylvia had not been put next to Andrew who was at the head of the table, flanked by two important South Americans, but beside Mona, some places away. Sylvia knew she was as invisible as an anonymous little brown bird next to a displaying peacock, for people looked so often at Mona whose name everyone knew if they followed fashion at all. And why was Mona here? She said to Sylvia that she was attending the conference as Andrew's personal assistant, and congratulated Sylvia, giggling, on her new status as Andrew's assistant secretary, which is how she was being described when introduced. Sylvia was able to sit quietly and observe, and imagine how Clever and Zebedee would look in these attractive uniforms, scarlet and white and so striking on the black skins of the smiling waiters. She knew, very well, how these youths had had to work, intrigue, beg for these jobs, and how their parents had sacrificed for them, so they could serve these international stars with food most of them had never heard of until coming to this hotel.

Sylvia was offered the choice ofcrocodile tails, in pink mayonnaise, and palm hearts imported from South East Asia, and all the time her heart was weeping, yes it was, a quiet wailing went on inside her, as she sat there beside Andrew's beautiful bride. It would not last, this marriage, you had only to look how they presented themselves, with the sleek complacency of well-fed cats, to know that she had said yes to Andrew probably for no better reason than she enjoyed saying, 'I have always liked older men,' to annoy younger ones, and he, who had not been married and had had to suffer the usual rumours, although he had been the 'friend' of a dozen well-known women, had finally needed to show his colours and make his statement, and he had, for here she was, his child bride.

Sylvia looked around, and despaired, and thought of her hospital, closed while people in the village were ill or had broken limbs or... there were never less than thirty or forty people a day needing help; she thought of the lack of water, the dust, the AIDS, she could not prevent all these stale old thoughts, which have been thought too often, and to no purpose. She imagined Clever and Zebedee's faces, disconsolate because they had dreamed of being doctors... how badly she had managed everything, she must have, for it all to end like this.

Mona was chatting to the man on her left about her poverty-stricken origins in a slum in Quito: she had been noticed by a visiting delate to a conference on the Costumes of the World. She was confiding to him that Zimlia was the pits, she saw too much on the streets to remind her of what she had escaped from. ' Basically, what I like is Manhattan. It has everything, hasn't it? I don't see why anyone should ever leave it. '

Now everyone was talking about the annual conference due soon, with two hundred delegates from all over the world, which would last a week, with a keynote speech on 'The Perspectives and Implications of Poverty'. Where should it be held? The delegate from India, a handsome woman in a scarlet sari, suggested Sri Lanka, though they would have to be careful because of the terrorists, but there was no more beautiful place in the world. Geoffrey Bone said he had spent three nights in Rio for a conference on the World's Threatened Ecostructure, and there was a hotel there... but, said a Japanese gentleman, the last annual conference had been in South America, and there was a fine hotel in Bali, that part of the world should have the honour. Talk about hotels and their attractions went on for most of the meal, and the consensus was it was time they favoured Europe, how about Italy, though probably strict policing would be essential, because they were all of them luscious targets for kidnappers.

In the event, they were all to go to Cape Town, because South Africa's apartheid was just about to disappear, and they wished to show their approval of Mandela.

Coffee was served in an adjacent room, where Andrew made a speech as it were dismissing them all, but saying how much he looked forward to seeing them again next month in New York – a conference; and then Geoffrey, Daniel, Jill and James came to Sylvia to say they had not recognised her, and how lovely it was to see her. The smiling faces told Sylvia how shocked they were at what they saw. ‘You were such a beautiful little thing, ' Jill confided. 'Oh, no, I'm not saying... but I used to think you were like a little fairy. '

‘And look at me now. '

‘And look at me. Well, conferences don't do much for one's figure.'

‘You could try dieting,’ said Geoffrey, who was as thin as ever.

' Or a health farm,’ said James. ‘I go to a health farm every year. I have to. Too many temptations in the House of Commons.' ' Our bourgeois forebears went to Baden Baden or Marienbad

to lose the fat accumulated in a year of over-eating,' said Geoffrey. 'Your forebears,' said James. 'I am the grandson of a grocer.' 'Oh, well done,' said Geoffrey.

‘And my grandfather was a surveyor's clerk,’ said Jill.

‘And mine was a farm labourer in Dorset,’ said James.

' Congratulations,’ said Geoffrey. ‘You win. None of us can compete with that. ‘And off he went, with a wave of his hand to Sylvia, Daniel just behind him.

' He was always such a poseur,’ said Jill.

‘I would have said a pouf,’ said James.

‘Now, now, the least we can expect here is political correctness.'

‘You can expect what you like. As far as I am concerned, political correctness is just another little sample of American imperialism,’ said the man of the people.

' Discuss,’ said Jill.

And, discussing, they went off.

On the steps of Butler's, Rose Trimble agitatedly hovered, in a smart outfit bought in the hope Andrew would invite her to the dinner: but he had not answered her messages.

Jill appeared and ignored Rose, who had described her Council as a disgrace to the principles and ideals of democracy.

‘I was only doing my job,’ said Rose to Jill's back.

Then, cousin James, whose face hardened: ‘What the hell are you doing here? Short of muck in London?’And he pushed her aside.

When Andrew came down the steps with Mona and Sylvia, he at once said, ‘Oh, Rose, how utterly delightful to see you. ' ' Didn't you get my messages?'

‘Did you send me messages?'

' Give me a quote, Andrew. How did the conference go?' ‘I am sure it will all be in the papers tomorrow.'

'And this is Mona Moon – oh, do give me a quote, Mona. How is married life?'