'But it's so odd of him, darling. Surely we didn't frighten him away? I thought you wanted to show him off? Isn't that why you schemed for an invitation? Who are you ashamed of, us or him?'

Roma's face was an unbecoming pink above the harsh blue of her taffeta dress.

'We're expecting an American customer to drop into the shop this Saturday. And Colin has got behind with the accounts. He's hoping to get them finished before Monday.'

'On a weekend? How conscientious of him. But I'm relieved to hear that you have some accounts worth doing. Congratulations.'

Cordelia, finding that she could make little headway with Simon, who seemed afraid to speak, withdrew her interest from her fellow guests and concentrated on her meal. When she next took notice it was to hear Roma's belligerent voice. She was addressing Ambrose across the table, clutching her fork as if it were a weapon.

'But you can't opt out of all responsibility for what's happening in your own country! You can't just say that you're not concerned, not even interested!'

'But I can. I didn't collude in the depreciation of its currency, the spoliation of its countryside, the desecration of its towns, the destruction of its grammar schools or even the mutilation of the liturgy of its Church. For what am I personally expected to feel a responsibility?'

'I was thinking of aspects which some of us see as more important. The growth of Fascism, the fact that our society is more violent, less compassionate and more unequal than it has been since the nineteenth century. And then there's the National Front. You can't ignore the Front!'

'Indeed I can, together with Militant Tendency, the Trots and the rest of the rabble. You'd be surprised at my capacity for ignoring the ignorable.'

'But you can't just decide to live in another age!'

'But I can. I can live in any century I wish. I don't have to choose the dark ages, old or new.'

Ivo said quietly:

'I'm grateful that you don't reject modern amenities or modern technology. If I should enter into the final process of dying during the next few days and need a little medical help to ease the way, I take it you won't object to using the telephone.'

Ambrose smiled round at them and raised his glass:

'If any of you decide to die in the next few days, all necessary measures will be taken to ease you on your way.'

There was a short, slightly embarrassed silence. Cordelia looked across at Clarissa, but the actress's eyes were on her plate. For a second, the long fingers trembled and were still.

Roma said:

'And what happens to Eden when Adam, solaced with no Eve, finally returns to the dust?'

'It would be pleasant to have a son to follow one here, I admit, almost worth marrying and breeding for. But sons, even supposing they came to order and if the process of getting them, deceptively simply physiologically, wasn't so fraught with practical and emotional complications, are notoriously unreliable. Ivo, you're the only one here with experience of children.'

Ivo said:

'It's unwise, certainly, to look to them for vicarious immortality.'

'Or anything else, wouldn't you say? A son might easily convert the castle to a casino, lay down a nine-hole golf course, make the air hideous with speedboats and water skiing and hold pretentious Saturday hops for the locals, eight-fifty a head, three-course dinner included, evening dress obligatory, no extras guaranteed.'

Clarissa looked across at Ivo:

'Talking of children, what's the news of your two, Ivo? Is Matthew still living in that Kensington squat?'

Cordelia saw that Ivo's chicken had been pushed almost untouched to the side of his plate and that although he was forking his spinach into shreds, little of it was reaching his mouth. But he had been drinking steadily. The claret decanter was on his right hand and he reached for it again, adding to a glass which he seemed not to realize was already three-quarters full. He looked across at Clarissa, eyes bright in the candlelight.

'Matthew? I suppose he's still with the Children of the Sun or whatever they call themselves. As we don't communicate I'm not in a position to say. Angela, on the other hand, writes a filial letter at boring length every month. I have two granddaughters now, she informs me. Since Angela and her husband refuse to visit a country where they might find themselves sharing a dining-table with a black and I have a distaste for sharing a table with my son-in-law, I am unlikely to make their acquaintance. My ex-wife, in case you meant to inquire, is with them in Johannesburg, which she calls Jo'burg, and is said to be enchanted with the country, the climate, the company and the kidney-shaped swimming pool.'

Clarissa laughed, a small bell note of triumph.

'Darling, I wasn't asking for a family history.'

'Weren't you?' he said easily. 'Oh, I rather thought you were.'

The table fell into a silence which, to Cordelia's relief, lasted with few interruptions until the meal was at last over and Munter opened the door for the women to follow Clarissa into the drawing-room.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ivo wanted neither coffee nor liqueur but he carried the decanter of claret and his glass with him into the drawing-room and settled himself in an armchair between the fire and the open french windows. He felt no particular social responsibility for the rest of the evening. The dinner had been sufficiently grim, and he had every intention of getting quietly but thoroughly drunk. He had listened too much to his doctors. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it. Obviously, what he needed was to drink more, not less; and if it could be wine of this quality and at Ambrose's expense, so much the better. Already his self-disgust at allowing Clarissa to provoke him into that spurt of angry revelation was fading under the influence of the wine. And what was taking its place was a gentle euphoria in which his mind became supernaturally clear, while the faces and words of his companions moved into a different dimension so that he watched their antics with bright sardonic eyes as he might actors on a stage.

Simon was preparing to play for them, arranging his music on the stand with uncertain hands. Ivo thought: Oh God, not Chopin followed by Rachmaninov. And why, he wondered, was Clarissa draping herself over the boy, ready to turn the pages? It wasn't as if she could read music. If this was to be the start of her usual system of alternate kindness and brutality she would end by driving the boy out of his wits as she had his father. Roma, in the taffeta dress which would have looked too young on an ingénue of eighteen, was sitting rigidly on the edge of her chair like a parent at a school concert. Why should she care how the boy performed? Why should any of them care? Already his nervousness was communicating itself to his audience. But he played better than Ivo expected, only occasionally attempting to disguise the misfingerings by too fast a tempo and the over-use of the sustaining pedal. Even so, it was too like a public performance to be enjoyable, the pieces chosen to show off his technique, the occasion made more important than anyone wanted. And it went on too long. At the end Ambrose said:

'Thank you, Simon. What are a few wrong notes between friends? And now, where are the songs of yesteryear?'

The decanter was now less than a quarter full. Ivo stretched himself more deeply in the chair and let the voices come to him from an immense distance. They were all round the piano now, roaring out sentimental Victorian drawing-room ballads. He could hear Roma's contralto, invariably late and slightly off-key, and Cordelia's clear soprano, a convent-trained voice, a little unsure but clear and sweet. He watched Simon's flushed face as he bent over the keys, the look of intense, exultant concentration.