LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I wouldn’t assume that immediately, you know. How old are you? Nineteen?’

      ‘Yes. Old enough to know, I think.’

      ‘Perhaps. Is it likely that you might prefer women?’

      Amy held out her glass to have it refilled. She was laughing so much that the froth spilled over her fingers.

      ‘Tony, what d’you think I am? If not pregnant, then a lesbian?’

      ‘I don’t know what you are,’ he said equably. ‘You tell me. I’m just eliminating the worst possibilities.’

      ‘I don’t think I prefer women. A man kissed me once, years and years ago, and that meant more to me than all the men I’ve met and danced with and half-heartedly allowed to kiss me ever since. He was the waiter, Luis, in the hotel in Biarritz, do you remember?’

      ‘Did he now? Yes, I remember him. Go on.’

      Amy took a deep breath. ‘I want something to do. To believe in, if you like. Something real, and valuable. Richard asked me last night what I do all day, and it amounts to shopping, being fitted for clothes, meeting girlfriends and having lunch, going to parties and staying in people’s houses. Helping Father to entertain when Mother isn’t here. At Chance, riding and playing tennis. Seeing neighbours and people on the estate. It isn’t enough.’

      ‘For many people, you know, it would be more than enough. It would be Paradise.’

      Amy’s face went a dull crimson. ‘I know,’ she said humbly. ‘Does that condemn me completely?’

      ‘No, it doesn’t. Let’s try to think. What could you do?’

      ‘Richard says that your office was full of girls doing things. I can speak French and German and a little Spanish. I can paint a bit, and a few other useless things. Could I be a secretary? Could I be your secretary?’

      Tony tried not to let his smile broaden. ‘I don’t think so. Most secretaries have to be able to type and take shorthand, you know.’

      ‘I could learn.’

      ‘Yes. Look, there must be other girls of your class in your position. They must do things to which there could be no possible parental or social opposition. Can’t you think of any?’

      ‘There’s Welfare work. Charity organizing. That sort of thing.’

      ‘Wouldn’t that do?’

      Amy’s disappointment showed. ‘It means sitting on committees for charity balls, and bazaars. Raising money. Addressing envelopes for appeals. I would have liked an ordinary job, perhaps something that might help people. Whatever they’re doing out there.’ She gestured over the heads of the crowd and beyond the walls with their white silk drapes.

      Tony’s eyebrows worked themselves into triangular peaks. ‘Out there? In Bruton Street?’

      ‘No, damn it. Not Bruton Street.’

      ‘Amy, how much do you really know about ordinary people and the work they do?’

      ‘Nothing. I’m asking you to help me find out. Look, you took Richard somewhere last night. Would you take me out sometimes, too? I’d like to meet some people who aren’t anything like these. There isn’t anyone else I can ask. If I mentioned it to Johnny Guild, he’d say, “Oh, I say, Amy, what for? I hate slumming.” If I could broaden my horizons a little, it might help me to know a little bit better what I’d like to do. Is that reasonable?’

      Tony sighed. ‘My dear. Downstairs you have the entire British aristocracy. If someone dropped a bomb now we’d have an instant socialist state. Up here is the cream of London’s fashionable intelligentsia. One notorious poet there. Two well-known actresses there, ignoring each other. A beautiful divorcee here with very high connections. What do you imagine you are going to gain by hanging around the Fitzroy Tavern with me? Or making little expeditions to gape at conditions in the East End. Or whatever romantic idea it is you’ve got in your head?’

      Amy looked down at her glass. ‘These are Mother’s friends. The people downstairs are here because Father is who he is. The King’s Defender, and all that. I want a life of my own, Tony. A useful, ordinary life with the rewards of satisfaction.’ She was crying again. A tear fell and rolled over her knuckles.

      Tony Hardy’s amused impatience evaporated. He thought that Amy had all the naïveté of her age and class, but without the cushioning of complacency. Her sincerity and her unhappiness were clear, and his heart went out to her.

      ‘Poor Amy. Here, handkerchief. Of course I’ll take you out and introduce you to some new people, if that’s what you would like. Don’t cry any more. Let’s fling ourselves into the throes of this party. There are dozens of people here I wouldn’t get a chance of seeing otherwise. If I arm myself with you, they can hardly cut me dead. Here’s some more champagne, to begin with. And in a week or two, if you would really like to come, we’ll go to a meeting organized by a friend of mine. It’s a political meeting, and it might interest you. Or more likely it’ll bore you to death. But there’s usually a kind of party afterwards, and people are certainly different. Different in the sense that they’re like one or two of the people in this room before they became fashionable or successful enough to be invited here by your mother.’

      Amy missed the touch of irony in his voice, or else she chose not to hear it. Her face was alight. She dabbed the tears away with Tony’s handkerchief.

      ‘Thank you. I’d like that very much. Now, let’s fling ourselves, if that’s what you want to do. Is it the poet you’d like to talk to first? Colum O’Connor comes to Chance for Mother’s house parties sometimes. He used to like me to go for walks with him.’

      ‘I’m sure he did,’ Tony said drily. ‘Yes, please. Do introduce me.’

      Amy went across and touched the poet on the arm. He beamed at her.

      ‘Well now, little Amy Lovell. Perfectly grown-up.’

      ‘Hello, Mr O’Connor. How are you? Do you know my friend Tony Hardy?’

      Together, they worked their way around the room, greeting and talking. The faces Amy didn’t recognize, Tony did. Between conversations, Tony whispered quick, scurrilous histories to her. Amy was distinctly impressed, and intrigued. He seemed to have a far-reaching knowledge of the more colourful sides of London literary and political life.

      After an hour, when they had reached their alcove again, Tony winked at her. ‘Thank you. That was useful. Now, d’you think we’ve earned some supper?’

      On the way downstairs Amy asked him, ‘What do you do at Randle & Cates, exactly? Apart from gossip?’

      Tony looked sideways at her, appraisingly, and then grinned. ‘Quite right, I do like gossip. I tell myself that it’s part of the job, listening to who thinks what and who’s doing what. I publish books, as you know. Which books I choose, or more often which books I nose out and coax people into doing, depends partly on what I hear, partly on what I believe in, and wholly on what will sell.’

      ‘Which is?’

      ‘Some poetry. No Eliots or Sitwells yet, but I’m working on it. Some politics. Not Peter Jaspert’s sort, I’m afraid. And some novels.’

      ‘What did my brother come to see you about yesterday?’

      They came into the supper room. At the far end, at an empty table, was Richard. There was a champagne bottle beside him. His chin was propped on one hand and he was smiling a faint, remote smile.

      They paused for a moment. Then Tony said smoothly, ‘He came to me with a proposition. Or rather more than that, a partly completed novel. I told him that he was too young even to think about it, let alone to carry it off properly. I also told him I would be interested to talk about it again in five years’ time. More than that, I don’t think I should say.’

      Amy looked across the room at

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