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By Root 230 0

perhaps that is what he intended, she thought; that I should replace the item that was missing. And for me, those pleasures which are lightly called physical would remain where they have been for so long now, so long for me that they have become my lifetime. And I should lose the only life that I have ever wanted, even though it was never mine to call my own. And Mr Neville’s smile, so unfailingly ambiguous, would always remind me of this.

After a while she got up.

Crossing over to the table, she picked up her letter, tore it in half, and dropped the pieces into the waste-paper basket. Then she took her bag and her key and left the room, went along the corridor and down the stairs. In the still silent hotel, the night porter, waiting to go off duty, yawned behind the desk and scratched his head. He straightened up when he saw Edith, and hastily assumed a morning smile.

‘I should like you to get me a ticket on the next flight to London,’ she said, in a clear voice. ‘And I should like to send a telegram.’

When the requisite form had been found, she sat down at a small glass table in the lobby. ‘Simmonds, Chiltern Street, London Wi,’ she wrote. ‘Coming home.’ But, after a moment, she thought that this was not entirely accurate and, crossing out the words ‘Coming home,’ wrote simply, ‘Returning.’