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By Root 5418 0

that it was difficult for the Major to see quite what she looked like, but (whatever she looked like) he was somewhat taken aback by the formality of her greeting. He might have been nothing more than a casual guest for bridge. Of course it was true, as he hastened to point out to himself, that their meeting had been both brief and a long time ago. As far as he could make out she was older then he had expected and wore a fatigued air. Though apparently too exhausted to rise she held out a thin hand to be squeezed. The Major, however, not yet having had time to adjust himself to this real Angela, seized it eagerly and brushed it with his shaggy blond moustache, causing her to flinch a little. Then he was introduced to the other guests: an extremely old gentleman called Dr Ryan who was fast asleep in an enormous padded armchair (and consequently failed to acknowledge his presence), a solicitor whose name was Boy O’Neill, his wife, a rather grim lady, and their daughter Viola.

The foliage, the Major continued to notice as he took his seat, was really amazingly thick; there were creepers not only dangling from above but also running in profusion over the floor, leaping out to seize any unwary object that remained in one place for too long. A standard lamp at his elbow, for instance, had been throttled by a snake of greenery that had circled up its slender metal stem as far as the black bulb that crowned it like a bulging eyeball. It had no shade and the bulb he assumed to be dead until, to his astonishment, Angela fumbled among the dusty leaves and switched it on, presumably so that she could take a good look at him. Whether or not she was dismayed by what she saw she switched it off again with a sigh after a moment and the gloom returned. Meanwhile the Major was thinking: “So that was what she looked like in Brighton three years ago, of course, now I remember”; but to tell the truth he only half remembered her; she was half herself and half some stranger, but neither half belonged to the image he had had of her while reading her weekly letter (an image he had been thinking of marrying, incidentally—better not forget that this fatigued lady was his “fiancée”).

“Did you have a good crossing, Brendan?” she was inquiring. “That boat can be so tiresome when it’s rough.”

“Yes, thank you, though I can’t deny I was glad when we got into Kingstown. Have you been well, Angela?”

“Ah, I’ve been dying”—a fit of weary coughing interrupted her—“of boredom,” she added peevishly.

Meanwhile, without taking her eyes off the Major’s face she had stretched out a leg under the table and begun a curious exercise with it, grunting slightly with the effort, as if trying to tread some slow-moving but resilient beetle into the tiled floor. “Is she trying to find my foot?” wondered the Major, perplexed. Then at last, after this curious spasm had continued for a few moments (the O’Neills were either accustomed to it or pretended not to notice), a distant bell rang somewhere away in the jungle of palms. Angela’s leg relaxed, an expression of satisfaction appeared on her pallid, fretful features, and an aged and uncouth manservant (whom the Major for a moment mistook for his prospective father-in-law) shambled out of the jungle breathing hard through his mouth as if he had just had some frightful experience in the scullery.

“Tea, Murphy.”

“Yes, Mum.”

Angela switched on the lamp long enough for Murphy to collect some empty cups in his trembling hands, then turned it off again. The Major noticed that old Dr Ryan was not asleep as he had supposed. Beneath the drooping lids his eyes were bright with interest and intelligence.

“I wish we could trust ours,” Mrs O’Neill was saying.

“It is a problem,” agreed Angela. “What do you think, Doctor?”

Dr Ryan ignored her question, however, and silence descended once more.

“In a lot of ways they’re like children,” Boy O’Neill said at length and his wife assented. “What an extraordinarily inert tea-party!” thought the Major, who had become aware of a keen hunger and looked up hopefully at the sound of a step.