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By Root 301 0

adopted. After this I begin to be aware of the attention of studied inattention. The talk is a bit too loud, too hearty, too aggressive or too defensive; these people are acting, overdoing domesticity and the small details, over-stressing the fullness of their own lives. Sandra’s feet no longer tap as lightly as they did. And it occurs to me that we are straining these people whose welcome meant so much, whose friendship we value, whose pleasures we share. Sandra appears all naturalness, all delight. And perhaps she is. But she is so young! Her husband is so young! Can this naturalness be trusted? Away from this gathering, they are not just earning a living; they are making a fortune; how this must consume them! There, in the making of a fortune, in the management of Crippleville, in the dealings with contractors and banks and solicitors and accountants lies their true interest. It is the bigger and more important side of their life. They are making a fortune and working at it with a dedication that must obsess them. Here they can be natural and relax; but isn’t this an exploitation of their friends? All this I can see. I can see how every attempt at friendliness must appear false and insincere and must arouse the instinct to snub, how even my laughter at the fiction just discovered in the Society Page must irritate. This youth, this placidity, this coldness concealing the passion, the money passion, that is truly nameless. All this I see but do not know how to communicate to Sandra. She is still my luck. I leave her as always to fight her own battles; I know that she will win. I still delight in the bite of her phrase-choked speech, that thrust of chin and lower lip.

So we were set apart. And a little above. It is the human instinct for order; and those who so willingly ranged themselves below us required us to display extraordinary qualities. We were required to be kinder, more considerate, less impatient, and above all never to pay attention to the one thing – in our case money – which in the minds of others set us apart. We were constantly challenged, provoked, tested. The extra strength that was attributed to us encouraged our friends to a display of proportionate weakness. And we responded wrongly. It is difficult to be a lord! I sought accommodation where I ought to have imposed authority. And there was Sandra with her gift of the phrase, her North London tongue, battling where she should have succoured and consoled. I encouraged her, I am afraid, by being amused. She often spoke damaging words in public for my benefit alone.

We went one Sunday to see the house which one of our couples had built in the central hills of our island. Everyone else was mad about beach-houses – a house in the hills was original. We had heard a lot about this house; but its details had been kept secret, and were to be a surprise. The road to the house was bad and dangerous and slow; it was raining. Sandra did the driving; she was not in a good mood when we arrived. Almost the first thing she said to our hostess, in response to some light though too self-depreciating query about the house, was: ‘I wish you would make up your minds whether it is a country cottage or a country house.’ There was an instant chill in the air, more than the chill deriving from the altitude for the sake of which the house had allegedly been built. The thermometer might have dropped to sixty just before sunrise, and the most you might have said was that with a log fire you wouldn’t be too uncomfortable. Much varnished pine, I remember; an abundance of knots; very Scandinavian, as we agreed. We were led to the enormous fireplace, brass-and-leather belts or some such studded thing hanging irregularly on either side. We stood stunned and hushed; the moment for exclamation and congratulations passed, missing us; we moved away. We stood before an open window which looked out on to lush, dripping greenery; it was sunny now, and steaming after the rain. Sandra said: ‘It must get damned cold up here.’ Our hostess, who was Swedish, lost control of her English accent. Sandra,