Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart by Stephen Benatar

beautiful.” She gives a nervous snicker. “I hope I didn’t keep you.”
    She’s an elderly rawboned woman with bleached hair and too much lipstick, too much eye shadow, too much mascara. They don’t go with her uniform. They don’t go with her demeanour. Even now, when she’s surely on her best behaviour, her expression indicates that life has been a disappointment.
    Tom’s voice already holds excitement. “Then did that snapshot seem familiar?”
    She gives him a coquettish glance. Maybe she thinks she looks about forty years younger than she does.
    â€œI’d be surprised if it didn’t,” she answers. “Seeing as I’m the one that took it.”

12
    During our return to East Anglia we decide to make a short detour; the weather has stayed warm and it’s only mid-afternoon. Back to Southwold, then. “Shall we inquire,” suggests Matt, “into their plans to change the name of the church? In memory of our meeting?”
    â€œMy, they do breed them ambitious in Connecticut! What’s wrong with just a wall plaque?”
    From the back of the jeep Trixie answers us lugubriously. “And that won’t take them long! Four measly little words! They met . They parted .” It’s been growing more and more obvious that following all our recent excitement a reaction has set in.
    â€œOh, come on, babe, that’s the Monday morning blues catching up with you on Wednesday.” Walt, who’s sitting beside her, sounds uncomfortable and Trixie’s reply isn’t going to reassure him.
    â€œMonday morning blues?” she exclaims, bitterly. “Rest-of-my-life blues, more like.”
    â€œNah, don’t say that. And, anyhow, it’s still possible Matt and I have something up our sleeve. Eh, buddy?”
    â€œWhat sort of something?” Already a faint display of interest.
    â€œOh, nothing much. Just a dance at the camp next Saturday. Even if people do say it’s going to be a dilly.”
    â€œDance! Next Saturday?” Trixie has the maybe enviable ability to coast along breezily from one highlight to another and not look much beyond the next in line, so long as there actually is a next in line. “But why didn’t you tell us sooner, screwball? The idea of it! Keeping a surprise like that all to yourselves!”
    â€œWe only heard about it Monday.”
    â€œSo? And today’s—”
    â€œAnd we decided,” puts in Matt, overriding her, “that we wouldn’t mention it until tonight. In case things felt a bit flat by the time we got back from London.” There’s no trace of irony, but there is a note of worry, and he looks at me without a smile. “Rosalind? You’ll come to it, won’t you?”
    â€œOf course she’ll come!” cries Trixie. “Think she’s barmy or something? You try to stop her, that’s all! Eh, Roz?”
    â€œWe really weren’t taking the pair of you for granted.”
    But he’s misread my hesitation. It’s a farewell dance, isn’t it? That’s really what I want to say.
    Yet instead: “You bet I’ll come. It will be wonderful.”
    Walt is wholly at his ease again. “You and the rest-of-your-life blues!” he teases. “We ought to go and see that woman we noticed the other day—her signboard, you remember—Madam Something-or-Other.”
    â€œOh, yes, let’s! That would be a giggle. I’d forgotten about her.”
    I feel perverse. “But what makes you think she’ll be open?” The shops around Leicester Square most certainly were—Matt and I went looking for those souvenirs I’d promised the young Crawfords—but suddenly it seems to me Walt’s being insensitive. It’s just too easy to fob Trixie off with a dance and with having her palm read.
    Yet on the other hand, if he can’t respond to her cri-de-coeur in the only way