Spiderweb by Penelope Lively

you’re mad not to,’ says Nadine. ‘But of course you look amazing anyway, blast you, when you want to. It’s always the people who try least… it’s not fair.’
    Looking up, Stella caught sight of Richard Faraday in the wall mirror, suffused in flattering strawberry-gold light – the well-preserved older man, one would think, like a tanned actor in some commercial for insurance policies – and with him this woman, thin-faced, coppery hair flecked with grey, who is also given some subtle cosmetic treatment and appears for an instant like an elegant stranger with some haunting familiar echo.
    If you have been a beauty, ageing must be intolerable, Stella thought. The process is bad enough as it is – the ebbing away of possibilities, the awful tyranny of the body – but for those who lose their very trade mark, it is savage. No wonder so many elderly actresses take to the bottle. I should count myself lucky, who have never set much store by my own face.
    ‘So how are things going?’ said Richard.
    She was taken aback for a moment. Tm sorry?’
    ‘Acclimatization.’
    ‘Oh, that…’ Concentrate, she told herself. The man is not a mind-reader. And he is paying for your dinner. ‘Fine. I know my way around. I have a dog, for better or for worse. Time does not hang heavy, so far – by no means. I say – you were right about the scallops. Perfect. The sauce tastes faintly scented.’
    Richard smiled complacently. And I sound gushing, thought Stella. Uncharacteristic behaviour induced by this place, which is not really my cup of tea. And I still have to get through the fricassee of chicken breasts, chorizo, peas and thyme, not to mention an operatic selection of puddings.
    ‘Food is always more than meets the eye, of course.’
    ‘You mean there’s no such thing as a free lunch?’ said Richard. ‘This dinner is quite without strings, I assure you.’
    ‘No, no – I mean that it usually has ritual significance, the world over. Restaurants not least. The McDonald’s ritual is quite different from the ritual of a place like this.’
    ‘Well, so I should hope. Not that I’ve set foot in a McDonald’s since the girls grew up. So what is the hidden agenda here?’
    ‘Reassurance,’ said Stella. ‘The customer is being told that he is indeed in the depths of the countryside but, never fear, the resources of civilization are available. Mud and muck there may be, but immunity is available for those with discrimination.’ And a credit card, she was about to add, and then remembered that she was a guest.
    ‘Hmn.’ Richard eyed her. ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another could be that the customer is flattered by special effects – ‘ he waved a hand at the swagged chintz curtains, the beamed ceiling, the displays of lustreware – ‘and grandiose cuisine. He feels that this sort of thing is his natural due and decides to come again.’
    ‘Does it have that effect on you?’
    ‘No, but I’m a hard-headed civil servant, impervious to corruption. I simply come because it’s the best place within twenty miles for a good meal. I bring the daughters here when they visit.’
    ‘I hope that’s often,’ said Stella, feeling that she had perhaps been rather too combative a companion. ‘I mean, I hope they’re able to visit you a lot.’
    ‘They’re busy, but they come when they can. And I retaliate, of course. Laura is in London now …’ There was a fragmentary pause and then he started to talk rather deliberately about an exhibition at the county arts centre. Stella realized that he had felt himself to be treading on dangerous ground, in the presence of one who was childless.
    ‘Nadine always knew she wanted children,’ she said. ‘That surprised me, when we were young – that she could be so sure. She knew even when she was twenty. By the time I was thirty, I knew for certain that I didn’t.’
    He was relieved that he had not been tactless, she saw, but with the relief came a