Time to Be in Earnest by P. D. James Page A

hospitable to me and I welcomed the companionship of compatriots when living abroad for even a few months. Françoise is not strictly speaking a compatriot; she is French and lived in Paris during the occupation and liberation, a time which is fascinating for me to hear about.
    We arranged to travel to Southwold separately, as Françoise drove herself from Oxford. I caught my usual train from Liverpool Street and arrived in time to share a lunch of smoked salmon sandwiches in theconservatory with Clare and Lyn who were already there. Clare was peeling apples to make chutney, and the strong smell of apples, vinegar and spices pervaded the kitchen and will undoubtedly remind me of this weekend whenever I smell it again. Françoise arrived shortly after four.
    The weekend has been spent resting, walking, talking and, on Friday, driving to Leiston, where Françoise and I enjoyed ourselves hunting in the Trading Post. The owner clears houses and her huge shed-like shop has the attraction of a childish treasure trove. Apart from the fun of occasionally finding a treasure or a domestic object needed but no longer made, there is something poignant and nostalgic about the accumulated leavings of dead lives: the old wedding photographs and remnants of tea-services, the sentimental Victorian prints, the formal photographs from the 1920s of earnest children posed against obviously spurious backgrounds and gazing into the lens with concentrated innocence. I remember a similar photograph taken when I was eleven and had just started at the Cambridge High School: my mother standing behind a synthetic wall (she was always sensitive about her size), myself with hair unnaturally tidy, held back with a slide, wearing my pleated gym tunic, Monica and Edward seated.
    Among a pile of objects we both found something to buy: Françoise a Doulton Victorian toothbrush-holder large enough to make an attractive flower vase, and a very pretty glass vase, also nineteenth-century, and myself two turn-of-the-century blue specimen vases, which I bought as a present for Clare.
    I was the first up this morning and heard the news of the death of the Princess of Wales as soon as I turned on the radio for the 7 o’clock news. My reaction, which must have been shared by millions, was disbelief, as if the natural order had somehow been reversed. Death has power over lesser mortals but not this icon. It took a few seconds of listening to the newscaster’s sombre voice to realize that this wasn’t a carefully contrived publicity stunt; this was reality, horrible, brutal, ugly and final.
    The four of us went to St. Edmund’s Church for the 11 o’clock service and it seemed appropriate to take part in the order, the dignity and the well-known prayers of the 1662 Mattins. The priest was at another of his group churches and the service was taken by a layman wearing doctor’s robes. He preached a short but remarkable sermon which could not have been bettered: Christian, scholarly and sensitive.
    After lunch at the Swan, Françoise and I spent most of the afternoon and evening watching the BBC tribute. It is never easy for public figuresto react appropriately at short notice to such a tragedy. Well-worn adjectives begin to sound like a mantra and the reiterated tributes seem fulsome and platitudinous. I thought that the Prime Minister was impressive, the Archbishop of Canterbury inadequate. The most moving tributes came from ordinary people whom Princess Diana had met, sometimes briefly, who spoke of her warmth and her loving concern and who obviously felt that they had had a personal relationship with her. This, I imagine, would have pleased her most.
    The process of beatification was well under way by the end of the day and will no doubt continue. There was something so horribly appropriate about the manner of her death, and I have the feeling that we were all involved in a Greek tragedy with the whole country as the Chorus. Beautiful, wilful, complicated,