People were eating now. Despite the fact that the pâté tasted like old socks and the kipper mousse contained more bones than Highgate Cemetery, everyone was sycophantically asking Marcia for the recipe.

‘Lots of brandy and garlic,’ she was saying.

‘Nice tits,’ said the rugger player, looking at my nipples. The pockets of my cheesecloth shirt, which usually covers them, had ridden up after all that shaking.

‘It’s much easier of course if you get your butcher to mince the pork and the pig’s liver first, like my butcher does,’ said Marcia.

‘I’d like a balloon,’ I said to no one in particular.

‘Come back to my little black hole of Belgravia,’ said the accountant.

‘Then you chop up some fresh thyme,’ said Marcia. Suddenly she noticed that her mother was sitting unattended on the sofa, stuffing herself with kedgeree and, grabbing my arm like a vice, said, ‘Oh Pru, I know you’d like to meet Mummy.’

Why should I meet Mummy? I was far too busy keeping handsome men in stitches with my witty repartee. I stuck my legs in like our dog when he doesn’t want to be bathed, but Marcia was too strong for me — much stronger than any of the rugger players. Next minute I was rammed down on the only tiny corner of the sofa that wasn’t occupied by Mummy.

‘Lovely kedgeree, Marcia,’ said her mother enthusiastically. ‘I don’t know how you do everything.’

‘Oh it’s just organization; you know that better than anyone,’ said Marcia, skipping away like a young lamb and leaving me to my fate. I couldn’t see Pendle anywhere.

‘You must be very proud of Marcia,’ I said insincerely.

‘Everyone says that,’ said her mother smugly. ‘She gets on with everyone, runs the flat, holds down a job, and of course she’s Sir Basil’s right hand, and then there’s all her voluntary work.’

After Marcia she moved on to shopping, rabbiting on and on about triumphant forays to Dickins and Jones, dignified rebukes to shop assistants, the matching saucers tracked down, the jersey with the pulled thread returned. Really I wasn’t up to it at all.

Behind her the accountant was making more code signs trying to get me on to the dance floor, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the rugger player waiting to tackle from the left. The flatmate who hadn’t been able to have a bath was dancing with the goat, which seemed appropriate. Perhaps they were having a pong-pong match. A couple were necking unashamedly on the next door armchair, the man’s hand well advanced into the girl’s blouse. I was terrified Marcia’s mother would see them. Marcia had turned up the volume to drown the more excessive of the rugger songs and the distant sounds of some of the fruit salad being regurgitated in the lavatory.

I couldn’t hear a word Marcia’s mother was saying. My only hope was to watch her teeth and laugh when she did. I was in despair; my glass was empty; I thought of sending out maroons. I knew as a copywriter and as a potential novelist I ought to be studying the old monster. One day I might want to put her in the book. The true writer’s supposed never to be bored by anyone, but what was the point of studying her if I’d be far too drunk to remember anything about her in the morning?

Suddenly I saw Pendle through a gap. He was talking to the blonde with dirty fingernails, but he was glancing at his watch and had the abstracted look of a referee about to blow his whistle. That decided me.

‘I must get you some of Marcia’s delicious pudding,’ I yelled in her ear, and floundered towards the food table. Marcia passed me going in the other direction.

‘Poor Mummy,’ she screamed, ‘I was just coming to rescue you.’

I ate some kedgeree out of the dish. It was quite good. I licked the spoon thoughtfully and took some more. One of the rugger players tugged off the goat’s udders and, to much shrieking, threw them out of the window. Pendle suddenly looked round and caught my eye. He left the blonde and came over.

‘“I stood among them, but not of them”,’ I intoned, ‘“In a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts”.’

‘You got trapped,’ he said.

‘I’ve been taken on a tour of three million department stores. I feel utterly shop-wrecked.’

He didn’t smile. I licked the spoon, then helped myself to more kedgeree and ate it. Then I realized how disgusting it must look. I blushed and put the spoon down. The mauve candles bought to match the Michaelmas daisies, which Mummy had presumably brought up from the country, were almost burnt down.

‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plaintiff,’ I said, picking at the battlements of wax. Still not a flicker. Really he was making me feel very edgy with all this staring.

‘Pretty fireproof, aren’t you,’ I snapped. ‘Why don’t you go if you’re so bored?’

He looked at me consideringly for a minute then said, ‘I will if you come with me.’

I was so surprised I nearly dropped the saucepan.

‘Wild horse-guards wouldn’t keep me away,’ I said.

Two seconds later, I was burrowing like a dog through all those tweed and camelhair coats to find my bag, panicking that he might change his mind.

Outside the beginning of autumn lay sodden and misty, with a faint smell of dying bonfires in the Chelsea gardens. Conker husks and the kapok innards of the udder lay strewn over the pavement.

He had an expensive looking car, pale grey, of course. I remember there was a half-eaten bar of chocolate in the glove compartment. I ought to have seen the red light then. People who don’t gobble up a bar of chocolate in one go have too much self-control.

‘Why are you called Pendle?’ I said, snuggling down in the front seat.

‘After a mountain, not far from our house.’

‘I bet it’s hell to climb and covered with snow all the year round,’ I said, admiring his perfect Greek nose. I’d got hiccups quite badly. ‘Not a very good party.’

‘I don’t like cold houses and warm drink,’ said Pendle, ‘but it had its compensation. Where do you live?’

‘On my nerves and on the edge of Battersea Park. My flatmate works in publishing. She’s lovely.’

‘All girls say their flatmates are lovely.’

‘She really is. She’s having an affair with a married man, going home to bed in the lunch hour and all that.’

‘What about you?’ he said.

‘I play the field,’ I said.

It was true. I had plenty of boyfriends at that time, but no one I really cared about. I was poised for the big dive.

The sky was a brooding dappled dun colour; the moon was drifting through the clouds like a distraught hostess. A slight breeze jostled the leaves along pavements and gutters. We were driving along the Embankment now, the river rippling in the moonlight. Such was my euphoria, I didn’t realize we hadn’t crossed Chelsea Bridge towards Battersea until we drew up at a large block of flats.

‘Ou sommes-nous maintenant?’ I said.

‘Mon apartement,’ said Pendle.

‘Oh la la. Where’s that?’

‘Westminster. Very convenient for my chamber in the Temple.’

‘Torture chambers,’ I muttered. ‘I suppose that’s where you dream up devilish plots to confound your poor victims.’

Pendle lent across and opened the door for me.

‘I don’t usually go to men’s flats the first night I meet them,’ I said.

‘I’m sure you don’t,’ he said calmly. ‘I hope you don’t usually go to parties like Marcia’s.’

‘Oh well,’ I said, as he locked the car, ‘just a quick drink and then home.’

‘What floor?’ I said, collapsing into the lift.

‘Thirteen. Are you superstitious?’

‘No, just super.’ As I haphazardly pressed a button, Pendle took me in his arms. That first kiss felt so faint-makingly right that it was only when he stopped for breath that I realized the lift had stopped too. Aware that I wouldn’t be looking my best with smeared lipstick under overhead light, I scrabbled at the lift gates, then felt very silly when I realized we were still on the ground floor.

Pendle laughed. ‘You pressed the wrong button.’

When we finally reached his flat I headed straight for the bathroom for a re-spray. My face was very mussed and flushed. If only I looked as nice after parties as I do at the beginning. To my dismay I then realized I’d left my muck bucket at Marcia’s and brought someone else’s bag instead. Inside I found a notecase with three fivers, a driving licence, several credit cards, and a photograph of a labrador and a tweedy woman with her legs apart. There was even a diary with the pencil still in the back — and we were now in September. Obviously a well-ordered person. Alas the only make-up she had was an awful cherry lipstick, which was hardly sufficient for the repair job I needed. I peered into Pendle’s medicine cupboard hoping for some make-up left by a former or current mistress, but only found expensive aftershave, talcum powder and, what was more interesting, two half-full bottles of tranquillizers and sleeping pills. Perhaps he was much more strung up than he seemed, behind the cool façade.

‘Oh well,’ I thought, taking the shine off with a bit of talcum powder, and slapping his aftershave on to my pulse spots, ‘I’ll just have to rely on personality.’

He was standing in the hall. For a minute he stood there staring at me, as though he was memorizing every feature.

‘It’s incredible.’

‘Will I do?’ I said, swinging on the door handle.

‘A thousand ships,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Well perhaps 950 ships. A purist would grumble about the freckles, and say your eyes were too far apart.’

I looked bemused.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trained to be infuriatingly enigmatic. It’s a game I used to play with my brother Jack. You know, Helen was the face that launched a thousand ships; we used to grade women from 1,000 ships downwards.’