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non-committally. ‘And—the blackbird?’
    I told her about Toby’s visit to the cottage, and my feelings about it. She told me straight out I was mad. ‘He loves you—you love him. He’s not a poor waif or stray any more, he’s on his way. Now, baby apart, I fail to see how or why you should be a millstone round his neck at this stage.’
    â€˜It isn’t the right time yet,’ was all I could find to say.
    â€˜And is this another reason for the New York project?’ she asked astutely (I hadn’t mentioned this angle on things before). I admitted it was. ‘The trouble with you, Jane,’ she said, ‘isthat you’re too conscientious about these matters. You won’t “play the game”—the man-getting game. You never were any good at it. Any other woman would have been married to Terry by now.’ Almost before I could grimace, she hastily continued: ‘Not that I think that would have been advisable, mark you. Clearly you’d have been miserable, but a lot of girls prefer safety to the joys of independence. I often wonder if I wouldn’t myself.’ She sighed—a faintly overdone sigh, but with a wealth of sincerity in it.
    â€˜Don’t tell me you’ve never had any offers.’
    â€˜Oh—
offers
,’ she said scathingly. ‘Every female with her glands fully functioning has had
offers
—of some sort. What becomes increasingly unbearable is the dichotomy between those few you want, and those entirely “other” few who want you. They never seem to overlap at any point.’
    I wondered if Dottie had ever had any affairs. I felt sure she must have, since nothing in her bearing and manner suggested the isolation of virginity. If so, they must have been disappointing—and, I suddenly realised, rather recent. There had not been this faintly world-weary smoothness about her even a year ago. The decamped interior decorator, perhaps? I was almost curious enough to ask, but Dottie was not the kind of woman who is only waiting for the right leading question to give her the chance to pour out all. If she wanted to, she would, so that the direct question would seem like the grossest inquisitiveness.
    While we ate, she asked a lot about what it was like, living in the country (she was such an urbanite herself that the mere idea filled her with incredulity and wonder, as if one were describing life on a distant planet) and a lot more about the baby. Once or twice before I had had an idea that, despite the circumstances, she rather envied me David—and even what I had gone through before he was born. All through the years of our friendship, she had been the leader, not only because she was slightly the elder, but because she had always been more adventurous, more extrovert and positive in her outlook than I. But now, with a giant step, I had apparently (in hereyes) overtaken her; she now deferred to me in a curious way. I had entered, albeit through the back door, The Club, and Dottie, I knew, felt more left-out than ever before. Her questions were directed at finding out some of the mysteries; but the mysteries of this society are not secret, they’re open, a hundred times described and explained, yet still as mysterious and tantalising to those outside as if no one were allowed to mention them. And there was no denying it, I did feel a certain superiority which I couldn’t wholly suppress whenever I thought or spoke about David—a superiority which kept guilt and doubt to a minimum.

Chapter 3
    IT ’ S amazing how long it takes to bring out a book. Toby’s took nine months to be born, just like a baby, and Addy’s, even though it was coming out first in speed-crazy America, was going to take about the same. This I learned from Billie Lee, who, seeing that I was all set to rush off to New York in time for Christmas, told me firmly to go home and relax. ‘Next Autumn,’ she