Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

Author:Barbara Pym [Pym, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780060970314
Publisher: Perennial
Published: 2004-12-15T06:00:00+00:00

‘I wonder what the girls are doing now,’ said Norman.

‘The girls?’ Of course Edwin knew perfectly well whom he meant but he was not used to talking or thinking of Letty and Marcia in this way.

‘A nice lie-in, then breakfast in bed, elevenses in town and a wander round the shops—lunch in Dickins & Jones, perhaps, or D. H. Evans. Then back home well before the rush hour, then I…’ Norman’s imagination failed at this point and Edwin was not capable of filling in the gaps.

‘That’s quite likely for Letty,’ he said ‘but I can’t see Marcia spending her day like that.’

‘No, she wouldn’t want to go round the shops,’ said Norman thoughtfully. ‘Letty was the one who used to go to Oxford Street in the lunch hour—didn’t even mind waiting for a bus.’

‘No—we sometimes used to meet in the queue when I was going to All Saints, Margaret Street.’

‘You never persuaded her to join you,’ said Norman sardonically.

Edwin seemed embarrassed, almost as if he had tried and failed, but Norman did not press the point. ‘It seems funny without them,’ he said.

‘Perhaps they’ll pop in some time,’ Edwin suggested.

‘Yes, they did say they’d pop in.’

‘Not that I can really imagine them doing that—they’d have to come up in the lift, wouldn’t they, and that’s not quite the same.’

‘Not as if we were on the ground floor and could be seen from the street,’ said Norman, almost wistfully.

‘At least we’ve got a bit more room now,’ Edwin began to arrange his lunch on what had been Letty’s table, spreading out slices of bread, a tub of polyunsaturated margarine, cheese and tomatoes. Taking out a packet of jelly babies he had a sudden and vivid picture of Letty, but why this should have materialized at this particular moment and with such intensity he could not have said. Surely nothing to do with the jelly babies?

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