After the bath （glorious） she sank into the bed with its lovely thick sheets—so much nicer than those in the Warrender. She was sleeping naked for the first time in her life. It felt transgressive. What on earth was she going to wear in the morning? She supposed the Savoy was the kind of place where they would go and buy something for you. They must get many stranger requests. The alternative would be to walk naked from the Strand to Knightsbridge like Lady Godiva, although without the horse. Or the modest veil of hair, for that matter. Now, that would be transgressive. And what’s more, would probably lead to her being arrested. Frobisher would have to come and free her. The thought of standing naked in front of Frobisher made her feel flustered and she was grateful that he wasn’t capable of policing her thoughts.
She closed her eyes, worrying that it would take her a long time to get to sleep after the evening’s excitement, but before the thought had even formed fully in her mind she fell into soothing oblivion.
Keeping the Sabbath
“I can’t see anything about the fight,” Betty said. She was yawning her way through the Sunday papers, a great pile of which were delivered to Hanover Terrace every week. She was on the lookout for anything that might have been written in the gossip columns about Saturday night’s skirmish in the Amethyst.
Sundays were languid in the Coker household, it being the day that they all dismounted from the mad, whirling carousel, for even nightclubs needed a day of rest. “I don’t see why,” Nellie grumbled. “If the British Museum can be open on a Sunday, why can’t we?”
“Not quite the same thing, Ma,” Shirley said.
“Open is open,” Nellie said, “closed is closed.” A remark that made no sense at all.
“I can’t believe it hasn’t made the news,” Betty said. She put the papers to one side and started to hollow out a solitary egg with a small spoon. She had been obliged to boil the egg herself as the cook insisted on having Sundays off. They rarely bothered with the niceties of Sunday lunch like other families （“le rosbif,” Nellie called it dismissively）。 Roast beef was for the suburbs, for the couples from Pinner, not for the Cokers. If they wanted rosbif, Nellie said, then they could go to a restaurant. No Sunday church services either, of course. The Cokers were all heathens, although Nellie fully intended to be given extreme unction at the end in the hope that it would wipe the slate clean of her many sins.
“I thought Vivian Quinn was in the club last night,” Shirley said. “Is there really nothing in his column?”
“No, it’s all about the new Gargoyle, thank goodness.”
“Who was there?”
“No?l Coward, Virginia Woolf, Guinnesses, Rothschilds—everyone, basically. The novelty’ll soon wear off, I expect. It always does. The dining room’s based on the Alhambra, apparently. Ma won’t like that, she’s always hankering after something Arabian.”
“All the perfumes of Arabia,” Shirley said.
“Will not sweeten her little hand?”
“Do you think Ma has blood on her hands?” Shirley mused in much the manner she might have said, “Do you think Ma’s ever been to Broadstairs?”
“Murder, you mean?”
“Murder?” Kitty echoed, from her perch at the window seat, where she was keeping an eye on the man in the garden. He was back. She felt proprietorial. She wondered about running down and asking him what he wanted. Did he want her? It was more likely he wanted Shirley, she was beset with admirers.
“Wouldn’t put it past her,” Betty said.
“Murder?” Kitty repeated.
“Wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“Murder?” Kitty said again, and would have repeated the word indefinitely if Betty hadn’t thrown her egg spoon at her and hit her squarely on the forehead.
There was no sign of Nellie or Edith, but they could hear Ramsay bashing the Remington’s keys upstairs.
“Working at the typeface,” Shirley said.
“Clever,” Betty said. She had moved on to an apple, paring it with the little silver penknife. She ate a great deal of fruit, especially if she could use her knife on it. Grapes were of no interest.
“Did we find out anything more about that woman?” Shirley asked. “The one that popped up out of nowhere and saved Frazzini’s man? She must have been a nurse. It was funny how Niven knew her—the way when he saw her he said ‘Miss Kelling’ and came over all peculiar. She was covered in blood. I thought of Medea.”