‘And you haven’t done anything while I was away.’

‘I’ve certainly done a lot of complicated living.’ Molly looked sceptical again, so Anna gave up. She said, humorous, light, plaintive: ‘It’s been a bad year. For one thing, I nearly had an affair with Richard.’

‘So it would seem. It must have been a bad year for you even to think of Richard.’

‘You know, there’s a very interesting state of anarchy up there. You’d be surprised — why haven’t you ever talked to Richard about his work, it’s so odd.’

‘You mean, you were interested in him because he’s so rich?’

‘Oh, Molly. Obviously not. No. I told you, everything’s cracking up. That lot up there, they don’t believe in anything. They remind me of the white people in Central Africa — they used to say: Well of course, the blacks will drive us into the sea in fifty years’ time. They used to say it cheerfully. In other words, “We know that what we are doing is wrong.” But it’s turned out to be a good deal shorter than fifty years.’

‘But about Richard.’

‘Well he took me out to a posh dinner. It was an occasion. He had just bought a controlling interest in all the aluminium saucepans, or pot-cleaners, or aircraft propellers in Europe — something like that. There were four tycoons and four popsies. I was one of the popsies. I sat there and looked at those faces around the table. Good God, it was terrifying. I reverted to my most primitive communist phase — you remember, when one thinks all one has to do is to shoot the bastards — that is, before one learned their opposite numbers are just as irresponsible. I looked at those faces, I just sat and looked at those faces.’

‘But that’s what we’ve always said,’ said Molly. ‘So what’s new?’

‘It did rather bring it all home. And then the way they treat their women — all quite unconscious, of course. My God, we might have moments of feeling bad about our lives, but how lucky we are, our lot are at least half-civilized.’

‘But about Richard.’

‘Oh yes. Well. It wasn’t important. He was just an incident. But he brought me home all in his new Jaguar. I gave him coffee. He was all ready. I sat there and thought, Well he’s no worse than some of the morons I’ve slept with.’

‘Anna, what has got into you?’

‘You mean you’ve never felt that awful moral exhaustion, what the hell does it matter?’

‘It’s the way you talk. It’s new.’