At Death's Door by Robert Barnard

looked after. Or at any rate, that other people rather expect them to be.”
    â€œYes . . . Anyway, here was this very intense, self-possessed, ambitious girl who’d had to throw up the part of Ellie Dunn at the Haymarket when the pregnancy started showing. I say ‘self-possessed’—maybe ‘self-obsessed’ would be a better term. She was clearly half-resentful of the pregnancy and wondering what stage offers she would get after the baby was born. She was without doubt pleased,even proud, at having so famous a lover, yet she made no apparent effort to make him happy or comfortable. Her housekeeping was atrocious.”
    Cordelia laughed delightedly.
    â€œIt would be!”
    â€œThis was the dawn of the era of convenience foods. They were not as good then as they are now. All the food we ate was frozen, or from tins, and even then it was always overcooked or undercooked. My father was never a gourmet, but he always liked a minimum of creature comforts. I remember he got a woman in from the village to cook my welcome dinner. The other meals he tried to make a big joke out of, with me.”
    â€œIt’s very typical. I remember at some crisis or other my mother taking me to a cottage in Lincolnshire, to ‘get away from it all.’ We had to come back after five days, because I was half-starved.”
    Roderick was thinking back.
    â€œI said the situation was odd. The difficulty was to find the basis for the relationship. Sex, of course—but it had become much more than casual, so there had to be something else. She was wild to get him to write a play for her. Badgering wouldn’t be too strong a word.”
    â€œI’m sure,” said Cordelia.
    â€œRemember his novel-writing career was over, or so everyone thought. He hadn’t published any fiction since 1952. He’d said all he had to say, that was his public line, and in fact his last one had been rather thin. It had been a splendid career, stretching back to 1927, when D. H. Lawrence was still alive—”
    â€œI know,” said Cordelia with a touch of impatience. “I did my M.A. thesis on him.”
    â€œReally? You’ve never told us that. I can’t imagine your mother approved.”
    â€œI told her it was on Elizabeth Bowen. She never knewtill the degree had been awarded. You say she was badgering him for a play.”
    â€œRight. Well, Father had announced to all and sundry for years that his novel-writing days were over, and I think Myra hoped that the idea of a play would stimulate him creatively. He’d written one play, years before. It had been put on by Binkie Beaumont, but it had been a critical success rather than one with the public.”
    â€œWas anything done about a second play?”
    â€œIdeas were tossed back and forth. We’d sit eating our half-heated steak and kidney pudding out of tins, and Father would say: ‘What about this?’ And Myra would sit, considering the idea in her intense, egotistical way: What part was there for her? How effective would her scenes be? And he would watch her, his eyes sparkling. . . . I have to say it: Your mother has no sense of humor.”
    â€œNone at all. But what do you mean? Was he just playing with her?”
    â€œI think there was a strong element of that. But there was something else—and I’m not sure that I should mention it, because it reflects no credit on our father: I think he was mostly interested in observing her.”
    Cordelia laughed joyously.
    â€œFor The Vixen ? Planning it even then?”
    â€œThat’s what I decided later, when the book came out. Then I realized that that was the basis for the relationship as far as he was concerned. Material for one more book. I found it quite deplorable. Completely cold-blooded.”
    â€œNot nice,” agreed Cordelia, but unwillingly. She fiddled with some twigs on the bush. “But you don’t know how my