The notice came from the Hilton Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon but, since all her life she has been obsessively honest – returning to a newspaper shop because she has inadvertently taken away two copies of the Guardian after having paid for only one, burdening other passengers with the responsibility of handing over her fare to the conductor after she has alighted from a bus, and scrabbling in her purse for the odd coppers to make up the exact sum which she owes to some friend – it was not she who filched it but her brother Hugo. ‘Oh, Hugo! I can’t take that!’ ‘Well, I don’t know what else you can do with it – unless you want to post it back. You’re always complaining of your staff and girls bursting in on you. If you think ‘‘Do Not Disturb’’ sounds too peremptory, you can always write ‘‘Please’’ before the ‘‘Do’’.’ Although it is four years since Hugo gave her the notice and five months since his sudden death, she feels uneasily guilty whenever she has it in her hand.
