When I’d left London, August had still seemed a long way off and I’d hoped that after several months of our being apart it would probably be very pleasant to have her spend three days with me and let me show her Bristol. For after all, to begin with, we had got on rather well. But when her letter had arrived on the very morning of Roger and Celia’s visit, confirming and not cancelling (oh, how one lives in hope!), I had thought then: three days without writing, three days without privacy, three days of weighty talk and ubiquitous cigarette smoke, three days of almost endless coughing, how can I bear it? Three days of profanity and sensible down-to-earth attitudes... tainting everything. And I had wondered if I could perhaps make some excuse to save myself from such a purgatory. Any excuse—how much would it have mattered if she’d seen right through it? But as soon as I’d reflected I had felt ashamed. He wouldn’t have made one. And did a mere three days really represent such a terrible sacrifice?
