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moment of stillness passed and then his arms were round her and she was pressed closely against him.

'I have been the most monstrous fool,' he said, 'but I don't think I've done anything against the law, have I?'

'Against the law? Oh, I see. Me asking you to go to the police, you mean.' She pulled him on to the sofa and, still holding him, told him about Lance Platt, and the fire and Gemma.

'Oh, yes, I saw him,' Eugene said. 'It was your birthday, it was one o'clock in the morning. And what's more I saw the first flames go up from that burning house at the same time. I'll go to the police tomorrow.'

'Let's go now, Gene.'

'Oh, my darling, anything, anything you want, we'll go anywhere as long as you'll promise to come back here with me and never go away again.'

Neither of them, then or later, said a word about sugar-free sweets, though next day when he had left for the gallery Ella searched the house and satisfied herself that no more had been bought to replace those she had burnt in the garden. She went through the pockets of all his coats and jackets, finding nothing but laughing at the thought of hunting for Chocorange where another woman might look for love letters.

But that evening Eugene unbolted the door, they put on coats it was too mild to need and walked hand in hand across the Portobello Road past the Earl of Lonsdale, along Kensington Park Gardens and so to Ladbroke Grove where stands the imposing and rather grand police station.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The presence of Lance Platt in Chepstow Villas on the night of 14 September was never connected with the theft of Elizabeth Cherry's jewellery. No one told him why not and enquiring about it could lead to no good. It wouldn't only be sticking his neck out. Elizabeth's insurance company had paid up and Ella, the only person to be told about it, had completely forgotten that aspect of Gemma's story.

As soon as his alibi was accepted and he was released from prison, Lance moved in with Gemma. She nagged him so much about his work-free state that this time, instead of hitting her, he got a job. At the next interview he was offered as a Jobseeker he behaved properly, answered politely and said thank you very much when offered a position as assistant in a cut-price hardware shop in the Portobello Road. The owner pays less than the minimum wage, which is illegal, but he tells Lance that if he doesn't like it there will be plenty of people from Romania and Bulgaria who will.

A new house has been built at the end of Blagrove Road but Uncle Gib, as he had foreseen, has never moved into it. After waiting a decent interval of six months, he and Maybelle were married in the church of the Children of Zebulun and held their reception in the Fat Badger. Uncle Gib has become the new Shepherd of the Children of Zebulun and is deeply respected by his congregation. The pressure of work is heavy and he has had to give up his Agony Uncle activities but much of what he used to say he preaches about from the pulpit. The new house has a bathroom on each floor and each floor is let as a separate flat. The area is prestigious and Uncle Gib charges accordingly. He tells prospective tenants, demurring at exorbitant rents, that if they don't like the heat to get out of the kitchen.

Instead of the elaborate affair Eugene once wanted, he and Ella were married very quietly with her sister and his brother as witnesses, the bride wearing what the local paper called 'a simple afternoon dress'. Ella's baby is expected in August, her due date is the fifteenth, her forty-first birthday, that historic date that gave Lance his freedom.

Joel Roseman has become Mithras and seems to be happier in his new identity than he ever was as himself. He lives with his parents in Hampstead Garden Suburb where Morris Stemmer treats him with kindness and consideration, and Wendy's attitude to him is one of timorous love. Joel's father could perhaps never have been reconciled to the son who let his daughter drown but Mithras is a different person, sunny-tempered, even playful. He loves the light and keeps his own bed lamp on all night. His parents have got over the embarrassment they used to feel when he talks about the city from which he is a wistful exile, its towers glittering in the sun, its wide boulevards and its white walls on which angels sit and gaze at the broad shining river.

Undine in a Fishpond has lost its attractions for Morris Stemmer since his son came back in his new avatar. He tried to sell it back to Eugene but Ella's husband was unable to afford the exorbitant price he was asking and eventually got elsewhere. Anxious about the coming birth of his child, Eugene succumbed and bought a single packet of Oranchoco in the Golborne Road pharmacy. It lasted him a fortnight, he threw the last two sweets away and has had no compulsion to buy another.

The Portobello Road changes very little. There is talk of Woolworths disappearing and a tower block of flats with car park going up in its place, rumours too of arcades scheduled to be converted into mewses to satisfy the demand for more houses. Some say the pubs are to be renamed because no one knows who the Earl of Lonsdale was, still less the Prince Bonaparte, and those wanting change favour that cliché name the Slug and Lettuce. But there are always rumours and mostly they come to nothing.

On Saturday mornings the young pour out of Notting Hill Gate tube station and off the number seven bus and the number twentythree, on their way to spend their week's wages at the stalls and in the shops, on soap and beads and pashminas and herbs and all the perfumes of Arabia. To sit at the pavement tables drinking cappuccinos and lattes and Chardonnay. The old people come with their shopping trolleys because they have always come, because, if you live around there, the Portobello Road is where you do your shopping. The graffitists come and the pickpockets and the serious thieves. Prudent shopkeepers pull down metal grilles over their windows before they go home for the night.

And in the deep of the night all is silent while the centipede street draws breath and prepares for another day.