MORNING SERIAL

‘YES, of course,’ she said, smiling in his eyes.

‘Miss Dahl, our new languages teacher — Miss Lynne Williams represents music and dance.’ Patterson named this effeminate subject with a wince, in much the tone with which he might have pronounced the word, brassiere. ‘She liaises with Miss Brown and Mr and Mr Quantz, father and son, our two German teachers of piano.’

‘I think I met them yesterday.’

‘So you did. Sound, quiet chaps: “Decent Germans”, so to speak, like our good Heini and Herr Poppendick. You see, we do, Miss Dahl, view ourselves as ambassadors here, in our small way. Hence the school anthem.’

‘Ah?’ ‘“Ambassadors”. You will hear it sung at assembly.’

What hair, Issie was thinking, what hair. She could not help gazing at that ash-blondness, with a pang that twisted envy with unaccountable shock. Under the window, it soaked in light and radiated it, silken-fine as a child’s. Her page-boy style swung with each turn of her head. For all Lynne’s skittish rudeness, she hypnotised even Patterson. The returning cook seemed to pause momentarily over the mass of pale hair as he set the plate down before her. Yet Isolde thought he must have spat in it first. She would have spat in it.

‘Too kind,’ said Lynne, not really thanking him, tucking in with a fork. ‘What about some fresh coffee? I can’t drink this stewed muck.’

Issie felt mesmerised distaste. So apparently did the flock of German matrons at the bottom of the table, speaking fast and covertly in a thick dialectal brogue Issie could not easily penetrate, and which she had the idea was used as a code against the English.

‘So,’ said Lynne, between mouthfuls. ‘Here we all are again.”