life after death on Mrs. Jervis's party
when she heard Michael saying he didn't want to go to it.

He had no idea why he didn't want to go except that he didn't.

"What'?" said Frances. "Not when Nicky and Dorothy are going?"

He shook his head. He was mournful and serious.

"And there's going to be a Magic Lantern"--

"I know."

"And a Funny Man"--

"I know."

"And a Big White Cake with sugar icing and Rosalind's name on it in pink
letters, and eight candles--"

"I know, Mummy." Michael's under lip began to shake.

"I thought it was only little baby boys that were silly and shy."

Michael was not prepared to contest the statement. He saw it was the
sort of thing that in the circumstances she was bound to say. All the
same his under lip would have gone on shaking if he hadn't stopped it.

"I thought you were a big boy," said Frances.

"So I _was_, yesterday. To-day isn't yesterday, Mummy."

"If John--John was asked to a beautiful party _he_ wouldn't be afraid to
go."

As soon as Michael's under lip had stopped shaking his eyelids began.
You couldn't stop your eyelids.

"It's not _afraid_, exactly," he said.

"What is it, then?"

"It's sort--sort of forgetting things."

"What things?"

"I don't know, Mummy. I think--it's pieces of me that I want to
remember. At a party I can't feel all of myself at once--like I do now."

She loved his strange thoughts as she loved his strange beauty, his
reddish yellow hair, his light hazel eyes that were not hers and not
Anthony's.

"What will you do, sweetheart, all afternoon, without Nicky and Dorothy
and Mary-Nanna?"

"I don't want Nicky and Dorothy and Mary-Nanna. I want Myself. I want to
play with Myself."

She thought: "Why shouldn't he? What right have I to say these things to
him and make him cry, and send him to stupid parties that he doesn't
want to go to? After all, he's only a little boy."

She thought of Michael, who was seven, as if he were younger than
Nicholas, who was only five.

* * * * *

Nicky was different. You could never tell what Michael would take it
into his head to think. You could never tell what Nicky would take it
into his head to do. There was no guile in Michael. But sometimes there
was guile in Nicky. Frances was always on the look out for
Nicky's guile.

So when Michael remarked that Grannie and the Aunties would be there
immediately and Nicky said, "Mummy, I think my ear is going to