‘No, I just wanted to get out of the car.’
‘Oh,’ she said in a relieved tone. ‘Is that all!’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes: claustrophobia. I was afraid you were ill.’
‘And you don’t call that being ill?’ he said bitterly.
‘Of course not. I nearly died of terror once, when I was taken to see the Cheddar caves. I had never been in a cave before.’ She had switched off the motor and now she sat down on a roadside boulder with her back half-turned to him. ‘Except those rabbit burrows that we called caves in our youth.’ She held up her cigarette case to him. ‘I’d never been really underground before, and I didn’t mind going in the least. I went all eager and delighted, I was a good half-mile from the entrance when it struck me. I sweated with terror. Do you have it often?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know that you’re the only person who still calls me Lalla sometimes? We are getting very old.’
He looked round and down at her, the strain fading from his expression.
‘I didn’t know you had any terrors other than rats.’