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backgrounds for everyone she met. Bernard was probably a passionate man, she hazarded – yes, a passionate man who was afraid of the strength of his own feelings. Couldn’t be easy for him, anyway, having a wife so ill. Mrs Franklin had read about multiple sclerosis. Must make a married life very difficult. Particularly for someone of his age. Must be around forty-five . . . still very much a man, anyway. And, however much he loved his wife, it couldn’t be easy. Men have needs, Mrs Franklin knew (not so much from the evidence supplied by the late Mr Franklin as from magazines she had read which were very insistent on the subject). No, probably best thing would be if Mrs Hopkins were to suffer a sudden deterioration, go downhill very quickly and die. Then Mr Hopkins would have plenty of time to get over his bereavement and find someone else. It would give him another chance. Yes, that would be the most satisfactory thing to happen.
    Having sorted out Mr Hopkins’ life to her own satisfaction, Mrs Franklin continued folding the mail-shots that were to be sent out to the selection of schools in Germany which had in previous years proved such ready sources of students for the Garrettway School of Languages.
    â€˜There’s really just this Turk,’ said Julian Garrett languidly. His swivel-chair was tipped back, and his highly- polished black brogues rested on the edge of his paper-strewn desk. The chair and the desk were both some fifty years old, props perhaps from a thirties movie set in a newspaper office. Like the brass plate downstairs, they gave an impression of solidity, of a history stretching back longer than the school’s actual five years.
    The appearance of the school’s principal reinforced this image of solidity. A television casting director, into whose office Julian Garrett walked, would immediately have put his name up for parts of upper-class professional men of great charm and reliability, the sort who had been to the right schools and university, and whose honour and integrity need never be questioned. The image, maintained by Julian’s Savile Row suit with its discreet chalk-stripe, always put at ease those – particularly foreigners – who consulted him about their own or their children’s enrolment in his school.
    The fact that his appearance invited theatrical comparisons was no coincidence. Julian Garrett, who had been to the right schools and university (more or less), and whose honour and integrity had never been questioned (at least not in a court of law), had started his career as an actor and been cast in just those roles which his looks demanded. So long as the work was there, acting had suited him, not least because of the ready supply of young actresses on whom his charms could be exercised. But, after a few years in the business, the parts had, for no readily identifiable reason, gotten fewer. This lull in his career, happily coinciding with his mother’s death and bequest to him of a considerable estate, including the house in Brighton, had pushed him towards a profession which promised to provide a more stable income than the stage. His appetite for young actresses was smoothly replaced by an appetite for young foreign students, whose two-week courses in Brighton paralleled very comfortably the short encounters of touring and provincial rep.
    The school itself had been a success. After initial hiccups, it had quickly found its regular sources of students. Since very few of these had come to England and Brighton primarily for the attractions of the language course, and most of them had an exceptionally lively social life during their stays, they tended (frequently to alleviate guilt) to report back favourably to their parents on the academic standards of the Garrettway School, and so Julian did not suffer that annoyance of being judged by results which bedevils so many educational institutions.
    The same lack of follow-up favoured the other