altogether different. The war years in Vienna had been very hard for her – there was no margarine, let alone butter – so she decided that now was the time to have as much butter as possible, not to mention anything else that had been rationed. As a child I would have
mounds of cherries and apples and bananas. I loved Eva’s domestic recklessness, but as she got older my mother became more like my father, a change in attitude that I could hardly believe. In her mind she went back to the austerity of the war years; I think a lot of this had to do with her friends, who were far more effective at curbing her extravagances than my father ever was. My mother ended up very like Henrietta’s – the ‘mustn’t grumble’ approach to life that came out of the war years. I remember as she got older, when she would run a bath, she would only fill it up four inches, and I would say: ‘Why are you doing that? Why don’t you pour yourself a really good bath, because your back’s bad and it would be so good for you.’
