An elderly relative of the GF died last night, the last of her generation. So they are all gone now, the ones who grew up on pre-war country estates in an imperial age. She was one of those who flourished in the war, going from those country estates and palace receptions to intelligence work wartime Cairo, with tales of riding fine horses lent to her by Armenian millionaires. The GF and I took her to dinner once to a little Indian place in Soho, something she found quite delightfully new. The Indian food she’d had before was of the kedgeree or the balti house type, so actual desi food was new to her, as was the idea of eating with her fingers, perched on a hipster barstool.
There is something shocking when the last of a generation dies. I remember listening to aunts talking in near disbelief when the last of their own aunts died and broke the link to those before and to entire ways of life.