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The House of Women
Father wanted a small family， but he also wanted an heir，
and he had four daughters and two wives before he
eventually had a son.
He was not， he said， adverse to daughters as such， but
his grandfather had had four sons， his father two and he
felt obliged to have at least one - a replacement ， as he
called him - to keep his branch of the family going，
especially as other branches had faded out of their own
accord. His family name was Courlander. Two of his
uncles had changed their name to Lander， and a third to
Lance~ ， which was perhaps just as well， for apparently
none of them had brought particular credit to the family，
and in any case two of them had died without issue.
Father s own brother Willie was a bachelor， and therefore
the full burden of perpetuating the line fell on him， and he
approached it with a gravity which he did not display in
other walks of life and which must have borne heavily on
poor mummy.
Father had a younger sister called Stevie， and in 1931 or
1932， when she was eighteen， she was sent to Berlin to
perfect her German and there became friendly with Thea，
a banker s daughter. Thea later came to England to study，
spent three years at Cambridge and stayed frequently
with my grandparents. She was tall and slender， with
great， soulful eyes， and a severe， rather manly hairstyle.
All her photographs show her to be a rather handsome
young woman. None show her smiling， and I could never
understand the basis of her relationship with Stevie， who
was large and ~enial， even if she rarely had anythin~ to be
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