It had been a bad few days. She’d rowed with Everett over soup, failed to remember to kiss Finetta goodnight again, and lain awake every night, her belly huge, her ankles swelling; she’d had to take off her engagement ring, everything had got so fat, but even though her fingers still played over the place it used to be, she was unable to stop the thoughts that she thought she’d driven away. Was she too late, was it all too late, the path set irrevocably and nothing she could do? Yet it was all going so well – she remembered this in daytime when Fagus held his arms up, ready to be shifted to the chair; when he seemed to grow used to it as if he knew it was doing him good, like today, when it had only taken her minutes to tie him up.

“Let me in.” This time Douglas shouted it. But Fagus was held fast, and the knot was stuck. The ropes weren’t where she’d left them – she’d searched under the bed, then remembered she’d taken them out to the river to wash them; their dirt had got onto Fagus’ legs and stained his skin. She must have forgotten to put them back. She’d decided to use her dressing gown cord instead, but she’d pulled the knot too tight.

“I’m coming.” Her fingertips stung.

Fagus said, “Daddy?”

“Coming,” said Enid. Did it come out light? It was hard to tell.

“Enid.” Douglas rattled the handle. Any minute now he’d break the lock.

The knot gave, she pulled the chord through, loosened the binds then put Fagus’ arms around her neck and swung him into bed, her belly a mound that got in her way. She pulled the blankets over him, straightened her skirts, put a hand to her hair then twisted the key and opened the door. “Douglas.” She smiled.

He pushed past her and stood at the end of the bed, a force with no clue where to go. “What were you doing?”

“It’s his bedtime.”

“With a locked door?”

“I must have turned it by mistake. The draught—” She stood hopelessly on the rug, her mind a blank. She could only concentrate on Douglas, his face, the way she hoped hers looked.

She saw him look at the cord, dropped around the chair that in her hurry she’d forgotten to pick up. “What were you doing, Enid?”

She went over to the windows and closed the curtains. The room was a shelter of toys gone by; a basket of teddy bears and knitted rabbits, a merry-go-round of wooden zebras the size of little boys’ hands, a hobbyhorse leaning in the corner. “I’ll tidy up. Give him a kiss goodnight.” The chair stood like an assault between them.