Lynne dialled a number and, while waiting, glanced about at Thelma’s possessions. Her eyes flickered over the cheap cane telephone table, the padded stool next to it, the garish oval flower prints Thelma had pinned to the wall. Then she looked coolly at Seymour and he found himself retreating, full of resentment, to the living room while she made the call. How dare she cast those critical eyes over Thelma’s genteel poverty? How could she be so unemotional and detached when Angie, her own sister, was obviously so ill? And the way she was speaking into the phone, asking for her father as though she were just ringing up to discuss something as ordinary as being picked up from one of her old ballet classes! She had the kind of voice Thelma and his mother referred to as ‘nicely spoken’, but Seymour didn’t think it was an apt description. Not if it meant only words clipped out so that you practically heard each distinct cold syllable.

‘I’d like to speak to Mr Easterbrook, please. This is Lynne, his daughter, calling, and it’s fairly important. Thank you, yes, I’ll wait till he’s off the other line.’

He could hear the sound of her breathing, the impatient tap of her fingernails drumming on the cane table. He knew it wasn’t polite to listen to someone else’s phone conversation, but in that tiny cramped house there was nowhere else to go, unless he were to open the front door and stand casually on the veranda staring down Victoria Road. That would look stupid, and besides, Thelma had forbidden him to open the front door. He couldn’t go back into the kitchen, either. The hall was so narrow that when anyone used the phone, the passageway was effectively blocked. He stayed where he was in the living room and made a pretence of not listening.

‘Dad? Angie’s gone right off the top again, yes, the usual, what do I do? Mum’s not home…I’m not ringing from home, anyhow. Some kid phoned me, that little boy Mum told you about, the one Angie brought out to lunch that time. I don’t know anything about him, he just lives across from her…You should see the terrible dump she’s living in, it’s gross, nearly as bad as that boarding house…No, I didn’t see any, but I didn’t make a point of looking, did I? Dad, I don’t want to…I won’t stay with her! Mum said I shouldn’t have to ever…Oh, all right, then! Well, it’s a sort of flat in an alleyway. Yes, the alley’s wide enough to get the car down, but you be quick, okay? I don’t want to be with her on my own, having to talk to her if she wakes up, you know what it’s like…It’s always so…ugly!’