He came at last, at night. He found the shutters closed, shutting out all he had left. He came upon Christopher playing in the library with his bricks. The light was soft, soft as in the day the cedar outside lay about the room. He sank back on to cushions covered with a willow pattern, forgetting the hard pews they had at the substation, lent by a church, and that had racks at the back in which to place hymn books, forgetting the train, the car beginning to recede, coming gradually out in the old comfort, and the remembered warmth of his wife’s presence.

When Christopher demanded that he should help build something, and he was about to ask if Christopher would mind his sitting quietly by to watch, he was annoyed to see Dy frown and nod her head. She had noticed he wanted to refuse. She meant to make the few days they were to have together as much a memory to the boy as they would be to the father. She was determined they must share what little time they had. He had the grace to give in. He sat by his son to put up a harbour.

When his father had finished the lightship it was Christopher’s bedtime, but the next morning Dy added a custom’s house. She gave it a Carolean front. Then he bombed the whole thing down, and the time had come to go out to find Actress.

Actress was a hound bitch. For some reason her name was to be changed to Acorn. She lived about the stables, not right in the head. Her eyes were brown, but she was mad by a never-shuttered grey light in them, even when smiling. She was shy, wild with everyone but Christopher.

To go out to the stables with him was to go back years, Richard felt, to be the age again when he was always drifting out to the saddleroom, when the last day of the holidays he had said goodbye to a terrier, which had been his uncle’s before the Germans killed his uncle in the last war, and it howled as he said goodbye for another term. This morning he now went out with Christopher, so many years later, there was no snow, but the roadway was slippery with ice. The boy wore rubber boots. In shrieks he called “Actress,” and “Acorn darling.” She did not come to him. His father was shewn where she slept, and was asked if he did not think her bedding comfortable. They visited the red setter Bruno. Christopher called again, but still no Actress. They looked through the kitchen garden, at the other empty rabbit hutch, then went back to the lawn. By this time the boy had forgotten all about the bitch.