‘Mother’s been on about nothing else since first thing this morning,’ said Pauline.

‘Well, I don’t wonder. You know I don’t like to criticize you, but you really shouldn’t let people – I mean, strangers – upset Mother.’

Pauline dumped the heavy laundry box on the kitchen table. She looked even more tired than usual. Her skin had a battered appearance as if lack of sleep and peace and recreation had actually dented and bruised it. She shrugged.

‘You believe her? You take all that rubbish for gospel?’

‘You mean you don’t have a friend who’s a doctor? He didn’t go into Mother’s room and boss her about last night? It’s all her imagination?’

‘That’s right,’ said Pauline laconically, and she filled the kettle. ‘She imagined it, she’s getting senile.’

‘But Mother never had any imagination. She heard him. She saw him.’

‘She can’t see,’ said Pauline. ‘Or not much. It was a dream.’

For a moment Marjorie was certain that she was lying. But you could never tell with Pauline. And what was more likely, after all? That Pauline who had everything to gain in esteem and interest by having a man friend should deny his existence, or that Mother who was eighty and half-blind and maybe senile like Pauline said, should magnify a nightmare into reality? Could it be, Marjorie wondered, that it had been Mother’s conscience talking? That was very far-fetched, of course, what her son and daughter would call way-out – but if only it were true! The alternative was almost too unpleasant to face. It took George to put it into words.

‘Old Pauline’s always been a dark horse. I can see what game she’s playing. She’s keeping him in the background till he’s popped the question.’

‘Oh, George, no! But she did look very funny when I spoke about him. And, George, the awful thing is, if he does marry Pauline he’ll never have Mother to live with them when he feels like that about her, never.’

Worrying about it brought on such a headache that when the time came for her next duty visit, Marjorie had to phone Mother’s house and say she couldn’t come over. A man’s voice answered.

‘Hallo?’

‘I’m sorry, I think I’ve got a wrong number. I want to speak to Miss Needham.’

‘Miss Needham is lying down, having a well-earned rest.’ The voice was deep, cultured, authoritative. ‘Is that by any chance Mrs Crossley?’

Marjorie said breathlessly that it was. But she was too taken aback to ask if her mother was all right, and who was he, anyway? She cared very little about the answer to the first question and she knew the answer to the second. Besides, he had interrupted her reply by launching into a flood of hectoring.

‘Mrs Crossley, as a doctor I don’t think I’m overstepping the bounds of decorum by telling you that I think you personally take a very irresponsible attitude to the situation here. I’ve hoped for an opportunity to tell you so. There seems to me, from what your sister tells me, no reason at all why you shouldn’t share some of the burden of caring for Mrs Needham.’