‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, Auntie Pauline went off to get us coffee and while she was outside Nanna said he’s always telling her how lovely her daughter is and what a fine mind and how she’s wasted and all that.’

‘Nanna must have changed. She’s never had a good word to say for your auntie.’

‘She is changed,’ said George. ‘She’s all for Pauline going off and leading her own life and her coming here to live with us. Dr Whatsit’s told her it would be a good idea, you see. And I must say, Marje, it might be the best thing in the long run. If Nanna sold her house and let us have some of the money and we had an extension built on . . .’

‘And I’ll be off to university in the autumn,’ put in Brian.

‘I never did think it quite fair,’ said George, ‘poor old Pauline having to bear the whole burden of Nanna on her own. It’s not as if they ever really got on and . . .’

‘Nanna’s an old love with people she gets on with,’ said Brian.

‘I won’t do it, I won’t!’ Marjorie screamed. ‘And no one’s going to make me!’

For a little while no one attempted to. Marjorie prolonged her illness, augmenting it with back pains and vague menopausal symptoms, for as long as she could. Mother never used the telephone, and Marjorie could have counted on the fingers of one hand the number of times Pauline had phoned her in the past two years. Now there was no communication between the two houses. Marjorie began to go out again but she avoided going near Mother’s, and her own family, George and Brian and Susan, wishing perhaps to prevent a further outburst of hysterics, kept off the subject of her mother. Until one day George said:

‘I had a call at work from that doctor friend of Pauline’s.’

‘I don’t want to know, George,’ said Marjorie. ‘It’s no business of his. I’ve told you I won’t have Mother here and I won’t.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ her husband admitted, ‘he’s phoned me a couple of times before, only I didn’t tell you, seeing how upset it makes you.’

‘Of course it upsets me. I’m ill.’

‘No, you’re not,’ said George with unexpected firmness. ‘You’re as right as rain. A sick woman couldn’t eat a meal like the one you’ve just eaten. It’s Pauline who’s ill. Marje. She’s cracking up. He told me in the nicest possible way, he’s a very decent chap. But we have to do something about it.’

‘Any other man,’ said Marjorie tearfully, ‘would be thankful to have a wife who stopped her mother coming to live with them.’

‘Well, I’m not any other man. I don’t mind the upheaval and the extra expense. We’ll all do our bit, Brian and Sue too. Don’t you see, it’s our turn. Pauline’s had two years of it. The doctor says she’ll have another breakdown if we don’t, and God knows what might be the outcome.’