At the sink, the two women were slicing and spreading, and Marge had brought a jug of milk from the ice chest. Ida stretched her own elbow onto the table’s edge, staring and wishing that the woman in black had not come. Her arrival had turned everyone silent and queer, and she did not look at Ida or speak to her, as women usually did, but sat there, almost lifeless, with the brim of her ugly hat lowered over her hand. After a moment, the child drew away and sat down on a box of groceries that had been delivered that day from Anthony Hordern’s. Beside the groceries, Alfie had placed a shined pair of her father’s shoes, and, putting Rosie down, she picked up one shoe and began to play with the laces. The heavy shoe slipped between her knees and distended the floral lap of her dress, but she pretended to be intent on it, hoping that when she looked up the woman would be preparing to leave.

Instead, her mother was putting plates on the table and a glass of milk, and the bowl of fruit from the dining room. No one paid any attention to Ida, even though she had dirtied her dress with the shoe, which she now tumbled back onto the floor. The woman began to eat from a plate of cold meat, with sharp motions of her fork and knife. She showed no sign of going away. Marge was making the strong tea, dark and bitter even when it had milk in it, that they had every afternoon, and a cup and saucer had been set on the table. Ida saw with relief that her mother’s tea tray had also been laid—the tray with willow-pattern china and a plate of Arnott’s biscuits that was carried to the back veranda every afternoon.

When the tea was ready, her mother filled the cup on the table and her own cup on the tray. In an undertone, she asked Marge to fetch some tinned food from the basement. Then she picked up the tray herself and went out of the kitchen so quickly that Ida, who was afraid of being left with the woman at the table, jumped up and scuttled out after her.

The dog, stretched out on a patch of uncarpeted floor in the study, scrambled to his feet as they passed through, and pattered onto the veranda. He and Ida were allowed one biscuit each from the tea tray—which always meant one more. Ida took up her position by her mother’s chair, wondering if the ritual would restore their afternoon. But her mother was not thinking of her; she was frowning over the dishes on the little cane table at her side. When Ida looked at her, she handed her a biscuit absent-mindedly, and broke one in half for Jock, and sighed.