Lying doggo, Rosie heard him go downstairs. Outside, he called, “Teddy. Teddy.” Certain voices, certain sounds—music, laughter, the sound of the sea—were not infractions; had their own component of silence. Just as one spoke of silence as part of a natural condition: “I kept silent,” “I remained silent.” How many voices there had been—beloved voices, voices one had ached for, calling one’s name, reading aloud on summer evenings, voices with inflections, accents, silences of their own. And all the other voices—impersonal, resentful, furious—and the metallic disturbances of office life: the clash of filing drawers, typewriters, telephones, buzzers, voices shouting “Going up,” “Going down,” “I won’t stand for this” … So-and-so was a big noise, someone else a pipsqueak. And how many cars, trains, planes, loudspeakers, transistors—

“Going, Mrs. Peale? I’ll be right down.”

“I’m off now.”

“See you next week then.”

“All being well.”

In the living room the television had been turned down but not off. A pair of figures capered through a mime about breakfast food. You should be able to cover it, like a parrot, when you want it to be quiet, thought Rosie, twisting the switch and causing the mummery to be sucked back soundless into a pinpoint of white light. The dishwasher changed gear and dried up. The heating, like the Hoover, had long since ceased to run. Rosie lay down on the sofa with her book.

“Well, for crying out loud. Hiding in here.”

“Mrs. Lauder. I thought I heard the knocker. Come in. Mr. Lauder.”

“Quiet as a mouse, while we were hard at it. But we won’t squeal on you.”

“Tea and cake?” said Rosie.

“Perhaps a shot,” said Mrs. Lauder, “of something.”

“Mr. Lauder?”

“You’ll have to roar.” Mrs. Lauder leaned over, put her hand on her husband’s knee. “Dad. Have you got it turned on, Dad?”

“Not so loud,” the old man said.

Rosie splashed whisky into glasses, pierced at breast height by a high whistle as Mr. Lauder adjusted his hearing aid. “Soda?”

“A dash for Dad. Rocks for me. Last night, then, you arrived?”

“Late, yes, from New York.”

“I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.” Mrs. Lauder clashed the ice about in her glass. “We like a quiet life.”

Rosie shouted, “Crackers?”

The old man shook his head, tapped his ear. “Makes a noise when I eat.”

“Everybody’s hammering away,” said his wife. “It’s a scream. Even the General showed up and pounded for a while: just a couple of small trees, nothing to shout about.”

“And does it help the elms?” Rosie inquired. “Honestly?”

“Oh, they certainly say.”

“That big tree, for instance, at the end of the green.”

Mrs. Lauder reflected. “That’s a maple.”

Rosie objected, “But it’s got a disease.”

Mrs. Lauder drank, swallowed, shook her head. “Strangled root.”

“Unsound,” said her husband.