‘Did he say why they cut off like that? I thought it was damned queer.’

‘No … no … now I come to think of it, he didn’t. Very odd, running away like that. Very rude. I told him so. I said …’

Aunt Maxine, with her eyes half shut and the corners of her mouth turning down with boredom and cigarette ash all over the shelf, listened for two minutes, and then cut in with—‘Nothing more about the will, I suppose?’

‘Nothing more. No news at all. I must say that I think it a little unfriendly of Marriot to be so secretive about it. After all, he does all our business …’

‘Must make a damn’ good thing out of it, I should think. I know he does out of me. And Grace told me she had an enormous bill in from him the other day. Can’t remember the figures, but it was something enormous. Well, I don’t suppose poor Hartley will leave much. That North woman will probably get the lot.’

Mrs North was reigning favourite at the time of Dr Garden’s death.

‘Dear me … I hope not. That would be … really, that is quite a new idea. I must telephone Marriot tomorrow and try to find out … really, his secretiveness is absurd. You don’t really think, Maxine? Surely not …’

‘Shouldn’t be at all surprised.’

‘Well … really … this has quite upset me. I must talk to Looie. Dear dear, there is always something … Well, goodbye. Goodbye. We shall all meet on Sunday at the Surgery. Goodbye.’

‘ ’Bye.’

Aunt Maxine, who did not at all think that Mrs North would inherit Dr Garden’s money, but who enjoyed alarming Uncle Preston, hung up the receiver and looked at the clock. In twenty minutes ‘It Happened One Night’ would be showing at the Regal, just up the road. Aunt Maxine cast a look of perfunctory inspection, which ignored smell, over her stiff sitting room with its orange and black decorations and framed Kirchner girls and artificial marigolds in tall glass vases, and then she put out the gas stove and the light, smacked Beatty and locked her in the scullery and went off to see ‘It Happened One Night’.

She did not expect that her dead brother had left her any money, and she did not particularly want any. That was a virtue in Aunt Maxine; she was not greedy. She was very pleased with her income, smelly flat and recreations.

If she was not left anything in Hartley’s will, she would naturally protest loudly to Preston, Grace and Loo, but she would not really mind.

Let’s hope the children get what there is, she thought, walking quickly up the dark street towards the cinema. There can’t be much because Hartley could never save a ha’penny and he spent such a lot on his women, and there was no money in the practice, anyhow. The practice will be sold, I suppose, but who’d want to go and live in Enbury Fields and kill themselves with hard work among a lot of dirty, ungrateful devils? If the children get a few hundreds each, they won’t come sponging on us … not that I’d grudge it them if they did, poor little beasts. They haven’t had much of a life. No fun. Poor Ethel … poor Hartley …