“I don’t know very much about that sort of establishment. I have never had occasion to be associated with any of those places. They are rather outside my ken.” Max might have been speaking of a strip club instead of what was, after all, a perfectly respectable center of higher education. “From what your parents have told me, it looks as if you personally, indeed wantonly, destroyed your chances of a real education by your criminal behavior and its inevitable consequence.”

I had expected a lecture but not this. When I was young—I mean a schoolgirl—and Max used sometimes to come and stay for a weekend before he was married, he had helped me with my history homework. He had seemed kind enough. I even quite liked him. When he said those things, I took my eyes from him and looked down into my lap.

“But now you are committed to this mixed course at this polytechnic”— I could hear the inverted commas sticking out round the key words—“you must put all possible effort into doing well. You must redeem yourself. You must make your parents feel, and Selina and me feel, that our efforts on your behalf have not been in vain, and then gradually you will be able to mount once more in the world’s esteem.” He changed the subject, sniffing suspiciously. “Have you been smoking, Clodagh?”

“I sometimes have a cigarette,” I said.

“Yes, I can smell it. You smokers believe you don’t smell of your habit but there you are wrong. It’s one thing in a man, quite bad enough, but repulsive in a woman. And you are a woman now, you know. You must give it up. It’s expensive and bad for your health. I am sure I don’t have to tell you that in no circumstances whatsoever are you to smoke in Grandmother Mabel’s flat.”

So that was what she had been called, Mabel. A strange old-fashioned name. I rather liked it and I’m afraid that to me the most important detail in Max’s homily was the disclosure of old Mrs. Fisherton’s first name. Never mind the smoking, the wantonness, the blowing of my chances, I had found out what she was called. I smiled at Max.

His features relaxed. Not quite into a smile, not that, but there was a softening. “What do you want to do when you have your, er, degree, Clodagh? Have you any ideas for a future career?”