‘To end such a family,’ she continued, trying a smile now, ‘is a terrible thing, Clodius, to do that you should be emptying out your own mother, your own father, your aunts and your uncles, spilling them, your playmate cousins, your own Pinalippy wife, abandoning them to nothingness, and all this fortune and all this property so carefully amassed should be lost, should fade away, should be destroyed, and our people should be chased here and there and cursed at, spat at, reviled, broken, if you did it. If you betrayed your own blood.’ She leant forward now even further, her face reddened, her hands shaking, the pearls clinking. ‘Don’t pull out the plug, Clodius, don’t do it!’

‘I shall not, Grandmother, I will not!’

‘You mean to pull out the plug!’

‘I do not!’

‘You shall do it!’

‘I shall not!’

‘To your own family!’

‘No, Granny, no, no!’

‘Then kiss me, child, kiss me.’

Again I made the horrible journey across the carpet, and again as I leant forward, my lips touched upon very little indeed. But while I was so close, she took hold of my hand, and then, our faces so close together, she said, ‘Do not forsake us, Clodius.’

‘No, Grandmother.’

‘Do you love me, child?’

‘Yes, Granny, I do.’

‘Do not hurt those you love.’

‘I promise …’

‘You promise!’ she said with something like happiness. ‘There, then. That is what I needed. For you to promise me, here in this room, here before my marble mantelpiece about which your own mother has played, a solemn promise that Clodius Iremonger shall promise to support his family, to serve that family to the best of his abilities, to dedicate himself to them. Do you swear?’

‘I do.’

‘Say it then, swear it.’

‘I do swear it,’ I said, trembling and sweating.