I yawned. “Daddy works hard all week earning pennies. He needs to rest on Sundays.”

“Why do you earn pennies?”

“Because Mummy and Daddy and Harry and Barbara need a house. And things to eat and drink—”

“Harry lives at school. He has a house there, he has. And things to eat and drink.”

“But Daddy has to earn pennies to keep Harry at school. And pennies for pyjies and frocks and dollies and bicycles and all sorts of things.”

And the light grey fitted carpet and the grey and primrose yellow wallpaper and the built-in wardrobe and dressing-table and the candy-striped sheets and the divan bed with the Con­tinental headboard; we were always buying something new, the house itself was only three years old. The building of a Council estate near by had been the excuse for leaving Linnett Road; the neighbourhood – we had to face it – was going down. And the birth of Harry had been the excuse for leaving Pudney Lane, on the road to Gilden; the house was too old, too big, too much for Susan to look after; and too cut off. I’d liked it myself, and still missed it; it was my choice, it had belonged to me. At least, I’d paid the deposit myself and could keep up the mortgage repay­ments. I remembered the visit to our solicitor to go over the deeds of our present house and the expression which had flick­ered across his face when he’d realized where the money – or most of the money – was coming from. There was nothing I could put my finger on; but there was no mistake about either his con­tempt when he looked at me or his envious lubricity when he looked at Susan. The expression wasn’t too obvious, of course; and perhaps no one but me would have noticed it. But when you marry a rich man’s daughter you become expert about these matters.

Barbara tugged my hair. “You’re still not up, Daddy,” she said.

“All right,” I said. “I tell you what, we’ll make some teapot tea for Mummy.”

“And juice for me. Nice cold cold juice. With ice in.”

My dressing-gown was on the floor; I reached down for it, but Barbara ran out of the room with it. She threw it over the stairs, then began to cry. I looked at her in bewilderment. “What is it, silly billy?”

“I won’t like it,” she said. “I won’t like it, I never. I want the fuzzy one.”

“Put your dressing-gown on first, then. And your slippers.”

I went back into the bedroom to fetch my own slippers and the fuzzy dressing-gown. It was of camel-coloured wool, and I’d bought it when we lived in Pudney Lane; it was now mangy rather than fuzzy, and always had been too large for me. Its thick­­ness had been welcome enough in the draughty corridors and icy bathroom of the house in Pudney Lane; it wasn’t really neces­sary now. The oil-fired central heating, in fact, kept the house so warm that we hardly needed clothes at all; I didn’t object to this, but there were times when, perversely no doubt, I missed the com­fort the old dressing-gown had given me on winter morn­ings, just as I missed the open fire in the big kitchen. But I didn’t mind; more and more frequently these days I didn’t mind. Bar­bara re­appeared in her pink dressing-gown, the hood pulled up over her head. “Be my horse,” she said. “Be my furry horse.”