I switched on the hotplate. Her face puckered. “Daddy, don’t stop getting my juice! Why have you stopped getting my juice?”

“Don’t be so impatient, cheeky-face,” I said.

“I’m not cheeky-face. You’re a cheeky-face.”

“You mustn’t think that the world’s just made for you, darling.” I didn’t believe it even as I said it; as far as I was concerned she was entitled to the whole world.

I’d never felt like this about Harry; even when he was Bar­bara’s age he’d been curiously withdrawn and self-sufficient, so much so as to make me feel unreasonably guilty at times. And now, after a year at prep school, he seemed to need me even less; I suddenly realized that I didn’t even know where he was at the moment. The morning seemed less bright, the Formica-topped wall-table with the four stools against it seemed to belong to a café rather than to a private home, and the pink wallpaper – de­picting a fiesta scene in, presumably, Mexico – was rather too garish to be comfortable. The cupboards were built-in, and Larry Silvington, who did most to the Thespian sets, had decor­ated them with some of his special murals as a Christmas present to Susan. They showed Susan in each of her four big parts – perfor­mances, darling, we’ll always re­member with wonder and gratitude – and they were very lively and very gay and very witty and Larry really knew how to handle line, how to suggest movement and detail with a few strokes of the brush. It had been the very best Christmas present Susan had ever had, and she really had to kiss him; Larry was a real friend, and it was so good of him to give so much of his time and his talent; he had imagination, which was more than some people had . . . But I still missed the old kitchen cabinet which had now been relegated to the garage; I missed it because it was mine, a wedding-gift from Aunt Emily, I missed it because no one else but me would miss it. It wasn’t likely that Aunt Emily would notice its disappearance, for it wasn’t likely that Aunt Emily would visit us. She had to be invited first, hadn’t she?

I took a tin of orange juice from the refrigerator, shook it, and poured it into a jug. I took the tray from the freezing compart­ment and ran hot water over it; when the cubes loosened, I put four into Barbara’s pink plastic mug and gave her three straws. There had been a time when I derived a great pleasure from the mere fact of having cold orange juice available when I wanted it; now the refrigerator was, as far as I was concerned, only there for Barbara.

I lit a cigarette; she coughed a little, and looked at me re­proachfully. This was an expression for which her face was well suited; it was of the type which I call Victorian, oval with a short upper lip and high forehead and a nose which one day might well be Grecian. “It’s naughty to smoke before breakfast,” she said.