Her stockings were hanging loosely on her legs; I looked away distastefully. I couldn’t really blame Mark; Lucy Harbutt was a cheap little teenage tart, but at least she kept her stockings pulled up tightly. I wouldn’t have objected to having Lucy in my drawing-room; she was silliness, she was selfishness, she was trouble and ruin, but she smelled of hay-fields and pleasure.

“You mustn’t talk like that,” I said with no real conviction.

“I must think of the children,” she said. “Poor little scraps, they’ve only got me.”

And Susan too, I thought gloomily; who else do you think is looking after them now? There was a yell from the dining-room; it was Barbara.

“Give me it back, you naughty bad!” She started to scream. “I’ll slap you!” she shouted. Then there was the sound of two slaps. Dead silence followed and then a confusion of voices. I won­dered who had been slapped; it sounded, I thought approv­ingly, as if it were Barbara that was doing the slapping. She’d told me, tearfully, on Monday that Helen had taken her golliwog and Vivien her panda and Linda wouldn’t stop riding her bike; they were all naughty bads and I had to slap them.

“Slap them yourself,” I’d said.

“They’re bigger than me,” she’d said.

“Never mind,” I’d said. “Get your blow in first.”

I grinned at the recollection. That’s my daughter, I thought; she won’t let anyone push her around.

“Poor little scraps,” Sybil repeated. She didn’t seem to have heard the noise from the dining-room. “I’m afraid they suspect something’s wrong.”

“They’re too young,” I said.

“Linda’s seven. And the twins are five. Children are terribly advanced these days. And mine are terribly bright, though I says it as shouldn’t.” She gave me a watery smile. “The twins are full of life, they’re at the question stage. You know?”

I poured myself another whisky. I would have liked to have yawned in her face. “I know,” I said. “It’s very tiring.”

“Ah yes, don’t I know it? But rewarding, Joe, deeply rewarding. And Linda – she’s the thoughtful one. She doesn’t say much but she notices all that’s going on.”

“She feels things more,” I said. “You’ve got to handle Linda with great care.”

Sybil took up her cue instantly.

“She’s terribly sensitive. Because she’s so big for her age, peo­ple often think she’s just a tomboy. But she’s not. Oh no.” She shook her head slowly. “Linda’s thinking all the time, step by step. And when she’s worked things out, when she’s thought the problem right through – then she announces the solution. Now, the twins are more impulsive. . . .”