When I took the tea into the bedroom Susan was still sleep­ing. I gently shook her and then lifted up her eyelid. She smiled. “What a good Joekins you are.” I gave her a kiss; she pulled me down on top of her, her arms so tight around my neck that I had to disengage myself in order to breathe.

Barbara had put the hood of her dressing-gown over her head again. “He is a good Daddy Joe, he is,” she said. “He gave me juice and ice straws.”

Susan leaned over and kissed her. Barbara accepted the kiss with no show of enthusiasm.

“I can see through your nightie, Mummy,” she said. “You can’t see through my pyjies.”

Susan laughed. “Well, there isn’t much to see yet, is there, dear? Now run along to your own bed.”

“I’m not sleepy any more,” Barbara said.

“You don’t want a spanking, do you? Mummy only says things once, Barbara.”

Barbara went out, her shoulders drooping.

Susan poured out the tea. “You spoil that child,” she said.

“She has a nice nature. You can’t really spoil Barbara. Of course what she really needs is someone of her own age – or nearer her own age . . .”

“We’ve been into that before.” She reached down for the bed­jacket, which as usual was lying on the carpet beside the bed.

“Not really,” I said. “Not really.” I sipped my tea. We, Joe and Susan Lampton, had never really gone into the question of hav­ing other children; but after Barbara had been born, my father-in-law and mother-in-law had.

I saw Susan’s mouth assume the pout which was always, these days, the precursor of a quarrel. Once it had been the precursor of kisses; but once she’d wanted five children all like me.

“If you’d been through what I went through when Barbara was born—”

“All right, all right. Let it ride.”

“You’re absolutely selfish. I suppose you’d like me to die. Then you could go off with that little tart Jean Velfrey whom you’re so fond of. Don’t think I didn’t notice you the other night. Or that no one else did.”

“She’s nothing to me. Look, I said let it ride. I won’t mention it again.”

Susan took a cigarette from the pocket of her bedjacket. Like most women, she made a great business of smoking, inhaling and exhaling with great noisiness. “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said.

Let it ride again. I’d given way. I let things ride for the sake of peace; but they weren’t riding away from me. They were riding over me, on me, trampling me into submission, and sometimes I felt that everyone knew it. I felt something very near hatred for Susan; she’d won again, the pout had been replaced by a faint smile. And one of these days I’d rather you didn’t would become You better not; and then I’d be forced to start thinking. Thinking con­structively, to use my father-in-law’s favourite adjective. And clearly and boldly, to use a couple more. And big; I mustn’t forget Thinking Big.