This girl was a bit bizarre though. Clive had told them both off fairly soundly. And Tim had gone red. But she. She was cool as a cucumber. No, not a cucumber, a smooth, white grape.

Below there was a sort of crash. Probably Tim dropping something in his scurry to clear up.

Amanda bounded down the corridor. She half screamed from the bannisters into the well of the house: "I don't like this!"

Stupid bitch.

"She'll have to stay the night, you know," said Clive. "That girl." Amanda stared back at him as if he had announced their divorce. "It's after eleven. Apparently her gran's had to go into hospital. She's nowhere to go."

"You don't believe that?"

"Well. Maybe not. But you can't put a teenage girl out on the street at midnight."

Amanda was rigid. She charged to.the bedroom, and from a closet began to tear out a duvet for the operational spare room.

Mothers got jealous when their sons showed interest in other women.

Perhaps if she paid Clive more attention, she would be less sensitive.

In bed, Amanda sat up, her face like half an egg spread with oil, reading an article on fiber.

Clive lay with his hands behind his head watching the papered ceiling.

"Let's make up, shall we?"

Amanda did not reply.

Clive thought of the girl with black hair, over in the spare bedroom under the duvet. She had no pajamas. Would probably sleep in the T-shirt. Or in nothing. Bet Tim wished—

Clive turned his mind to tomorrow's dinner. Amanda would have to make it now, and he had already seen the selected fish emerge from the freezer, and the mushrooms and carrots put out to soak. Tomorrow there she would be with her flashing knives, slicing up salads wafer thin. The fish would be full of bloody bones, it always was. Bony, like Amanda.

The girl was slim. But a large firm bosom.

Think about something else.

"You know, Mandy, never go to sleep on a quarrel."

Amanda rustled her magazine. He had betrayed her.

He had spoiled their weekend. He had let the girl stay the night.

The girl…

"Ah. Call of nature," said Clive guiltily. "Must be your magazine."

He went to the bathroom and shut the door. He turned on the taps in the autumn leaf washbasin that changed water into blood. He stood over it, and thought about the girl sleeping naked, and opening the door, going in softly. And she was awake, smiling up at him in some dim half-light of the imagination. "Shh," she said playfully, and she put his hand over one of her Big young breasts. He masturbated roughly, hard on himself, and came with a lunge, noiseless and hygenic, into the running water. Then he dried himself, flushed the toilet-loo, splashed around the taps, turned them off.