"No Mrs. Watt, I'm afraid. But come in. Make her some coffee, Julie. We can sort it out." He added to the girl: "I'll just take a leak and I'll be down."

Julie stood rigid. Her mother used to say of her father, "He treats me like the maid." Maids did not live in Julie's vocabulary, but it came to the same thing. Bloody bugger, telling her to make this bitch coffee. As if she had nothing else to do.

"You'd better come in," said Julie.

"Thank you," said the girl, and slid in past her, over the threshold.

Her name was Ruth, as Terry elicited from her among the coffee mugs.

The Hoover stood in the middle of the brightly patterned cheap carpet, a fourth silent partner and stern reminder, of which no one but Julie took any apparent notice. While in the kitchen, which led off the one through-room of the downstairs area, last night's washing-up teetered above the sink.

Terry had brushed his teeth and splashed cold water on his face. He now had the pale morning-look which Julie once found very attractive, so brooding, and forlorn.

Between them, he and this Ruth ate a whole packet of custard creams, and went on to the chocolate wholewheat Julie had been saving.

Ruth had come from somewhere out in the country, by the sea. Mrs. Watt had asked her up. This was really all the information Ruth gave or had to give, for Terry quickly took over, talking to Ruth about himself, the boring office and idiotic people where and with whom he worked, holidays at the ocean, his plans for going abroad with Julie and Blackie, and the get-together he was having for a few friends tonight.

The music had been turned down, by Terry, for Ruth did not seem to like it.

"Any more coffee?" asked Terry.

"You know where it is," said Julie. "I mean the kettle." She got up, and marching to the back window, looked out on a further, longer patch of weeds. An apple tree grew at the bottom of the garden, and on a lower bough the cat was sitting, black and white as a magpie.

"Did you feed the cat?" Julie demanded.

Interrupted in a statement on Cornish cider, Terry said, "No."

"It's been next door again. It goes over the fence."

"Who cares what the bloody cat does."

"She gives it things to eat. You know what she's like."

"Well, it saves us feeding it."

"One day she'll poison it," said Julie, with a premonition of annoyance.

She crossed back to the music center, and turned it up very loud.

"For Christ's sake," said Terry. He too got up, and going to the machine switched it off.

"I like it on when I work," said Julie.

"Well, you're not working, are you?"

"I've got to finish the hoovering. Then there's the washing-up. And the bathroom. And I've got to change the bed."

"A woman's work is never done."