‘Of course.’ Mrs Kennedy stooped to field an oblong wedge of ice which was slipping towards the floor. ‘Gotcher.’ She named a rent high in excess of the amount he had expected. ‘Any friend of Laura’s is welcome.’ She avoided her daughter’s eye.

‘Great,’ said Claud. ‘Perhaps I could move in next week?’

The telephone shrilled in the next room. Before answering Claud’s question Ann Kennedy moved away to answer it. Waiting for her to return, Claud watched Mavis standing dwarfed in her immense coat, her face a mixture of surprise and something else. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, feeling that if he were to become a writer, he must be sensitive to people’s moods.

‘Nothing,’ said Mavis, torn between admiration for her mother’s bold greed and fear that on reflection Claud might change his mind.

‘That was Laura,’ said Ann Kennedy, returning.

‘Oh?’

‘Message for you to ring her up or go and see her.’

‘Me?’ asked Mavis.

‘No. Mr—er—what’s your name?’

‘Claud Bannister.’

‘That’s right, Claud. I’m glad she rang. I was a bit bothered about the rent.’ Mrs Kennedy bent to catch another bit of ice effecting its escape. ‘So I asked her; she said knock off a couple of quid.’ Mother’s and daughter’s eyes met.

‘No business of Laura’s,’ said Mavis.

‘I’m quite happy with what you—’ began Claud.

‘No, no. As I say, knock off two pounds. She said either give her a tinkle or come over, she could tell you something about your stall. You didn’t say anything about a stall?’

‘Well, no. No, I didn’t. I could go over this afternoon. Thanks. Would you come with me, Mavis? Show me the way?’

‘I have to wash my hair,’ said Mavis. ‘You’ll find it all right.’ She pulled her coat collar up over her chin. Claud was reminded of Laura wrapping her scarf across her face in the wine bar. She had looked exotic. Mavis disappearing into the outsize overcoat gave the effect of a tortoise. ‘There’s a bus,’ said Mavis, ‘catch that.’

Arriving at the Old Rectory, Claud was not in the best of tempers. He had consulted the timetable but arrived to see the bus leaving the square minutes earlier than he expected. On protesting to a youth waiting for a bus in the opposite direction, he had been outraged at the suggestion that he had studied the wrong timetable. ‘It’s winter, zee, you should look for winter times not zummer times.’ The boy leaned against the wall, grinning. ‘Ain’t no more buzzes til zix thirty or so.’ Humiliated by the fake yokel accent and the suspicion that he had in fact made a stupid mistake, Claud set off walking, more with the intention of distancing himself from mockery than of reaching Laura.