As he walked annoyance coupled with his imagination spurred him along. Not profligate with ideas, he would use the incident in his new novel: his hero, as yet rather an intangible character, would foot it towards the girl he loved. Naturally he would have to walk somewhere more inspiring than this main road with its draggle of bungaloid habitations punctuated by filling stations. He would set him to walk over a moor, across the Fens or along the Pennine Way, somewhere more peaceable than a main road where cars hurtled past breaking the speed limit, polluting the air with disgusting fumes; he would walk towards his lover, waiting expectantly.

Passing the last filling station, Claud consoled himself for this boring trudge by giving his hero a bicycle, then, growing impatient with the tedious journey, he bought him a car. It was hard to decide on the make. He was snobbish about Fords, averse to Fiats and despised Sunbeams, but by the time he read on a white board half-hidden in a laurel hedge the words, ‘The Old Rectory’, he had bought his hero a second-hand Alfa Romeo. With that little matter settled he could apply himself to his character’s destiny in the next chapter.

Claud walked up a curving drive to the front door and rang the bell.

A dog barked loudly. The door burst open. Laura, twenty years older than she had been that morning, beckoned him in. ‘Come in, come in, are you in trouble? Run out of petrol? Car broken down? Want to use the telephone?’ She backed into a dark hall. ‘Or have you come to read the meters?’

‘I walked—I—’

‘Walked! Heavens! Nobody walks. The road is lethal. I am surprised you were not squashed like a hedgehog. I’ll show you the meter, you’re new—’

‘Laura—I—you—’

‘Oh! You want Laura,’ said Laura’s double. ‘Round the back, try that, servants’ entrance.’

‘Oh—I’m sorry, I mistook, I thought—I—’

‘Round the house, the other door.’ The door so brusquely opened clicked shut in his face.

Repulsed, Claud made his way along an alley which led through overgrown shrubs to a door at the back of the house. There was a knocker. Claud knocked.

‘I can see by your face that you met my mother,’ said Laura, opening the door. ‘She gets tremendously annoyed if she’s mistaken for me, which is a pity because I had an idea that we might prise some junk for your stall out of her; the attic is bulging with tat. Come in.’

Claud followed her along an ill-lit passage into a combination of kitchen and sitting-room. Where once a kitchen range had stood was a large open fire, along one wall a gas cooker, sink and refrigerator, in front of the fire a shabby sofa and armchairs. Behind the sofa stood a long deal table, one end obviously used to eat off, the other to work at. A dresser held books as well as china. The room was warm and smelled agreeably of garlicky cooking but beneath this aroma there was a hint of mice. The view from the windows was on to a large neglected garden. Claud felt his spirits rise. ‘Nice,’ he said, ‘it’s nice.’