Margaret Bannister, an inveterate Guardian reader, did not answer. Claud calculated that she had just about reached the leader page after starting at the back with the sports; she was unlikely to reply to his remark until she had worked through to the front page. By that time the aspirin and tea would have begun their work. Thinking this, Claud realised what he had not realised before: that this ploy had evolved over years of his father’s hangovers. (Make strong tea, supply aspirin, give it time to work before speaking.)

But what had happened at the Old Rectory? Claud cudgelled his brain. He had followed Laura round the house and in at the door where he had earlier been rebuffed by her mother. On the way Laura had said something he did not quite catch about ‘disturbing my haunts’; it did not make sense and she had not repeated it. She had pushed open the door, paused in the hall and listened. This in itself seemed odd at the time; any normal daughter entering her mother’s house would call out, ‘I’m here,’ or, ‘Anyone at home?’ or words to that effect. But Laura put finger to lip, signalled him to follow and then walked fast and quietly along the hall and up the stairs. He had followed her up and along a landing, through a green baize door and up a steep, uncarpeted flight to the attic. Here Laura stopped looking puzzled and pushed open a door, motioning him to follow. He remembered getting the impression that she had expected the door to be shut.

It was while Laura fumbled for a light switch—‘Wait there, you might fall over something’—that it had happened.

A bucket was clapped over his head. There was a rat-tat-tat of blows on its outside. The noise was terrifying. He remembered stepping back, falling down the stairs, bumping and banging his head, his nose and his eye as he rolled, tearing off the bucket and scrambling to his feet. Above in the dark of the attic there was the sound of scuffling, grunts, gasps, hisses. It was the absence of voices he had found unnerving. Making no effort to help Laura, he had taken to his heels and fled. As he left the house he heard a burst of laughter.

Sitting in his mother’s warm kitchen gulping tea, swilling down the aspirin, Claud felt shame for his pusillanimity as he remembered running down the drive to the road, thumbing a lift from a passing van, being dropped off at a public house. He had sat in the pub trembling with shock (it must have been shock, not fear). At some moment during the evening’s drinking (yes, now he remembered drinking. Quite a lot, actually) Brian and Susie had joined him. Yes, that’s right, they had talked about his future in the market and given him a lift home. Once inside the door he had vomited. It can’t have been very late because his mother had still been up and about. She hadn’t said anything. She had watched him clear up his sick; he had been well enough to do that. She had said nothing, absolutely nothing; no wonder his father left home. Claud felt a comradely wave of sympathy for his father, who he usually referred to as ‘a perfect shit’, ‘a prize shit’, ‘a wimp’. Reviving under the influence of the strong tea and aspirin, Claud felt rage and remembered his fury of the night before. He had made a long abrasive speech to his mother before staggering upstairs to bed, the last few steps on all fours. What the hell had he said?