‘Not to worry, these things happen.’

‘I didn’t break anything, did I?’

‘Not that I know of.’ She was dismissive.

‘Good—er—um—er…’

‘What is it, Claud?’

‘I just wanted to apologise.’ She was feeding the dishwasher plates and cups, just as long ago she had spooned cereal into his infant mouth, patiently mopping when he regurgitated, only the dishwasher was better mannered than he had been. ‘I only wanted to apologise,’ he repeated.

‘I said, not to worry.’ She had her back to him.

‘We never seem to talk, do we?’

‘And whose fault is that?’ she snapped. ‘You long since made it clear that you resent questions and that your life and friends have nothing to do with me, that your affection is minimal, my uses limited.’

‘Oh.’

‘Recently it has suited you to live here; possibly you find this place less dull and provincial than you thought. You see it with a fresh eye. I am glad,’ she straightened her back and shut the dishwasher, ‘that you have the gumption to risk life on your own. You have no roots here, maybe you are growing them? You cannot expect me to hang around while they grow, and water them by doing your laundry. There’s a mixed metaphor for a writer. If we never talk, Claud, it is because you have reduced the snub to a fine art.’

Claud pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Thanks for telling me,’ he said. ‘D’you know once when I was small Dad shouted at me that I would grow up into a completely selfish swine?’

‘He must have been drinking.’

‘No, I think he was sober.’

‘Perhaps he foresaw your future. Writers need to be selfish.’

‘I was not at that time proposing to be a writer.’

‘Well, whatever.’ She fended him off.

‘Did he know the Thornbys?’

‘We knew them.’

‘Are they bad news?’

‘—M-m-m’

‘I think it was the old man who put a bucket over my head and pushed me down a flight of stairs.’

‘That figures.’ Margaret Bannister switched on the dishwasher. ‘I really hardly know them,’ she shouted above the sound of swishing water.

‘You must, you have lived here for years.’

‘You can live in a place without knowing people.’

Claud sensed that his mother had no intention of enlightening him. ‘I only just now noticed Laura,’ he said.

‘Not surprising, she’s scarcely ever here.’ His mother’s tone increased Claud’s interest. ‘You are getting to know her now,’ she said, glancing at her son obliquely. As she did so he became aware of a similarity; his mother’s look matched what he had the day before called sidelong in Laura. Yet he failed to put one and one together to see them as much of an age.

‘I would recommend a bath,’ said his mother, cutting short his wish to talk. ‘A bath that is good and hot, and put a spoonful of Scrubs ammonia in it. It will clear your head wonderfully.’

‘You used to say that to Father.’