They must, thought Claud, feeling restored and nonchalant, Susie and Brian must have brought me home. Ah well, these things happen, but it still does not explain the bucket over my head, that terrifying bashing and the fall downstairs, does it?

Claud left the bathroom, returned to his bedroom to dress. Yesterday’s wear lay scattered. Shoes and one sock by the bed, anorak on the floor, shirt slung over the bedside lamp, jeans. Where the hell are my jeans? Oh dear, at the bottom of the bed, how sordid. And the other sock? Marking a book? Did I try to read? Rather than look further at present Claud turned his back on the bed and found clean clothes neatly arranged in his chest of drawers. What was that his mother had said about the price of independence? Could she mean it? What a viper!

Dressed, Claud shut his bedroom door and trotted downstairs to where he could hear voices in the kitchen. His mother was entertaining Laura.

‘Hullo,’ said Laura. ‘I brought you the things from the attic, as I promised. What a pity you couldn’t wait for them. These will help you make a start with your stall; your mother thinks they are lovely.’

‘Excellent,’ said Margaret Bannister, fingering an assortment of objects and small junk spread on the kitchen table. ‘Cracked, of course, some of them, or chipped; could do with a wash or a polish, most of them. Look at this.’ She held up a glass. ‘Bristol, quite pretty.’

‘What did you do to your eye?’ asked Laura, ignoring Margaret’s denigrating accent. ‘What has he done to his eye, Margaret? Your son’s got a shiner.’

‘I have not asked him,’ said Margaret Bannister. ‘Look, these nutcrackers work and this spoon might almost be silver, one could clean it.’

‘Somebody put a bucket over my head and bashed me,’ said Claud. ‘Then I fell downstairs.’

Laura raised her eyebrows and looked down her nose. ‘You’ve been listening to Mavis about Northern Ireland,’ she said. ‘She does go on.’

‘Things like that don’t happen in this country.’ Margaret aligned herself momentarily with Laura. ‘I’d say this would have been Bohemian before it was chipped.’ She held up a small vase. ‘An idea, though, the bucket, for your novel?’

‘It’s only a little crack, a crack doesn’t alter its nationality,’ said Laura.

‘My head was cracked,’ said Claud, persisting. Laura smiled and went on unpacking the contents of a large basket. ‘A present from Scarborough,’ she said, ‘and here’s its twin, a present from Lowestoft, a tiny baby’s potty. Oh, this shouldn’t be here, I’ll take it back.’

‘What’s that?’ Margaret was interested.

‘Patch box, a good one. Nor should this be here.’ She pocketed a silver snuff box. ‘But the rest’s all yours.’ She spread her hands. ‘All yours.’

‘So is my black eye,’ said Claud, ‘and I think I have concussion.’

‘You’d know if you had concussion,’ said Margaret. ‘Coffee, Laura? I was going to make a fresh pot. If you had concussion you would see double; it affects your eyesight.’