She remembered him an impulsive man. On impulse he had bashed the cupboard, thrown the toothglass, blacked her eye, threatened suicide, walked out on her. But she would not think of all that, rather remember the time he rushed her off to Paris for a lovely week in spring (fly now, pay later), bought her a dress he could not possibly afford, lured her into bed when they should have gone to a stuffy party.

A pity in a way that Claud was not like that, superficially yes, but not really. Claud’s father would have made the running, not Laura.

Is there any running? How can I know? I must get another cat, she thought. I am too cautious to take a lover. Then she thought, What about Mavis, so pretty and presumably available? No, no, not with Laura around the horizon. She felt calm about Claud. Now that they were distanced she would not know if he got drunk or came a cropper. She would help by loving him, which cost nothing, and post the odd cheque to Ann Kennedy to subsidise the rent when she could afford it.

She bought a new frame for a snap of her husband taken by a crony, propping the bar of his favourite hostelry, and a matching frame for the snap of Claud taken by Amy whom she had never met, Amy who had made him so unhappy. Father and son were superficially alike. Claud’s jaw was more determined, his smile less humorous. Were they really alike? She thought not. In habit, yes. Claud aped his father’s trick of pissing out of windows when too lazy to go to the bathroom and she had recently seen him drunk, but that surely was exceptional.

What would he be like as a lover? Presumably he had muffed it with Amy; with Laura sex would be something else again, and any junketing with Mavis would be a repetition of Amy.

When I am completely settled, Margaret thought, I shall ask Claud over to see the house, observe what changes independence and his new career have made. It is weeks, months even, since I left.

Needing exercise Margaret set out for the shops. She would make enquiries about a kitten, have her sleeping pill prescription made up in case she reverted to insomnia, buy whisky to offer, should whisky drinkers call. So far only sherry drinkers had put their foot in the door, hopeful members of the WI which she had no intention of joining. Her husband had maintained that sherry drinkers always called first, true boozers later.

She was surprised, rounding a corner of the lane which led to the village, when an old man she had seen passing the plate in church stepped from behind a tree, opened his fly and exposed his large but drooping organ. Swerving so that her shopping basket knocked her knee Margaret walked on.