Claud, on his way home, felt pleased with himself. He had done the right thing visiting his mother. She was okay. Would it be possible to meld parts of his mother into the small character based on Ann Kennedy? Why not, good idea. An old man standing by a tree in the lane apparently having a leak waved. Claud waved back as he swung round a corner. The whisky bottle toppled but he caught it before it fell. Had she noticed that he had stolen her sleeping pills? He patted his pocket with the bottle of pills in it. She is happy now, she doesn’t need these things. I shall keep them just in case I get so worried by my work I lose sleep. I cannot afford to lose sleep. The only loss I will put up with is through Laura.

Helen Peel reminded her husband that ages ago she had given him an errand for Laura. Had he been yet? It was weeks since—

‘No, not yet’, ‘Sorry, I forgot’, ‘I’ll do it next week’, ‘Thanks for reminding me, I’ll make a note—’

‘We are into February, I want that God in place by April when the garden is open in aid of the blind—it has a missing hand.’

‘The blind wouldn’t notice anything missing—’

‘What a heartless thing to say! What a crude sort of joke.’

‘It was not a joke, a mere remark.’

‘I believe your mother was right to call you pedantic.’ (Helen always referred to her mother-in-law as though she were dead.)

‘What’s my mother got to do with—’

‘Nothing, thank the Lord, but please, Christopher, I am serious. Get that job done for me, I don’t want to have to—’

(Deal with Laura yourself.) ‘Okay,’ said Christopher. ‘I’ll tie a knot in my hanky, make a note, get cracking. Don’t worry, old girl, it shall be done.’

Why should I run her bloody errand? Christopher asked himself. Because she doesn’t like Laura, she’s afraid of Laura, afraid of Laura’s tongue. Laura had made a sotto voce joke when Helen had the garden open last year in aid of the spastics. It had sent John and Emma into a gale of giggles. He had not heard the joke himself, nor asked to have it repeated. They had told their grandmother and Rose had gasped with pleasure. ‘What superlative bad taste!’ Rose would never laugh at spastics so one guessed the joke was to do with Helen, quite possibly himself. One seldom saw Rose these days, married to that fellow, but she’d always got on well with Laura, there was something deeper than the usual female alliance between those two.