John and Emma in their teens were tiresome enough; what would they be like if they were Laura’s children? An alarming idea. Much better to be safe with Helen, one knew where one was with Helen. She would not let John and Emma fall under Laura’s influence, or his mother’s, for that matter; she knew how to protect her family. Christopher felt warm affection for his wife. Her head was screwed on the right way.

Okay, he thought, I’ll see she gets the statue’s hand fixed. It isn’t often she entrusts me with anything to do with the garden. As for John and Emma, there was no proof, but he was sure it was one or other or both who had vandalised the statue. It had been all in one piece when Helen bought it. Christopher chuckled. He did not suppose either of his offspring had intended doing their father a good turn when they chopped the hand off. He looked forward to visiting Laura, was glad to have a valid excuse.

Christopher hummed on his way to the station the following day. A little delay, a spot of pleasurable anticipation, no mad obvious rush to see Laura and perhaps Helen would stop nagging and harping about one’s old loves? There was comfortable time to call in on Laura before the directors’ meeting. One could catch up with her news. (Had one ever even lagged behind with her news, she was such a bloody clam? Ha, ha, quite a good joke, one could use it again some time.) Make a discreet enquiry or two to find out whether there was still anything up with that Wog composer from behind the Iron Curtain. Imagine fancying a Communist, it boggled one’s imagination. A Red! God! Really! It must be vicious gossip—really what some people’s minds—and what about that boy? One had seen her with him. One could find out about him, discreetly, of course. Did he have anything to recommend him? Youth? Christopher stopped humming. Bloody youth. That polished buttercup hair. The features not yet moulded by experience. Where had he read that? In one of Helen’s library books? Some soppy woman writer, never read a woman writer, they so often had a pinko tinge.