‘I hope you’ve got soap and towels,’ she murmured, imitating her mother.

It was not the sort of thing one answers, so Mr Mortlock made a little motion with one of his legs, bending the knee, meant to assure. If she had not felt so full of respect, she might have been reminded of some old terrier dog lifting his leg on lavender in the sudden presence of a bitch.

But she was much too respectful of this most respectable visitor. As she left the room.

Upstairs, Mrs Scudamore was propped on her bed, in her dress, with a pink chiffon sling supporting her hurt wrist. She looked exhausted, but satisfied, for her. When the two of them had embraced with an affection which was delicious to the daughter after some of the horridness she had lately undergone, the mother asked:

‘Do you think he has everything he wants? Of course your father wasn’t here to help me. But I pointed out both the lavtories.’

‘Isn’t he rather old?’ Anthea said.

‘A man isn’t old if he has his health and his interests,’ Mrs Scudamore was of the opinion. To that she added: ‘His wife left him, you know. I believe she behaved very badly.’

‘How?’

Mrs Scudamore frowned.

‘I don’t know.’

‘And he lives all alone at Sarsaparilla?’

‘He has an unmarried sister who keeps house for him.’

‘I wonder whether she is like her brother.’

Anthea doubted there could be two of such a kind.

Once again this was a question on which Mrs Scudamore had not become informed, so the two women grew silent, in the shuttered room, at a distance from the city noises. It was a ruminative hour, and although they did not communicate in words, a general softness suggested that their thoughts were in agreement.

9

Later, when they went downstairs in their changed dresses, men’s voices were coming from the veranda. Dad had returned apparently. He had got the whisky out, and seemed to be finding it a help.

Mr Mortlock was telling about the old days in Brisbane, when his friend Bill Scudamore had been a reporter on the Courier Mail, and he, Hessell Mortlock, of some unspecified business importance.

‘This young feller brought a lot of gaiety into an old man’s life,’ Mr Mortlock announced.

He would obviously have enjoyed sinking into a warm bath of recollection, but at once restrained himself, and looked at Anthea.

‘Yes,’ he said, pursing his mouth in a certain way. ‘He was acquainted with the highspots!’

‘I’m sure he was!’ said his wife, and laughed, not quite jolly, not quite bitter.

She went out sighing, into the kitchen, on some further stage of a domestic martyrdom.

Mr Mortlake had rounded his eyes into knowing marbles, and this time Anthea did catch sight of the old terrier dog, though drove the idea almost immediately out of her head.

Dad was looking embarrassed, playing with his wrist-watch strap, which was old and sweaty, she noticed. Because it was both fascinating and repulsive, she half remembered the dream of the afternoon before. She would have liked to change the strap for the benefit of Mr Mortlock, whose every detail seemed flawless in its way, in spite of the long drive in the Riley.