‘Some people are not,’ said Mrs Custance.

She would have liked to do something of a positive nature to protect her husband, but had never been positive – except through him.

‘Well, it takes all kinds,’ Miss Docker said. ‘Personally, I like a good discussion, amongst friends, on a metaphysical theme.’

The Custances had started on their chocolate mould.

‘We are inclined to be book-worms,’ Mrs Custance apologized.

‘Oh, I read, too. A lady lent me Manong Lescoat. I once read the Bible from cover to cover. That was when I was at the end of me tether. A whole fortnight it took me. I lay in bed, and read, and read. It was raining cats and dogs. Never stopped. Before that I was a pagan. But suddenly I saw.’

‘What did you see?’

Ted Custance was looking at her now.

‘Don’t be silly!’ she said. ‘You can’t say what you see. But see!’

He was looking at her. His eyebrows and moustache were hanging over, like someone famous and unpleasant, she could not remember.

‘You know what’s the matter with you, don’t you?’ Miss Docker asked lowering her eyelids.

Now that the powder had left her cheeks, her face was the colour of brown peas, the stewing ones.

‘Your posture is all wrong,’ she said. ‘And posture is nine-tenths. According to Indian philosophy. Mind you, there’s a lot of that that isn’t altogether healthy, but you can pick up a wrinkle here and there. Now, posture,’ she resumed. ‘Remind me to show you. Some other time.’

There she paused.

‘I’ve got to be without me corsets!’

She nearly burst, and before she had recovered, Ted Custance went outside. Certainly he looked rather hunched.

‘Moody type,’ Miss Docker said.

‘Ted is the most even-tempered of men,’ his wife protested.

‘When you only want to help a person. When there are so many people waiting to be helped. So much Christian love waiting to be poured out on those who are unwilling to accept it. The world would be a wonderful place.’

Mrs Custance took a pinch of bicarb in warm water, and began the washing-up.

But Miss Docker was a dedicated soul. You could not deny that.

‘There is that Mrs Florance,’ she said the following morning. ‘Pernicious anaemia. Though if you ask me she is starved for love. Do you know what I am going to do? I’m going up to the butcher’s to buy a couple of mutton shanks. I’m going to make Mrs Florance a basinful of broth. There are so many professing Christians. Mind you, I think a lot of things just don’t cross their poor minds. If only they could be awakened.’

Miss Docker went.

And returned.

‘I – tiddly–i–tie,
pom – pom!’

Miss Docker sang.

She sat in her rocker on the front veranda, waving at those she knew amongst the passers-by. Some of them stared back in pale surprise.

At night Miss Docker would turn and turn as she lay in bed. The Custances could almost feel her, rubbing against the dividing wall, before switching her transistor on.