He wasn’t going to be put in the wrong that way either.

“I’ll get supper,” he said. “Tell me what you want and I’ll go get it.”

“I don’t want you to get my supper,” I said, feeling my temper rising, knowing that he had caught me, as by that same stratagem he always did. “I’ll get yours. If only you’d tell me what you want.”

“You tell me what you want.”

“I don’t want anything. Shall I do you the chops?”

“I don’t want chops.”

“What do you want then?”

“You tell me what you want and I’ll go and cook it.”

And so we continued, in cold and weary rage, until I made my way to the kitchen to cook the chops, for that was the only way I could maintain an arguing position about that other, more profound affair; to add to my position, to creep another half inch higher up that muddy hill of domination, I actually peeled and boiled a pound of potatoes. So David got his supper, and I, let me face it, got mine, too, and a certain amount of credit as well.

We ate our supper in silence: I went on reading my book. Then, after watching a play on the television, I said that I was going to bed. I was very tired those days, owing to the smallness and voracity of Joseph, who was only seven weeks old. This assertion drove David into speech.

“Really, Emma,” he said, “there’s no need to be so furious about going to Hereford. What are you so annoyed with me about? Why don’t you want to go?”

“I’m not at all furious,” I said, loudly closing my book.

“Oh yes you are. What is it that you’re so keen not to miss?”

“You know quite well,” I said, “how much I was looking forward to this job.”

“You can get another job. Someone like you can get any number of jobs.”

“In Hereford?”

“Well, I’m sure there’s something you could find to do there.”

“You think so? Perhaps I could apply to be an usherette at your theatre, you mean?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, my love. There must be something you can do.”

“I’m sure, on the contrary,” I said, “that there would be simply, literally nothing that I could do.”

“You could look after the children.”

“David my darling,” I said, and I could still frighten him a little, though he could rarely frighten me, “don’t you talk to me about those children. You have hardly any right to talk to me about those children. So kindly don’t. Those children will be seen to all right, and it will be me that sees to them, so don’t you bring them into any of our discussions.”