She is brought up sharply.

‘What is the matter with you then? We’ve been wondering about it for ages, Frank and I.’

‘Because I’m not going to work? Didn’t you hear me say I’m not well? And I’m not going to do the old job any more either.’

‘I heard what you said, but –’ she says, as if it wasn’t a good enough explanation all the same. ‘There must be something else?’

‘It’s all this!’ he says angrily. ‘This dreadful house, for one thing. It gets you down in the long run.’

This is so true that Freda cannot bring herself to question him any further.

‘Sit down here for a bit,’ he begs her, getting up from his chair. ‘No, here in my chair I mean.’

She obeys him, astonished. He looks at her sitting there, his almost grown-up slender daughter. Something in him tells him indulgently: You are her father, and he answers Yes! I’ve watched over her from before she could talk.

‘Well, here I am. What now?’

‘Sit quite still,’ he says.

He seats himself in a chair at her side.

‘I think –’ she begins but he stops her before she manages to say more.

‘Hush, be quiet I tell you, and listen to see if you can hear anything while you’re sitting here.’

I don’t suppose she will, he thinks. But he cannot resist making the test. He can hear it himself the whole time, it seems to him, as soon as he starts listening.

Freda is staring at him. But she does as he asks without hesitation. She listens. It is quite quiet. Except that you sense immediately the tense, cracking house around you – as everyone must as long as they have a living heart.

The arrow polisher waits. Then he asks, ‘Do you hear anything, Freda?’

Freda shakes her head.

‘Not now either?’

‘Nothing. What should I hear then?’

‘No, it must have been my imagination, as I suspected,’ he says in a loud voice. ‘I thought I heard a continuous scraping or scratching in the wall as I was sitting there, and it was so unpleasant – one never knows what it may be in these times. But if you can’t hear anything, then – I must simply have been dreaming. For as long as you can’t hear it –.’

He carries on in this loud-voiced mumble, since he is bound to hear the finger writing as soon as he falls silent.

Freda looks at him suspiciously. ‘You’re talking nonsense, Father! This is a funny thing to think up, I must say.’

‘Oh yes, I suppose it is. My nerves give way every now and again. You needn’t stay,’ he says, standing up in order to get her to leave the room.

‘No, I haven’t the time either. But this desk…’

‘Leave it alone!’ he says sharply. ‘I want it left as it is.’

‘I shan’t touch your papers, just get rid of the dust.’

‘Leave it alone. I want your writing there!’ he says, smiling at her and pointing at the indistinct whorls left by her finger-tips.