She interprets this as a good sign. She lets her eyes rest on him, remembering what affection she used to feel for him at the time when everything was right and straightforward.

She gets up from the chair. ‘You’re a funny one,’ she says.

He is reminded that now he should be able to satisfy many of her unspoken wishes. He will coax them out of her, and then come unexpectedly and please her as long as there is anything to buy in the devastated house. He imagines her face, candid with happiness. This lasts for a second, then it has to give way to the scraping on the desk. Perhaps he will never go out into the house again.

‘I think you ought to try to sleep a bit,’ says Freda, ‘and I’ll come and wake you when it’s time to eat.’

‘Yes, you go, and I’ll lie down on the divan for a while.’

He waits impatiently for her to leave the room. He has to be alone again.

When she has gone he takes up his position quickly in the chair. No question of sleeping. He is compelled to sit listening to the sinister warning on the desk instead. And as soon as he is quiet, it is there: the judgement on him. It holds him fast.

Freda’s writing is there in the dust. Something had told him suddenly that it would be good to look at it, to link something to it. He does so too, but it does not deaden the uncompromising message to him.

It has been set in motion.

So perhaps it cannot be halted. Perhaps that is the message to him.

He feels pinned to the chair as if by suction, staring at the desk, at the whorls Freda has made. Sleep, she said. Easy for her to say so. For her sleep is simply putting your head down on the pillow, and you’re asleep at once.

It must soon be bedtime. But Freda will come in first to say supper’s ready. He’s not going to eat; not going to sleep. Just going to sit awake in this blind house. Outside are swimming the bewitched arrows that have interfered so fatally with his life.

A clock strikes in Freda’s room, and shortly afterwards Freda is back in the doorway. She always tries to be punctual with meals.

‘Are you still up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Time for supper.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Are you better?’

‘Oh yes.’

She closes the door again. He’ll be coming in a minute. But he stays in his chair. He’s not going to eat. He’s going to stay here in the chair.

Soon the door is opened once more. This time it’s Frank. He comes up to his father quickly, looking shocked, as if intending to fetch him by force.

‘Whatever can be the matter with you ?’ he says, with an authority he does not really have, but which comes from his being scared ever since the business of the note. ‘You must come!’ he says, and his commanding tone of voice has the desired effect. The arrow polisher gets to his feet and goes in with him.