Mr Macarthy didn’t press the point. He sat in his study, doing acrostics, and making nets with arthritic hands. Netting and acrostics left Mr Macarthy in a continual maze that he chose deliberately. Like his own silences. At meals he was mostly silent, over against Mrs Macarthy’s talk. He smacked his lips rather as he ate. Absently. He sat a long way behind the smacking of his lips. You heard him walking about the house, the distant, muffled thumping of his rubber-guarded stick.

Mr Macarthy knew a great deal. He knew Latin constructions and French verbs, he knew also compound fractions, and understood the Bible. But it did not bother him much. It flowed out of him and away, as if it were no longer of much importance. Because nothing bothered him, that was why you liked sometimes to go and sit in the room with Mr Macarthy, to look at the book full of Greek sculpture, or to read in the encyclopedia about the Nile. Mr Macarthy never pounced down unawares on your thoughts. He sat and netted, and you heard his breathing, and it gave you that warm feeling of just not being alone. It seemed to annoy Mrs Macarthy. She said he was indifferent. There was the afternoon the chimney caught fire, with the girls and Mrs Macarthy helter skelter about the house. The house could have burned, snapped Mrs Macarthy at supper. But Mr Macarthy said he had never known a chimney fire that wasn’t more emotional than actual, and helped himself to cold roast beef.

After a time it seemed unlikely you would ever leave the Macarthy’s house. In Bridgton you knew the people in the streets. The shop people learnt to call you by your name. And Dr Willis filled your teeth. Eden went often to Dr Willis. She drove in with Mrs Macarthy and Julia, and the house felt empty after they had gone, after the wheels of the dog-cart had grated into distance outside. The whole house was surrounded by distance. Your voice sounded hollow and funny on the stairs.

Let’s play at something, said Connie Tiarks.

Mm, he said.

It made him sick.

I’ll play anything you like, she said.

It was dull about the house. He went outside.

I’ve made a house in the orchard, she said.

She wouldn’t stop following him about.

Let’s play at murders, he said.

Oh, she said. Murders. How?

I’ll be your murderer, he said. I’ll tie you up in rope and strangle you.

Can’t I just be with you? she asked.

It made him feel sheepish then. It was the voice that Connie Tiarks put on, using an unfair advantage, and that lumpy face.

There’s nothing to stop you, he said, trying to make it casual.

She followed him up the garden path. Her feet sounded grateful, her breath. So he became resigned, unwillingly, to the presence of Connie Tiarks.

Ever climbed the mulberry tree? he asked.

No, she said.

She sounded afraid.

I’ve climbed to the top, he said. You can put out your head through the leaves and see the Channel.