“For God’s sake, Tucker!”

There was a smear of some food or other on his cheek, marmalade and a tealeaf or two on the back of his hand. It was evident how he had rummaged—even opening the plastic bags that were put out to catch the dustmen or, as Tucker might say, the Sanitary Engineers, in what I usually called our village festival. Tucker’s right hand held a mass of rumpled paper, papers I had thought disposed of safely only twenty-four hours before. There was a torn scrap of paper hanging on his bedrobe, a scrap with childish scrawls of writing on it.

“God, Tucker, you are the most— Do you suppose I throw away—? Well—”

I remembered with sudden unease. It wasn’t that simple.

“What you’ve got there, Tucker, is what’s commonly called fan mail. I don’t get much but what I do get is worth less than a good honest toilet roll. You can take one of those with you if you like.”

“Please, Wilf—”

“And you’ve cut yourself. There’s broken glass in that dustbin.”

He rocked on the stool.

“Shot . . .”

It was like hearing a strangled cry for the first time. It was like hearing the word “shot” for the first time.

“Christ!”

I leapt to my feet, took a step and grabbed the table to save myself. My pyjama trousers fell round my ankles. I kicked them off as the ghastly seriousness of the situation flashed in on me. It was a peripeteia to end all peripeteias. From being indignantly in the right I was now monstrously in the wrong.

“Here. Let me see.”

“No, no. I’ll be OK.”

“Nonsense, man—here!”

“Guess I’ll make out.’

I grabbed the belt of his bedrobe, pulled the knot loose, then dragged the whole thing down from his shoulders. A densely hairy chest came into view, then a narrower shrubbery leading down to an even more densely haired nest of privates.

“Where is it, for God’s sake?”

He said nothing but swayed. The bedrobe dragged down his arm from thick upper arm to thick forearm. I nerved myself for the bloody revelation. I got the bedrobe down to his wrist. There was a bruise on it and a scratch. A trickle of blood led down to the back of his hand.

“Tucker, you fool, you’re not hurt at all!”

As if on cue the kitchen door opened, stage left. Elizabeth came in, surveyed Tucker’s hairy nakedness and my discarded pyjama trousers.

“I don’t want to be fussy but it is rather late and extremely difficult to get to sleep or stay there. Could you two men make less noise about it?”

“About what, Liz?”

“About whatever you’re doing.”

“Can’t you see? I shot him. He was at the dustbin, ashcan, trashcan. The badger— Oh God, I can’t explain!”

Elizabeth smiled with terrible sweetness. “I’ve no doubt you will, given a little time, Wilfred.”

“I thought he was a badger. I fired the airgun accidentally, you see—”

“Yes, I do see,” said Elizabeth charmingly. “Well if you are going to continue, please don’t frighten the horses.”