It’s as if in this half—darkness they have both shed thirty years. A middle-aged mother is talking to her half—grown son. They have different interests, but they are gentle and kind to each other.

JAMES: A bowl of water—for the dog.

MRS. CALLIFER: Oh. (It’s too late at night to be unkind about the animal.)

JAMES: I started to take it to him. But, Mother—

MRS. CALLIFER: Yes, dear?

JAMES: I was too frightened.

MRS. CALLIFER: Why frightened? Was it the darkness, dear?

JAMES: No. I don’t mind the dark.

MRS. CALLIFER: Then what was it? (He puts the bowl down and comes slowly towards her ring of lamplight.) Tell me what happened, dear.

JAMES: I didn’t want to go. I was frightened before I left the house, just as though I knew someone was waiting for me, among the laurels, on the path to the potting shed.

Mrs. Callifer makes a movement which might be one of fear or tenderness.

MRS. CALLIFER: My poor James,

He sits down, like a child, on the floor at her feet.

JAMES: Mother, I’m sorry. About the dog and coming here. Disturbing you.

She runs her hand over his head. It’s almost as though the constraint between them were at last breaking down.

MRS. CALLIFER: My dear, don’t worry. You’re my son, James.

JAMES: Yes, I’m your son, Mother. Will you tell me, please, now—now Father’s not here—what’s wrong?

MRS. CALLIFER: Wrong?

JAMES: Wrong with me. So that you were afraid to see me. Oh, except between trains at Nottingham when you were taking Anne to school. Do you remember when we met that time for tea at the Kardomah? I made you meet me. But I still hoped that in a way you would be glad to see me. And then I walked in from the street, and you sat there waiting, hard and afraid. Afraid of me. We talked about what the weather had been like here. And then you said you had to catch your train. What did I do, Mother, all those years ago, that was so horrible?

MRS. CALLIFER: You are imagining things.

JAMES: No, Mother, there’s usually a moment when parents begin to speak the truth to their children. It’s been a long time delayed in our case.

MRS. CALLIFER: There never is such a moment. First the children are too young, and then the parents are too old for truth. I’m too old, James. Please.

JAMES: Then there is a truth.

MRS. CALLIFER: You’ll have to go somewhere else to find it.

JAMES: I’ve looked for it already in some strange places.

MRS. CALLIFER: Yes?

JAMES: Once a week I go to a doctor and he injects me with methedrine, and I talk and talk.

MRS. CALLIFER: What good does that do?