‘A conveyance’ll be necessary, pet. You’ll need a motor-car.’

‘I have no money for a motor-car.’

‘Come back into bed, honey, and warm me up.’

The boarding-house proprietress’s bedroom had pink, striped wallpaper on its walls, with bunches of pinkish lilies cascading in each corner and running along in a frieze below the picture rail. There was a wash-stand with a basin and jug on it, and a large wardrobe and a table with a mirror propped against a vase, in front of which Mrs Moledy’s cosmetics, hairpins and other aids to beauty were laid out. A crucifix hung between the curtained windows, and on the floor beneath it a rubber plant stood in a brass container. Sacred statues elsewhere adorned the room. At the foot of the bed were the two chairs on which Mrs Moledy laid her clothes when she divested herself of them.

‘Come on, my honey,’ she urged again. Her fleshy, powdered face simpered from the pillows, her double chin bunched into pale folds. Mrs Moledy had been widowed for seven years and John James’s friend for five. Her bulk beneath the sheet and blankets was considerable, by chance reflecting the appetite of her passion. ‘I would advance you the money for a motor-car,’ she offered when she had settled his limbs about her pin-cushion plumpness. An arrangement could easily be drawn up: it was not unusual for a woman in her position to lend money. Her fingers, as she spoke, explored the flesh of her companion. They traced the outline of his ribs, loitering on his stomach. They touched his region of reproduction. ‘Oh, you are my king!’ she murmured.

The boarding-house on that April afternoon was quiet. Its two permanent lodgers were at work and it was too early by a month or so for the first of its seasonal visitors. Mrs Moledy’s maid was given Monday afternoons off.

‘King!’ Mrs Moledy suddenly cried out. ‘King of my castle!’

She dozed, and he thought how much he disliked her. Five years ago, one warm midday, he had been sitting on a seat on the promenade, watching the fishing boats returning one by one. She had addressed him by name, had walked by, and on her way back had sat down beside him. Afterwards she confessed that she’d seen him from the boarding-house and had come out specially. She played him a record on her gramophone. ‘Get along, little doggy,’ a tinny voice had sung. ‘Get along, get along.’

Beside him, she awoke. Her mood had changed, as it often did in the course of an afternoon. He recognised even before she spoke the mood he disliked most of all.

‘Oh, I would love it if we could go to a show like that!’ She pouted. She protruded her lower lip beyond the upper one. She sniffed, as if tearful. She wasn’t good enough, she supposed.

‘It isn’t that at all.’

‘It’s always no with you, darling.’

John James, drawing upon his experience of the relationship, tightened his face and remained silent.