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ten pounds from her salary.
    ‘Matty, are you there?’
    ‘Of course I’m here.’
    ‘I’m waiting for the doctor.’
    ‘Oh, are you?’
    ‘Well, if you’ve got things to do, do them quickly, because you did say you’d come, and what with one thing and another I’m run off my feet. And I suppose you haven’t had any lunch again either.’
    The sheer lunacy of this conversation went no deeper than the surface of Martha’s sensibilities. ‘I’ll be over on the dot,’ she said soothingly, and would have continued to soothe, if Mr Robinson had not abruptly arrived in the central office exclaiming: ‘Mrs Hesse!’ before he saw she was still on the telephone. Martha covered the mouthpiece and said: ‘Yes, Mr Robinson?’
    ‘When you’ve finished,’ he said, and went back in.
    The sun was burning Martha’s burned shoulder. She drewthe curtains right across, as Mrs Quest said: ‘And so he can’t keep anything down at all, so the doctor says it will be a question of rectal feeding soon. Did you enjoy yourself last night at the pictures?’
    ‘I didn’t go to the pictures. What did you ring me for?’
    ‘Oh by the way,’ said Mrs Quest, after a confused pause, her breath coming quick, ‘I thought I should tell you Caroline is here for the afternoon and so you should be careful she doesn’t see you.’
    Of course! thought Martha. That’s it. I should have guessed. ‘Since I told you earlier I couldn’t get to you until eight, and since Caroline will have gone home long before that, I don’t see the point.’
    ‘Well, you might have come now, you bad girl, if you weren’t so busy.’ Mrs Quest now sounded playful, even coy, and to forestall anger, Martha said quickly: ‘Tell my father I’ll be there at eight, goodbye, mother.’ She put down the receiver, trembling with rage.
    This situation had arisen: Mrs Quest had taken to appropriating her granddaughter several times a week for the day, or for the afternoon. The little girl played in the big garden with her nurse while Mrs Quest supervised from the windows of the room where Mr Quest lay ill. And why not? Martha considered it reasonable that the Quests should have their grandchild, while she, the child’s mother, who had forfeited all right to her, should be excluded. It was quite right she should never be seen by the child; it would upset Caroline, who was now ‘used to’, as everyone said, Elaine Talbot, now Elaine Knowell, the new mother. All this Martha agreed to, accepted, saw the justice of. But on the afternoons Caroline was with her grandmother, Mrs Quest invariably telephoned Martha to say: Caroline’s here, I can see her playing near the fish-pond, she does look pretty today. Or: Be careful not to drop in, Matty, Caroline’s here.
    And Martha said, Yes mother. No mother. And never once had she said what her appalled, offended heart repeated over and over again, while she continued to say politely: ‘Yes,’ and ‘Of course’: You’re enjoying this—youlove punishing me. This is a victory for you, being free to see the child when I am not—sadistic woman, cruel sadistic woman…So Martha muttered to herself, consumed with hatred for her mother, but consumed ridiculously, since the essence of Martha’s relationship with her mother must be, must, apparently, for ever be, that Mrs Quest ‘couldn’t help it’. Well, she couldn’t.
    Now Martha sat, rigid, trembling, seething with thoughts she was ashamed of, knew were unfair and ridiculous, but could not prevent: ‘And now my father’s ill, really ill at last, and so I have to go to that house, and she’s got me just where she wants me, I’m helpless.’
    Mr Robinson came out of his office.
    ‘Mr Robinson?’
    ‘I was going to say: advertise for a new secretary, you know the sort of thing we want.’
    ‘I’ll put it in the paper tomorrow. And about that ten pounds?’
    ‘What ten pounds?’
    ‘If we’re going to have proper accountants, then…’
    For the hundredth