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sensible,” said Grant. “And was your father still alive then? And if so, did he come with her?”
    Silence from Eve for some time.
    â€œI really don’t know. My mother was here for such a long time that it seems like she was always here. But my father—I just didn’t ask about the details, so I don’t know.”
    â€œWell, you’ll pay for your lack of curiosity by having a mountain to climb. Still, there must be plenty of people in Crossley who remember when your mother arrived there. Get on to them, and see what they know—about your father and any other friends of your mother. Good luck. But remember I recommended you to do nothing at all.”
    And would always be quick to remind her of that ifthings went wrong, thought Eve. Her immediate reaction to the conversation was satisfaction that she had Grant as a friend, and even greater satisfaction that she no longer had him as a romantic partner. As long as something so ingrained, so much part of him, as his sleek self-satisfaction grated on her, there was no prospect of a really loving long-term relationship. She had always enjoyed her mother’s descriptions, out of Grant’s hearing, of psychology as “pseudo-science” and “high-class mumbo jumbo,” and she wouldn’t have done if she had real respect for his profession. No, that part of her life was over, and well over, and Grant would never again be more than a valued friend.
    Later that evening Eve poured herself a drink from one of the bottles her mother had left—bottles that had probably all been bought at Christmas and had lasted from Christmas to Christmas. Unless in those last weeks May had turned to alcohol as a deadener of pain and fear. With a stiff brandy in her hand Eve went from room to room, looking into drawers and cupboards, noting a few things that had been moved since she had lived there, and the many that were just where she remembered them. All the cupboards too contained just what she remembered—quite naturally: the top of the hall cupboard was piled rather untidily with scarves, gloves and woolly hats, just as she would have expected. There was a kitchen cupboard full of glasses and pudding plates and unwanted mugs, just as it had been when she was a young girl.
    But she did see that high up there were tops of cupboards which contained she knew not what. She rejected the idea of fetching a ladder or the library steps andhaving a look there and then. Much better to do it in daylight, and without having taken a drop.
    In the bathroom she looked up and saw the covered-over hole that was the access to the attic. She never remembered having been up there. For all she knew it could be empty. But she was beginning to hope not.
    Next morning she ran out of eggs with her breakfast, so the first thing she did was to walk into town and do a shop for the everyday necessities. Then, hoping he began the day early, she went down the side street that led to Bradshaw and Pollock and was delighted to find Mr. Bradshaw in and improving the shining hour. She dealt with some more details of the burial, then, feeling the abruptness of it, she turned the conversation round to one of her current preoccupations.
    â€œThinking ahead to the gravestone,” she said, “I suppose it’s usual to put ‘wife of’ or some such formula.”
    â€œThat’s entirely a matter of choice,” said Bradshaw.
    â€œIt’s so long ago, isn’t it?” said Eve. “Thinking about it, I wish I had pressed my mother more on the subject of my father. But I never had any memories of him. I know almost nothing beyond the fact that his name was John McNabb and he was a newspaper cartoonist. Did he come down with my mother when she took the job in Crossley?”
    â€œOh yes. I met him—to say hello to—more than once.”
    â€œWhat were your impressions of him?”
    â€œA very nice man: quiet, effacing, just the