‘But I told him not to lose any sleep on my account. Because I wouldn’t organize revolutions. Twenty years ago I would. But not now. Because now we know what happens to revolutionary groups — we’d be murdering each other inside five years.’

‘Not necessarily.’

Tommy’s look at her said: You’re dishonest. He said: ‘I remember about two years ago, you and my mother were talking. You said to my mother, If we’d been unlucky enough to be communists in Russia or Hungary or somewhere, one of us would very likely have shot the other as a traitor. That was a joke too.’

Anna said: ‘Tommy, your mother and I have both led somewhat complicated lives, and we’ve done a lot of things. You can’t expect us to be full of youthful certainties and slogans and battle-cries. We’re both of us getting on for being middle-aged.’ Anna heard herself make these remarks with a certain amount of wry surprise: even dislike. She was saying to herself: I sound like a tired old liberal. She decided, however, to stand by them, and looked at Tommy to find him very critically looking at her. He said: ‘You mean, I’ve no right to make middle-aged remarks at my age? Well, Anna, I feel middle-aged. Now what do you have to say?’ The malicious stranger had come back, and was sitting in front of her, his eyes full of spite.

She said quickly: ‘Tommy, tell me something: how would you sum up your interview with your father?’

Tommy sighed and became himself. ‘Whenever I go to his office I am surprised. I remember the first time — I’d always seen him in our house, and once or twice at Marion’s. Well, I’d always thought him very — ordinary, you know? Commonplace. Dull. Like you and my mother do. Well, the first time I saw him in his office I felt confused — I know you’re going to say it’s the power he has, all that money. But it was more than that. He suddenly didn’t seem ordinary and secondrate.’

Anna sat silent, thinking: What is he getting at? What am I failing to see?

He said: ‘Oh I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking Tommy is ordinary and second-rate himself.’

Anna blushed: she had, in the past, thought that of Tommy. He saw her blush and smiled malignantly. He said: ‘Ordinary people aren’t necessarily stupid, Anna. I know quite well what I am. And that’s why I am confused when I’m in my father’s office, watching him being a sort of tycoon. Because I’d do that well too. But I couldn’t, ever, because I’d do it with a divided mind — because of you and my mother. The difference between my father and me is that I know I’m commonplace and he doesn’t. I know quite well that people like you and my mother are a hundred times better than he is — even though you’re such failures and in such a mess. But I’m sorry I know it. You mustn’t tell my mother this, but I’m very sorry my father didn’t bring me up — if he had I’d have been very happy to inherit his shoes.’