‘Keeping the dream alive. Because there’ll always be new people, without — paralysis of the will.’ She concluded strongly, with an energetic nod; and thought as she spoke that she sounded like Mother Sugar at the end of a session: One must have faith! Trumpets and fanfares. There must have been a small self-accusatory smile on her face — she could even feel it there, although she believed in what she had said, for Tommy nodded with a sort of malicious triumph. The telephone rang and he said: ‘That’ll be my mother, checking on how my phase is working itself out.’

Anna answered the telephone, said yes and no, put down the receiver and turned to Tommy.

‘No it wasn’t your mother, but I’m expecting a visitor.’

‘Then I must go.’ He got up slowly, with his characteristic lumbering slowness; and arranged on his face the blank inward-looking stare he had entered with. He said: ‘Thank you for talking to me.’ He was saying: Thank you for confirming what I had expected to find in you.

The moment he had gone Anna telephoned Molly, who had just come in from the theatre. She said: ‘Tommy’s been here, and he’s just left. He frightens me. There’s something terribly wrong, but I don’t know what, and I don’t think I said the right things.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Well he says everything is rotten.’

‘Well it is,’ said Molly, loud and cheerful. In the couple of hours since she had last spoken of her son, she had played the part of a jolly landlady — a part she despised in a play she despised — but she was still inside this part. And she had been to the pub with some of the cast and had enjoyed it. She was very far from her earlier mood.

‘And Marion has just telephoned me from the phone box downstairs. She’s come up by the last train especially to see me.’

‘What on earth for?’ said Molly, annoyed.

‘I don’t know. She’s drunk. I’ll tell you in the morning. Molly …’ Anna was filled with panic, remembering how Tommy had gone out. ‘Molly, we’ve got to do something for Tommy, quickly. I’m sure we have.’

‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Molly, practically.

‘There’s Marion at the door. I must let her in. Good night.’

‘Good night. I’ll report on the state of Tommy’s morale in the morning. I expect we are worrying about nothing. After all, think of how awful we were at that age.’ Anna heard her friend’s loud, jolly laugh as the receiver clicked down.

Anna pressed the button that released the catch of the front door, and listened to the clumsy sounds of Marion’s ascent up the stairs. She could not go to help Marion, who would certainly resent it.