Marion, when she came in, smiled rather as Tommy had: it was a smile prepared before entering, and directed at the whole room. She reached the chair Tommy had sat in, and collapsed heavily into it. She was a heavy woman — tall, with abundant tired flesh. Her face was soft, or rather, blurred-looking, and her brown gaze was both blurred and suspicious. As a girl she had been slender, vivacious, humorous.

‘A nut-brown maid’, as Richard said — once with affection, but now with hostility.

Marion was staring about her, alternately screwing up her eyes and then letting them widen. Her smile had gone. It was clear that she was very drunk; and that Anna should try to get her into bed. Meanwhile Anna sat opposite her, where she could easily be brought into focus — in the same chair she had sat opposite to Tommy.

Marion adjusted her head and her eyes so that she could see Anna, and said with difficulty: ‘How lucky — you — are, Anna. I do — think — you — are so lucky to live, to live as you — like. Such a pretty room. And you — you — you are free. Do as you like.’

‘Marion, let me put you to bed, we can talk in the morning.’

‘You think I’m drunk,’ said Marion clearly and with resentment.

‘Yes of course you are. It doesn’t matter. You should go to sleep.’

Anna was now so tired, and all of a sudden, that fatigue was like heavy hands dragging down her legs and her arms. She sat loose in her chair, fighting waves of tiredness.

‘I want a drunk,’ said Marion peevishly. ‘I want a drunk. I want a drunk.’

Anna roused herself, went to the kitchen next door, filled a glass with some weak tea left in her teapot, added about a teaspoon of whisky, and brought it to Marion.

Marion said ‘Thanksh,’ took a gulp of the mixture and nodded. She held the glass carefully, lovingly, her fingers clenched around it.

‘How is Richard?’ she next enquired, carefully, her face tight with the effort of getting the words out. She had prepared this question before she came in. Anna translated it, as it were, into Marion’s normal voice, and thought: Good God, Marion’s jealous of me, and it never crossed my mind.

She said drily: ‘But Marion, surely you’re more likely to know than I am?’

She saw the dry tone vanish into the drunken space between herself and Marion; saw Marion’s mind working suspiciously on the sense of the words. She said slowly and loudly: ‘Marion, there’s no need to be jealous of me. If Richard has said something then it’s not the truth.’

‘I’m not jealous of you,’ said Marion in a hissing spurt. The word jealous had revived her jealousy; and for a few moments she was a jealous woman, her face contorted as she peered around the room at objects which had played a part in her jealous fantasies, her eyes returning again and again to the bed.

‘It’s not true,’ said Anna.