Meanwhile Molly, talented in so many directions, danced a little — but she really did not have the build for a ballerina; did a song and dance act in a revue — decided it was too frivolous; took drawing lessons, gave them up when the war started when she worked as a journalist; gave up journalism to work in one of the cultural outworks of the Communist Party; left for the same reason everyone of her type did — she could not stand the deadly boredom of it; became a minor actress, and had reconciled herself, after much unhappiness, to the fact that she was essentially a dilettante. Her source of self-respect was that she had not — as she put it — given up and crawled into safety somewhere. Into a safe marriage.

And her secret source of uneasiness was Tommy, over whom she had fought a years-long battle with Richard. He was particularly disapproving because she had gone away for a year, leaving the boy in her house, to care for himself.

He now said, resentful: ‘I’ve seen a good deal of Tommy during the last year, when you left him alone …’

She interrupted with: ‘I keep explaining, or trying to — I thought it all out and decided it would be good for him to be left. Why do you always talk as if he were a child? He was over nineteen, and I left him in a comfortable house, with money, and everything organized.’

‘Why don’t you admit you had a whale of a good time junketing all over Europe, without Tommy to tie you?’

‘Of course I had a good time, why shouldn’t I?’

Richard laughed, loudly and unpleasantly, and Molly said, impatient, ‘Oh for God’s sake, of course I was glad to be free for the first time since I had a baby. Why not? And what about you — you have Marion, the good little woman, tied hand and foot to the boys while you do as you like — and there’s another thing. I keep trying to explain and you never listen. I don’t want him to grow up one of these damned mother-ridden Englishmen. I wanted him to break free of me. Yes, don’t laugh, but it wasn’t good, the two of us together in this house, always so close and knowing everything the other one did.’

Richard grimaced with annoyance and said, ‘Yes, I know your little theories on this point.’

At which Anna came in with: ‘It’s not only Molly — all the women I know — I mean, the real women, worry that their sons are going to grow up like … they’ve got good reason to worry.’

At this Richard turned hostile eyes on Anna; and Molly watched the two of them sharply.

‘Like what, Anna?’