It was expressed by the single fact that whereas not six months before she, Anna, rang Molly’s home to chat with Molly, sending messages to Tommy; visited Molly, and perhaps dropped into Tommy’s room for a chat; went to Molly’s parties at which Tommy was a guest, among others; was a participant in Molly’s life, her adventures with men, her need, and her failure to marry — now all this, the years’ long, slow growth of intimacy was checked and broken. Anna never telephoned Molly except for the most practical reasons, because even if the telephone had not been outside Tommy’s door, he was able to intuit what was said by people apparently through a new sixth sense. For instance, once Richard, who was still aggressively accusing, telephoned Molly, saying: ‘Answer yes or no, that’s all that’s necessary: I want to send Tommy off on a holiday with a trained blind-nurse. Will he go?’ And before Molly could even reply, Tommy raised his voice from the room inside with: ‘Tell my father that I’m quite all right. Thank him and say I’ll telephone him tomorrow.’

No longer did Anna visit Molly casually and lightly for an evening, or drop in when going past. She rang the door-bell after a preparatory telephone call, heard it vibrate upstairs, and was convinced that Tommy already knew who it was. The door opened on Molly’s shrewd, painful, still forcibly gay smile. They went up to the kitchen, speaking of neutral matters, conscious of the boy through the wall. The tea or the coffee would be made; and a cup offered to Tommy. He always refused. The two women went up to the room that had been Molly’s bedroom, and was now a sort of bed-sitting-room. There they sat, thinking in spite of themselves of the mutilated boy just below them, who was now the centre of the house, dominating it, conscious of everything that went on in it, a blind but all-conscious presence. Molly would chatter a little, offer theatre gossip, from habit. Then she fell silent, her mouth twisted in anxiety, her eyes reddened with checked tears. She had now the tendency to burst suddenly and without warning into tears — on a word, in the middle of a sentence, helpless and hysterical tears which she instantly checked. Her life had changed completely. She now went to the theatre to work, shopped for what was necessary, then came home and sat alone in the kitchen or in her bed-sitting-room.

‘Aren’t you seeing anybody?’ Anna asked.

‘Tommy asked me that. Last week he said: I don’t want you to stop your social life, just for me, mother. Why don’t you bring your friends home? Well, so I took him at his word. And so I brought home that producer, you know, the one that wanted to marry me. Dick. You remember? Well he’s been very sweet over Tommy — I mean really sweet and kind, not spiteful. And I was sitting here with him, and we were drinking some Scotch. And for the first time I thought, well I wouldn’t mind — he is kind, and I’d settle tonight for just a kind masculine shoulder. And I was on the point of flashing the green light, and then I realized — it wouldn’t be possible for me to give him so much as a sisterly kiss without Tommy knowing it. Though of course, Tommy would never hold it against me, would he? In the morning he would very likely have said, Did you have a pleasant evening, mother? I’m so glad.’