‘Since Ronnie’s been here weeks now, and I’ve never mentioned rent, it obviously isn’t money,’ said Anna, disliking the cold critical person who stood there, using this voice.

He hesitated again; his face the most remarkable mixture of guilt, impertinence and fear. ‘Look Anna, I’m terribly late for work. I’ll drop down this evening and we’ll talk it over.’ He was already halfway down the stairs, he was bounding down them in desperation to get away from her, and his own impulse to jeer and provoke her.

Anna went back into her kitchen. Janet was eating her breakfast.

She asked: ‘What were you talking to Ivor about?’

‘I was suggesting he should go, or at least, that Ronnie should go.’ She added quickly, for Janet was on the point of protesting: ‘That room is for one person, not for two. And they’re friends, they’d probably prefer to live together.’

To Anna’s surprise Janet decided not to protest. She was quiet and thoughtful through the meal, as she had been at supper the night before. At the end of it she remarked: ‘Why can’t I go to school?’ ‘But you are at school.’ ‘No, I mean a real school. A boarding-school.’ ‘Boarding-schools aren’t at all like that story Ivor was reading to you last night.’ Janet seemed as if she might go on, but let the subject slip. She went off to her school as usual.

Ronnie descended the stairs a short time later, much earlier than he usually did. He was carefully dressed, and very pale under the faint rouge on his cheeks. For the first time he offered to shop for Anna. ‘I’m awfully good at little jobs around the house.’ When Anna refused, he sat in the kitchen chatting delightfully, and all the time his eyes pleaded with her.

But Anna was determined, and when Ivor came to her room that evening for the interview, she remained determined. So Ivor suggested Ronnie should leave and he should stay.

‘After all, Anna, I’ve been here months and months, and we’ve never got in each other’s hair before. I agree with you, Ronnie was asking a bit much. But he’s moving out, I promise you.’ Anna hesitated, and he pressed her: ‘And there’s Janet. I’d miss her? And I don’t think I’m saying too much if I think she’d miss me. We saw an awful lot of each other while you were so busy holding your poor friend’s hand during that awful business with her son.’

Anna gave in. Ronnie left. He made an exhibition of leaving. It was made clear to Anna that she was a bitch for turning him out. (And she felt a bitch.) And it was made clear to Ivor that he had lost his mistress, whose minimum price was a roof over his head. Ivor resented Anna for his loss, and showed it. He sulked.

But Ivor’s sulking meant that things returned to as they had been before Tommy’s accident. They hardly saw him. He had become again the young man who said good evening and good morning when they met on the stairs. He was out most nights. Then Anna heard that Ronnie had failed to hold his new protector, had installed himself in a small room in a nearby street, and that Ivor was keeping him.