She looked a little flushed, a little haughty sailing down the street; she paused and gave a small boy a penny. He was so surprised he dropped it, staring after her heavy careful retreat. The Boy gave a sudden laugh, rusty and half-hearted. He thought: she’s drunk. . . Dallow said, ‘That was a narrow squeak.’ ‘What was?’ ‘Your mother-in-law.’ ‘Her. . . how did you know?’ ‘She asked for Rose.’ The Boy put down the News of the World upon the counter—a headline stood up—‘Assault on Schoolgirl in Epping Forest’. He walked across to Frank’s thinking hard, and up the stairs. Half-way he stopped: she’d dropped an artificial violet from a spray. He picked it off the stair: it smelt of Californian Poppy. Then he went in, holding the flower concealed in his palm, and Rose came across to him, welcoming. He avoided her mouth. ‘Well,’ he said and tried to express in his face a kind of rough and friendly jocularity, ‘I hear your Mum’s been visiting you,’ and waited anxiously for her reply.
