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had been Annet who opened the door to him first, and she should have opened it to him now. If she had, he would have believed that he was being offered another chance, a new beginning with her, if he had the wit to make better use of it this time. But the steps were heavier and shorter than hers, the hand that turned back the latch was sharper and clumsier with it; and he knew Mrs Beck even before she let him in.
    ‘Ah, there you are, Mr Kenyon!’ She held the door wide. The hall was in half-darkness; the brittle brightness of her voice might have been trying to make up for the want of light on her face. ‘Have you had a nice weekend?’
    Had he? Back from a brief re-insertion into a vacancy which no longer seemed large enough for him, back to a desired but elusive right of domicile which had not yet fully admitted him, he couldn’t find much comfort anywhere. But he said yes, he had, all the more positively for the nagging of his doubts. What else can you say? Everybody’d been almost overglad to see him, and made all the fuss of him even he could ever have wished; that ought to add up to a nice week-end, according to his old standards.
    ‘We’ve missed you,’ said Mrs Beck, making a production of taking his coat from him and hanging it up. He unwound his college scarf, and was stricken motionless for a second in mid-swing, arm ridiculously extended, at a statement so disastrously off-key. She didn’t say things like that. She was too correct and practical, and they hadn’t so far, been on that kind of terms. It was then he began to feel the ground quake under him with certainty that something was wrong.
    There was no Annet in the living-room, no glossy black head lifting reluctantly from her book to speak faint, warm, rueful civilities over his return. Only Beck, with his glasses askew and his lofty brow seamed and pallid, almost mauve beneath the light. Too ready with a rush of welcoming conversation, missing his footing occasionally in his haste, like his wife. But unlike his wife, lurching at every mis-step; and his eyes, distorted by the lenses of his glasses, liquefying at every recovery into anxiety and fear.
    ‘Annet working late?’ asked Tom, himself shaken off-course by this inexplicable disquiet.
    If the pause was half a second long, that was all; if they did exchange a look across his shoulder, it touched and slid away in an instant.
    ‘No,’ said Mrs Beck, ‘she’s gone into Comerbourne with Myra, there was some film they wanted to see. One of these three-hour epics. They’d have to miss the end if they caught the last bus, they’ll stay overnight with Myra’s aunt in Mill Fields.’
    She must have seen his face fall, if she hadn’t been so busy desperately holding up her own. But he accepted it; he swallowed it whole, and gave up expecting to see Annet that night. Flat and cold the evening extended before him; and if he hadn’t succumbed to his hideous disappointment and taken cravenly to flight from the prospect of keeping up appearances face-to-face with her parents through all those dragging hours, the course of events might have been radically changed. But he did succumb, and he did resort to flight. Better drive over to the local club in Comerford than sit here trying to keep his mouth from sagging. He made his excuses winningly, and had the discomfiting sensation of having hurled himself at an unlatched door when they received them almost eagerly, without even formal regret at being deprived of his company.
    He withdrew himself thankfully as soon as supper was over; he’d have skipped that, too, if he’d been less hungry, or if there’d been much prospect of getting a meal in Comerford at this hour. In the hall he wound himself up again in his scarf, and then, remembering that he was wearing his scuffed driving shoes, opened the large clothes-cupboard to fish out some more presentable ones.
    And suddenly something fell into place, a doubt, a premonition, a memory, whatever it was