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started up: the patterned roar of motor mowers, accelerating, braking, turning, accelerating, braking, turning. When they fell silent, you might catch the quiet chomp of shears; and finally – a sound absorbed rather than heard – the gentle squeak of chamois on boot and bonnet.
    It was the day of garden hoses (we all paid extra on the rates for an outside tap); of yahoo kids shouting dementedly from several gardens away; of beachballs rising above the level of the fence; of learner drivers panicking on three-point turns in the road outside; of young men taking the family car up to The Stile for a drink before lunch, and dropping their blue salt papers through the slats of the teak gardenware. Sundays, it seemed, were always peaceful, and always sunny.
    I loathed them, with all the rage of one continuously disappointed to discover that he is not self-sufficient. I loathed the Sunday papers, which tried to fill your dozing brain with thoughts you didn’t want; I loathed the Sunday radio, spillingover with arid critics; I loathed the Sunday television, all Brains Trust and serious plays about grown-ups and emotional crises and nuclear war and that sort of stuff. I loathed staying in, while the sun crept furtively round the room and suddenly hit you smack in the eyes; and sitting out, when the same sun liquefied your brain and sent it slopping round your skull. I loathed Sunday’s tasks – swabbing down the car, with soapy water running upwards (how did it do that?) into your armpit; emptying the grass-cuttings and scraping your nails on the bottom of the metal barrow. I loathed working, and not working; going for walks over the golf course and meeting other people going for walks over the golf course; and doing what you did most, which was wait for Monday.
    The only break in the routine of Sundays came when my mother announced,
    ‘We’re going to see Uncle Arthur this afternoon.’
    ‘Why?’ The ritual objection was always worth registering. It never got anywhere, and I didn’t mind that it didn’t; I just felt that Nigel and Mary might benefit from the example of independent thinking.
    ‘Because he’s your uncle.’
    ‘He’ll still be my uncle next weekend; and the weekend after that.’
    ‘That’s not the point. We haven’t been over for eight weeks or so.’
    ‘How do you know he wants to see us?’
    ‘Of course he wants to see us – we haven’t been over for two months.’
    ‘Did he ring up and ask to see us?’
    ‘Of course he didn’t; you know he never does.’ (Too mean)
    ‘Then how do you know he wants to see us?’
    ‘Because he always wants to see us after this sort of time. Now don’t be aggravating, Christopher.’
    ‘But he might be reading a book or doing something interesting.’
    ‘Well, I’d drop a book to see a relation I hadn’t seen for two months.’
    ‘I wouldn’t.’
    ‘Well, that’s hardly the point, Christopher.’
    ‘What is the point?’ (Nigel yawning ostentatiously by this time)
    ‘The point is we’re going over there this afternoon. Now go and wash for lunch.’
    ‘Can I take a book?’
    ‘Well, you can take one to read in the car; but you’ll have to leave it in the car. It’s rude to go visiting with a book.’
    ‘Isn’t it rude to go visiting when you don’t really want to go visiting?’
    ‘Christopher, go and wash.’
    ‘Can I take a book to the bathroom?’
    And so on. I could prolong these conversations indefinitely without exhausting my mother’s patience; her only indication of disapproval was to call me by my name. She knew I would be going. I did too.
    As soon as the washing-up was over, we climbed into our chunky Morris Oxford, black with plum upholstery. Mary would stare vacuously out of the window and let her hair be blown over her face without brushing it away. Nigel bent over a mag. I used to hum and whistle, always starting off with a Guy Béart song I’d heard on long wave, whose first line was ‘Cerceuil à roulettes, tombeau à