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bins at breakfast time. She sprang up the concrete steps, checked her hair in the glass, and stayed an hour; ate an egg that Dexter had poached for himself; tried to make herself useful and agreeable, though she was domestically incompetent: she tipped tea-leaves down the sink and blocked it; she put embers from the pot-belly stove into a plastic bucket and melted it. But she began to know where things were, she was cheerful company, she laughed at Dexter’s jokes, she played with Arthur. She laced his boots for him, though he had been able to do it himself for years.
    â€˜Can I walk down to school with you?’ she said. ‘Do you mind?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Arthur, with his nose in a cereal packet.
    â€˜You do mind?’
    â€˜I mean yes, you can come.’
    When the mail arrived and Athena opened envelopes, Vicki watched and said, ‘I never get any letters.’
    Athena suppressed an impulse to say, ‘You can read mine.’
    Vicki loved their lavatory in the corner of the yard, its shelves made of brick and timber stuffed with old paperbacks, broken tools, camping gear and boxes of worn-down coloured pencils. She loved the notes they left for each other, the drawings and silly rhymes, the embarrassing singing, the vegetable garden, the fluster under which lay a generous order, the rushes of activity followed by periods of sunny calm: Vicki was in love with the house, with the family, with the whole establishment of it.
    â€˜Bunker Street is her god ,’ said Elizabeth.
    Dexter was flattered. ‘I feel sentimental when I see you, Morty,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you bring this Philip round here?’
    â€˜Philip? What would I bring him here for?’
    â€˜He’s your bloke, isn’t he? Aren’t you going to get married one of these days?’
    Elizabeth shouted with laughter. ‘Marry him ? Forget it! He’s already married! And anyway can you see me as a married woman?’
    Dexter clenched his fists and danced up and down on the spot. ‘But I want you to be happily married!’
    Elizabeth raised her eyes to the ceiling.
    â€˜I don’t understand the way you live,’ said Dexter. ‘What are the rules? Does he – you know – betray you?’
    â€˜Of course he bloody “betrays’’ me,’ said Elizabeth. ‘When you’ve been with someone that long, what else is there to do?’
    Dexter flung out his arms and turned to Vicki who was at the mirror by the piano trying to tie a scarf round her head.
    â€˜I hate modern life,’ he said. ‘Modern American manners.’
    â€˜It’s just love,’ said Vicki, turning and twisting to get a back view of herself.
    â€˜Love!’ roared Dexter. ‘I’ve never been in love, then. In lerve . I don’t even know what it is. What’s so funny?’
    â€˜You’ll find out one day,’ said Elizabeth.
    â€˜I don’t see why people think falling in lerve is inevitable,’ said Dexter. ‘Anyone would think it was some kind of disease, or plague. People only fall in lerve because they’ve read about it in some cheap American magazine, because they want to, because they’re bored and have nothing better to do. I don’t want to, therefore I’m not going to.’
    â€˜But weren’t you in love with Athena?’ said Vicki, scandalised.
    â€˜No,’ said Dexter. ‘Not in that tortured way you read about.’
    Vicki looked quickly at Athena, afraid she would be hurt, but Athena was smiling and listening.
    â€˜You’re not really a scarf person, are you, Vicki,’ said Elizabeth.
    Vicki yanked the scarf off her head.
    â€˜Who’s the pianist round here?’ said Elizabeth. She flipped up the lid and struck a note or two.
    â€˜Athena plays, don’t you dear,’ said Dexter.
    â€˜Well, I’m learning,’ said Athena. She was keeping her back to the room.
    â€˜How