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who had come in from the kitchen at the noise of all the excitement, he announced that she really
was
just a friend, and that he would love to invite her for a weekend. He begged them not to ask people around for sherry on Sunday morning. He implored Elsie not to give the place a thorough spring clean before young Mr Adam’s young lady came; he said that honestly Louise shouldn’t save her supper party for the tennis club people until Heather arrived. Short of going on bended knees he couldn’t have done more to ask for a quiet, normal weekend. It had, of course, been useless.
    It was only natural that they should be so interested in his doings, Adam thought forgiving them, loving them for caring so much. Since Father died he was the only man in their life; Louise was too bookish, too brisk for men. Well, she was nineteen and had never shown any real interest in men. She worked in the local library, she never mentioned boyfriends. She couldn’t have any secretly, could she? After all she lived at home. Every second weekend Adam arrived home to the Sussex town, and told them tales about his life in London. The work in the bank, his prospects. His squash games, his walks on the Heath. The little pub theatres he went to, his French classes preparing for big banking opportunities in the EEC.
    He mentioned lots of friends by name, but never Heather. He said nothing about the discos they went to on the Saturdays he stayed in London. He thought Mother might find discos a bit, well, lower class, and Louise would ask in her penetrating voice: ‘But why, Adam, why do people go to rooms with loud music and funny lights which eventually ruin their eyesight – I mean, do they enjoy it, Adam?’ He told Elsie that he was learning a little bit more about cooking, but he didn’t explain that it was Heather who taught him, Heather who said: ‘I made the supper last night, you’ll bloody do it tonight mate or I’ll find myself a bloke who believes in equality.’
    His worlds were so different that he had put off for as long as he could the date when they had to be brought together. Adam who sat down with a linen table napkin to tasteless, overcooked, plain food served from cracked china plates behind heavy net curtains . . . and Adam who sat on the bed with a great wooden bowl of highly spiced chilli, a bottle of red wine on the floor, his arm around Heather as they laughed and watched television. In the summer evenings the window of their basement flat was often open for all to see . . . He could hardly believe they were the same person.
    Heather had invited him to her home several times. Her stepfather had asked Adam for a loan of a pound on each occasion and Heather had cheerfully shouted at him not to be so daft. On one occasion Adam hadsecretly slipped the man a pound, hoping to buy his affection, but in fact it only worsened relations between them as Heather had said it would. Heather’s mother was a hard-working Scot. She looked Adam up and down and said she hoped that he was a man who could hold down a day’s work. Adam explained nervously that although he was still a lowly bank official he was indeed a regular worker and had great ambitions. Heather’s mother said she approved of that because she herself had been unlucky in that she had married two wasters and two scroungers and two men who would drink the Thames Estuary dry if they got a chance. ‘There were only two altogether, Mam,’ Heather had said laughing. ‘She always makes it sound as if there were six!’
    Adam couldn’t understand the casual bond that held the mother to her daughter. It wasn’t love, it had nothing to do with duty. There was no need involved, it didn’t seem to matter whether Heather went home for months or not. There were no recriminations, no interrogations. There didn’t even seem to be a great deal of interest. Heather’s mother could hardly remember the name of the department store where Heather worked. Adam marvelled at that: