.

man’s parents were the same, they think in a bad way, they think about life as if it’s all money.’

      ‘Come tomorrow and we’ll fix something.’

      ‘Well, thanks, Matty, and you’re a real pal.’

      They cycled off side by side, once again passing Mr Maynard, but without looking at him.

      Mr Maynard, now that the image of a grand-daughter possessed him, ached with elderly loss, and he gazed fixedly at the fair plump body moving lazily past on the machine, a body which he saw simply as the casket which housed the heir of his flesh. He thought: She shouldn’t be cycling if she’s pregnant. He thought: Martha told me she didn’t see Maisie these days. Why did she tell me a lie? He was possessed by an irritable anger. I suppose she’s behind it … this thought switched into: Some communist trick, I suppose. Normally such an idea would not lodge in his critical mind for longer than a second, but now he did not resist it. His mind fumed with all kinds of suspicions: Maisie was one of the Reds, and in some way the appeal for money had a link with communism.