They couldn’t afford to have Mrs Woodley every day, and Miss Pimm knew it as well as Althea did herself. She didn’t mean to be unkind, but she had a darting, probing way with her. She believed in frankness. People oughtn’t to mind saying if they were hard-up. Althea could say so, couldn’t she? And then she could sympathize and say how dreadfully dear everything was, and she would go home and be able to tell Mabel and Lily that the Grahams really did seem to be hard up, and what a pity it was. The fact that everyone on the bus would be listening did not trouble her at all. Neither she nor her sister had anything to hide, and why shouldn’t everyone be as open as they were? There was, of course, no answer to that. Althea at any rate did not seem to have one. She leaned back as far as she could in her seat and said in a tired voice,

‘Thank you – we have Mrs Stokes.’

‘But only one day a week, I think, and I have never considered her really thorough. Now Mrs Woodley is first-class, and you would find her such a comfort. And you really do look very tired. You can’t afford to neglect yourself, or what would happen to your dear mother? Now with Mrs Woodley…’ It went on until Althea got out at the top of the High Street.

She concentrated on doing her errands. That was something she had learned to do in the last five years. If you made yourself think about what you were doing, not just with a surface attention but as if each thing really mattered, it did help you to get through the day. She got the embroidery silk, refusing a near match at Gorton’s and finding what she wanted at the little new shop in Kent Street. She bought fish and she changed the library book, and made the long detour to the hairdresser who sold the Sungleam preparations. There was just a moment when the drilled routine of her thoughts was broken through. She inquired about the shampoo for her mother. ‘It’s not a dye, is it?’

‘Oh, no, madam. Is it for yourself?’