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He never likes anything I give him.’
    â€˜They sound fine,’ I whispered because Brodie was in the kitchen, reading in the rocking-chair beneath a pile of purring cats. ‘I’ve got him a fur hunter’s hat from one of Daddy’s junk shops. Daddy has got him a watch.’
    Brodie unwrapped his parcels slowly. He said nothing. The rest of us chorused interest, trying to drown his silence. Mummy bit her lip, Daddy rolled his eyes, Brodie jumped up and left the room, presents cascading from his chair. Mummy found him crying in the playroom.
    â€˜What is it, darling? Don’t you like your things? You can change them.’
    Brodie sniffed. ‘I do like some of them. I’m sorry.’
    Mummy laughed, relieved that nothing more sinister lay in his tears. ‘I’m used to none of you liking things. We’ll go together and change them for the right ones.’
    Brodie cheered up. Moments later he was laughing as he cut the cake Mummy had made. It was black, in the shape of an army helmet.
    â€˜Thank God he likes something,’ Mummy whispered to Daddy.
    Brodie grew tall in spurts. Some bits of him were small and childlike; others, his arms and legs, his mouth, his hands, strained large and adult in a schoolboy frame.
    Flook was even bonier, translucent skin stretched over long legs which he whirled about on, dizzying himself, spinning, excited; quick to burst out laughing or roar in rage. Flook loved all his birthday presents and kept his things carefully in his tidy bedroom where his possessions were ranked in labelled drawers. Brodie’s room was a cave where he huddled in bed reading, not noticing mould growing out of a forgotten cup of cocoa.
    Daddy was finishing a book of verse. He never called his work poems and he referred to poetry as ‘paltry’ or ‘poultry’. This confused journalists who came to interview him but he didn’t care. He loathed being interviewed, but was powerless to prevent it. He refused to answer the telephone or to speak on it, so Mummy bore the brunt of requests to see him. Unable to think of any decent excuses, she always said, ‘Yes, why not come on Saturday evening?’
    Having just received a telephone call from the local paper, she sent me upstairs to tell Daddy who was coming. I knockedon the door of the study and found him at his desk, tapping with two fingers on the keys of his ancient typewriter. Beside him his notebooks teetered in a crooked column, the top one open at eye level.
    â€˜Space is the secret of writing verse,’ he said. ‘Space between the lines and the positioning of the words on the page.’
    I told him about the local paper. ‘I will see no one during the week. This is why I live in Norfolk. If I wanted to see people in the week, I would live on Piccadilly Circus,’ he said.
    â€˜It’s all right,’ I soothed, ‘they’re coming on Saturday evening.’
    â€˜Good. In that case they can talk to someone else while I have a drink. I dare say there will be others here; that is what Saturday evening is for.’
    I sighed. Saturday evenings meant a lot of people who never appeared on any other occasion, and a lot of drinking. I did not approve of drinking.
    â€˜Have you nearly finished today?’ It was four o’clock, and Daddy usually came down when we returned from school. He worked in his study every morning until Poppy clambered up the stairs to call him down to have lunch with her and Dan, who had started morning school. Mummy never had any lunch; she said it made her fat and sleepy. ‘You’re as thin as trousers,’ objected Poppy, and Daddy agreed. ‘Your vanity will kill you,’ he said, and Mummy frowned. ‘Of course it won’t. It’s only lunch.’
    When Daddy came down at tea-time, he and Brodie and Flook gathered wood for the fire. Mummy and Daddy had supper with us all and then Dan and Poppy went to bed. Daddy