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Mrs. Griffiths on while I was away? She would never have let this happen! These were the moments when a man about the place seemed not merely desirable, but utterly essential. A man would know, for instance, where the tap was that turned the water off at the main. It was probably outside somewhere, hidden among the frozen wet undergrowth surrounding the cottage. I would never find it, and meanwhile the water from the burst was still flowing.
    After bedding David down under a smother of blankets, I put on one of Addy’s ankle-length mackintoshes and gum-boots and ventured outside. I circled the cottage three times before I located the tap, cunningly hidden beneath an evergreen shrub which was leaning heavily against the wall. The tap, when I had fought my way through to it, was immovably stuck—I had to fetch a pair of pliers before it would budge, and by this time I was in such a temper I did something I hadn’t done all the time I’d been living there—namely, locked myself out. Smashing a window would have given me intense satisfaction at that moment, but unfortunately—or rather, mercifully—they were all diamond-pane so it wouldn’t have helped much. Instead I climbed back into the car, and drove furiously back to the village, skidding recklessly from side to side in the ruts. It was lighting-up time by then, and the plumber, when I at last located him with the aid of Mrs. Griffiths (who, to my relief, had managed not to lose her key in the interim) only agreed to come that night when I wept, wrung my hands, and told him my baby would get pneumonia. His wife, very naturally, took a dim view of the whole thing, and while the plumber was grumbling his way into his coat and scarf she sat silently looking me up and down and justas I was going out of the door said in clear, ominous tones: ‘Yers. I’ve heard of you.’ This transparent lifemanship ploy managed to wilt me as none of the more direct comments of my relations had ever succeeded in doing, and I drove back to the cottage in disconcerted silence while the plumber muttered and snuffled self-pityingly beside me, holding his battered old leather tool bag clanking on his knees.
    However, while he worked on the pipe, I built a roaring fire and made a hasty but rousing pot of tea. Twice I popped up to give him a chance to remark yet again: ‘Bitin’ bloody cold in here, isn’t it? Take a while to get rid o’ this damp. Pity you didn’t lag ’em.’ At last he came down, shivering ostentatiously. The living-room looked bright and cheerful, with the fire-light flickering on the walls and the curtains drawn; knowing I had interrupted his supper, I had prepared a hot toasted sandwich as well as the tea, and there was a discreet glass of whisky near the plate. He protested he couldn’t possibly stop, the missis was waiting, and then lingered in the doorway for half-an-hour while I brought the cup, plate and glass one by one from the table …
    When at last he’d gone, and I’d shut everything tight and lit all the fires I could produce (including an old primus stove), mopped up as much as I could, and checked that David was all right, I finally flopped down in the cretonne armchair before the fire and had a cup of tea myself. I was suddenly but completely exhausted, and once more close to inexplicable tears. It was not only the crises in the cottage, or what the plumber’s wife had said; there had been something vaguely disquieting about the plumber. I had suddenly had a most unpleasant feeling, when I gave him the whisky, that he—well, that he’d misunderstood what seemed to me the most ordinary courtesy when you’ve dragged a man out on a cold wet night. It was nothing he actually did, only that he straightened himself away from the door-jamb and looked at me through his rather low-slung eyebrows and winked; he took the glass and looked around, saying something like