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eyes, treacherous and deaf, marched out of the shopping precinct, clutching the sweater, the screwdriver and the packet of Earl Grey tea.
    ‘We’ve each got a letter from the lawyers,’ said Helen.
    Edward stood at the kitchen door, eating Puffed Wheat out of a bowl and throwing bread to the birds, who lurked in droves.
    Greystones, it sometimes seemed to Helen, sustained entirely the local wildlife, if it could be called that; they bought a loaf a day just for the birds, in winter. The garden was festooned with coconuts and mesh feeders as though with exotic Chinese decorations.
    Edward turned back into the room. ‘I shan’t have time to read mine — I’ll have to get the bus again. Have you seen a pile of exercise books anywhere?’
    Helen opened her letter. Edward prowled the room, went out into the hall and returned, still murmuring plaintively about exercise books.
    ‘It’s about mother’s Will.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Edward. Did you see me with them last night, can you remember? Maybe I never brought them back at all.’
    ‘Mother hasn’t left Greystones to us. Just the Britches.’
    Edward halted. He stared at her.
    The house is left to Phil.’
    ‘Phil?’ Edward gaped. ‘But why?’
    ‘It’s to do with tax. Inheritance Tax. At least up to a point it is. This lawyer seems a bit puzzled. He’s a new one. The old one did the Will, apparently, five or six years ago. It’s left to Phil because that way some tax is saved, but there is a proviso that we go on living here till our own deaths.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Edward. ‘Then I suppose it doesn’t really make much difference.’
    ‘I suppose not.’
    They looked at each other. ‘I wonder why mother never told us,’ said Edward, at last.
    ‘So do I.’
    Edward, now, opened his letter and read it. The letters were identical.
    ‘I don’t think Louise is going to be awfully pleased about this,’ said Edward.
    At that moment the phone rang. Helen went into the hall to answer it.
    ‘I don’t believe it!’ shrieked Louise. ‘What on earth is all this about? What the hell was mother thinking of? It’s crazy. Why didn’t she ask us about it? Oh God — I can’t talk now, I’m half an hour late already and I’ve got an important meeting. Look, we’ll come down on Saturday, we’ve got to talk about this.’
    Helen returned to the kitchen. ‘She isn’t.’
    Edward was hunting for his exercise books again. He opened the bread bin and peered inside. ‘Oh dear . . Could I have left them on the bus? Louise is furious, is she? Do we have to answer these letters?’
    ‘They’re fairly conclusive,’ said Helen. After a moment she added ‘I’ll ring him up — Mr Carnaby. It does seem to need a bit of explanation.’
    ‘Oh, good,’ said Edward, relieved. He lifted the bread board and found his exercise books underneath. ‘There they are . . knew I’d brought them back.’ He sounded quite happy now.
    ‘Can I borrow your car this evening — there’s a Naturalists’ Trust meeting in Spaxton.’
    Helen, as she moved around the house that morning, thought about responses to possession. She owned very little: a car (coveted, admittedly, by Ron Paget, which gave it an enhanced status), a wardrobe full of clothes (which no one would covet), some books and knick-knacks. She owned also some stocks and shares left to her by her father, which brought in, nowadays, about a thousand pounds a year. Edward and Louise had received the same legacies when John Glover died in 1958. Everything else had gone to Dorothy, naturally enough. Helen recognised that she, and Edward, and Dorothy herself, for that matter, were not as others are when it came to possession. She seldom wanted anything. Edward was the same. Her mother had hated spending money, not out of parsimony but laziness. Whatever it was in the make-up of most people that responds to the sight of goods for sale had been left out, in their case. Equally, they derived no pleasure from ownership. Helen