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From its window he could look down at the estuary and

watch the fishing boats and yachts heading for the Channel. In the normal way he found great

comfort sitting at his desk, but today there was no consolation to be had there. He had just

received a very nasty shock and he needed time to think. Mrs Leacock, who came to clean the house

and see that he was all right, as his wife Brenda put it, had left a note on the hall table to

say that Mr Timothy had phoned to ask if it was all right for him to come down to stay for a few

days.
    It was not all right at all, in fact it couldn't have been less all right if Timothy Bright

had deliberately chosen to make it so. It was the worst bit of news Mr Gould had received for a

very long time and it had landed on the hall table just when he was about to enjoy himself, when

something he had been looking forward to for a year was about to happen. He had been having a

very pleasant time on his own (except for Mrs Leacock in the mornings, and he could avoid her)

while his wife was taking an extended holiday in America visiting her relations there. Victor

Gould was all for her visiting her relations so long as he wasn't asked to take part. It had been

one of the trials of his married life that, in marrying Brenda Bright, he had married into her

confounded family as well. Not that he had ever been welcomed there. From the very first the

Brights had made it quite clear that he was not of their class or cultivation. Colonel Barnaby

Bright, DSO, MC and bar, had gone so far as to attempt to dissuade his daughter in her bedroom

the day before the wedding. 'My dear child,' he had begun, deliberately standing on Victor's

trousers and raising his voice. 'You must see that the fellow is a bounder and a cad.' For a

moment the naked Victor in the next room had preened himself. He rather liked being a bounder and

a cad. The Colonel corrected himself. 'A sleazy, greasy bounder, the sort of dirty pimp and

gigolo who hangs around hotel lounges in Brighton and sucks up to rich old women.'
    In the dressing-room Victor Gould had flushed angrily and had almost sneezed. Brenda's reply

had chilled him still further.
    'I know all that, Daddy. I know he's awful and not one of us and that there is bad blood in

the Gould family because Victor's Uncle Joe was cashiered from the Navy for attempting to bugger

a stoker on a make-and-mend afternoon...'
    For a moment Victor had been too shocked to listen. Uncle Joe's disgrace was news to him and

his fiancée's familiarity with the term 'bugger' had surprised him almost as much as it had

evidently mind-blown the Colonel.
    'And of course he is all the things you say he is,' she continued, 'but that's why I need him.

You do see that, don't you, Daddy?' (A gurgling sound from her father suggested he wasn't seeing

anything at all clearly.) 'I need someone disgusting like Victor to give my life meaning.'
    Naked and cold, Victor had tried to come to terms with this new role as her husband.
    Colonel Bright was having difficulties too. 'Meaning? Meaning?' he bawled apoplectically.

'What the hell do you want meaning for? You're a Bright, aren't you? What more meaning do you

need? You don't have to marry some filthy bounder to get meaning. The man's an absolute shit.

He'll make your life a positive hell and go around having affairs with other fellows' wives and

losing money on something loathsome like greyhound racing. Goddamit, the fellow doesn't even

hunt.' This last was evidently the worst thing the Colonel could think of. But Brenda was not to

be persuaded.
    'Of course he doesn't, you old darling. He's far too yellow, and besides the poor dear wears a

truss.'
    'Dear God,' said the Colonel and Victor in unison. 'But the damned man is only twenty-five.

What the devil does he need a truss for at his age?'
    It was a question Victor wanted an answer to as well. He'd never seen the inside of a truss in

his life.