Donna drove back to the valley sunk in thought while Stanley dozed inside the suit. Once they were back in the house and Mister Roberts was parked upstairs in Stanley’s bedroom they convened a family meeting around the kitchen table. For once it was Stanley who spoke first. ‘Well, we can’t take him anywhere where there’s gypsies.’ ‘Which means, more or less, any town in Spain,’ Donna replied, glumly. Stanley added, ‘I don’t think they’ll bother us if we don’t go too close. If they’re like those other gypsies that used to come round to our house, Paco or Pedro or that one with the American car, then they’re very superstitious, they’ll only attack if they feel threatened, like geese …’ ‘So he’s stuck here and we’re stuck here with him. How am I going to make money out of him if he’s stuck in the valley?’ Stanley felt a great relief flood through him and at the same time another realisation. Until that moment he hadn’t known how desperately he had wanted his mother to accept there were restrictions on what Mister Roberts should do.
