He had just finished his first term at Oxford and had brought a friend with him. George asked the questions which he presumed were expected—what his friend was reading, what college he was at—and after that left them both alone. Mercifully for him they both spent most of the day outside shooting or talking upstairs in Steven’s room. David seemed bored and out of things, irritating George with his persistent requests to play backgammon or chess. Ruth treated him intermittently with conscientious interest and neglect. George had found her interest especially irksome: inane questions about what David had done at school, receiving the expected bored answers. ‘You don’t have to treat him as though he’s three,’ said George after one of these attempts. ‘But darling, I can hardly talk to him about the tin-mining industry or homosexuality.’ Her tone was sincere rather than sarcastic. ‘I think you might try and make him feel a bit older, that’s all.’ ‘I know, I know only too well.
