Hedges that a new boy will be joining his class, but he doesn’t loiter to hear what else the woman might have to say, for her reputation as a gossip has been long established, and he doesn’t like to get involved. A simple life uncluttered by marital obligations at home or any entanglement in petty disputes at school has served him well for nearly forty years, and he isn’t about to lower his guard this morning. And now here is the boy, in the third row to the left, seated quietly behind a desk and looking pathetically out of place. She had shouted after him that the ten-year-old boy was in the care of the council, or a foster home, he couldn’t remember which, but plainly something had happened to the lad, for it was highly unusual to be asked to try to assimilate a new face into the scheme of things once the term had started. That morning Mrs. Swinson had made it her business to ensure that Tommy got to school in plenty of time to be introduced to the headmaster, who looked at them with a vacant squint and eventually remembered that it was this boy’s older brother, Ben, who began school yesterday.
