A Handful of Dust

“… My marriage was an ideally happy one,” she read, “until shortly before Christmas last year when I began to suspect that my husband’s attitude had changed towards me. He always remained in the country when my studies took me to London. I realized that he no longer cared for me as he used to. He began to drink heavily and on one occasion made a disturbance at our flat in London, constantly ringing up when drunk and sending a drunken friend round to knock on the door. Is that necessary?”

“Not strictly, but it is advisable to put it in. A great deal depends on psychological impression. Judges in their more lucid moments sometimes wonder why perfectly respectable, happily married men go off for week-ends to the seaside with women they do not know. It is always helpful to offer evidence of general degeneracy.”

“I see,” said Brenda. “From then onwards I had him watched by private agents and as a result of what they told me, I left my husband’s house on April 5th. Yes, that all seems quite clear.”

Several of the crowd followed them round the slots, curious to see what new enormity this mad father might attempt. “There’s a man who’s eaten two breakfasts and tries to drown his little girl,” they informed other spectators, skeptically observing his attempts to amuse Winnie with skee-ball. Tony’s conduct confirmed the view of human nature derived from the weekly newspapers which they had all been reading that morning.

“The very idea,” said various onlookers. “Does he want to drown the child?” “He’s no business to be trusted with children.” “Unnatural beast.”

“But I want to bathe,” said Winnie. “You said I could bathe if you had two breakfasts.”

The people who had clustered round to witness Tony’s discomfort looked at one another askance. “Two breakfasts? Wanting to let the child bathe? The man’s balmy.”