fault all the time?â
âThatâs very unfair.â
âWhat are you doing with that butter?â Alanâs hand shot out to restrain Estherâs. They both stared at their touching flesh, as if at something strange. Alan dropped her hand, quickly.
âYouâve got to have butter to make an omelette, silly.â
âIt says on the diet sheet no dairy products whatsoever.â
âDonât be stupid.â She sneered quite visibly, her top lip curling over her tiny sharp teeth. âHow can you make an omelette without butter?â
âI donât know, but youâve got to!â
âThen you do it!â She shouted at him. A glass mobile trembled, and the noise of its tinkling shamed her and pleased him. He seized the omelette mixture and poured it straight into the unbuttered pan. He took up the wooden spoon and scraped it off the bottom. It looked more like scrambled egg than omelette.
âThere, you see!â she cried, vindicated. âYouâve made a mess of it the way you make a mess of everything.â
Alan decided it was time to bring the situation back under his control. âEsther,â he said, âeither we do this diet or we donât. I think it is important that we should. We would both benefit by losing weight.â
âYou mean I would. You donât find me attractive any more. Youâre ashamed to be seen out with me because Iâm fat and horrible, and you think people will be sorry for you because youâre married to me.â
Alan still held the frying pan in his hand. The whites of his eyes glinted in the light from the oil lamp. It seemed for a moment that he was going to throw the omelette full in his wifeâs face, but at that moment his son, Peter, came into the room, and he lowered the pan and rearranged his face into a less manic pattern. Esther, for her part, stopped cowering, straightened up and smiled maternally.
Peter was six feet two, some six inches taller than his father, and was proportionately broader across the shoulders. He was pink-faced, blonde, and gave an immediate impression of health and cheerfulness. The school uniform he was obliged to wear did not succeed in making him look like a child.
âYou two squabbling?â He strode to the refrigerator, plucked it open, and peered inside. âCan I make myself some sausages and bacon? And fried bread?â
âYouâll get fat,â said his mother.
âNot me. Iâve got youth on my side.â
âYour heredityâs working against you, donât forget that,â said Alan, meaning Esther.
âYou should learn dietary discipline now,â she said, âso in the future you will be able to control your weight at will.â
âHark whoâs talking. Really, Mum!â
âIâm sure I hope my children will be better than I. Because I am morally frail and weak-willed, this is no reason for you to be content to be the same. There is no possible point in procreation if oneâs children do not out-strip one in every respect. Put the bread away. Fried bread is going too far.â
âWhy donât you two sit down and eat that omelette? Youâd feel much better.â
They obeyed.
âWhy is it,â he asked, as the smell of frying bacon filled the room, âthat people who are quite willfully spoiling their own enjoyment cannot rest there but are also obsessively anxious to spoil other peopleâs? âPut the bread away,â indeed!â
âStop trying to talk like your mother,â said Alan. Scraping the last scrap of egg from his plate, he added, âThereâs a very odd smell in here.â
âI can smell it, too.â Esther had already finished and now sat, desolately, with her knife and fork neatly together on her bare plate. She turned her head like a questing dog, sniffing.
âItâs the bacon,â said Peter. âIncidentally, it is very thinly cut