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    Unknown to Dagwood, his father and Dame had given a great deal of thought to the choice of a career for him. They had dismissed the Army: the boy was too intelligent for that. Yet he was probably not intelligent enough for the Law or Accountancy. He was too honest for the City or the Church and too squeamish for Medicine. They had not considered the R.A.F. at all; they would as soon have thought of apprenticing the lad as a garage mechanic. It had to be the Navy, but Dame had been uneasily conscious that none of her family, not Lionel, the baron who carried the Coeur de Lion’s standard before the walls of Acre, nor Louis, the comte who carried the china commode before the Sun King at Versailles, and least of all Charles, Bishop, Gonfalioner and Captain General of the Holy Church of the Emperor Charles V who could drink forty bottles of Bordeaux wine (one for each day in Lent) at a sitting, would have approved.
    ‘Hello dear,’ said Dame, giving Dagwood a kiss and a look which reminded him that he must get a haircut. ‘Have you come from Oozemouth?’ It might have been thought an unnecessary question, considering that Dagwood had telephoned specifically to say that he was coming, but Dame had a great respect for travellers. She felt an almost medieval concern for journeys. She herself went down to the village to do her shopping carrying a loaded stick and holding Sammy back on a slip-leash, as though she expected at any minute to be set upon by a gang of starving soldiers returning from the Wars of the Roses.
    ‘Yes, Dame,’ Dagwood answered absently.
    ‘Did you say that you were going to live in a flat, dear?’
    ‘That’s right. It’s a tithe barn actually.’
    ‘It doesn’t sound very comfortable, Dagwood. Are you sure it isn’t very damp?’
    ‘Oh it’s fully furnished and everything, Dame. It’s got a great big stove in it.’
    Dame remembered another important point. ‘I do hope you’re going to get enough to eat. Who’s doing the cooking?’
    ‘I am.’
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Dame, anxiously.
    ‘It shouldn’t be all that difficult,’ Dagwood said, with more confidence than he felt. He had enough imagination to be able to visualise the quite probable results of his first efforts - the smoke, the vicious sizzling noise, and possibly Molly’s alarmed face hovering outside the window, wondering whether her Tithe Barn was safe. ‘I’ve never been one for very much breakfast, as you know. So coffee and toast and marmalade is enough for that. I get lunch free at the yard. So the only real meal to worry about is supper. I expect I’ll have steak or scrambled eggs for that. If I get fed up I can always go down to the local and have beer and sandwiches. It should be all right, Dame, don’t worry.’
    Dame was still not convinced. ‘It doesn’t sound very nourishing,’ she said.
    ‘If you’re really worried Dame, you can help by lending me some extra crockery and things. I’ve got a list here. A spare electric fire if you’ve got it. And sheets, they’re very important.’
    ‘I still think you’d be better off in digs, with someone to look after you. How about darning and mending . . .’
    ‘Dame, don’t worry. Everything will be all right.’
    With Dame’s last pieces of advice still in his ears, his car packed with most of his worldly belongings, and the boot filled with food carefully selected by Dame, Dagwood drove up to Oozemouth. With a house, a car, and an independent future, Dagwood felt himself to be a man of substance, a citizen of consequence in the neighbourhood. All I need now is a wife, thought Dagwood carelessly, and began to laugh so much that he nearly ran over one of Molly’s hens, jaywalking in the yard.
     

7
     
    ‘Frank, tell me your honest opinion,’ said The Bodger. ‘How do you think this refit of Seahorse ’s is going?’
    Frank Tybalt pulled down the corners of his mouth in an expression of indecision. He seemed reluctant to come forward with his