The Northern Clemency [antikvár]

'So the garden of number eighty-four is nothing more than a sort of playground for all the kids of the neighbourhood?' 'I wouldn't say all,' Mrs Arbuthnot said. 'I would have said it was only the Glovers' children.' 'All of them?' Mrs Warner - Karen, now - said. 'The girl seems so quiet. It's the elder boy, really.' 'I've seen the girl going in there too,' Mrs Arbuthnot said. 'It's during the day with her. She's on her own generally. I grant you, it's the older boy who goes in after dark, and he's got people with him. Girls, one at a time. There'll be trouble with both those boys.' 'But, Mrs ' Mr Warner said. He was slow to catch people's names. 'Call me Anthea,' Mrs Arbuthnot said. 'Now that we've finally met.' 'I mean, Anthea,' Mr Warner said, 'why doesn't anyone tell the parents? They surely can't know.' 'That I don't understand,' Mrs Arbuthnot said. She was stately, forty-six, divorced, at number ninety-three, almost opposite the empty house. 'This isn't the best opportunity, I dare say.' They were at the Glovers'. It was a party; the neighbourhood had been invited. Most had been puzzled by the invitation, knowing the couple and their three children only by sight. Mrs Arbuthnot and Mrs Warner had passed the time of day on occasion. They had arrived more or less at the same time; both had the habit, at a party, of moving swiftly to the back wall the better to watch arrivals. They had made common ground, and