Chapter 3 Visit to the Cemetery¹

‘Tuppence!’ Tommy called, as he came into the house.
There was no answer. With some annoyance², he ran up the stairs andalong the passage on the first floor. As he hastened along it, he nearly puthis foot through a gaping³ hole, and swore promptly⁴.
‘Some other bloody⁵ careless electrician,’ he said.
Some days before he had had the same kind of trouble. Electricians ar-riving in a kindly⁶ tangle⁷ of optimism and efficiency had started work.
‘Coming along fine now, not much more to do,’ they said. ‘We’ll be backthis afternoon.’ But they hadn’t been back that afternoon; Tommy was notprecisely surprised. He was used, now, to the general pattern of labour inthe building trade, electrical trade, gas employees and others. They came,they showed efficiency, they made optimistic remarks, they went away tofetch something. They didn’t come back. One rang up numbers on the tele-phone but they always seemed to be the wrong numbers. If they were theright numbers, the right man was not working at this particular branch ofthe trade, whatever it was. All one had to do was to be careful to not rickan ankle, fall through a hole, damage yourself in some way or another. Hewas far more afraid of Tuppence damaging herself than he was of doingthe damage to himself. He had had more experience than Tuppence. Tup-pence, he thought, was more at risk from scalding herself from kettles ordisasters with the heat of the stove. But where was Tuppence now? Hecalled again.
‘Tuppence! Tuppence!’
He worried about Tuppence. Tuppence was one of those people you hadto worry about. If you left the house, you gave her last words of wisdomand she gave you last promises of doing exactly what you counselled herto do: No she would not be going out except just to buy half a pound ofbutter, and after all you couldn’t call that dangerous, could you?
‘It could be dangerous if you went out to buy half a pound of butter,’ saidTommy.

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