A Mistake .sx It was not my door in the long corridor that I opened and , seeing a woman's blue camel-hair coat on the stand , and catching a faint whiff of hyacinth , I muttered " a mistake " and began to withdraw .sx But I had no time to retreat across the threshold before a familiar shy voice said " No , not a mistake .sx I've been waiting for you .sx " .sx " Mother !sx " I cried , and with a joyful impulse I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me .sx She was sitting at the desk , dressed for work in a short-sleeved blouse .sx On her face was the slightly enigmatic , though on the whole kindly , expression with which she greeted my little bids for independence .sx She was without her glasses , and her wide-open browless eyes were of an intense , almost unnatural blue , as though painted over by someone wishing to emphasise her better features .sx It was not my office in which she sat , but a bigger , brighter place , higher up the building , and the typewriter on which her fingers rested was of an older model that we no longer used downstairs .sx " Sit down , " she said , pointing to the visitor's chair .sx " No , don't kiss me .sx It won't be necessary .sx " .sx And she laughed , her old raucous laugh , of a woman who believes that she alone of all the world is risible .sx The chair was warm , as though someone had just vacated it , and the arm-rests seemed to cradle my arms like the hands of a rescuer .sx How agreeable everything was in this room !sx The spaces seemed larger , the furniture more comfortable and better arranged than in the corridor below .sx And the little reminders of the world outside - the prints of Oxford Colleges on the wall , the gay Venetian vase before her , in which a few pale tulips stood , the bookcase with its Edwardian Volumes of poetry - all bore the mark of her anxious good nature , which could settle itself in any place , and fill it with a fragile sense of home .sx Impulsively I jumped up again , and began to pace on the Turkey carpet .sx The view from this floor was especially harmonious .sx It seemed as though our little town had been designed precisely to be viewed from such a height , and was at last able to offer me ( who had lived in it grudgingly for forty years ) a pleasing prospect of ivy-clad houses , busy courtyard and churches of yellow stone .sx I seemed to recall the prospect too , perhaps from an old postcard - though how on earth it could have been captured in those days , before the office tower existed ( a tower , I should add , which has spoiled the harmony of our townscape for ever ) I had no idea .sx " How extraordinary to find you here , " I said ; " though come to think of it , I heard a rumour that you might move in , now the firm has expanded , and we have acquired the floors above .sx Of course , it is typical that you didn't bother to tell me .sx I suppose you were afraid of seeming pushy , afraid of encroaching , as you put it , on my independence .sx Honestly Mother !sx " As though that mattered now !sx But then you were waiting for me , you say , in the very room into which I have strayed , suffering from some post - prandial confusion not unconnected with my habit ( I regret to say it Mother ) of drinking far too much at lunch-time .sx Well , you don't really expect me to believe you !sx On the other hand , it is just possible that you have been following my movements today .sx I must admit that it wouldn't have been difficult , me being so sluggish , and - to be quite frank Mother - somewhat depressed of late , taking such a long time to make even the smallest decision , like for instance whether to have lunch at the George , or whether to go instead to the Coach and Horses which you have never cared for .sx No , it wouldn't have been difficult to keep track of me today , nor to rush ahead without my knowledge , to install yourself in the office into which I was about to blunder - just the kind of impish trick you always play on me .sx And no doubt with some fantastic plan , to tempt me away form work - maybe to the bookshop at Haysborough , though as you know it's rather a sorry affair these days , with nothing but biographies of yesterday's men .sx Or maybe - for I can see a mischievous twinkle in your eye - you are planning something rather more ambitious :sx one of those jaunts to Oxford or Woodstock , to get a breath of old stone as you say , though how you imagine we could get there now that the Morris has gone to the Great Car Park in the Sky I don't for the life of me know .sx .. " .sx All this and more came out in a rush .sx And while the words were far beyond anything I had meant to say , constituting indeed a breach of the longstanding rule of silence between us , I felt them to be entirely natural .sx How often does it happen , meeting a familiar person by chance , and in circumstances which do not lend themselves to conversation , that you suddenly give way to the impulse to say everything in your heart ?sx There had been so much I had wanted to express to her , and which , for one reason or another , I had never dared to say :sx not the great things ( for who can say great things to his mother ?sx ) but all the little , gentle , joyful things which would cause her such pleasure , which she mutely begged to hear from me and which in my embarrassment I had always withheld .sx I wanted to tell her how beautiful she was , how beautiful she had always been , how secretly proud of her I felt - and not only of her beauty ; of her intelligence too .sx For really , when she puts her mind to it , there is no one better than Mother at finding solutions .sx Take any problem - how to buy chicken giblets , for instance , how to get the best price in curtain material , how to write a business letter , how to resolve a labour dispute , how to conduct the symphonies of Beethoven ( for Mother knows those wonderful scores by heart ) - and she will give her queer , hesitant and impeccably conservative answer to it , utterly indifferent as she has always been to the world's temporary opinion .sx And I was proud of that too :sx her conviction , come down from recusant forefathers , that the good sense of the present may be in every particular the exact opposite of the truth , and that we had no better guide , when all was said and done , than the secretly enduring things , in which God has concealed his will .sx Not that she believes in God , any more that I do - at least , not in any literal sense .sx And that is a remarkable thing too , the almost religious vision we share , of a world entirely fallen , ourselves striving for righteousness , at odds with our times , and capable in our isolation of a kind of crazy joy , like the joy of the Credo , a private hallelujah , and neither of us believers !sx .sx I knew instinctively that this thought , which had just occurred to me , was running through her mind as well , that she even associated it with the very images which came tumbling into my consciousness :sx the sea at Brancombe , pouring green over blue , and rushing at the pebbles like a kitten at play ; the little boarding house with the smell of magnolias , and its sepulchral suppers when we whispered and giggled like children under the stony eyes of the guests ; and the long walk that day over the moors , the farmstead which was our assumed destination ( though we needed none ) ; the old couple , brother and sister , who welcomed us into the kitchen , who fed us from the dishcloth-flavoured bacon which hung in flitches from the beams , and who sang with us at the harmonium , hymns and parlour songs , our lungs straining in cheerful rivalry , until the sun began to slope towards the near horizon , and we stalked it home to the sea - how wonderful it was to remember this together , and to be once more enfolded in the oneness of the world !sx .sx I had sat down , but was so excited that I again leapt up before she could reply to my stream of questions at all , but invitations to the deeper silence that lay beyond this necessary flood of words .sx The view from her office delighted me .sx It showed the town as we had known it , every detail still in place , and I gestured to her vigorously as I described the scene .sx I had the impression that she rose slightly in her chair , as though tempted to join me at the window , but then thought better of it and sat quietly , enjoying my words .sx There was Hapgoods the grocers , with the Regency shop whose torn canvas awnings were often carried away by the breeze .sx There were the churches :sx the Parish church of sandstone , with lancet windows , surrounded by its audience of graves ; the Methodist church , upright , classical , with yellow half-columns strapping its walls ; and the Catholic church , our church , in Victorian freestone and flint , jabbing its stubby tower like a self-satisfied thumb into the skyblue waistcoat of the heavens , claiming discrete but exclusive ownership .sx And there was Pelham Street , with our old house still standing , so clearly visible from this angle that I could count every tile on the roof and even , it seemed to me , peer through the windows and guess at the life inside - for instance there was a woman , combing her hair before Mother's lacquer dressing table .sx I could make out the little paddock with Bill Maidstone's ponies , a white fence surrounding it , and the shed painted in circus colours as it always was .sx In fact , it seemed to me that I saw the old pony , Scamp , who pulled Bill's rag-and-bone cart around our street all those years ago - Scamp with his neolithic neck , his vast bony indented head like a rhinoceros , and three white socks on his dung-coloured legs .sx But of course Scamp was dead :sx the pony was evidently another from the same stock , a mortal instance of the eternal Form of Scamp .sx I beckoned Mother over to comment on this interesting fact .sx Before I had finished explaining , however , my eye was caught by another detail - the allotment , our allotment , right there behind St Hilda's Church of England Primary School , with the rhubarb patch still sprouting and the cucumber cloches laid out neatly in rows .sx " Who do you think is working it now ?sx No , don't tell me :sx it is Jack Baines , who took it over when - when it happened and we were rid of Father for ever .sx He had been wanting our allotment for some time , I remember , on account of its being the sunniest spot , just that little bit lighter , and less damp too , than the patches along the road , and blessed , as you would say , with those elder-bushes at the top , they're still there I notice , from which old Jack could gather fruit for his home-made wine .sx .. " .sx Of course , it was a mistake to mention Father , however obliquely , and I was not surprised when , having several times made as if to speak , she now remained silent , her eyes turned down to the typewriter , and her fingers playing sadly and distractedly over the keys .sx I wanted to embrace her , to stroke her grey hair , to smooth her still youthful brow , to tell her how little those painful years mattered , how the good things were always with us , shining through the temporary clouds , and warming our spirits into joy .sx I took a step towards her , talking still , though God knows why , of Jack Baines , his vinegary wine and vinegary opinions ( for Jack had been a Baptist preacher before his wife's death , and still retained , in his despair , a belief that God should be instantly informed of every wickedness ) , and with my heart full of tenderness and concern for her , of a desire above all to wipe away the memory of those suffering to which I had been so helpless a witness - when suddenly my eye was caught by the Mickey-Mouse transfer on the black enamel side of the typewriter .sx