In this confronting story from William Trevor, a seven-year-old boy is faced with several issues he is far too young to understand: a hard-drinking, overbearing father he catches passionately embracing their maid; a monetary gift and unexpected good-night kiss from their soft-spoken, empathetic lodger; and a perpetually tired, unaffectionate mother who appears to passively accept her lot. Add to this that he is an “afterthought child” with both parents in their fifties and the question of why a butcher’s family would need a maid, and the story becomes an amateur psychological sleuth’s dream with some serious unstated themes.
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