“How do you know I don’t care? Do you ever try me? Do you ever talk to me about these things, to try?”
“But it’s not that that matters to you, mother, you know t’s not.”
“What is it, then — what is it, then, that matters to me?” she flashed. He knitted his brows with pain.
“You’re old, mother, and we’re young.”
He only meant that the interests of HER age were not the interests of his. But he realised the moment he had spoken that he had said the wrong thing.
“Yes, I know it well — I am old. And therefore I may stand aside; I have nothing more to do with you. You only want me to wait on you — the rest is for Miriam.”