English / Story Structure - Broken Homes

“We’re trying to help kids from broken homes,” the teacher said, “and of course we’re trying to help you. The policy is to encourage a deeper understanding between the generations.”
“Well, of course it’s very kind,” Mrs Malby said.
He shook his head and said, “What age actually are you, Mrs Malby?”
“I’m eighty seven.”
“You’re really splendid for eighty seven.”
He went on talking.
“So what I thought,” he said, “was that we could send the kids on Tuesday. Say start the job Tuesday morning, eh, Mrs Malby?”
“It’s extremely kind of you,” said Mrs Malby.
“They’re good kids. You can benefit my kids, Mrs Malby; they can benefit you. There’s no charge of any kind whatsoever.”
“It’s just that I wondered,” she said, “if you could possibly have come to the wrong house?”
“Wrong? Wrong? You’re Mrs Malby, aren’t you?” He raised his voice. “You’re Mrs Malby, love?”
“Oh, yes, it’s just that my kitchen isn’t really in need of decoration.”
He said, quite softly, what she’d dreaded he might say: that she hadn’t understood.
“I’m thinking of the community, Mrs Malby. I’m thinking of you here on your own. Put it like this, Mrs Malby: it’s an experiment in community relations.”
“It’s just that my kitchen is really quite nice.”
“Let’s have a little look, shall we?”
She led the way. The man glanced at the kitchen’s pink walls and white paintwork and then, to her horror, he began all over again, as if she hadn’t heard a thing he’d been saying. He repeated he was a teacher, from the local school. He repeated what he had said before about these children: that some of them came from broken homes. The ones he wished to send her on Tuesday came from broken homes, which was no joke for them. He felt, he repeated, that we all had a special duty where such children were concerned.
Mrs. Malby nodded. It was just, she explained, that she was thinking of the cost of decorating a kitchen which didn’t need decorating.
“Freshen it over for you,” the man said, raising his voice. “First thing Tuesday, Mrs Malby.”
He went away, and she realised that he hadn’t told her his name. The visit from this man had bewildered her from the start. As well as the oddity of not giving his name, he had not said where he’d heard about her. Added to which, and most of all, her kitchen wasn’t in the least in need of decoration. However, she went over in her mind what the man had said about community relations. There was also the fact that the man was trying to do good, helping children from broken homes.

“Hi,” a boy with long blond hair said to her on Tuesday. There were two other boys with him, and a girl, chewing something. Between them they carried tins of paint, brushes, cloths, a plastic bucket and a transistor radio. “We’ve come to do your kitchen,” the blond boy said.
She let them in, saying it was very kind of them. She led them to the kitchen, remarking on the way that strictly speaking it wasn’t in need of decoration. She’d been thinking it over, she added: she wondered if they’d just like to wash the walls down, which was a task she found difficult herself.
They’d do whatever she wanted, they said, no problem. They put their paint tins on the table. One of the boys turned on the radio.
“Would you like some coffee?” Mrs Malby suggested above the noise of the transistor.
“Great,” the blond boy said. Mrs Malby made them coffee while they listened to the music. She smiled at the girl and said again that washing the walls was a job she couldn’t manage any more.
Mrs Malby closed the kitchen door on them, hoping they wouldn’t take too long because the noise of the radio was so loud. She listened for a while and then she decided to go out and do her shopping.
“Hi,” said the blond boy to her in her hall when she returned. He was standing there combing his hair, looking at himself in the mirror. There were yellowish smears on the carpet, which upset Mrs Malby very much.
“Oh please, no!” she cried.
Yellow emulsion paint partly covered the pink of one wall in the kitchen. Some had spilt on to the vinyl floor and had been walked through.
“But I said only to wash them,” she cried.
One of the boys smiled at her, continuing to slap paint on the ceiling. A lot of it dripped back on top of him, on to the draining board and on to cups and saucers and cutlery and on the floor.
“Do you like this colour?” he asked.
Unsteadily, Mrs Malby crossed the kitchen and turned off the blaring transistor. “I said to wash the walls. I didn’t even choose that colour. Please stop painting.”
“Are we in the wrong house? Only we was told ....”
“You haven’t come to the wrong house. Please wash off the paint and wipe it up where it’s spilt on the floor.”
“No problem,” said the blond boy.
Not wishing to stay in the kitchen herself, she ran the hot tap in the bathroom and rubbed hard at the paint on the carpet in the hall. From the kitchen, above the noise of the transistor, came the clatter of raised voices, laughter and a crash.
She sat for twenty minutes and then she went and knocked on the kitchen door. There was no reply. She pushed open the door gingerly.