"Well, come tomorrow, then, for tea, " she said. In those days, when a schoolfriend invited you home to tea, it was a meal at a table, with bread and but ter. When I told my mother, she wanted to know Pat's address and what her father's job was. Pat never talked about her father, so I didn't know what he did. I knew he wasn't dead, so I thought, "Perhaps he's in prision!