'It was a joke -- for the benefit of my brother-in-law who came to visit me. I brought some baby clothes and put them out on the line. He obviously thought i had a girl living with me. I only put them out a few times after that. I told my brother-in-law that I did it to keep women from bothering me with offers of domestic care. As they do. They would assume, you see, that there was a woman. I suppose I'm an eccentric. It was a gesture.' 'A gesture.' 'Well, you might say,' said Harvey, thinking fast how to say it, 'that it was a surrealistic gesture.'
Muriel Spark
The Only Problem
