The Wheatleys: appearance and reality

At the beginning of the book, when Stephen introduces Keith´s family, it is clear that he regrets having been born a Wheatley and would have liked to be a Hayward instead. Keith´s parents have a glamour his own parents don't seem to have: “I think I feel a brief pang of admiring jealousy for yet another demonstration of his unending good fortune. A father in the Secret Service and a mother who´s a German spy- when the rest of us can´t muster even one parent of interest!” As for her own mother, Stephen believes “There's something so hopelessly ordinary about her that it's difficult to take account of her existence.” As regards his father, he considers Mr Wheatley´s job was “too dull to describe”, and that his father´s appearance is as “unsatisfactory” as his own. Besides, his father uses words which are “embarrassingly private” as nobody else in the Close uses them. Stephen seems to envy even the way in which Mr Hayward punishes Keith, as he comments about his own father: “ (...) the worst punishment he could contrive was a generalised swipe at their heads, which they effortlessly ducked.”

What happened to the characters after the main events of the story?

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