One Summer

Above the wind and the rain she called her goodbyes to him again from the edge of the pier, as the steel hawsers splashed back into the water and the ship eased out from the dock. If there was an answering message she did not hear it in a blast from the funnel. And in the mist she could not be certain that the figure to whom she waved was him. A few minutes later and there was no distinguishing anyone. Only the portholes shone. Yet she did not leave. She sat in the car till the last speck of light was quenched in waves of darkness.

It was late when she reached home. Getting out to open the gates at the end of the avenue she could see through the trees that the light was out in her father’s room. A light burned in the maid’s room, but as the car swept up to the front steps this light was put out. Lily in all likelihood thought her mistress had been jilted. Vera sighed. Cramped, cold, and worn-out, she went to her room. In a few minutes she was in a dead sleep. Was it any wonder she heard nothing during the night? It was getting on for morning when Lily ran in and shook her awake. An awful moaning was coming from her father’s room.

‘God, Miss, I think he’s dying,’ the girl sobbed.

‘Stop it,’ Vera said sharply. Yet her mind fastened on Lily’s hysterical words. If they were true, how badly she herself had been served by time. Alan was no further than London. It would be hours before he boarded the Orcades.

Her father moaned again. Shamed by her thoughts, she sprang up and ran across the landing. ‘Oh, Father, what is the matter?’ she cried. But from the doorway she could tell by a strange, unnatural strength in his stare that he could not speak. His glaring eyes seemed all of him that was alive. Spread-eagled on the bed as if flung from a great height, he lay inert. Then the pain caught him up again and he was once more gathered into a living mass. Putting her arms under him she tried to drag him to a sitting position, but he gave her such a bitter look she let him fall back. Oh, why had she gone defiantly to bed without going in to him! He might have been lying miserably awake in the dark. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Father,’ she pleaded, as if she were at fault, not him. Then she turned on Lily. ‘Stop that nonsense,’ she said, ‘and go for the doctor.’

Because Lily was running around frantically filling hot water bottles, making stoups and compresses, forcing brandy between his lips. She had lights burning everywhere. Even out in the yard a light streamed unnaturally into the fields of dawn. ‘Oh, Miss, I hate to leave him,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you go? You’d be no time going in the car.’

Vera shook her head: It was not to have him die without her that she had given up Alan. So Lily pedalled off in the greyness and the wet.

Standing back out of range of the sick man’s angry eyes, Vera stared helplessly at him. The first onslaught of pain was over, and he lay in a sheet of sweat. Yet it seemed an age until the doctor’s car came up the drive, with Lily sitting up importantly beside him on the front seat, her bike strapped to the back. Vera ran down to meet them.

‘Sounds like a blockage,’ the old doctor said, as he got out of the car. ‘Don’t worry; we’ll do all we can.’

Indeed the doctor’s presence had helped already, and as they went in to her father he managed a few words. ‘What’s wrong with me, Doctor?’ he whispered.

The doctor turned down the bedclothes. ‘Tell me, have you been dosing yourself?’ he demanded.

Vera went limp with relief. So it was that? As long as she could remember he was always dosing himself. ‘Cleans you out,’ he used to say when she protested, and defiantly he’d pour himself out another spoonful of a vile concoction of cascara and treacle which he called blackjack. Turning eagerly, she was about to tell the doctor about it when a look from her father silenced her.

But Lily spoke up. ‘I told him he’d blast the insides out of himself with that stuff he takes, Doctor, but he wouldn’t heed me.’

The doctor nodded gloomily.

‘It was that made him throw up too,’ the girl said.

‘When was that?’ Vera asked sharply.

‘He was always at it,’ said the girl defiantly as if she felt herself doubted. ‘You could hear him all over the house.’ She shuddered. ‘And a couple of times I saw him doubled up out in the fields.’

Vera put her hands to her face.

‘That’s enough!’ the doctor said to Lily. He turned to Vera. ‘I’ll give him something to ease him,’ he said in a low voice, ‘but I’m afraid it’s a blockage all right. We’ll have to get him to Dublin.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said kindly, but later, when they were going downstairs, he looked more keenly at her. ‘You should get some sleep,’ he said. ‘You look exhausted. Let Lily sit up with him for what’s left of the night.’

‘Oh, but she must be jaded,’ Vera said.

‘What matter! She’s young,’ said the doctor. Through the great high window on the landing they could see the doctor’s battered car looming indistinctly in the morning mist, and as they went out on to the glittering granite steps Lily came towards them, half-wheeling, half-carrying the bicycle she had unstrapped from the car. Like the gravel under her feet, her cheeks were freshened and brightened by the damp. The stress of the night had left no mark on her. ‘What did I tell you?’ cried the doctor, his own eye brightening. ‘This one doesn’t need any sleep. She’s fitter far than you to stay up.’

The girl laughed. ‘A spin is what I’d like now,’ she said.

The doctor laughed good-humouredly, but to Vera he spoke severely. ‘You go and lie down,’ he said.

Vera shook her head. Intermittently through the hours that had passed, her mind had guiltily travelled after Alan. At one minute she thought she would wire to him. At the next she thought no. It was like the moments when she had stood on the dark pier and watched the light of the ship that carried him away from her, it came and went several times in the sea mist before she knew finally that the light was finally engulfed in it. Now in the cold air of dawn she came to a firm decision. ‘I can’t lie down, Doctor,’ she said. ‘I have an important letter to write.’

The doctor looked oddly at her. ‘Well, we all have our own anodyne,’ he said, and he got into the car. ‘I’ll call later when I’ve got in touch with the hospital. Don’t be blaming yourself for anything. He must already have felt some discomfort when he was taking those doses.’

To satisfy him she nodded her head. But he only knew about the blackjack and the retching. What about his black moods all year, his black looks, and his fits of black, black silence? Was he not then already gravely ill? Filled with remorse, she ran upstairs.

Her father was lying as they left him. He was staring up at the ceiling. ‘Do I have to go to hospital?’ he asked.

Had he heard what the doctor said? Or was he only trying to find out?

‘Are you frightened, Father?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said decisively. ‘As long as it’s not what I dreaded. Anything but that.’

She knew what he’d feared. But that was all she knew. The word ‘blockage’, so familiar, so domestic a word, had up to that moment reassured her. But was it a euphemism for what he feared? She grew rigid. If so he must not know. Then, at the thought that she might not have been there to protect him her breath caught. Others in her place would have cared for him and been kind. Lily had already shown amazing devotion. But who besides herself could protect him from a word? It was little things like this that Alan had never understood.

Her face must have given her thoughts away because the glare had appeared again in her father’s eyes. ‘When is that fellow going?’ he asked suddenly.

Was it possible he did not know? ‘He’s gone, Father,’ she said. She was so eager to reassure him she made it sound as if Alan’s going was something joyous. ‘That’s where I was last night, seeing him off at the boat.’

If he was relieved he was too clever to show it. Instead he shifted his position. ‘I knew he was no good,’ he said.

Sick as he was, she could not stand for that. ‘You know why he went!’ she said. And she had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes falter.

‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ he said humbly enough. ‘You’ve been a good daughter to me, Vera, always.’ Their eyes met then, and met with love. ‘You won’t regret it,’ he said.

Immediately her heart filled with warmth for him until, like when she was a child, it was brimful with love. Reaching out she put her hand on his, and weakly he raised his other hand and placed it over hers again. It was like piling love on love. It reminded her of a game they used to play when she was a child. ‘Do you remember playing Hot Hands Father?’

He nodded, and tears came into his eyes. But they were happy tears, and after a few minutes his lids closed as if he might sleep. Gently she drew her hand away.

What miracles of love he had performed when she was a child. He had made it seem that to be motherless was to be privileged. When he called for her after school his spare male figure stood out among the floppy mothers and set her, too, apart. A plain child, his love gave her sparkle. But as the years went by, his care and caution were sometimes excessive and set too high a price upon her company. Oftener and oftener her classmates left her out of their pranks and their larking. Then, if her father found out, he’d spring up, his black eyes flashing. ‘Never mind,’ he’d cry. ‘I’ll take you.’ And as if by magic he’d always find where the others had gone.

There was one winter when the lake behind the school-house froze over, and a party was hastily organised. As usual she was not included, but he saw the others going skating past the house and he sprang up as if to a challenge. ‘We’ll show them,’ he cried. ‘Wait.’ And he dashed upstairs to an old leather chest that stood, always locked on the landing. She’d never seen it opened. Its contents were as unknown to her as his life before she’d been born into it, yet she was hardly surprised when he drew out an ancient pair of skates. Within a minute they were at the lakeside, where they found her classmates gathered, timidly trying out the ice, venturing a little way out across it and holding up one foot, they slid along as far as their own momentum carried them. Her father pushed his way to the edge of the ice, put on the skates, and with a laugh, sped away like a bird. Out into the middle of the lake he went, and for the next few minutes he held all eyes with the capers he cut. Then, taking wing again, he came back to the shore. ‘Get down on your hunkers,’ he ordered her, and bending he tied her feet together with her own shoe-laces, and taking a piece of rope from his pocket he tied one end around her middle and the other around his own. In the blink of an eye he was flying over the ice again, only this time it was on her all eyes were centred as she swayed to and fro behind him, in a kind of splendid redundance, like a tassel on the end of a gorgeous cord, or the tuft on the tail of a lion.

The next day the lake had cracked like glass and everyone said they could have been drowned, both of them. Her father only laughed. ‘What matter, we’d have gone together,’ he said.

She stared in amazement. Ordinarily he was obsessed for her safety. In the evenings after he’d heard her tables and her catechism, he used to put her through a catechism of his own. ‘What would you do if you were chased by a bull?’

‘Take off my coat and throw it over his horns.’

‘If your clothes caught fire?’

‘Roll on the ground.’

‘If you were out in a thunderstorm?’

‘Lie flat.’

‘If you got lost?’

‘Stand still in one spot.’

His litany, however, could not make provision for everything. Once she nearly broke her neck, when she was climbing on the roof of a shed and her foot slipped. Except that he was in the yard, and quick enough to reach out and catch her, she would have been killed. It was the first time she saw him in a rage. Marching her ahead of him into the house and up the stairs to the landing, he unlocked the leather chest. This time he took out a small revolver wrapped in a length of black calico. ‘Do you see this?’ he asked. ‘Well, if anything happened to you, do you know what I’d do?’ He put the barrel to his head and pulled the trigger. The sound of the empty clack was the most terrifying sound she had ever heard. But he’d gone too far. He had shown her more than her value: he had shown her where it lay – in his own eyes. From that hour her confidence diminished. Shy and distant always, she became more so. And when she was of an age to go to dances she got very few invitations. However, her father was eager to escort her himself.

‘It’s a good thing your old father can still pick up his heels,’ he’d say. Often he had the lightest foot on the floor! But one day she found him appraising her. ‘You’d have been better-looking if you‘d taken after your mother,’ he said. ‘But never mind. You may be better off in the long run. I’d never have got anywhere if I didn’t learn to stand alone.’ It was the first time he’d ever spoken of her mother and she was so surprised she didn’t at once take in the fact that he was speaking of her own single state as if it were final. She was only twenty-three or twenty-four at the time. But over the next few years he made similar remarks and those habits of speech began to harden into an attitude. ‘What will you do the day I’m taken from you?’ he asked once, shortly after her thirtieth birthday, but they laughed at the thought of a thing so remote. He threw back his head. ‘Nature takes care of everything,’ he cried. ‘Let’s hope you’ll have me as long as you need me.’

Ironically it was that year she met Alan. They met in a public library in Dublin. She’d already seen him a few times when one day they arrived together at the library door a few minutes before it was opened. ‘I’ve seen you before,’ he said. ‘I always notice people who are alone. I find myself wondering if, like me, they dislike their fellow men.’ She laughed but he reproved her. ‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘I hate the common herd.’

After that, whenever they met, they exchanged a few words, and if they were leaving at the same time he saw her to her car. Once or twice when she hadn’t the car he walked to the bus with her. He was a solicitor attached to an office in Dublin. He was interested to learn that she lived in the country. ‘I should have known,’ he said. ‘It accounts for a certain difference about you.’ From him that was a great compliment. Another day he said something still more preposterously flattering. ‘If I were not so set against marriage,’ he said, ‘you’re the kind of girl I’d marry.’

It was like a declaration. Her happiness was so great she hardly cared that when she told her father his responses were, to say the least of it, tepid.

‘Wait till you meet him, Father,’ she said.

The meeting was a failure. To begin with her father made bones about giving her the car to fetch him from the bus at Ross Cross. He turned on her savagely, when she asked for the keys. ‘I’ll drive you over,’ he said. ‘But why hasn’t he got a car of his own? He must be a poor kind of solicitor.’

‘There’s no need of a car in a city practice, Father,’ she said, trying to bolster things up.

Her father looked up at the sky.

‘Can’t he walk then?’ he asked. ‘It’s a nice fine day. Is there something the matter with him?’ But he threw the car-keys at her.

‘Be nice to him, Father, for my sake,’ she pleaded before she drove away.

And when they arrived back he was civil enough. The trouble was that Alan didn’t take to him. And her father saw that. ‘I can see why you need the car,’ he muttered. ‘He’s a delicate-looking article.’

‘Oh, what a cruel thing to say!’ she cried. ‘About a stranger too.’

His eyes bored into her. ‘Is that all he is?’ he said. ‘If you take my advice you’ll keep him that way. I pity the woman that’ll marry him. He’ll die young and leave her with a houseful of brats.’

‘Don’t worry, Father,’ she said. ‘After today I don’t expect I’ll see him again.’

But she did, and more often than ever. Alan came down again and again, doggedly ignoring her father’s rudeness. ‘Don’t think I’m thick-skinned, Vera,’ he said one afternoon, ‘but I will not let him, or anyone, interfere in my life.’ It was another of those oblique remarks that she took to presage happiness.

Obliquity was in the air though, and her father too seemed to become obscure. One day he spoke of her mother again. ‘If she hadn’t married me, she’d be alive today.’ he said morosely.

He’d never told her the cause of her mother’s death, but she knew it had happened shortly after her own birth, and was probably connected with it. Aware therefore of a strong undertow in the conversation, she picked her own words with care. ‘She made her choice, didn’t she?’

‘Don’t talk like a fool,’ he said.

At that she lost her temper. ‘Oh, what’s the matter with you?’ she cried. ‘Do you want to stop me marrying?’

He evaded her eyes. ‘I don’t see any signs of that happening,’ he said. ‘The fellow is no more bent on marriage than I am.’

‘Is it Alan?’ His words had stupefied her.

‘Has he asked you to marry him?’ he demanded.

She stared.

If never explicit of promise, all Alan’s words had seemed to hold promise. They could not have been uttered by any man who did not feel himself deeply committed. Yet on them in that instant a huge doubt was cast.

‘Well?’ her father insisted. ‘Has he?’

‘I don’t see why I should tell you. It’s my own business,’ she said childishly, and she trembled at the thought of the anger her words would provoke. When he said nothing at all and she was compelled at last to look at him however she saw with a shock that the rage in his eyes was a rage of pity. Suddenly she realised his dilemma. For the first time he’d come up against something he could not get for her, something that if it was to be got at all, could be got only by her. ‘Don’t worry, Father,’ she said. ‘It’ll work out all right in the end. You’ll see.’

From that day there was a change in her father’s attitude. ‘Is that fellow worried about money, do you think?’ he asked one day. ‘I never see his name in the papers. He mustn’t do much court work. Of course,’ he said meditatively, ‘small court cases don’t pay well. It’s sales and conveyances that pay. It’s on them the big solicitors make their money.’ It was almost comical to see the interest he began to take in the legal columns of the newspapers. ‘How much commission do you think he’d get on the conveyancing of a good farm, say a farm about this size?’

Unnerved by his question, she looked at him coldly. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to sell?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘but I might buy. And if I did I could give him the carriage of sale.’

Her heart softened. ‘Oh, Father, you don’t want any more responsibility at your age.’

‘Land is a safe investment at any time,’ he said soberly.

And the next time Alan came down her father was very affable. ‘Tell me,’ he said to him, ‘there’s an out-farm at Ross Cross I was thinking of buying. Are you any judge of land?’

‘But haven’t you enough land, sir?’ Alan said, and it seemed to Vera that he looked oddly at them both.

But her father noticed nothing. ‘Oh, you can never have too much of a good thing,’ he said recklessly. ‘It’s not a big farm, mind you. It’s only forty acres. It mightn’t be worth your while having anything to do with it.’

‘Oh well, one must creep before one walks,’ Alan said quietly. ‘I’d be glad to act for you, sir.’ He’d got the point.

‘Well said!’ her father cried, slapping his thigh in delight. His good humour was doubled. ‘Come down one day next week and we’ll walk the land.’ Behind Alan’s back he winked at Vera.

When the day came for them to look at the land though, her father was moody and irritable. ‘This fellow can’t have much to do if he can waste a whole day coming down here,’ he said as they drove to the bus to meet him.

‘He’s coming down on business, isn’t he?’ Vera said hotly.

‘He’d want to be hard-up to call this business,’ her father snapped ‘It’s not surprising he has no car.’

She let the taunt pass because she had just been thinking that if Alan did have a car they could live down here and be near her father. Would that be at the back of her father’s mind too? Then she saw the bus coming down the hill.

‘Here it is!’ she cried, scrambling out of the car, expecting him to follow. She could see Alan standing on the step of the bus, and she ran to meet him.

But Alan was not looking at her. ‘Where’s your father?’ he asked.

She looked around. Her father was still sitting in the car, black and silent, looking twice his bulk.

‘There’s something wrong,’ she cried, and she ran back. Meeting the bus was a pastime with her father. Always ahead of time, usually far too early, he’d prance up and down the road, denouncing the bus for being late. At no time else did one get such a sense of his leashed energy. ‘What could be the matter? Oh hurry, Alan!’ she cried. But before they’d reached him he’d got stiffly out. Out on the road he looked normal enough except that there was something unpleasant about the way he dispensed with greeting Alan. And with a surly look he went ahead of them till they came to a lane, into which he turned without a word. Looking doubtfully at each other, Vera and Alan followed.

The lane was long. As they walked up it Alan chatted casually about the weather and the countryside. Her father’s black mood appeared to be lifting. Then, as they were about to climb over the locked gate that led into the farm, his face darkened again and he pointed to Alan’s feet. ‘What kind of shoes are those for going through fields?’ he demanded. Alan said nothing. He just got over the gate and plunged into the long grass in his light shoes. After a short pause, her father too got over the gate. But on the other side he immediately turned up the collar of his coat, and shoved his hands into his pockets as if to imply that he had little interest in what was going on. And when they were scarcely half-way across the first field he came to a stand. ‘Well? What do you think of it?’ he asked, turning to Alan.

‘I haven’t seen enough of it to form any opinion,’ said Alan coldly and began to walk on.

Her father didn’t stir. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t take me long to make up my mind.’

‘What are we to understand by that?’ asked Alan. ‘That it’s good, or that it’s bad?’

‘There’s no such thing as bad land hereabouts,’ her father said, ‘but there are other things to be considered.’

Miserably Vera looked at him. She could not bear the strain of waiting for Alan to speak. ‘There’s no house on it for one thing,’ she said, not caring if she blundered.

Both men stared at her, her father with a glance that applauded, Alan with one she could not read. ‘Does that matter?’ Alan asked. It was to her father he spoke, not her. ‘What is the need for a house on an out-farm?’ His voice was so disengaged that Vera shivered. As for her father, he turned on his heel and walked back towards the gate.

An appalling feeling of humiliation came over Vera. She would have stumbled after her father if Alan had not laid his hand on her arm. ‘Let me handle this, Vera,’ he said curtly. ‘I must do things in my own way, not in his.’ Yet the expression on his face as he looked after her father was one of compassion. ‘I’m sorry for him,’ he said. ‘I know how he feels.’ He turned back to her. ‘But there are times when a person must put himself first. Will I be able to make you see that though?’

She was too worried to extract any sweetness from what his question implied. ‘We must be kind to him, Alan,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I suppose there’s no use in us all being unhappy,’ he said.

By then her father had reached the gate, climbed over it and got into the car. ‘Is he going to drive off without us?’ Vera cried.

‘Let him if he likes,’ said Alan. ‘We can walk. Sooner or later we’ll have to have things out with him.’

‘Oh later then, later!’ she said, and she ran after her father, but the coarse grass entangled her feet and impeded her at every step. All the same the car was still on the road when they reached it. Her father, however, was sitting in the back seat.

‘Don’t you want to drive, Father?’ she asked, surprised. He turned his head away and did not reply.

The drive home was accomplished in heavy silence. And at the house things were no better. Her father seemed unable to stay in the same room with them. He kept going in and out. And when Lily put a meal on the table he stood up from it three or four times without explanation or apology. And his absence was as oppressive as his presence. ‘Is my stove lit?’ he demanded at last, meaning the stove in the small room off the kitchen which he called his office. And although it was not lit, stubbornly he went down there. It was a dark little hole of a place, ell-shaped, its one window high-sashed and barred, and all afternoon Vera kept thinking of him sitting there in the cold with one leg crossed over the other, swinging his foot angrily back and forth like an angry cat swinging its tail. She could not keep her mind on anything that Alan said.

‘I’d better go back on an early bus, I think,’ he said at last, and miserably she agreed it might be best.

‘I’ll drive you to the Cross,’ she said.

‘Don’t bother, Vera, I’d prefer to walk. It’s a lovely evening anyway. Why don’t you walk with me? Take your bike; I’ll wheel it along, and you can cycle back.’ It was only March, and early in the month, but the daffodils were out on either side of the drive. As they walked by them the massed flower-heads shone like a lake of light. ‘Who planted them?’ Alan asked idly.

‘My mother, I think,’ said Vera.

Alan turned. ‘You think?’

‘He never mentions her, you know. Someone else told me.’

They walked on.

‘It must be strange to know nothing about her.’

Vera shrugged. But they both stopped and looked back. ‘I never saw so many daffodils,’ said Alan.

‘I dare say they’ve spread a lot since they were put down,’ Vera said. Her mind was not on them, but Alan was still looking back at them meditatively. They’d even spread into the pastures indeed, where many of them were trampled and broken by the cattle, and far off in the middle of the field there were a few stragglers, that like convent girls in a convent park wandered two by two.

‘I suppose you love this place?’ he said.

‘Wouldn’t anyone?’

‘I suppose so,’ he said reluctantly. Then, as they came to the big gates he exclaimed. ‘Now, there’s a marvellous sight. Look.’ He pointed westward to where, clear of the trees, the sky burned like a sea of flame. ‘Do you know what I like about that? I like it because it’s the same the world over. It belongs at the same time to everyone, and to no one.’

But she wasn’t listening. ‘Oh, did you see that?’ she cried. Over their heads a late-returning bird had flown between them and the sun, and for an instant, pierced by the flaming rays, all but its core seemed burnt away.

Alan was amazed too. ‘How strange,’ he said. ‘It’s like a glass bird. You could see right through it, beak, wings, feathers, all gone.’

‘All but its heart,’ Vera said softly.

For a minute he only stared at her. ‘Oh, Vera,’ he said then, and bending he kissed her. ‘I wanted to do that ever since we were out in the fields. And I wanted to say something, only I felt your father was listening, even when he was out of hearing. It was as if he was listening to our thoughts. He doesn’t want any more land. I know what he had in mind.’ But when her face reddened he caught her to him. ‘I’m not blaming him, Vera. It’s only natural he’d want to see you settled. But I can’t stand him meddling. If we are to get married it must be on my terms and no one else’s.’ He paused. ‘Not even yours. It’s bad enough that I can’t live without you.’

‘Oh, Alan!’ The grudging way he said it did not take one whit from her joy

But he was intent on making his meaning clear. ‘Some men want to marry,’ he said. ‘They’re only waiting to meet the right woman. But there are others, like me, who don’t want to marry at all. They are only forced into it by meeting a woman they cannot survive without.’

‘Do you really feel that way about me, Alan?’ she asked timidly.

‘Yes,’ he said firmly, ‘but I can’t share you Vera. It’s me or him. Oh Vera, can’t you see that you’ve let him become so engrossed in you that his whole life has been spent on you. Not that I care about him. But I can’t stand by and see you consumed, too.’

‘Oh Alan, you’re exaggerating,’ she said, but she didn’t know who she was defending, herself or her father. ‘What can I do?’ she added helplessly.

‘You can come away with me,’ he said peremptorily. ‘In fact that’s what we’ve to do, we’re going to go away, for a few years anyway.’

‘You know I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘Bad enough to think of leaving him at all without going far away. And where would we go?’

His face darkened. ‘I knew that would be your attitude. Well, let me tell you something and you can think about it. I am going away anyway, to Australia, with or without you.’

For a minute her mind blurred. ‘When?’

‘This summer.’

‘Well, we can’t discuss it now,’ she said wearily.

‘Why not?’

She came to a stand. ‘There are so many things to be considered,’ she said vaguely. ‘For one thing there’s my father’s age!’

‘And what is that, may I ask? Or do you know?’ When she had to admit she did not know, he shook his head. ‘The trouble with you both is that you’ve lost all sense of identity. Both of you! Do you know what I think? If it weren’t for you hanging around his neck all the time your father might have married again. He might do so yet, if you’d get out of the way. There’s more to life than seeing one generation into the world or another out of it. I bet if you left him he’d be married within a year.’

‘Is it at his age?’ she cried, but she saw at once she’d fallen into a trap.

‘I thought you said you didn’t know his age,’ Alan said scathingly. ‘Oh Vera, can’t you see that without you he might begin to live again.’

Such an entirely new prospect opened before her, her head reeled.

‘What if he got ill?’

‘Is it that man? He’s as fit as an ox. He could see us both down yet.’ Then, as they heard the sound of the bus he took her arm and shook her. ‘Think it over,’ he said.

But oh, quick upon his heels the irony of that last conversation was brought home. As strong as an ox Alan had pronounced him. The words were hardly bearable to her in the light of what followed. Alan should not be left in ignorance of it. It would not be fair to her father. It was, however, several days before she got a chance to write her letter. And when at last she began it the top of the page bore the address of a Dublin hospital.

Dear Alan [she wrote],

I’m writing to tell you that my father is ill. Oh Alan, he is very, very ill, so ill indeed that apart from any consideration of how his illness might affect us I would have written to tell you anyway, knowing you would be sad for him. It was on the very night you sailed the pain first struck him. I feel sure that, like me, you will think that very strange. And I hope that, like me, you will think that fact a sufficient reason for my writing. Anyway I cannot believe that you meant us to drop completely out of each other’s existence. Do you realise that at this moment I do not know in what part of Australia you intend to settle? And that if I do not post this letter in time to reach you at Gibraltar or Aden, I may quite literally lose sight of you forever.

To return to Father, it now appears that he must have been ailing for some time, all winter perhaps. I can’t help an ache at my heart when I think that if we had more patience matters might now be very different for us. Not that I am blaming you, dear, or thinking that you should not have gone, for although there can be no mistaking that Father’s ailment is fatal, nevertheless his illness may be long and painfully drawn-out. Poor, poor Father. I suppose in a way my reaction to your going has been altered by these new circumstances. Perhaps now you can see that there was something to be said for my remaining behind? For my part, in spite of all the happiness I have given up, I am glad, oh so glad, that I too am not at this moment thousands of miles away from him. You will hardly believe me, Alan, but all things considered, I can almost say I am happy. Our parting no longer seems so senseless as it did the night you left.

To keep to what is relevant, I am of course doing everything I can for him, and I may add that Lily has been wonderful, but the fact is that very little can be done. He is to have a small exploratory operation, but the disease may well be too advanced for much to be done. At his age, an operation is always a risk, but the doctors see no reason for thinking he may not get through it. His heart, they say, is as strong as the heart of a young man.

I should tell you that I do not really expect a reply, although I am nearly miserable enough to crave any crumb of comfort. I will leave it to you, dear. Quite frankly at times I cannot believe you are gone.

Vera

P.S. I did not stick down the envelope when I realised in how short a time I would have the surgeon’s report. Oh Alan, things are as the local doctor feared. It is only a question of time. However, there is a further operation advised, not so much in the hope of prolonging his life as of making what is left of it more comfortable. I have given my consent. After that we will be going home, by ambulance of course, which will dishearten him I know, since I am sure he expected to walk out of here on his feet. You can imagine how I hate breaking the bad news to him. We will have to bring back a nurse too, which is another thing he will resent. I can’t say that I myself look forward to having a nurse in the house, but I will try to get a pleasant and agreeable girl. I can tell you that my experience here in the past few days has taught me that they are not all angels. Far from it! But I’ll do my best. Thank God I am here to see to this kind of thing for him. Ah Alan, surely now you can see my point of view? Perhaps I will expect a line from you after all, just a line, although I don’t suppose your letter will alter anything in our situation, I cannot for all that hide the eagerness with which I will look for it.

Vera

The second operation was only successful in that the patient got over it. The pain was bought off, but at the price of new discomfort.

‘I didn’t realise he’d be so helpless,’ Vera said to the nurse as they waited for the ambulance that was to take them home. ‘He’ll hate being carried down on a stretcher.’

‘He’s a lucky man it’s not in his coffin,’ said the nurse practically.

Vera stared at her. In spite of her boast to Alan, she had not in the end been able to pick and choose her nurse. She had to take the first one that came to hand. Indeed she had hardly glanced at her in the hospital, and even when they got into the ambulance she was only aware of how much room the creature took up: she was the big, hefty sort, who sat firmly planted down, with her feet apart. Her face wasn’t bad, although her skin was thick, and the big brown eyes seemed lacking in expression. But there was one point in her favour, the sick man had taken to her.

‘What is your first name, Nurse?’ he asked. And when she said it was Rita, he started to call her that. It was extremely distasteful to Vera.

The ambulance had to go very slowly and so the journey seemed endless. ‘Is it far more?’ the nurse kept asking. And once when they went over a hump in the road she snapped at Vera. ‘You shouldn’t have moved him. You should have left him in the hospital.’

‘We’re nearly there, Nurse,’ she said, ignoring the criticism.

The nurse shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t answer for him if there’s another jolt like that.’

‘Mind would he hear you,’ Vera whispered. ‘I’d rather he’d die on the way home than in hospital anyway,’ she added fiercely. Over the patient’s head their eyes met in hostility.

When at last they got home however, and Lily came flying down the steps, all warmth and goodwill, the nurse brightened considerably.

‘Upsy-daisy!’ Lily cried as the stretcher listed and tilted on its way up the steps, and what might have been an ordeal was made to seem almost a lark.

‘That girl would make a great ward maid,’ said Rita looking at Lily after the patient was finally settled into his bed. ‘Had she any previous experience of nursing, I wonder?’

‘None whatever,’ Vera disclaimed the compliment to Lily as if it had been paid to her, and, feeling that the occasion called for a gesture from her, she called after Lily, who was going to make a cup of tea. ‘Put two extra cups on the tray, Lily,’ she cried. ‘Nurse and I will have some too.’

But the nurse called after Lily. ‘Put mine on a separate tray, please,’ she countermanded. And she turned to Vera. ‘Our regulations strictly forbid us to eat in a sick-room. I’d advise you not to do so either.’

Vera reddened with annoyance. ‘Just one extra cup, so, Lily,’ she called out.

The sad thing was that her father didn’t seem to appreciate her attentions. ‘Where is Rita having hers?’ he asked. ‘Oughtn’t you to keep her company?’

‘I don’t think she cares particularly for my company,’ Vera said.

But he misunderstood her. ‘Oh she will: she will,’ he said. ‘Give her time.’

Irritated beyond words, Vera gulped down her tea and went out again to where, on the landing, the nurse was standing with her cup in her hand leaning down over the banisters. She was staring at the old prints on the wall. The house had made some impression, Vera was glad to see. ‘They’re Malton prints,’ she said proudly and she let her own glance travel with pleasure around the white-medallioned walls and the wide stone stairs that poured down between the iron banisters like a mountain cataract.

The nurse’s voice broke in on her.

‘A bit of a rookery, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It must be bleak in bad weather. Lonely too, I’d say? Or are you used to it?’

Bleak? Lonely? Did that mean the creature might not stay? Vera stared out of the window. Stripped of leaves, the shrubs were tangled in strands of barbed brier. A stranger might think it a prison.

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter to me,’ the nurse said. ‘I’m only here for a while. But how do you stick it?’ A faint curiosity showed for the first time in her eyes. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll stay on here, will you? Afterwards, I mean?’ she said, and she nodded towards the door of the sick-room.

Vera said nothing. She felt a deep resentment. Why should this woman assume that but for her father she would be alone in the world? On a reckless impulse she said something that she knew was dishonest. ‘I may be going out to Australia,’ she said. The next minute she would have given anything to take back those words. It didn’t make her feel any better that the nurse made nothing out of her lie.

‘You’ve people out there, I suppose?’ she said indifferently. ‘I’ve people out there myself. They’re always writing and asking me out. I might go some time too, but I’d never settle down out there.’ Her expression changed. ‘I have other plans.’

Vera stared. There was a kind of smirk in the nurse’s eyes. She had a fellow, that was it. Involuntarily she glanced at the nurse’s left hand.

But the nurse laughed and spread out her bare fingers. ‘We’re not allowed to wear jewellery on duty,’ she said. She laughed again. ‘A ring above all. Bad for the morale of the patients, specially if the patient is a male. Oh, you may not think it,’ she said, as Vera raised her eyebrows, ‘but it’s a fact. You’d be surprised how it depresses them, at any age.’ She nodded towards the sick-room.

‘How ridiculous,’ Vera said. Yet, almost at once Alan’s words came to her mind. But when those words were spoken her father was well. And sick or well, was it likely that a big lump like this would strike a spark in him? ‘I think you over-estimate my father’s capacities,’ she said coldly. But hadn’t she once or twice caught him looking at the young woman with a peculiar expression? And calling her Rita! She turned distastefully away from the creature. ‘If you’ll excuse me, there are a few things I have to discuss with him.’

The nurse drew herself up. ‘He’s not able for much,’ she said warningly. But at that moment, Lily’s voice came up from below in a snatch of song. ‘I tell you what!’ Rita said more humanly, and she caught up the tray. ‘I’ll take this down and give that girl instructions about your father’s meals. I’m dying for a smoke.’ For a big girl she went down the stairs at a good lick. She was probably younger than she looked.

When Vera went in to her father he looked up. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, obviously disappointed.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said flatly. ‘Are you comfortable, Father? Will I fix your pillows?’

‘No.’ Impatiently he waved her away. ‘Leave them. She’ll do them. She has a knack.’

‘Well, I should hope so. It’s part of her training. I don’t think we should leave everything to her, all the same. Is there nothing you’d like me to do?’

He was lying back looking up at the ceiling but he glanced around the room.

‘You could get her a chair,’ he said, ‘a comfortable one.’ He frowned at the hard bentwood chair beside his bed. ‘She ought to have a big armchair. Where did you put her to sleep by the way?’

‘Up beside Lily,’ she said dully.

‘Isn’t it dark up there under the roof?’ He didn’t actually frown but she could see he was dissatisfied. And then he said something outrageous. ‘Why didn’t you give her your room?’

‘I gave her the room Lily had got ready for her,’ Vera said tartly, but under his stare she weakened. ‘It would have been an awful job to move out all my things.’

He said nothing for a minute and then, when he spoke he was so casual it was positively sly. ‘You’d have time to do it now while she’s downstairs,’ he said.

But from below at that moment there came a sound of laughter. ‘I think it would be a great mistake to move her away from Lily,’ Vera said. ‘They seem to be getting on famously.’

‘She’d be nearer to me if she was in your room,’ he said.

‘You seem to forget, Father, that what would be an advantage to you might not be one to her. She’s not a night nurse, you know. To convenience her during the day seems quite unnecessary. We are paying her after all.’ But she was sorry she mentioned money. ‘Please let me fix your pillows, Father,’ she said quickly.

He waved her away again. ‘Leave them,’ he said again. Then he looked at her cunningly. ‘That’s part of what we are paying her for, isn’t it? How much is her salary anyway?’

Oh, why had she brought up the subject. ‘That’s my worry, Father,’ she said firmly. Before he went into the hospital he had arranged for her to have a power of attorney. Once or twice he questioned her as to how she was managing, but only in a vague way, and gradually she had taken full responsibility. As his sole heir anyway, she felt it was virtually her own money she was spending. Unconsciously, all the same, at the back of her mind there had been times when she paused outside the sick-room, and imagined that when she opened the door she’d be confronted by him, fully restored to his old vigour, his eyes blazing, demanding an account of every penny. This, of course, she no longer imagined, but all the same she heartily wished she had not mentioned money. ‘Her wages are not much; really they’re not,’ she lied. ‘And she’s well worth every penny we pay her, isn’t she?’ she said, forcing out the words.

It was sad to see how readily he lent himself to her deception. ‘We’re very lucky to get a girl like her,’ he said. ‘What’s keeping her, I wonder?’

‘She’ll be up in a minute I’m sure, Father,’ Vera said, but she couldn’t resist giving him a dig. ‘I don’t think we should grudge her any time she spends below. Only for Lily’s company she mightn’t stay. It’s very lonely here, you know, and neither you nor I have much to offer her.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, but so lukewarmly she had an uneasy feeling her words had done more harm than good, because when he next spoke it was with a burst of his old energy. ‘What are you waiting for. Why don’t you get that chair?’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’ll try and get some sleep,’ he said. ‘I want to save my strength all I can.’

Save it for what? For that nurse, she supposed. Dejectedly, she left him and went out on to the landing. As she did there was another peal of laughter down below, and tears came into her eyes. Lily too had taken to the creature. What did they talk about? Probably about fellows. Vera sighed. She hoped at least they would not gossip about her. And, as she stood on the cold landing it seemed to her that in her own home she had no place. She was not wanted, upstairs or down. But just then the kitchen door opened and she heard footsteps in the hall below. Hastily she dried her eyes as Rita came running to the foot of the stairs.

‘Oh, there you are!’ the nurse said.

Was it imagination, or did Rita look at her with a more lively interest? But then the nurse looked more interesting to her too, less lumpy and heavy. Her big brown eyes, like berries that had ripened, were warmer, softer. And as she came up the stairs two at a time she was smiling. Half way up she stopped. Her hands were behind her back. ‘Which hand will you have?’ she called out gaily.

A letter?

‘Lily forgot to give it to you in all the fuss,’ said Rita. ‘A little bird told me you were expecting it.’ So they had been talking about her. But evidently not disparagingly.

Filled with joy Vera took the letter. ‘Thank you,’ she said so earnestly Rita laughed.

‘You’d think I wrote it,’ Rita said. ‘Off with you now and read it.’ Vera was touched by her friendliness, and as well she felt absolved from the guilt of having said she might be going to Australia, for the letter made that seem less of a lie. But when she went into her room and sat down on her bed her heart went chill with apprehension. Suppose Alan was annoyed with her for having written. That his letter might not be a reply to hers at all simply did not occur to her, not until she was half-way down the first page.

Dear Vera,

I won’t try to tell you how I felt when the boat sailed. You must have known how I’d feel. But it isn’t to blame you that I write. Far from it, Vera. And I know that if you were here with me now I could imagine no greater happiness, because apart altogether from my own feelings of emptiness and desolation, the voyage itself promises to be very enjoyable. We left London—

At this point she stopped, realising he had not got her letter, and her hands began to tremble. He too was not able to endure a total severance. Her eyes flew back to the closely written page.

We left London in fog, but we weren’t long at sea till the mists lifted and gave many of us, myself included, the mixed pleasure of seeing the last of the islands we were leaving perhaps forever. It was a beautiful sight, that coastline.

I have had my deck-chair put on the promenade deck which is covered, but the deck steward tells me that by tomorrow it may be finer, and probably much warmer, so if I wish I can have myself moved out on to the main deck which is open. At the moment it is pretty windy out there, and while I write this (in the ship’s library which is also up on the sun deck) I can see a few hardy souls who are taking a stroll, holding on for dear life to their caps and headscarves. I could do with a bit of a blow myself before dinner, but I want to get this written, and there is not much time now before the gong goes. Dinner is served at 6.30, first sitting that is, but actually I am on second sitting, having been advised by the dining steward who is a very obliging fellow – looking already to his tip no doubt – that although the food is the same, the service at the second sitting is a bit better. Less rush, I suppose. It will give me more time to enjoy the daylight when we get further south. I expect I’ll have to do a good many turns around the deck each day because the food so far seems very rich. They say that six times around the deck is equal to a mile. It’s hard to believe, but everyone tells me it is so. I must say the passengers are all very friendly. Life on board is clearly going to be very sociable. There is no need for anyone to be alone unless by choice. It is surprising, mind you, how many couples have formed already. Some of course came aboard together, but in general I’d say they paired off since we sailed. There is, I suppose, a special need for friendship in those who, like me, are emigrating, and cutting so many ties.

I must tell you a funny mistake I made with regard to a couple at my table. I thought they were married because I’d seen them together in the embarkation-shed, but it seems they had just met and hooked up together. It was a bit embarrassing all round when my mistake was made known, but they took it in good part and we had a laugh over it. But oh, Vera, when I see them arm in arm, I think how lucky they are, and I can’t help thinking that that is the way you and I would have been if things had gone as they should have gone for us. But I suppose it was not to be! I must try and put you out of my mind.

That reminds me, I must tell you another odd thing. Today on the promenade deck I saw a young woman seemingly like myself alone. And oh, Vera, she was so like you. It was uncanny really.

For a moment I was mad enough to think it was you, that you’d thrown your scruples to the winds and followed me. As if you would! Truly though, Vera, the likeness in profile anyway was remarkable. When she turned around I could see, of course, she was much rounder in the face than you, although there was still something about her eyes and the shape of her forehead and even the way she wore her hair that almost broke my heart. You should have seen the look she gave me though, when she caught me staring at her. I can’t say I blamed her. She must have thought I was batty staring at her so hard. I suppose I should have done the civilised thing and explained my reason to her. I’ll have to do so if I meet her again at close quarters, which is likely enough I suppose, because this is not a very large ship, although the passenger list is long.

Do you know that we travelled at 17 knots yesterday and 18 knots today. These facts I learned from the bulletin board outside the purser’s office. But how silly I am! These bulletins can mean little to you. Why do I tell you about them, you may ask? Ah, but tell me why am I writing this letter at all? I can hear you saying I have not the courage of my convictions. And you are right. Our decision to make a clean break was the only sane one. But do not blame me too much for trying to let myself down lightly. I promise I will try hard not to transgress again. Let us regard this as another farewell. Goodbye and God bless you. Give my respects to your father. I hope he is well. I’d like to know what he thought of our parting, but now I suppose I’ll never know.

Alan

She put down the letter. Her joy in it had been clouded. Two farewells! As if one was not bad enough. Well, by now he would have got her letter. She’d probably have another communication from him soon, a cable perhaps? And for the rest of the voyage, he need not feel so bereft. How well she knew the poignancy of the moment when that strange woman reminded him of her. She herself a dozen times, when she went to Dublin, had fancied some hurrying stranger in the street to be him, only to find that, close-up, there would be no vestige of resemblance, and what seemed a concession of memory was only an ugly trick of the eye. But oh, if that woman on the ship had in fact been her! For a long time she sat on her bed thinking of him, but although there was a chance that now she might, after all, be joining him some day, her sadness was not lessened. A forfeit had already been paid – their voyage out together.

But what was going on outside on the landing? For some time Vera had been vaguely aware of noises, pushings and shovings, and now Rita and Lily were running down the stairs giggling. She opened her door. The door of the sick-room was open too, and she could see her father lying on his side facing the wall. At her step he turned round. ‘Where were you?’ he asked crossly. ‘They had to do everything themselves.’

Surprised she saw that the big wardrobe in which his clothes had been kept was gone, and in its place was a moth-eaten red plush armchair that used to be in Lily’s room. The pictures had been taken down too. And the ornaments were gone from the mantelshelf. ‘Well, what do you think of it?’ he asked, thawing a bit, because he was himself so pleased.

‘It’s nice and airy certainly, Father,’ she said cautiously. Did he not see that it was the appurtenances of life that had been taken away? The bareness of the room frightened her.

‘Rita is going to take up the carpet tomorrow,’ he said, and Lily’s going to scrub the floor. ‘It’ll be cool for the summer.’

Involuntarily Vera glanced out of the window. All week an east wind had driven across the land and blackened the early blossoms. ‘Summer is still a long way off,’ she said, and in her voice there must have been a latent bitterness, because he looked at her sharply. Then he reached out and caught her hand. ‘Do you ever hear from him?’

‘Is it Alan?’ she said stupidly. Alan’s name had never been uttered by either of them since the day the sick man insinuated that she’d been let down. She hesitated. ‘I had a letter some time ago, Father.’

‘I knew you would,’ he said complacently. ‘He’ll want you to go out to him. That will be the next thing.’ To her astonishment she saw that the expression on his face was one of satisfaction. ‘Mark my words, that’s what will happen,’ he said. ‘You’ll be going out to him one of these days.’ He must mean when he’d be gone. How nicely he’d settled things in his own regard, she thought.

She ought to be glad that he was not a prey to remorse, that his mind was at ease about her. But she could only shake her head. ‘Who knows,’ she said, and she turned away.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘There’s no knowing what is in store for us.’ But the bareness of the room had begun to depress her and she made an excuse to leave him.

If life had ebbed from the sick-room, the rest of the house teemed with life. Lily and Rita had only to be together in the kitchen for five minutes and the din was deafening. Rita was so different from what Vera had first taken her to be. She was so cheerful and so gay. Like a joybell she rang out happiness all day. As time went on she gave a hand with everything, peeling potatoes, scraping vegetables, drying up dishes. Prodigal of herself in all directions, she helped Vera too, mending torn linen, darning, and even doing a bit of dressmaking for Lily on the side. Her effect on Lily was extraordinary. The girl went about her work in a whirl, she too, giddily doing chores for everyone. One day she washed the doctor’s car when he was upstairs with the patient.

It was with the patient though that Rita had her greatest success. Vera blushed to remember the suspicions she had had of her on the first day. It was true Rita flirted with him but this was soon understood by all to be a kind of charity. It helped the sick man to keep up appearances in the face of his steady deterioration. To Vera’s amazement, Rita brought out a foppishness in him of which she herself had never imagined him capable, though she wondered if he might not be lending himself voluntarily to the blandishments; playing a part in a kind of ritual. There was about the sick­room at times the blended gaiety and gloom of carnival.

One day a strange thought crossed Vera’s mind. She had often tried, without success, to imagine what it would be like to be married to Alan. Now listening to the happy babble of voices in the house, and seeing day run into day, purposeful and busy, she began to think that if she were married and had a few children, this, perhaps, was what her life would be like. To lovers, love might seem an isolated place, shutting them in, and shutting out the world, but channelled into marriage, might it not quickly become a populous place from which, in time, another generation would have to seek escape? Vera smiled at her thoughts. Her life at that moment was a good substitute for marriage.

One day there was a greater commotion than usual down in the kitchen. Curious, Vera ran down. She found Rita was standing up on a chair rummaging in the big press in the corner.

‘—twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight!’ Rita counted. Then, hearing Vera come in, she turned around excitedly. ‘Did you forget you had all this jam stored away?’

The jam! Vera had indeed forgotten.

‘Why didn’t you remind me, Lily?’ she cried, but she knew that Lily was afraid she’d feel bad knowing the jam had been made for Alan.

‘Have I put my foot in it?’ Rita jumped down off the chair, but she had a pot of jam in her hand.

‘Of course not,’ Vera said quickly. ‘It would have gone bad. I’m glad you found it. My father might try a little too.’

‘Oh good!’ cried Rita, but she had no sooner poked her finger into the wax seal on the top of the jar than her face fell. ‘It’s gone bad,’ she said.

Lily grabbed the pot. ‘I’m sure it’s only the top that’s gone,’ she said loyally. ‘All home-made jam is like that.’ Snatching up a spoon she dug into it. But the lump of pink sugar that she prised out shot into the air and clattered like a hunk of rock on the floor. Both girls giggled nervously.

‘Take off a bit more, Lily,’ Rita urged, to cover up their embarrassment, although by the colour alone they could all see there was something wrong. A hoary whiteness glittered through the jar. ‘It’s turned into sugar I’m afraid,’ the nurse said dolefully. ‘A pity we can’t put it in our tea,’ she added, trying to make a joke of it.

Vera, however, was unable to laugh.

Impulsively Rita put an arm across her shoulders. ‘Never mind. Think what a good job you tried it out on us, and not on Someone Else.’

There was tact. Vera had to smile. ‘I suppose we may as well throw it out,’ she said.

But there was a streak of thrift in Rita. ‘Is there no use for it, I wonder? Wait a minute, if it’s turned into sugar it might be inflammable. We could use it to kindle the fire. Sugar is as good as paraffin. Let’s keep it another while.’

Lily was the one who had doubts. ‘I’d throw it out,’ she said flatly. ‘It will only draw wasps.’

‘Wasps?’ Both Rita and Vera together pooh-pooh-ed this. ‘With the weather we’ve had for the past few summers I’d hardly know a wasp from a dodo,’ said Rita.

Even Lily had to admit this was true. ‘You’d miss them too, mind you,’ she said. ‘Summer isn’t summer without them. God help them. They won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt them! Do you know something,’ she confided, ‘I often have to laugh at them, in their little black and yellow football jerseys.’

‘The Cavan colours! Oh, Lily, you’re a scream,’ said Rita.

How Vera’s heart warmed to them. They were such good sorts. In spite of the shadow of death the house was a happy one. She herself was so happy that she was hardly surprised when there was a knock at the door just then and she opened it to the postman. A second letter had come.

Like the last, this letter too was long. It was not written on ship’s paper, however, but bore the letterhead of an hotel in Gibraltar. And this time Vera knew immediately that it was not a reply to hers. Without reading a line, some of the good went out of it for her.

Dear Vera,

As you can see I am writing this in the Grand Hotel, Gibraltar, on the verandah as a matter of fact. I should have written last night but we had a gala dinner – the purser’s party – and I confess I was late getting down to my cabin. This morning I am going on one of the shore-excursions arranged by the ship’s officers and as it happens I have had an unexpected wait. But I am running on. I must explain myself. I really should have begun by telling you my reason for writing a second time. I’m sure you did not expect a letter, although this morning when I saw the mail bags on the deck it crossed my mind that there might have been one from you, oh, just a word of goodwill, Vera, nothing more, but I would have appreciated it. As it happened, we did not get our mail. Can you imagine, the launch that took us ashore was the same one that brought the passenger-mail aboard. So as we were carried away, we had the frustration of seeing the mail bags being dragged into the purser’s office for sorting.

What was the meaning of this rambling rigmarole? Oh, it was too much. Vera was going to skip a bit until, near the end of the last page, a few words leapt at her.

—and so it may be that in spite of everything, it will be to you that I will owe my life’s happiness. And that, Vera, is why I write to you in such haste. I want to give you a hint of what I dare to presume may be in store for me. And I want you to know how much I hope that for you too, the same happiness may be in store, of which the happiness we had together may have been only a foreshadowing.

Bewildered, she turned back, and beside herself now, she devoured every word.

You will remember how we often spoke of destiny? It certainly does seem now that there was, after all, a strange concatenation of events in my life. Not only did I in a way initially undertake this voyage because of you, and most certainly because of you at the time I did, but it was a likeness to you that first drew my attention to Mary. That is her name. Mary Seward, the girl I told you about in my other letter. It is for her I’m waiting here in the hotel at this moment.

When I ran into her on deck the day after my last letter to you, and we got into chat, I cannot tell you how much I was struck by several other resemblances between you: small but very striking. In no time at all I was telling her about you. I found her so understanding. It was the beginning of our friendship, and now it seems that there is to be more in it for us than mere friendship. How strange to think you and I knew each other for so long, and Mary and I have just flown into each other’s lives, while both of us as she put it rather beautifully, were ‘on the wing.’

When things are settled I will write to you again. And if I am not mistaken, Mary will want to write to you too. She told me last night how very conscious she was of the part you played in our lives. She said she would like to thank you. In spite of the distance that divides you, it is my hope that you two will be friends.

But I must stop. I see her coming. As a matter of fact we have missed the main excursion. But we will hire a car and do a little tour of our own. It will probably be more enjoyable than the tour organised by the ship. But we will have to hurry, as in any event we must be back on the Orcades at 10.45 p.m. In haste, but with affectionate remembrance.

Alan

Affectionate remembrance! It was like a line on a mortuary card. As for that sentimental rubbish from the other woman, that hurt most of all.

Oh, it was so humiliating. And what would Rita and Lily think? Even if she didn’t tell them they’d probably sense there was something wrong. But as she stood miserably staring at the letter, her heart froze at a sound from her father’s room. ‘Oh God, what is that?’ she cried out loud. Headlong she ran onto the landing. But although low, those sounds had filled the house, and ahead of her Rita and Lily had raced up the stairs and were with her father. Rita was bending over the bed and Lily was on her knees mopping up the floor. ‘What is the matter?’ whispered Vera.

Her father was almost entirely out of the bed, leaning forward in a position so grotesque that, combined with the way they were holding him, made it seem as if ludicrously he was trying to swim, or to fly. He was retching violently. And as the black bile poured out of him, it seemed that it was by its force he was splayed out over the side of the bed. ‘Vera!’ he gasped, as their eyes met. Do you see now why I saved my strength, those eyes seemed to ask.

Then, as suddenly as it started, the retching stopped. And where before he seemed to have been flung forward, now he seemed to be flung back, his gaze transfixed.

Rita, as white as a sheet, straightened up. Her face was wet with sweat. ‘Another minute and he would have been gone,’ she said harshly. ‘He shouldn’t have been left alone.’

‘Is he dying?’ Hysterically, Vera tried to push past the others to get to the bed.

‘Oh, not at all; he’s all right now,’ said Rita impatiently. ‘We got to him in time.’

Vera was shaking. ‘What does it mean?’ she cried.

Rita swung round. ‘I’ll tell you what it means,’ she said callously. ‘It means that you’ll have to get a night nurse right away. Where would we be if this happened during the night? He could have choked.’

As if she’d been struck, Vera’s face reddened. ‘Wouldn’t I have heard him?’ she asked weakly.

‘You didn’t hear him in broad daylight, did you?’ Crossly Rita wiped her hair back from her face. ‘A nice kettle of fish it would have been if he smothered, for me, I mean. It’s high time we had a night nurse. We should have had one from the start I suppose, but I was sparing you.’

‘There was no need for that.’ The tears came into Vera’s eyes. When had she been niggling?

Rita had the grace to be ashamed at least. ‘It’s not that I’d mind getting up at night,’ she said. ‘But if I lost my sleep too often I’d be no use to you or to him. Goodwill isn’t enough in nursing.’

‘I understand,’ said Vera. It took an effort to be polite.

‘I hope you do.’ Rita looked more contrite every minute. ‘I want to give him an injection,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to go upstairs to my room for a new needle. Will you stay with him while I get it? We can’t leave him alone any more, even for a short time. You needn’t be frightened. I just want to be on the safe side.’ As she went out of the room she looked back. ‘There wasn’t bad news in your letter, was there?’ she asked.

The letter? A thousand years could have passed since she’d read it. Alan and his bride-to-be had shrunk to specks on a very far horizon. Even the hurt they’d inflicted had been deadened, but not her instinct to hide it. ‘Of course not,’ she said quickly.

But Rita’s eyes probed her through and through. ‘A little misunderstanding, I expect. Ah well, the course of true love never did run smooth,’ she said lightly. And she went out.

Vera moved over to the bed. Her father looked up at her. She bent and kissed his forehead. He was all she had in the world now. She had a great longing to unburden herself to him; to tell him about her heartbreak.

But Rita was back. ‘A nice fright you gave us!’ she said briskly to her patient as she came in the door. ‘Why didn’t you call someone? Shame on you!’ But across the bed she winked at Vera, and bending down she smiled into the sick man’s eyes and her voice was soft and cajoling. ‘I’m only joking,’ she said. ‘It was our fault. We shouldn’t have left you alone. But it won’t happen again. We can promise you that. We’re going to get someone to sit up with you and keep you company at night. Won’t that be nice?’ When he looked startled, she gave him a playful nudge. ‘We’d have had one long ago only we couldn’t find anyone fetching enough for you.’

For a moment her father seemed to hesitate, and then, playing his part he tried to smile. ‘How about a blonde this time?’ he whispered.

‘Oh come now. I can’t have talk like that,’ Rita said. ‘I’ll be getting jealous.’

‘Oh, you’ll always be my first love, Nurse,’ said the patient, but it made Vera sad to see that unconsciously he had given Rita back her formal title.

It wasn’t easy to get a second nurse with the summer coming on. After several trips to the phone in the village post office Rita got very anxious.

‘I wonder if we ought to try for a nurse attendant?’ she said desperately. ‘They’re sometimes very competent, and all we need really is someone to sit with him at night. And I know one who is free, a very reliable person. We were on a case together before. She’s an old dear.’

‘Oh, she’s old?’ Vera was doubtful at once.

‘She’s fairly old. There’s no denying it,’ Rita said, ‘but she’s very efficient. She’s had enough experience, God knows.’ And here it seemed she could not help laughing. ‘The old girl is ninety if she’s a day.’ She was joking of course, and Lily who had come into the room and overheard her took it as a huge joke. Vera felt they could both have been less unfeeling.

Next day, however, when the old nurse stepped out of the taxi at the door Vera’s own first impulse was to laugh. The new nurse looked a million years old. How would her father take this? It took them five minutes to get her up the steps. And once inside, she didn’t seem to have a glimmer about direction. Several times they found her going the wrong way along a corridor, or looking for the patient’s room on the wrong landing. It was nearly eleven, that first night, before they’d got her ready for her duties. She’d be almost as much trouble as the patient, Vera thought uneasily, as she said good night to her. She herself was having a cup of cocoa in the kitchen with Rita and Lily before they too went to bed. The old woman was taking a jug of water upstairs with her. Holding it out from her like a bunch of flowers, she was toddling off when suddenly there was a loud crack, as she knocked the jug against the metal tongue of the lock.

‘Oh Nurse, are you wet?’ Vera asked as water spilled out on the floor.

But the old nurse had heard nothing. Unconcernedly she went on up the stairs to the tune of pattering drops. Lily and Rita spluttered with laughter.

‘I don’t think it’s amusing at all,’ said Vera.

But a minute later she found it hard to keep her face straight when the old thing appeared at the kitchen door. ‘Lily! You gave me a leaking jug,’ she said crossly. ‘There’s not a drop in it.’

Stuffing their fists into their mouths, Lily and Rita ran into the pantry to hide their laughing, but Vera’s heart sank. How would the old woman be competent to mind a sick man at this rate? she thought. But when the old nurse was gone up again and Rita came out of the pantry she was genuinely sympathetic.

‘Don’t let that worry you,’ she said. ‘Your father likes her, and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?’

It was true that the sick man did seem to like the old woman. Was it, perhaps, that the efforts of gallantry had been a strain on him? Did he welcome the peace the old creature brought with her? There was certainly a new quiet in the sick-room. He often dozed when the two of them were together. Going into the room once it crossed Vera’s mind that the old woman too, no less than her patient, was waiting for her last end. Her few words were uttered in a voice so soft they could not be heard outside the door, and when she moved around the room she made no sound in the old felt slippers she wore. Indeed as time passed it even seemed that the whole house was becoming muted.

Rita and Lily were gay as ever, but, freer now to leave the house, they worked off their excess vitality in cycle rides, and even an occasional dance in the village. And once or twice, when they had been out late, the old lady made Rita lie-in next morning. ‘I can rest as well in a chair as a bed,’ she said placidly. And indeed, the big plush armchair was as big as a bed for her small, shrunken body. ‘I don’t need much sleep,’ she assured them placidly. ‘Anyway I’ll soon have enough of it.’ It was impossible to tell whether she spoke humorously or otherwise.

‘She sleeps on her feet,’ Lily said. ‘Like a bird on a branch.’

‘All the same I don’t want to trade on her goodwill,’ Rita said. And yet it was inevitable that they did, all of them, even Vera.

One day Vera let Rita persuade her to go for a spin with her. ‘You’re in the house too much,’ she said severely. ‘You need to get out in the air.’

‘I’ll cut a few sandwiches for you,’ Lily urged. ‘Make a day of it.’

It was not yet the real summer, but yet it was a day such as seldom comes even in summer. The sun shone down as they rode along between the hedges, already thickening with leaf and bud, and they laughed and talked as happily as if they were one as young and carefree as the other. Rita let go the handlebars and pedalled along with her hands in her pockets, whistling like a messenger boy. They stopped for lunch on a long treeless stretch, where the banks were high but softly mounded and the ditches shallow and dry. Throwing down her bike Rita clambered up on the bank and sat down.

‘Are you sure the grass isn’t damp?’ Vera asked, feeling it.

‘Are you mad,’ Rita cried. ‘It hasn’t rained for days.’

But they had no sooner settled themselves, and taken out their packages of food than rain splashed on the greaseproof paper. By the time they had got to their feet it was pouring.

‘Oh, where will we shelter?’ Vera cried, looking up and down the treeless stretches of the road.

‘Oh, come on. Let’s go on,’ Rita cried, jumping on her bicycle. ‘We’re already soaked to the skin.’

‘Look, there’s a clump of trees ahead,’ Vera said.

But when they reached it Rita didn’t stop. ‘Let’s keep going,’ she said. ‘We can change our clothes when we get back. I love the rain.’ Throwing back her head, she held her face up to it. Just then the sky was split with lightning.

‘Oh my God. Did you see that?’ Vera’s words were drowned, however, in a long peal of thunder.

‘Oh, it’s miles away,’ said Rita indifferently, although a second peal had immediately volleyed over their heads.

‘We can’t go on,’ Vera cried.

But there seemed to be a devil in Rita. ‘Why not?’ she called back, and her voice was almost buried under the cataracts of sound.

To be heard Vera had to draw abreast of her. ‘It’s terribly dangerous,’ she shouted. ‘Especially on a bike. Steel attracts lightning.’

‘Nonsense!’ cried Rita. ‘We’re safer on the bikes than anywhere. Aren’t the tyres rubber?’ Anyway the clump of trees was far behind.

Keeping abreast they careered along, while to either side of them the darkening countryside was lashed with light. Shrinking down over the handlebars Vera didn’t dare to raise her head, but Rita, standing on the pedals, rose up and down with them, and stared out over the transfigured landscape. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘I’m scared’ Vera screamed.

Rita threw her a scathing glance. ‘Do what you like,’ she said. ‘I’m going on. Anyway, I’ve got to get back to my patient. A nice thing it would be if he went off suddenly while I was sitting here under a bush.’

In her fright Vera’s foot slipped off the pedals and she almost fell. ‘Wasn’t he all right when we left?’ she cried appalled.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t take me up on every word I utter,’ Rita yelled back crossly. ‘It’s just that you never can tell with any case.’

As if her father was only a case. ‘Oh, let’s get back quick,’ she cried, and with a new spurt she shot ahead. Obscurely she’d felt up to then that the blades of light as they scythed across the tops of the hedges would not dip to find her if she crouched low enough over the handlebars. But now she, too, stood up on the pedals and pressed them down with all her might. She too stared out over the fields, which in that eerie light were as strange as the fields of the moon. Trees and bushes, even on the farthest rim of the sky, were suddenly brought so close it seemed their branches switched her eyeballs. Near and far were one. Then, around a bend in the road, the white gable of a cottage came in sight. It seemed to rear up out of nowhere. And up its walls rode their shadows, hers and Rita’s, riding like furies. ‘Look at us, Rita,’ she cried. ‘We’re like death riders in a circus.’

Then there was another flash and a second cottage rose up as if out of the earth. The walls this time were rosy pink, but to Vera it seemed they were in flames. The whole world was in flames. Even Rita was startled. ‘Oh God! that gave me a fright,’ she cried, acknowledging with a grimace that perhaps after all death could have been riding with them. When they got back at last they could see Lily’s white face pressed to the window, and as they flung down their bikes she threw open the door for them and ran back, not daring to stand in the doorway.

‘How is my father?’ Vera cried.

Lily grinned. ‘He slept through it. The old girl too. I might as well have been all alone. I was scared stiff. And look. I got stung by a wasp.’ She held up her arm. It was red and swollen. ‘I knew that jam would draw them,’ she said. ‘And what do you suppose I discovered? There’s a nest of them in the grass under the kitchen window. I nearly stood in it.’ She laughed.

Rita was the one who was cross. ‘You’ll have to do something about that,’ she said sharply to Vera. ‘There’s your father to think of. If we managed to get him out in the sun for a few hours it would be a nice thing to have him stung to death.’

Bewildered, Vera looked at her. A little while before she was afraid he might be dying and now she was talking of bringing him out in the sun.

But Rita turned to Lily. ‘Are there any men about?’ she asked jokingly, and whipping off her blouse she held it in front of the range to dry.

Vera went upstairs. Her father was still asleep. So after changing her clothes she ran down again. Rita and Lily were sitting at the kitchen table, but somehow she got the impression that they hadn’t expected her to come down so soon. It was not that they changed the conversation, and Rita even drew her into it at once, but an odd look had passed between them. Then Rita addressed her directly. ‘I was just saying to Lily here that those summer storms – thunderstorms – are usually a sign of good weather.’

‘But it’s only May,’ said Vera instinctively.

‘Nearly June,’ Rita said.

‘And those wasps,’ Lily said. ‘They’re a sign of summer.’ But she looked guilty. ‘Of course this fine weather could be just a flash in the pan,’ she added quickly, when Rita gave her a quelling glance.

‘This may well be all the good weather we’ll get,’ Rita said. ‘I’ve made that mistake too often, spent May and June watching for the good weather, and July and August finding out it was over.’

Was it possible they had been talking about their holidays? Filled with consternation, Vera’s face gave her away.

‘Of course I’d never take my holiday in the middle of a case,’ Rita said quickly. ‘That is, not if the end was in sight.’

Relieved, Vera sat down. ‘I always think myself the autumn is the nicest time of the year for holidays,’ she said.

‘Oh, the autumn is no good for anything,’ said Rita sharply. ‘The evenings are too short.’

‘And the nights are chilly,’ piped Lily.

Nervously, Vera stood up again.

Rita stood up too. ‘If I were to take my holidays now, while your father’s condition is fairly stable, I’d be back on the job when you’d really need me.’

‘At the end, you mean?’ Vera said quietly.

‘Oh the end could be easy enough,’ said Rita airily. ‘But he could go into a coma. You might like to have me here then. All things considered, I really think I ought to go while the going is good. And the great thing is that you won’t need anyone to replace me. I sounded out the old girl, and she said that if you put a stretcher-bed into your father’s room she could easily manage single-handed. It isn’t everyone would do it, mind you. Wasn’t it a godsend it was her we got. She’s as good as two saints rolled into one.’

So it was all settled. Only her assent had been needed. ‘Wouldn’t we have to consult the doctor?’ Vera asked desperately.

‘Oh, doctors are usually considerate enough where private nurses are concerned,’ said Rita lightly.

‘You could get round him anyway, Rita,’ cried Lily. ‘You could tell him one of your family was sick.’

Vera’s heart sank.

How false had been her feeling of solidarity with them. These girls had their private lives which at all costs they would safeguard from interference.

Yet, when the day came for Rita to leave, her concern for Vera was genuine. ‘Do you think you’ll be all right without me?’ she asked anxiously for about the twentieth time, as Vera and Lily stood on the steps, waiting to see her off. There was a car calling for her.

‘Her fellow,’ Lily whispered to Vera.

But Rita wasn’t happy. She was restless and uneasy. Suddenly she frowned. ‘The wasps’ nest!’ she cried. ‘We did nothing about it. Oh, perhaps I oughtn’t to go at all. Not that I really think your father will ever stir out of doors again,’ she said quickly, ‘but there’s the old girl to consider. What if she got stung? It wouldn’t take much to finish her off I’d say.’ She wrung her hands.

‘Don’t worry,’ Vera said placatingly. ‘I’ll attend to it at once. Tomorrow.’

‘But how? That’s the whole point. It may not be as easy as you think.’

‘What about tar?’ Lily cried. ‘We could pour it into the nest at night when they’re all inside?’

Rita shook her head. ‘Too hard to handle. You have to heat it and that’s very dangerous.’ She shuddered. ‘But you could set fire to it perhaps, with petrol.’

‘Not so near the house!’ Vera cried. ‘The whole place could go up.’

Rita bit her lip. ‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘Have you a gun? You could fire a shot into it, at close range. But can you handle a gun?’

‘I’m sure I could manage,’ Vera said.

‘Well then, there’s no more to worry about.’ Leaning forward, Rita strained to see the road through the trees. ‘Here’s my friend,’ she said as she saw a car. ‘I told him I’d meet him at the gate,’ and catching up her bag she gave them both a quick kiss and ran down the steps. ‘Goodbye,’ she called back. ‘Goodbye.’

Looking after her, Vera felt curiously bereft. She looked at Lily.

‘Well, that’s that,’ Lily said, as they turned and went back into the house.

Had the sun gone? Had the birds stopped singing? It was hardly possible that one person’s absence could have made itself felt so immediately. Yet, before the day ended the house was like a tomb. Certainly the kitchen became one. The leaves of the trees had thickened and the shrubs grown dense, and although the upper rooms were above the level of their shade, the lower part of the house was as dark by day as if evening had prematurely fallen. Once about four o’clock when Vera went down to make a pot of tea, it gave her a shock to see two birds that chased each other dash in one window and out the other, as if indeed it were a deserted place.

But one afternoon while Vera was upstairs mending a sheet, the silence of the house was shattered. Voices? Like a twitter of birds they rang out, only louder and more inconsequential. She thought she recognised Rita’s voice, and then, unmistakably she heard Rita’s laugh. Throwing the sheet aside, Vera ran down the stairs.

‘Oh, there you are!’ cried Rita gaily. She ran forward and kissed Vera. ‘I was just telling Lily here that I got bored in Dublin and I came down to stay with cousins of mine who live near here, and today I hopped on the bike and came over to see how you were getting on. Talk of a busman’s holiday! How are you? And how,’ she asked quickly as an afterthought, ‘is your father? I must go up and see him before I leave. Not that I can stay long,’ she said, glancing at her watch. Then she laughed. ‘What I’m dying to know is how you’re getting on with Her Nibs?’

‘Oh, she’s been very good and kind,’ Vera said sincerely.

‘Not a bad sort at all,’ said Lily, but she giggled. ‘She’s a howl really,’ she said. ‘I never stopped laughing since you left.’

Vera looked at her with astonishment. When had all this hilarity taken place?

‘Oh, I didn’t let on to you,’ said Lily, turning to her. ‘She was going to leave several times only I got around her to stay. There was one time and she’d her bags all packed and ready for off! She thought she was in a madhouse. There was the jam for one thing.’ She turned to Vera. ‘You remember just after Rita left there was a cold spell and one evening we thought we’d light a fire, but the kindling wood was wet and I was down on my knees puffing and blowing at it when—’

Suddenly Rita gave a screech. ‘Oh, Lily. Don’t tell me. I know what happened.’

But Lily put her hand over Rita’s mouth.

‘Let me tell it,’ she begged. ‘I’ve been dying to tell someone.’

She turned back to Vera. ‘You came in. “Did you try putting jam in it, Lily,” says you. You should have seen the poor old thing’s face. But that wasn’t the worst. That afternoon she was having a cup of tea when you walked in with the master’s gun in your hand and—’

‘Oh, Lily!’ Rita knew what was coming this time too.

‘Wait! please, please,’ pleaded Lily. ‘Let me tell it.’ She turned back to Vera. ‘The poor old thing looked up. “I thought it was the closed season,” she said. “Oh,” said you, “I’m only going out in the garden to shoot a few wasps.”’

‘Oh no.’ It was too much for Rita.

Screaming with laughter, the two girls sank down on the kitchen chairs, their feet sprawled out in front of them.

‘To think I never noticed a thing!’ said Vera so sadly Rita was sobered.

‘Ah, you were too anxious about your father,’ she said kindly. ‘You didn’t tell me how he is? Ought I go up and see him, or do you think it might only disturb him?’

A week earlier there would have been no question of her not seeing him, but now Vera had misgivings. ‘Would you like me to tell him you’re here,’ she said after a minute, ‘and see what he says?’ And without waiting for an answer she slipped upstairs.

In the sick-room the windows were thrown up, and the whole room was filled with a myriad of small sweet sounds, the hum of insects, and the songs of birds. And when Vera went softly in there was a whir of wings as the swallows under the eaves swooped back and forth from their nests. The old nurse and her patient were both awake, but although they were not speaking Vera felt as if she was intruding. It was as if they were communicating in some way beyond her understanding. These unspoken messages were deep and meaningful. How could she ever have been so mistaken as to think that life had ebbed from this room. Dying too was a part of life. For a minute she stood unobserved in the doorway. Then she heard Rita’s footsteps on the stairs and she stepped back quickly, closing the door.

But Rita had seen into the room. ‘Oh, what a change there is in him,’ she whispered. ‘And in such a few short days.’ Gently she put her hand on Vera’s arm. ‘It looks to me as if he’s near the end,’ she said. But, seeing Vera’s start, she spoke sternly. ‘You’re lucky, you know. The end is going to be very easy.’ Then drawing Vera towards the stairs she went down a few steps. ‘It’s funny the way things work out, isn’t it? We only thought of that old woman as a stop-gap and now it looks as if it was God who sent her to you. I don’t think you’ll need me back at all,’ she said firmly.

‘Oh, Rita,’ Vera cried. ‘We couldn’t do without you.’

Rita shook her head. ‘It’s not my business, I know,’ she said, ‘but think of the saving. I don’t know how you’re fixed with regard to money, but there’s no sense in throwing it away.’

‘The money doesn’t matter,’ said Vera in a flat voice.

Rita shook her head. ‘You’d be surprised what a financial drain it can be, a death in the family, I mean, specially coming after a long illness.’ She threw up her hands. ‘When all is over there’s an avalanche of bills. I’ve seen people crushed by them. Yes, crushed!’

‘Oh, Rita,’ Vera cried, putting out her hands, ‘I can’t bear to think of the house without you. And what will Lily do?’

‘Oh, a pity about Lily!’ Rita said. ‘She’ll be getting married one of these days. She can live on the thought of that. As for you, won’t you be going to Australia?’

It was a long time since Alan’s name had been mentioned. Vera had begun to think Rita and Lily both suspected that there was something wrong.

But Rita’s face was guileless. ‘It’s a pity you can’t be there for the Australian summer,’ she said. ‘Not, God forgive me, that I grudge your father his last days, but it’s a shame to lose the chance. Ah well, it’s only one summer.’

Vera looked at her. She was so strong and young. One summer more or less would indeed matter little to her. Unable to bear her secret any longer, she blurted it out. ‘I may not be going out at all.’

But Rita missed her meaning. ‘Oh, is he coming back?’ she asked ‘I can well believe it. I know lots of people who didn’t like it out there. Still, it’s a pity you didn’t have the trip. Ah well! Maybe you didn’t miss much. You might have ended up with two winters in the one year.’ Uncontrollably she yawned. ‘Oh, I’m jaded,’ she said. ‘I was at a dance last night. Late hours flatten me.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’d better be off.’

In the days that followed it became clear to Vera that her father was dying at last. His world was shrinking smaller and smaller. In the beginning of his illness, when there was a noise downstairs, or in the yard, he’d sometimes ask them not to slam doors, or let things fall, but after a time when there was a noise he’d only look startled, and his eyes would dilate as if with fear. Soon sudden sounds in the sick-room gave him a violent start. His world had narrowed down to the bed on which he lay and his face seemed to wear an habitual look of surprise. At first Vera thought it was that he could not believe the pass to which he had been brought, but slowly she came to realise that it was the old life of health and normality in which he could not believe. When a light went on he was surprised. When Lily brought his tray he was surprised, and he was surprised again when she came to take it away. And once when Vera herself went into his room he seemed to find her presence so startling she had to protest.

‘Where did you think I was, Father?’ she cried. Was it possible that deep down in his heart he did not trust in the finality of her break with Alan? Did he think she had deserted him after all? In that moment she made up her mind to tell him the truth. And so one day while the old nurse was taking a nap she sat down on the side of his bed. ‘There is something I never told you, Father,’ she said quietly. ‘Alan has gone out of my life for good.’

Weak as he was, he was able to hide his reaction. ‘What matter,’ he said dully.

Stung by the apparently indifferent words, she was about to move away when she was struck by the depths of pity in his eyes. It was not a rage of pity, like long ago, it was a pity that embraced them both. And he did not need to explain it. She knew he was asking himself what anything mattered when all came to this in the end.

Then he took her hand. ‘What does your mother’s loss matter now to me?’ he said sadly. ‘Some day it will be the same with you.’ It seemed a strange and unreal analogy, this analogy between her and her dead mother. And yet it was valid she supposed. A silence fell as they pondered their separate aspects of the same thought. Then he spoke again. ‘Vera, do you think there’s a meeting in the next life?’ he asked suddenly.

‘I don’t know, Father,’ she said, confused. Not for years had she given the matter thought.

‘Because I don’t,’ he said vehemently. ‘When they dig the black hole and put you down in it that’s the end of you.’

‘Oh no!’ Vera’s heart cried out against the thought of facing into that nothingness, that nowhere. ‘Of course there is a hereafter,’ she cried. ‘Otherwise what would be the meaning of love?’

Weak tears came into his eyes. ‘Do you really believe that, Vera?’ he said.

Partly lying and, like himself, partly wanting to believe it, she nodded.

He closed his eyes. ‘It would make up for everything,’ he added, almost under his breath. Then he opened his eyes wide. ‘Just to see her. Just to see her again is all I’d ask.’

Vera’s own eyes widened. ‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Your mother,’ he said, and he looked surprised. ‘Who else?’