2

‘I thought I might drop by.’

She’s wearing a black fur hat and a black wool coat, standing at the door, a parcel in her hand.

‘A man with a red moustache let me in downstairs.’

She holds up the parcel.

‘I’ve just been shopping.’

‘Come in,’ I say. I step aside.

In her other hand is a leather bag; it’s like a pouch, with a metal clasp.

‘It’s hard to find.’ She looks around. ‘But you’ve something of a view,’ she says.

She crosses to the window.

‘Isn’t that the village you can see from here?’

‘That’s right.’

‘With a pair of binoculars you could see the house.’

‘I’ve never tried.’

‘I’m sure you haven’t.’

She turns to smile.

‘I got your address, you know, from Bec.’

‘Does she know you’re here?’

She shakes her head.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘I’d like some tea.’

I go through to the kitchen: I can see her through the door examining the furniture, the chairs, the table.

‘Is the furniture yours?’

‘It was already here.’

‘Have you been here long?’

‘About two months.’

‘Do you like it here?’

‘Not really. No.’

She comes to the door.

‘Could I take this off?’

She unbuttons the coat.

She disappears, as she takes it off, around the door.

When she reappears the coat has gone. Her dress is dark, buttoned at the throat and wrists.

‘Can I help you with the tea?’

‘It’ll be all right.’

‘Has Leyland been in touch?’

‘Not yet.’

‘He talks of nothing else.’

‘I bet.’

She comes through to the kitchen.

The window looks down to the back of the house, to the tiny yard and, beyond that, the backs of the houses in the adjoining street. Above the roofs rears the blackened edifice of the cathedral spire, its tall, dog-toothed cone surmounted by a golden cockerel.

In the yard below a man in a white string vest and white shorts is exercising himself with a metal bar.

‘Was the man who let you in dressed like an athlete?’ I ask.

‘He was, now you mention it,’ she says.

‘With bright red hair.’

‘That’s right.’

‘You can see him here.’

She goes to the window, looking down.

‘That’s him,’ she says. She begins to smile. ‘Do you know who he is?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Haven’t you seen him before?’

‘Not dressed like that.’

She presses her head to the pane. She laughs.

‘Who else stays here, in any case?’ she says.

‘There’s a couple above. A couple below.’

‘They used to be family houses, I suppose,’ she says.

‘Though what they do,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve no idea.’

She goes back to the room; I follow her through.

‘Won’t you have some too?’

‘I’m recovering from a concoction I had at Wilcox’s,’ I tell her, ‘the other night.’

‘The Principal,’ she says. She laughs again.

‘He warned me off.’

She takes the cup as I lean across.

‘He thinks I might jeopardize the plans he has.’

‘For what?’

‘For improving the college with your husband’s cash.’

‘I didn’t know he’d had any money, then.’

‘He probably hasn’t.’

‘Sounds like another of Neville’s ideas,’ she says.

‘I shouldn’t tell Wilcox that,’ I say. ‘He’s built up a brand new school already.’

‘It must be something he said when he first took Bec.’

‘There’s nothing in it, I suppose,’ I ask.

‘With Neville,’ she says, ‘you can never tell.’

She crosses her legs.

‘Do you want a fag?’

‘That’s nice,’ she says. ‘I’ve come without.’

‘I’ve almost given it up,’ I say. ‘I have instant recoil, with Wilcox, whenever I get one out.’

‘Does he disapprove of smoking, too?’

‘Of almost everything,’ I say.

I hold the light.

‘So Wilcox invited you out,’ she says.

‘I paid for his petrol when his car ran dry; we shared a potato, a piece of cheese, of which he and his wife had the larger part, three apples and, between Wilcox and myself, a jug of toddy – comprised primarily of unsweetened lemon – and finally, to ward off the rigours of his unheated house, a distillation of fungi and the common woodland toadstool which I alone was privileged to imbibe …’

She begins to laugh: she holds her hands against her cheeks.

‘On top of which he showed me all his pictures. If you want an investment you’ve got a starter there. The latest looks about a century old.’

She shakes her head.

‘He’s quite worried about you, in any case,’ I tell her. ‘He thinks I might undermine his position vis-à-vis the college, not to mention your taste in pictures.’

‘I better be on my guard,’ she says.

She gets up from the chair.

‘It’s quite cosy up here. High above the world.’

‘And cold.’

She looks across.

‘Doesn’t the fire work?’

‘It’s supposed to be gas. The pressure’s so low it’ll hardly light.’

‘Have you told the landlord?’

‘It’s to do with the house. In a year or so they’ll pull it down.’

‘And all those concrete towers go up,’ she says.

She gazes out to the view below.

‘You can see the road across the heath. I’m sure those are the trees behind the house.’

She turns her head.

‘Do you mind me coming?’ She begins to laugh.

‘I don’t mind you coming at all,’ I say.

‘Do you have a bed?’

I gesture through.

‘Would you mind if I look?’

‘You can try it out, if you like,’ I say.

‘That I’m not sure of,’ she says and laughs.

‘The chance might not come again,’ I say.

‘Oh, it always comes. It’s just a question of convenience,’ she says.

‘It’s convenient to me: but then, I’m familiar with it, I suppose,’ I tell her.

She sits on the edge. She crosses her legs.

‘Well? Do I have to beg for encouragement?’ she says.

‘What I don’t like are the headaches,’ Lennox says. He leans back in the chair behind his desk. ‘They haven’t diminished during the last few weeks.’

‘Has she been X-rayed?’

‘It’s nothing organic,’ he says. ‘I’m sure of that.’

He fingers his nose. His hair is grey. His eyes are blue, his cheeks bright pink, thin-veined, half-bloated, red. By all accounts, at Christmas, he plays the part of Santa Claus, visiting the wards, giving out presents, singing carols with a choir of nurses, receiving visitors personally behind the snack-bar in the reception wing.

‘It’s more a symptom of stress,’ he says.

‘What sort of stress?’

‘She’s such a sensitive girl,’ he says.

It’s as if sensitivity, like diabetes, is invariably a nuisance in a case like this.

‘She takes so many things to heart. These wars she’s always on about. And famine. And as for women’s rights.’ He shakes his head.

I wait.

‘What’s the solution, then?’ I ask.

‘I thought a week-end at home, with you.’ He looks across. ‘We’ve changed her pills. The ones I can give you she shouldn’t keep herself. You could have them in your pocket or somewhere, normally, where she wouldn’t look.’

‘Isn’t it better to tell her where they are?’

‘I’ll leave that up to you.’

He picks his nose; his head, as a consequence of this action, turns slowly to one side.

His eyes, however, are gazing at the desk, at a set of papers across which is written not Yvonne’s name but that of someone else.

He looks across. ‘You could have her report back on Monday morning. If you have any trouble just give a ring; or if you get into difficulties,’ he says, ‘you could bring her back. The change, in any case, will do her good. What sort of house have you got?’

‘A flat.’

‘It’s where you were living before?’

I shake my head.

‘As long as there’s room to sleep,’ he says.

‘I’ll pick her up on Friday, then.’

‘I’ll tell them about the pills,’ he says.

As I go to the door he calls across.

‘It might be better if she didn’t go home. To her mother’s home, that is,’ he says.

I stand by the door and gaze across.

‘I’ll try and bear it in mind,’ I say.

‘And maybe next week we can see how she is.’

He doesn’t look up as I close the door.

There’s a row of other figures on the chairs outside. The nurse calls a name: a woman rises. Small, grey-haired, her head on her chest, she shuffles over towards the door.

‘If Doctor Lennox wants to see you again,’ she says, ‘he’ll let you know. Otherwise, for any information about a patient, you can ask downstairs.’

I go through the door to the corridor outside.

Steps lead down to the gleaming, glass-covered hall. There’s a man sitting there with his back to the wall. He doesn’t look up.

I go to the ward.

Yvonne is sitting in the dining-room, her hands in her lap, her head bowed. On the table beside her is a glass of milk.

She must have heard me in the corridor: as the door swings back she’s looking up, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. Evidently it’s the news of her release she’s been waiting for.

‘Did you see him, then?’

Her hands are clenched; the eyes, like those of a child, have opened wide.

‘He says you could come home for a week-end, then.’

‘Home?’

‘To the place I’ve got.’

‘For only two days.’

‘Three nights. There’s Friday, you see, as well.’

She lowers her head.

‘Don’t you fancy coming out?’

‘For only two days? It’s a sort of test.’

‘You could always walk out and never come back.’

‘They’d only have me certified,’ she says. ‘What’s the point if I haven’t been cured?’

A nurse in the kitchen is washing cups. Behind her head is a wooden rack: plates and pans are arranged in rows. A cloud of steam obscures her head.

‘Shall we go for a walk?’

‘I’m fed up of walking here,’ she says.

‘We could go in the lounge.’

‘They’re watching television there,’ she says.

She seems much better; clearer in her mind, depressed.

A small, white-haired woman, wearing what appears to be a sailor’s hat, has come into the room. She smiles at Yvonne then looks at me.

‘This is Peggy,’ Yvonne has said.

I shake her hand.

The woman’s face is round and red, the eyes light blue, and narrowed, shielded above and below by thick white lashes.

‘And how’s Yvonne today?’ she says.

‘I’m out for the week-end,’ Yvonne has said.

‘What did I tell you?’ the woman says. ‘If you’re good to them they’re good to you.’

‘Peggy’s been in six times,’ Yvonne has said.

‘Seven,’ the woman says. ‘This is my seventh,’ she adds to me.

‘She only lives across the road.’

‘My daughter lives across the road,’ the woman says. She looks at me. ‘They have such busy lives,’ she adds. ‘Her husband’s a greengrocer. They’ve to be up at five.’

The hat she wears has a shiny neb, with the crest of an anchor and a piece of rope embroidered in yellow and white above. Her dress is blue and patterned with flowers.

‘She’s always getting me into trouble,’ Yvonne has said.

‘Not me,’ the woman says. She turns aside.

‘She’s always tearing up notices,’ Yvonne has said. ‘And bits of paper.’

‘I don’t tear anything up,’ the woman says.

‘And puts them in my locker.’

‘Now, my dear, don’t exaggerate.’ The woman smiles.

‘Notices like, “No Entry”, “Don’t smoke in here”.’

‘They don’t allow smoking in some of the wards,’ the woman says. She looks at me. ‘I’ve seen them. They’re very good to us in here.’

‘And when she’s had her lunch she sometimes puts her plate inside my locker.’

‘Honestly, how you exaggerate.’ The woman smiles.

‘But she gives me cigarettes, as well.’

‘Oh, I don’t smoke much,’ the woman says.

‘And buys me cups of tea.’

‘I like to see people happy,’ the woman says.

‘She’s been in here six months.’

‘It’s nearer five.’

‘I thought it was six.’

‘By Christmas-time, I suppose it will. Be six months here, I mean,’ she says.

‘We’re just going for a walk,’ Yvonne has said.

‘Oh, I like going walks,’ the woman says.

‘I’m going with my husband,’ Yvonne has said.

She puts her arm in mine.

The nurse in the kitchen has raised her head: she lifts the window, smiling, then calls, ‘Mrs Kennedy: it’s time for your pill.’

‘I’ve had enough pills today,’ the woman says.

‘We’ll find something nice to go with it,’ the nurse has said.

‘It’s always something nice.’ She smiles. ‘They look after you here,’ she adds, ‘so well.’

We go out to the drive.

It’s cold. A wind blows the few surviving leaves along the ground. At one side of the drive a gardener clips a hedge; a man with a large head and protruding eyes is picking up the twigs.

‘My mother’s coming today.’

‘I know.’

‘She usually comes in time for tea.’

‘I rang up Lennox: it was the only time he had.’

‘He’s very busy.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘He works sixteen hours a day.’

‘He told you that?’

‘He told me it,’ she says, ‘the other day.’

‘He picks his nose.’

‘I’ve never noticed that.’

We’ve turned from the empty gates and are walking down the drive to the opposite end.

‘Aren’t you teaching today?’

I shake my head.

After some hesitation she takes my hand. Her beret, pulled down, obscures her eyes.

With her other hand, stooping, she pulls up the collar of her coat.

‘What made you ring him?’

‘I was tired of waiting.’

‘Was he mad that you came?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Other figures, like ghosts, move off beneath the trees.

‘I bet he was angry.’

‘I hope he was.’

She glances across.

‘Better some feeling,’ I say, ‘than none at all.’

‘He’s very concerned.’

‘I’m sure he is.’

‘It’s a rotten job.’ She gestures round. ‘This all day.’

‘For sixteen hours.’

‘He’s very kind.’

‘They always are.’

‘Don’t you believe he helps?’

‘I believe he tries.’

‘Peggy’s family, you know, have let her down.’

‘How’s that?’

‘They live down the road, but they never come. If she’d somewhere to go they’d let her out.’

‘Do you want her to live with you?’

Her hand, momentarily, has tightened in mine.

‘I thought that she might. She’s ever so good.’

‘Another lost cause.’

‘When they let me out.’

‘She’s seventy, or over.’

‘She’s sixty-four.’

‘Your mother won’t like it.’

‘I can’t see why not.’

‘She lives on her own.’

‘We could have them both.’

The trees to our right have been replaced by a shrubbery; to our left, beyond a hedge, the playing-field ends abruptly against the back-yards of a row of houses. Immediately ahead, the tarmac surface of the drive fades out into a clayey track. One side turns off towards a compost-heap. A man is standing there, with a fork, gazing back, abstractly, the way we’ve come.

‘I’ve to live with two old ladies, as well as support them both,’ I say.

‘They have a pension.’

‘Two weeks with them and you’ll be back inside.’

‘You think I would?’

She releases my hand.

‘If I don’t care for them,’ she says, ‘who would?’

‘They can care for themselves,’ I tell her.

‘They’re both too old.’

I wonder, in fact, if it isn’t her mother’s idea; though typical at one time of Yvonne, after her experience here she’d hardly think of it herself. It would be like taking a piece of the place back home.

‘Lennox isn’t keen on your mother,’ I say.

‘Why not?’ she says.

She seems alarmed.

‘He puts her in the same class,’ I tell her, ‘as Vietnam, China, the poor in India. And women who’ve been displaced throughout their lives by men.’

‘If no one dealt with the world’s suffering what point would there be in living?’ she says.

We’ve had this argument, it seems, before; on the night before she was admitted she’d lain in a chair, weeping, before her the photograph of a child half-starved to death in some West African village.

‘I deal with it,’ she says, ‘in the only way I can.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘With the individuals, Colin,’ she adds, ‘I can see around me.’

She’s begun to cry. There’s something frightening about her grief. It’s like someone looking in a mirror. ‘If I can weep: I must be real.’

The clayey track has petered out. It runs off to a grass embankment on either side. On top of the embankment is a wooden seat.

She climbs towards it, her legs thrust out, her hands pushed down, fiercely, into the pockets of her coat.

By the time I reach her the crying’s stopped.

‘What else did Lennox say?’

‘He thinks your concern is too abstracted.’

‘I can’t see anything abstract about my mother. Nor about Peggy, either,’ she says.

She sits on the bench.

‘They’re all lost causes. To do with things, in the end, you can’t affect.’

‘I can affect my mother. And Peggy too, if I had the chance.’

‘They’re things that are finished. You need something new.’

‘I had a new life. It never got born.’

‘You’ve a life of your own. You could start that as well.’

‘Why start a new life, when the old life’s as bad as it is?’

She holds her head.

‘I’ve a terrible headache,’ she says. ‘And I’ve just had a pill.’

We say nothing further. I sit by her side.

Below us the embankment runs down to a tall brick wall, old, buckled, streaked with salt. Beyond, a ploughed field runs off towards the river. The land’s been flooded the other side; stretches of water reflect the lightness of the sky. On a low knoll, across the river, the first buildings of the town begin.

‘I’m surprised he agreed to me going out.’

Her hands, clenched, she rests them in her lap.

‘It’s to get you away from Peggy. You feed off her, you know, not the other way about.’

‘I don’t feed off anyone,’ she says. ‘And she, I know, doesn’t feed off me.’

A train, on a low embankment across the river, lets out a two-tone wail.

I can see the carriages winding away across the valley; moments later comes their dull rumble as they cross a metal bridge.

‘You take refuge in these people,’ I tell her, ‘not they in you.’

‘I don’t take refuge in anyone,’ she says. She moves her hand. ‘What refuge have I ever had?’

‘You take refuge in ideas. In service, in selfishness; you take refuge, at times, in a place like this: abstract yourself from it, then feed yourself back into it, bit by bit.’

She holds her head.

‘My mother should be here quite soon.’

‘There’s another hour.’

‘She’s sometimes early. You can never tell.’

‘Do you want to come out at the week-end, then?’

‘If we’re going to quarrel, there’s not much point.’

‘I’ve said all I want to say,’ I tell her.

‘Peggy knows my mother, in any case,’ she says.

‘Forget her.’

‘How do you forget people’s loneliness?’ she says.

She looks across.

‘If I lived for myself I suppose I would.’

‘If you lived for yourself you wouldn’t be here.’

The wind, blowing freshly across the fields, tugs her coat. She holds up her head so that it blows across her face. There’s a degree of consciousness I’ve begun to like; she doesn’t mind feeling things, it seems.

‘I’ll come at seven.’

‘Seven?’

‘To take you home. I’ve to be at the college, you see, till then.’

I get up from the seat.

A man comes out at the end of the path; he pauses below us, rubs his hands, stares at his feet, then, bright-eyed, sets off back the way he’s come.

‘A woman got over the wall one night.’

She gestures off to the fields below.

‘She jumped in the river.’

‘Did they get her out?’

‘They found her next morning.’

She adds nothing else. Something of her earlier mood returns; a kind of aloofness, uncertain, discomposed.

‘Lennox doesn’t want you better.’

‘What does he want?’ she says.

‘To see you out. The symptoms gone, if nothing else.’

‘I suppose that’s as good as anything else.’

‘It’s what I’m counting on,’ I tell her.

‘If he says I can go, I’ll be content.’

‘You seem calmer today.’

‘I suppose I am.’

A flock of sea-gulls has risen from the flooded fields. They wheel in the wind, flung up, like bits of paper, drifting out across the river.

‘They let me in the kitchens the other day. Not the one in the ward; the one where they cook for the men,’ she says.

She strokes her thumb.

‘I baked a cake. You should see the ovens. There was room for ten.’

‘Have you been down again?’

She shakes her head.

‘They were busy the next time. I got in the way.’

It’s like waiting for a storm; beforehand, there’s the thrashing of trees, the crashing of branches, the groaning of timber: but the final holocaust you can’t imagine.

‘If I’d been a man I wouldn’t be like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘I wouldn’t care about anything,’ she says. ‘You can see them here. They’re different from the women. The men don’t care; they’re wrapped up in themselves. It’s their grief, it seems, or nothing. With the women, they’re always looking out. They care what some of the others feel.’

‘It can’t be true.’

‘But look at you. Whenever you’re threatened there’s no one else.’

‘You’re feeling better.’

‘I suppose I am.’

‘You know I’m right.’

‘You don’t know how to care.’

‘I care about you.’

‘But it’s caring about people you don’t have to care about that counts. Caring about me doesn’t cost you anything,’ she adds.

‘It costs me more than you imagine.’

‘Such as?’

‘I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for you.’

‘Here?’

‘At the college.’

‘What sort of freedom do you want?’

She holds her head.

‘You don’t have to sacrifice yourself,’ she says.

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, love,’ I add.

She’s silent for a while. Across the valley, where the houses begin, a cloud of smoke has risen from a factory chimney. Black, bulbous, it’s slowly torn to pieces by the wind, the thin, fraying fragments sweeping out across the river.

The sea-gulls, as if in answer, have drifted down, gliding back to the other side then re-alighting on the flooded fields.

‘Do you think Lennox picks his nose quite consciously, as an indication that he’s busy?’

‘What?’

‘You’ve never seen him do it, then?’

‘He’s always been very kind to me,’ she says.

‘In that sense, I suppose, I could be right. He didn’t want to see me, I suspect, at all. This week-end, I suppose, is to fob me off.’

‘We better get back.’

‘For what?’

‘My mother’s coming.’

She gets up from the seat.

‘I can’t see at times,’ she adds, ‘what we have in common. You want to break things all the time; I only want to put the bits together.’

‘Single-handed.’

‘I’d do it with other people, if they’d only let me.’

‘You’ll feel different if you have a child.’

‘I don’t want a child.’

The man who appeared at the end of the path a few moments before is pacing up and down at the side of the drive: he walks several steps in one direction, his head bowed, rubbing his hands, then, with something of a quicker momentum, still rubbing, hurries back the other way.

‘It’s a mockery.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Without charity,’ she says, ‘a life like this means nothing at all.’

‘Even with it,’ I say, ‘it doesn’t add up to much.’

‘It adds up to something.’

‘Solar oblivion, I suppose,’ I tell her.

She walks ahead; it’s as if, given this sudden incentive, she’s going to walk on to the open gates. Only, as we reach the turning to the house, I see her mother’s figure, tall, round-shouldered, standing in the porch.

‘There you are. They said you’d gone for a walk.’

Yvonne, seeing her, has given a kind of jerk: her head comes up sharply; almost involuntarily, it seems, she puts out her arms.

Her mother, her arms already out, comes down the steps.

‘I came up early, love. They told me you were out.’

Red-eyed, her face comes down, her lips pouting. Their two figures, for a moment, are held together, Yvonne’s head crouched against her mother’s arm.

‘I didn’t know Colin would be here.’

‘I just dropped by.’

‘It’s so good of you. I’d have come sooner, you know, if you’d only asked.’

‘Colin’s been to see Doctor Lennox,’ Yvonne has said.

‘Are you coming out?’

She shakes her head.

‘I can go for the week-end,’ she says. ‘That’s all.’

‘But that’s something, love. They must be confident if they’ll give you that.’

She takes her arm.

‘I’ve brought you some cakes and some chocolate, love.’

‘I’ve baked you a cake,’ Yvonne has said.

‘For me?’

‘I did it in the ovens here.’

‘You shouldn’t have bothered, love,’ she says.

‘Who else would have bothered?’ Yvonne has asked.

The glass doors, released, crash to behind.

‘You can come and have some of it at the week-end, then.’

‘I’ll look forward to that.’

‘You can stay at the house if you want, you know.’

‘We thought,’ I tell her, ‘we’d stay at the flat.’

‘The door’s always open,’ her mother says. ‘I keep the beds aired, in any case,’ she adds.

‘Then again,’ I tell her, ‘we could book in, I suppose, at some hotel.’

‘You don’t want to go to that expense,’ her mother says.

‘I’ll see you on Friday,’ I tell Yvonne.

‘Are you going, then?’

We’ve reached the hall; she’s looking back, her beret pushed up from her mother’s embrace.

‘I have to get back.’

‘It was so good of you to come,’ her mother says.

‘I’ll say good-bye.’ She leans across.

I kiss her cheek.

‘See you on Friday.’

‘I’ll see you, then.’

‘He’s so considerate,’ her mother says, taking her arm as I turn to leave.

When I reach the porch they’ve disappeared; then, as I step outside, I see their heads moving past the windows towards the ward. Immediately below, in the garden, the man with the large head and the protruding eyes, is picking up twigs beneath the hedge.

I walk down to the gate and don’t look back.

‘I like it here.’

She leans to the curtain and pulls it back; the cathedral spire, like some dark fissure in the sky, blocks out the space above her head.

‘I suppose you don’t mind, in any case,’ she says.

She looks across.

‘Me getting into trouble.’

‘Trouble and you,’ I say, ‘don’t go together.’

‘Neville’s coming home at the end of the week.’

‘He ought to have come home before,’ I tell her.

‘I mean: I can’t get away as easily as I could.’

‘You might ask him to be more reasonable,’ I say.

‘I know,’ she says. She begins to laugh. ‘It’s so cold up here, if you’re not in bed.’

Beside her clothes, on a chair by the bed, is the Jack Daniels she’s brought in a silver wrapper; beside the Jack Daniels stands an empty glass; beside the empty glass, her cigarettes and the square-shaped lighter she uses with her monogram on the side and a coloured crest.

The same crest forms the clasp on her pouch-shaped bag.

She stretches her arms above her head.

‘I’ll arrange it soon so I can stay a night.’

‘Don’t you think you’ll be cold?’

She shakes her head.

‘You could bring your own blanket. Or something,’ I tell her.

‘I suppose I could.’

‘Is the four-poster warm?’

‘You must give it a try.’

‘That’ll be the day.’

‘That will be the day, I suppose,’ she says.

She pulls back the sheet.

She gives a yawn; she covers her face then shakes her head.

‘I’d better go. I’ll be falling asleep.’

She rolls on her side. Her legs stretched out, she feels for her shoes.

Her figure is dainty; the breasts symmetrical, almost like a girl’s. There’s a faint colouring of the skin around her stomach, and faint, bluish blemishes on the inside of her thighs. She reminds me, for some reason, in her casualness perhaps, of the fair-haired model in the life room at the college.

‘I could close my eyes.’

‘It would look even worse.’

‘Don’t you mind me watching?’

She begins to laugh. She stoops to her clothes and pulls them on.

She dresses like an athlete at the end of a race, preoccupied, intent, her head stooped, her gestures minimal, restrained.

When she’s fastened the dress and pulled on her shoes she gets out a comb.

As always, forgetting, she looks for a glass.

‘What a primitive place this really is.’

She looks in her bag.

‘I remind myself to put one in. I always forget.’

‘Just comb it straight.’

‘I need to look.’

‘I’ll tell you how you are,’ I say.

She stands at the window a moment, gazing out.

‘If I line up on the cathedral,’ she says, ‘I can always see.’

She stoops to the reflection, straightens, then combs her hair.

‘There’s that man in the yard again,’ she says.

‘You could give him a wave.’

‘He saw me come in. That’s twice in one week.’

‘He’ll be getting ideas.’

‘He had those before.’

I kneel on the bed.

The man is stretched out, on his stomach, doing press-ups; the back of his neck is creased, reddened. For the first time I notice the thickness of his biceps. He’s dressed in shorts and a white string vest.

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Isn’t he ever at work?’

‘Ask him,’ I tell her, ‘when he opens the door.’

‘You could give me a key.’

‘I’ll have one made.’

She stoops to her reflection; she touches her hair around her cheeks. Then, shifting her head slightly from side to side, she paints her lips.

‘If I don’t go now I’m going to be late.’

‘Where are you going to, in any case?’ I say.

‘I’m picking up Beccie at the school,’ she says.

I begin to laugh.

‘I promised I’d pick her up,’ she adds.

‘That’s all right by me.’ I laugh again.

‘I could drop in on Wilcox, too,’ she says.

‘And tip him the wink.’

‘A tutor called Freestone …’

‘Isn’t toeing the line.’

The cathedral clock booms out above our heads.

‘I’d better be off.’

She crosses to the bed.

‘At night,’ she adds, ‘I dream of this.’

‘No need to take it seriously,’ I tell her.

‘I don’t take it seriously. I just dream of it,’ she says.

She kisses my lips.

‘Good-bye for now.’

She goes to the door.

‘I’ll buy you a mirror next week,’ she says.

The door is closed.

I get out of bed.

The tapping of her heels comes from the stairs outside.

I cross to the window. There’s a man in the street in a trilby hat. He wears a dark raincoat, looking up briefly as he passes the door, then glancing back, a moment later, as Elizabeth herself steps out. She doesn’t look up; glancing first up the street to where she’s parked the car, she sets off, after a moment’s hesitation, in the opposite direction.

She disappears beneath the window ledge; the street is empty. Odd lights have appeared in the valley bottom; I go back to bed, pick up the bottle, touch up the glass and, reaching for her lighter, flick up the flame and light a cigarette.