She lay looking at the ceiling, his face pressed to hers, loving him, yet feeling a little empty and thinking: I am not a virgin any more.

Sixteen

Does my face look different? Katie wondered several times over the next few days. Her mother didn’t seem to have noticed anything. But she asked herself again on the Monday morning when she went into work. She and Simon had come to an arrangement now. She thought he enjoyed the secretive nature of their relationship.

‘I’m sorry I can’t pay you any attention like this in the office, Squeak,’ he said, soon after they were together.

Their lovemaking had made everything more intimate between them. Katie felt, in a heady way, quite equal to him now. And this development had meant they were focused on each other physically, so that she could push away her doubts about how much they had in common, and how sometimes she could find her mind wandering when he was telling her things and how he didn’t seem to listen properly when she was talking to him. Without difficulty that all slid to the side of her mind, now that she had begun to satisfy him in the bedroom. It felt dangerous and romantic, but at the same time they were more relaxed together and had soon chosen nicknames for each other. To her now, he was Big Bear.

‘But it wouldn’t be right, would it? Mixing work and play – and the Old Man’d play hell over it.’

‘I know,’ Katie said. ‘But you don’t have to be so cold. It makes me feel dreadful when I’m there all day and you never even look at me. Just give me a smile or a quick wink, and I’ll know everything’s all right.’

He promised he would, and from then on things had been better. It was rather fun, outwitting Mr Graham – not, as Simon said, that he gave a monkey’s really – and more especially Mrs Crosby, whom they had nicknamed ‘Misery-Guts’.

‘She really could curdle milk with that face,’ Simon said one afternoon as they lay together.

He laughed wholeheartedly when Katie began on one of her imitations of Mrs Crosby’s resentful tones. ‘Yes, Mr Collinge – only my ribbon’s wearing terribly thin. Yes, Mr Collinge.’ Frown, sniff, toss of head . . .

Katie loved being able to make him laugh. ‘I suppose she misses her husband and resents anyone else being happy.’

‘Well, good ruddy luck to him,’ Simon said. ‘I mean, we’ve all got our problems, but at least he’s still alive – not like some. I mean, Gloria in accounts lost her sister in the bombing, but she still manages to put a smile on her face.’

‘I think she must just be like that.’ Katie laughed at his impatience.

‘Don’t let’s worry about her.’ He laid an arm lazily round her shoulders and pulled her close. ‘She’s not important. She’s only a bloody little typist. Now, where d’you want to . . . ?’