‘My God,’ he cried. His voice was harsh and loud.

I opened my eyes. ‘Sssh. People will hear you. Whatever’s the matter?’

His face wore an incensed, cheated expression, lips tightening. ‘You know exactly what you’re doing! You’re not a virgin are you?’

Half stunned, I looked into his livid face. ‘No.’

He turned abruptly and limped towards the window. ‘You’ve made a proper fool of me. I should have seen it that day in the garden. You’d have had all your clothes off if I’d let you. I might have known – just like her.’ There was a bitter conviction in his voice.

‘Who?’ I was bewildered. I folded my arms across my goosepimpled breasts, shivering now from the cold.

‘My dear sweet mother.’ He was silent for a moment, then spoke very fast, his back to me.

‘Go with anything she would. Almost, anyway. D’you really think she was faithful to my exhumed mummy of a father? There were a number of them on and off as I grew up. After all, she was lovely, wasn’t she? Sympathy and intimacy were what she wanted. And the young men with their tight skin and vigorous bodies wanted her for her hips and breasts, those eyes, for the sparkling life she gave off. And they made her laugh and stay young. I had to lie for her sometimes and I found out how easily it comes. He always knew, of course. But they didn’t stop needing each other. That’s the power they’ve always had over one another – the dependence – each afraid of losing the other’s love. The more he withdrew, the harder she tried for him. It was poison – the house was full of unspoken rage all the time. And I moved between them like a symbol of their warped marriage.’ His voice began to break up. ‘She doesn’t know who she is. She’s a child, a butterfly, a whore . . .’ He controlled himself. I stood waiting, frozen.

‘You went with . . .?’

‘Angus. Yes.’

‘I thought your relationship with him was innocent.’ He seemed to force out the words.

‘Douglas – ’ I went closer to him, finding it unbearable talking in this distant way. ‘You didn’t ask. It’s not something I could just come out with easily. I loved Angus. And of course, the war . . . We lived from day to day. Every time he came home on leave we knew we might never see each other again. And the last time we happened to be right. If it hadn’t been for the war it would have been different.’

‘You’d be married to him, wouldn’t you?’ Douglas asked miserably.

‘Most likely.’ I kept my voice gentle. ‘But there’s no point in thinking like that. Angus is dead, Douglas. It’s you I’m married to. You can’t go through our marriage being jealous of a ghost. It’s absurd.’

‘A woman should be a virgin on her wedding night,’ he said peevishly. ‘It’s what a man expects.’