They got into the habit of travelling on that bus together in the mornings, and sometimes she waved to him from her balcony. One evening they met by chance outside her office. She was carrying an armful of files to work on at home and confessed she wouldn’t have brought them if she had known how heavy they were. Of course he carried them for her all the way up to her flat and stayed for a drink. She said she was going to cook dinner and would he stay for that too? He stayed. While she was out in the kitchen he took his drink out on to the balcony. It gave him a strange feeling, imagining her coming out here in her despair at dawn, lowering herself from those railings, then losing her nerve, beneath her a great space with death at the bottom of it. When she came back into the room, he noticed afresh how slight and frail she was, how in need of protection.

The flat was neat and spotlessly clean. Most of the girls he knew lived in semi-squalor. Liberated, independent creatures, holding down men’s jobs, they scorned womanly skills as debasing. He had been carefully brought up by a houseproud mother and he liked a clean home. Lydia’s furniture was beautifully polished. He thought that if he were ever asked again he would remember to bring her flowers to go in those sparkling glass vases.

After dinner, an excellent, even elaborate meal, he said suddenly, the food and drink lowering his inhibitions:

‘Why did you do it?’

‘Try to kill myself?’ She spoke softly and evenly, as serenely as if he had asked why she changed her job. ‘I was engaged and he left me for someone else. There didn’t seem much to live for.’

‘Are you over that now?’

‘Oh, yes. I’m glad I didn’t succced. Or – should I say? – that you didn’t let me succeed.’

‘Don’t ever try that again, will you?’

‘No, why should I? What a question!’

He felt strangely happy that she had promised never to try that again. ‘You must come and have a meal with me,’ he said as he was leaving. ‘Let’s see. Not Monday. How about . . .?’

‘We don’t have to arrange it now, do we? We’ll see each other in the morning.’

She had a very sweet smile. He didn’t like aggressive, self-reliant women. Lydia never wore trousers or mini-dresses, but long flowing skirts, flower-patterned. When he put his hand under her elbow to shepherd her across the street, she clutched his arm and kept hold of it.

‘You choose for me’, she said when the menu was given to her in the restaurant.

She didn’t smoke or drink anything stronger than sweet white wine. She couldn’t drive a car. He wondered sometimes how she managed to hold down an exacting job, pay her rent, live alone. She was so exquisitely feminine, clinging and gentle. And he was flattered when because of the firm’s business he was unable to see her one night, tears appeared in her large grey eyes. That was the first night they hadn’t met for three weeks and he missed her so much he knew he must be in love with her.