Thirty minutes later, before he had even put his key in the lock, the door opened.

She was wearing a turquoise dress that clung too tightly to her slightly plump, sturdy figure to be elegant, but which he found erotically arousing. Her dark-blonde hair, usually a mass of untidy curls, had been brushed into gleaming submission. The grey-blue of her eyes had been defined by eye shadow and her full wide mouth was shiny with pink lipstick. Usually she was careless about her appearance, nearly always having a pencil tucked behind her ear, or ink marks on her hands. Tonight there were no signs of either. Tonight Nancy had made an effort and his heart hurt with love.

Behind her, lamps glowed softly. A bottle of Schwartz—riesling and two crystal glasses stood on a low glass-topped table and on the gramophone Bing Crosby was singing ‘Try a Little Tenderness’.

He put his briefcase down, allowed the door to swing shut behind him and said simply, ‘I’m sorry, Liebchen.’

Even though she knew he wasn’t saying sorry for his political opinions, only for the way he had expressed them and then, having done so, for not having put things right between the two of them, she gave a cry that sounded as if it had been torn from her heart and threw herself into his arms.

His arms closed around her, strong and hard. He didn’t attempt to take her into the bedroom; didn’t even attempt to cross the few feet to the sofa. Instead, with passionate urgency, he swung her round so that her back was against the door and then, as she moaned with need, pressing her face into his neck and knotting her fingers tightly in his hair, he slid his hands high above her stocking tops and, seconds later, in an orgasm of explosive intensity, took her where she stood.

For a long time afterwards they simply clung together, weak-kneed and trembling, and then, hearts still hammering, they collapsed on the sofa, their arms still entwined.

‘I think,’ she said at last, unsteadily, ‘that I would like a glass of wine.’

‘I think,’ he said, looking down at her with unfettered pleasure, ‘that that is a very good idea.’

Gently he disentangled himself from her, reaching for the bottle on the near by table.

She lay back against the sofa’s many cushions, watching him, taking infinite pleasure in the hard, exciting line of his cheek, the slightly arrogant, sculpted mouth, his silkily straight, well-cut blond hair.

He poured the wine. The crystal glass sparkled with a myriad of tiny flashing lights as he handed it to her.

‘Happy?’ he asked.

She nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she assessed the damage done. The shoulder of his immaculately cut dark-blue business suit was covered in make-up. The silk French knickers that had been one of his many presents to her the previous Christmas, were torn beyond repair.

Fleetingly, she wondered if now was the moment to broach her suggestions for the future—a future that did not include the House of Remer steelworks and factories.