Much the same thing happened in Andrew’s case. I think everyone, even the Crown Prosecution Service, was sorry for him because of what had happened to Alison, but he wasn’t allowed to keep Jason. I read in the paper recently that he had married a woman who already had two children, had sold his father’s house, and used the money to set himself up in a PR business. He is a tireless campaigner (as they say) for a change in the laws covering adoption. Journalists always follow up these stories, probably pursuing the protagonists until they die of old age. But no one pursued Jason. I don’t know what happened to him or where he is now. I hope he was adopted, or at least fostered, by people he could love as plainly as he loved Andrew and Alison and that he got a better chance than looked likely.

Silver and I were separated, that is, our parents separated us. I went home for a while to Suffolk. Things were different from what they had been after the pylon, for then everyone accused me of corrupting my boyfriend and leading him astray. This time Silver and I were accused of corrupting each other. I was a bad influence on him and he on me. Otherwise life in Suffolk was as bad as last time. My mother decided I was a lost soul, or almost lost, only to be redeemed by getting engaged to, working for, and ultimately marrying, Guy Wharton.

For he had reappeared, still faithful, still wanting me. Mum adored him. I felt quite sorry for her, so set on something she could never have, so absolutely doomed to disappointment. Dad wasn’t so keen. I once heard him describe Guy as “any port in a storm.” Silver phoned me, he wrote to me. I wasn’t told about the calls and I never got the letters. Mum used to go up our drive just before the time the one post a day came and collect the letters from the postman. Because we had no answering machine Silver couldn’t leave a message. The Silvermans were so determined no letter of mine should reach Silver that they had a redirection notice put on 15 Russia Road, forwarding all letters for him to their home in St. Albans, where he never went. Last year Jack told me, laughing, that he had had no compunction about forging Silver’s signature to get that notice. And by then I could laugh too.