That girl’s behavior shocked them very much, the one whose parents let her and her boyfriend share a bed. Mum and Dad had been young in the sixties and we were always being told that those were the days, that was the time of license and promiscuity, the sexual revolution. If it was, it had passed them by. Or they had put it behind them and forgotten. Also I’ve noticed that behavior which was all right for a parent in his or her youth won’t be permitted in their children. What’s sauce for the goose and gander isn’t sauce for the gosling. When I did tell them about Daniel and me, that we had loved each other and been lovers, it was after he was dead and I don’t think they believed me. They thought it was all right to disbelieve everything I said because I was an irresponsible person. But we did love each other. We were as much in love as they had been when first they married. They said our love wouldn’t have lasted and probably it wouldn’t have. Had theirs lasted? I saw no sign of it. But what do I know except that I sent him to his death?

I did. It’s not much use saying I didn’t mean to. I could read those black words printed on that yellow notice: DANGER OF DEATH. I’d climbed every pylon in that field—and stopped before I reached the lowest arm that carried the conductors. So why did I? Because I loved him. Because he loved me and wanted me to admire him even more than I did. Spiderwoman, he called me. When he watched me climb he’d call out, “I love you a lot, Spiderwoman.”

This is how I began that piece I wrote about it:

Marching across the field in which Daniel and Clodagh lay, striding in couples, the pylon line carried its heavy burden of black cables. It crossed the bright green-and-dun-coloredland, the little river with its double fringe of alders, mounted the other side where a cluster of white houses nestled and a white road wound and disappeared over the brow of the hill . . .

It won’t do, will it? There is too much of the promising sixth-form essay about it. Maybe it was good enough for a therapist but it’s not good enough for me now and it’s not good enough for you. I suppose I was hiding what I really felt, my pain and remorse, under those descriptions of green meadows and nestling houses. Reality was different. Here goes, then.