“I’ve been walking off my bad temper.” I went over to the cock­tail cabinet. I had scarcely touched the drink Norah had given me; but I needed one now. Looking at Susan’s face, so pale in contrast to Norah’s, so childishly delighted at the tea and lemon and biscuits, I felt again unreasonably guilty. I sat down at the foot of the sofa.

“You’ll be wet,” Susan said.

I took off my shoes. “I called at the Great Western. But I still felt bloody minded so I walked up Gilden Lane and back through the park.”

“We won’t have them here if you really can’t bear it,” she said.

“It’s no use dodging it,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and you’re right. She certainly will suspect something if we keep on avoiding them. But if we just see them occasionally, there’ll be nothing to start her busy little brain working . . .” I yawned. “We’ll think of something.”

“Joe, come here.”

“What, darling?”

“Joe, I’ve been very silly. I’ve hurt you very much. But I’ll make it up to you. I swear I will.”

“Don’t think about it now,” I said. “The first ten years are the worst. I’m not blameless, you know.”

“Kiss me,” she said.

Her hands round my neck were very hot.

“You know why I was so horrid,” she said. “It would have to happen today.”

I felt vaguely embarrassed. “I should have remembered,” I said.

“You don’t expect a man to understand.”

“I’ll try harder,” I said.

“Joe, just be kind, that’s all. I don’t care even if you don’t under­stand, as long as you’re kind.”

“I’ll be kind, darling.”

“We’ll have a good holiday, won’t we? I wasn’t looking for­ward to it at all, but I am now.”

“I feel the same,” I said. “But I’ve got over the bitterness now, honestly I have.”

She tightened her grip around my neck, clinging to me like a child, clinging to me as Barbara would often cling to me. I looked longingly at my glass of whisky out of reach on top of the cocktail cabinet. It wasn’t true: I hadn’t got over my bitterness and never would. But now there was something to sustain me over the next four weeks; now there was something to look back at and forward to: I had begun to avenge myself.

“I’m tired,” Susan said. “I’m so tired, Joety.”

I thought of Norah, whose body even when quite still after love, the arms and legs spread out wide, held down as if by nails, still exuded an almost blustering well-being.

“You’ll be better after the holidays,” I said. “We both need a holiday.”

I kissed her again.

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