She had drunk five gins that Iain had bought her, and when the pub closed, she went with him back to the ugly unpretentious flat, and in the unlaundered bed, for which he apologized, made love. She had experienced, in Iain's arms, an orgasm so volcanic, she screamed. And afterward she cried, told him she had been wrong, and went back to Richard's fudge house.

Since then, they had made love, Iain and she, only three times. Snatched mornings, an afternoon, when sup-posedry she was shopping in her incompetent, unlike-Richard's-mother way.

She had always been afraid Richard would hurt Iain.

Iain, begging her to leave Richard, had said that he would like Richard to try. He would like to give Richard back some of what he had doled out to her.

But she was so terrified of violence by then she could not face their confrontation. To her Richard was like some enormous overpowering force. Nothing could withstand it.

Sadism had become a custom. It was not that she liked it. It was only that now it ran in her blood.

Then came the evening that she had been arguing with Iain, in the room behind the bar, about how she could not leave Richard, must try to make a go of it. And she had thought, misinterpreting some gesture, Iain was about to hit her. And she had cowered.

Iain had gone mad. He had yelled so loudly at her that Danny had come around and ordered him out.

"If you think that's what I'm like, like him, that cretin—we're finished. That's it. So long, Linda. Thanks for all the rotten times."

After that, although she had cried a great deal on her own, locked in the bathroom with the taps turned on to hide the sounds, Linda Reeves had tried extra hard to be for Richard what he seemed to need.

But, of course, Richard only needed her mistakes, so he could punish her.

Truly, she knew. And as they walked back from the cemetery together, she had been saying to herself, Oh God, what am I doing? Oh God, how can I get away?

Then that strange little black-haired girl had knocked on the door, wanting—who was it?—a Mrs. Watkins?

And Linda did not dare to ask her in, although really she would have liked to. Someone new, a cup of tea and a chat. She might have been able to help, they could have tried the directories, maybe found the right house. Such a pretty girl, in a wild, unusual way, like a young ballerina. She would have been interesting.

But then the girl went and Linda swore at Richard. Swore at him—for God's sake, had she not remembered how he was about swearing, or "blasphemy"—and he had come down and he had laid into her.

It was a terrible beating, but not the worst he had given her. She had been in hospital once.