“No reason at all,” he agreed. “Just say which you prefer.”

Jean imagined Mrs. Bowland stationed at the front room window, observing and judging, and her defiance faltered.

“Yours,” she said.

He nodded. “Mine, then.”

Only a faint yellow glow leaked from the curtained windows in Burdett Road. All was still.

“Everyone’s back in their hutches,” Howard whispered as he let them into the house.

Jean felt a momentary tremor of unease at this act of trespass, but then he switched the lamp on in the hallway and the feeling vanished with the darkness. He led her into the sitting room and turned on the gas fire, which emitted a bluish light and a high-pitched whine and sudden, dramatic heat. She had never seen this room before, with its armchairs and television set; as a guest, she had been ushered into the front parlor, upstairs to the workshop for a dress fitting or into the garden.

They kissed, for a long time, gently at first and then less so. Then Howard pulled away and, holding her face, said, “Will you stay tonight? I don’t think I can bear to take you back home.”

“In Gretchen’s bed?”

“No. In mine.”

She remembered the single divans with their matching bedspreads and the chilly chasm between them.

He mistook her hesitation and said, “Or here,” and before she could correct him, he dashed out of the room and upstairs. Moments later he reappeared dragging a quilted eiderdown and blanket, which he spread out in front of the gas fire.

“All right. Just here,” she said. “Now, kiss me again.”

He knelt down to undress her, his shaking hands fumbling over every button and zip and hook, until she was naked in front of him. Then he stopped and looked up at her with a troubled expression.

“I haven’t done this for seven years. Will you forgive me if it goes badly?”

Jean laughed, amazed at her own boldness in displaying her body while he was still fully clothed. It was the strangest feeling, placing herself in someone else’s power with complete confidence. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

“Well, I haven’t done it for longer than that. But it doesn’t matter, as long as we’re kind.”

And so even though they were unpracticed, they were kind and that made it all right. And afterward they lay for a long time pressed together, her head on his shoulder, his hand stroking her hip while the night deepened around them. There was no urgency to move apart; morning and work were a long way off.

Jean remembered how Frank could never lie still with her for one minute once the loving was over but would sit up, light a cigarette and start scrabbling for his clothes in one impatient movement. She’d thought it was something all men did.

“Are you tired?” Howard asked, kissing her hair. “You can sleep if you like.”

“No—I’m wide awake,” said Jean, not wanting to waste a moment of their time together in mere sleep.