They spoke every Thursday, six o’clock. There was a shared telephone where he lived, tucked beneath the stairs in a makeshift booth, and he sat on the bottom step waiting for her call, poised to answer at the first trill of the bell. She always called from the same telephone box and he imagined her standing at the other end, holding the receiver to her ear with one hand, twisting the flex with the other. She’d lean against the glass, leg outstretched so no one could open the door, wearing slacks and a jumper. Or perhaps her office clothes, a smart skirt and blouse. She fed in the pennies until her change ran out, and if there wasn’t a queue to use the phone, he’d ring her back straight away. He knew the number off by heart now.

He wished he could see her more often but she said her father insisted she stayed at home at the weekends. She didn’t talk about him, but John got the impression he was a bully. Or overprotective. She was, he learned, his only child. During the week they were both busy at work, but they met when they could, a squeezed hour here or there, CND meetings in St Pancras, the big march on London at the end of the month. He longed to be alone with her, to wait for the moment when he could invite her home, to his rooms.

The last time they’d met, John thought he’d test the waters, see how she felt about him.

‘The thing is, Betty…’ He took a deep breath, catching the words before they fled. ‘I like you.’ He had no thoughts, only a hurly-burly of desire. He had never been here before.

She looked away. ‘And yes…’

Sentences half opened, smiles half closed.

‘Do you have anyone else?’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘I’d have thought half the men in London would be wanting to go out with you.’

She laughed then.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. He saw a blush creep up her neck. She looked down, stared at her feet. He couldn’t work her out. She gave nothing away that could calm the anarchy rampaging in his soul.

That Thursday, he left the telephone booth, and was climbing the stairs to his flat when the phone rang again. He wasn’t expecting her to ring back, and his parents always wrote. His mother considered the telephone for emergencies only. John swallowed hard, his stomach tightening as he turned and leaped the last three steps to the ground. What if it was an emergency? A heart attack? His father drank too much and since he’d retired did little exercise, unless you counted nine holes once a fortnight before a liquid lunch. He grabbed the receiver.

‘Bloomsbury 5657.’

There was silence, although John could hear breathing.

‘Dad?’ he said. ‘Dad?’