We went there the week afterwards, too, though on a different day of the week, and I offended him on this occasion, I remember, by asking him what he had come to Hereford for in the first place.

“What do you mean?” he said indignantly. “I think it’s a perfectly useful thing to be doing, don’t you, opening a theatre here? Didn’t you read what I wrote in Dramatic Events?”

I assured him that I had read it and thought highly of his concern for the cultural life of the provinces, but could hardly believe that he was naive enough to believe that his good influence would endure after his departure.

“Tell me why you think I came,” he then said, so I told him: I said that the only explanation I could find was that he wanted a rest from the West End, that he wanted to be a big fish in a small pond and to relax for a few months in the heady atmosphere of artistic gratitude. He was justifiably annoyed, and said crossly:

“If you really want to know why I came, it’s because I used to like it round here so much when I was a boy, I’m old enough now to spend six months in the country for pure sentiment and old time’s sake.”

We went there the next week, too. Our liaison took on a certain regularity, and I grew used to telling lies to David and Pascal. But although it took on regularity, it did not exactly progress, or not in the one way that one might expect. The reluctance was wholly on my side, though there must have been something on his to make him put up with me: I simply could not bring myself to do it. Kissing I did not mind: in fact, I soon discovered that anything above the waist, so to speak, I did not mind, but anything below was out of the question, and after a few assays we reached a temporary truce. We were restrained, of course, by the secrecy involved: we could not meet during the daytime, and in the evenings we had to clear out of a ten-mile radius for fear of meeting people we knew. We did a good deal of driving round the countryside, but the car, though comfortable, was not all that comfortable. It soon became clear that Wyndham’s aunt’s house had been something in the way of a missed opportunity, but he had not had the keys and the grass had been wet.