No, of course I didn’t. But the idea was exquisite.

That night we made love.

I have described our bed episode in Aunt Monique’s flat in Cairo. That tender disaster was not repeated. On those cold nights after the war we went to bed early. There was a great deal to do, we found, before we went to sleep.

I should not complain about new James in bed. It is spoiled and unkind of me. I should be grateful that even then at his darkest time, James was trying in his own way to be close to me. But I cannot deny that the adjective that suited him most as a lover was . . .

Efficient.

So efficient, in fact, that he left me—how shall I put this—he left me feeling somewhat redundant. There were times I longed for Cairo, because we’d been closer then.

Actually, do you know what I missed most of all? I missed the touches of marriage. Living together as we did in a small house, we never seemed to be more than a couple of yards apart. When I was washing up, James would stroke my back in passing. I would put my arm across his shoulders if he called me to read a letter from Peter with him. He put his hands on my hips if I was tired going upstairs, giving me very gentle pushes. When we were out in the car, he used to take his hand from the gear stick and put it on my knee. Or I would put my hand on his knee. Or rest my head on his shoulder when we read in bed or listened to music in the parlor. I worried at first: I had been told about Englishmen, how they disliked being smothered. But, as with two countries after centuries of peace, the boundaries between us all but disappeared. We know, we who are lucky enough to experience this, that these touches are almost unconscious, as natural as any other movement; and when they are taken away, the body starves.

These days, when I reached out, new James suffered me to touch him, waited patiently until I had finished, and then moved away.

—

Anyway, we made love. Afterward I sat up against my pillows.

“James. You know when you held Catherine?”

His eyes darted toward me in the gloom of the bedroom.

“Yes?”

A low, cautious yes, but good enough. No prevarication or protest at the subject. I’d half expected him to say, Darling, you mustn’t dwell on these things.

“You didn’t . . . see any bit of her?”

“She was wrapped in a shawl.”

“It was a towel.”

“Well, then, you remember how it was.” He sat up too. “Can’t you love her without knowing what she looked like?”

He sounded slightly irritated. As if I might have a defect, an incapability.