The first year was good, the second year better. The only time I thought I might fail was the winter of ’46 to ’47, that January and February when all the potatoes in England froze in their storehouses and could not be eaten. That nearly finished me. I swear, I couldn’t have done it if I’d been any older . . .

Oh—I forgot to include my great realization. What an idiot I am. This happened right at the beginning. One morning, in the week before James was formally welcomed into his curacy, I went upstairs to find a tall black pillar in the bedroom. I shrieked and ran back down and hid in the larder. James came and stood outside the door saying, “Yvette, please come out. Please, darling.” Finally I dared to open the door.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had no warning . . .”

“I should have said.”

“Take it off. I can’t look at you while you’re wearing it.”

“You can.”

“No.”

“Darling, listen. I’m the same man.”

I came out. A priest in a black soutane was sitting in my kitchen. I put my hands over my eyes. He started laughing.

“Yvette, if you can’t bear to look at me in clerical dress . . . well, it could pose a problem.”

I came to stand behind him, where I could see him but he couldn’t see me, which for some reason was easier.

“I’ve thought about everything,” I said. “You know that. It was just the sight of you in your, in your . . .”

“Cassock.”

“Cassock. Of course.” I had learned all the new words, but in the heat of the moment they had gone.

His head was slightly bent, his hair short—freshly barbered for his entrance into the church. The seam of the cassock was so straight along his shoulders. The collar was shaped in a gentle curve around the back of his neck.