We are too late for the train. Clive paces up and down on the platform, smoking. I take refuge in the waiting room. I settle myself on the hard wooden bench and look about me. I watch the hands of the clock on the wall opposite. I am eager to embark. I can hear Clive talking to the stationmaster. A man walks past the window and raises his hat, a tribute to my bridal dress. I feel vulnerable and suddenly afraid. I pick up my bag and take out my notebook and pen. The writing restores me. I am calm again. The loops of my letters spin the thread that connects me to you.

“Darling Billy.”

4

THERE IS A KNOCK ON THE DOOR. CLIVE PULLS THE sheet over our heads and puts his finger to his lips. I bite my cheek to stop myself from giggling. Clive curls a loop of my hair round his finger.

The door opens. We hear the tread of footsteps on the floorboards.

“In flagrante delicto!” It is Lytton. Clive groans.

“Confound it, can one not have an hour’s peace with one’s wife?”

“Ha! So you call upon the sanctity of marriage, do you? I, by contrast, prefer the honesty of feeling . . . Tell me, is there no chair in your boudoir that is not entirely filled with your clothes?”

Clive throws back the sheet and we see Lytton, displaying a pair of my knickers from the end of his cane. He bows to us, waving the garment like a flag.

“Sir. Madam. I trust your pleasure was replete.”

I lean my head on Clive’s shoulder and listen to the men tossing jokes backward and forward between then. My daring astounds me. I run my hand across Clive’s naked chest and think of the rigid codes of conduct that governed the past. My mind flits from Mother’s attempts to teach us self-denial to the endless afternoons of tea-table talk, where it was impossible to say what one thought. I have spent my life obeying other people’s orders and am only now breaking free. Under the sheet, I caress the responding hardness of Clive’s sex with unashamed abandon. Here, I can say and do what I like. I plot mauve and yellow curtains for our sitting room, determine to spurn Aunt Mary’s invitation. The edifices of convention have been razed to the ground. I will take my art to its limits.