'I was just telling Hilary we saw him skrimshanking yesterday.'

'I say, have you heard? Mrs Frederickson has had triplets!'

'No!'

'She took that ghastly fertility drug.'

I settled back, pretending to work. I pretended all morning.

I decided to go early to lunch and take a long lunch hour, in spite of the witticisms which this would provoke in the Room. Walking was therapeutic. I thought I might walk as far as north Soho and have a sandwich in one of the Charlotte Street pubs, where I used to get drunk when I was younger.

I slipped out and donned overcoat and cap and made for the stairs. I hesitated. Was the lift safer? But suppose I were to be caught in the lift with Gunnar? Was he in the office today? I decided to brave the stairs. I went on down. I had almost reached the ground floor when a woman who had just entered from the street crossed the hall quickly and began to hurry up the stairs. She was not an office person, not anyone I knew. She was smartly dressed. That degree of smartness in the office was unusual. She was dark, wearing a fur hat and an expensive-looking fur coat, caught in to a slim waist with a metal belt, and a bright silky scarf. I took all this in. She passed me with a whiff of perfume and disappeared onto the landing.

I stopped. I turned. I felt an immediate certainty but had to test it. I padded back up the stairs. Templar-Spence's room, and so presumably Gunnar's, was on the first floor, the piano nobile, a little way from the stairhead. I reached the top of the flight and came out onto the wide carpeted landing. The woman in the fur coat was standing at the door of Gunnar's room with her hand upon the handle, and looking back. I stood there for a second and she looked straight at me. She not only knew that I had turned and followed her. She knew who I was.

I receded quickly. I almost ran from the building. I told myself again and again that I must be mistaken. I must be mistaken. That look had, in the second it had lasted, seemed a look of recognition. And yet it was absolutely impossible that she should know who I was. This was persecution mania, the old sickness that I feared so. I walked and walked. I found myself at the foot of the Post Office tower. I drank whisky in several bars. I could not eat anything. I considered not returning to the office. I came back about three. I had to hold onto order and routine. I must stay at my desk. I must try to do my work. I must not start wandering round London all day.

'I say, Hilo, three hours for lunch isn't bad!'

'Hilary looks as if he's had one or two.'

'Hilary, Hilaree - '

I settled down again to pretending to work. I even read a new case through twice, without understanding anything. One of the Registry girls, Jenny Searle, brought the tea in, as Skinker had the 'flu. She asked me if I was feeling all right. Arthur brought in a pile of stuff. He too looked at me anxiously. He did not dare to touch me, but he put his hand down on top of the papers in a gesture which by some mystery of human sign language conveyed sympathy.

I could still smell Lady Kitty's perfume, as if some of it must have got onto my clothes as she passed me. I tried to picture her face but could only vaguely conjure up dark hair, dark eyes. Dark blue eyes? Dark brown eyes? I had by now firmly decided that what I had believed must be false. She could not possibly have known who I was. She perhaps sensed that someone had come back up the stairs after her, some curious impertinent clerk. She may not even have noticed me coming down. She had nothing to do with the matter. Though it now occurred to me that I had never reflected about how Gunnar must have told his second wife how his first wife died. In fact I could not bear to imagine Gunnar talking, Gunnar thinking, Gunnar conscious, and I tried to cloud the whole subject over in my mind.

It was already dark. My head was aching from the whisky. I was drawing intersecting circles on my blotting pad and listening idly to the interminable chatter of Reggie and Mrs Witcher. How long would it be before the whole office knew of what I had done? Would it get around in the end? There is such a terrible difference between a secret disgrace and a public one.

I heard Gunnar's name and started to listen more carefully. Now Mrs Witcher was talking about Lady Kitty. 'She's the daughter of some sort of little Irish lord.'

'I thought she was Jewish, sort of banker's family?'

'That's the mother's side, she's half Jewish.'

'Lots of lolly there I imagine.'

'Oh yes, and lots of style. You know, she's got a lady's maid, and not just a lady's maid, but a black lady's maid!'

'A negress with a turban? What fun.'

'No, Indian, I think, but something blackish. Of course she and Jopling have been all round the world. What, Hilary, off again? It's like living with a jack-in-the-box.'

I got out of the door and eventually out of the building. I turned up my coat collar against the damp cutting wind and began to walk randomly along Whitehall. A black lady's maid. Biscuit.

I was with Arthur as usual, since it was Tuesday. We had eaten cold tongue and instant potato and peas and cheese and biscuits and bananas. At least Arthur had and I had feigned to.

I had had a lot of thoughts since leaving the office. One was that I must do everything in order as I had always done. I must go regularly to work. I must keep to my 'days'. I must not become a madman walking about London and living on the tube. I had also given some rather cloudy and desperate consideration to the question of Biscuit. Was it conceivable that Biscuit was Lady Kitty's maid and that she had been sent to report on me? I decided to decide that it was impossible; I had enough troubles without envisaging anything as weird and nightmarish as that: so I terminated these reflections by an act of will. Another more immediate thing was that I must get through the evening with Arthur in as dignified and rational a way as possible, preserving what was left of my authority and status. My relations with Arthur must not break down into overt hostility or emotional chaos.

'What do you think of the wine, Arthur?'

'What?'

'What do you think of the wine?'

'Oh, fine, yes, fine.'

'It's just cheap stuff, of course, but these little blended French wines are quite good if you let them breathe a little.'

'It's - yes - it's not the stuff we drink at Crystal's, is it?'

'No, that's Spanish.'

'Hilary, would you mind if we fixed the day?'

'What day?'

'The day for Crystal and me - to get married.'

I looked at the firescreen representing the Empire State Building and at all the dust which had somehow managed to adhere to the vertical surface. 'When - ?'

'I've been to the registrar and - I hope you don't mind - it could be soonish - I mean in a - week or so - '

'In a week or so?'

I heard Clifford Larr's voice saying 'It won't happen'. Would Clifford keep his half promise not to interfere?

'Yes - I'd rather it was soon, if you don't mind - '

'Do you see much of Crystal now?' I said.

'No, no, I just go the usual times.'

Poor children. This was because of me. They were afraid to shift anything, to alter anything, without my permission. Yet after that final visit to the registry office 'in a week or so' the world would be utterly different. As Clifford had said, Crystal was my property, until she became Arthur's. Ought I not to set them free, to tell Arthur now that he should see Crystal more, that Crystal needed protection? What was Crystal doing now, while I was carousing with Arthur? Sitting at home alone. What indeed did Crystal do most of the time when I was busy with other matters? I did not think about that. Was I not even now hoping that Clifford would somehow make it impossible for her to marry Arthur? He could probably do so. He could probably do it by a single visit. So let Crystal be alone, let her wait. Oh how could Arthur torment me with this frightful decision when there were so many other things making ordinary life impossible!

'You don't want to get married in a church?'

'It takes longer and - '

'You are both in a fearful hurry.'

'No. I mean - '

'Don't fix anything yet,' I said. 'I'll talk to Crystal.'

For a second Arthur's face looked disappointed, vexed, almost sulky. 'All right.'

There was a silence, Arthur picking moodily at his moustache, then cleaning his glasses carefully upon the tablecloth, I crumbling up pieces of cheese and strewing them about.

He said, 'Do you mind if I talk about that other business?'

'What other business?'

'Jopling.'

'Oh that. If you want to. I rather thought we'd finished it.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Nothing.'

'What did you do then - I mean after you came out of hospital - did you write to him or anything?'

'No.'

'You did nothing at all to - ?'

'Of course not. When you've done something like that there's nothing more to be said.'

'I don't think I agree,' said Arthur. Perhaps the sulkiness was making him uppish. 'I think you could have written to him. I would have done.'

'My dear Gunnar, I really must apologize - '

'Just in order to continue the connection, to make some sorting out or reconciling or something - possible.'

'Use your imagination, for Christ's sake! "Continuing the connection" was just what was absolutely out of the question! One must have some decency and sense.'

'And now, I think you should go to him - '

'Go to him?'

'And say - here I am, after all these years, and I'd like you to know how sorry I am - or something like that - '

' "Here I am after all these years" - he'd be pleased, wouldn't he!'

'Well, he might be,' said Arthur. 'After all you aren't the only person who exists. He's been thinking about it too for twenty years. He might be glad to let you know - that he forgave you - '

'Your vocabulary is killing me. But suppose he hasn't forgiven me, suppose he wants to kill me?'

'It might do him good to find out that he didn't after all.'

'You make me want to throw up.'

'Sorry. I'm not explaining this very well. It's just that the only thing really worth doing here is something rather extreme, and it isn't just a thing between you and him, as if it were a fight, there's a background to it, I don't mean God or anything, but just our general sort of human thing, our sort of place - '

'So eloquent, so clear.'

'I mean sort of possibilities of reconciliation, general ones, like it's better to forgive than to hate. Even a few words between you could make a lot of difference - '

'Do stop drivelling, dear Arthur. Look, it's time I went home.'

'It's pouring with rain. Would you like my umbrella?'

'No.'

'You know what, Hilary. I think I saw Lady Kitty Jopling in the office today.'

'Really.'

'It must have been her, she was wearing a mink coat, at least I suppose it was mink. She was coming down the stairs, we nearly collided. And my God, perfume, talk about pong!'

'Good night, Arthur.'

WEDNESDAY.

IT WAS Wednesday. The rain which had begun last night was continuing, descending in steady straight parallel lines, a curtain of darkness upon darkness, as the minutes dragged on towards lunch time. At about ten o'clock Tommy rang up. She started asking if she could see me that evening. I put the telephone down without replying. I tried to do some work and actually succeeded. The sheer passage of time since the news of Gunnar's return into my life had done a tiny bit of good. I had now survived for a week. Nothing awful had happened though some pretty odd things had. I was safe in my corner doing my job. It had become clear that it would be idiotic to leave. I would manage somehow if I just lay low and kept to my routine. The idea that Biscuit was Lady Kitty's maid had already begun to seem unreal, the fantasy of a persecuted mind. There was no evidence for this. Biscuit might be anybody. She might be and doubtless was just an idle whore who picked on solitary men hoping to get money out of them. She probably lived nearby. Lots of whores did. And as for Lady Kitty herself, I would in all probability never see her again. Wives were not encouraged to frequent government offices. And as this source of worry eased slightly I began to think more about Crystal. I decided I would, just for once, go and see her this evening; and if I were perfectly satisfied that she really did want to marry Arthur I ought to stop procrastinating. Oh God.

At this point in my reflections Tommy walked in. Or rather she burst in or flew in. There was a dark flurry and Tommy, in a very wet mackintosh, was leaning over my desk and scattering water all over my papers. She had pulled off her hat and her hair was hanging down her neck in thick wet tails like heavy dead snakes. The medusa effect was enhanced by the crude neon lighting, which showed her pitted face red and vivid, excited, wet with rain.

I was instantly rigid and nearly incoherent with anger. I spoke in a quiet biting voice just above a whisper. 'I told you never to do this, never.'

'You wouldn't speak to me on the 'phone, you hung up on me - ' Tommy's voice was a good deal less quiet.

'This is going to be good,' said Mrs Witcher.

'Get out. Go on. Get out.'

'No. I want to talk to you. I want to tell you something. I'll go if you'll come too.'

'Go. Go.'

'Do you want me to start screaming?'

I got up and walked quickly to the door, aware of the delighted faces of Reggie and Edith Witcher.

I started to walk down the stairs. Tommy walked beside me. 'I told you never to come to the office. I cannot and will not have scenes like this in the room where I work.'

'I'm fed up with your hanging up on me every time I ring.'

'I told you not to ring.'