'Yes, of course, whatever - yes, yes, we must think and meet again - But Kitty, darling heart, you do see, don't you, that your two plans are incompatible? This piece of logic had only just that moment become clear to me.

'Incompatible?'

'Yes. We can't do both these things. Perhaps we can't do either, but we certainly can't do both.'

'Why?'

'Kitty, see it, think. If I were to become your lover, for whatever high and holy and Gunnar-directed a purpose, how could I then meet him as a friend? How could I come to your house, as you so charmingly envisage, if I had that secret under my belt? It would be impossible, I should detest myself and - no. If we are to meet all three together as friends, I cannot be your lover - and surely you didn't imagine this as any part of your first plan - no, no. But if I were to try to give you and Gunnar a child then I must vanish forever from your lives when the thing is done.'

Kitty looked away from me, looked down, shifted her boots around in the pool of melted snow which they had made upon the floor. The sun was still shining outside, we were still alone in the bright dim snow-lit cave within.

She said nothing. I felt that she was going to cry.

I said quickly, in an attempt to bring the craziness to our rescue, 'Of course, it would be a marvellous finale, wouldn't it? Like the end of Hassan.'

'Like what?'

'Never mind. But it does look as if, my dear dear love, you will have to choose, we will have to choose, between, well, everything for a short time and very little for a long time, whether to live dully or die gloriously. Not that I admit that either plan is feasible, I don't know what to think, I don't know what I want - Oh Christ, oh my dear, how mad, what madness encompasses us! You say that because Gunnar couldn't conceive of anything so wild we'd be safe. You mean you'd be safe. I would have vanished for ever, I would have had to. How long do you think it would take me to make you pregnant? How long would you let me make love to you if you didn't become so? Seven times? Seventy times seven?'

'Hilary, don't. We mustn't see it as madness. I don't think I agree with you anyway. I'm sure there's some way - '

'To have everything? No.'

'I don't know either what I think. Only don't suddenly decide against us.'

'Against us? Against whom? You and me? You and me and Gunnar? You and Gunnar and baby? You're looking at your watch again.'

'Hilary, I've got to go. I have to be back for luncheon.'

'Who's coming to "luncheon"?'

'Oh, some Liberal M.P.'

'What's to eat?'

'Oh curry - '

'I suppose you have curry every day. All right, my dear, off you go. Mustn't keep the bigwigs waiting, must you?'

'Please try to - '

We stood up. Then suddenly we grabbed each other, rushing together as if our bodies and our souls would join, trying desperately to overcome the awkwardness of two clumsy overdressed material objects. Kitty's fur hood fell off onto the floor. I felt her boot jar against my trouser leg. I was trying to open my overcoat and feel her breasts and get an arm well round the mink coat all at the same time. Our cheek-bones ground together, her hair slid across my mouth. I drew her very close up against me and kissed her and felt her answering kiss, as if her lips were burning. Then I felt her withdraw, saw her hand swoop to pick up the fur hood, saw her reddened fingers trembling as she did up the buttons of her coat.

'Oh Kitty, I do love you. Forgive me, forgive me - '

'I love you too. I can't not.'

'Kitty, let's not lose each other, if only we can somehow not lose each other - '

'We mustn't. Look, we needn't do anything in a hurry, we shouldn't, let's think - '

'When can I see you again?'

'Come - come to the boat jetty on Tuesday at six.'

'I'll be there. Go now, darling, darling - '

She was gone. I stood there for some time, my heart pounding, my breath coming in little gasps, my flesh shuddering in a plucked torment of desire. The sun, shining in through the door of the pavilion, was making the damp floor steam gently, and now I could hear the melting snow trickling off the roof in a steady stream. Some water had found its way down the wall and had soaked the back of my coat without my noticing. I put my cap on and twitched my shoulders against the dampness. I was just then desiring Kitty so fiercely that it really seemed that her 'final solution' would be worth anything, the best of all. To possess her utterly, and then to go, to die. That would be, somewhere in one's life, a piece of perfection.

And yet, a little later, as I walked slowly out into the stony garden and looked away past the fountains where the jagged white ice had become soft and wet and grey, towards the dazzling blue arcade of the sky above the lake, it came to me: of course after all the difficulty was a very much more difficult difficulty than we had either of us yet made out. There were not two possibilities, there were four. I could become Kitty's lover and vanish, I could become her and Gunnar's friend and stay - or I could become Kitty's lover and continue to visit Gunnar's house. A secret life with her, a public life with both. Such things could be. Was that perhaps what she herself would want in the end? Or the fourth possibility was total vanish, now. Nothing more. No more meetings, no more 'thinking what to do'. No more Kitty, no more Gunnar, nothing. Had I not, as I told her, done my work? Was it not all over? That was the last choice. And as I looked at the vibrating sky and the sparkling water I began to have a terrible little idea somewhere in my mind that I would soon know pretty clearly which of these choices was the right one.

'Where's Christopher?' said Tommy.

I had found her waiting, wrapped up in a tartan cape, outside my door when, after a long time, I returned to my flat.

'He's left me.'

'I thought at least he'd be here to let me in. I've been freezing to death out here.'

'They've turned the heating down again.'

I opened the door and let her into the flat. It was not much warmer inside.

'Have you had lunch?'

'Yes,' I said. I had had half a sandwich in a pub where I had continued my ruminations.

'Well, I haven't. Do you mind if I eat something?'

'Go ahead.'

She went into the kitchen and began fumbling noisily among the tins in the cupboard. I stood for a while staring into my bedroom. Then I came and sat at the kitchen table. Tommy had made some toast and had opened a tin of spaghetti and tomato sauce and was heating it up.

'Will you have any?'

'No, thanks. Well, yes I'll have a little.'

'Is there anything to drink?'

'There's half a bottle of Spanish burgundy, unless Christopher took it.'

I ate a little of the spaghetti and drank a glass of wine. Tommy, in silence, made a more extensive meal. It did not take long however.

'I'm sorry you came,' I said.

'Why?'

'It's no good, you know.' It suddenly struck me as comic, and I had an impulse to tell Tommy, that I was now being badgered by three childless women in their thirties, two wanting me to present them with a child, the other wanting me to sanction her marriage. Child-hunger seemed to be the thing just now.

'However, I'm glad to see you,' I said. It was true. Tommy was the accustomed. She was a dear girl, and today she was looking especially fetching in her silly little way. She was wearing a long blue and green kilt and one of the long brown jerseys and an insipid Scottish silver ornament in the shape of a sword. She had on, and had evidently forgotten, a ridiculous little blue woollen hat like a night-cap, standing straight up on her head, with a long tassel hanging down her back. Her brown suede boots were much darkened by the wet. Our muddy footprints covered the kitchen floor. Tommy was now trying to erase them with a piece of newspaper. Yes, Tommy was a dear. If I were going to choose desolation she could be, at least, a crumb of comfort. But was I going to choose desolation, could I ?

'Are you?' said Tommy. 'Thanks.' She was staring at me, her eyes screwed up in a peculiar way, the corners of her mouth turned down.

'Cheer up, Thomas. Have some more wine. It's a mad world, Thomas.'

'I've come to tell you various things,' she said.

'Carry on. I hope they're amusing and nice. I could do with some amusing and nice things in my life.'

'I don't know whether you'll think them nice. Perhaps you will. I'm giving up my job at King's Lynn.'

'Are you? Why am I supposed to be interested? I'm not going to support you in idleness, my dear, so don't imagine it!'

'I don't imagine it,' said Tommy, staring at me. 'I shall be supported in idleness by my husband.'

'By ?'

'I'm getting married - Hilary.'

I looked at Tommy's screwed up staring face. 'What on earth are you talking about?'

'I'm going to get married.'

'Who to?'

'To a man at King's Lynn.'

'Who, what man?'

'There are other men in the world,' said Tommy, 'besides you. He's one of the teachers there. And he's an actor. He sometimes acts in the rep. He's been in love with me for ages. His name's Kim Spranger. We're going to get married in January. We're looking for a cottage.'

'Tommy, you don't mean it - '

'Why not? Aren't you pleased? I should have thought you'd be pleased. You kept saying it was no good, you said so just now. You kept telling me to go away. Well, I'm going away.'

I reached across and took her wrist in a fierce grip. She winced with pain but remained motionless. 'Why didn't you tell me about this? You mean all this time you've been carrying on in secret with somebody else?'

'Let go,' said Tommy.

I let go.

'I haven't been "carrying on",' she said. 'I loved you and I wanted you. I didn't want Kim, and he knew I didn't. There wasn't anything to tell you. Only now it's different. I've given up hope of you. I've accepted him. And I'm very happy.' Two small tears came out and trailed slowly down her cheeks.

'You look the picture of happiness,' I said. 'You can't love this man.'

'I do love him,' said Tommy, dashing the tears away with a fierce gesture. 'He's a very very nice man and he loves me and he wants to marry me and to look after me forever and - '

'Don't tell me, and you're over thirty and you want a child.'

'He's a widower and he has a sweet little boy of five.'

'A ready-made family. Of course, I can't compete with that. No wonder you're in such a hurry to desert me just when I need you.'

'You don't need me,' said Tommy in a dead voice, examining her hands. 'That's just what at long last I've realized. You don't. There's no good fighting it any longer. You just don't.'

'If you leave me now - '

'I'm not with you so I can't leave you. You left me.'

'If you leave me now you'll drive me to an act of desperation. I warn you.'

'It's too late for your warnings,' said Tommy. 'I haven't been anything to you for ages except a nuisance. If I'd had a scrap of pride I'd have cleared off long ago.'

'It looks as if you did. You had a secret liaison with this Spranger.'

'I didn't! There was nothing secret.'

'You never told me he existed.'

'You never asked. You never asked me a single question about what I did at King's Lynn or who I met. If you'd asked me I would have told you. You never wanted to know what happened to me except in relation to you.'

This was true. I felt the more furious. 'You deceived me.'

'No! Besides, you were always deceiving me.'

'What do you mean?'

'I never did anything with Kim. I told him I loved you. I never lied. But you've been in love with another woman, God knows what you've been doing, and you never told me, I suppose you thought it was a dark secret - '

'I'm getting a bit tired of this legend about me and Laura Impiatt.'

'Oh well,' said Tommy, suddenly limp. She stroked her eyes and her cheeks and gave a long sigh. 'I suppose it doesn't matter now. I can't exactly complain if you prefer someone else to me, even if she is married. That's your affair. I thought I'd better come directly and tell you about Kim. I thought I'd write a letter, but it seemed more honest to come like this and - say good-bye.'

'Tommy, I can't believe what you're saying, you love me.'

'Do I? It doesn't necessarily go on, you know. Eventually it's just rags and tatters. It's worn through, worn away. I'm so tired, Hilary, I'm so tired, and I'm not as young as I was. I hate my job, well I don't hate it, but it has no meaning for me any more. I'm tired of living in a little lonely horrid London flat and wondering when I'll see you. I want a home of my own and a man of my own and maybe a child of my own, and anyway there's little Robin and he's sweet - '

'Oh fuck little Robin. Tommy, you belong to me.'

'I don't. Face the truth. I don't. What could that mean? Belong to you, like a possession you put away in a cupboard and look at once a week? No. It's good-bye, Hilary. Make it easy for both of us, please, please, at least spare me now. I'm going and I'm absolutely going. I won't write you any more of those stupid letters, you obviously hated them and you were right. People mustn't persecute other people like that, it isn't fair. I won't write you any letters any more. I'm going to Kim now, I won't be in London. I don't want to see you or hear from you ever again. I've promised Kim I'm giving you up completely. That's reason. I've got to be his from now on and I'm going to be his. I'm starting a new life and I want to be happy, I want to have a go at happiness before it's too late. I loved you, but what did we ever make of it with me bleating about marriage and a home and you making sarcastic remarks? Have we ever had any happiness out of it, either of us? You felt caught and I felt excluded. It was no good, it was just no good, I see that now. Kim loves me and I can make him perfectly happy. He's perfectly happy now, he's singing with happiness, it's wonderful to make somebody so happy, it's probably the best thing I've ever done and I'm not going to spoil it out of any sentimentality about you. Half-in-half things are no use. He's a fine decent man and he's so happy he'll make me happy soon. If I give myself to him and to his son and to his home we'll all be happy. And that's what I want. And that's a good deal more valuable in the world than hanging around you and annoying you and driving myself into a frenzy. Don't touch me, Hilary, I'm going now. I loved you dearly. I probably love you dearly, but it's no use and this is goodbye. I wish you well and I wish you happiness, though it doesn't seem to me very likely that you'll get it. Anyway I wish it to you. Don't touch me. Good-bye.'

I stood up. The front door opened, then closed quietly. I sat down again at the kitchen table. Well, that was that. Tommy was gone. It was roses round the door for Thomasina Uhlmeister. She had vanished from my life at last.

I sat perfectly still, not twitching a muscle, for a very long time. Some part of myself which was almost a stranger to me was very very sorry that Tommy was gone. Some little narrow deep comfort had been taken from me. Was it true that that little deep loss would prove the last straw which would break the barrier against desperation, against total reckless madness? Time would show.