Clifford was looking at me with his head on one side. 'Poor child.'

'Me?'

'Yes. You are so simple, so stupid. I told you what that woman was like. Most women are like that, silly, destructive. I only hope the whole thing may have done you some good, knocked some sense into you.'

'I'm glad I talked with Gunnar anyway. He was so wise.'

'Wise! Gunnar is a pretentious self-important ass. Between you you've inflated something which had very much better have been left alone. All right, a tragedy, a death - but one must cut such things off and let them drift away.'

'Sounds easy. Have you ever done so?'

'Yes.' Clifford's hands were twisting the chain, his little finger passing into the ring. 'One should at least digest one's pain in silence and not parade it. I always despised Gunnar, ever since Oxford. He has, what I cannot forgive, a thoroughly inflated sense of his own value. We are nothing, nothing, nothing, and to imagine otherwise is moral conceit. Did he say anything about me?'

'About you? No. We didn't mention you.'

'I despised him. All right, he despised me. One of his stupid rugger-playing friends called me a "bloody pansy" and he just laughed. I always regarded Gunnar as a four-letter man. You were always mad keen on him at Oxford, I can't think why.'

'So was Crystal,' I said.

'Crystal?'

'Yes. She was in love with him.'

'Crystal in love with Gunnar?'

'Yes. She only told me just now. You know, something absolutely amazing happened. On the night of the day when Anne died, Crystal was round at Gunnar's house and they went to bed together and made love.'

'Crystal and Gunnar?'

'Yes, made love - you know - '

'It's impossible.'

'No, it really happened. He talked about it too.'

'He talked about it?'

'Well, yes. Wasn't it extraordinary?'

'So she's not a virgin - '

'Well, technically not, but - '

'It can't be true,' said Clifford. He had stood up. 'Women invent things. It simply can't be true. You shouldn't have believed her. And - and - you shouldn't have told me!' He was stammering with emotion.

'Look, don't be - '

'Then I suppose they often - if she was in love with him - '

'No, of course not, only that once! Who'd want Crystal - '

'If she let Gunnar do that to her she's probably been to bed with half the neighbourhood. You've been pretty naive about her, haven't you!'

'Clifford, wait, where are you going?'

'I'm going to see her. I'm going to ask her if it's true.'

He was out of the flat and already clattering down the stairs before I reached the door. I grabbed my coat and cap and carrying them began to run down after him, calling his name, calling on him to stop.

The front door of the house slammed in my face, and it took me a moment in the dim light of the hall to find the catch. As I got the door open I heard Clifford's car starting.

'Clifford, wait, stop, wait for me!' The car moved out, then moved past me. I ran after it, pulling on my coat as I ran. I hoped that I might catch it up in the thick traffic on the Cromwell Road. However as I saw at once, Clifford had avoided the main road, his tail lights just disappearing to the right along Pennant Mansions. Here there was little hope of a traffic jam, but I followed all the same, running as far as Marloes Road, where there was of course by now no sign of his car. I ran back to the Cromwell Road and along it eastward upon the northern pavement, hoping I might meet a taxi bound for the Air Terminal. Once I saw one on the other side of the road, and nearly got run over racing across, but someone had taken it before I arrived. By the time I had reached the railway bridge I was panting painfully and had to slow down to a quick walk. Sheer emotion destroyed my ability to run, and the pavements were hard and very slippery with the remnants of frozen snow. I could have wept at my folly. By now Clifford would have been ten minutes, fifteen minutes, with Crystal, torturing her, Clifford whom she loved, and who had always been with her so miraculously gentle.

When I got there Clifford's car was standing outside the house. I raced up the stairs gasping for breath and burst into the brightly lit room.

Crystal was sitting on her bed crying desperately. Clifford was standing with his hands in his pockets, frowning and watching her.

I stumbled across the room. My fist, propelled with all my force and with the impetus of my entry caught him on the shoulder and he crashed against the wall, then sat abruptly on a chair. Crystal screamed, 'No, no!' I sat on the bed and took her in my arms.

'Go away,' I said to Clifford, 'I never want to see you again, I mean that, get out unless you want me to throw you down the stairs.'

Holding his shoulder with one hand Clifford got up rather unsteadily and, without looking at Crystal or me, made his way to the door. A moment later his car could be heard starting, then receding down the road.

Crystal was weeping so much she was inarticulate, her face, her hands, the front of her dress, wet with tears. She was quietly hysterical, the sobs developing into wails and dying away rhythmically into gasps. I had not seen her cry like this since the caravan. After a while I stopped holding her and went and sat at the table where her sewing machine was set out. She must have been using it when Clifford burst in with his unspeakable demonstration. I watched Crystal's tears, saying every now and then, 'Do stop, Crystal, my darling, do stop crying, my heart.'

Gradually the mechanical rhythm of the hysteria gave way to a desperate soft childish sobbing which was in some ways more dreadful.

'Crystal, stop, just for my sake. I can't bear it. Stop.'

'I'm so sorry. Oh you hurt him, you shouldn't have hurt him - '

'I wish I'd pitched him down the stairs.'

'You shouldn't have hurt him, it wasn't his fault.'

'What wasn't his fault? He came rushing round here on purpose to upset you, didn't he? What was he saying?'

'He called me a bad name.'

'Then I wish I'd lolled him.'

'Oh no, it wasn't his fault - but oh it was so terrible, so terrible - '

'Stop it, Crystal. He doesn't matter. He's a poor fish, a poor wretch, he's half crazed up himself. I only wish I could have arrived sooner. How can I not be angry when I see you crying like this? But it's over now. There, there. We've had a hard time, we mustn't mind a few rough words at our age. Forget him. He hates Gunnar. It was his own misery speaking, he was just raving.'

'He was so unkind. And he was always so kind. And I loved him so much. And when he came into the room tonight just for a second I felt such joy - and then - '

'Let it go, Crystal. It's over. Better not to think about it. Maybe you're right that it wasn't his fault. Let's say that anyway. He's a lonely man who lives in his mind with his own strange fancies. He'll be sorry. If you like I'll make him beg your pardon on his knees.'

'No, no - '

'Let him go, let him go. Oh Crystal mine, I'm so glad to see you, I'm so unhappy.'

I came and sat beside her again and we hugged each other in silence for a while.

'Did you see her?' said Crystal into my overcoat.

'Yes.' I pulled the coat off and got up and began to look for some wine. There was a little left in an old bottle. I poured out a glass for myself. Crystal shook her head. 'And will you see her again?'

'Yes, tomorrow. But that will be the last time.'

'Really?'

'Crystal, I mustn't see her any more. I mustn't see him any more. It's clear at last. You were quite right. It was wrong of me to see her in secret. I've done all I can for him. He's done all he can for me. After this it might all go terribly wrong.'

'I'm so glad. I don't want you to go to them. I'm so afraid for you. Oh darling, need you see her tomorrow?'

'I must just see her to tell her, to say good-bye. And I said I'd come.'

'Can't you write her a letter instead?'

'Letters are dangerous, and - No. I must see her.' That too was clear. I had said that I would see her tomorrow at six and I just had to be there. And there was the terrible terrible fact that only the idea that I would see her tomorrow was now keeping me sane.

Crystal, with her telepathic knowledge, saw this too. She was almost calm, uttering long weary sighs of physical recovery. 'You want to see her. You don't really believe you'll say good-bye. Please write to her. Please don't see her. I feel she's a terrible woman.'

'She isn't terrible, Crystal mine. No one is terrible. Well, hardly anyone. We're all muddlers. The thing is to see when one's got to stop muddling. I can see what I've got to do, don't worry. And I have to see her tomorrow, I just have to.'

'Please - '

'No more of that, Crystal, I don't want to talk to you about her. She's almost gone, and I'll live without her, you'll see.' I sat down beside her once more and she leaned against my shoulder.

'Hilary, I want to tell you something.'

'You're engaged to Arthur again.'

'No. I haven't done anything about Arthur. I've decided I won't. It's too late, I'm too old, I don't want to, I'm better as I am. I wanted to tell you that I've absolutely decided not to.'

'Oh good. I mean - Crystal, dear little one, I want to tell you something too. I saw Tommy yesterday. She came to say good-bye, she's marrying someone at King's Lynn.'

'Oh, she's marrying Kim? I'm so glad!'

'Christ, did you know all about it?'

'Yes. She asked me not to tell you. And I didn't tell you because I thought you'd be jealous and you might marry her out of jealousy. I kept praying and praying that she'd marry Kim.'

'Well, well, well. So we're both back on the shelf, my darling.'

'I like being on the shelf with you. Oh I'm so relieved - Please don't be angry with me - '

'Crystal, you're right, we ought to leave London. Let's go right away and live somewhere together. Not in the north. We could live in Wales or Bristol or somewhere.'

'Or in Dorset or Devon, I'd like that. Oh Hilary, I've always so much wanted to live in the country. Do you think we could?'

'Why not? I could get some sort of job in local government or as a clerk somewhere. We're used to roughing it, aren't we, darling?'

'I'd find a little room - '

'No, Crystal,' I said, 'no. No more little rooms.'

'You mean - ?'

'We'll live together.'

'Oh my darling - ' Crystal's tears flowed again. 'Oh I feel so happy,' she said, and burrowed her funny frizzy head of hair against me. I put my arm around her.

'There, my chicken, there, my little one.'

'We'll live in the country, in a country cottage.'

'And you shall be my little housekeeper.'

'I'll work so hard, I'll keep the house so nice, I'll do dress-making too - and we could have animals, couldn't we, some chickens and a dog?'

'Of course. And at weekends I'll dig the garden and we'll grow all our own vegetables. And we'll have a log fire and on winter evenings when the wind is whistling round the house we'll sit and listen to the radio.'

'Oh yes, yes! And you'll learn Chinese.'

'Yes.' Would I, as the wind whistled round the house? How much of me would be left by then?

'And you'll teach me French, like we said long ago.'

'Yes, yes. It will be so, Crystal, my darling, it will be so, and we'll be happy, yes we will, just you wait and see.'

TUESDAY.

TUESDAY dawned at last. I had hardly slept. The unusualness of insomnia was a physical torture. The house seemed empty and sad without the boys. I heard the lift rattling in the night and it had such a lonely sound. I rose early and made tea and sat over it shivering. They seemed to have turned the heating off completely.

The first post brought a letter in an illiterate hand with a _______ postmark. Deciphered, the letter read as follows.

Dere Sir, I got yr letter to Mr Osmand as was here, he was my loger, he died last week, it was his sleepin pills the doctor said, I have sold his bokes to pay the rint, he ode me fir months rint and is still owin, the bokes was nothing the shop man said, and there was the expins of the funerel, the assistins grant went nowher, I pade up from my own pockit and did it proper too, and there was a wash basen as he broke fallin agenst it, cost pounds to repare and the carpit made filthy, it went to his stummick, as you are some sort of relativ and he has none other, no one visited him, I make bold to sind you the bill for outstandin rint and cost of funerel and the carpit and basen as here enclosed, hopin to here from you by retern post, I am takin legil advise, Yrs truly J. Parfit (Mrs) I screwed up this missive and kept my thought resolutely away from the picture of Mr Osmand's end which it conjured up. What desperate last minute dash for help had his visit to me represented? Better not think about that.