There was no question of going to the office. I just had to get through the day. I paced around for some time, then went out for a walk. The frozen snow had made slippery iron grey ridges upon the pavements. I went into the park but the image of Kitty with her rosy face inside her dark fur hood was waiting there for me and I wanted to go to the Leningrad garden. The brown leaves were frozen into what was left of the snow making the grass jagged and brittle. I walked about slowly and aimlessly. Doubtless the park was spoilt for me forever. It was just as well I was leaving London.

The intense cold drove me home at last, and I tried dutifully to eat something, but the act of opening a tin of beans conjured up so much of the ordinariness of life, just when there could be no more ordinariness, I nearly wept. I had not wept for years and years and years, and I did not then. But such a sadness flooded me, such a sense of wasted life and happiness which might have been and could not be. And very strangely in the midst of this utter desolation of soul there remained the glow of Kitty's once more and for the last time approaching presence. Or was it for the last time, some insane voice murmured every now and then very far away.

About three o'clock the front door bell rang. I could hope nothing from a visitor, but some sort of idiotic hope bounded for a second. It was Jimbo Davis.

I stared at him. 'Christopher's gone.'

'I know. I've come to see you.'

'Me? Why?'

'Just to see that you're all right.'

'Why shouldn't I be?'

'Oh, I don't know. I thought you might be lonely. Chris said you'd left the office. Can I come in?'

I let him in and went mechanically into the kitchen and put the kettle on. I made some tea. Jimbo stood and watched.

'Do you want anything to eat? There's beans and bread and butter. And some chocolate wholemeal biscuits, only they're rather old.'

'Thanks. I'll have some biscuits.'

We sat down. I had never had a conversation with Jimbo. He sat sipping his tea and looking at me with big rather brilliant brown eyes. His hair was a matching brown and fairly short, presumably so as to keep it out of the way when dancing. He sat with rubbery grace, like an eastern god, one knee up, one foot upon his chair. I sat and let him look at me. Did he think I was going mad or what?

'You heard Mick is back inside.'

'Is he? Good.'

'He got picked up for another job.'

'How are the Waterbirds?'

'Fine. Chris and Len have taken on Phil instead.'

'Phil?'

'Oh you haven't met Phil. They've moved into his house. He's got a house.'

'Lucky Phil.'

'Chris felt bad about you.'

'I felt bad about him.'

'Is it true Tommy's getting married?'

'Yes.'

'What will you do?'

'Continue the daily round and the common task.'

'Have you got another job?'

'No.'

'Do you believe in astrology?'

'No.'

'I'm not sure if I do. But it seems to me there must be something in it. I mean it stands to reason, everything's caused. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to send space probes to Jupiter. Think of it. They send up this thing and it goes all the way to Jupiter and takes photographs. They couldn't do that if everything wasn't fixed, it would all get lost, wouldn't it. And they can predict eclipses centuries ahead. Do you believe in flying saucers?'

'No.'

'I think I do. Think of it, all those millions of planets just like ours, somebody must be there, but such a long way away they'd have to be terribly clever to reach us. I'd like to think we were being looked at by sort of superior beings, wouldn't you?'

'I hope whoever's looking has a sense of humour.'

'Do you believe in God?'

'No.'

'I'm not sure if I do. My father was a preacher in Wales, well he still is. We lived up this valley. He used to preach to the sheep. He was a bit odd. They seemed to like it though. They let him stroke them.'

'Who?'

'The sheep. They had such lovely eyes. We used to have home prayers and kneel at the sofa, and my father would hide his head in a cushion and groan.'

'I must try that sometime.'

'Hilary, don't be sad, life is good.'

'Jimbo, just go away, will you, dear kind boy?'

'Hilary, you will be all right, won't you? Shall I come in tomorrow?'

'No, just go away. But thank you for coming.'

'I wanted to give you something.' He brought a little package wrapped in tissue paper out of his pocket and laid it on the table. Then in a second he was gone upon his light noiseless feet.

I stayed in the kitchen and opened the package. It contained a cheap metal cross on a chain, the sort of thing which hucksters sell in Oxford Street for fifty pence. I swept it into the kitchen drawer. As I did so I saw a black shrivelled object on the window ledge: it was the potted plant which Jimbo had given me and which of course I had forgotten to water. I hoped that he had not noticed it. I could see that Jimbo's silly visit and Jimbo's silly cross were a little piece of the purest kindness; but it could not touch me. Christ himself, I felt, could not have touched me then, not because I was so wicked, but because I was so mortally sad. I sat for a while. I recalled that it was Tuesday and Arthur would be expecting me. I left the house at about half past four.

Kitty came out at ten minutes to six. I was frozen and all jumbled up with misery and a black awful joyless excitement at the thought of seeing her. I had gone out almost to the end of the jetty. The night was extremely dark, a little foggy, but more as if the fog itself were black, thickening and coagulating the air, as in Pliny's description of the eruption of Vesuvius. At the end of the jetty all was dark. The lamp half way down gave a little enclosed baffled blurry glow. The river was obscure, the lights all veiled which might have touched it, the tide half down and running out fast, the emergent mud banks invisible. I could hear the very faint sibilant murmur of the snow-fed Thames and a faint tap now and then as some piece of driftwood struck against the wooden supports of the jetty.

Kitty came quickly and in a second I had my arms about the mink coat. Her head was bare, I could feel her hair soft and cold upon my cheek.

'Oh my darling, my sweet, my dear love.' My body worshipped her, seared with love and tenderness and desire, my mind shuddered, tottered. The sense of rightness and properness, her belongingness just here and now, the perfection of the present moment, the cosmic achievement of our meeting and our love and my arms being about her, overwhelmed me. Could I commit, against that, the crime, as it seemed, which I had coldly meditated?

'Hilary, my dear, I'm so glad to see you! You're so cold. Won't you come inside?'

'No. Where's Gunnar?'

'At a cocktail party at number ten.'

'Oughtn't you to be with him?'

'I made an excuse, I don't always go to these things. Then he's going on to a city dinner. Oh Hilary, I'm so terribly glad to see you, let me touch your face, you're icy, I must warm you. Oh I do love you, I just do, it's so simple, it must be simple. I looked up Hassan.'

'Hassan?' I had forgotten about Hassan, I was miles beyond that, Hassan was child's play.

'About the poor lovers who have to choose, I do see. But I think that we - '

'Listen, my darling,' I said.

The tone of my voice silenced her. I could feel her anxiety, her intaken breath, her heart.

'Kitty, I've got to leave you.'

She was silent, trembling in my arms.

'Kitty, we can't continue this any more, you know it and I know it. You can't belong to me. This seems, perhaps it is, a great thing between us, it's certainly a great thing for me, but all human emotions are full of illusion and the years and the time we would need for trying this, for making it real, don't exist. We are in a false place and our love is all shot up with falsity. You say you love me but what does it mean, what can it mean, reality rejects it, you know it does. It's not your fault, it's not even in a way mine. We've run into this so fast. The world is full of causes, otherwise they wouldn't be able to send rockets to Jupiter. But from here another step and we are destroyed. We mustn't let irresistible forces make us destroy and be destroyed. We must resist the irresistible and we can. We shall survive. You have had a mad generous fancy, but it will pass as fancies pass. You know, you must have known, that your second plan was absolutely impossible. And the first plan is impossible too. How could we, after we have held each other like this, meet in Gunnar's presence and deceive him with ordinary smiles? We can't do it, Kitty, we're done for. I can't deceive Gunnar a second time. If I've helped him, and if this is a service to you, I'm glad and joyful and this is a kind of blessing I never thought I'd have in my life any more. I must be content with that. And I've held you and kissed you and that is a gift from the universe which will bless and gladden me forever. And you will realize that you've just had a dream, and for you it will all pass quickly away. I've got to go, Kitty, absolutely and forever, and I've got to go now. You must have expected that I'd say this.'

'Yes.' The word, almost inaudible, came with a weak shudder and she lay against me as if she might have fallen. 'But, oh Hilary,' she went on after a moment, 'could we not somehow later on be friends? He may want to see you again - '

'I won't see him. Kitty, he doesn't know, does he, he doesn't dream that we've ever met, except those two times with him?'

'No, of course, he doesn't know.'

'So we can get clean out of it. And we must.'

'Couldn't we find each other somehow later on - I can't bear it that you should go away into a desolation of loneliness and not be loved and looked after when there is so much love for you in my heart - '

My eyes were closed with anguish and I held her violently. 'We can't find each other later, that's a lie and an illusion. There is no place and no time where we can ever meet. You pitied a worthless man, and that is all there is. We mustn't meddle with each other any more. Kitty, we aren't strong enough not to make some awful mistake. It's all wrong, it's all impossibly wrong. Better to part now. Let me go quickly, make it easy, make it like you said simple, oh for Christ's sake, my dear, let me go now.'

'Hilary, my darling - '

'Make it easy, make it easy - '

The jetty trembled faintly beneath my feet and I opened my eyes. Over Kitty's shoulder I saw Gunnar. The faint fuzzed light of the lamp showed him to me unmistakably, though all I could see was the big silhouette and a hint of the faded Viking hair.

I said 'Gunnar', not to him but to Kitty, and thrust her quickly away. I had some words for him in my throat but they were never uttered.

Gunnar did not exactly hit me but he launched himself upon me. It was like the charge of a bison. I was unprepared and off my balance, one hand still touching Kitty's shoulder and her coat, where I had put her aside. Gunnar blundered against me chest to chest with a crash which took my breath away and sent me back on my heels. I stumbled and trying to recover myself slipped and fell sideways resoundingly onto the wood. I got up quickly. Gunnar must have been winded by our collision, as he did not immediately pursue his advantage. As I became upright I received a violent painful jolt on the side of the head. Gunnar must have hit me very hard with his open hand, only nothing could now be seen, we were too close together and his bulk was between me and the lamp. I could not fight him, but I was not going to stand there and be punched. I grasped his overcoat and drew him up against me. It was like a violent embrace, almost as I had just now held Kitty. 'Gunnar, please, stop, stop.'

He was uttering a continuous panting growling sound and trying now to thrust me away from him by forcing his knee violently into my stomach, the fingers of one hand gripping my collar and the skin of my neck. Hampered by my own bulky coat I held onto the stuff of his and we reeled about, swaying against each other like two rounded dolls. At the same time I had twisted my foot behind his and was trying to overbalance him by forcing him back against my rigid leg. If he would only fall I could get past him and run before he could get in another blow.

Kitty, during the minute occupied by the grapple, had not exclaimed or cried out. She said now in a low intense penetrating voice, 'Stop this, stop it at once. You are not to fight. I am coming between you.'

I felt, though I could not see, the mink sleeve in front of my face. I stepped back, releasing my hold on Gunnar's coat, leaving him still between me and the embankment.

Gunnar then spoke. 'Get out of the way. I am going to lull him.'

'Darling, stop - ' said Kitty.

I realized I had gone as far as I could. Behind me now was the drop into the water.

Gunnar had thrust Kitty aside. He now had the advantage which he had wanted. I had to move forward, and I moved quickly, trying to keep my head safe. Gunnar's fist crashed into my shoulder. I nearly fell, grasped at his sleeve and tried to swing him round in order to get past him Then there was a wild cry.

Gunnar and I drew apart, looking around us like two drunken men. We were alone. Kitty had gone. She had fallen over the edge, over the side of the jetty into the darkness below.

Gunnar gave an animal wail. He threw himself down, looking over the edge. I knelt. The darkness was almost impenetrable.

Then in a moment of exquisite relief, we heard Kitty's voice from below. 'I'm all right, you two, don't panic, I'm perfectly all right.'

Her voice, shaken but clear, was the very voice of courage, and that 'you two' was suddenly piercingly reassuring.

I said to Gunnar, 'You stay here, find a rope. I'm going down.'

'It's awfully muddy,' said Kitty below.

I leaned over the edge, peering down into the darkness. There was a crisscross structure of wooden supports. I threw off my overcoat and let myself down, my feet questing for the slanting wooden beams. I got a firm foothold, moved my hands, began to descend further. I said to Kitty in as ordinary a voice as I could, 'I'm coming, I'm coming.'

There was no reply. I grasped the slimy cold slippery beams and lowered one foot, dabbing for a foothold. It was not difficult. In another moment or two I felt the yielding surface of the mud, and, still holding onto the jetty, turned myself about, spread-eagled against its base.

The space below had seemed to be entirely black, but now that I was in it the distant shut-in lamp above was giving a little, a very little light. I could see the vague colour of Kitty's coat, and beyond the scarcely perceptible movement of the swift running water.

'Kitty - '

'I'm afraid I'm stuck in the mud.'

'Are you all right, nothing broken?'

'I'm perfectly all right, it's too silly - '

'Are you in the water?'

'No, no - I just fell straight into the mud, it's like jelly. My coat's all messed up.'

I thought if she can worry about her coat she is probably all right.

'I'm coming.'

'Be careful,' said Kitty, 'you'll just get stuck yourself. Better get a rope or something. I can't move.'

Now I could hear the panic in her voice. Holding onto the base of the jetty I began to move towards her. Where I had climbed down the mud was fairly firm, but after a step or two it began to be soft and gluey. My next step plunged me over ankle-deep. I stopped again. My eyes had now become more accustomed to the darkness and I could now see Kitty and immediately beyond her the water. She was almost upright in the mud, knee-deep, leaning over a little to one side in an unnatural attitude, perfectly still.

I took another step. The mud was suddenly softer, more unstable, bottomless. I put my weight on my hands, holding onto the wooden structure behind me.