‘Here. By the door. It’s too dark to see.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m giving my eyes a chance to catch up.’

Gradually I decided I could make out shapes. The hatch window to the left of the sink didn’t so much give light as qualify the darkness. Slowly I edged forward. The side of my left hand knocked wood and I knew I was by the table. I bumped the chair and it rattled away. When that happened, I heard her gasp. I lowered myself into the chair and tipped it back gingerly until it rested against the wall. I put my feet up one at a time on the table. The silence was perfect.

‘Good night.’

‘Good night,’ I said. The chair cut into the back of my neck.

‘It was good of you to come with me.’ Her voice was low and husky. ‘I couldn’t have come by myself.’

Surprisingly, I slept. Perhaps it had something to do with the warm glow of righteous self-approval I was generating.

Even righteous sleeps end.

It was still dark.

‘Margaret?’

No answer.

I cleared my throat and tried a little louder.

‘Margaret? You asleep?’

Carefully I lowered the legs of the chair to the ground. It was a miracle I hadn’t tipped over and broken my neck. When I got up, my knees buckled. Blood must have stopped reaching them some time earlier.

In the dark I started undressing. As I pulled off my trousers, change spilled jingling from the pocket. My breathing stopped until I heard the deep rhythm of hers. Mother naked I set out for the bed.

This time I could see a little better but the bed was only a shape full of shadows. I thought she might be awake listening to the sounds I had made, pretending to be asleep or pretending it was a dream. I was ashamed enough to go back to my upright chair until I imagined trying to find that scatter of clothes. A small cold breeze licked my buttocks and I explored the cleft of pillows and sheet, peeled back the clothes and slid in.

She rolled over and put her arm round me. One problem solved: she wore bra and pants to bed. I lay still for a year or two and then softly ran my hand down her back. She had skin like warm velvet. I eased under her pants and on the last little bone I came to, rubbed gently. She sighed and snuggled comfortably closer. I stroked my fingers down one side of her soft parting and back up the other and pressed in between her cheeks.

‘Peter,’ she murmured and opened her legs so that mine slipped between them. Then I felt her hand come down and hold me.

Conscience apart it should have been all downhill sledging from there, but when I brought up my hand and touched her on the breast she trembled, let go as if I’d turned hot and threshed like a swimmer going down.

‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’

I thought she was having a fit. She quietened.

‘What are you— Is that— Get out!’

‘Look,’ I whispered reasonably. ‘I’ve slept in that hellish chair. It must be your turn.’

There was a pause. She was still spread half under me. The size of my interest puttered against her thigh like an over-crowded motor boat.

‘That was a terrible thing to do,’ she said very quietly.

‘You haven’t sat in that chair for hours.’

‘But you’ve taken all your clothes off.’

‘I didn’t want to get my vest crumpled.’

If she would only laugh, things might go right even yet. It was like lying beside a furnace. The heat of her body beat round me. I licked her shoulder. It tasted salty and smelled like warm milk and apples.

‘You’ll have to get out,’ she said calmly.

‘No.’

‘Please, now, you wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want you to.’

Somewhere about the middle of the next day, I would brood on what might have happened if I had yelled Yes and got on top of her.

‘Good God, no,’ I muttered soothingly into her neck. ‘I wouldn’t force myself on a girl. I’m not like that. I’ve never needed to force myself on a girl. We’ll do whatever you want.’

‘Get out of the bed, please.’

‘Apart from that. It’s bloody cold out there. I won’t stop you if you want to sleep in the chair.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. There was an intensely practical strain in her.

Another pause. After a bit, I moved my leg closer imperceptibly; only she perceived it and said, ‘Will you lie still . . . And we’ll go to sleep. That would be fair.’

She freed herself and turned away. The dim bulk of her back was presented to me. I put my hand on her backside hoping for some repetition of the earlier effect. She reached behind her and picked it off.

‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘That’s fair.’

‘Fair!’ I heard my voice squeak and deepened it for the next bit. ‘How can you talk that way?’

‘You’re a decent fellow,’ she said. Her voice began to trail away. Either she was the best actress since Sarah Bernhardt screwed on a wooden leg or she was falling asleep. ‘You’ve been good to me. I trust you.’

Sometime before morning, I fell asleep without abusing myself or murdering her – which must prove something about the resilience of human nature.

ELEVEN

There was a smell of frying bacon and since it was an illusion I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to be disappointed. Thoughts of the middle of the night ebbed into the forebrain. By cautious fractions, I stretched in the bed.

I was alone.

‘You’re awake then,’ a measured cheerful voice asserted. ‘You’re a good sleeper when you start.’

Reluctantly I peeped out of one eye. Margaret was bending over the cooker turning something in a frying pan. She had found a kettle, too, and a wisp of steam plumed merrily into the air. It was a scene of pleasing domesticity. I rechecked my memories of the night and clenched the eye shut again.

‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ she said. ‘The sun’s splitting the stones.’

I could hear the spatter of fat. Despite myself, my mouth began to water.

‘That can’t be bacon. Where would you have got it?’

Her laugh, like every sound and move she made, was music.

‘I found a little corner shop. There’s ham and eggs and coffee. And he had rolls. Do you like rolls?’

‘What could be nicer?’ I said, keeping my eyes shut.

‘There’s butter with them,’ she said coaxingly.

I put my forearm over my eyes.

‘Come on!’ she said. ‘It’ll spoil if it has to wait.’

If only, I fretted, she had thought about that during the night.

‘Chuck me over my clothes,’ I said.

‘In a minute. Do you like your eggs turned?’

Flesh and blood could stand no more. Resolutely I put back the blankets and stood up.

‘Sweet God!’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not one of those exhibitionists.’

With more awkwardness than grace, I progressed to where she had piled my clothes neatly on the edge of the table. Among her other virtues she seemed to be house-proud. I got into my underpants with difficulty. She could not resist another glance over.

‘No need to peek,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t recovered from the mauling you gave it last night.’

‘Oh, now,’ she said seriously, ‘don’t talk like that or I won’t think well of you.’

‘Turn them!’

‘What?’ she asked in fright.

‘The eggs – I like them done both sides.’

Fat hissed as she tipped them over.

‘I fried them in butter.’

‘You’ll give me a coronary one way or the other.’

Dressed, I came over and had a look.

‘You should fry bacon on a dry pan,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘It’s true. A dry pan – heat the bacon and slant the pan. Press the fat out as it fries. Makes the crispest bacon you could eat.’

‘I suppose you’ll manage this though.’

She sounded offended. I began to feel better. To tell the truth, I began to feel unreasonably cheerful. We had two eggs each as well as the bacon. She was a good eater. There wasn’t much talking until we had finished.