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"You know nothing, you're only guessing."

"Tommy Tyler is a pal of Joe's and Joe's a pal of mine. Joe and me just stopped into the bar that night you were raisin' Cain, and what's more natural than Tommy should tell us after I got you round to my place. Look, Christine ..." She dropped her hand on mine where it was gripping a fistful of the coverlet, and then said, "Them type are all alike. Why, I could tell you things that would lift the skin off your scalp."

I pulled my hand away from her touch, and she straightened herself and said, "Well, have it your own way, but I kept you this." She opened her bag and took out a single sheet of newspaper saying, "That's the front page of last Saturday's Review. Take a good dekko at it, and if that doesn't shake you nothing will." She dropped it on the bed, then, getting to her feet, her tone changed and she said softly, Tl| be in the morrow, so long. "

I did not speak, and even after the door had closed on her I did not grab up the paper, but lay looking at it, willing it to hold other than I knew it held, willing it not to tell me anything about him that would lessen my love for him. He was dead and I wanted to cherish his memory. That was all that was left to me, the memory of him. Slowly I drew the paper towards me and there was his face looking at me his long, pale face with the dark eyes. He was in uniform, and next to him, also in uniform, was the woman I had seen in the hall of Colonel Findlay's house. Under the picture it said:

"Flight Lieutenant Fonyere-Belling and Mrs.

FonyereBelling.

This photograph was taken the day Mrs. FonySreBelling was decorated for her outstanding service in the W.

V.

S.

"

I read the column and a half, slowly lifting each word, as it were, from the page. It told me that Martin was Colonel Findlay's nephew, and that he had lived his early years in France, his father being of French extraction, but he had spent part of his holidays with his uncle and cousins. He had married his cousin in June, nineteen-forty, after a romantic attachment begun in childhood. He, too, had a distinguished war career and had been decorated for outstanding bravery. He had been transferred to Littleborough for a rest from operations. Whilst there he had been doing valuable work training young pilots. It was while instructing that his plane crashed into the hillside near Brooker's Fell. The trainee, too, was killed.

This information only covered the half column. The long column dealt with Mrs. Fonyere-Belling and her work in the W.

V.

S.

and ended with the fact that the colonel had given up The Grange to the military for the duration of the war, and that since coming back north Mrs.

Fonyere-Belling had taken a small house at Littleborough. She had hoped, after the war, to live with her husband in France.

Slowly I put the paper down. For the moment, Martin's personality had receded, swamped as it were by the weight of the woman staring at me from the page. This wasn't an obituary for Flight-Lieutenant Fonyere-Belling, but simply a few details about the husband of Mrs.

Fonyere-Belling, and into my numbed body and brain came a feeling of pity. He had been as helpless against her love as I had been against his. I could see her face as I had seen it that day, the hate of me expressed in it was a gauge of her feelings.

Through the numbness that had enveloped me during the past week there had forced itself to my notice, again and again, a question, until I had to face it. And this question was: Why, living in the town, had I not heard of the marriage They were prominent people. And Father Ellis

. ;

that astute detective and tracker down of men who seduced Catholic girls, how had it escaped his notice? Or hadn't it? Perhaps he had known but had seen the uselessness of stirring up trouble. Of one thing I was certain, the marriage had been as quiet as she could keep it. It must have taken place in some other part of the country. It certainly hadn't taken place in Fellbum, or I would surely have seen a report in The Review^.

The colonel, too, would have been all for keeping Martin clear of Fellbum, for undoubtedly he would know I had a child Martin's child.

It must have shaken both him and her when Martin was transferred back here, only ten miles away she hadn't counted on the authority of the R.

A.

F.

And Martin. He had understood everything that night I had told him about my visit to the colonel's. His words came back to me.

"I

dont feel so badly about it now. " He knew then that he had been blindfolded and led gently into the Findlay fold.

Never had I thought that I could have pitied Martin you dont pity a god. But Martin was no longer a god. I saw him as I saw myself. We both had one trait that had linked us together, weakness, a weakness that had strength only to indulge itself. Poor Martin. I was still not capable of hating. The day I came downstairs it was Constance who took my hand. Talking to me as I did to her when coming down the steep stairs, she said with old-fashioned solicitude, "Careful now, Mummie, careful." And while Dad fussed around me in the kitchen, making me put my feet up on the fender and lean back in the armchair, she fussed, too. But their kindness could not warm me in any way.

The following day I took up the business of managing the house again, and such was my intensity in doing so that Dad kept cautioning me, "Now lass, ease off. It's over-work that's got you where you are." But now I was being driven by a thought, a terrifying thought, that made me look daily at the calendar hanging at the side of the mantelpiece under the scissors. It made me think in the night, "If it happens I'll drown myself, I just couldn't bear that, not that shame again."

Of those about me only Sam guessed at what had happened, but he could only guess. Perhaps he thought I had been given the chuck . and I had. Definitely I'd been given the chuck, but before being given the chuck I might have been given something else. Good God! No! No!

No!

No! No!

Towards the end of the third week I had a slight heaviness in the pit of my stomach and a sickly feeling, but then I often had a sickly feeling with a period, and it would present itself at any time, not just in the morning, so I waited, asking myself immediately I awoke,

"Do I feel sick?" And then one morning the answer turned me completely round in the bed i8r and I dug my fists into the pillow. Sitting up, I whispered to myself, "Sam will take care of her." Dad might not live until she was able to look after herself, but Sam would take care of her. I got up and dressed, and going downstairs I took a sheet of notepaper and an envelope out of the chiffonier drawer, and on the paper I wrote:

"Dear Sam, Will you please quite some distance from the bank, it was rather shallow, and I did not want to be deterred I was sensible enough to know that a pledge through the cold water to the deeper part might do this so I deliberately walked along the bank to wards the stones, across to the other side, and back along the far bank to the place where my life had begun.

The place where Martin and I had lain on the grass was all mud now and held no significance whatever. At the edge of the water I paused for a moment, taking stock of how far I had to go before I should come to where the shelf of rock ended, then I moved.

My feet were actually in the water when I saw a figure, like a tumbling boulder, come bounding down the hill opposite. The pattern was so similar to that which had taken place that summer night, the hair seemed to rise from my head. Then I saw that the running figure was Don Dowling, and now he, was shouting at the top of his voice. To be dragged out of the water by Don Dowling was something I could not stand. This moment must wait. I stepped back on to the little beach and, stooping down, picked up a piece of driftwood just as his panting bellow came across the river, ordering, "Stay where you are!"

I looked across at him, and in a voice that surprised me with its steadiness, I said, "What's up with you?" This seemed to nonplus him for a moment. Then he shouted, "What do you think you're up to ?"

Now I was back in the game, acting as I always acted with him, and I cried, "I'm out for a walk and I'm picking a piece of stick up. Is there anything wrong in that?" I held the stick out in my hand, and I saw him blinking as if not knowing what to make of me. Then he yelled,

"Stay where you are, I'm coming over."

But before he took one step along the bank towards the stepping stones, I shouted, "You can save yourself the trouble, I'm going into the town.

I had to do some shopping and I just wanted to have a look at the river. What's up with you anyway?"

His face was screwed up and he was blinking again, and I turned about and climbed the bank, knowing his eyes were on me. I knew what had happened. Mrs. Patterson had suspected something and had gone to Aunt Phyllis's. I should never have taken Constance in to her. I should have left her in bed, she would have been all right.

When I came to the path I took the short-cut to the town, asking myself as I did so where I was going. But as I came towards the houses I knew. I was going to Mollie; Mollie would know what to do.

When I knocked on Mollie's door it was opened by a man. He was about thirty and tall, with black hair and eyes, and a voice that did not belong to this part of the country, a voice that somehow held the same timbre in it as Martin's. He had evidently just got up, and I murmured in embarrassment, "Is... is Mollie up yet?"

"Ah." It was a loud "Ah' as if he had just remembered something.

"I

know who you are. Come in, come in. " I sidled past him, and he closed the door behind me.

"Go on up."

When I entered the sitting-room and saw Mollie was not there I turned to him, saying, "I'm sorry I'm early."

"Early?" he repeated.

"You're not early, I'm late. Sit down, sit down, that's if you can find a chair." He swept a coat and pullover off a chair and, pointing to it, said, "She won't be a minute. I thought it was her and she'd forgotten her key."

On this I remembered that Mollie was on the nightshift. I did not say that I would go and come back again later, for I knew that I must see Mollie. So I sat down, and was glad to do so, for my legs were shaking beneath me. And the man said, "Are your feet wet?" He was looking at my shoes and I made no effort to draw them away under the chair but said, "Yes, I've been walking through the grass."

"Ho," he said again in that peculiar fashion, then added, "The dew is on the heather long ere it is light" "

There was a funny little twist to his lips. It was a smile that invited me to smile back but I just stared at him, wondering dazedly how he had come to know Mollie and that he seemed a bit funny, and it wasn't the kind of funniness that I would associate with laughter, not like Sam's funniness.

As he went into the kitchen I heard a quick step on the stairs, and the door burst open and Mollie came in, only to stop dead on the sight of me and exclaim, "Why, hallo.... You're up early, aren't you, Christine?" And before I could answer she looked round the room, then called, "You, Doddy, look at the bloody mess you've got this room in."

The man appeared in the doorway, he was holding the stanchions at each side and he pushed his head forward. "

"Hail fair enchantress of the morning" ," he greeted her, and she cried at him, " Oh, stop your bloody chatter at this hour. You wouldn't feel so buoyant, lad, if your belly was full of cordite fumes like mine is.

Get some tea on and stop your carry on. "

When the man disappeared she turned to me and said softly, "That's Doddy. He's all right, he's a good lad but She tapped her brow with her finger.

"His name should be Potts not Dodds, he's so damned clever he's daft.... But what's up, Christine?" Her voice was low now, and I put my hands out to her and whispered desperately, "I've got to talk to you alone, Mollie."

"O.K. I'll get rid of him after we've had a cup of tea. My!" She looked down at my feet.

"You're wet."

I did not answer her but bowed my head. And I felt her staring at me, then she turned and yelled, "Don't be all bloody day, Doddy. For Christ's sake put a move on."

The man came in carrying a laden tray, and as he put it on the table he looked at Mollie and said, with a smile, and still in his high, chanting voice, '"Your words shame jewels, and in their twinkling " '

"Oh, for God's sake, Doddy." There was an unusual quiet appeal in Mollie's voice, and the man sat down, and with a solemn gesture raised his hand and said, "So be it.

"Tis done,:

Drink your tea, girls. "

I gulped at the scalding tea, feeling that I must have some warmth within me for I had begun to shiver. Noticing this, Mollie said, "Is there anything left in the cupboard, Dod?"

The man rose immediately and went into the kitchen, to return with a bottle which he handed to Mollie, and she, pulling the cup from my hand, emptied the contents of the bottle into it, then, scooping some sugar into the cup, she stirred it vigorously, saying, "Get that down you."

It tasted nice, much better than gin, and after a few minutes there was a comforting glow spreading through me and I felt my taut body relaxing. I saw Mollie. covertly signalling the man to make himself scarce, then I heard the tap running in the kitchen and the splashing of him washing, and when he next came into the room he was fully dressed and I saw that he was an R.

A.

F.

corporal. He stood in front of me, clicked his heels, saluted smartly, did a half turn and marched out. I saw that Mollie wanted to laugh, but she didn't, she just turned to me and said, "He's a bloody fool, but you couldn't get a nicer one if you searched the globe. And what's more, he's harmless."

"Mollie," I grabbed her hands again, "I think I'm ... I know I'm ..."

"Good God, no!" Mollie's voice expressed horror. What I had just inferred had really shocked her I had thought she was the last person on earth who could be affected by anything of this kind. It was this that had brought me to her, and now she was shocked. But not for the reason that I surmised, as, to my relief, I soon found out, for, getting to her feet, she exploded, "The dirty sod! the rotten, lowdown--' " It wasn't his fault. "