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We decided eventually that we
had
to tell Pete about this. I don’t know what we thought would happen but it was as least as terrible as we could have imagined.

The next time Pete came on leave, Wayland came to lunch, and afterwards, in the drawing room, we told him. He was at first incredulous, then appalled, and then very angry. He talked at Wayland
about me, until Wayland said, ‘You’re saying all these things about her as though she doesn’t exist.’ Our only defence was that
we couldn’t help
it, but that only added fuel to the flames. Pete treated us as though we were unspeakably disloyal children; he was breezy as well as furious. We should be ashamed of ourselves, and it must all
stop at once. The scene went on for hours, until Pete said he was going out to dinner and that Wayland must leave the house with him. They went, and I cried myself into a stupor. I couldn’t
imagine what would happen next, except I knew it would be awful.

It was. Pete came back in the evening. He’d dined with K and I knew at once that he would have told her all about it. His ship was going to be based at Holyhead in Anglesey and I was to
accompany him there by train the next day. I wasn’t to attempt to telephone or write to Wayland ever again, and he’d been told the same. By now Pete had resorted to a kind of sulky
self-pity. How could I do that to him, how could I be so wickedly disloyal? I didn’t know, and said so. There were more tears and he said he simply couldn’t understand it. I must know
that he loved me, and it was pretty difficult to fight a war with that sort of thing going on behind his back. I said again and again that I knew it had been wrong and that I was very sorry. But
sleepless in the dark, I thought he didn’t love me as I knew Wayland did.

The Station Hotel at Holyhead was an immense Victorian pile of dark red brick, carpeted corridors and dreary bedrooms. There had barely been time to pack, let alone say goodbye to all my friends
in the house. Dosia assured me that they’d look after everything, and Audrey said how nice it would be for me to have more time with Peter.

It wasn’t nice, at all. I was back to lonely hotel life with the added anguish of missing Wayland every single waking moment of the empty days. It rained nearly all the time. There were no
other wives in the hotel and Pete was out all day. When he came back he was still very angry. He bedded me doggedly every single night, which I found more and more unbearable. I remember once
bursting into tears after one of the joyless occasions, and saying that he was digging his own grave. In the daytime, I went for solitary
walks. I longed more than anything to
write to Wayland, but at least I kept to that promise.

Holyhead was a port for the ferries going to and from Ireland, and the hotel had been built to accommodate the travellers. The ferries continued but now the harbour was full of naval shipping,
mostly Coastal Forces who were training for the eventual invasion. The town was a steep, grey little place and most of its inhabitants were bilingual in Welsh and English. There were no amenities,
except for pubs; there wasn’t even a decent bookshop. To begin with I walked into the town and on to the small mountain behind it, had lunch on my own with a book, and spent the afternoon
lying on my bed sleeping. Sometimes in the evenings Pete would take me to fellow officers’ boats, where we’d drink gin and they’d talk about naval matters. Then we’d climb
up the slippery weed-encrusted iron ladders from the boat and go back to the hotel where we’d have dinner and grey coffee in the cavernous lounge before going to bed. Days passed in this
manner.

Occasionally, there were letters: from my mother telling me about Nicola, about Robin starting to train as a Spitfire pilot and being sent to Arizona, and one saying that Grannia had died in the
nursing-home. I remember writing to her about that, and getting the most affectionate reply from her I’d ever had. I’d tried in my letter to write a sort of portrait of my grandmother,
recounting all the good things I could remember about her: her beauty – even when she was old; her lovely voice when she read aloud to me; the way in which she could arrange one branch of
cherry blossom in a jar and make it look completely perfect; her little bell ringing every day at the same time to summon the wild birds to be fed; the encouraging letter she’d written to me
about my first story . . . Writing; I’d not written anything for a long time, but now all I wanted to do was write to Wayland.

During those days – perhaps it was a week or two – I felt paralysed, as though I was caught in some web of despair where the slightest movement would either unravel it, hurtling me
into some
abyss even more awful, or tighten its hold on me until I should be literally suffocated by despair. There seemed to be no way out. At some point, some self-preserving
instinct intervened: I had to do something, take the risk and make some move, however small. This wasn’t brave: somewhere, in the back of my mind, I was afraid of going mad. I discovered that
a band of women – it may have been the WI – were making camouflage nets in the town. I asked if I could join them and was accepted.

The work was very dull. Huge nets were let down on rollers from some bar in the ceiling on to which we had to tie strands of green and khaki pieces of cloth, at random intervals. The work was in
the mornings only, and I did it for some weeks. Even this activity was an improvement. Outside I felt more sanguine, but inside I was hardening. I knew now that I didn’t love Pete in the way
that I should, and rationalized this by blaming him for his present treatment of me.

Then something else happened – out of the blue – that had a profound effect on me. Pete came back one evening to say that someone he’d known slightly before the war who was the
agent for some neighbouring large estate had a young wife who’d just given birth. She was ill: he had to go away on business for a night, and didn’t want to leave her alone with a
sickly baby. Would I go? An hour later the husband came to fetch me in his battered little car, and we drove through the rain for what seemed like miles. We stopped at the beginning of a drive
where there was a small lodge. He took me upstairs to the bedroom and introduced us. She was called Myfanwy. The midwife would be coming first thing in the morning, he told her, and your mother is
coming later in the day. This is Jane Scott who is going to spend the night with you. Then he went.

The room was lit by just one small lamp, but I could see that Myfanwy was ill. She was very pretty with dark hair and enormous glittering eyes and she was throwing herself about the bed. Her
nightdress was half off one shoulder and exposed her breasts –
blue-veined and very swollen. ‘He won’t take anything from me,’ she said. ‘He will
die,’ and her eyes overflowed.

‘Where is he?’ She drew back the sheets. A tiny, heavily swathed baby was lying against her. ‘I’m trying to keep him warm,’ she said, ‘but he will die if he
won’t take the milk.’ He will die from not being able to breathe, I thought. I said I’d get her something to help her sleep and that I’d look after the baby for the night.
There was a tiny bathroom at the head of the stairs, and to the right of it was a small second bedroom that I could see had been prepared as a nursery. It had a cot and a small single bed in it.
All I could find in the bathroom was some aspirin. I got a glass of water and made her swallow them, saying with all the calm authority I could muster that this would make all the difference.
‘You
will
look after him? You will not sleep and leave him to himself?’ She had a pretty Welsh accent. I promised that I wouldn’t, picked up the baby and laid him on a
chair while I tidied her bed. She seemed relieved by my promise, and turned painfully on to her side – I knew how that hurt – to settle for sleep. ‘I am so
tired
,’
she said.

I took the baby into the next room. It was icy cold. The only thing to do was to get into bed and keep him in my arms. He was the smallest baby I’d ever seen. After I’d got into bed,
I realized that the only way I could keep him warm was directly against my skin. I pulled off my jersey and the shirt underneath it – in those days I didn’t wear a bra – unwrapped
him from his shawl and unbuttoned the little jacket that he wore underneath it. I held as much of his body as I could against mine, and covered the rest of us with the shawl. He had a pinched
little face, very white, but he wasn’t asleep. His eyes roved over my face unseeingly. His tiny hands were clenched and he seemed too weak to move them. Perhaps he
is
going to die, I
thought, and then I thought that I must not even think this. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ I said, and other things of this kind. At one point his eyes stopped roving, and he
seemed to look at me, which made me feel a great love for him, and I told him this. He made a little mewling sound, and then, very slowly, his eyes
shut and he fell asleep. But
I
must not, I thought; at that point I’d no idea how difficult this would be. As his face slowly became the palest pink and I could feel that our warmth was becoming mutual, I started
to feel more relaxed and the temptation to sleep began.

It was a very long night. Twice, he woke and made small petulant sounds, turning his head this way and that, and I knew that he was thirsty. This meant getting out of bed, fetching water from
the bathroom and heating it in the kettle that was fortunately in the small room. There must also have been a bottle with a teat, because I remember that, back in bed, I squirted a little of the
water on the back of my hand to test the temperature as I’d been taught at the Babies’ Hotel, then squirted a little of it into his mouth. His face contorted to an expression of
astonishment and distaste, and then, with his eyes on my face, he accepted a little more. At least the cold of getting up had woken me for a while. Twice more this happened, and in between I held
him closely,
willing
him not to die. Whenever he was awake, we stared at each other. He was majestic in his frailty.

It was still dark when I heard the midwife’s car stop outside. I got up and quickly pulled on my clothes as she came bustling up the stairs. Myfanwy had slept. The midwife went down again
to make her some tea, she sat up in bed and I gave her the baby. ‘He is all right?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘I must thank you for keeping him for me,’ she said, very sweetly.

I cycled back to Holyhead on a borrowed bicycle. It was barely light, and raining. I’d been aching from staying in the same position for so long, but now I felt as though some great weight
had been lifted from my heart. Love, which I still thought of as the most important thing in the world, hadn’t deserted me. I was good for some part of it at least.

By the time I got back to the hotel I was soaked and famished. I went straight into the dining room, where the rather prissy wife of one of the officers was breakfasting with her husband.
She’d already been staying a few days, and I knew that she disapproved of
me. ‘
You
look as though you’ve had a night on the tiles,’ she called
across the dining room.

‘Yes, I have,’ I answered, not caring what she thought. I ate an enormous breakfast, went upstairs and fell into bed.

When I woke, several hours later, it was with the memory of the tiny trustful face that I’d probably never see again. The thought occurred to me that I’d never had that sort of time
with Nicola, but it all seemed too late now. Whenever I saw her it was Nanny whom she loved, and quite rightly. I’d never been good with her. Guilt, that dreary and lethargic sensation,
rolled down with the easy familiarity of a blind.

After that, I got ill, with one of my frequent sore throats, and Pete said it would be better if he slept aboard his ship until I was better.

When I recovered, I found that the camouflage netting had come to an end, and looked about for something else to do. The Port Amenities Liaison Officer – the Palo, he was called –
was a nice man, and when I suggested that perhaps I might produce a play with the Navy, he agreed at once, and dubbed me Assistant Palo. Honorary, of course. There was a convent in Holyhead, and
the nuns were prepared to let us have the hall for the performances. It was agreed that
The Importance of Being Earnest
should be the piece, and I sent to Messrs Samuel French for copies.
Jack Lambert, a friend of Pete’s, was the perfect Jack Worthing. I found a pretty, very young Wren to be Cecily, and two others who were prepared to take on Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism. The
chance of acting was too much for me and I decided to play Gwendoline. An Algernon was suggested to me whom I didn’t know. His name was Philip Lee. He was blond, with large grey eyes, a
slightly crooked nose and a delicately curling mouth. He was charming, and read the part beautifully; I took to him at once. Rehearsals were difficult because of the cast having to go to sea
without warning, and the Wrens having similarly pressing duties, but we managed all right, until two days before the performance when Jack’s boat was sent
to Lowestoft. We
found another Jack, who gallantly did his best, but he barely had time to learn the part. The play went off quite well, and everybody seemed pleased. Pete, particularly, was pleased that it had
been a success, and was most encouraging about it.

Things had eased a little between us. For some time I had been writing a story – longish, based upon my encounter with Seth. It was rather a highly coloured and intense affair, but it was
my first attempt at writing prose for a long time and I was anxious for an opinion. Pete suggested showing it to Jack who, he said, knew about that sort of thing, but after he’d read it, he
simply remarked that he was getting rather tired of the streams of consciousness that had become so fashionable. I didn’t know then what he meant, but I was dashed. I asked Pete, rather
hesitantly, whether he would send it to Wayland. To my surprise, he said he would. He got a letter back about it, but all I can remember is ‘What a hectic, subtle mind she has.’
However, that was better than Jack’s reaction. I didn’t make any attempt to publish it: it had simply been an enjoyable occupation. The letter to Pete from Wayland had disturbed me: I
wanted it to have been to me, but I knew that would have been against the rules.