'No, I'm fine now he's gone.'
'I'll just make sure he does.'
He went out again. Lucy put her pajamas on. It was a hot night and she was sweating slightly. She went into the bathroom and, not looking in the mirror, sponged her face with cold water. She heard the front door slam.
Churchill watched Dr. Best's tail-light disappear. He did not immediately go back into the house. The sky had more color in it than any night sky he could remember and there were thousands of stars. The moon was nearly full. There were no other sources of light.
He went inside, shutting the door quietly, upstairs, and along the passage to a room diagonally opposite Lucy's, which he entered with some slight unnecessary noise. Catharine was lying in bed with the light on.
'It's all right,' he said. 'Some chap Lucy found she didn't like and cut up when she told him so. He's gone now. I'll just make sure she's okay.'
'Don't be long.'
'I won't.'
Lucy was in bed too. Her hairline was damp from the water.
'I shouldn't have let him come up here,' she said.
'Why did you?'
'He said he wanted to talk to me about a personal matter, but he never got round to saying what it was. Something about his professional services or something. It must have been to see how Catharine was getting on, don't you think?'
Churchill looked to make sure the door was shut. 'Or that was just an excuse to come over here so as to get at you. By the way, we don't mention to Catharine that he was here, do we? It might worry her.'
'Agreed. Hey, though, the cheek of him when he left. Quite as if he'd been trying like anything to get away gracefully for hours.'
'He was just saving his face.'
'James, the Army wouldn't let you come and live here, I suppose, would it? It'd be such a nice arrangement.'
'I'd love to, but I'm afraid they wouldn't. I can spend a lot of time in the nights here, though.'
'Good. You're doing wonders for Cathy, you know.'
'I'm doing wonders for myself. If you're not sleepy I'll go and get her and we can all have a chat. You've only to say.'
'No, honestly, I'm feeling marvelous now. You go off-she's waiting for you.'
'If you're absolutely sure. Do you mind if I go in there?'
'Good God, help yourself. Good night, James, darling.'
'Good night, Lucy. See you tomorrow evening.'
He kissed her and went into the bathroom, where he used the w.c. As he did so he felt slightly sorry not to be using instead the one in the other and decrepit bathroom. Earlier that evening he had decided that the one he was in now, though very handily placed, had better be avoided. He had not wanted to run into the Colonel or Hunter, far less one of Lucy's civilian friends. The thought of tramping all the way across the house and back in the interests of discretion had not appealed to him. But in the event he had been fascinated by his walk. The outward journey, with carpet giving place to matting and thence to bare boards, wall coverings declining and vanishing, had been like some symbolic progress from the corporeal to the spiritual. And the return trip had introduced him to romance and unreality in one, as it might be a film set of a modern Rapunzel's castle.
Back in Catharine's bedroom, he took off his clothes and got into bed. He put one arm between her neck and the pillow and the other across her hip. Immediately they took up again the gazing at each other that Lucy's shouts had interrupted. He noticed as if for the first time, though in reality it was for the hundredth time, that she had hazel eyes with more dark flecks in the right one than in the left, hair the color of dark honey bleached in places by the sun and growing low down on a forehead which was not itself low, rounded and rather childish ears, square jaws, a fair complexion more white than red, a straight nose with a faint upward tilt, a straight mouth with a recess under the lower lip. He reviewed these facts for a period he could not have measured. Then he passed to others no less well known to him. Her cheeks were smooth with a tiny down on them, her hair at the hairline smelled of honey as well as being of its color, her lips were smooth and dry. With the spread fingers and thumb of his left hand he found out, as often before, the gentle swell of her skull above the nape of her neck; with his right he relearned the small firmness of her breast, the softness of her stomach and the incomparably greater softness between her thighs. When he moved above and into her he found the parts of his body not in contact with hers beginning to slip away from him, ceasing to exist. His thighs were nowhere except where they were between hers; his arms were only as real as their clasp of her sides and her back. All he could hear was her breathing and then her voice.
He felt the sheet on his back and the sheet under his forearms and knees and toes.
'I love you,' she said.
'I love you.'
'I know.'
'That's nice as ‘I love you' really, isn't it? As nice a thing to say and to have someone say to you as well. Nearly as nice, anyway.'
'Have you loved anyone before?' she asked.
'No. Only been fond of people.'
'I've loved other people. Is that all right? You don't mind?'
'There's nothing about you or that you've ever done that I could ever mind.'
