room was silent except for the soft whisper of ash falling from the glowing log fire and the slow ticking of a gilt clock.
‘What’s the other reason?’ Amy asked at last.
‘Do we need a reason? Oh, about Herr Jaspert, d’you mean? I’d hoped we could forget him. The man’s a Fascist. An out-and-out Mosleyite, and beyond. Of course all the Conservatives have been dithering about whether to jump right or left, and Jaspert’s chosen to jump about as far right as you can go. As you rightly said, he’s making a big success just now because they’re all so terrified of Reds. His law-and-order and Trots-off-the-streets-and-into-the-cells policies are going down well with certain segments. It won’t last. He can’t help his temperamental inclinations, but they’ve led him to make the wrong choice. When it comes, the fight will be against Fascism. Look at Italy and Spain, as well as Germany.’
Amy sat watching the fire and thinking. She had heard her brother-in-law’s name mentioned often enough at Appleyard Street, most recently by Jake Silverman only a few days before. Jake was out of gaol again, his face pallid under the black beard but with his fervour burning more brightly than ever.
Tony Hardy had kept her secret loyally. None of the comrades had any idea of Amy’s connections. She listened silently to their denunciations of Peter Jaspert along with Mosley and his sympathizers. Her own dislike of him enabled her somehow to disconnect the memory of his relationship. Tonight, and the insinuating heat of him, had fanned it alive again. It was an ugly thought.
She turned her face against Jack’s shoulder. ‘Let’s not talk about him any more.’
‘By all means.’
‘Jack?’
‘Mmm?’
He was very warm, and close, and she longed to cling to the protection he had given her. But that wasn’t possible, any more.
‘I know we’ve come to a kind of end, together. Do you remember, right at the beginning, I said that I understood the rules?’ Jack moved to put his fingers lightly to her mouth, but Amy turned her head aside. ‘I wanted to say thank you. For giving me what you have done, and for making it happy. That’s all.’
‘Oh, my love.’
Jack stood up and took her hands. He led her up the stairs and laid her down on the black silk cover, and Amy looked round for the last time at the familiar place before he bent over her.
She saw the light glitter on his hair, and the little, tender creases at the corners of his eyes. He kissed her mouth and undid the buttons of her dress, sliding it off so that he could kiss her shoulders and her bare breasts.
Jack had given her her physical self, whole and miraculous. Thank you, for that. Amy let her head fall back. He put his hands up to her face and held it, looking into her eyes. And then he lay down beside her, holding her and stroking her until she moaned deep in her throat and turned imploringly to him.
He tore off the smooth satin of her underclothes and ran his hands over her skin. She reached out for him in her turn, impatient, and she felt his restraint as he guided her, directing her pleasure, as he had always done.
She begged him, please.
At last he fitted himself within her and she wound her arms and legs around him, holding him. They lay still, their faces together, for a long moment of silence. And then they began to move together and Amy forgot their parting, forgot the world itself beyond the bedroom walls. For the last time they belonged together, and there was no more consideration than their bodies’ delight.
Later, in the safe darkness, Amy let her head rest in the hollow of his shoulder. Her eyelashes were heavy, glued together with dampness, and behind them the hot prickle of tears was starting. Amy stared straight up and blinked them back again.
‘May I come with you to Southampton? I’ll wave you off at the dockside.’
And then, in the silence that followed, she heard the sound of solitude.
‘No, my darling,’ Jack said softly. ‘I can’t bear shipboard goodbyes. Let’s say it just as if you were going off to the hospital for an ordinary day.’ The warmth of him curled round her, but she knew that Jack was already gone. His mouth brushed against her forehead. ‘Good night, my love.’
After a moment, with the heat burning her eyes, she whispered, ‘Good night.’
Then there was only work.
The days and nights seemed longer and harder without Jack to look forward to when her duty spells ended. Amy felt wearier than she had ever done after the strenuous night-clubbing and party-going. She went mechanically through the rituals of living as the cold, wet winter dragged interminably on and then grudgingly slipped into a damp, chilly spring. There was little else for her to focus on, and even if there had been anything outside the hospital and hostel walls to tempt her away she could scarcely have afforded the time. For all the nurses of Amy’s set, the final examinations for State Registration loomed in May.
When she came off the wards each day Amy would sit over her textbooks and her lecture notes, anxiously aware that her mind seemed to be working only at half pressure. She seemed to be forgetting even the simplest facts that she had known for years. The anxiety nagged at her, and even though she was perpetually exhausted she slept badly. She had no appetite either, and she lost so much weight that the bones showed too sharply in the planes of her face.
Adeline was concerned when she saw her. She sat on one of her white sofas, with a posy of waxy-white overpoweringly scented stephanotis in a bowl beside her, and took Amy’s hands.
‘I can’t bear it, Amy. You look so ill.’
The scent of the flowers was making Amy feel sick. She tried to smile at Adeline. ‘I’m working hard and sleeping badly, that’s all. I’ll take a holiday after the exams. I’ll go to Chance and stuff myself with butter and eggs.’ Her stomach heaved at the mere thought of it. Adeline’s face suddenly went stiff.
‘My dear, I don’t want to pry, of course. But is it possible that you are enceinte?’
Amy smiled crookedly at her mother’s delicacy. After her own stints on the Lambeth’s labour and maternity wards she had acquired a matter-of-fact view of the female mysteries.
‘No. I’m certain of that.’
When she had first started sleeping with Jack she had trusted him so implicitly that she had left the responsibilities to him. Later, at the height of her happiness, she had believed that she would be glad to bear him a child. Yet nothing had happened, and Amy knew that she wasn’t pregnant.
‘At least that’s something. Darling, it rends me to see you so sad. I wish I hadn’t ever introduced damned Jack if he’s done this to you. But you do understand, don’t you, that that’s the man he is? Gloriously here, and then not here and a vale of tears left behind him?’
‘Yes. I always knew that. It’s all right, I promise. I’m not in love with Jack. Just let me get these bloody exams over…’
‘Amy.’
Even though Amy was conscious of being absurdly and unnecessarily on the verge of tears, Adeline comforted her. Her gaiety was like a rock.
The week of the exams came. Amy fumbled through them, panic alternating with dull apathy. By the time they were over, she was convinced that she had failed. On the night after her last paper, she went to bed with a headache that was almost blinding her. She woke up again at five in the morning shivering uncontrollably, and soaked in her own sweat. She pushed back the bedcovers and tried to stand up and her knees buckled beneath her. Somehow she crawled back and lay down. She was puzzled by the illusion that she seemed to be floating somewhere above the narrow bedstead, and almost amused by the way that the room changed its dimensions around her. Amy had no idea how long it was before her door opened and someone leant over her. A hand that felt as cold as ice touched her forehead. After that Dr Davis appeared. Amy tried to struggle respectfully upright, certain that he was on ward rounds