I jerked away from her. "Rachel, you aren't just doing this to spite Arnold?"

"No. I think I started thinking about it, somehow out of self-defence, and then that awful time, you know, in this room, you were here, you were inside the barrier as it were, and I've known you so long, it's as if you had a special role, like a knight with a charge laid upon him, my knight, so necessary and precious, and I've always seen you a little as a wise man, a sort of hermit or ascetic—"And it always gives ladies particular pleasure to seduce ascetics."

"Perhaps. Am I seducing you? Anyway I've got to perform an act of will. Otherwise I shall die of humiliation or something. I feel it's a holy time."

"This could be a pretty unholy idea."

"It's your idea too, Bradley. Look where you are!"

"We are both conventional middle-aged people."

"I'm not conventional."

"Well, I am, I'm pre-permissive. And you are my best friend's wife. And one doesn't with one's best friend's wife—"

"What?"

"Start anything."

"But it's started, it's here, the only question is what we do with it. Bradley, I'm afraid I do rather enjoy arguing with you."

"You know where arguments like this end,"

"Between the sheets."

"God, we might as well be eighteen."

"They don't argue now."

"Look, is all this because Arnold is having an affair with Christian? Is he having an affair with Christian?"

"I don't know and it no longer matters."

"You still love Arnold, don't you?"

"Oh yes, yes, yes, but that doesn't matter either. He's just played the tyrant for too long. I must have new love, I must have love outside the Arnold-cage—"I suppose women of your age—'

"Oh don't start that, Bradley."

"I just mean, naturally one might want a change, but let's not do anything—"

"Bradley, with all your philosophy, surely you know that it doesn't really matter what we do."

I reflected. "Yes."

"Well, you must stop being. Oh my dear, don't you see that this is somehow the point? I must see you unafraid. This is what being my knight is. That will really let me out. And it will do something great for you too. Why can't you write? Because you're all timid and repressed and tied up. I mean in a spiritual way."

This was close to what I had thought myself. "Then are we to love each other in a spiritual way?"

"Oh Bradley, look, enough of this argument, let's undress."

All this time we had been sitting sideways facing each other, not touching, except when the tips of her fingers lightly tapped my face, then the lapels of my jacket, my shoulders and arms as if she were putting a spell upon me.

Rachel turned away, and in a single quick contorted movement peeled off her blouse and brassiere. Naked to the waist she now regarded me. This was a very different matter.

She was blushing and her face had become suddenly more tentative. She had very full round breasts with huge brown mandalas. The unclothed body wears a very different head from the clothed body. The blush extended down her neck and faded into the deep V of mottled sunburn which stained the flesh between her breasts. Her body had an air of unexhibited chasteness. I knew that this was a most unwonted gesture. And indeed it was a long time since I had seen a woman's breasts. I looked but did not move.

"Rachel," I said, "I am very touched and moved, but I really think this is most unwise."

"Oh stop it." She suddenly clasped my neck and rolled me back on the bed. There was a pushing and a scrambling and in a moment she was entirely naked beside me. Her body was hot. She was panting and her lips were against my cheek. She said, "Oh God."

"Bradley, undress."

"Rachel," I said, "I am, as I say, moved. I am very grateful. But I cannot make love to you. I don't mean I don't want to, I cannot. The machinery will not work."

"Do you always—have—difficulties?"

" 'Always' has no force here. I haven't been with a woman for many years. This privilege is unwonted and unexpected. And I cannot rise to it."

"Undress. I just want to hold you."

I felt appallingly cool, still seeing myself. I took off my shoes and socks, my trousers, pants and tie. Some sort of self-protective instinct made me retain my shirt, but I let Rachel with hot trembling fingers undo the buttons. As I lay in her arms quite still and physically chilled, and her hands moved timidly about me, I saw above the haze of her hair through a gap in the curtains the leaves of a tree moving about in the breeze, and I felt that I was in hell.

"You're icy cold, Bradley. You look as if you're going to cry. Don't worry, my darling, it doesn't matter."

"It does matter."

"It'll be better next time."

There won't be a next time, I thought. And then I felt so overpoweringly sorry for Rachel that I really put my arms around her and drew her up against me. She gave an excited little sigh.

Then. "Rachel! Hey, where are you?" Arnold's voice below.

Like spirits of the damned pricked by the devil's fork we bounded up. I began scrabbling for my clothes which had got into a tangle on the floor. They appeared to be plaited into each other. Rachel had pulled on her blouse and skirt with no underclothes. She leaned on me as my hands still plucked vainly at inside-out trousers and her breath tickled my ear. "I'll take him down the garden." Then she was gone, closing the door behind her. I heard voices below.

I glided out and down the stairs and opened the front door. I pulled it to very softly after me but it would not close. I pulled it harder and it banged. I ran down the path and slipped upon some moss and came down with a crash. I staggered up and began to run away down the road.

At the end of the next road I was slowing down to a quick walk when, just as I rounded the corner, I cannoned straight into somebody. It was a girl dressed in a very short striped garment, she had bare legs and bare feet, she was Julian.

"So sorry. Oh Bradley, how super. You've been visiting the parents. What a shame I missed you. Are you going to the station? May I walk along with you?" She turned and we walked on together.

"I thought you were at a pop festival," I said, breathless, frantic with emotion, but concealing it.

"I couldn't get on the train. At least I could have done if I didn't mind being squashed, but I do, I'm a bit of a claustrophobe."

"So am I. Pop festivals are no places for us claustrophobes." I was speaking calmly, but now I was thinking: She will tell Arnold that she met me.

"I suppose not. I've never been to one. Now you're going to lecture me about drugs, aren't you?"

"No. Do you want a lecture?"

"I wouldn't mind one from you. But I'd rather it was on Hamlet. Bradley, do you think Gertrude was in league with Claudius to kill the king?"

"No."

"Do you think she was having an affair with Claudius before her husband died?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Too conventional," I said. "Not enough courage. It would have needed tremendous courage."

"Claudius could have persuaded her, he was very powerful."

"So was her husband."

"We only see him through Hamlet's eyes."

"No. The ghost was a real ghost."

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

"Then the king must have been an awful bore."

"That's another point."

"I think some women have a nervous urge to commit adultery, especially when they reach a certain age."

"Possibly."

"Do you think the king and Claudius ever liked each other?"

"There's a theory that they were in love. Gertrude killed her husband because he was having a love affair with Claudius. Hamlet knew of course. No wonder he was neurotic. There are lots of veiled references to buggery. 'A mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother.' Ear is phallic and wholesome is a pun—"I say! Where can I read about it?"

"I'm teasing you. They haven't thought of that yet, even in Oxford."

I was walking fast and Julian had to give a little run every now and then to keep up. She kept turning towards me as she did so, performing a sort of dance beside me. I looked down at her bare brown very dirty feet executing these hops, skips and jumps.

We had nearly reached the place where I had seen her in the twilight tearing up the love letters, when I had at first taken her for a boy. I said, "How is Mr. Belling?"

"Please, Bradley—"Sorry."

"No, you know you can say anything you like to me. All that's over and done, thank God."

"Your balloon didn't come sailing back to you? You didn't wake up one morning and find it tied to your window?"

"No!"

At that moment Julian stopped outside the same shoe shop where I had parted from her on the previous occasion. "Oh I do adore those boots, the purple ones, I do wish they weren't so expensive!"

On impulse I said, "I'll buy them for you." I wanted to gain a little time to think of a suitably plausible way of asking her to keep quiet.

"Oh Bradley, you can't, they're far too much, how awfully kind of you but you can't—'

"Why not? It's ages since I gave you a present. I used to when you were little. Come on, be brave."

"Oh Bradley, I'd love it, and you're so kind, which is even better than the boots, but I can't—"Why not?"

"I haven't any stockings. I can't try them on with my feet like this."

"I see. I think incidentally that this barefoot cult is perfectly idiotic. Suppose you step on some glass?"

"I know. I think it's idiotic too, I won't do it again, it was just for the festival, it's terribly uncomfortable, my feet are hurting like anything already. Oh dear, what a shame though."

"Can't you buy some stockings!"

"There isn't a shop near—I had been fumbling in my pocket looking for my wallet. Suddenly as my hand emerged a pile of stuff fell out onto the pavement: my tie, underpants and socks. My face blazing with guilt, I swooped on them.

"Oh look, what luck, I could wear your socks. It's so warm, I don't wonder you took them off. May I, would you mind?"

She put them on immediately, balancing on each foot and holding on to my sleeve. We went into the shop.

It was cool and dim inside. Not at all like the nightmare shop that haunted my sister and myself; and not at all like the remembered interior of the womb either. More like the temple of some old unpassionate rather ascetic cult. The tiers of white containers (perhaps containing relics or votive gifts), the quiet darkly clad acolytes, the lowered voices, the rows of seats for meditation, the oddly shaped stools. The shoe horns.

We sat down side by side and Julian asked for her size. The black-clad girl began to ease the purple boot on over Julian's foot and my grey nylon sock. The high boot enveloped her leg and the zip fastener moved smoothly upward.

"It fits beautifully. May I try the other?" The other boot slid on.

Julian stood in front of the mirror and I looked at her reflection. The boots looked stunning on her. Above the knee there was a piece of bare thigh, only faintly brown, and then the blue-andgreenand-white striped hem of her brief dress.

Julian's delight was literally indescribable. Her face dissolved and glowed, she quite unconsciously clapped her hands, she rushed back to me and shook me by the shoulders and then rushed back to the mirror. Her innocent pleasure would have moved me very much upon a better occasion. Why had I thought of her as an image of vanity? This delight of the young animal in itself was something pure. I could not help smiling.

"Bradley, you do like them, they don't look absurd?"

"They look smashing."

"I'm so pleased, oh you are so sweet—Thank you so much!"

"Thank you. Present-giving is a form of self-indulgence." I asked for the bill.

"No, I won't wear them, it's too hot," Julian was explaining to the sales girl. "Bradley, you are an angel. May I come and see you soon and we'll talk about Shakespeare? I'm free any time—Monday, Tuesday—how about Tuesday morning at your place at eleven? Or whenever you like?"

"All right, all right."

"And we'll talk seriously and look at the text in detail?"

"Yes, yes."

"Oh I am so pleased with the boots."

When we parted company at the station and I looked into those purely coloured blue eyes I could not bring myself to dim her joy by asking her to lie, even though I had by then thought of a fairly ingenious cock-and-bull story.