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But what did my talking result in? Only a slight feeling of pique when I realized Martin was amused by what I was saying And when he said,

"And what books does Ronnie read?" I couldn't think of one title.

Then to my aid came the incident of the day when he had answered the priest, and I said, with an assumed casualness, "Oh, well, books like

" Martin Luther"."

Instantly, I saw that he was impressed, and for the first time his tone held a note that was not nice, there was something, was it condescension as he said, "Well, well, so we've got traitors among us.

Your brother is a boy after my own heart. "

Tattler EUis didn't think so," I laughed.

"You're a Catholic, Christine?"

I nodded.

"And your brother reads Martin Luther? I can see why the priest didn't like it." He seemed amused.

"Are you a Catholic?" I asked shyly.

His head went back and he laughed, "Good Lord, no!" Then he said softly, "Oh, I'm sorry, Christine, I didn't mean it like that. I'm nothing. I'm searching, like your brother's doing. He must be if he's reading Luther."

His mood changed and he exclaimed, "Luther! A summer night like this, the most beautiful girl in the world and you are you know a flowing river, and here we are talking about Luther.... Let me look at you."

He pulled me round to face him.

"I want to look at your face, all the time, forever. You're like a star on a dung heap."

As his eyes washed my face and his fingers outlined the curve of my mouth, I felt I was going to sink into the glory of oblivion or was it of living yet at the same time a pocket in my mind, the pocket that was holding thoughts of my mother and Dad and our Ronnie, was now urging me to get up and get my dress and go home. So much did my thoughts clamour that they burst their confines and I heard myself whisper,

"Will you see if my dress is dry?"

He gave a deep, soft laugh, then said, "All right," and springing up he went to the bushes. I saw him lift my dress in his hands, and then he called, "It's slightly damp on the other side, I'll turn it over."

In a second he was at my side again.

"Look at me," he said, and when I did so he added, "I dont want to take my eyes off you."

There followed a pause, during which I became filled with awe. That I, Christine Winter, could find such favour in the eyes of this god, this god from another planet.

"It's going to be a long, beautiful summer, Christine."

I, too felt it was going to be a long, beautiful summer, and when his arms went about me I made no protest, but just leant against him. I had no urge now as I had a little while ago to ask questions: where did he live when he wasn't visiting on Brampton Hill, or at Oxford?

Or where he was going when he left Brampton Hill? Or whether now he had found me he would stay on Brampton Hill? I had no desire to have an answer to any of these questions, for he had said, "It's going to be a long, beautiful summer."

The twilight was deepening, and soon it would be dusk and I must be home before dark, and I hated the thought of leaving this spot, of ever moving out of the circle of his arms. It did not seem the slightest bit out of place that he was wearing only bathing trunks, for I was used to the sight of our Ronnie and Don and Sam in bathing trunks.

What I wasn't used to was the sight of my own bare legs against theirs, yet now, as I looked down towards my feet, I felt not the slightest embarrassment, only an intense joy at the contact of Martin's instep across my foot.

Then I could no longer look down at my feet, for he had turned my face towards him again and was holding me close, and there descended on my mind and body and all the world a stillness, and within the stillness I lay awake. What followed was inevitable, nothing could have stopped it, for I had no strength within myself to combat such a force, my religion and upbringing were as useless as if they had never existed.

I was sent soaring into the heavens, higher than any bird, and when I floated down to earth again I was crying. Unrestrainedly and helplessly, I was crying. My arms, bare now, were about his neck, and I sobbed out this bewilderment of feeling. Then as quickly as my crying had begun it stopped, and I wanted to laugh. I made a small sound like a laugh, and it broke on a hiccup, and in a moment we were both laughing into each other's necks. I wanted to laugh louder and louder. I felt body less there was nothing left of me but laughter.

And this told me I was gloriously, ecstatically, blissfully happy. I was drunk with the wine of creation, oblivious for the moment to everything but bliss. And then the heavens opened and God spoke.

CHRISTINE"

My name thundered over me, and went rolling along the river, and instinctively I broke away from Martin's arms and buried my face in the earth.

"CHRISTINE, GET UP!"

I shuddered and trembled and raised myself a little way on my hands, and from under my lids I saw Martin's feet turn swiftly towards the edge of the bank, then drop to the beach where his clothes were.

I put one hand and groped wildly for the coat, but could feel nothing.

Then my dress descended on me, and Father Ellis's voice cried, "Cover yourself, girl! Before God, I cannot believe it's you!"

In a mad frenzy of fear now, I pulled the dress over my head, but I still remained kneeling on the ground, terrified to get to my feet.

Father Ellis's black-clothed legs were before me, the high polish on his black boots seemed to pierce the dusk. Then they turned from me and moved towards the edge of the bank, and his voice, rasping out in command, cried, "Come here, you!"

Ironically now I was praying. Oh, Blessed Virgin Mary, dont let him say anything to Martin. Please! Please! dont let him. Then his voice cut through my agonized praying mind, yelling, "Come here! Come here, I say."

I raised my eyes and saw Father Ellis jumping down the bank. Then on the dull sound of pounding feet I staggered up and, going to the edge, I saw something that stripped the night of wonder and brought my god low, for Martin was running along the bank in great leaping strides and, almost as swiftly, Father Ellis was after him. But I was praying again, "Don't let him catch him! dont let him catch him!" for I couldn't bear that Martin should suffer the indignity of being dragged back here by Father Ellis, not that he would allow himself to be dragged anywhere. I had a terrifying picture of him striking out at the priest.

Lowering myself quickly down the bank, I got into my shoes and stockings, and when I again stood up it was to see Father Ellis coming towards me alone.

I have not the power of words with which to describe the mixture of feelings that were raging through me as I stood with my head bowed waiting for the priest's approach. I only knew that they centred around a great humiliation, and I wanted to die, to drop down dead on the spot. 107 I was looking down once more on to the shiny black boots, but they were some distance from me, and the distance the priest had left between us spoke to me of my degradation in his eyes more plainly than his words had done. The seconds ticked by and he did not speak, and I found myself swaying as if I was going to faint. And when he muttered in a strange voice, "I just can't believe it. You ... you, Christine.... How long has this been going on? Answer me!" The last words were said in a tone he had never used to me before, more like a bark, and I muttered, "Just tonight. Father."

"How long have you known him?"

How long had I known him? All my life, from the minute I started breathing he had been there. This wonderful, pale- faced, beautiful-voiced god. But could I answer now, "Two nights," or 'a week," or 'since just after Easter' ?

"Answer me," "Just... just a short time. Father."

"How short?"

I couldn't bring myself to say "Two nights, for it now seemed an impossibility that there had been so much love crammed into two nights, so I muttered, " A week. "

"God! God!" The priest's exclamation sounded like deep swearing, and my shoulders sank down, dragging my head with them.

"What's his name?"

I paused, trying to gain the strength to refuse to answer, but it was useless.

"Martin Fonyere, Father."

"Where does he live?"

"On... on Brampton Hill."

"There are lots of people living on Brampton Hill, I want his address."

My body seemed almost bent in two, so deep was my shame.

"Do you hear, Christine?"

"I -1 dont know. Father."

He did not speak again for some minutes, but I could hear his breathing, quick and hissing in the quiet around us. Then he said abruptly, "Come along home."

My body jerked up straight, and my eyes seemed to jump from my head to his grey face, and I repeated, "Home, Father ?" Then I gabbled, "You won't tell me mam ?"

"She must be told. Have you thought of the consequences of this night's escapade?"

"But, Father I had stepped towards him 'you can't tell me mam, she's bad ... ill, you know she is, and she doesn't know anything about..."

"All the more reason why she must be told." His voice was cold now, dead sounding, without feeling.

"No, Father, no! ... Please! please! Oh, dont tell me mam, please!"

In desperation, I flung myself on the ground at his feet and grabbed hold of his trouser leg, and as I touched it, I felt his flesh recoiling from my hand as if it had been stung, and his voice was loud and angry once more as he cried, "Get up!"

"No, Father, no! I won't move from here, I won't! You can't tell her.

I'll drown me self I will! I will! You can't tell her! "

"Leave go!" He put down his hand to remove my fingers, but before it touched me, he quickly drew it away again, and with a tug from his leg he freed himself. Then again standing some distance from me, he said,

"All right, I promise I won't tell her, but on one condition."

I raised my tear-misted eyes to his now unfamiliar face, and then he said, "You will never see that man again."

My stomach retched, my heart seemed to turn over. Never to see Martin again, never to hear his voice. I couldn't, I couldn't promise, not at this moment I couldn't. A little earlier as I had watched him fleeing before the priest, in that brief moment perhaps I could have promised, but I couldn't now, and I said, "I can't. Father, I can't."

"Very well then, come home."

When I got to my feet, my body seemed dragged down, as if I was carrying a bucket of coal in each hand, and my legs would not obey me and walk. I felt myself swaying and I muttered, "I - I feel faint.

Father. " As I felt myself falling, I sunk down to the ground but willed myself not to faint, and in a few minutes I got to my feet again.

I kept my eyes turned from the priest and made to walk on when his voice stopped me.

"Go home," he said, "I won't tell your mother anything yet. I dont believe you dont know where this man lives, but I'll find him quite easily, I have ways and means, and he must marry you right away."

At this I turned wide, startled eyes on to his face, but found I couldn't say anything, not a word, for to my amazement I saw through the fading light that Father Ellis was crying, and at the sight a sorrow pierced me very like the day I had seen the rabbit nailed to the tree. Flinging myself about I ran stumbling and sobbing along the bank, and when I crossed the stones it was to meet our Ronnie. He pulled me to a stop and stared at me before exclaiming angrily, "Where d'you think you've been to at this time of night? Mam's worried stiff." Then looking me up and down he added, "Good Lord! what's happened to you?"

My sorrow broke loose and burying my face in my hands, I cried and spluttered, "I - I fell in the river and waited until until my clothes dried."

"Aw, never mind." His voice was soft, softer than it had been for a long time.

"Come on," he said. The instant I felt his arms going round me, I tore myself away from him like a mad thing, and, running as if my very life depended on it, I made for home.

no

my mother said, "You're ill, girl, you must see the doctor. That tumble into the river frightened you, and this is the aftereffects.

You look like a ghost. "

"I'm all right," I said.

"But you're not, lass. You look like death, and you're not yourself in any way, and you're not going to go walking by that river by yourself at night again."

"Oh, Mam!" I exclaimed hurriedly, "I like walking by the river."

"Well, then, you'll let Ronnie go with you."

"No!" The tone even startled myself, and, coming to me, she looked into my face and said, "What is it, lass? I've never known you to be like this. You're not frightened of all this war talk, are you?"

War talk. What did the war talk matter to me, with my own war raging inside me?

"War talk?" I said.

"No, of course not."

I mustn't have sounded very convincing, for she added, comfortingly,

"There won't be any gas in this war, that's if it comes, and God knows it looks very much like it. They saw what gas did in the last one.

They've learnt something, they won't act like mad animals again.

Although that Hitler seems like a maniac. "

War, war, digging trenches and air-raid shelters and getting fitted for gas masks in their silly little boxes, and people storing in food, buying up everything they could, and men in different trades being stood off because they couldn't get the material with which to carry on their jobs. Everybody waiting for the war to start. Our Ronnie saying he was going to join up and looking at me as he said it. Don Dowling saying they wouldn't get him. Anyway, pit men were exempt if in they worked at the coal face. Then yesterday my mother sending me with her wedding-ring down to the pawnshop in Bog's End to get a little extra money to buy tin stuff to store away . just in case, as she said.

Then going to WoolworAs and buying her a ring there. This all unknown to Dad, for she said he wouldn't have stood for it. Her little duplicity pleased her, I saw, yet I could take no part in it. I could take no part in anything that went on in the house or outside, for I was dead.