I touched her then, my hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. I had to move closer, to hear what she said.

“Whenever I’m with you it’s like going to someone and saying, torture me, abuse me. Give me hell. Because—”

“Alison.”

“Oh you’re nice now. You’re nice now. So bloody nice. For a week, for a month. And then we’d start again.”

She was not crying, I leant forward and looked. In some way I knew she was acting, and yet not acting. Perhaps she had rehearsed the saying this; but still meant it. And I thought, supposing they wanted to precipitate what I began to suspect both they and Alison wanted to precipitate: to bringing about in an hour what might take weeks… and I remembered that love of paradox, and how well they knew me. To fuse, to weld. And a last lesson, a last warning? A small wave of anger burnt up in me; but one I knew I could use.

I said, “As you’re going back to Australia, I don’t see the point of all this.”

I spoke lightly, without sarcasm, but she twisted a look back at me then; almost a look of hate, as it my crassness was monstrous. I made the mistake of beginning to smile; to call her hand. Suddenly she was on her feet and crossing the path. She walked out under the trees onto the grassy open space, and stood with her back to me.

Something about the way she stood, the direction she faced; it nagged me.

And then in a flash I knew for certain.

Beyond her stretched the grass, a quarter of a mile of turf to the edge of the park. Beyond that rose the Regency facade, bestatued, many and elegantly windowed, of Cumberland Terrace.

A wall of windows.

A row of statues. Gods. Classical gods.

Not the Outer Circle. The dress circle.

Polymus.

But once too often.

I looked at the Indian. He too was staring at Alison; then at me. Even if he had overheard he wouldn’t have understood what we were saying; and yet he knew what had happened. I could see it in his mild brown eyes. Dark men, pale men; but only one sort of woman. A ghost of sympathy passed between us.

I went up behind her; roughly took her arm. She made no move. The air was as mellow as at a harvest festival, the innocent park bred innocent people.

“Now listen.” I stood there at her shoulder, with my meanest expression. It was not a difficult part to play. That bruised face, very near tears, but not in tears. I thought, I will get her on a bed and I will ram her. I will ram her and ram her, the cat will fall and fall, till she is full of me, possessed by me. And I thought, Christ help her if she tries to shield herself with the accursed wall of rubber. If she tries to put anything between my vengeance and her punishment. Christ help her.

“Now listen. I know who is watching us, I know where he is watching, I know why we are here. So first. I’m nearly broke. I haven’t got a job, and I’m never going to have a job that means anything. So remember that you’re standing with the worst prospect in London. Now second. If Lily walked down that path behind us and beckoned to me, I would follow. I think I would follow. The fact that I don’t know is what I want you to remember. And while you’re about it, remember that she isn’t one girl, but a type of encounter. And the world’s full of that sort of encounter.” I let go of her ann. “Third. As you kindly told me in Athens, I’m not much good in bed.”

“I didn’t mean that!” Her face flashed round; I was too unfair.

I said, “Keep looking at them and keep your mouth shut.” We both stared at the blank upper windows of Cumberland Terrace; those white stone divinities. “Fourth. He said something to me one day. About males and females. How we judge things as objects, and you judge them by their relationships. All right. You’ve always been able to see this… whatever it is… between us. Joining us. I haven’t. That’s all I can offer you. The possibility that I’m beginning to see it. That’s all.” I could see her face obliquely in profile; impossible to tell what she was thinking.

“Can I speak?”

“No. You now have a choice. You do as I say. Or you don’t. This. In a few seconds I am going to walk away from you. You will look after me, then call my name. I shall stop, turn round. You will come up to me. I shall turn and start walking away again. You will come after me again, and catch my arm. I shall shake myself free. Then. Then I shall slap you as hard as I can over the side of the face. And believe me, it won’t hurt me half as much as it hurts you. I shall walk towards the gate over there on our right. You will stand for a few moments, covering your face with your hands. Then you will begin walking in the opposite direction to me, over to the north gate. To our left. It’s about half a mile away.” I paused. She swallowed, I knew she was frightened. “When you get there you will take a taxi. You will communicate with no one. You will take a taxi.” I hesitated, losing impetus, then found the right echo; and the right exit. “You will take a taxi and go straight to Paddington Station. The waiting room.” I jerked the back of her coat down. “And there you will wait. If I find out, if I ever find out that you got in touch with anyone after leaving me I shall…”

“You will… ?”

“You know. You know damn well what this is. But you don’t say yes or no. You do yes or no. I am now going to wait five seconds. Then I shall start walking.” I jerked her coat again. “So get it clear. You have five seconds. In those five seconds you are going to choose, and choose for ever, whose side you are on.”

She stared at the houses. The afternoon sun made them gleam with light, that light one sees in summer clouds; a serene, Olympian elixir of solid light.

She said, “I’m going back to Australia.”

A moment. The abysses and milestones. Her psychologically contused face, her obstinacy, her unmaneuverability. There was a smell of a bonfire. A hundred yards away a blind man was walking, freely, not like a blind man; only the white stick showed he had no eyes.

I said, “The waiting room.”

I walked towards the southeast gate. Two steps, four, six. Then ten.

“Nicko.”

I stopped; turned with a granite-hard face. She came towards me, stopped two or three yards away. She wasn’t acting; she was going back to Australia; or to some Australia of the mind, the emotions, to live, without me. Yet she could not let me go.

Eleutheria. Her turn to know.

Then I went on. Fifteen, twenty yards. I closed my eyes. Prayed.

Her hand on my arm. I turned again. Her eyes were wounded, outraged; I was more than ever impossible. But also some delay she was trying to make. Some compromise. I snatched myself free, of both hand and eyes.

I hit her before she could speak. I fficked my arm out, held it the smallest fraction of a second, then brought it down sideways as hard as I could; so sure that she would twist her head aside. But in that smallest fraction of a warning second she finally decided; and decision was the savage but unavoided slap knocking her sideways. Even so her hand flashed up instinctively, and her eyes blinked with shock.

Pain.

We stared wildly at each other for a moment. Not in love. No name, no name, but unable to wear masks. She recovered first. Behind her I could see people stopped on the path. A man stood up from his seat. The Indian sat and watched. Her hand was over the side of her face, shielding it as well as soothing it. Her eyes were wet, perhaps with the pain. But she was slowly smiling. That archaic smile, her variant of theirs, steadier, braver, far less implacable, without malice or arrogance, yet still that smile.

Mocking love, yet making it.

And suddenly the truth came to me, as we stood there, trembling, searching, at our point of fulcrum. There were no watching eyes. The windows were as blank as they looked. The theatre was empty. It was not a theatre. They had told her it was a theatre, and she had believed them, and I had believed her. To bring us to this—not for themselves, but for us. I turned and looked at the windows, the facade, the pompous white pedimental figures.