Derek kissed my wet cheek and scrambled to his feet. He held out his hands, and I pulled down my skirt and he hauled me up. He looked into my face, and there was embarrassment in his half-smile. “I hope it didn’t hurt too much.”
“No. But was it all right for you?”
“Oh, yes, rather.”
He bent down and picked up his coat. He looked at his watch. “I say! Only a quarter of an hour for the train! We’d better get moving.”
We scrambled back onto the path and as we walked along I pulled a comb through my hair and brushed at my skirt. Derek walked silently beside me. His face under the moon was now closed, and when I put my arm through his there was no answering pressure. I wished he would be loving, talk about our next meeting, but I could feel that he was suddenly withdrawn, cold. I hadn’t got used to men’s faces after they’ve done it. I blamed myself. It hadn’t been good enough. And I had cried. I had spoiled it for him.
We came to the car and drove silently to the station. I stopped him at the entrance. Under the yellow light his face was taut and strained and his eyes only half met mine. I said, “Don’t come to the train, darling. I can find my way. What about next Saturday? I could come down to Oxford. Or would you rather wait until you’re settled in?”
He said defensively, “Trouble is, Viv, things are going to be different at Oxford. I’ll have to see. Write to you.”
I tried to read his face. This was so different from our usual parting. Perhaps he was tired. God knew I was! I said, “Yes, of course. But write to me quickly, darling. I’d like to know how you’re getting on.” I reached up and kissed him on the lips. His own lips hardly responded.
He nodded. “Well, so long, Viv,” and with a kind of twisted smile he turned and went off round the corner to his car.
* * *
It was two weeks later that I got the letter. I had written twice, but there had been no answer. In desperation I had even telephoned, but the man at the other end had gone away and come back and said that Mr. Mallaby wasn’t at home.
The letter began, “Dear Viv, This is going to be a difficult letter to write.” When I had got that far I went into my bedroom and locked the door and sat on my bed and gathered my courage. The letter went on to say that it had been a wonderful summer and he would never forget me. But now his life had changed and he would have a lot of work to do and there wouldn’t be much room for “girls.” He had told his parents about me, but they disapproved of our “affair.” They said it wasn’t fair to go on with a girl if one wasn’t going to marry her. “They are terribly insular, I’m afraid, and they have ridiculous ideas about ‘foreigners,’ although heaven knows I regard you as just like any other English girl and you know I adore your accent.” They were set on his marrying the daughter of some neighbor in the country. “I’ve never told you about this, which I’m afraid was very naughty of me, but as a matter of fact we’re sort of semi-engaged. We had such a marvelous time together and you were such a sport that I didn’t want to spoil it all.” He said he hoped very much we would “run into each other” again one day and in the meantime he had asked Fortnum’s to send me a dozen bottles of pink champagne, “the best,” to remind me of the first time we had met. “And I do hope this letter won’t upset you too much, Viv, as I really think you’re the most wonderful girl, far too good for someone like me. With much love, happy memories, Derek.”
Well, it took just ten minutes to break my heart and about another six months to mend it. Accounts of other people’s aches and pains are uninteresting because they are so similar to everybody else’s, so I won’t go into details. I didn’t even tell Susan. As I saw it, I’d behaved like a tramp, from the very first evening, and I’d been treated like a tramp. In this tight little world of England, I was a Canadian, and therefore a foreigner, an outsider—fair game. The fact that I hadn’t seen it happening to me was more fool me. Born yesterday! Better get wise, or you’ll go on being hurt! But beneath this open-eyed, chin-up rationalization, the girl in me whimpered and cringed, and for a time I cried at night and went down on my knees to the Holy Mother I had forsaken and prayed that She would give Derek back to me. But of course She wouldn’t, and my pride forbade me to plead with him or to follow up my curt little note of acknowledgment to his letter and the return of the champagne to Fortnum’s. The endless summer had ended. All that was left were some poignant Ink Spot memories, and the imprint of the nightmare in the cinema in Windsor, the marks of which I knew I would bear all my life.