Derek’s last term came to an end, and we had exchanged four letters each. His first one had begun “Dearest” and ended with “love and kisses,” and I had compromised with “Dear” and “love.” His were mostly about how many runs he had made, and mine were about the dances I had been to and the cinemas and plays I had seen. He was going to spend the summer at his home, and he was very excited about a second-hand MG his parents were going to give him, and would I come out with him in it? Susan was surprised when I said that I wouldn’t be coming up to Scotland and that I wanted to stay on in the flat, at any rate for the time being. I hadn’t told her the truth about Derek, and because I always got up earlier than she, she didn’t know about his letters. It wasn’t like me to be secretive, but I treasured my “love-affair,” as I described it to myself, and it seemed to be so fragile and probably full of disappointments that I thought even to talk about it might bring it bad luck. For all I knew, I might be just one in a whole row of Derek’s girls. He was so attractive and grand, at any rate at school, that I imagined a long queue of “Mayfair” sisters, all in organdy and all with titles, at his beck and call. So I simply said that I wanted to look around for a job and perhaps I would come up later, and in due course Susan went north and a fifth letter came from Derek saying would I come down next Saturday on the twelve-o’clock from Paddington, and he would meet me with the car at Windsor station?
And so began our regular and delicious routine. The first day he met me on the platform. We were rather shy, but he was so excited about his car that he quickly hurried me out to see it. It was wonderful—black with red leather upholstery and red wire wheels and all sorts of racing gimmicks like a strap round the hood and an out-size filler cap on the gas tank, and the badge of the B.R.D.C. We climbed in, and I tied Derek’s colored silk handkerchief round my hair, and the exhaust made a wonderful sexy noise as we accelerated across the High Street lights and turned up along the river. That day he took me as far as Bray, to show off the car, and we tore through the lanes, with Derek doing quite unnecessary racing changes on the flattest curves. Sitting so near the ground, even at fifty, one felt as if one was doing at least a hundred, and to begin with I clutched onto the safety grip on the dashboard and hoped for the best. But Derek was a good driver, and I soon got confidence in him and controlled my trembles. He took me to a fearfully smart place, the Hotel de Paris, and we had smoked salmon, which cost extra, and roast chicken and ice cream, and then he hired an electric canoe from the boathouse next door, and we chugged sedately upriver and under Maidenhead Bridge and found a little backwater, just this side of Cookham Lock, where Derek rammed the canoe far in under the branches. He had brought a portable gramophone with him, and I scrambled down to his end of the canoe and we sat and later lay side by side and listened to the records and watched a small bird hopping about in the network of branches over our heads. It was a beautiful drowsy afternoon, and we kissed but didn’t go any further, and I felt reassured that Derek didn’t after all think I was “easy.” Later the midges came and we nearly upset the canoe trying to get it out of the creek backward, but then we were going fast downriver with the current and there were a lot of other boats with couples and families in them, but I was quite certain we looked the gayest and handsomest of everyone. We drove back and went down to Eton and had scrambled eggs and coffee in a place called The Thatched House that Derek knew about, and then he suggested we should go to the cinema.