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cast a lustful eye on any girl,

and she'd immediately surrender with a sense of profound gratitude."

It was true, but I couldn't admit it. "I never said -- "

"Val, I know perfectly well what you never said. I also know what you

did say. Afterwards, when we had to talk, when we had to pretend to be

civilized again and work out whether Jota was to be charged with assault,

or what -- that's when you gave yourself away: All you were concerned with

was Jota. He had to promise. He_ had to go away. _He_ was the one to

be convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that nothing remotely like that must

ever happen again. And when he accepted all that, you were satisfied."

I just looked back at her.

"Nothing about me," she said bleakly. "You couldn't trust me. If Jota

tried again, next time I'd obviously leap into his arms -- "

"I never said -- "

"Oh, Val, who cares what you never said? Your whole attitude made it a

hundred per cent clear. Jota was the one to handle somehow. I didn't

matter at all. Whatever Jota decided was as good as done. You had to

work on Jota. I was merely a pawn in the game, if that."

I couldn't argue convincingly, because she was working a vein of truth. No

girl ever said no to Jota. No girl ever could, whoever she was, whatever

the circumstances. And it was entirely correct that my surprise on that

horrible night had been due largely to Sheila's desperate resistance. I

frankly couldn't understand that. It wasn't as if Sheila and I were

all that close, even then. Why had a girl who had never resisted me

resist Jota?

A diversion was available. "Why did you wait two years to tell me

this?" I asked.

She sighed and sat down, crossing her legs. All the fire had gone out

of her. She wasn't going through the roof this time. "Some things you

can't take back, not ever, even if you want to. Two years ago, we might

have been on the threshold of a great new understanding . . . Now we

know we weren't. You won't have children, though I ache for them. And

Dina's getting worse every day."

I was grateful to her for phrasing the problem of Dina like that. "Dina's

getting worse every day." If she'd wanted to be venomous, there were a

thousand other things she could have said about Dina, seven hundred of

them not unjust.

"Sheila," I said, "I like you."

She smiled faintly. "I know. You couldn't quite say 'love,' because you're

being sincere tonight. And then, I put you off your stroke earlier when

I stopped you saying 'honey.' You'll never call me 'honey' again. You'll

be careful, cautious, like a good insurance manager, and from now on

you'll call Dina Dina and me Sheila."

There wasn't much to say to that, so I went for a brief stroll round

the house.

Remembering Dina's story about fairies in the wood, I walked down the

garden, not expecting to see anything at all.

The river Shute, meandering tortuously across flat country and through

woods, half enclosed our house in the inner walls of a W bend. As far

as I knew the house had never been flooded, though the river had been

known to reach the garden.

Behind our garden, in the apex of the W, was a small patch of trees and

scrub which would have been very popular with courting couples but for

the fact that they couldn't get into it. The river curved round it, and

on the land side the only entry was through our garden. And we had high,

thick hedges.

It was a piece of wasteland which was of no use to anybody. The local

landowner had tried to sell it to us, but we didn't want it. Anyway,

as Dina had said with childish shrewdness: "Why buy it when it's ours

anyway?"

At the fence at the bottom of the garden I stopped.

Was it imagination, or was there a faint glow in the copse?

It wasn't a fire, there was no moon, and it could hardly be fairies --

though I now understood Dina's story. To her, what else could a glow in

the copse at night mean but fairies?

I climbed the fence and advanced slowly.

The glow was very faint and would never