"You remember the evening I came—you got up so suddenly and left me?
What did you do that for?"
"Because if I'd stayed another minute I couldn't have left you at all."
He stood up.
"And you're only going now because you can't see that I'm not a coward."
* * * * *
This wouldn't last, the leaping and knocking of her heart, the eyelids screwing themselves tight, the jerking of her nerves at every sound: at the two harsh rattling screams of the curtain rings along the pole, at the light click of the switches. Only the small green-shaded lamp still burning on Richard's writing table in the inner room. She could hear him moving about, softly and secretly, in there.
He was Richard. That was Richard, moving about in there.
V.
Richard thought his flat was a safe place. But it wasn't. People creeping up the stairs every minute and standing still to listen. People would come and try the handle of the door.
"They won't, dear. Nobody ever comes in. It has never happened. It isn't going to happen now."