IT WAS ONE O'CLOCK ON A SATURDAY MORNING, FIFTY-ONE days after he'd left me, that decided to get my David back.

The boy embracing me, his mouth glued to mine as if administering artificial respiration, interrupted the thought. His foot on my toe didn't help either. I stepped back to avoid suffocation from the sour-sweet odour of his after-shave.

"God, you're beautiful, Shelley." It didn't sound as romantic as he'd meant it to; he was choking trying to get his tie and jacket off at the same time. If he'd had enough arms, he would have been stripped in five seconds. In bed he would be like most young men: all arms, legs, fingers, enthusiasm and premature ejaculations.

"Thank you," moving farther out of reach. I didn't like the bedroom, so clearly designed for quick seductions. The weak orange glow made us look blurred, and the music was too sweet. The light bowl hung like a street lamp above my head. In our bedroom at home there was a small, delicate chandelier.

His bare arm reached over and across my neck; his whispering mouth pressed against my ear. I wasn't listening. The hand fell too casually to my breast and rested there, kneading. The other fumbled with my zip.

"I can do it. Gerry."

I hadn't forgotten his name completely; it had just slipped my mind for a moment. I had met him only a few hours ago, at his mother's. I wasn't due for an invitation for another six months, but she had undoubtedly heard of David's desertion and welcomed the opportunity to practice her compassion and, of course, to hear the details.

I wouldn't have gone, but the house and children were like wounds in my side, hurting, and the cocktails and cocktail chatter might prove curative. I had promised myself not to let Marion Keating's pity make me talk, but talk I did. The telling eased some of the familiar, poisonous pressure: the suddenness of David's leaving, the details of his half-read note, the peculiar emotional mixture of bafflement and sudden rages. Gerry Keating had been there and heard and pounced. I couldn't blame him really. I needed him, if only for spite.

Except that David, wherever he was, would see neither the boy on top of me nor my own humiliation. Shelley, drained and numb. And also, alone. I could have a hundred men and it would be the same. I'd feel as if I were in a coffin, a million miles from the nearest human and travelling at the speed of light into darkness.

Oh god, how I missed David. His arms felt different, strong and secure, and when he moved in the night, I felt comforted. His voice could reach inside my frightened heart and put it to rest. Even his sleepy grunt could vibrate me into peace. Some lucky bitch, does she appreciate it? Now hears him grunt while I hear silence?

She'd best enjoy him as best she can; she isn't going to have him for long.

I turned, needing to hurry. Gerry was standing naked by the side of the bed, wearing an anticipatory erection. He had a pleasant body with a flat belly, heavily muscled thighs, and the right muscles to give his chest depth and shape. At this moment, it all left me quite dry. He climbed into bed and slid to one side. I picked up my handbag and wrap and went to him.

"You're leaving?"

He sat up.

"Yes."

"You must be joking."

It would take too long to explain to the child. I kissed him on the forehead.

"I'm not," stroking his head. "And it's nothing to do with you." He could interpret that any way he liked.

I could feel his hand moving up between my legs, a finger trying to probe through the nylon.

"Don't you dare poke a hole in my tights." That was the last place I wanted a draught.

"Come to bed."

"I have to go home."

"When will I see you again?"

"Any time. But not for bed."

I could see him thinking. The start and finish of his easy fuck-a good one too I should add, for I know everything there is to know about fucking. David taught me well. "How about one for the road?"

My god. . . I was a pint of beer and someone up there had called closing time!

"Jerk off." Not unkindly.

The corridor of the flat was colder than the room. I finally found the door after walking into a cupboard, the bathroom, and the kitchen. I took the lift down and skipped past the doorman.

Pembroke Road was totally empty, the trees on either side still gently dripping water from the night's rain. The car was parked by the church, and my hand shook from the morning chill as I tried to open the door of the Rolls.

It was a Corniche-not bad for a working-class lad from Chelmsford, Essex, who had never finished school. We had bought it a year ago when David turned forty; a young age to own such an expensive, glittering machine. Now, it felt as lonely as an ice palace.

Eighteen years and four months ago we met in Tiffany's, the ballroom on Shaftesbury Avenue. I was a virginal, mid­dle-class, intellectually snobbish twenty-year-old spending her first year in London after a cosseted upbringing in expensive schools. There were six of us that evening-Marion Keating was one of the girls, I wonder if she remembers-and we had spent it drinking in the Soho pubs and peeking into the strip clubs and giggling at the prostitutes soliciting up and down Wardour and Greek streets. It was all childishly exhilarating, and Tiffany's was to be our last stop for the evening.

It was, at the time, a large garish ballroom. The meeting place for secretaries and factory lads whose pockets were flush with money, and you danced to an eighteen-piece band under a revolving globe. Awful and tasteless, but we wanted to see how "ordinary" people spent their Saturday nights, to rub shoulders with them before returning to the sanctuary of art college.

We were sipping our sherries and sneering at girls' bouffant hairdos and sharp boys' suits when I felt my arm touched. I turned.

A man was standing beside me. He did nothing for a moment except study me quietly. I sensed that he'd reached an impor­tant decision and was just savouring it. I glared at him, liking neither his hair style and well-cut suit, nor his con­fidence. He only smiled as if I'd confirmed his opinion.

"I fancy you, luv. Come and dance."

I was pushed from behind-by June Thornfield-and onto the floor with him while still shaking my head. We danced in silence for a moment. Then, having been brought up to make polite conversation whatever the situation or whoever the person, I did.

"Do you say that to every girl you meet?"

He tilted his head, listening. I wasn't sure whether to the music or to me. His hand gently pushed me in; I, just as gently, pushed out.

"Slumming?" His eyes were all lashes and eyebrows and missed little.

"Nothing of the sort."

I turned to look for the others, though I could feel his hand still pressing.

"I bet you come here every day, me little darling." His voice in my right ear was soft but brutal. "After eight hours bent over a typewriter. . . or would you be a factory bird? Yes, that's it. I can see you at a bench wiring radios, and all you're dreaming about is coming here to dance in your pretty red shoes."

"I came here to dance, not to discuss my employment situation. I don't, in fact, happen to work in a factory. If you must know."

He took my hand and, without looking, ran his thumb over the palm. The gesture felt surprisingly gentle. Then he yanked my arm.

"You want to slum, come with me."

The heel of my shoe snapped off, and I nearly tripped. He had a hard hold on my hand and he was dragging me across the vast floor, pushing me through couples. I half hobbled, pulling back, then skidded and sailed past June and my other friends. He saw me looking at them, bewildered.

"Going to scream for help?"

I stood the best I could, one foot dangling. "I am a woman who never screams."

"One day I'll make you." And we were off again.

I was out in the cool night. Shaftesbury Avenue was nearly deserted; the theatre lights were all off. The street glistened at one end, near Piccadilly, and was dark at the other.

"I want to get my coat."

My back and half my chest were bare. He took off his jacket and tossed it around my shoulders. I was used to men holding open my coat.

We reached his car, an ancient MG, carefully polished so that it gleamed despite the rain and the misty street lights. For some reason that I didn't want to understand, I stood and waited while he got in and opened the door from the inside. I climbed in and slammed it hard.

"Why are you angry with me?" I asked.

"I'm not." The grin transformed his face. "That dance hall's just the tinsel, luv. You want to see slums, I'll take you to them. I'll be your guide. Free of charge."

I watched him out of the comer of my eye as he drove. He was young, in his early twenties; his face was strong and the fleshy nose not quite imperial. His eyes were narrowed to peer through the drizzle.

I don't know where we drove. I glimpsed the river and then we were south of it. He stopped the car as suddenly as he'd started. I looked out, recognizing nothing. I could have been on the moon.

He got out and waited for me. There were only one or two street lights on, the buildings narrow, mean and unlit. Some even looked broken and empty. The drizzle was heav­ier, the smell of the street rank. We walked in silence. A few windows were lit, yellowy, the movements behind them only dull silhouettes. There were abandoned spaces between some houses, and rubbish and broken glass underfoot.

"Do you live. . . here?"

He shrugged: "You could say that. It's all the bloody same."

He stopped and we looked back. It seemed as if we'd walked down a tunnel, creepy and damp.

"I've left wherever I've come from. I'm going to be a mil­lionaire by forty."

I'd never met anyone like him. In my small, pleasant world the men were polite. They only lived not to displease me. He had no resemblance to them.

"How?"

It was a stall. I had felt him studying me. I wasn't afraid, only nervous. The buildings around us were becoming grim­mer as I hobbled and he walked.

"I have my own factory. . ." He hesitated and laughed. "Well, it's a workshop now but one day it'll be a factory. I and a mate make toys and games, and we also do our own marketing. It's tough at the moment, but we'll get there. I know we will."

"Are you always so sure?"

"Yes. I'm not going to be like me dad and granddad work­ing all their fucking lives in a factory for someone else. I'm going to have my own."

He was fierce to look at in the shadows, and yet that des­perate wanting to escape the past made him so vulnerable that I began to like him.

"Why did you ask me to dance?"

"Your eyes. I've never seen such green."

"You were too far away."

"We were a foot apart near the bar. You never saw me." He peered. "They look almost grey now."

I stepped back. "I don't know your name!"

"Proper little lady, aren't you?"

He laughed, not at me, but at the sudden remembering, after nearly an hour of this stiff formality.

"David." And he put out his hand.

I took it, shy. It wasn't soft or calloused; just firm and dry. "Shelley." Letting him keep hold.

He led me, gently, toward an abandoned, decaying house. "I'm going to have you. . ."

"What?"

I dug in my one heel.

". . . for a wife."

I laughed, unsure. "What would you have done if you hadn't seen me? Used the line on another bird?"

"No." He let go of my hand.

I could have escaped. I felt his mouth, soft, silken, just touch my lips. That first kiss, if it was that, lasted minutes. I felt no taking, only his asking. Then his mouth moved to my ear.

"I would have found you. I've been looking for you a long time."

He took my hand again and we were inside the house. He lit a match. Shadows leaped, fluttered, died. The darkness was even blacker, but he'd seen enough to lead the way, care­fully, to the back.

He dropped his coat to the floor, spread it, knelt, took my hand, and pulled me slowly down. The smells were real: dust and brick and rain and, faintly, urine.

"I'm a virgin." My last defence as I lay back.

"There've been no virgins for three thousand years, luv."

It was as if we'd made love countless times before; except for the twinges and the faint blood on the lining of his jacket. He was gentle but firm. My bra unclipped with one movement, my garter belt with another. He stroked, kissed, murmured. I touched him, rock-hard and magnificent, and helped, desperately needing him in me. The floor beneath me, harsh and unforgiving. . . above me his pale, shadowy face. I kissed it. He became fierce gradually and I with him.

Oh god, it was all a dream which remained even when we just lay next to each other on the cold floor. There was a three-inch bruise in the small of my back the next morning.

"Are you really going to marry me?"

"Yes.”

"Why?"

"I told you."

"Tell me more."

"Well, if I took out a bird from my own class, married her and had kids, by the time I reached forty, and rich, I'd divorce her and marry someone like you." My eyes were wide and staring. "You see, she wouldn't be able to keep up with me and one day she'd find I'd left her behind. So . . . I need someone who'll keep up with me."

I was his fantasy: birth, breeding, and beauty. Though so English, I looked Mediterranean with my shoulder-length dark hair, ever-changing hazel eyes, high cheekbones and a wide mouth. I wasn't voluptuous; my breasts were the size of his cupped palms, and my legs were long and slim.

"And how many children am I to produce?"

"Three." Completely missing the sarcasm.

"And what happens if, at this magical age of forty, you decide I'm not good enough for your dreams? Divorce me?"

"I won't,"

He didn't. He just disappeared with a female. Maybe she is an aristocrat, a princess of royal and ancient blood, pos­sibly even a Rockefeller or a Rothschild, who will keep pace with his ambition.

Worse: she could be a child with a young fresh body and manipulative limbs.

I must have sat and stared at the house for half an hour before I realized where I was. Dear thing! Glass and mortar and brick and wood, lawns and beech trees, all smug and pretty in the moonlight. I felt like one of those snails whose shell had been stolen for making escargots. I can crawl back in, but the feeling is no longer the same. The pain embedded in the house will make it too difficult to be comfortable.

The house was quiet. None of the children would be awake: there were still hours of privacy to be had. It was the holidays, and I allowed them to sleep as late as they wanted. The rooms were cool and smelt as if they too slept. The air was still and there wasn't a sound as I moved from room to room, aimlessly touching things.

At one in the morning in a strange room, it was easy to de­cide to get David back. I hadn't the faintest idea how, I didn't know where he was; his letter only had a date, and the stamp a Heathrow Airport cancellation. I didn't doubt I wanted him back.

It was love, but not that alone. In time the intensity of loving, liking, affection-even at times despairing and hating -might have eased and slipped into indifference. I didn't want that indifference, nor did I want another to replace him. He was my habit, my comfort, my dear, dear friend. We had grown together, one into the other like trees trapped in a jungle; our thoughts, our feelings, our tastes were intertwined. He was tearing himself out and I would have to hack at my­self to free him. And I wanted him back for the purely selfish reason that I'd planned that we grow old together, die to­gether, be buried together.

He had said eighteen years ago that he wanted me as his wife. Now I wanted him with the same egotistical force with which he'd claimed me. I had no intention of being discarded like some working-class bird.

Our bedroom looked untenanted. The walnut double bed with the lavender coverlet undisturbed seemed vast. My dress­ing table was cluttered; his was almost bare, covered with a sheen of dust thick enough for me to write his name in it. On his bedside table was The Honourable Schoolboy; on mine, unread, Supemature. It was impossible to read so alone.

I undressed and ran the bath. The walls were wood and painted amber, and by the tub was a floor-to-ceiling mirror. David had installed a shower after he'd begun to visit the States. I never used it; I was raised to soak in warm, per­fumed baths. His electric razor was still in the cabinet. I hoped he wasn't using an ordinary razor, as he always cut himself. The electric had been one of my Christmas presents.

I took his letter, tightly balled, from the drawer. I would have shredded it, but I'd known that one day I would want to relive the pain. I'd read it only once, hurriedly. It had been like looking at one's death sentence, and there was no need to read the commas to feel the savage stab of the words.

Dear Shelley:

(In eighteen years had I drained him so much that he couldn't use. the dearest, the darling? It was the formality that had frightened me.)

I am very sad to be writing this. It was something that I had never planned to do, and tried everything possible to avoid it. I have fallen in love with someone, you don't know her, and am in the States hoping to start a new life with her. I wish I could explain how and why it happened, but as you know I just don't have the words. The past 18 years have been very happy ones for me, and I hope for you. You were the most important person to have entered my life, and if this hadn't happened we would have had eighteen more and another eighteen after that.

I also feel the pain of leaving the children. They are so, so dear to me. At some time I will try to tell them why I left, if I ever understand. In the meantime I know you will explain with­out needing to destroy me in their eyes. You're not that kind of woman.

I hope you will be able to forgive me for the mess I've left but you're a strong woman and I know you'll cope.

Love . . . David!

I suddenly felt chilled. I hadn't read the last sentence be­fore-I'd crumpled the letter at "children." Mess? I knew David well enough to know that he meant something more than just his leaving.