Strangely enough, the shock was enough, for a while at least, to break the power of the depressive mood that had held her for months now, in its dark grip. She swung over into a mood of bitter, angry defiance. She told Julia that Paul had ‘ditched her’, and that she had been a fool not to see it before (and Julia’s silence said she agreed with Ella completely). She said that she had no intention of sitting around and crying about it.

Without knowing that she had been unconsciously planning to do this, she went out and bought herself new clothes. They were not the ‘sexy’ clothes Paul had urged on her, but they were different from any clothes she had worn before, and fitted her new personality, which was rather hard, casual and indifferent — or at least, so she believed. And she had her hair cut, so that it was in a soft provocative shape around her small pointed face. And she decided to leave Julia’s house. It was the house she had lived in with Paul, and she could no longer stand it.

Very cool, clear and efficient, she found herself a new flat and settled into it. It was a large flat, much too large for the child and herself. It was only after she had settled in it she understood the extra space was for a man. For Paul, in fact, and she was still living as if he were returning to her.

Then she heard, quite by chance, that Paul had returned to England for leave and had been here already for two weeks. On the night of the day she heard this news, she found herself dressed and made-up, her hair carefully done, standing at the window looking down into the street, and waiting for him. She waited until long after midnight, thinking: His work at the hospital might easily keep him as late as this, I mustn’t go to bed too early, because he’ll see the lights are out, and not come up, for fear of waking me.

She stood there, night after night. She could see herself standing there, and said to herself: This is madness. This is being mad. Being mad is not being able to stop yourself doing something that you know to be irrational. Because you know Paul will not come. And yet she continued to dress herself and to stand for hours at the window, waiting, every night. And, standing there and looking at herself, she could see how this madness was linked with the madness that had prevented her from seeing how the affair would inevitably end, the naïvety that had made her so happy. Yes, the stupid faith and naïvety and trust had led, quite logically, into her standing at the window waiting for a man whom she knew, quite well, would never come to her again.