final, mutual, painful decision.

We drank wine and coffee and told each other much without saying a word. Not until we were nearly leaving did she say tentatively, We'll be away for months, you know.
My feelings must have shown. Months . . . How many?
We don't know. We're going to all the places or I have wanted to see that couldn't be fitted into an ordinary vacation. We're going to potter. Bits of Europe, bits of the Middle East, India, Singapore, Bali, then Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Fiji, Hawaii, America. She fell silent, her eyes not laughing now but full of sadness.
I swallowed. will find it exhausting.
He says not. He passionately wants to go, and I know he's always yearned to have the time to see things . . . and we're going slowly, with lots of rests.
The restaurant had emptied around us and the waiters hov¬ered with polite faces willing us to go. Judith put on her blue coat and we went outside onto the cold pavement.
How do you plan to go home now? I asked.
Underground.
I'll drive you, I said.
She gave me a small smile and nodded, and we walked slowly across the road to where I'd left the car. She sat in beside me and I did all the automatic things like switching on the lights and letting off the handbrake, and I drove all the way to Clapham without consciously seeing the road.
's house behind the big gates lay quiet and dark. Judith looked up at its bulk and then at me, and I leaned across in the car and put my arms round her and kissed her. She came close to me, kissing me back with a feeling and a need that seemed as intense as my own, and for a while we stayed in that way. floating in passion, dreaming in deep unaccustomed touch.
As if of one mind we each at the same time drew back and slowly relaxed against the seat. She put her hand on mine and threaded her fingers through, holding tight.
I looked ahead through the windshield, seeing trees against the stars: seeing nothing.
A long time passed.
We can't, I said eventually.
No.
Especially not, I said, in his own house.
No.
After another long minute she let go of my hand and opened the door beside her, and I too opened mine.
Don't get out, she said, because of your ankle.
I stood up, however, on the driveway and she walked round the car towards me. We hugged each other but without kissing, a long hungry minute of body against body; commitment and farewell.
I'll see you, she said, at the party; and we both knew how it would be, with Lorna Shipton talking about watching Henry's weight and Henry flirting roguishly with Judith when¬ever he could, and everyone talking loudly and clapping on the back.
She walked over to the front door and unlocked it, and looked back, briefly, once, and then went in, putting the walls between us in
December
I felt alone and also lonely, which I'd never been before, and I telephoned to Pen one Sunday in December and suggested taking her out to lunch. She said to come early as she had to open her shop at four, and I arrived at eleven-thirty to find coffee percolating richly and Pen trying to unravel the string of the Christmas kite.
I found it when I was looking for some books, she said. It's so pretty. When we've had coffee, let's go out and fly it.
We took it onto the common, and she let the string out gradually until the dragon was high on the wind, circling and darting and fluttering its frilly tail. It took us slowly after it across the grass, Pen delightedly intent and I simply pleased to be back there in that place.
She glanced at me over her shoulder. Are we going too far for your ankle? Or too fast?
No and no, I said.
Still taking the comfrey?