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get it. She poured herself another drink and said, ‘What’re you looking so disapproving about?’

      ‘Not disapproving. Just wondering if it’s worth the hassle, girl. Trent’s dead. Either she loved him, in which case she’s had her share of pain too. Or she didn’t. In which case, what’s the point of dragging it all out now? Forget it. You’ll just upset yourself.’

      Trudi burst out, ‘What do you mean, forget it? If it was you, would you forget it? No! It’s just that you reckon I’m not up to it! Well, I’ll show you. You’re not the only one who can make decisions, girl! I might even give that dating agency of yours a go while I’m at it!’

      She tossed her drink back dramatically and began to cough.

      ‘Take it easy,’ laughed Janet. ‘I don’t think you’re ready for the Lewis Agency just yet.’

      ‘Why?’ coughed Trudi. ‘How long did you wait?’

      ‘Not long,’ admitted Janet. ‘But it was different. Alan and I had been drifting apart for years.’

      ‘And Trent and I hadn’t?’ said Trudi bitterly.

      ‘Had you?’

      ‘I don’t know! That’s the dreadful thing, Jan. I really don’t know anything about our relationship. I don’t know what he saw in me, why he wanted to marry me, why he stayed married to me! All these things I ought to know better than anyone. I don’t! I bet you know more about me than I do myself, Jan! What does that make me? Where’ve I been? What sort of life have I led?’

      For a second it looked as if Janet might be ready to take her question seriously. But then she smiled wryly and swung her legs off the arm of the sofa and on to the floor.

      Standing up, she looked down at Trudi and said, ‘Not one where you got used to drinking, that’s clear. A little lie-down’s the best thing for you. Go on now! I’ll see to the clearing up.’

      Trudi protested but Janet bossed her out of the room. In a last assertion of independence she paused in the doorway and said, ‘But I will go to that agency, you’ll see.’

      ‘All right, we’ll see,’ grinned Janet. ‘Now you sleep on it.’

      So Trudi slept on it. In her sleep for the first time in weeks the dream came: the flight from Trent, the slow footsteps to the door, the handle turning; and the locked door slowly opening to admit her death.

      She awoke, sweating and trembling. Why had the dream come back now? For the first time she also asked herself, Why should I dream of Trent at all in this way? Why would he hurt me in death when he never hurt me in life!

      And then she remembered and thought, oh yes, you did, you bastard. Yes, you did!

       Part Three

      Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, An’ weary winter comin’ fast, An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,

      Thou thought to dwell,

       ’Till crash! the cruel coulter past

      Out thro’ thy cell.

      BURNS: To a Mouse

       1

      The Sheffield branch of the Lewis Agency was situated at the top of a time-blackened building in a tall Victorian terrace not far from the squat Victorian cathedral.

      There was no lift, and Trudi laboured up the stairs passing other offices en route, a debt collecting agency on the first floor, an insurance broker’s on the second, a typing and secretarial bureau on the third. Two girls were standing outside this door, chattering like house sparrows, but they fell silent at her approach and did not resume their giggling conversation till she went by, face burning with the certainty that they had guessed her destination. Only pride prevented her from retreating there and then. It was pride, or rather a kind of stubborn pique, that had brought her here in the first place. There had been no more mention of the dating agency till Trudi had been packing to leave. Then Janet had casually tossed her a slim brochure and said, ‘You were asking about this, remember?’

      It had been the Lewis Agency’s hand-out. It was a smallish northern business, limited mainly to large towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The Sheffield address had been underlined in red.

      The blurb claimed that the agency was based on sound scientific principles but it still relied on human judgment rather than computer print-outs for matching its clients. While not specifically a marriage bureau, it aimed at a clientele who were looking for serious relationships, rather than just casual dates.

      Trudi and Janet weren’t meeting till the first week of the New Year. Determined that her friend should not have the satisfaction of getting the expected negative response to her casual enquiry if the brochure had been of any use, Trudi had rung up the agency on New Year’s Eve. A woman called Fielding had answered in a most businesslike way and Trudi’s vague general enquiries had been swiftly translated into a firm appointment the following Wednesday morning before her lunch date with Janet. She had sat up alone that night, toasted the New Year and gone to bed, hopeful that she would wake up in the morning a new woman.

      Now here she was, the same old nervous neurotic, labouring up the last flight of stairs and wondering what the hell she was getting into.

      A few minutes later she felt rather better, mainly because Mrs Fielding was such a pleasant surprise. A comfortably plump woman of perhaps sixty with rosy cheeks and white, uncontrollably curly hair, she sat behind a desk even more untidy than her hair and cheerfully proffered a cup of tea just brewed with the help of an electric kettle and an old brown teapot. If this was a demonstration that new scientific methods had not been introduced at the expense of the personal touch, it worked.

      After some preliminary chat which may or may not have been searching, Mrs Fielding said, ‘Shall we get down to it, Mrs Adamson?’ and extracted a blank form from the autumnal heap of papers before her.

      It all proved very painless. When she hesitated about her age, Mrs Fielding said cheerfully, ‘Knock a couple of years off. Everyone does it, so if you don’t, you’ll just end up being taken for two years older than you are.’

      After her own details came the details of what she was looking for. These seemed to form a fairly bland recipe when Mrs Fielding checked through them with her.

      Age, forty-five to fifty-five. Height, not less than five feet nine inches. Build, preferably well made but not fat. Non-smoker. Social drinker. Professional man. Generally middlebrow. Should like plays and music, but not too abstract or intellectual; town dweller, country lover; knowledgeable about food and wine, but not pretentious …

      As Mrs Fielding droned on, Trudi found herself thinking with amusement how fussy a penniless widow in her mid-forties imagined she could be! She was able to feel amused because none of this seemed real, it had all assumed the dimensions of a game.

      Even when she handed over the registration fee and signed a form agreeing to the payment of a further sum for each introduction that went beyond a first meeting, she could not feel it was real.

      It was only when she had descended the now empty stairs and regained the open air that the sound of traffic and the sight of people walking along the busy pavements brought back reality. She felt a sudden inrush of panic at what she had done. What if somewhere out there was a man who fitted the pattern of her imagined requirements exactly? What if there were dozens of them?

      She didn’t have to meet anyone, she told herself firmly. That was quite clear. She didn’t have to meet anyone.

      That stemmed the panic for a moment but it came back tenfold as she walked away, running over in her mind what had been said and written during the interview, and suddenly it dawned on her with terrifying clarity that

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