Jane
The last time I made love. The last time I truly made love. It was 1947. Jane. I had taken the train down to London from Yorkshire, a Thursday in February, with snow along the line most of the way. She was on the platform when I got off at King’s Cross. I had written that I might be down but not which train, and she had met three of them. We walked out together. She had a bed-sitting room in Kensington, just west of the park, with a gas fire and a meter that took shillings, and she kept a tally of what she fed it in pencil on the back of an envelope. I was in town on business and wired the office to put off my appointments. We made love that afternoon and through the night, and all of Friday, and on through the weekend. When the meter ran out we put her coat on top of the blankets. She had a tin of pilchards and half a loaf, which we finished on the Friday, and after that we didn’t think much about food. On the Monday morning we were hungry enough to go out. We walked down Church Street to a cafe and had breakfast, dried egg on toast, and she had two cups of tea. She saw an acquaintance and went to say hello. I quietly took my leave. I did have business to attend to, and a wife in Harrogate.