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"It's soap," I lied, 'one of the tablets I got for Christmas. "

The heat had not lifted, and in the short time it took me to get to the river bank I felt sticky all over. He wasn't there. Well, it wasn't anywhere near seven o'clock yet. I'd walk a little way along the bank but keep myself in view from this spot. My heart was beating wildly, and at the same time I felt sick with apprehension in case he should not come.

I lost count of the times I walked that particular stretch of bank; and when the market clock struck seven I could actually have vomited in the river. There was still tomorrow night, I consoled myself, but tomorrow night was as years away there was all tonight to get through.

And tomorrow night the bank would be lined with couples; it always was on Sunday nights. Saturday night it was rarely you saw one couple or even a man fishing. Saturday night in Fellbum was picture night, or dance night, and the men who fished during the week usully went to the bars on a Saturday night; it was also a general club night. Tonight we would have had the river to ourselves, the world to ourselves. I wanted to see no one and hear no one but him, and he had not come.

I walked slowly up to the stepping stones, across them, and in a sauntering gait made my way to the big bend. By the time I reached it my hair was damp on my forehead, there were 98 beads of moisture round my lips and my dress was sticking to my shoulder blades.

I sat down on the bank and looked at the water and there came over me a longing to drop into its inviting coolness, and this thought brought a faint resentment against my mother. Why had she not let me learn to swim? If I could swim I wouldn't have this sticky, awful feeling now.

Then I chided myself strongly for daring to feel like this about Mam, Mam who was so good, so kind, so wonderful to me. I knew the reason now why she hadn't let me learn to swim, and knowing Don Dowling I should be grateful to her, and knowing our Ronnie, too, I should be grateful to her, although she knew nothing about that.

My eyes were drawn swiftly up from the water by the sound of laughter coming from a garden on top of the HilL There was no one to be seen but I knew there were several people in that garden and I began to wonder what they were doing. Was he there? Was he laughing? I got to my feet and began the long walk home.

I passed one couple, they were sitting on the river bank and the boy was taking the girl's shoes off they were going to pledge. This sight hurt me so much that I could have cried, and I had to tell myself not to be silly. What was wrong with me anyway? There was no answer to this.

As I came nearer home I was loath for my walk to come to an end. If I went into the house and he should come after all and not find me? The thought was agony. Then I came opposite the place where the lads used to bathe. There were the bushes where they had hung their clothes and the well- worn path they had made leading down to the river. On this side of the river there was also a wide clump of bush, but the river path skirted this. But now I noticed for the first time another path that went through the thicket and down to the water's edge, likely a fishermen's path, and just to give myself something to do to lengthen the walk I took this path. Within a few steps the walls of the shrubbery widened to form a small clearing with a number of grassy hillocks with the grass well worn in parts, and I guessed, with a blush at the thought, that this was where the courting couples came.

They would be screened from both the river and the other pathway here.

The river seemed very low at this point, for below the bank there was about six feet of its bed showing in sand and gravel. It looked like a little beach and so inviting. Within a second I had slipped over the bank and was sitting on it. Here, much nearer to the water, the thought came again. Oh, if I could only swim. I imagined what it would be like to feel the water flowing over my body. Well I couldn't swim, but there was nothing to stop me pledging. This at the moment seemed a poor substitute, just something that baims did and, at my age, something to be spurned, but, nevertheless, I took off my stockings and shoes and, lifting up my dress well above my knees, I walked slowly into the water. It was cool, smooth and soothing, and I went back and forward kicking my feet gently. It came just below my calves and the longing for the feel of it about my legs became so insistent that I was drawn further in. But I had no intention of going actually near the middle for that was where the deep part was. When the water was well above my knees the bottom was still visible, so I tucked my dress a bit furAer up and cautiously moved forward, making sure with each step that I could still see where I was going. When the water had almost reached my tucked-in dress, the bottom disappeared and I came to a sharp halt.

There, with my feet on it, was the brow ny golden washed shelf of rock on which I was standing, then, as if it had been sliced by a sharp knife, it ended abruptly and the water beyond looked black and forbidding. This was the deep part.

One minute I was looking down into it and the next my head was jerked upwards and joy raced through me as I heard a voice calling, "Ooh ...

ooh! there." He wasn't hailing me from the river bank but from half-way up the fell beyond. He must have come by the short cut over Top Fell. He had stopped and was waving, not with one hand but with two, and I answered in the same way. Throwing up my arms high above my head I waved them. I had forgotten for the moment where I was and in my joyous excitement I stepped forward. It seemed as if I jumped into the water feet first, and I heard myself screaming as I jumped. The water closed over my head and I sank swiftly into a cool green light, and I was swallowing this light in great gulps and it was choking me.

My feet touched something hard which acted like a spring board and I felt myself rising, and when my head broke through the surface after what seemed endless terrifying seconds, my arms and legs began to thrash wildly, and I spluttered and screamed before I went down again.

Then once again I came up through the green lighted water, and now my panic told me that if I once more sank into that greenness it would be for good. And I did, but there was someone with me this time, holding me, pushing me, dragging me, turning me about. Never in my life had surprise been greater than when I found myself moving backwards through the water looking up at the sky. And when I was lying on my back on the little beach that I had left only minutes before, and bending over me was Martin, his hair flat on his head, his breath coming in great gasps and the water running down his bare body. Then the sky was blotted out and a blackness came over me and the next thing I remember was being on my face and water spurting from my mouth, and I was sick and Martin was holding my head. I felt humiliated and ashamed beyond all comprehension that I should be sick in front of him.

"God, you gave me a fright. What made you go in when you can't swim?"

I wiped my mouth on the skirt of my sodden dress and shook my head slowly.

"How do you feel?"

All right. "

He turned my face towards him and, looking into it, said, Tou dont look it. Turn round and lie still. "

I did as he bade me and as I turned over I noticed he was wearing bathing trunks. Before I could turn my glance away from them he touched his thigh and remarked casually, "I was reckoning on having a dip later, but had to take it sooner than I anticipated." He gave me a little smile, then added, "I'm going across the river for my clothes.

I won't be long. Lie still. "

I watched him walk into the water and with an effortless movement lie upon it, and in a moment or so he was rising out of it and going up the far bank. I saw him bundle his clothes together and tie them on his head with his belt. If I had not felt so limp and shaken I would have laughed at the sight of him swimming towards me.

When he came out of the water I pulled myself up into a sitting position and watched him loosen his clothes and lay them on the bank.

It was at this moment that a great shiver ran through my body and it brought him to my side.

You're cold," he said, : I shook my head.

"It's the shock. Look, take off that dress, it will dry on the bushes in no time, and put my coat round you."

"Oh, no, no."

He had made this preposterous suggestion so casually that my protest sounded silly even to myself, but even so I said I had better go home and get changed. He dropped on his knees at my side and his eyes compelled mine to look into them as he said softly, "Don't go home, Christine. Take my coat. Go behind the bushes and take off your dress.

It will dry in the sun in ten minutes, but you mustn't let it dry on you, you'll likely catch a chill Aat way. "

Without uttering one more word of protest I took his coat, and with his assistance climbed up the bank and went behind the bushes into the little clearing, and there, with a feeling that I was committing a great sin, I took off my dress and quickly slipped my arms into his coat, and not only buttoned it up but turned the collar up over my neck. Then in a small voice I said, "Will you hang it up for me?"

He put his head over the bank and stretched out his hand and I handed him the dress. I was afraid to stand up, so I tucked my feet under the coat and clasped my knees with my hands. And when he said, "Can I come up?" I answered, in a voice hardly above a whisper, "Yes."

He sat on the grass but not near me, and although I did not look at him I knew he was wearing his shirt. I began to part my hair with my fingers and wring the water from it, bending forward as I did this so that it would not wet his coat more than it had already done.

"Let me." Although he was shy in the request his tone and manner took away from the proceedings any awkwardness that I might have felt. When he whipped off his shirt and began to dry my hair with it I wanted to make a protest, saying, "Oh, it'll get wet," but I didn't. I sat quiet as his hands rubbed my head gently back and forth. He was kneeling at my back and I could feel the warmth of his bare legs through the coat.

The feeling of fright and exhaustion was passing and I was bel02

coming consumed with a feeling of wonder, and I was aware for the first time that this feeling was wonder. I had experienced it in minute doses before: on that morning when I had taken my mother to see the first anemones in the wood, and the time I watched the sticky buds of the chestnut opening and there was another time when, after having received communion, I had felt for one fleeting second that I held God within me. But these occasions had just been minute particles of a whole, and this was the whole. My body was warmed with it, glowing with it, and my heart was ready to burst with it, when he pulled my head back against him and, bending above me, looked down into my eyes.

And I looked up into his. With a quick movement he was kneeling in front of me, his arms were about me and we were breathing into each other's faces. For one long second he held my look, then his lips were on mine, and the wonder burst from my heart. For the second time that evening I almost sank into oblivion, and for the second time I became afraid. For I was being kissed, really kissed, for the first time in my life, and I had no experience with which to judge the intensity of it. But I knew that I was a little frightened. With an effort I eased myself away, and once again we were looking at each other. And then he laughed, and, taking my hands in his, he pressed them to his chest and said, over and over again, "Christine ... Christine ... Christine." I found his voice as intoxicating as his kiss. Like a runner pausing for breath, he gasped as he flung himself down, and I was relieved for the moment of the bewitchment of his countenance as he pressed his face into my side.

"You know the first time I saw you?" His voice was muffled.

I nodded as I said, "Yes, near the bridge."

"You were with two friends, and I thought if ever I'd seen beauty and the beasts, this was it. You looked like something from another world, and I fell for you in that second. It was the last day of the Easter vac, and I cursed myself for having to go back. By the way, who were those two?"

My mouth was smiling as I said, "My brother Ronnie, and Don Dowling.

He lives next door. "

"Which was the big one? Your brother?"

"No, the other one."

"I'm glad of that anyway. I hated them both on sight." He pressed my arm to him.

"But the big fellow, I remember, looked as if he would like to murder me."

I found I was able to laugh at this, and I said, "He likely did."

He pulled my face round to him and demanded hotly, "He wants you?"

Then before I could make any answer, he said, "Of course he does, he'd be a fool if he didn't. Do you know how beautiful you are, Christine?"

The reply on my lips was the usual one that I would give to any lad that had made such a statement, "Don't be so silly," but I never said it. I accepted the tribute gladly and smiled my thanks. I think, for the first time in my life, I was happy with what I was. Happy isn't the right word, in that moment of delight I was grateful for my face.

I still had my legs tucked up under the coat, and I was feeling stiff, and when I made a movement to ease the strain, he said, "Stretch your legs out," then laughed, "I've seen legs before, you know."

He made things so easy and natural, but still I found it embarrassing to look down the length of my bare legs. They looked very white and shocked me somewhat, and this set my thoughts working. But although I was conscious of what they were saying I would not allow them to enter into this paradise. Most firmly I kept at bay thoughts of the occupants in the house at the top of the hill across the river. Yet I could not keep out fear. But it was a sweet fear. I didn't want him to kiss me again for a little while, so I began to talk.

All kinds of things were happening to me for the first time tonight. I had Ronnie's urge to talk, and strangely enough I found myself talking about him. But not so strangely, for there was a desire in me to impress Martin in some other way than with my looks, and to talk of our Ronnie was the only way I could do it, for there was no topic I could discuss except cooking and housework for I couldn't talk about the wood or the river. These were my feelings and I had not the power of words with which to translate them.