BREAKING POINT

Penelope Hampson —more commonly known to her friends as Penny —fitted the key into the door of her little flat and stepped across the threshold into the miniature hall. The door slammed behind her in the sudden draught startling her out of a day dream. She walked into the sitting room and viewed the unlit fire, shivering. The closed door and the chill of the room seemed to drain all the warmth from her body —and suddenly that other, special, golden warmth —from her heart. Hurriedly she took off her coat, knelt down and put a match to the newspaper. She watched the flames gathering as the kindling caught, then the coal. She spread out her hands to the little blaze and tried to recapture the feeling of happiness —the glow she had felt when she was with Jeremy Gilbert during lunch. But it had gone. Her large brown eyes clouded. She sank into an armchair, feeling a sudden pang of acute loneliness.  Her first th

Penny had not been annoyed because she too, longed for more than just his embrace. But she had been hurt and Jeremy had known it. "Look, baby" he tried to explain. "Please don't start thinking that I don't respect you anymore, or that I'm just out for some fun, or any damn fool thing like that. I'm serious about you —more serious than I have ever been in my life about any woman. I love you and I want you like hell. It's natural.. Just nature, that's all. Do you understand?" Yes, Penny had understood, but she had withdrawn from his embrace, afraid that his ardour would over rule her self made barriers. She loved Jeremy desperately, wanting him as much as he wanted her, but deep down inside her she knew her heart's desire was more than an affair. She wanted a husband and children. She tried to explain to him, leaving out any mention of marriage but Jeremy had not guessed at her feelings.  "A

A little calmer, she carried the tea tray through to the sitting room. Jeremy was standing with his back to the fire, his legs splayed apart, cigarette between his lips. A faint haze of smoke permeated the atmosphere. Penny paused in the doorway, the picture striking her into immobility, it was as if she were seeing a stage set and most important of all, she knew that it was absolutely right. It was just as she had imagined it would be that afternoon when she realized her little flat needed a masculine presence and the smell of cigarette to make it complete, perfect. As suddenly as it had come, every trace of Penny's nervousness had left her. She felt curiously cool... Mistress of the situation. "You look very....domesticated" Jeremy said, coming towards her and taking the tray from her hands. "Where do I put this?" he asked. "Anywhere" Penny replied, happiness rising inside her in a bright frothy bubble. "On the t

"Hello —what's the time?" he asked. "Seven fifteen" Penny told him. "I have brought you a cup of tea" Jeremy sat up. Completely unselfconscious, he stretched his arms, rubbed his chest, and grinned at her like a school boy. "Gosh! I feel good" he said. "Darling, put that cup of tea down and come here". Obediently, Penny placed the cup on the bedside table and sat down beside him, pulling her dressing gown across her knees "Modest little sweet, aren't you?" he said, still smiling. But before she could answer, he pulled her against him with a quick gesture and kissed her on the mouth. Then he held her at arms length and said : "Let me look at you. Yes, you are still as lovely as ever. Some women look ghastly in the morning... You both look and smell beautiful" "I've just had a bath" Penny replied, but she was thinking : 'I was right.

Absurd, of course, but what would he say, if he were to return now, suddenly and unexpectedly and find her here with Jeremy? Would he understand? No, he had been too young to realize what loneliness meant and he believed in woman's essential goodness. He had never been as broadminded as Jeremy. She could not imagine a Howard grown older and wiser, for he had been so young when he died. She, herself, had changed, grown up, despite what Jeremy said sometimes about her immaturity. And that first marriage was past, deep in the past. It was almost as if it had never been. Penny was preparing the white sauce for a cauliflower when Jeremy arrived that evening. She heard his footsteps outside the door, and the silence as he stopped to feel for the key under the carpet on the top step where she had told him she would hide it since he hated taking the key out because he always misplaced it. The door opened. He called out: "Hello, darling! I've got a s