The Silent Pool. Phil Kurthausen

no! He would have been off like a shot. “Love” to Dietrich was a materialist invention of the decadent bourgeoisie.’

      ‘So, how did it end?’

      ‘I got pregnant. When I told Dietrich he was very serious, but businesslike, as though this were an occupational hazard. I don't think it was the first time for him. He told me he would get it fixed. The next day he met me at the Student Union bar. I thought – and looking back, I just want to hold the young girl who could have believed this – I thought, he was going to ask me to marry him. Instead, he handed me an envelope with £750 inside and a card for an abortion clinic. And that was the end of my dreaming days.’

      ‘Nice piece of work.’

      ‘I was devastated. I threw the money back at him and ran from the bar. I didn't know what to do. My dad had died when I was a teenager and my mother just watched daytime TV and drank. I ran through from the bar and didn't stop running until I came to the college chapel. It was just a small room with plastic chairs and no religious iconography, and I was never religious, but that quiet room allowed me to stop and think. And I prayed, Erasmus, I don't know who or what to but I asked for help and the next person to enter that room was Stephen. He was the chair of the Student Catholic Society and he was there to set up the room for a prayer meeting. He saw me crying and he knew what to do straightaway, he came and held me and told me everything would be OK.’

      Tears were beading in Jenna's deep brown eyes.

      ‘And was it?’

      ‘After a fashion, yes. I was with Stephen from that moment. He helped me through the pregnancy. I had to drop out of college, of course, but I had a family of sorts, Stephen and the other members of the Catholic Society. All my old friends thought I was mad, that I had become indoctrinated but that wasn't the case, I just felt wanted by them, secure.’