Chapter 38 Summary

"Stupid"

The East wind is the image to lead this chapter, now the summer of 1943. Tom Crick describes his meeting at a ruined windmill with Mary a week after Freddie Parr was found dead. It was at this place that he and Mary had begun their own sexual relationship.

Tom Crick tells of how he saw Mary that day, jumping violently up and down - she calls him "Stupid" repeatedly, telling him to leave. Tom then comes to understand that Mary is pregnant, and she is trying to abort the child. Tom thinks that it must be Dick's baby, because Mary, he believes, would never attempt such a thing with "their "child. She ultimately tells him that the child is "ours," but Tom Crick is not certain.

The jumping and violence to herself have cause Mary to bleed. Tom tries to return her...