19. Our Night of Love

Chapter 19: Our Night of Love, sees Danny’s visit to Norah’s home after his demob in November 1945. She has promised to ‘give in’, but their love-making plans are thwarted by her brother, who stays up all night, having been placed on ‘sentry duty’ by their mother. After this weekend, Norah never hears from Danny again. A few weeks later, her last letters to him are returned, marked ‘unknown’. I draw on Annie Ernaux’s writing on sex and trauma to ask how we understand the silence of Norah’s diary in 1946.