Hugo's glance came back. "Colin's straight, actually," he told her. "But he's an installation man, so he's always a piece of art himself. Last time I was here we had a long conversation about how for his final piece — one-third of his degree, by the way — he intends to walk naked into his tutor's office and discuss Picasso's early cubism, thereby recreating the scale of shock it engendered on society at the time."

"Excellent," she breathed. “Might try that in my Geography practical."

Whilst I took personal pride in Hugo's delight in my new city, I, on the other hand, found Oxford rather intimidating. Obviously, it was stunningly beautiful and I joined the goggle-eyed tourists marveling at what we'd previously only seen on Morse — the honey-colored architecture, the flashes of emerald green quad through doorways — but the people were so flipping clever. An idle conversation in a pub could turn on a sixpence, so that I was out of my depth within moments. And they weren't showing off, either. It was just the way they could go seamlessly from the delights of cheesy chips from Ivan's van to the complexities of Occam's razor in seconds flat. Oh, and posh — Hugo and Tommy's crowd, anyway. Oh yes, Tommy was there. Being loud and outrageous as usual, and, if I was feeling mean, very much a conscious card, as my father would say. Bright-eyed and flushed with drink, he'd invariably be the one standing on a barstool, conducting some drunk rowers in a rowdy boating song, until the landlord chucked him out.

“Sent home again," he'd muttered to me in mock horror on that occasion as he passed me en route to the door. It was pretty much the first thing he'd said to me all evening.

“Must be a conspiracy."

"Which always seems to happen when you're around. Funny, that." He gave me a twisted little smile before exiting, drunk and angry, banging the door behind him. I watched through the window as he swayed down the wide pavement of St. Giles.

Post-university he was equally ubiquitous. I'd walk into a bar in London to meet Hugo after work, and there Tommy would be, together with all their mutual friends, all confident, beautiful and clever. His eyes would mock me as I went to greet my boyfriend, whose eyes were never like that, never snide, always open and friendly. Tommy, though, I knew, saw into my very soul. He saw all its insecurities, its lack of expensive education and brain cells, its reliance upon painting — which no one could argue with, but was I any good? — as my only calling card. He'd watch as, joining the table, I'd deliberately sit next to Vicky, the only other non-Oxbridge graduate, who could be relied upon not to ask me my thoughts on the political issues of the day as we happily compared suntan marks under our watches.