‘Why not? It can’t have been easy being a single mother then. God knows, it’s not easy now.’

‘It wasn’t. But it seemed to me that marriage wasn’t something I was very good at.’

‘OK.’ Ellen shifted, shielded her eyes from the sun to look at me. ‘So what did you do?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Like I said, I saw the photos. You sure didn’t look like an old maid.’

I laughed. ‘I wasn’t.’ I thought of the cottage in Noss Mayo, of the small bedroom I had had there, the ceiling always shot rippling silver by the waters of the creek. Of how often I lay there calculating the time I had before John tumbled in from school, only to tumble straight back out again, even in winter.

‘So, come on.’

‘What?’

‘Tell me about it.’ I looked at Ellen and saw she was smiling. ‘For crying out loud, we’re two middle-aged women sitting in the sun after a day’s hard work, with a bottle of wine. What better time for a few racy reminiscences?’

I smiled too, and looked back to the distant beach. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘So - go on.’

‘Well, when Dai Davies had gone, I moved into the cottage and began working at the university. John stayed with his grandparents in Plymouth a lot when he was a baby. I must have been, what, twenty-four, twenty-five? All my life I’d assumed that I’d get married and that would be that. I’d stay with my husband and have babies. Never occurred to me to do anything else. But by the time I was divorced there was the pill. A bloody miracle. And I really mean that - if I’d ever got pregnant again it would have been a disaster. But if I was on the pill … so I went to the doctor and that was it.’

‘Well, what? So, you did get lots of offers?’

I guffawed. ‘Yes.’

‘And? Good Christ, this is like getting blood from a stone.’ Ellen was laughing too. ‘I accepted most of them.’

‘No!’ Ellen was scandalised. ‘How many?’

‘I’ve no idea. I never kept count.’

‘Well, who were they?’ Ellen poured herself another glass of wine, never taking her eyes off my face.

‘Research students, post-grads, lecturers. A couple of men in the village. There was even one undergrad — God, I’d forgotten about him. He was called Tim and he was very sweet but he was a bit young.’

‘But how did you manage it? With John, I mean.’

‘I’d go to their houses or bedsits in Exeter, or even, sometimes, a hotel. Once I allowed someone to come to the cottage. But I never let John meet them, he never knew. I don’t know if he’s worked it out now or not.’

I fell silent, thinking of all those men, all of them hopelessly infatuated, endlessly grateful when I undressed and lay down for the first time, thinking, perhaps, it was the first time, desire rendering them naive and innocent, ever hopeful. I’d learned my lesson from my time with Dai Davies and I never pretended to be other than I was. I never encouraged any of them to think that they would be anything but a diversion. I enjoyed the sex, I enjoyed lying in bed, talking, drinking. I enjoyed saying goodbye to them and walking out into a cold, sharp autumn afternoon, leaves swirling, knowing that John would run in from school and find me reading by the fire. None of them believed me when I said it was over, that I had never meant anything by it, that it had been a delight but it was finished. I never lied and I never expected anything of them. I soon learned another lesson and refused to tell them where I lived or to give them my phone number. At first they smiled conspiratorially and agreed, giggling nervously with lust. But within weeks they’d be begging me to let them closer, trying to follow me home, asking colleagues for my phone number. It was then that I let them go.