Thea had opened out the sleeping bag and had laid it in the corner of the room. She had brought a light blanket to put over her as she didn’t want her limbs confined when it was so hot. Now, when she looked at it with Ben at her shoulder, she realised it looked like a love nest.

‘I’m not sure I can share that space with you,’ he said.

‘Why not? It’s a bit hard, but it’ll do for a couple of hours.’

‘I don’t know how to put this …’

Thea wasn’t going to help him out. She wanted him to say he wanted her, even if he didn’t do anything about it.

‘I don’t have casual affairs.’

Thea was indignant. ‘You told me you don’t have the other sort, either. Well, neither do I!’

‘You don’t get it. I can’t lie down there with you and not want to make love to you. Christ, Thea, you’re half naked. You have been all night. I’m only human.’

‘I’ll put my jeans on. It’s chilly down here anyway. Would that help?’

‘Only marginally.’

‘This is silly. Surely we can lie down on the floor next to each other without’ – how could she put it without sounding coarse? – ‘anything happening. Petal’s lot often share beds platonically.’

She was suddenly too tired to go on arguing, and she was also too tired to fetch her jeans, which were in the bathroom upstairs. She flung herself down on the sleeping bag, in the space nearest the wall, and pulled the blanket over her. ‘You can do what you like, wander around all night watching the varnish dry, or lie down and rest, but I’m having a nap.’

He looked undecided.

’I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss about sharing a bed with me. Toby did and he didn’t come to any harm.’

‘Toby did! What did you say?’

‘What you thought I said. When Toby stayed the night with me he got cold and lonely, and he got into my bed. I know that may make me some sort of monster, but I promise he went back to sleep the moment he was warm.’

Ben stood looking down at her as if indeed she were either a child molester or a wicked seductress, but as he couldn’t decide which, he couldn’t accuse her of either.

‘It’s no big deal. He was in a strange place, with someone he didn’t know very well – ’

‘He knew you well enough to get into bed with you.’