Glancing downriver, he caught sight of Georgie. She was naked on the bank and the sunlight, filtered by the trees, fell in pools across her skin, catching her throat and her belly. Her breasts in shadow looked heavy, like the carved breasts of a statue. The weight of her hair was like another shadow, falling across her features. Seeing her there, just before she stepped into the water, felt intensely private. It was like a glimpse of a solitary animal, like the sight of a deer through green trees in that moment just before the creature becomes aware of being watched. Georgie seemed somehow to be outside of time; as if she was the first girl ever to have come to this riverbank; the only human in this wild place. It made something in him constrict and ping, like a rubber band snapped against a wrist.

Stephen felt pretty confused. It was already a bit of a situation. To be fair to himself, living in a house with three girls, it was bound to get complicated. Each night, Helena came and got into his bed and they turned to each other, naked and oddly familiar, as if they’d always known each other. Stephen woke earlier than Helena and slipped out of the room, leaving her sleeping. Sometimes they made love two or three times a night, ardent and tender. But during the days there was no alteration in the way they were around each other. Helena was Georgie’s friend and spent her days with Georgie; while Stephen didn’t really belong to anyone in the house. He did whatever Nick asked him and offered to help more besides. They all dispersed, meeting at lunch and again just before dinner. In their waking hours the most Helena and Stephen would do was grin at each other, sometimes, when the others weren’t looking.

He liked Helena very much. Actually he liked her the best of the girls. But the strange thing was that when she was in her clothes, in daylight, he didn’t really fancy her. Well, no more than he fancied any half-good-looking female. When he was making love to her he never imagined that she was someone else: he concentrated on her happily, on her essence. He was totally absorbed in her body. It would have felt wrong to think of someone else. Yet by day he constantly imagined making love to Cass. He pictured her hair falling over his face, or trailing down across his belly. He pictured her knees drawn up. Her face. Everything. When Hamish had turned up it had interrupted these imaginings: for the next few days he had found himself envisaging Hamish with Cass, which was horrible. It had felt as if darts of ice were being constantly thrown at him; an actual, physical sensation of pain. Mercifully, these images had abated.