I did, of course. And my excitement grew as, on our first few dates, he was terribly chivalrous, much as he’d been at the party, I was able to tell Helena triumphantly. He didn’t try a thing. Just took me out for the most delicious supper at L’artiste Assoiffé, which had parrots and sofas and golden retrievers and a menu that made my eyes water it was so expensive, and then dancing, and then home. Once back, he simply kissed me, albeit rather thoroughly, on the steps of my flat in Gloucester Terrace, and then he hailed a taxi, so that actually, as I watched him go, I was the one wanting more.

Helena had smiled thinly at this, but said nothing. I assumed it was because she was rather agreeably surprised, and irritated she’d been wrong. It didn’t occur to me she might recognize a practised technique. In bed, I played the evening back to myself, line by line, word by amusing word.

For Michael was very funny. Once, a friend asked me what he was covering with the constant jokes, and I couldn’t think what she meant. And when we did sleep together, a month or so later, he was kind and lovely, but not intense or declamatory, as boys of my age had been. He didn’t seem to want anything from me, which made him all the more attractive. In fact, it was me, as we lay in his bed overlooking Onslow Gardens, the French windows open to the night, who asked him questions about his past, his life. His parents, I knew, had both died, hence the rather plush pad in South Ken, his sister in a similar one down the road, but I didn’t ask him about that: I asked him how he came to write. He admitted it was a form of therapy after losing his parents, something he’d taken solace in, so that when he asked me in turn about my poetry, which I’d once vaguely admitted to, I found that, remarkably, and no doubt in recognition of something similar, I was able to open up.

‘I killed a boy once,’ I found myself saying. ‘In an accident. I was driving. I hit his bike. I found writing helped.’

I didn’t have to say any more. He understood immediately. He nodded at the ceiling. Remained silent. After a while, he spoke.

‘Does it still help?’

‘Yes.’ I hesitated. ‘But these past few weeks … well. I’ve needed it less, I’ve found.’

He smiled, accepting the allusion to his presence in my life.

‘You’ve filled a dark hole,’ I went on, emboldened.

He swallowed, and I could tell he was moved. ‘D’you want to talk about it? The accident?’