Dermot watched Shona dress for a moment before pulling on his jeans, and stepping behind her to help her with the zip. ‘You must burn this dress,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, maybe you should wear it every day. Then no one apart from me will be able to see how heavenly you are.’ He pushed aside her hair from the back of her neck as he pulled the zip up to the top, and kissed the skin there, between her hairline and her collar. Shona felt her knees go weak again and she turned round, leaning on his chest of drawers, and kissed him again, as though she really couldn’t stop.

They walked back to the station slowly, with a sense of finality. As they approached the steps down to the underground, Dermot pulled her round gently to face him. ‘Shona, this wasn’t just tonight, was it? I don’t want to embarrass you by getting all dramatic, but please don’t tell me that this is all it’ll be.’

Shona felt seen clearly, and seen through, all at once. She felt like a character in one of the novels she taught, like Anne in Moderato Cantabile, letting her almost-affair of a few days last her for her lifetime of monotonous marriage. She stepped back from his arms, and asked, ‘You tell me, Dermot. How it can be anything more? All we can have is more nights like this, stolen time when I’ll be watching the clock, wondering what excuse to come up with next. And you’ll get tired of it, and who can blame you, and you’ll go find some lovely unmarried girl, like Pam, whom you can have a proper relationship with, and have children, and have something to show for your life.’

‘I don’t want a girl like Pam. I don’t want children with someone I don’t care for. I want you. Don’t worry about me getting hurt; I’m a big boy, and I can look out for myself.’

‘Well, maybe I’m the one who’ll get hurt,’ Shona said quietly, her face turned away from him even while he pulled her into his arms.

‘Look at me, Shona,’ Dermot commanded. And she looked into his grey-blue eyes and felt that connection, that overbearing complicated intimacy she had felt while they were making love. She and Dermot shared neither a silly sense of humour, nor a natural physical compatibility. She realized they shared something quite different, something less accessible and more insidious, something innate; it wasn’t a feeling she’d had before, and she didn’t know how to put a name to it. Dermot continued, ‘You said you liked me before. How do you say that in French?’