A half-thought, like a fish moving in deep water, stirred briefly within Helen. Even in that instant the implications of it made her giddy. The idea was so extraordinary and so dangerous that even before it was wholly acknowledged her mind was struggling to suppress it.

‘What, then?’

She couldn’t look at Tom. She stared up into the voluptuous curves of the dome, and her thoughts were racing.

Oliver, her inner voice said, and then she remembered. Oliver was gone, changed into someone different who no longer belonged to her at all. It wasn’t Oliver whose kiss still stung her mouth.

Out of the whirlpool of emotions Helen seized desperately on one. Anger came back to her. Of course, that’s what was happening. Tom couldn’t have Pansy and so he was making do with herself. She fanned her anger deliberately. Tom was amusing himself. He was tight, and making a casual pass at her. Not only that, he was choosing the worst time.

She had taken him for a friend.

The strange giddiness was no more than shock, and disappointment, and too much champagne.

The dark, threatening idea slipped away back into her subconscious.

‘What then?’ Tom persisted. He hadn’t taken his eyes from her profile, as if he was seeing it for the first time.

At last Helen said, ‘I don’t want to be a substitute for Pansy. If you can’t have her because of Oliver, then you’ll make do with me, just for this evening. That’s it, isn’t it?’

His anger suddenly matched hers. ‘No, it isn’t. Don’t be a fool.’

Helen drew away from him and wrapped her arms protectively around herself. After a long moment Tom stood up and stared down at her.

‘Helen, you’re too clever for this. You can’t go on for ever selling yourself short as a dull little mouse that nobody wants. It gets boring, and it’s not the truth.’

He put out his hands to pull her to her feet and closer to him.

‘I want you.’

Helen believed herself certain of her ground now. He was patronising her, and she let his words sting her.

‘That’s too bad. Perhaps I don’t want you. What right have you got to think you know who I am, or what I need? You, Pansy, Oliver – none of you knows anything about the real world. Or about me.’

Tom looked down at the sudden colour in Helen’s face, the hard set of her mobile mouth and the furious light in her eyes. At once she seemed much more important than a way to forget Oliver unconscious on the floor. Involuntarily he put his arms round her again and tried to turn her face up to his.

Helen reached back with her free hand and slapped him as hard as she could. Tom lurched back a step, hand to his face.