‘Much better,’ he was saying. ‘Much, much better. I like him, you know. The trouble is just that he doesn’t like me. Not that I’ve ever given him any reason to. Ever since we were tiny, I’ve acted as if he was some kind of not very subtle joke. Not calculated to make people like you, that.’ Suddenly he shivered violently. ‘Christ, I’m so cold.’

Helen stood up and wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek against his hair. The true gold reminded her of how she had seen the sun shining through Darcy’s and, for a split second, confused him with his brother.

‘How long have you been sitting here?’

‘No idea. Hours. Since last night.’ He looked round vaguely. ‘Hart got my scout in to clear up. And he made me change my shirt. The other one got muck on it.’

Suddenly, he laughed, and Helen saw thankfully that he looked almost himself. He had drunk two cups of tea, thirstily. ‘It doesn’t really suit him, playing nursemaid.’

Helen had been hunting in the bedroom, and now she produced a thick cable-knit sweater. ‘Come on. Let’s go out for a walk.’

Oliver pulled the sweater on gratefully, but he looked out at the bright afternoon unwillingly.

‘What for? At least let’s have a drink, first.’

‘No.’ Helen took his arm and began to steer him to the door. At first he pulled back angrily, but then he looked around the empty room, shivered again, and let her draw him away.

Helen walked out into the sunlight with Oliver leaning as heavily on her as if he were an invalid. They crossed the College and came out into Christ Church Meadows, open and inviting under the blue sky. Without speaking they took the majestic tree-lined avenue that led like an arrow to the river. There was a mist of pale spring-green everywhere, and the full-throated gurgle of wood-pigeons in the elm trees.

When they reached the river, they turned to walk past the College boathouses. The big double doors of several of them stood open, and they peered to see the glossy shells of rowing eights stacked inside. The air smelt of varnish and linseed oil.

Oliver paused to watch a couple of eights flash past on the water, sending up rainbowed droplets of spray. The oarsmen strained forward and the coxes sat hunched forward, calling the strokes. A rowing coach bicycled past on the towpath, anxious, his stopwatch bumping against his chest.

‘I used to row at Eton,’ Oliver said, ‘until it struck me that there have to be at least a thousand easier ways of getting from A to B.’

There was a pleasant ordinariness in their laughter that was like music to Helen.