Everyone seemed to know everyone else very well indeed. Helen’s first impulse was to turn and run, but then she saw Oliver refilling someone’s glass. There was no sign anywhere, Helen realised, of a teacup or a piece of buttered toast. The carpet was cluttered with glasses and ashtrays.

‘Hello,’ Oliver said beside her, surprising her again by his height. His kiss, quickly brushing her mouth, surprised her less this time but had no less of an effect. Oliver took her hand and helped her to pick her way through the sprawled legs and gossiping bodies. ‘You look very pretty,’ he told her casually. ‘Red suits you almost as much as smiling.’ A blonde girl with a sulky face jerked her head up to look at Helen as she passed. There was a sofa in the corner, occupied by yet another pair of girls. Oliver eased her down between them, and they made room for her reluctantly.

‘You must know Fiona? No? And Flora? Well then, now’s your chance. This is Helen, and this … is … Helen’s drink.’ Oliver handed her a glass, winked, and went away.

Two surprised faces stared at Helen. Politely, but insistently, with their questions, they tried to find out who Helen was and where she fitted in. It gave Helen a kind of half-satisfaction to demonstrate that she didn’t fit in anywhere, but once that was done the girls went back to their conversation, leaning across her in their animated talk. Helen wriggled back against the cushions to look at the rest of the room.

It wasn’t all girls, she saw now. Three or four young men, in jeans and sweaters like Oliver, lounged among the more carefully turned-out girls. The striking exception was a dark, confident-looking man with a high-bridged nose and long hands that he used to make incisive gestures as he talked. He seemed older than the others and was dressed differently in a loose, pale jacket and beautifully-cut trousers with front pleats. He evidently felt Helen’s stare from across the room because he stopped talking, and his eyes held hers for a second. Then he raised his eyebrows in surprising, friendly complicity. Helen guessed at once that he didn’t belong here either, but he was making himself ten times more at home than Helen herself. After a moment he came over to her and helped her up from her captivity between Flora and Fiona.

‘More room on the window seat,’ he grinned at her. ‘I’m Tom Hart.’

Expertly he ensconced them on the cushioned seat where they were half hidden from the rest of the room by loops of curtains.

‘Well?’ he went on, lighting himself a cigarette. Helen shook her head at the held-out pack. He sounded American, she thought. What was he doing here?