‘If you’re going to see Oliver, talk to Helen first. She seems to understand him better than anyone else.’

Pansy was warning her, as subtly as she could, not to expect to find strength in Oliver.

Helen’s first reaction when Chloe told her what had happened was stunned surprise. It was impossible that efficient and sophisticated Chloe could have made such an elementary mistake. She stared at her friend and saw that the tawny, tigerish confidence had deserted her. She was white-faced and shaky now.

‘Are you sure?’ Helen asked, and then frowned at her own stupidity.

‘Yes. I’m quite sure.’ Chloe wrapped her arms around herself as if she was trying to keep warm. ‘I feel invaded. Not in possession of myself any more. It’s ironic. At least I felt, before, that I had me. I keep going around and around in my head, trying to think what to do. Whether to … say the words, Chloe … keep the baby, or to have an abortion.’ Her words ended in a sob and she turned her face away from Helen. ‘I’m only sure of one thing. Before I decide, I have to tell Oliver. Not to ask anything of him, but just to let him know. That’s only fair, Helen.’

Helen looked straight into Chloe’s eyes, neither encouraging nor dissuasive. ‘He’s in his rooms now.’

Don’t wait any longer, she meant. Decide.

Chloe picked up a scarlet jacket from where it hung over the back of a chair and pulled it on. With a lightness that she was far from feeling she waved to Helen and said, ‘Well. See you later, then.’

As she walked up towards the tall finger of Tom Tower, hands in her pockets, no-one could see that her fists were clenched. She remembered Oliver lying asleep, the frown deep between his eyes, and how she had felt that she could shut the door on what had happened between them and walk casually away from it. A sudden wave of nausea threatened to overpower her. Vainly she tried the words out in her head.

‘Oliver, I want to tell you something …’

‘Oliver, do you remember the night of the party …?’

‘Oliver, I’m pregnant. The baby’s yours.’

Chloe bit her lip and forced herself to keep walking.

‘Yeah?’

Oliver’s voice came at once in response to her hesitant tap on his door. As soon as Chloe pushed it open a wall of noise hit her. Music was playing at full volume. Oliver was slouching in an armchair with a young, very thin girl leaning across him. Her hair was caught up at one side of her head in a sprouting blonde tuft. Oliver’s expression of moody boredom lightened a little when he saw Chloe.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’ve been meaning to come and see you, but somehow life slips by so amusingly. Have a drink. There’s wine or …’

‘Oliver, can we talk?’