Al Pescaor was special indeed. It was small, intimate, and redolent with wonderful smells. The food when it came was reverently laid on a snowy white cloth. It was exquisite, melting seafood. They ate until they could manage no more and grew giggly on bottles of golden wine. Then they sat replete over coffee and smooth brandy. Their richly contrasting colourings drew admiring glances, but they were happy in their own company and saw none of them.

Pansy sat back with a sigh of contentment. ‘It seems a long way off, doesn’t it, damp old Oxford, and Follies with Rose shuffling around, and Gerry leering around corners?’

‘Another world,’ Chloe agreed. ‘But in two days, we’ll be back in it.’

There was a sudden, small silence.

For more than a week no-one had mentioned Stephen, but now it was as if he was sitting at the table with them.

‘It’s been wonderful having you both here,’ Pansy said abruptly. ‘I get very low, on my own with Masefield and Kim. It’s fine to come back and make ho-ho jokes about it, but it’s miserable just the same. But with you it’s been quite different. I haven’t … missed anybody, or wanted to see anyone else.’

‘Neither have I,’ Chloe said quietly.

Pansy leaned forward to touch her wrist with one fingertip. ‘I’d feel happier still if I thought that was the truth,’ she whispered.

‘It is the truth,’ Chloe answered. ‘I loved him, but I’ve stopped now. It isn’t as though he hasn’t got plenty of faults.’

‘I’ll say,’ Pansy was grinning. ‘The way that whatever happens, he’s got a quote to supply to make it even more significant.’

‘And the way that he puts on his lecture voice, even in bed, and addresses you like a seminar room.’

They were both giggling, while Helen stared in amazement. The taboo topic had at a stroke become a source of shared laughter.

Pansy dabbed at her eyes. ‘Poor Stephen. How mean of us.’

‘Stephen will survive. Poor Beatrice, rather,’ Chloe said with a touch of seriousness.

‘Yes. I didn’t ask him to leave his wife, you know. I didn’t ask him for anything.’

‘That was the difference between us,’ Chloe said calmly.

‘Perhaps. But he came, for whatever reason, and there we were. It scared me to death, and still does. I tried to talk to you about it once, Helen, do you remember?’

Helen reddened a little under Pansy’s clear blue gaze.

‘And I wasn’t very much help, was I? You thought I was taking some kind of moral standpoint, but it was only because of Oliver, and Chloe.’

Oliver. Without anyone voicing it, they knew that they couldn’t talk about Oliver here in this mellow room with the water rippling peacefully outside.

‘You’re a very loyal friend,’ Chloe said, squeezing Helen’s hand.