Helen knew that she was waiting for someone. She was confident that he would come, and aware that there was no hurry. So she sat patiently in the sunshine, feeling the warmth of the stone wall beneath her, her fingertips stroking the rough blocks. The view in front of her was old-fashioned English pastureland in early summer, dotted with oak trees and laced over with the milky froth of cow parsley.

Then she saw someone coming over the tussocky grass. She knew it was not the person she had been expecting, but there was no surprise. Instead she jumped down from the wall and ran to him. The meadow grass brushed her bare ankles as she went.

Tom held out his arms.

Her face was against his shoulder and she thought that she could hear both their hearts beating. She opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her.

‘Quiet. Listen.’

Over their heads a lark was singing, measuring out his territory against the blue sky.

Tom kissed her. He touched her eyelashes and the curve of her cheekbones as if he was tasting them, and then his mouth found hers. In the darkness of his eyes Helen saw the passion that was so often masked by his cynical smile. His fingers were counting her buttons, white buttons familiar on a dress that she only wore in summertime.

One by one he undid them.

His eyes were closed now and she saw the blackness of the lashes against his cheek. With the tip of his tongue Tom traced the arch of her collarbone and tasted the white skin in the tiny hollow at the base of her throat. His hands rippled over her ribs, spanned her waist and then rested on the points of her hips.

‘Gipsy Helen,’ he said, very softly. ‘Dearest gipsy Helen.’

The meadow was gone now. They were lying face to face on a white bed in a shadowed room. Helen was minutely conscious of the kiss of flesh against her own. With a sudden breeze the thin curtains blew inwards from the open window. Helen half turned to look. Her body was washed with physical sweetness and certainty. There was no hurry, no fear, and no distance from the loved body alongside hers. The curtains fluttered once more and she turned back to him, reaching out her hands to touch and her mouth to taste.

Her fingers closed on emptiness.

She was alone. The room was the same, her Venetian bedroom with the arched ceiling and the window over the Canal. But she had never shared it with anyone. The dream had been so vivid that she could still feel the warmth of another body hollowing the mattress, but it had only been a dream. No more than that. The lingering happiness that it had left behind was chased away by disappointment, and then dismay.