Helen ran down the slippery mossed steps to the island. Up on the bridge she heard the engine roar and then a scream of tyres as Tom wrenched the car away. It was very dark in the cavernous hallway. She was almost on top of Gerry before she saw him, and had to bite back a gasp of fear. He was sitting on the bottom stair with his hands hanging loosely between his knees. She tried to edge past him.

‘Don’t worry about me, love,’ he said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t see a thing.’

His low chuckle followed her up the stairs.

For once Helen’s room felt less than a sanctuary. She had come back to it this evening, so few hours ago, and Tom had been sitting there. Now she felt that he was still with her, dark and impatient. She sat down on the bed and stared at the dim rectangle of the window. Think, she kept telling herself. You know how to think. But all she could manage to focus on was a series of disconnected images. Tom’s face close to hers, Gerry’s insinuating Having a nice time?, the dizzy blur of the hobby horses, Oliver’s unfocused gaze, and Tom yet again. ‘We both know why, and what it means.’ What does it mean? she asked herself helplessly. How could she have forgotten herself so far, and – more – forgotten Darcy too?

At last she shook herself.

It was the fair. An isolated, intoxicated minute. Perhaps it had been prompted by her Venetian dream and then by the mystery of the sparkling mirage in the dark meadow. None of that assuaged the guilt and self-distrust that afflicted her now, but at least it was the thread of an excuse to cling to.

Then she thought painfully, I can’t use that as an excuse. It wasn’t just the fair. All this began long ago, and it goes back and back.

Back from tonight, when I found Tom here and knew that I was lying when I told him I was happy. Back to Venice, and my dream. Back to the play, and the days when we shared our anxiety for Oliver. Before that, to New Year’s Eve. I knew now why I was so angry and afraid when he kissed me. Even after all the pain of Oliver I must have sensed that there was a chance of it happening all over again with Tom.

Even before that, I must have been drawn to him. In Addison’s Walk, when I wanted to hide from everything against his shoulder. Even on the first day, when I saw him in Oliver’s rooms, I thought how different from everyone else he looked. If I hadn’t been blinded by Oliver then, I would have seen at once how special.