Chloe saw that her old lover looked weary, and diminished. The air of confident, pedagogic authority that had once attracted her was gone. Even his feminine good looks had turned faintly seedy. He wasn’t the man she had fallen in love with at the beginning of the year, and that must mean that he was no longer the man that Pansy had so unerringly reached for either.

Poor Stephen.

‘Come and have a drink,’ she said warmly. His eyes met hers in a surprised stare. ‘Don’t worry.’ Her voice was softer. ‘It’s all right. I’m all right.’

He followed her up the stairs but at her door, he hesitated.

‘I don’t want Pansy to come back and find that I’m not here. She’ll just go off somewhere again.’

‘Leave the door open then. You can see her coming up the stairs. Where is she?’

Stephen took a glass of wine, and sat down where he could see along the gallery.

‘London. For an interview. She won’t say any more … you know what Pansy’s like.’ He seemed to crumple in front of Chloe’s eyes. ‘I thought at first I understood her, and now I see that I don’t at all. All I do know is that I need her.’ Stephen collected himself with an effort. ‘Chloe, I shouldn’t be talking like this. To you, of all people.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she murmured again. ‘I had a bad time, but that was more to do with my own mistakes than you.’ She remembered sharply the aching days of As You Like It, Oliver’s clammy desperation, and then the clinic off Harley Street and the void inside her. That void was still with her, and always would be, and beside that Stephen was irrelevant. He was as small as if viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. I’ve survived, she thought. I’ve learned. Gratitude swept over her, and through it, she looked calmly at Stephen. ‘Talk about it if it helps,’ she said.

Stephen was wry, a flicker of his old self showing. ‘Nothing helps much, except being with her. I’ve never longed to possess anyone so totally before. I’ve always found possessiveness rather a shortcoming. As you know.’

Neither of them smiled.

‘What about your … what about Beatrice?’

He looked away.