She stepped unwillingly down into the punt. Tom slid into the narrow seat beside her and settled her cloak around her ankles. The boat rocked sharply as Oliver stood up on the flat stern behind them. Then the long shell swung ponderously in the water and pointed downstream. Helen heard the swish of the pole as it slid down through Oliver’s hands, the plop of it in the water and then the slight jolt as the tip found the river bed. Oliver put his weight to it to send the clumsy boat skimming over the water. He bent to the rhythm, savagely pushing the blunt prow through the water, twisting the pole free from the greedy mud bottom and hauling it up hand over hand in a shower of cold droplets, ready for the next thrust. They began to travel smoothly, faster, with Oliver as intent as if they were racing for their lives.

Tom’s hand found hers under the cloak, and Helen leaned her head back against his shoulder. She smelt the waterproof reek of the rexine cushions, varnish, and the deep, mud and weed-green smell of the river itself. Away on either side of her the banks and boles of the trees were shrouded in a low white mist. The moon had disappeared and the sky was very black, the darkest hour of the night before the summer dawn.

Tom’s hand was stroking hers, gently, and his mouth was close to her cheek. She closed her eyes against the eerie night and the loud slap of the water and listened to Tom’s calm, even breathing. She matched her own to it and her anxiety began to melt away. They were isolated together in a cocoon of water and darkness, warm under their blanket of black velvet. Slow currents began to stir inside her. She turned her head to meet Tom’s mouth. His light kiss touched the corner of her lips and then her tongue, and she felt the warmth of him beside her.

Across the grass came the din of the Ball at full swing. The music was plangent, distorted by the damp air. It might have been drifting from another world. Oliver was whistling through his teeth like a demonic gondolier. Once Helen looked backwards and saw the familiar shape of his head with the hair sweat-flattened against it. He smiled at her.

Helen was suddenly gripped by panicky disorientation. They seemed to have been surging on for hours, and she had no idea where they were. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a white notice on the bankside. It was gone into the dark behind them, but the jolt of it brought her upright. It was the water authority warning sign. She remembered the red lettering, seen a hundred times before at the point where punts made a slow U-turn in the Cherwell.

Danger. No punts past this point