‘You remember when I nearly had to go away? Because of the money?’ Her glance flicked around the apartment, from the white space above them to the pictures on the high walls and the uncluttered lines of the few pieces of furniture. It was important not to let the memories of her little room at Follies, or of her home town, slip too far away from her in the midst of this.

‘Somehow Oliver found my bank account. He put seven hundred and fifty pounds in it. It meant that I could keep us going, Mum and Graham and me, for just long enough.’ Her hands moved, a quick gesture of helplessness. ‘He never let me talk about it.’

She was quiet, thinking about Oliver and their odd, improbable friendship. But friends they had been. ‘I liked him very much,’ she said, almost to herself.

Tom said nothing. Very slowly he leaned forward and put his cup down on the table, then he stared blindly out at the glimmer of river between the grey and brown blocks. In its place he saw the bare trees in Addison’s Walk, and the pinnacles of Magdalen Tower. He felt the fragility of Helen’s shoulders in his arms, and the determination that held her head up. She hadn’t given way to the impulse to ask for his help. He had willed her to do it, but she had preferred to fight alone with her own pride.

Tom recalled how he had gone back to Follies and watched the heavy door until he saw her set out again, pulling her duffel coat around her in the sharp wind. The dusty, close smell of the old house filled his nostrils as he remembered the climb to the top, her unlocked door, and the row of digits that he had copied from her chequebook on the desk.

He had paid the money in notes into her account, and scribbled a meaningless signature.

Then he too thought of Oliver. Charming and reckless. Generous and thoughtless. A man of impulses, and never of careful, tactful plans. His face came back to Tom, as clear-cut as a profile on a coin. For a second Tom felt a lead weight on his shoulder and saw Darcy’s dark shoulders in front of him, bent under the same weight.

Swiftly Tom left his seat and knelt down beside Helen. He shut out the sight against the fold of her dress. Helen smiled with quick happiness and wound her fingers in his hair.

There was no need for her to know any more. Tom would leave her with that memory of their friend.

It was the last thing he could do for him.

‘I love you, Tom,’ she said.

He nodded, quickly, and the jealousy that he had felt for his dead friend broke up and drifted away like mist under the sun.