Goodbye. Would she have the courage to say it to Oliver? It would mean walking in under Tom Tower, crossing Canterbury Quad and climbing his staircase, knocking at his door. She longed to see him one last time, but doubted that she could find it in herself to go and look for him again.

Then, as she came down St Aldate’s, she saw him. He was with Pansy, of course. The low black shape of the Jaguar was drawn up half on the pavement beside Follies. Just as Helen noticed it, Pansy came running up the steps from the island, two at a time. Her white fur coat was swinging round her like a cloud and she was laughing delightedly.

Oliver raced up the steps in pursuit and Pansy ducked behind the car, feinting another dash as he tried to catch her. Then she vaulted into the driver’s seat and groped for the ignition. Oliver’s hand seized her arm and held her, triumphant. They looked as happy as children.

Do it now. Just say it and go. Helen braced herself.

She stepped in front of the Jaguar and smiled levelly at them.

‘I want to say goodbye. I’m leaving Oxford.’

She saw the laughter fade from Pansy’s face first.

‘Not because …’

‘I’m going home to help my mother. It’s a question of money.’

‘Money?’

How unintelligible that must be, for both of them, Helen thought.

Involuntarily, she turned to Oliver and their eyes met. He stepped towards her, blocking out Pansy for a moment and his arm came lightly around her shoulder again. A familiar tremor shot through Helen at his touch, but she knew that Oliver wanted something different now. He wanted her to bow out, conceding gracefully and making everything all right for him. But Helen held herself rigid and her eyes never wavered. Something like shame showed in Oliver’s tanned face before he dropped his arm and looked away again.

Helen lifted her chin and looked at each of them in turn. ‘Oliver … Pansy …’ she said lightly. Then, ‘I hope the play’s a success.’

She was walking down the steps to the island when she heard the car doors slam, and the throaty roar of the exhaust. Just as she had heard it after the magical evening with Oliver at Montcalm. It seemed years ago, now.

She looked up to see Follies House looming above her, a dark red mass of Jacobean brick set solidly on the tiny island in the tumbling water.

I wish I’d never come here, Helen whispered. No, that isn’t true. I wish I was staying, staying with Oliver. I wish he wasn’t driving away now, with Pansy beside him. I wish he really had been mine. I love him.

And the hopelessness of that settled around Helen like a mist.