She stops. ‘Look, you’re obviously older and wiser, blah blah blah. But you’re not a doctor yet.’ Her voice is softer but still forthright. ‘Maybe consider the fact that we’re going to be neighbours for a year and studying alongside each other for five, before you write me off simply for being friendly.’

Touché.

She seems to change in front of me: her wide eyes now look sharper, and those neat nails epitomize the good grooming we’ve been encouraged to adopt, to give patients confidence in our fitness to practise.

‘Was it that obvious?’ I say, pulling a face.

‘Er, yes.’

I proffer my cup. ‘Can I offer you a coffee as an apology?’

‘It’d be a start,’ she says, taking it and carrying it to her room. I wait for the door to shut behind her but instead she smiles. ‘You coming in, or what?’

‘You’re a cougar. I’ve never slept with a cougar before.’

I have brought a man home. Technically he’s a man.

‘I’m only five years older than you,’ I say, and we kiss again, staggering towards my single bed.

Five years, though. Five years ago, my cute second-year Geology student was fifteen. While I was earning money to keep two other adults afloat, he was at school in the Welsh town where he picked up his sexy accent, drinking dodgy cider and snogging girls on geography field trips . . .

‘Come on,’ he says and pulls my T-shirt up over my head. ‘I was messing you about. You don’t look a day over thirty!’

I laugh. This boy – Craig or Cam – is only the third person I’ve ever slept with. I almost didn’t let this happen, but somewhere between my third and fourth cider with Hanna and the others, I decided I had some catching up to do.

It feels . . . new. The first new thing I’ve experienced in so long.

Strange too. Exposing. I am turned on enough – and drunk enough – to ignore my nervousness but not so drunk that my body doesn’t register the heat as he kisses me from my collarbone and begins to move down my breasts . . .

Enough thinking, Kerry Smith. You’re not a medical student now. You’re a woman.

‘Is this OK?’ he asks and the eyes are unfamiliar but the desire in them is not.

‘Yes. Yes.’

After we’ve finished – a physical challenge in my monastic-study bedroom – he falls asleep and I lie there, trying not to think too much but unable to turn the thinking off.

I’m warm and sated. It wasn’t the best sex ever—

Do not think about the best sex ever.

It was fun. And everyone from my sister to Mo in the control room insisted that I had to get back in the saddle after the divorce.