Nothing extraordinary occurred that night. There was no wild passion in the marram grass. They walked almost the length of the beach until it got dark, acknowledging each other’s presence in the end with brief bursts of conversation. Afterwards she could not remember exactly what had been said. She had talked, she thought, about her mother. Perhaps she had been more drunk than she realised. Halfway back they stopped. He put his arm around her and pointed out the shape of one of the constellations—she could not remember which. When they returned to the point on the beach where the walk had started—she could see in the moonlight the skid marks of her slide down the dune—he kissed her.

“I must go,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “ Of course.”

“I’ll be in touch,” he said. “ I’ll see you or phone you at home.”

Yeah, she thought. Like hell you will.

The extraordinary thing happened the next day. She woke up with a sense of elation and joy she had not experienced since the uncomplicated happiness of childhood. She had more energy. She felt that for the last twenty years she had only been half alive. Inevitably the elation faded, though it lasted undiminished for almost a week, and then her craving to be alone with him again began. She dreamed about the walk on the beach, reliving it every night before she went to sleep, yet with every rerun its magic grew less potent.

What’s the matter with me? she thought. I didn’t go through all this when I was sixteen. I’m an independent woman.

The need to see him again was humiliating. She drank too much to try to forget him.

He’s married, she thought. I mean, really. I don’t need this hassle.

And all the time she knew it was not the man’s company she wanted, but the elation and vitality that had followed it. She became desperate, like an addict, waiting for him to make an approach.

Then he phoned her at home late one Saturday afternoon.

“Mary,” he said.

She recognised his voice immediately. “ Yes.”

“I was wondering if you were free this evening. We could go out for a drink, a meal. We could go into town.”

Of course, she thought. Much less danger of being recognised in town.

“Mary,” he repeated, and she realised that he was as desperate as she was.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m free this evening.” She felt a sudden panic in case he was disappointed with her.

That had been how it all started. They met in Newcastle in a poorly lit wine bar and she drank Perrier all evening because she wanted nothing to cloud her memory. Then she had taken him back to her flat and he had stayed all night.