‘The assumption of an advanced moral tone towards female impurity – that’s not my word – when it’s as clear as daylight that he’s simply tossed, like a boat without ballast, between fascination and abhorrence. All that crap about natural Purity! He hasn’t got the nerve to admit that Tess is interesting to him because of her experience, not in spite of it. If he’d been honest he would have given Tess to Alec on every page.’

‘Or Alec to Tess,’ I chimed in. That shows what an accommodating mood I was in. How pleased I was that Tarquin was forgotten and that we were enjoying ourselves as in the good old days.

But accommodation always gets one into trouble. ‘No, not Alec to Tess. You’ve missed my point. We’re not talking about harmonious sexuality here – perish the thought. What the little shit wants, what he really thrills to, is the D’Urberville impress on Tess. Rape, but by a better class of person.’

‘Like a royal seal?’ Boy, was I trying to please!

‘Precisely. Have you ever wondered why Hardy is so interested in Tess’s genealogy? The answer came to me while I was sitting on the rocks. Her aristocratic background is a metaphor, it’s wholly figurative. At the very moment that Angel forgives her and thereby makes her a spiritual virgin again, he has immediately to recall the historical interest of her family, the masterful line of the D’Urbervilles. Because without that, and without Alec’s seal upon her, what is she? Nothing. The wickedness that Hardy can’t comfortably indulge Tess in the present, he bestows upon her in her past. He ransacks her beginnings, uncovers her original sin – the thing he most wants to dwell upon – and hangs her up by it in the end. It’s a compulsive metaphor for intercourse.’

It was a privilege to share a beach with her. I was so proud that I kicked sand myself. And when she tried to escape from me I chased after her and brought her down with what was a pretty professional rugby tackle considering that I’d never played rugby. We rolled over and over, laughing and shouting, so that anyone watching us would have thought we were making a film. But they’d have been wrong. This was the actual thing, real life, true love. Or at least it was for me. I was able finally to pin her shoulders to the wet sand, and then and there, as a token of my appreciation and passion, I whispered an extempore rhyme into her ear.

In regard to the Impurity of the Pure Woman, Tess,

Hardy could not admit he wanted more, and not less.

So lacking the courage to bend or up-end her,

He settled instead for the chance to suspend her;

And taking the line the pure girl had sprung from,

He fashioned a loop – and that’s what she swung from.