‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘Fitz rang. He’s coming round to say he’s sorry.’

‘When?’

Too hot, too hot.

‘Eightish.’ I looked at my watch. It was still only sixish.

Sharon sneaked up behind me and blew into my neck, pretty much as she had done with Tamsin. ‘Well it’s a good job he is,’ she whispered, ‘if you’re just going to sit and stare. Because I feel like letting my hair down tonight.’

Given the completely combustible condition of my insides right now I wasn’t safe from even the most inadvertent spark or friction, but a remark like that, hot in my ear, was as the application of the eternal torch to tinder. I went up in seconds. Although it was hours before Fitzpiers was due, I ran about drawing curtains and re-arranging furniture and altering the angles and the wattage of glaring lights. I put soft music on the record player and draped towels over the speakers to soften it some more; I lit joss sticks; I threw cushions on the carpets; I hid the telephone; I threw cushions on the cushions. Then I paced the floor and waited for Fitzpiers. I heard him coming from three streets away and met him at the door, before he could knock on it, with a tumbler-full of gin. ‘Hello! Here! Drink!’ was all I could later remember saying. Then I poured a similar quantity for Sharon, topped up Fitzpiers, turned off the rest of the lights, and slipped away.

Forty minutes later I was still crouched at the top of the stairs, cold and motionless, trying to hear every word that was said, not wanting to miss a single syllable of the slide from sociability to venery. So far all that had floated up to me had been Fitzpiers’s latest observations, punctuated by the odd laugh of agreement or surprise from Sharon, on the subject that was now apparently uppermost in his mind – Thomas Hardy as one of the founding fathers, along with Homer, Virgil, God and the Gilgamesh poet, of science fiction. Numb with loneliness, disappointment and critical outrage, I waited and waited, only shifting my position when it was necessary to change ears. But at last there came a break in conversation. I detected movement. If I wasn’t mistaken someone rose. Someone walked to another part of the room. Something opened and rustled. And then there was Fitzpiers’s voice.

‘I’d very much like you to take a look at this,’ it said.

Every last hair on the back of my neck rose and stood on end.

Sharon’s laugh came rich and ribald and appreciative. ‘Are you sure you’ll be showing it to the right person?’