Christopher Piper lay on the bed in his room in the Old Steading, hands linked behind his head, and asked himself, not for the first time, what on earth he was doing in this place with these unknown people. What did he really hope to achieve? Was he adventurously moving forward to new and challenging possibilities, or was he, as his long-term girlfriend, Nicola, scornfully maintained, in cowardly flight from real life? His feet stuck out over the bottom of the mattress as they always did in any standardsized bed, but he was used to that. At least this bed was a great deal more comfortable than other beds he’d been sleeping in recently and he thought wryly that his present companions, even though he might not have chosen any of them, were a good deal more congenial than the last group of people he’d been with.

After the evening session with Catherine, he’d received a text from Nicola, which read: Have u come to yr senses yet? He was outraged that she dared to consider she still had the right to ask such a question – what was it to her where his senses were, after she’d made it so abundantly plain that unless he were prepared to play the next stage of his life the way she wanted, she would have nothing more to do with him? The idea of Nicola’s suddenly turning up unannounced and causing trouble – which would have been quite in character – filled him with disquiet. The thought of what her reaction to his fellow writers would be both filled him with amusement and brought him out in a cold sweat. Thank goodness she didn’t know his address – at least he’d had enough sense not to tell her that. He viciously punched the one word NO into his mobile in reply, then thought better of it and erased it. It would be better to ignore her message altogether.