Lately, in idle moments, whenever Callum messaged her and she allowed her mind to drift to the little patch of dark chest hair she’d discovered nestling over his sternum, the smoothness of his back beneath her fingertips, Eva often found her thoughts interrupted by the moment Ross opened the door, reliving the awkwardness of their conversation afterwards. It was as if the incident had awakened within her a new awareness of Ross Campbell. She watched him from her window cradling his little boy against his hip, pointing out in a soft, affectionate tone the different cars, patiently repeating the words. She observed the tender way he leaned down to touch the boy’s neck, to kiss the glossy black hair. Ross was not some adolescent boy like Callum, prey to his own desires and clumsy about expressing them. He was past all that. He was a grown-up.

‘Thanks,’ Eva had said, after handing over the money to him. ‘You’re a really good teacher.’

‘Ah, there’s not much to it,’ he’d replied.

She liked that about Ross – his self-deprecation.

‘See you Saturday,’ she’d told him, then stood and watched while he reversed.

She hadn’t seen the figure in the window upstairs, the outline of frosted hair, the ardent gaze. And when Eva turned back to the house, she was unaware that she was being watched, the secret smile on her lips noted, the light in her eyes astutely read as desire. She ran up the stairs and into her bedroom.

‘You like him, don’t you?’ Corinne said, almost as soon as she’d walked in the door.

‘What are you doing in here?’ she’d demanded, snapping on the light, unable to conceal her annoyance.

‘I can see it in your face. I recognize the look.’

Eva had stepped past and thrown her wallet on to her desk.

‘Kindly get the fuck out of my room.’

‘Anouk fell in love with a man in our village. He also had a wife and child. It was a scandal.’

‘That’s fascinating, but I’m not like Anouk,’ Eva had retorted.

Corinne had stood in the doorway for just a moment, the smile on her face enigmatic, infuriating, her eyes lit up with the strange workings of her own convictions.

‘Yes, you are,’ she’d said, before stepping softly away.

It was stupid to feel unnerved. At the time, Eva had convinced herself that she was more enraged by the girl’s trespasses than unsettled by her calm intensity. But even now, in the school hall surrounded by hundreds of girls, she experienced it again: that same shiver of unease.

Eva looked up, her thoughts interrupted by the loud scrape of a chair, a voice she recognized travelling across all the heads of those gathered there, saying:

‘Sorry, but can I leave now?’