‘Listen to me Molly darling,’ he whispered, ‘listen. We’ll work together again, like we used to, the way we used to, only this time,’ and he pressed her wrists hard down on the sofa, ‘this time Molly it won’t be hundreds watching us, wondering what it is between us, this time it will be millions watching us... watching us darling... like I’m watching you now Molly, you know what I’m watching don’t you Molly darling. ‘ She felt his hand, moving less slowly now. She lay there pinned by his arm, knowing he was watching her face, knowing watching her mouth excited him, the way she could not keep it closed because it was opening to take him inside her and she could not wait although he made her, even as her body moved from side to side on the couch, more and more urgently her body turning from side to side.

‘Now then Molly darling,’ he whispered, his voice husky. And he finally released her hands. And as if she was someone else her open mouth reached for his urgently, kissed him with passion, her body arched towards him and then with an almost angry groan of inevitability and a kind of pain she bent her head downwards, caught his cock in her mouth and sucked on it hungrily, her mouth opening wider and wider to take him in, their movements becoming wilder and wilder as their bodies finally, remembering everything as if it were yesterday and not thirty years ago, joined together and exploded.

*

She drove back to London in a daze at four in the morning.

It was the first time she had been unfaithful to Banjo in the eight years they had been together and shame gripped her. To even think of throwing everything away. Her body that so betrayed her still shook as if she were cold, but she was not cold. She was ashamed. Not just because she had had sex with Anthony after all those years. Not just because she had betrayed not only Banjo, but Pauline again. But because she knew that what had excited her was the thought of that old combination that had excited her so long ago, that Anthony knew excited her, used deliberately to excite her because it excited him also: sex and work – almost a kind of secret exhibitionism, the secret known only, but oh so well, to the two of them.

And as she turned off the motorway, took the south turning, headed towards Clapham, another, deeper shame closed upon her. She had chosen to go to Stratford-upon-Avon that night because she knew that Banjo would be away with his band, and would not be home till morning.

*

A few hours later she telephoned Anastasia Adams (Ltd).

‘Listen Anastasia, have you heard there’s a big new international TV series being made, something called The Immoralists?’