Juliet very very slowly turned her face towards the chair where he sat, further away now, nearer the window. She had pulled a sheet towards her, to cover herself, but she did not know that she had done so.

‘How did you know?’ she said.

‘I talked to Grover.’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘That you never had real sex. That you were frightened. That pretending it was a massage was the only way you could enjoy it. And that some years ago he made you very angry by suggesting that you should try and face what was wrong with you and get some proper help.’

‘It was not Grover’s business.’ But she was too exhausted to be angry. ‘How did you know about Grover?’

‘It’s part of my job, to know these things. How did it – come to this?’

Juliet looked at Bud Martin across the hotel room.

‘I was afraid you’d find out,’ she said simply. ‘The film was too – real. I haven’t had sex – proper sex, since I was twenty-one.’

Bud Martin’s face didn’t change but he moved away at last and walked to the window. He stared out at the city.

‘You mean for thirty-five years you’ve never done that?’ There was a kind of pity in his voice.

‘I can’t,’ she said.

‘But you can,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

‘I – I had an illegal abortion that went wrong. I was young. It – damaged me. It messed me up. I – can’t bear to have anyone inside me. I – I’ve been reminded of it all lately because – what I said to you earlier, I damaged someone. It was at that time. It’s all tied up with that time. And I’ve never had to do anything so – so specific on film that might – tell people.’

‘Do you really mean you’ve never had a proper sexual relationship of any kind since then?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re married.’

‘He’s gay,’ said Juliet simply. ‘It suited us both. When we married twenty-five years ago he couldn’t afford for it to be known. He’s the head of a big stock-broking firm. Twenty-five years ago they needed wives at dinner parties and company functions if they were to climb the corporate ladders.’

‘Didn’t you want children?’

‘I can’t have children,’ said Juliet Lyall, ‘the abortion had been done so badly I finally had to have a hysterectomy when I was twenty-two. It was all illegal in those days, and I was scared of what I’d done, I – left it too long before I went to a doctor.’

He was looking out of the window, down on the sprawled smog-ridden night and again there may have been a small sigh.