‘It was worth it,’ Terence kept saying exuberantly over and over again, ‘every single humiliating thing, to find out about Nicky’s mother, what a fantastic thing, I only thought I was going to save her from the stabbing trial, fancy that wonderful old doctor coming forward, it was worth it, Nicky will get better now.’ Even tonight he didn’t drink, hadn’t had a drink since the stabbing to the amazement of everyone who knew him. Sometimes his bright blue eyes filled with tears. ‘I always thought, because I didn’t do it, that I wouldn’t be found guilty, but sometimes it’s not that simple, justice, is it?’

‘What was wrong with that Simone Taylor?’ asked Pauline’s agent breathlessly. ‘Why did she do that, was it just to tie her name to a film star I suppose?’

Pauline and Terence, long-ago members of that class of ’59, caught each other’s eye and Terence shrugged. But Pauline answered.

‘No it was more than that,’ she said, pouring herself more wine. ‘She was raped, I think she just tried to change the circumstances. We didn’t really know about such things, we were kids, but I think she was obsessed with Terence, it was literally an obsession, and it had lasted all these years. You read about these things all the time only it’s not usually people you know.’

‘It was partly my fault,’ said Terence slowly, and everyone looked at him in surprise. ‘I was drunk and shocked about Nicky turning up like that after so long but I shouldn’t have gone anywhere with Simone Taylor at all. When we were young she was often trying to... to get me to...’ His voice petered out and he shrugged again but suddenly Pauline understood. She remembered Molly, and all the other girls including herself, who had known the beautiful blue-eyed boy from Wales when he was young.

Stu started passing salmon across the table and calling out instructions, plates were being handed from one person to another, wine was being poured.

Pauline leant across the table and said to Terence in a very quiet voice, ‘And did you?’

Terence sighed, stared down at the white linen tablecloth. ‘I made the mistake of kissing her once in the Music Room.’

‘At the reunion?’

‘Thirty-six years ago in the Music Room. That’s what started it all. I saw that she was a bit – unbalanced and I never kissed her again, but it was too late.’ He turned his glass round and round in his hand. ‘Nevertheless my father would no doubt call this –’ and the glass turned round and round ‘– retribution.’

And Pauline, who like all the others had always remembered Terence kissing her on the stairs when they were young and the world offered them everything, was silent. Benedict, the only person who caught this exchange, stared, fascinated. There were tears in his mother’s eyes.