Greg was walking so slowly that I nearly bumped into his back. This puzzled me. He was super-fit and usually strode along so briskly that I had to scamper to keep up. I just presumed he was tired from his run.

When we reached the cliff top the path widened out and we could walk side by side. I opened my mouth to ask, ‘Are you OK?’ but that was inappropriate so I shut up.

For a while we trudged along in silence. Above us the swifts screeched past like Spitfires. It was eerily still; not a breath of wind. The sun beat down. We hadn’t seen a soul. It was as if the world had emptied, just leaving the sea glittering beneath us and vapour trails crisscrossing the sky. It seemed a shame to spoil it.

Greg was walking along like a professor—head down, hands behind his back, a thoughtful look on his face. He was a professor.

‘Don’t you owe me an explanation?’ I said.

‘What?’ He raised his head.

‘An apology. An explanation. Simple courtesy, you know.’

‘What exactly do you want me to say?’

‘It would have been nice if you’d replied to my emails.’ My voice shook. ‘To have treated me like a human being.’

‘I told you I was sorry.’

‘Sorry? Isn’t that just a tiny bit inadequate?’

He stopped. ‘What else can I say?’

‘All that “finding myself” bollocks. You’ve been fucking my friend, my best friend. You could at least have found somebody I didn’t know. Have you any idea how painful that is? All these years and you didn’t even have the decency to come clean—’

‘Calm down, love.’

‘Love?’

‘There’s no point in raking it up now.’

He put his hand on my shoulder. I shook it off.

‘You haven’t got a clue how I’ve been feeling, have you?’

He sighed, and pushed his hand through his hair. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything. When it began …’

‘All right, all right.’ He raised his hands in surrender. ‘If you really want to know. Do you? Really?’

I shouldn’t have nodded. Because his face changed. It softened with the memory. ‘That trombone recital,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘That’s when it began.’

‘What trombone recital?’

‘Your ex-pupil, what’s his name? At the Methodist Chapel in Finsbury Park.’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘For some reason Azra came along.’

Now I remembered. The recital only lasted an hour, and afterwards the three of us had planned to go to a movie at the Holloway Odeon, something with Cate Blanchett in it, some thriller. But I wasn’t feeling well, so I bailed out and went home.

‘Do you know? Azra and I had hardly ever been alone together, ever,’ Greg said. ‘All those years. Isn’t that funny? I used to find her a bit scratchy, to be honest, in fact quite aggressive sometimes; very loyal to you.’

‘Oh, yes?’ I laughed.

‘Always banging on about women’s rights, quite antimen really. And then all that lesbian stuff—well, it was quite off-putting. I had the feeling she just tolerated me for your sake, that she didn’t really like me at all.’ He paused. ‘But that night, everything changed.’