I looked at him in wonder, not knowing whether he was joking or not. Just once I met the girl he often talked about, Caroline, the object of whose occasionally unwanted affections he was. Blonde, tall and strong, a countrywoman to the tips of her sensible shoes, she looked as if she could carry him around a farm on her shoulders. ‘I’ve always been too busy with girls to have much time for friendship,’ he told me: I didn’t ask him whether the many hours he claimed of my time were his way of compensating for a lack of friendship in his life. Occasionally, as we talked or listened to records, he would fall asleep with his head against the wall and I’d pull him, grunting, down to my carpeted floor, cover him with a quilt or a sheet and let him sleep on till it was time for him to rise, make coffee and heat up whatever he could find – pasta, lentils, rice, meat – then shower (or not) before leaving for classes.

I had acquaintances with whom I’d drink coffee, and other warmer friends to dine at home with once in a while. But it was years since I’d been very close to anyone, male or female. I’d had a few girlfriends. But the first one – the only one with whom I really fell in love – hurt me when I was seventeen (she went off to America before my birthday, and never even sent a card). After that I was quite casual in my physical relationships. I never made the first move, usually only responding to women who showed an interest in me. Sex had always been an ambivalent need, either a passing physical craving or, more often, hunger for reassurance.

Because I travelled so much as a child and adolescent, I was used to leaving friendships behind. When I came to London, I thought nothing of spending a day or two in intense conversation with someone I might never see again: time shared was no guarantee of lasting friendship. But there were people who found my manner disconcerting: expected my deep and continuing friendship, when really all I’d done was have a conversation with them in a cafeteria or in a park. I wanted to travel light: too much affection was burdensome, it led to dependency, and with my solitary habits I couldn’t deal with that, not in myself, not in others.

Now I suddenly had two intimate and sometimes competing friendships. But Riccarda – who now sometimes called on weekends – could be elusive, and Marco, for all his claims on my time, was too spiky and proud to put himself in a position where I might rebuff him. Except when it came to Riccarda.