He went red.

A hit. A palpable hit! I rather hoped that Sophie had her ear to the keyhole.

‘Can we go in?’ He moved towards the door.

I shut it quickly. ‘No.’

‘This is very public.’

‘This is as private as it’s going to get.’

‘I can explain all this mess. If you’ll give me a chance.’

‘Come to dinner tonight.’

‘Darling, I knew you’d—’

‘Bring the anagram. You can explain the mess to both of us at the same time.’

‘Be reasonable.’

‘I think that’s pretty reasonable. Otherwise just fuck off out of my life.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Want to bet?

‘In a few days …’

‘Oh, get out of here, James. Haven’t I made it quite clear? I don’t want to see you again or hear your voice on the phone or smell your aftershave. I despise you for being a lying faithless cad and I despise myself for having fallen in love with you. Get out. Go and play games with someone your own size. Go.’ I must have been shouting though it didn’t seem like it to me.

‘Ssssh,’ he said.

‘I will not sssh. I don’t care who hears me. Just get out now or I’ll call security and have you thrown out. And don’t come back.’

He turned and walked down the corridor.

‘Bastard!’ I shouted after him.

I went into my room and shut the door and burst into tears yet again.

After a moment or two the door opened a crack. I looked up. It was Sophie.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘I loved it when you called him a cad. Sooo terribly British.’

‘Just piss off,’ was all I could say.

That was it really. I never saw him again. I realised too late that I still had his watch and then that I had no means of sending it back to him – no address, no telephone number, not even the name of the firm he worked with. I shall keep it for ever, I thought to myself, a permanent reminder of my folly. I hoped that it had cost him a lot of money.

Of course I had a more permanent reminder as I discovered when I finally made it home in July. I put off going to the doctor for as long as possible.

‘You look grim,’ my sister Rosie said to me one day. ‘I’m sure you’re ill.’

‘Psychosomatic,’ I said to her. ‘I’ll be fine. Lower back pain is always psychosomatic.’

‘Don’t say that to Mum or she’ll have your life.’

I said nothing to Mother, but I did catch a worried look on her face from time to time when I was with her.