Wavery sat down beside her on the bed. He tried to hug away her pain and for a moment she allowed herself to be held like this. Then she snatched herself away. When she leaned back, he could see that she had tears in her eyes.

“I want you to know something, Tom. After this weekend, I’ll never ring you.”

“Never?”

“Promise.”

“Why ever not?”

“You can talk a friendship away on the telephone. You know how writers say you can talk away a book? Well, you can do the same with a friendship. If we talk on the telephone, the chances are we’ll misunderstand each other.”

“It’s all right. I hate the telephone too.”

“Oh, Tom, you are wonderful,” and she laughed through her tears. “One day you’ll appreciate the gift I’ve given when I say I’ll never ring. It’s like the gift you gave to me when I told you I hadn’t said as much as you and you said, ‘You can’t.’”

He pressed his lips to her eyes, closing them. “What do you want to do?”

“No, Tom. What are you thinking?”

His throat was dry. He thought, People do this every day. “I don’t know the rules,” he said softly.

She placed her room key down on the table by the bed. “And you think I do?”

She stood up and disappeared into the bathroom. The cistern flushed. She came out of the bathroom. He took off his jacket and walked to where she was standing. He touched her face, then her hair, watching all the time, fearful of disturbing her. Sex was a hideous solemnity. Nothing had prepared him for the emotions he felt. There was no experience he could use to ride them. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, caressing her.

“Shh,” she said and touched his face. In the touch he could feel her concern for him. She unfastened the buttons on his cuffs, his belt. “It’s going to be all right.” It was to reassure herself as well.

He woke early, waking her with a kiss. She turned into him, removing a hair from her mouth. She traced the contours of his cheek.

“Oh darling, it’s your face. It’s your face after all.”

He said, “I’m happy.” His love was innocent and permanent, a heart carved into a school desk. He had fallen asleep in her arms, her taste on his tongue, her cry in his ears, her fulfilled face against his, not realising until then how much love he had to give, as if the earth had welled up through him.

He said, “What would have happened if I hadn’t kissed you.”

She stretched out a leg and rolled onto him, her hair falling into his face. She said in his ear, “We’d still be having dinner.” His fingers moved down her back, over the peach hair in the hollow of her back, between her buttocks, into her darkest hair.

Lying beside her, he saw where their hair meshed grey and black. She whispered, “What is it, Tom?”