She whistled. Despite myself, my chest puffed a little with pride, like a sail in the wind of her whistle.

‘Tell me you asked that for some reason other than my humiliation,’ she said. She was trying to curb the hope in her voice.

‘I need to think about something.’

‘We can’t buy the picture back,’ she said, dropping back on to the pillow in disappointment. ‘I thought about that too, back when I first read the article. Even if we could find Augustus White, and even if he still had it, and even if we could convince him to sell it back to us, even at the original price, we still wouldn’t be able to raise half the capital.’

‘You’re right,’ I said, but I hadn’t been considering anything like that. I needed time to puzzle out a different option, and so I let her think she had settled the matter. I said goodnight to her and flicked off the living-room light. After a second’s thought, I left the door between our two rooms slightly ajar. I let my clothes lie where they fell, and dropped into my bed. I had changed the sheets that morning in anticipation of my prostitute’s arrival, and the linen felt crisp and clean, and smelt of citrus. I found I did not recognize the person I had been twenty-four hours previously, preparing methodically to fuck a stranger. I knew this distancing was an illusion, that there was no real change in me for the better, but it felt good nonetheless to disown my past from the cosy confines of the present. I knew myself too well to say ‘never again’. The warmth of the duvet soothed me, and the soft mattress supported my tired limbs. Not wanting to waste the next day, I set an alarm for eleven o’clock. I pictured Jessica’s smile when I woke her up at lunchtime with croissants from the bakery on New Street. I had a quick nightcap, a single slug from the bottle in my bedside cabinet. I screwed the cap on and replaced the bottle at the back of the drawer under a sheaf of papers. I touched my hand to the light twice, and the bulb dimmed and then went out. There was still no sign of real daylight. The sun would not rise until about eight o’clock.

Jessica called out, ‘I’ve thought about you a lot, James. I’m so glad that we’re here, whatever the reason.’

I smiled in the darkness. Her happiness was important to me. I was happy she was happy. I could not say that about anyone else on earth. I listened for her breathing through the gap in the door, and when I heard it level out into easy repetitions, I fell asleep in peace.

17

AS THE START of the new academic year approached, I began to construct elaborate fantasies of the same type with which I had peopled up my room with blondes and redheads in the solitude of the beginning of my first year. Inspired by loneliness, they were gaudy, crude tableaux of wish fulfilment. They involved Francis crying tears of regret, Jessica sitting on the floor outside my room begging to be let back in, heading to the bursary to find my rent and fees already paid by Lisa. All three of them would prostrate themselves in apology, and slowly I would become merciful and allow them to do things for me. Eventually I would tell them what I had done over the summer, and they would absolve me by acknowledging that it was their fault. I knew how pathetic these daydreams were, but they gave me pleasure nonetheless, and I had shed the inhibitions of self-respect that might otherwise have curbed them. I came back to Cambridge armed with an arsenal of grievance. I resolved not to talk to any of them, and to ignore their first attempts at getting in contact with me, so they would gradually realize that something was wrong. I wanted my anger coaxed out of me.