We shook hands, and he took a last peek out the window to ensure that the coast was clear before departing. I listened, becalmed in the lonely waters of my room. Before his footfalls died completely in my ears I went to the window to watch him emerge into the courtyard. The court was deserted, illuminated only by the wrought-iron lanterns bolted to the stone walls in New Court, and the occasional oblong of a lit window where students with ground-floor rooms were still awake. The light from the lamps in the neighbouring square cast the shadows of the colonnade on the gravel, so that dark fingers clutched at the oval of grass. The moon was bright, its blue details clear in the black sky. I saw the top of Michael’s head emerge beneath me, the moonlight glinting slightly on his wet skull, and I was about to pull back into my room and shut the window when I became aware of three figures emerging from between the sash branches of the copper beech. He lifted his hand to these figures in a silent salute, and they greeted him with words which reached my room as an indistinct murmur. My dressing gown fell open, and the cold air stung my skin into anticipation. I took a deep breath, and tasted the flavour of bonfire smoke. The groundsmen must have been burning leaves on the Backs. I thrilled at being unseen, hovering above them. The moonlight poured into the court, filling up the walls like silver liquid.

I tried to get a clear view of Michael’s companions as the four of them fell into formation and walked out of sight behind the tree. There were two girls, one quite short with dark hair, the other tall and blonde. The tall one might be beautiful, I thought, or she thinks she is, or she wouldn’t walk like that, her head held up high, going deliberately slowly so that everyone else had to fall in time. Her hair fell down her back. She progressed with a stately grace. The shorter girl walked with a tough little strut and a roll to the shoulders, so that every step seemed like a challenge to the world. There was one boy, tall and black with short curly hair, broad-shouldered in a long blue overcoat that almost brushed his heels.

It seems ridiculous, but I knew the feeling that moment reminded me of; it pressed a specific neurone. I recognized it from childhood, looking down into a well in my father’s holiday home in the south of France, when I saw the silver backs of distant creatures flashing in the dark water. I peered down as my father chatted away with the estate agent in a half-known language, asking him questions about the surrounding buildings, the woods, something else I didn’t understand. I wanted so much to take off my clothes and sandals, to slip over the warm granite rim, away from the sunlight and the sound of crickets and the rough dry grass which tickled my ankles, to plunge into the cool silent shadows so far down. When my father saw me standing on tiptoes to look over the rim, he shouted at me to come away, and gripped my forearm very tightly, making me promise not to go near the edge. When he finally bought the place, he had men fill it in, and we came back the next summer to find a brown circle of earth in the back garden, burying the beautiful animals deep underground. The year after that, my father’s business took a bad turn, and the newly purchased property had to be sold.