‘My name’s James.’

‘So you are the hero? The man who saved Falstaff from the porters?’ She fell into the chair next to mine. The seats were too low to allow for any dignity in sitting down, and she vaulted the challenge to her self-possession with childish aplomb. She sat side-saddle, with her slim calves lolling over the arm on one side, and her back propped against the other.

‘Why do you call him Falstaff?’ I asked.

‘He thinks it’s because he’s witty. We know it’s because he’s fat,’ Jessica replied, jabbing him in the buttocks with the pointed toe on her black high-heeled shoe.

‘It is because I share with my namesake an irrepressible sense of humour and a shrewd proximity to powerful figures,’ Michael said primly.

‘You must have a very large room for a first year. Where on earth did you conceal an object this size?’ she asked casually. After a dinner of forced inferiority, I laughed gleefully at my host’s expense.

‘My size is proportional to my intellect,’ he said quite seriously.

It was odd to see the way he interacted with these people. The ruder they were to him, the greater his pomposity became, as if he could flood the world with an excess of self-regard. Jessica left their exchange at that and returned her attention to me. As she faced me I felt reilluminated, quite brilliant, as if her beauty could catch the parts of me I liked the best and make them shine with reflected light.

‘Did you like the fight?’ she asked. ‘Wasn’t Francis brave?’

‘Very brave. I’ve never seen a fight before, and I was spellbound.’

‘Spellbound,’ she repeated, as if she had never heard the word before, her blue eyes widening.

Jessica did not yet know me, but she thought it safest to have everyone worship her from the outset. She pulled the silver needle from her hair and the silky blonde bulk uncurled like a muscle down her back. The gesture implied an intimacy between us, as she disrobed in front of me without shame or comment. I wanted to give her something to justify the confidence. Talking to her, I had the genuine impression that whatever view I proffered would henceforth be law to her. The idea that someone like this would value my opinion made me swell with pride. She could instil self-worth in a moment – and excise it with a flash of her scalpel tongue. I did not know it, but I was already eating into my allotted quota of attention. After that everyone always craved more, and very few people ever worked hard enough or played well enough to get it. She was like a drug-dealer, creating need with a free sample, then suddenly escalating her price.

The slight girl with the ponytail had finished counting out money on the table. She gave half the winnings to Francis, and he folded them into two fat wodges and slipped them into the breast pockets of his dinner jacket. They shook hands briskly. She wore no make-up and no jewellery. She was pretty, I thought, with large dark eyes and a small oval face, but her abrupt manner indicated that her appearance was not on the agenda. She took another of the slabs, unzipped a pocket in her combats and slipped it inside. The rest of the notes and the float of coins she returned carefully to the strong box, before locking it and pocketing the key.