Soon I had them nodding to me in the corridors, and if I chanced to see them at mealtimes in the Great Hall I would go and sit with them, though they did not often eat in college, and never dined. I was careful throughout this period to pay as little attention as possible to Jessica, who I sensed believed every newcomer to be wildly in love with her, and thus beneath contempt. It was not their trust which I had to cultivate, but their interest, and I think in being rather curt with Jessica in those first few days I did myself as much good as all my flattery of Michael and my indulgence of Francis put together. When she sensed my indifference, which was wholly artificial but convincingly managed, she began to seek me out. I do not mean to say that she was vain – for me, vanity always implies some measure of delusion, and Jessica was fully justified in her self-assessment. Rather I think that she was used to dealing with people who wanted something from her, whether in the obvious sexual sense or by the reflected glamour of her presence, and she was drawn to those who wanted nothing. A mixture of irritation at my failure to swoon and interest in the reasons drove her, almost against her will, to try and discover me.

It was she, I am sure, who invited me to Francis’s birthday party. I found the invitation in my pigeon-hole, an embossed rectangle of thick cream card from Smythson. I kept it in the inside pocket of my coat, and snuck little looks at it during lectures.

When the day arrived, I was to meet the group in Jessica’s rooms in Tudor. Lisa was getting ready with Jessica in her set and they had left the door open. I could smell the warm waft of perfume, and hear the beat of house music turned down low. It was common practice among the second years, who would often group their friends together on the same staircase when choosing sets, to leave the doors connecting their living rooms open. It gave the place an air of communal gaiety, and the bare stone steps transmitted conversations, cooking smells, laughter and music between the floors with the ease of friendship. One flight before their room I stopped on the stairs and bent down to do up my shoelace, pretending to myself as much as anyone. I did not wish to think of myself as the kind of person who eavesdropped.

‘There’ll be a bunch of rich twats at this party?’ Lisa was saying.

‘Yup. Michael’s coming, and Jeremy, and Lily . . .’

‘Anyone I know?’ Lisa was a little too aggressive in asking the question, betraying, I thought, a hint of social insecurity.

‘You remember that boy James? The one from the fight night? Francis invited him.’

‘Why?’

‘Why does anyone invite anyone?’

‘Don’t ask me. I’m usually a gatecrasher.’

Jessica laughed at that. I rose, having spent as long as was plausible on my shoe, and announced my presence on the stairs by coughing. I knocked at the open door, but my modesty was wasted on Jessica, who shouted at me to come in, and appeared in the living room in nothing but jeans and a bra. She was not merely fashionably skinny, but muscled from her leisure. Her smooth flat midriff made me stare at my shoes. ‘Make yourself a drink,’ she said, indicating a bronze Moroccan tray with her cigarette, ‘and you might as well make Francis one while you’re there. We’ll be out in a sec.’