He gazed at her, not smiling for once, and she suddenly felt afraid that he would snap and reveal himself to be something completely different. He drew his teeth over his bottom lip and then the cloud lifted and he brightened. ‘I knew you were clever. I was trying to impress you. God, you make this so hard.’

‘Make what hard? What’s the matter?’

‘You,’ he said. He was leaning back against the table, cigarette half smoked and dangling in his hand. She was hot under his stare but neither of them looked away.

‘Let me take your photograph,’ he said.

She sat on the windowsill and he began the ritual. Open the shutter, turn the wind-up key, compose the shot, look through the viewfinder, drop in the film holder, pull the dark slide, pop the shutter, return the dark slide, remove the film holder. Repeat. Bored, her eyelids drooped and closed, then she felt his hands and woke up. He was gentle, but insistent. It was hard to keep saying no.

In their little wooden world they became just bodies. The kisses became more urgent. The two of them slid down to the kitchen floor, his hands roamed under her skirt, caressing the line of her thighs, the tender skin at the top, which made her shudder. She stopped it at lying on the floor, his weight on her, his hands on her, the dust and grime of the old cabin beneath her clothes. No, she said, again and again no.

Prone, she looked up at the chipped enamel on the yellow stove-top kettle. She saw herself and could not believe it was her. What would Miss Gardiner, her old school friends, her family, think if they saw her now? She heard her own little moans and they were the sounds of someone else. They were the whimpers of an animal. At the last moment, she pushed him away and he relented. He didn’t try to make her carry on and later she knew it was because he didn’t need to. It was a game he was going to win.

But the line was crucial. She told herself that if she did not cross the line she had not sinned, she had not let herself fall.