She patted his arm. ‘I know that, Lucas, and thank you, but I am never so productive there for some reason…’ She smiled and he saw a glimmer of what he yearned for. Then her phone rang in her pocket and she pulled a regretful face, signalling that she had to take the call as she walked away.

Lucas watched until she was swallowed up by the busy street, his pulse pumping, wondering who she was talking to. Every moment she was away from him now, he was haunted by such things. Time sat so heavily on him, that was the trouble, while Heidi, as she lamented daily, did not have enough of the stuff.

Around him, the university was in full flow, halfway through term already and sweeping on, not needing him. The sole upcoming appointments in his diary were the optician, to tighten the too-loose frames of his first ever pair of glasses, and a session with the physio, because the calf muscle, though healed, seemed to have transferred some of its troubles to his Achilles tendon.

A formal hall dinner would be nice, Lucas mused wryly, casting a longing look up at the high walls of his college, poking above the line of houses on his left. He didn’t use the street itself any more, if he could help it. The college, wanting to protect its skin rather than his, he was sure, had closed ranks, issuing no response to the newspaper article, to which – so far and thank God – there had been no follow-up. The remaining eye of the storm was his alone. Acquaintances he bumped into – even Ralph – asked only about his paper, or Heidi, or Lily, or Dylan, the situation on that front now being known. One colleague had even claimed to be envious of such a long teaching break, a misguided attempt at lightness that had made Lucas want to land a knee in his groin.

Walking on, away from the familiar, tall walls, Lucas experienced a wrenching pain, deep in his innards. He had belonged inside those walls once, felt trusted and secure, but now, suddenly, the business of being shut out seemed complete. He couldn’t face Lily. He wasn’t sure of Heidi. He wasn’t sure of anything. The old, bleak rootlessness was sucking at him again. Esther had understood that, the extent of it. Her message when the story broke, ‘one day it will be fish and chips’, even the recent telling-off about how he was avoiding Lily, suggested that on some level she still understood, or was at least fully engaged with what was at stake and trying to offer ways through, even if they were naïve and wrong.