‘He is, thank you.’ Lucas managed a smile, picturing Dylan as he had left him, seated at the dining-room table with his laptop and a revision timetable sketched out on a piece of paper beside him. It already sported a couple of ticks, even if they were being overrun by the webs of intricate doodling that drove Lucas mad. If there were a uni course in daydreaming, that would be the dream ticket, he had teased, earning a long-suffering scowl from his son. ‘I’ll make a scholar of him yet,’ he told Heidi, glad to latch onto something real and important beyond the other subject burning a hole in his head. ‘And what about you? How was the PhD student from Canada? Sofia Cofie, wasn’t it?’ He smiled harder, glad his state of preoccupation hadn’t prevented him from summoning the right name.

‘Yes, and, Lucas, I think she will be super fun to supervise. Really smart.’ Heidi talked on, between sips of her apple juice.

All would be fine, of course. In the end. The Master had communicated as much in the firm grip of her parting handshake, holding on for an extra second of what had felt like a display of trust in him. He was to write up his version of events, and Moira would be talked to again by the Chaplain, about all the options, including the possibility of further discussions rather than actual mediation. This was the outcome Lucas longed for. The prospect of Ralph Conway, whom he counted as a close friend – or any other fellow – getting involved was intolerable.

So much for his efforts to be kind to the girl, Lucas brooded as Heidi left him to join the queue for the café’s toilet. If he erred on the side of informality with students, it was only because it made interactions on both sides more free-flowing and rewarding. Never once, in two decades, had such an approach rebounded. Indeed, every single student under his tutelage to date, on finding themselves in Moira’s position that day, would have simply skipped off feeling fortunate and enthused.

But then each life was a self-written narrative these days, Lucas reminded himself bitterly, with possessive pronouns attaching to notions of ‘truth’ and everybody busily curating versions of themselves, tinderboxes all for taking offence – chanting about rights to be ‘heard’ and ‘seen’, when all that was really being chased was a chunk of the limelight…