“But you see, the thing of it is,” she went on helplessly, “that that’s exactly why …” She narrowed her eyes, trying to catch the idea, phrase it. “That’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you, I think. To see you. So badly. Really. Because everyone else—yah?—well, I don’t know how to put it without sounding terribly egotistical, but everyone else thinks … I don’t do those sorts of things. Everyone else thinks I’ve got everything under complete control. All the time. And when I lose control, when I do do something irrational, everyone just ignores it. So it’s as if I hadn’t done it at all. And now here you are, and you must think at this point that I never do anything else. You must think: Oh yes, Sophia Endering, she’s that absolutely insane girl who’s always throwing herself off balconies and so forth. Crazy old Sophia, you must think—I don’t know what you must think of me, actually. But here you are, you know? And there you were in hospital. And you said … you liked me …” She averted her eyes, embarrassed. “I know it’s absurd—it sounds absurd even to me as I say it—but you said you liked me and it just seems rather remarkable to me at this point that you should. That anyone should.” She drew a long breath of the damp air, held it; braced herself. “And so I wanted to see you. To talk to you. It’s all got so confusing that I wanted to explain things to somebody who won’t … hate me for them afterwards. Is that … is that all right? Do you mind?” Storm started singing.

“Yooooou dooooo something to meeeee,” he sang, “something that simply mystifiiiies meee.”

Sophia’s jaw dropped. She stared at him.

“Tell meeee why should it beeeee,” sang Storm. “You have the power to hypnotiiiiize meeeee. Let meeeeee live ’neath your spell. Do do that voodoo that you do so well. ’Cause yoooou. Doooo. Something to meeee—that noooobody else can dooo. ’Cept you,” he added as a jazzy little flourish of his own and then brought it on home with, “That noooobody else can doooo.”

“I … Well … I …” said Sophia. And then she smiled at him.

Storm stepped forward, took her by the shoulders, and kissed her.

He hadn’t been in the movie business for nothing.

“Look, I’m no good at sex,” Sophia said. “I suppose that’s very important to you, being a man and everything.”

Sex? Storm thought. Sex? Here they were. Here they actually were, walking back across Waterloo Bridge. With St. Paul’s behind her, and the wheeling birds and the backdrop of London. And her eyes were hectic with his kisses, and he could feel her body tense and then yield every time he took her to him, and her face was turned up to his, confused and appealing.