Right now she was meeting her mentor in the department, to discuss what her next research project would be now that Lady Mary Shepherd was done. He had prepared her for it thoroughly, had sent her off as determined as she got. After that, she was going to Caro’s to help her write an application for a visiting fellowship. The afternoon opened up in front of him, hours in which to read the notebook at his leisure. But he felt, for the first time, misgivings; not enough to prevent him from looking, just enough to cause some delay. A bar of pale sun had fallen through the window. He watched it creep across the carpet, showing the crumbs. There hadn’t been any direct sunlight in that room for months. The days were lengthening. The summer would begin – what passed for a summer this far north, endless light and little heat.

He rose sluggishly and went to the bedroom and got down beside the bed. He pushed his hand under the mattress. For a moment, he thought the notebook wasn’t there. Was that – was he glad? Far away, his fingertips grazed the edge. He pulled back. It could have been one of the buttons that studded the mattress. A protruding spring. Could he convince himself of that?

He could not. He drove his hand deeper and grasped the notebook firmly and pulled it out. He turned to the end.

Once in Montreal I seduced a woman. She was French-Canadian. My friend hit it off with her friend, a boy, so we were left to each other, and in my pidgin French I decided to lie. ‘Je suis bi,’ I said. Her face lit up. She was tiny and plump, with a long shaggy fringe that made her look like a girl I’d known at school, a bad girl, who always tried to get me into trouble. We were drunk. The four of us piled into the boy’s car when the bar threw us out, and he drove us back to our hotel. I took the girl to my room. She was shy: she wouldn’t take off her clothes, though I tried to persuade her. I slid my hands up underneath her shirt, whispering to her that she was pretty, ‘Tu es jolie, trop jolie’. She kissed me in little pecks, like a bird with a soft beak. I could tell from the way she was breathing that she was excited. I was nervous about touching her, but it didn’t matter: all she wanted to do was climb on top of me and rub herself against me through her jeans. I have no idea whether she came. I certainly didn’t. We fell into a stupid drunken sleep and I felt nothing. I felt like a man.