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there. What’s he going to do? Stay in his room for days in case you drop by?’
    ‘No,’ said Laura. ‘I don’t think so.’
    He’s waiting for me now. He wants me to come. She had that melting feeling she got in her stomach when she was very excited or very afraid.
    ‘So what will you do?’
    ‘I expect I’ll look him up. Some time.’
    From this moment on she thought about Nick Crocker without ceasing. This certainly was ridiculous. She didn’t know him at all. They had talked at Richard’s party, but not for long, and she had hardly been able to hear him over the chatter and the music. How was it that on such a slender basis she imagined her life was about to change?
    Her first thought was that she would call on him in a day or two. It wouldn’t do to seem too keen. On the other hand she had no wish to appear indifferent. Maybe tomorrow evening? Soon, however, she realized she was incapable of waiting until tomorrow. Either this is all about nothing, she reasoned to herself, in which case the sooner I get it out of my system the better. Or it’s the real thing at last; in which case, why wait?
    She chose mid-evening for her call. Earlier and he might be out at supper; later was too suggestive. His room was at the top of a poorly-lit staircase. The outer door was open.
    How to knock? Laura wished to present herself as casual, informal, friendly, confident. Her knock must not be too insistent, nor yet too timid. Her hand hovered, raised before the door panel, and she felt her whole body shaking.
    This is stupid.
    She took a slow deep breath, and knocked twice.
    ‘Yes?’
    The room was in darkness but for a pool of light thrown onto a long desk by an Anglepoise lamp. Nick was sitting at the desk under the window by the far wall, not rising from his studies, turning to look over his shoulder at the door. His face rim-lit by the lamplight.
    ‘Oh. It’s you.’
    For a fraction of a second she saw that he was surprised: he had not expected her to come. At once she was overwhelmed by the conviction that she should not have come. But now he was up out of his work chair, turning on more lights, acting the gracious host.
    ‘That’s wonderful. You found me. Come on in.’
    ‘You look as if you’re hard at work.’
    ‘No, it’s fine. Glad of the break. What can I get you? Glass of wine?’
    ‘If you have some.’
    ‘I don’t have much of anything, but I always have wine.’
    He went into the little pantry and she heard the noise of water running into a basin. Cleaning the wine glasses, presumably. She looked round the long room. It wasn’t at all like other student rooms. No posters, no discarded beer cans. The pictures on the walls were framed and looked real; engravings, mostly. She recognized one of them from the postcard he had used as a bookmark on the train. It was a monochrome version of the same scene.
    At the far end of the room a half-open door led into a small bedroom. A glimpse of crumpled duvet. Nick was in his third year, and enjoyed the luxury of a set of rooms.
    She felt her stomach shivering.
    Nick rejoined her, holding out a heavy French café glass well-filled with red wine. He smiled as he gave her the glass. She found she couldn’t hold his look and turned away, moved over to the deep old sofa, fooled about finding somewhere to stand her glass. She didn’t want to do the talking, didn’t know what to say, felt the need of clues as to what he expected of her.
    ‘What day is it today?’ he said.
    ‘Thursday, I think.’
    ‘Then here’s to Thursday.’ He raised his glass. ‘Happy Thursday.’
    She smiled and raised her glass. They both drank.
    ‘I wonder why we haven’t met before,’ he said. Then, ‘No, I don’t. I’m such a hermit.’
    ‘Are you a hermit?’
    ‘What with finals looming, and my dissertation to finish.’
    A nod towards the papers and books laid out on the desk.
    ‘What’s it on?’ said Laura.
    ‘Oh, no. Don’t ask.’
    ‘Why not?’
    He settled down