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I’d kept that letter, because it would have been proof, corroboration. Instead, the only evidence comes from my memory – of a carefree, rather dashing woman who broke an egg, cooked me another, and told me not to take any shit from her daughter.
    I went back to Bristol for my final year. The girl of normal height who wore heels was less interested than I’d imagined, and so I concentrated on work. I doubted I had the right kind of brain for a first, but was determined to get a 2:1. On Friday nights, I allowed myself the break of an evening at the pub. One time, a girl I’d been chatting to came back with me and stayed the night. It was all pleasantly exciting and effective, but neither of us contacted the other afterwards. I thought about this less at the time than I do now. I expect such recreational behaviour will strike later generations as quite unremarkable, both for nowadays and for back then: after all, wasn’t ‘back then’ the Sixties? Yes it was, but as I said, it depended on where – and who – you were. If you’ll excuse a brief history lesson: most people didn’t experience ‘the Sixties’ until the Seventies. Which meant, logically, that most people in the Sixties were still experiencing the Fifties – or, in my case, bits of both decades side by side. Which made things rather confusing.
    Logic: yes, where is logic? Where is it, for instance, in the next moment of my story? About halfway through my final year, I got a letter from Adrian. This had become an increasingly rare occurrence, as both of us were working hard for finals. He was of course expected to get a first. And then what? Postgraduate work, presumably, followed by academe, or some job in the public sphere where his brain and sense of responsibility would be put to good use. Someone once told me that the civil service (or at least, its higher echelons) was a fascinating place to work because you were always having to make moral decisions. Perhaps that would have suited Adrian. I certainly didn’t see him as a worldly person, or an adventurous one – except intellectually, of course. He wasn’t the sort who would get his name or face into the newspapers.
    You can probably guess that I’m putting off telling you the next bit. All right: Adrian said he was writing to ask my permission to go out with Veronica.
    Yes, why her, and why then; furthermore, why ask? Actually, to be true to my own memory, as far as that’s ever possible (and I didn’t keep this letter either), what he said was that he and Veronica were already going out together, a state of affairs that would doubtless come to my attention sooner or later; and so it seemed better that I heard about it from him. Also, that while this news might come as a surprise, he hoped that I could understand and accept it, because if I couldn’t, then he owed it to our friendship to reconsider his actions and decisions. And finally, that Veronica had agreed he should write this letter – indeed, it had been partly her suggestion.
    As you can imagine, I enjoyed the bit about his moral scruples – implying that if I thought some venerable code of chivalry or, better still, some modern principle of ethics had been infringed, then he would, naturally and logically, stop fucking her. Assuming that she wasn’t stringing him along as she had done me. I also liked the hypocrisy of a letter whose point was not just to tell me something I might not have found out anyway (or not for quite a while), but to let me know how she, Veronica, had traded up: to my cleverest friend, and, what’s more, a Cambridge chap like Brother Jack. Also, to warn me that she would be hanging around if I planned on seeing Adrian – which had the desired effect of making me plan not to see Adrian. Pretty good for a day’s work, or a night’s. Again, I must stress that this is my reading now of what happened then. Or rather, my memory now of my reading then of what was happening at the time.
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    But I think I have