'What the fuck?' I said.

'Ssshh,' he said.

'Don't "sshh" me,' I hissed, shocked and angry. 'What are you doing?'

'I, er… I was looking for something to read.'

'Get the hell out…'

He sat down on the bed and actually put his hand over my mouth. He leaned down and spoke to me in a whisper.

'Please don't shout,' he said. 'You might wake Kerry. It might look strange.'

I pushed his hand away.

'That's not my problem.'

He smiled and looked around the room as if it were all a bit of a game.

'I think it is, really,' he said.

I pulled the duvet up over my shoulders and forced myself to speak calmly and reasonably.

'Brendan, this is all wrong.'

'You mean about you and me?'

'There is nothing between you and me.'

He shook his head.

'You know, Miranda, I was once looking at you. It was the second time we slept together. I took my clothes off more quickly than you did and got into the bed. This bed. I lay where you're lying now and watched you. When you unclipped your bra, you turned away from me, as if I weren't about to see your naked body, and when you turned round you had a funny little smile on your face. It was beautiful and I wondered if anybody but me had ever noticed it before. You see, I notice things like that and I remember them.'

At that moment in the midst of all the confusion, all my anger and desperation and frustration, I was able to think with an absolute cold clarity. If I had been in love with Brendan, this would have been tender and beautiful. But I wasn't in love with him and I felt physically repulsed. I felt as if he were a parasite that had crawled into my flesh and I couldn't rid myself of him.

'This is quite wrong,' I said. 'You've got to leave.'

'None of this matters,' he said. 'Didn't you hear what I said? There's this secret smile you have. I've seen it. I know you in a way that nobody else does. We share that. Good night, Miranda.'

The next morning I woke and it was like an awful dream I'd emerged from, and then with a lurch I remembered him standing over me and what he had said and that it hadn't been a dream. My mouth felt as if it were full of dry fluff. I had a headache and there was a stabbing sensation behind my eyes. I had a shower, dressed and drank a black coffee. Nobody else was up. Before I left for work, I returned to my bedroom. I looked at the bookshelves, trying to determine by sheer force of concentration whether anything had been moved. I reached for an old novel I had been given as a girl. It's my special emergency hiding place. Tucked inside the book was some money. I counted it out. Seventy-five pounds. I replaced it. I tried to think of something to do. I remembered something I had seen in a film once. I tore a small strip of paper an inch long and maybe a quarter of an inch wide. When I closed the door I wedged the piece of paper in the crack, exactly at the height of the lower hinge. As I left, I asked myself: how can I be living in such a way that I have to do things like that?

It kept coming into my mind all day and I tried and failed to push it away. Partly I regretted having done it because it felt as if I had poured corrosive liquid on to my body and was watching it bubble and steam as it ate away at me. And what good would it do me, whatever I found out? If I found the paper still in place, would that reassure me? If I found it lying on the floor, what would that prove? Kerry might have popped in to borrow my deodorant or run the vacuum cleaner over the floor. But was that what I wanted? Was I looking for ways to become even more angry and suspicious?

When 1 got back to my empty flat and ran to my room, I found something I hadn't even considered. The slip of paper was held fast in the door, but now it was fully a foot higher than where I had left it that morning.

'Nick,' I began.

'Mmm?'

We were walking across the Heath, our feet kicking up crackly amber leaves. The trees were almost bare now, the sun pale and low in the sky. It wasn't yet four o'clock, but the clocks had just been turned back and it was dark early. My cold hand was in his warm one, my breath steamed in the air. We'd met in a bistro near his flat for lunch – a bowl of pumpkin soup with crusty bread, a glass of wine each – and later on that evening we were going to a party thrown by a friend of his whom I hadn't met before. Then I was going to stay the night at his place, though he didn't know it yet. I had my toothbrush and a spare pair of knickers stuffed into my bag.

'I was wondering

'Yes?'

I slowed down.

'Well. You know Kerry and Brendan need to stay with me a bit longer?'

'You want to come back to my flat rather than the other way round? Is that it?'

'There's that, yes, but…'

'I was going to say the very same thing. We need a bit of privacy, don't we?' His hand tightened on mine.

'What if I came and stayed with you? Just until they move out.'

I looked up at him just in time to see the smallest frown, a momentary tightening of his mouth.

'Forget it, it was a bad idea,' I said, at the same time as he said, 'If you're really desperate…'

'I shouldn't have asked.'

'Of course you should ask,' he said, too heartily. 'You know how small my flat is, and it's a bit early days, isn't it, but I was going to say that if…'

'No. Forget I ever asked.'

He wouldn't forget. And I wouldn't forget either – that flicker of dismay and disapproval, that small pause into which all our doubts flooded. I knew then what I'd known anyway, since Venice at least, that it wasn't going to last. It wasn't going to be a big affair after all, but a nice interim fling. We'd fallen for each other, with that lovely rush of happiness that almost feels like coming down with flu. We'd spent sleepless nights together, and days apart thinking of each other, remembering what the other had said, had done, longing for the next time we could hold each other. For a week or so, we'd maybe thought that the other might be the one for us. But no: it would be over. Not today, not this week, but soon enough, because the tide that had rushed in on us was ebbing again, leaving only a few odd items of debris behind.

Tears stung my eyes and I started walking more briskly again, tugging Nick after me. I knew it wasn't really him I was going to miss, so much as being with someone. Rushing home from work, full of anticipation. Planning things together. Waking up and feeling energetic and light-footed. Being wanted. Being beautiful. Being in love. That's what I didn't want to end. I blinked fiercely, trying to ward off self-pity.

'Come on,' I said. 'It's getting too cold.'

'Miranda, listen, if you need to stay…'

'No.'

'… then it would be fine…'

'No, Nick.'

'I don't know why you've suddenly got all offended, just because I didn't immediately…'

'Oh, don't,' I said. 'Please, don't.'

'What?'

'You know.'

'I don't.' He pursed his lips.

I was filled with a sudden foreboding that if we went on pulling at each other's words like this then everything was going to unravel right now and I'd be alone by nightfall.

'Let's go and have a bath together,' I said. 'All right?'

'Yes.'

'Can I stay the night?'

'Of course. I want you to. And if you need…'

I put a hand across his mouth. 'Ssssh.'

'Laura?'

'Miranda? Hi.' There was music in the background and Tony's voice calling something. It made me feel homesick for my flat where Kerry and Brendan were now sitting, eating supper in front of a video. I'd told them I was going out to see friends, but it hadn't been true, and instead I was crouched in a chilly little cafe down the road, drinking my second bitter cup of coffee, wishing I'd put on warmer clothes.