‘You better now? You were looking pretty green when I last saw you.’

‘I wonder why,’ she said pointedly.

‘Yeah, right,’ he mumbled. ‘It was my fault. No need to keep on. I’ve had it all from Andrew.’

‘Oh?’ she said carelessly. ‘What did he say?’

‘What didn’t he say?’ Johnny struck a declamatory attitude. “‘Pouring cider down the throat of a silly girl who hasn’t got two brain cells to rub together-”’

‘Who’s he calling silly?’ she demanded indignantly. This scene wasn’t going to plan, but how could it when the leading man was missing?

‘Why don’t we go back to your home now?’ she suggested casually. ‘Then I can thank him.’

‘He’s not there. This morning he took off to visit his girlfriend.’

‘What? How long for?’

‘Dunno! Lilian’s studying for medical exams too, so they’ll probably work together. I’ll bet they study far into the night, and then go to bed to sleep. And that’s all he’ll do. He’s got ice water in his veins.’

As in a flash of lightning she saw Andrew’s face leaning over her as he began to remove her clothes. Not ice water.

Then the lightning was gone, and she was here again with Johnny, suddenly realising how young he was. How could she ever have been flattered by the admiration of this boy?

But for the next few days she still hung around with him, had supper at his house, just in case Andrew appeared. But he didn’t, and after four days she gave this up. She told Andrew’s mother that she was so sorry to have missed him, and she would write him a note of thanks. Sitting at the kitchen table, she applied herself.

Dear Andrew,

I shall give this note to your mother, and ask her to make sure that you get it. I owe you my thanks-for the help you gave me at the party the other night.

Good. Dignified and restrained, and giving no clue to her real thoughts: You’re a dirty, rotten so-and-so for not coming to see me.