Two days later I found an invitation in my pigeonhole to play doubles at a tennis club in Marston Ferry Road, a few minutes’ walk from Cunliffe Close. The group was made up of John, an American photographer with long arms who was good at the net; Sammy, a Canadian biologist who was almost an albino, energetic and tireless; and Lorna, a nurse at the Radcliffe Hospital, of Irish extraction. She was ten or fifteen years older than the rest of us, but with her red hair and sparkling, seductive green eyes she was still very attractive. I noticed too that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

To the pleasure of stepping back on to a tennis court was added a second, unexpected pleasure of finding, at the other end of the court, during our initial knock-up, a woman who was not only fascinating but who had confident, elegant ground strokes and returned all my shots low over the net. We played three sets, changing partners. Lorna and I made a smiling and fearsome duo, and I spent the following week counting the days until I was back on the court and then the games until she was playing by my side again.

I bumped into Mrs Eagleton almost every morning. Sometimes I found her gardening, very early, as I was leaving for the Mathematical Institute, and we’d exchange a few words. Or I’d see her on Banbury Road, heading to the shops in her electric wheelchair, when I was taking a break to buy lunch. She glided serenely along the pavement as if on a boat, bowing her head graciously to students as they moved out of her way. By contrast, I very rarely saw Beth. I’d only spoken to her again once, one afternoon as I was arriving back from tennis. Lorna had given me a lift to Cunliffe Close in her car and, as I was saying goodbye, I saw Beth getting off a bus with her cello. I went to help her carry it into the house. It was one of the first really warm days and I suppose I must have looked tanned after an afternoon in the sun. She smiled accusingly at me.