“Well, I see you’ve settled in. Shouldn’t you be studying maths instead of playing tennis and riding around in cars with women?”

“I’ve got permission from my director of studies,” I said, laughing, and made a sign of absolution.

“Oh, I’m just teasing. Actually, I envy you.”

“Envy me? Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You seem so free. You’ve left your country, your other life, everything behind. And a fortnight later, here you are, happy and tanned and playing tennis.”

“You should try it. You just have to apply for a grant.”

She shook her head sadly.

“I’ve tried, I’ve already tried, but it seems it’s too late. They’d never admit it, of course, but they prefer to give them to younger women. I’m almost twenty-nine,” she said, as if that were the start of old age. She added, bitterly: “Sometimes I’d give anything to get away from here.”

I gazed at the ivy-clad houses, the spires on top of medieval cupolas, the crenellated towers in the distance.

“Get away from Oxford? I can’t imagine a more beautiful place.”

A look of futility dulled her eyes.

“Yes, maybe…if you didn’t have to look after an invalid all the time and spend your days doing something that lost all meaning long ago.”

“Don’t you like playing the cello?” I found this surprising, and interesting. I looked at her, trying to see what lay beneath the surface.

“I hate it,” she said, and her eyes grew dark. “I hate it more every day, and it’s getting harder and harder to hide. Sometimes I’m scared that it shows when I play, that the conductor or one of my colleagues will realise how much I detest each note. But at the end of every concert the audience claps and nobody seems to notice anything. Isn’t that funny?”