He smiled. I hadn’t really seen him smile before. It was the kind of crooked sweet smile that melted women’s hearts. It melted my heart, already in a fairly molten state. “Better?” he said.

“You – much,” I managed, not trusting myself to say more.

The receptionist was giving me the kind of look that I imagined Medea giving. He gave her a friendly wave as we left the building. It was obvious she was going to be treasuring that wave for weeks.

“How’s Dog?” he said, as he steered the battered estate out of town.

“He’s fine. They’re discharging him tomorrow,” I said automatically, trying to stop myself from staring at him. It was very difficult. It was like being driven round the ringroad in a 20-year old Volvo by Adonis.

“Why do you call him Dog?” I said, eager to avoid the kind of silence growing into which I might find myself saying something unwise.

“That’s what we called him at school,” he said. “Of course he was years above me. So I never had reason to call him anything.”

“Why Dog?”

“Godwin – God – Dog,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Also he hates it.” He twinkled his eyes at me in the rearview mirror.

I couldn’t help myself. “Why – I mean – what – I mean – why have you been going around looking like a polar explorer when you – I mean – “ Very coherent.

He looked away. “I hate shaving,” he said disingenuously. Then he added, “So the Dog’s not getting out till tomorrow.”

“Er…yes. And I,” I said hurriedly thinking that I had better just get it over with, awkward as it was, “I think I’ll go and stay at the Crown tonight.”

He raised one eyebrow at me in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t want to be a bother to you.”

“You’re no bother.”

“I mean, it’s a bit awkward, isn’t it? I mean, we barely know each other,” I babbled on. “People might talk.” What was I saying? People might talk? Were we living a hundred years ago?

“No-one knows you’re here,” he said, courteously refraining from pointing out that no one would give a toss even if they did.

“No, of course, but still, I think it’s best. I’ll call the Crown and see if they have a room.” We had arrived at the house. “Or in fact I’ll just stroll down to the village now and check. Since my phone won’t be working.” He parked the car and went back to close the gate.

“I’ll just put some things in a bag and I’ll be out of your hair.” He unlocked the front door and held it open for me. I went through, scrupulously avoiding brushing any part of me against any part of him. He came in after me. “Maybe I should go to the village first – “ As the door shut, plunging us into the gloom of the hallway, he caught my wrist and pulled me to him. His mouth came down on mine and his arms folded around me, crushing the breath out of me.

I can’t even pretend that I resisted. The moment he touched me, I just melted into him. All I wanted was to go on feeling the urgency of his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth, the firmness of his body and the hard insistence of him all over.

We didn’t make it to the bedroom. Glued together, we blundered around the hall and crashed through the first door we got to, which was the one into the small sittingroom that John had been in the night before. His empty whiskey glass was still on the table and the room smelled of whiskey and woodsmoke. We tumbled onto the small lumpy sofa, grabbing at each other’s clothes as we went, desperate for the feel of each other’s naked flesh. God, he felt good, smooth and muscled in some places and erotically hairy in others, and ravenous. Being desired is hot and as John had said, there was no doubt, Charlie was starved. He went for it as if he wanted to eat me alive, as though he wanted to fuck us both into oblivion.

Clearly that kind of thing doesn’t last long, and it didn’t. Certainly not long enough for me. He came with a stifled groan and we both lay there panting in a tangled half-undressed heap, half-on, half-off the sofa, with my head wedged beside the leg of the upturned table.

“Sorry,” he said, after a decent pause. “It’s been a while.”

“How long has it been?”

He only smiled and repeated, “A while.”

I hauled myself upright, rearranged my clothes and looked at him sitting there, looking all rumpled and sexier than ever.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say your dry spell is over.”

For our second shag, we actually made it to the bedroom. This time we went a lot slower and what Charlie lacked in technique, he made up for in passionate and surprisingly tender enthusiasm. He treated my body with the most amazing awe and gallantry, as if it were a wonderful palace of pleasure and delight, as if every inch of me was to be marvelled at and lingered over. This is not something that a girl is ever going to get enough of and frankly I luxuriated in it. Since I was no doubt going to have to suffer agonies of guilt and misery over cheating on John, I might as well enjoy myself now. Certainly if Charlie had wanted to make me come, he had comprehensively fulfilled that ambition.

Our third shag was in the bath. How glad I was that I had given it such a thorough going-over the night before. And how convenient that it should be one of those capacious Victorian baths with plenty of room for two. Maybe those Victorians had more going on in the sex department than we normally give them credit for. Charlie’s body was beautiful. I’d gone from finding him this scary caveman creature to lusting over that fleeting glimpse of his bare torso, which was all I thought I’d ever get, to positively feasting on the sight of him, naked, muscled, lean and emphatically masculine, as he lay back in the bath, his legs tangled with mine and a big lazy smile of sexual satisfaction on his face. I’d unearthed some candles from the cupboard under the kitchen sink and these were placed at strategic locations round the bathroom, providing a much more attractive wavering light, for our bathtub shenanigans. In that light, his face was all planes and shadows, and the clear water lapped gently round his chest. He was as unconscious of his own desirability as I suppose I am of mine – I mean, I hope that I am attractive and going by Charlie’s reaction, it appears that I am attractive, but I’ve never really felt that I am attractive. All the evidence seems to indicate that I am, but I don’t know it, if you know what I mean. Charlie seemed to take his body just as much for granted as I did my own: he wasn’t a preener, by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps that was one thing we had in common.

Then he had to go and feed Sadie. I followed him out and watched as he swilled her feed into the trough. He chucked at her affectionately as she snuffled in the bottom of the trough. I’d never really made any pig’s acquaintance before, except partially, in the form of attractively dressed Sunday lunches, but that afternoon with Charlie, I began to see how people could become fond of their pigs. She really was a rather charming animal, with her long pale eyelashes, and her trusting matter-of-fact manner.

“I raised her from a piglet,” he said proudly, as we watched her swallow down her meal. “She’s nearly ready to litter now. A few more months maybe. Then I’ll really have something going here. Pigs are amazing animals and Sadie is really intelligent and affectionate. You can tell it just by the way she stands, don’t you think?”

I actually thought that maybe Charlie had been spending a little too much time alone in the company of his livestock, but I suppose now that I looked at her, Sadie did seem to have a rather expressive tilt to her head.

Supper was bread and cheese again. Charlie didn’t seem to have anything else in the house, apart from a monster tin of porridge oats. Fortunately, it is amazing how little you care about haute cuisine, when you have just had a really good seeing to, with every prospect of the same again later on in the evening.

Our fourth shag rounded out the day nicely and we fell asleep, drained and sated, in each other’s arms.

In the middle of the night I woke up. Charlie was fidgeting beside me in bed, obviously in the throes of some kind of bad dream, mumbling words that I couldn’t quite catch, sweating and cold to the touch. I thought that I shouldn’t wake him – you’re not supposed to wake people who are having nightmares, are you? Or is that sleepwalking? But before I could finish debating with myself, he suddenly woke himself up with the word: “Katie!” and his eyes flew open. “Charlie?” I said uncertainly. “Are you alright?” He jumped a mile. “Charlie, it’s OK, it’s me, it’s Ermine.” I got the bedside lamp on. He was sitting up, and his face was filled with such raw pain and grief, it seemed almost indecent for me to be seeing it. “Charlie,” I said again. “What’s wrong?” The light had woken him up properly. His eyes started to focus and he seemed to get control of himself. “Ermine,” he said, as if it were a stranger’s name and I suppose I really was a stranger. I mean, we barely knew each other. I realised he was shaking and I reached out to hold him, but at my touch he was suddenly galvanised into action. He leaped out of bed and started putting his clothes on.

“Charlie, where are you going?” I said.

“I – nowhere. I’ve got some things – downstairs – just a minute – you stay here – go back to sleep.” He was in a desperate hurry to get out of the room all of a sudden. Literally within seconds he had thrown on his clothes and I heard him clattering down the stairs.

I lay there, slightly stunned for a few minutes, wondering what was going on, where he thought he was going, and whether he would be back soon, but after about a quarter of an hour had passed and he had not reappeared, I realised that I was going to have to go in search of him, if I wanted a solution to the mystery.

I got out of the warm bed reluctantly. It was absolutely freezing and in my turn I hastily threw on my jeans and a couple of jumpers, shoved my feet into Charlie’s slippers and padded downstairs.

The whole of the downstairs was plunged in darkness except for a ray of light coming from the end of a corridor. I followed it and found myself peering through a half-open door that obviously led to Charlie’s workroom. From the darkness of the corridor I could see Charlie within, sitting at his workbench, with something metal in his hand. There was a screwdriver in his other hand, but he wasn’t working on it, whatever it was. He was just staring ahead of him, a look of utter bleakness on his face. He was obviously miles away. He hadn’t even noticed me coming downstairs.