There was a cool breeze and I could hear nothing but the soft, rhythmic lull of the sea somewhere in the distance. Occasionally a dog would bark or a car would drive slowly past. It was so different to Monte Carlo and of course to London too. There was nothing here but a few apartments, a couple of chaotically parked cars and the ocean; that vast nothingness of water teeming with all kinds of hidden life, and the beyond it, somewhere in the distance, much further than my eyes could dare focus, was Africa. I remembered flying out to Nice from London and looking down over the green fields and tiny little towns and I felt so insignificant; and here, with only the ocean in front of me, I felt so very much as if I was the only person in the world. The fluctuation between significance and insignificance was startling, owed in part to my own feeling of seclusion. I wasn’t with my friends now, nor was I even with my enemies, and I couldn’t speak a word of French. But curiously, I didn’t feel at all scared, or worried, or anything really. I remembered back to a...

I had first spoken to her on Monday when she asked if we advertised student fashion exhibitions. I said I didn’t know and gave her the number to our financial department. I had hastily scrawled my own phone number on the back of the card too, but she failed to notice and, smiling pleasantly, pocketed the card, said thank you and left my office. * I woke up in her bed on Friday morning. The rain was splashing against the bay window in her bedroom and in the purple, early-morning light I could make out the vague silhouette of a mannequin in the corner. Peering closer I saw the beginnings of a dress; pins and tape jutting out from the straps, the brassiere, the hem. I sat further up; the display on the alarm clock was flashing 06:17. I repositioned myself, shuffled from left to right, and then settled my head back onto the pillow. The girl beside me rolled over and, without so much as a glance, laid her head on my chest, flopped her arm across my waist and placed her leg across mine so that her knee was across my thigh. Her blonde hair looked dark...