‘Something happened at the hospital today that would have amused you,’ he said. They were sitting in the dark parked car outside Julia’s. She slid across to be near him, and he put his arm around her. She could feel his body shaking with laughter. ‘As you know, our august hospital gives lectures every fortnight for the benefit of the staff. Yesterday it was announced that Professor Bloodrot would lecture us on the orgasm in the female swan.’ Ella instinctively moved away, and he pulled her back, and said: ‘I knew you were going to do that. Sit still and listen. The hall was full — I don’t have to tell you. The professor stood up, all six foot three of him, like a buckled foot-rule, with his little white beard wagging, and said he had conclusively proved that female swans do not have an orgasm. He would use this useful scientific discovery as a basis for a short discussion on the nature of the female orgasm in general.’ Ella laughed. ‘Yes, and I knew you would laugh at just that point. But I haven’t finished. It was noticeable that at this point there was a disturbance in the hall. People were getting up to leave. The venerable professor, looking annoyed, said that he trusted that this subject would not be found offensive to anyone. After all, research into sexuality, as distinct from superstition about sex, was being conducted in all hospitals of this type throughout the world. But still, people were leaving. Who was leaving? All the women. There were about fifty men, and about fifteen women. And every one of those lady doctors had got up and were going out as if they had been given an order. Our professor was very put out. He stuck out his little beard in front of him, and said that he was surprised his lady colleagues, for whom he had such a respect, were capable of such prudery. But it was no use, there wasn’t a woman in sight. At which our professor cleared his throat and announced he would continue his lecture, despite the deplorable attitude of the female doctors. It was his opinion, he said, based on his researches into the nature of the female swan, that there was no physiological basis for a vaginal orgasm in women … no, don’t move away, Ella, really women are most extraordinarily predictable. I was sitting next to Dr Penworthy, father of five, and he whispered to me that it was very strange — usually the professor’s wife, being a lady of great public-mindedness, was present at her husband’s little talks, but she had not come that day. At this point I committed an act of disloyalty to my sex. I followed the women out of the hall. They had all vanished. Very strange, not a woman in sight. But at last I found my old friend Stephanie, drinking coffee in the canteen. I sat down beside her. She was definitely very withdrawn from me. I said: “Stephanie, why have you all left our great professor’s definitive lecture on sex?” She smiled at me very hostile and with great sweetness and said: “But my dear Paul, women of any sense know better, after all these centuries, than to interrupt when men start telling them how they feel about sex.” It took me half an hour’s hard work and three cups of coffee to make my friend Stephanie like me again.’ He was laughing again, holding her inside his arm. He turned to look at her face, and said: ‘Yes. Well don’t be angry with me too, just because I am the same sex as the professor — that’s what I said to Stephanie too.’ Ella’s anger dissolved and she laughed with him. She was thinking: Tonight he’ll come up with me. Whereas until recently he had spent nearly every night with her, now he went home two or three nights a week. He said, apparently at random: ‘Ella, you’re the least jealous woman I’ve ever known.’ Ella felt a sudden chill, then panic, then the protective mechanism worked fast: she simply did not hear what he had said, and asked: ‘Are you coming up with me?’ He said: ‘I’d decided not to. But if I had really decided I wouldn’t be sitting here, would I?’ They went upstairs, holding hands. He remarked: ‘I wonder how you and Stephanie would get on?’ She thought that his look at her was strange, ‘as if he’s testing something’. Again the small panic, while she thought, he talks a great deal about Stephanie these days, I wonder if … Then her mind went dim, and she said: ‘I’ve got some supper ready if you’d like it.’