It was early afternoon when he returned; I was in the kitchen contemplating cooking lunch but tempted to add a healthy dose of strychnine to his helping. I had half expected him to creep back in all sheepish and apologetic but his manner was nothing of the sort.

"I'm starving...what's for lunch?" he asked, rubbing his hands together.

I gave him a look that would have killed a lesser man. Terry just laughed. "What was that for?" Surely he couldn't be that stupid? Or brave?

"How's your girlfriend? Has she cried sufficiently on your shoulder? Aren't you still required to tend to her every need?"

He gave me a baleful look. "I have no idea where she is. I imagine she is somewhere en route back to Cornwall or wherever the fuck she lives with Captain Birdseye. I have done what I was asked to, prevented Jack from being sent to Devil's Island or Van Diemen's Land or wherever the Brits send their prisoners these days, and was summarily dismissed while the lovers get it on. Now, what you cooking? Smells good."

That was that. Terry seemed totally normal, had not discovered that he was really in love with his ex, had his appetite back and then spent the rest of the day alternatively dozing and shagging me blind.

All in all, I couldn't really complain. But I still had this mood on me. No matter how honest he is about his behaviour, you can't escape the fact that whenever Little Miss Uma emotes breathily on the other end of a phone line, Terry Thorne comes running.

And I don't like it.

Monday morning saw us back in the office and the usual headlong rush into the week began all over again. Terry was in wall-to-wall meetings and I was in and out of his office like a yo-yo ushering in clients, operatives back from recent assignments, various government and embassy officials who are usually after him for something for free, powwows with lawyers and other assorted adjuncts to his busy and complex working life.

Neither of us got a chance to say more than a word or two to each other all day and it was way past six when I had seen the last visitor out that I went in with a pot of tea. I knew he had reams of paperwork still to do and that he would probably be there until late.

"Fancy a cuppa?" I asked.

Terry looked up from the screen and smiled distantly. "Rather have a pint. Jesus, what a day! I haven't even caught up from last week yet and already there's a stack of crap piling up for this. Who said the corporate life was the easier option? Give me the field any day...."

I poured his tea out and set it by his side; then settled across from him and set to work on his In tray, taking anything that I could realistically handle off him. He glanced up and gave me another of his weary smiles. I blew him a kiss and we got to work.

It was eight thirty when he pushed it all from him and we decided to call it a night. "The rest can wait till tomorrow. I'm out if anyone calls and I'll spend the morning clearing the desk. We've made big inroads here. I've had enough. Let's go get that pint?"

He took me to a decent bar in the area and we ordered a simple meal over a bottle of wine. The pint had been a metaphorical one. We ate in friendly silence, both of us exhausted. Sometimes I think working together is a bit of a problem. Neither of us can offload the day on the other as we need to. We both know exactly what went down and also we want to be taken out of it, not talk shop all night.

I have considered resigning from TOL now that we're officially an item. If we stay together then in the long run I suppose it won't be ideal or necessary for me to work with him but if we don't - then I couldn't face seeing him at such close hand every day, knowing he would be with other women and no longer mine. Yet if I do find another job, with the demands of his lifestyle, I'll hardly ever see him. This set up might not be entirely satisfactory but it was far better than the alternative. For me, anyway. I don't really know what Terry would prefer as he never discusses it. He still keeps a proper distance at the office, although we no longer pretend we aren't together, and I suppose I am quite good now at acting like he's just the boss. I don't think I drool quite as openly as I used to.

It is amusing from time to time. Like the other week when we all went out in the evening to celebrate Fiona's birthday. By we, I mean the girls. You know how it is on nights like that when everyone has a few too many and lets their hair down? We all got wasted and started talking dirty and, of course, stories about our fellas and some of the more daring things we had done with them were abounding. For once I was quiet. I mean, what could I say in front of them about their boss?

Of course everyone wanted to know what he was like in bed. I just blushed and said: "He's like any other bloke." To which they all howled.

"Okay, he's nothing like any other bloke. That satisfy you?"

Naturally, it did not.

"What's he like? Has he got a big willy? Does he like to go down on you? Do you play games? Is he very demanding? Have you done it at the office?"

They went on and on. The thing is, Terry is an easy going boss(except when he's in a bad mood) but he is fairly formal and keeps his distance with women, always polite and respectful but rarely indulging in the usual office knockabout. Dino is much easier with all that. Some of them think Terry a little shy. I think they are right. He is shy - in a totally macho adorable way. He is also very disciplined about not giving women the wrong idea and frankly doesn't agree that the workplace is an ideal place to chat up ladies. Fall in love with them, maybe. He told me he couldn't exactly help that, could he?

The girls at work all have these fantasies about him and want me to verify them. I chickened out totally.

"He is just perfect. I love him. And I won't tell his secrets. But I will say this. He is the most creative and passionate lover I have ever known. Terry unleashed is a sight to behold. But...he's a man. And he drives me crazy half the time. As I suppose I do to him."

"Are you going to get married? Have babies?" One secretary asked. I shrugged.

"We're not looking that far ahead. It's complicated. His life is complicated. Maybe. If he wants to."

"What about you?" Another girl said. "It isn't just about him."

I looked them straight in the eye. "I'd do anything for him. Anything."

I didn't care how that sounded to them. They just don't know Terry. Any woman in her right mind would say the same.

So there we were, sitting in this bar, having a quiet unwinding session as a prelude to the noisy and sweaty unwinding session I was expecting once we got back to his flat, when he dropped his little bombshell on me. Terry had had an idea. I should have run for cover straight away. Apart from the ideas he gets between the sheets (or even better out of them as long as they are erotic ideas) his ideas usually end up with me doing something I would rather not do (That never happens sexually. I am fairly open to suggestion there). This time he came up with the granddaddy of them all. Living proof that I would do anything for Terry Thorne. I can see women of the world shaking their heads in disappointment at my betrayal of the sisterhood. But he used very unfair methods of persuasion. And that was even before we got home.

His idea?

For us to go and visit his former girlfriend in some godforsaken dump in the remotest corner of England. Talk about Far side of the world. I get nervous when the train enters Kent. Of course, Terry had given me a perfectly reasonable explanation of why we had to go, one which made me sound like a total bitch if I didn't agree to it. It went something like this:

Cass: NO!
Terry: Now before you finally make up your mind---
Cass: NO! It was made up about six months ago!
Terry: I know how reasonable you are, so let me just suggest---
Cass: If you loved me you would not ask this of me.
Terry: On the contrary, it is because I love you that I ask this of you---

Is he for real? But, naturally, he had me there.

Cass: What do you mean?
Terry: I do love you. And what better way to prove it than demonstrating to you at first hand how little other women, even the former love of my life, mean to me?
Cass:?
Terry: You think I am still hung up on Uma. I want to prove that I am not. Firstly, I have you and there is nothing more any man could want. Secondly, Uma has Jack, and while to most sane women it is hardly a fair swap, she is inordinately happy about it. The point is this, gorgeous. We have to lay this ghost once and for all. And there are other things at stake. We are an odd lot of blokes and we need to keep together. Like a family. All of us. Uma has been there since the start. She can be so good for you girls---
Cass: So who else has she slept with?

Let's face it. You negotiate with Terry Thorne, you are going to lose. I lost. That is why we drove down to Cornwall later that week when Terry decided we needed a break from the office. Cornwall? In October? To me, a break would have been a couple of days in a European capital, say Rome, Paris or Madrid. Even a shopping trip in New York would have been acceptable.

But Cornwall? Bring your souwesters and a pair of wellies. The signs were already not good.

We reached the limits of the known world mid-afternoon on a blustery October day, gales blowing and showers intermittently falling. It would have been pretty miserable weather for London but out here on the craggy cliffs that looked out on a wild and windswept sea, it seemed like the most forlorn place I had ever been. I suppose on a hot summer's afternoon it might have been a majestic and even beautiful coastline but those days are few in this country and the rest of the year such a landscape is hostile and forbidding, desolate and bleak.

I found it very hard to imagine any woman raised in the city finding much joy of it, let alone one whom, according to accounts, was the archetypal 'it' girl, a wild party animal, once affectionately dubbed as 'The Hurricane', who cut through men like a swathe, leaving them lying clutching their wounded hearts in her wake. I can't see her penchant for expensive designer clothes and impossibly impractical shoes having much point here where 90% of the year one would probably be wearing waterproofs and wading gear.

How do I know so much about the woman I replaced in Terry's bed? I snooped. In his office he has pictures of her which he has now thrown into a drawer but once used to be all over his pin board. I notice that, while he might have saved my feelings about publicly displaying her image, he hasn't actually got rid of the photographs. There is still an emotional attachment there that I believe lies deep.

He told me a fairly bland version of the romance. She was one of those women that he had met when he had been jolted from the comforts of his celluloid existence - I know, don't even ask me to explain that one - and thrown into this dimension to the care of a rather accommodating bunch of nymphomaniacs who helped to integrate him and the other men like him. But it was a fairly bizarre little love cult when all is said and done.

According to the boss, he got teamed up with Uma fairly early on and the pair of them fell headlong into a passionate love affair. Meanwhile the shag-fest went on amongst the group at large and, unsurprisingly, the whole business put a great deal of strain on the relationship of the love birds. Uma did not seem to enjoy him jetting off to spend weeks of unbridled lust with other women and I doubt if Terry (I can hardly credit this aspect at all, because he's so unreasonably possessive of me) found it easy to accept his girl happily giving it out to men he knew - particularly Maximus. There seems to have been a really big conflict going on there and even now he rarely sees Max outside of the office socially and I'm sure there's no love lost between them. I always wonder if they ever came to blows. What a slugfest that would have been!

In the end, he said, he and Uma had had a major fight about where they went from here. She wanted to pull out. He felt that the group needed to stay together. He wanted to try and find some way of having a baby - the men were apparently sterile although later that proved to not have been the case and there was some hocus pocus going on to make the men fire blanks (I told you it was complicated!) She refused to have a baby in the current set up. There were also other factors that had made them quarrel, something about her cutting her hair and he buying expensive jewellery for someone else.

Eventually he walked out and she went running for stud muffin #2 (aka Maximus), broke up his marriage (he was the only one married apparently - I have NO idea how that worked) and then dumped him and just did a runner, leaving the happy little lovathon behind. Meanwhile Terry shagged half of the western world and returned to being a morose, work-obsessed robot. For a long time this went on with him withdrawing more and more from the environment they called The Game, until he was left in a rather ill-defined relationship with one of the newer women whom he saw infrequently, and rarely much contact with the rest.

Uma had somehow got herself involved with one of the other men (we can call him stud muffin #3), a sea captain from the 19th century called Jack Aubrey (listen, I swear I am not mad, honest!). He too had also more or less retired from active stud service, as it were, and rarely visited the rest of the Crazy Gang. His reason was something to do with his woman having been swapped with a clone of herself who didn't fancy him, and he had taken his broken heart off to this godforsaken spot in Cornwall to lick his wounds. Until he met up again with Uma, the Force Ten Gale, that is, and decided that she was now the love of his life.

Since then they have been happily shacked up together in mutual poverty but, according to Terry, abundant love and stuff. The rest of the network seems to have imploded and the men have scattered, most with new monogamous partners from the real world. Babies are beginning to sprout as the spell wanes. This is where we find ourselves now.

And what of Uma and Terry, who should have broken away all that time ago and now are finding themselves unfettered by the old restraints that had caused their original fall out? Surely it only proves that her instinct back then had been right and there is nothing now stopping them re-finding what they once had? Terry clearly still harbours some sort of feeling for her and she turns to him whenever she needs anything. And you are surprised that her name strikes terror into my heart?

Hearing Terry's side of the story was not the only source of information I had used, however, as I was well aware it might be biased - I have my finger on the pulse of intelligence work, make no mistake. The girls in the office were an alternative and quite illuminating extra fount of information. From them I discovered that Uma, who had from time to time shown up at Terry's place of work, was drop dead gorgeous, impossibly thin, incredibly charming and witty, formidably well-educated and actually a lot of fun. She had been on a couple of company dos and drunk everyone under the table. Which is no mean feat at TOL, I can tell you.  She had adored Terry and he had been besotted with her and when they had split he had been heartbroken. Everyone had said they were a perfect couple and she had been so good for him. It had taken him months even to get to the place where he could smile again after they broke. How could I compare with that?

Then I watched and observed Terry's face whenever Uma's name came up. He sort of came over all soft and wistful. She means a lot to him and I think if she hadn't taken up with this Jack bloke then he would have gone back and tried to make a go of it. In fact, I know he would have. So it all depends on Jack Aubrey. Has this guy got what it takes to hold the weapon of mass destruction known as Uma? My fate seems to rest on that single fact.

And today, we are going to face our nemesis.

"You're quiet," Terry observed as we drove steadily westwards, the windscreen wipers making a dull metronome bass line to the CD that was playing. I stared listlessly out of the window onto the boring scene: farmland and woods, all grey and blurry through the car window.

"So are you." He hadn't said much for miles either. I wondered what memories were filling his mind.

"This is not about me and her, Cass."

"Oh, but it so is, Terry."

"You think I would do that to you? To any woman? I may have my faults and I know my track record in matters of the heart is not exactly impressive but I have never lied to a woman and I am not about to start now-"

"That is not what I mean. I just think you don't really know what is driving this. I think subconsciously there are still matters unresolved and-"

"Oh, you do, do you?" He smiled across fondly and placed his hand on mine. "In a way you're right. At least that's how I felt for a long time. That we still had something and that maybe if I just approached her in the right way, then we could get back to where we had been. It had been so good. The good times had been so good. I couldn't believe that was all going to be wasted just because of a crazy destructive argument when I know we both said things we didn't mean. Especially when the whole place began to blow up in our faces. She had been right. We had to grow or we were going to implode. I think inside I had always known she was right. It's why I stuck to my guns so vociferously. I always do go to ground when my certainties are rattled-"

"So what happened then?"

"I met you. At first, I rationalized that you were just a very sweet girl and I was honest about the limited possibilities of where we could go. This wasn't forever and I was not the kind of man a woman should hitch her wagon to. Then I began to find myself becoming more and more involved with you. So I sought them out. Jack and Uma. Tested whether what I felt for you was real-"

"So she's the litmus test, is she?" I rolled my eyes. He winced.

"If you had ever been really in love before then you wouldn't ask me that, Cass. Yeah, she is. The proof of life, you might say, to coin a phrase."

"I loved Piers. But he's the last person I would ever measure any other man by," I argued.

"Then you didn't love him. Imagine if we broke up. Even if you were angry with me. Are you going to tell me that you wouldn't judge every other man by what we'd had?"

I laughed bitterly at that. "You are so insufferably arrogant!"

"Answer the question."

"Of course I would."

He shrugged but had the grace not to make me feel like I'd been proved wrong.

"So I met them and at last, after all that long time, Uma and I talked. And you know what we found out? That we really liked each other. That we still held feelings of love and memories that we never wanted to forget. That it was a tragedy that we had let our love go to waste and hurt each other so much. But-and this is a very important but, Cassie...Uma loves Jack Aubrey and is not in the least interested in me romantically anymore. And I love you and cannot envisage a future for myself that doesn't have you by my side. Now that's the truth, Cass. The unvarnished, honest truth. And you can choose either to believe it or to spend a lot of time cutting yourself up in pointless melodramatic breast beating." He stopped then and concentrated on the road for a while, allowing me some thinking time.

He tells the truth. I know he does. He is the most standup guy I know. Terry doesn't play games or use women. He can't stand all that intrigue and falseness between men and women. If he has something to say, he says it. There has been enough dissemination in his public life through the years for him not to want that in private. I think it is how he knows the difference between his public persona and the real man behind the mask.

"Then why this trip?"

"Good question. It's time that this group of ours faced the future and addressed the fact that, even if the last set up was ultimately flawed, we still need some sort of loose bonds to protect and support us. New guys will arrive as time goes on and there have to be some networks in its place-"

"You make it sound like some military task force-"

"That's the way I think. Others see it differently. That's why we need to move forward and get some dialogue going."

"Why start with her?" I was still clinging to my prejudices.

"If you knew her, you wouldn't need to ask. Because she is the centre of it all as far as the women are concerned. The only one left from the past and the one person we all have in common."

"She doesn't look like a mother figure to me."

"They come in very odd sizes these days," he grinned. I thumped him playfully. "We cool then?"

"Bloody freezing," I complained. "What sane person would choose to live down here?"

At that he laughed. "I never said either of them was sane. Wait until you meet them. Uma's crazy and Jack? Well, let's just see what you make of Jack. Try not to fall for him though. That was definitely not the point of the exercise-"

They actually live on a cliff on what really does appear to be the edge of the world. We left the car on the small lane that ran down from the road to their property. It wasn't a proper road, shaly and potholed, and I immediately managed to stumble and ended up with my shoes and the bottom of my trousers wet and spattered with mud. That did not do much to increase my confidence being about to meet the mannequin herself. Terry lugged me out and brushed me off, took my hand and helped me pick my way down to the gate, muttering about why I hadn't worn a pair of boots or trainers. Trainers? To visit Madame Choo herself? Is he totally heartless?

There was a twee little white gate and then the path neatened up, sweetly pebbled down to the rough stone cottage in a pale grey that I recognised as the local style - it must be hard to see the land from the sea from the houses in a real storm, with the absence of colour in the topography. The forecourt was prettily decorated with big tubs of flowers, many still hardily carrying the last blooms of the year. They must have been in a particularly sheltered spot.

The house itself was small and very old, with a dark red tiled roof that looked new even if it was in an old fashion with heavy eaves covering the walls. Ivy snaked up one corner as if hiding against the stone out of the blast of the wind. And it did blast, whipping around our faces, icy needles of rain lashing, my carefully blow-dried hair reduced to a wild bird's nest of knots. We would look like drowned rats the way we were going on.

Grateful for some shelter, we reached the porch, a quaint little Gothic affair, painted green. I thought the whole place had the look of one of those Toytown houses in a Noddy book. That made me feel a little smug when I compared it to my, sorry our, correction- his, elegant loft apartment in Docklands. Terry hammered and rang, then called out - but there was no answer.

"What a pity! Looks like they're out! Let's head for the nearest town?" I began hopefully. He gave me that look of his, turned up the collar of his padded jacket (someone had been prepared) and then jogged round the house to the back. I trailed after him. The back door was open but there was still no answer.

"They have to be here. The car's in the drive," Terry muttered.

"Maybe they're having sex," I added with rather a cruel relish. I got another sharp glance for that.

"Come on...hold onto your hat..."

He grabbed my hand and dragged me from the patio that gave out onto an amazing seascape but was being battered by the wind so hard that it took our breaths away, and then led me down a path through some bloody hardy bushes to steps that had been carved roughly out of the hillside. They wound down to the sea far below us and were completely treacherous: moss, lichen, rain and various slimy things offering a thousand potential pitfalls to the unwary trespasser.

"Terry, I'm going to break my bloody neck!"

"Watch your step then," he barked pitilessly but he did go first and held my hand, helping me down as if I was an old lady crossing a road. He can't help himself. He's just so lovely.

It was actually a breathtaking view (and not just caused by the violent blow!) that greeted us as we wended our way down the cliff side. I asked Terry had he visited before, he shook his head. Why then were we going down here? He just smiled and said: "If you want to find Jack, look for a boat."

And sure enough that is where they were.

Their cliff face led down to a jetty and an almost lagoon-like harbour, tiny but clearly deep water. There was no beach - the rocks sheered down steeply to the water except for the more gradual incline we were descending, the rocky outcrop where the jetty had been built. Alone in the centre of the black dense water, a vision of wood and sail and shimmering white trimmed in dark blue and gold, lay a yacht at anchor. Down here the gale force winds were suddenly less severe and I realized that the towering cliffs above protected this hidden mooring from the worst of the open sea and weather. It was a truly a perfect spot from which to launch this beautiful boat. It felt like we had stumbled on a secret entrance into another time, an earlier Cornwall of smugglers and wreckers.

That was my first sight of both Jack Aubrey and Uma. He was sitting in a cradle rigged over the side, a simple rope and wood affair, and was attending to a minor repair to the bow. Even at  a distance, swathed in a waterproof jacket and some rather baggy and ridiculously inappropriate cut offs, he was an impressive sight to behold, his back impossibly broad and that golden hair roughly tied back but spilling out, strands blowing in the wind. His face was weather-beaten and crinkled in a smile as he stopped to shout up at the woman who sat, skinny legs dangling over the deck, chatting to him while he worked. I could see his face upturned, the thick growth of his sideburns and a swarthy unshaven few days of beard. Terry had been wise to warn me. This was the kind of man a woman could lose her head over.

But the real shock had to be the mistress of poison herself. She looked about twelve, skinny and boyishly cute, her dark hair shoved up into an untidy knot, no makeup, freckles (God, I was so pleased that she suffers from freckles!) wearing the most unattractive burnt orange knitted polo- necked jumper which was a million sizes too big for her. Over it she had a red (red with orange?) kagoul. She looked like a hazard sign on a road. I looked at Terry and he must have read my face. "The jumper is probably Donna Karan...."

I snorted. "British Home Stores... sale...."

They hadn't noticed us. Jack was mostly listening to her as he worked and she was gaily babbling on, legs swinging and hands frantically dancing about as she talked animatedly. Neither of them looked like they had a care in the world.

"Ahoy there, Pugwash!" Terry bellowed across. "Any chance of a cup of tea?"

Jack spun round and Uma shot up her head. He laughed heartily and Uma screamed manically, jumping up and down like a five year old. It wasn't exactly dignified behaviour. I had to work hard not to like her on sight.

"Thorne, you dog! What a sight for sore eyes!" Jack grinned, shinning up a rope as agile as a circus acrobat, despite his size, and dragging the cradle back onto the deck.

"Oh. My. God! You should have called! I haven't even washed my hair!" Uma screamed some more. In a few seconds, Jack had climbed back down to a small rowing boat that was bobbing by the side and Uma was following him. She jumped the last few rungs and he caught her as if she had been a little child, swinging her to the wooden plank and then easily rowing them back to the jetty.

Tying up the boat, Jack lifted her up, set her ashore and then leapt up after and we stood facing each other. 

"Uma, this is Cass. Well, Paula actually, but I never call her that..."

Uma smiled and held her hand out. "Better than Tink any day. Pleased to meet you, sweetie. Gosh, you are pretty! Look at the state of me! I look like a tramp." She didn't. Not up close. Her face was so fresh and lovely, clear eyes and perfect skin. But she wasn't in the least intimidating. I was totally tongue-tied, unable to say anything more than a shy hello and pleased to meet you. "Oh, let me introduce you to Jack. Paula-meet my-friend-Jack Aubrey. Jack-Paula-"

My heart almost stopped. Jack Aubrey is a stunningly attractive man in the flesh. He might be covered in scars and could probably stand losing a few pounds and doing a bit of gym work, but nevertheless he is just like the living incarnation of your most lascivious fantasy. I couldn't even get past his eyes, chips of ice blue, fixing me in a gaze that was not wholly innocent, and giving me a rakish grin. "By God, look what the sea brought in! Your humble servant, Ma'am. I have long wished to make your acquaintance and my eyes can scarce recover from such a vision in the flesh!" And he bent down and took my hand, raising it to his lips and pressing his lips against the back. I always thought of things like that as if they were just politeness. I'm telling you now - don't you believe it. It is the sexiest hello going.

He held my hand. I stared into his eyes. Terry coughed. Uma chuckled. "Put her down, Jack, before you scare her to death. He can't help himself. He's genetically programmed to lustiness."

Her comment just made Jack laugh. "Let's get up top and have some tea. It's damned cold today. So what brings you townies down to the countryside?"

After tea, during which Uma actually produced some slices of fruit cake, she suddenly suggested that we two girls might go down to the village and stock up on provisions. Jack had insisted we stayed over - although Terry did not seem entirely comfortable with that notion at all. But it was almost impossible to say no to Jack Aubrey and would have appeared extremely impolite to have rejected his kind offer. I wasn't sure if Uma approved of it, as her face was hard to read.

Terry told her she didn't need to prepare dinner, that he would like to treat them to a meal out for our hospitality. Uma jumped at that, clearly in no real haste to rustle up a cordon bleu special for four but she still insisted she needed to go to the supermarket. There was the question of breakfast the next morning.

It was obvious she wanted to get me alone. Or maybe leave Jack and Terry to talk. It could have gone either way. So off we toddled to the local town - if you could glorify it with that title. She drove and I spent the journey down just hanging on, praying that we wouldn't find ourselves in a freefall dive over the cliffs. She is a kamikaze pilot of the road. Totally out of control. Terry must have loved her driving his motor.

I began breathing again when we parked the car in the main square and set off to various little shops to stock up. It was the kind of place where they had shops whose owners actually smoked their own bacon and where you bought cheese and butter from a slab rather than in a plastic packet. Olde worlde, you know? As she swung along with her dinky little shopping basket, she was constantly stopped by passersby who wished to say hello.

"How's the Captain?"

"Aubrey back from London? Need to have a word with him about my rigging-"

"Dear girl, how lovely to see you! Give my regards to that lovely man of yours-"

"Uma, can you pop in at the vicarage when you're free? Reginald has some sheet music for Jack for the forthcoming recital-"

Each shop we visited was the same thing. Everyone knew her and she was constantly asked to village functions - a birthday celebration, a christening, a lecture at the church hall, some local meeting at the surgery about a petition to keep the sub post office open. It occurred to me that it was actually quite difficult to be anonymous in a small town. In London you could be dead for three months and no might even know. It seemed the social butterfly had a new set but she was just as much a feature of it as she had ever been in the city. Jack seemed to have stepped into some lord of the manor position and she was his lady, a person of some regard in the community. The location did not seem quite so remote and lonely after all.

With the delicacies purchased, we hied over to the Tesco supermarket a few miles further, on the outskirts of a bigger town. There, pushing round a trolley, we began to chat.

"You seem to be well settled her," I ventured.

Uma rolled her eyes. "They'll have me in the Women's Guild soon the way things are going. People are lovely. It is sleepy and old fashioned but, you know, they actually care about each other. When they say: 'Have a nice day!'- they mean it. And if you have a problem they are just so willing to help. When Jack's away they're so good to me. Even though I know they don't approve of us living in sin and the vicar and his wife are always on at us to 'legalise our union'. It's so amusing. Yet they accept us as we are. Jack says these little villages haven't changed much since his day really. I know we're the favourite source of gossip for the entire district but it's a sort of benign curiosity."

"Why don't you then? Get married, I mean?"

That made her chuckle. "Don't want to. It's also a bit weird for Jack. I mean, he is married, you know? And he doesn't seem to have a great desire to do it again. If there was a good enough reason for us to, then we probably would, but so far we can't find one. It's perfect like this. Why disturb things for nothing?"

I could have answered that one but I refrained. If Uma was a married lady then it would finally take her off the market - just in case.

She loaded up on coffee and fancy biscuits, soups and pickles, mustards and those savoury jelly conserves that you put out with various roast meats. She bought a lot of bread and custard powder and mixes for things like Yorkshire pudding and batters. Then she began hitting the salad bar and stocking up on cottage cheese and low fat yoghurt.

She caught my expression of interest in the mismatched contents of her shopping trolley. "He eats stodge. I have tried to wean him off but if I don't give it to him he just goes mooching around until he finds it. He is quite capable of having a salad for lunch at home and then disappearing off to the pub and eating steak and kidney pudding with jam roly poly and custard for dessert and lies quite shamelessly about it. The two old dears in the cake shop constantly smuggle him puddings or feed him up behind my back. So I put him on a diet and he subsequently gains weight because he's eating two meals instead of one at each session. Thus, I have given up. I cook what he likes and take a reduced version of it - a bit of meat and a salad or something." She shrugged but had this fond indulgent smile on her face. I could see that Jack had twisted her round his little finger - and most of the other women of the district, too.

She ransacked the wine cave. It is the only way to describe it, buying at least three dozen bottles of wine. "We drink a lot," she stated rather unnecessarily.

Then she breezed along and picked up a large box of tampons. "Better stock up. I usually stick the box where Jack can see it to give him the hint. He is still funny about talking about some things-" she explained.

I laughed. "I suppose guys in those days would never go near a woman at that time of the month-?"

Her look said it all. "Are you nuts? He doesn't give a shit what time of the month it is. No, I meant it warns him not to antagonize me. He finds PMS a very scary thing."

She is refreshingly open and honest. Easy to talk to. Funny. Friendly. Sharp as a button, though. Just when you think she's babbling on about nothing, she comes out with a real doozy. "You didn't want to come down here, did you?"

I thought about giving a bland reply something in the vein of- 'Of course I did! I have always wanted to meet you!"- but in the end I thought she would probably not be fooled anyway - and deserved me to shoot straight from the hip.

"Not much. To be truthful, I was expecting to hate your guts," I added.

That amused her greatly. "Join the club. You'd be in good company, sweetie." I wasn't sure what she meant. We were at the checkouts. "I was worried about you too. Terry can be such a duffer about women. I was just scared you were going to be one of those helpless clingy types that he attracts like a magnet who expect him to spend his entire life seeing to their needs in and out of the bedroom. He needs the very opposite. I'm not sure why he rarely finds those types."

"And?" I asked. "What type am I?"

She laughed out loud. "Well, you're not Alice for starters. And you have breasts. That is a good sign. He's thinking out of the box for once. Or the cup size. Whatever. You look like a real woman. I bet you give him a real challenge. And one thing is clear already. You look after him. I know I have no right to say so, but I just want him to be happy and loved and cared for. There is no man in the world who deserves it more."

"You hardly know me!" I argued.

"You'd be surprised what you can tell about a woman when you go round the shops with her," she answered enigmatically. "What do you think those two are talking about back at the cottage?"

It was my turn to giggle. "Well, I doubt they've mentioned you or me. Except in some passing crude male allusion to a part of our anatomy or the amount of sex they get."

"Right on, sister. They'll be arguing about cricket or rugby. God, men have so little of interest to talk about, haven't they? Wouldn't you just hate to wake up and find yourself a man? As opposed to waking up and finding yourself with a man-"

"-or even better with a man in you-"

"Oh, Mama-are we on the same wavelength!"

Dinner that night was fun - and quite a revelation. Loosened by a skinful of booze and an excellent dinner at a rather upscale sea food restaurant in a town along the coast, we all relaxed and the conversation opened up. Naturally they talked a long time about their mutual 'family' and what they knew of their whereabouts at the moment. There was a lot of pleasure at the arrival of little Eoin, Arthur's son, who was now about six months old. He had sent pictures and I suppose each of the men wondered if they could see themselves in this new member of the family, the next generation.

They pooled the information they had each gleaned about the rest. Uma had had a call from Bud a while back and he had told her, in his laconic way, that he was moving to another city following a job offer. The city was New Orleans. Jack revealed that Ann (whom he regularly contacted out of some courteous sense of responsibility) had mentioned that she had 'run into Bud White a few times'. Of course New Orleans had suffered a terrible disaster in the meantime and apart from brief mails from both to say they were okay, not much more was known.

"I've talked to Bud," Terry revealed out of the blue. "He told me he had a new woman. I asked him if it was anyone I knew. He said 'not really'. I took that to mean Ann. Not conclusive proof but-"

Uma joined her hands together as if in prayer. "Please God that is the case. They both need each other so much. Imagine what Bud must have been going through? And that girl has suffered-"

They all sobered up at the thought of Ann's strange story and there was much shaking of heads and general sympathetic noise making. I didn't quite like to interrupt and explain how little I actually knew about it all. It didn't really seem appropriate. I could always ask Terry for the full details later. I already knew the bare bones of it.

Then the topic of Maximus and Heather came up. It seems Jack and Uma had visited their place in Italy in the summer. They had dropped the little bombshell about Arthur and his girlfriend expecting a baby. Maximus had been so angry at the fact that someone had mucked about with his fertility. Terry was keen for news of Heather, I noticed. He didn't hide that one very well. I know there had been a time when he thought he might have settled with her but she had eyes on Maximus. He had made his bid, retired from the others and Terry had been out in the cold again. Of course big bad macho Max would not then have allowed Terry further visits to Heather's little Neapolitan idyll. I can see why Terry finds Maximus a little tiresome.

"What happened in California?" Uma asked Terry.

He rolled his eyes. "A lot of this is speculation, you must understand. I don't actually have the full story. I know that Maximus paid a visit-" He looked across at Jack and I knew straight away that he had already discussed this with Terry and that we were getting some abridged version. "There was an explosion. I have no idea if the two facts are connected. Most of the men have checked in and were long gone. I'm tracking a few. Cort seems to have vanished. Biebe's in Vermont. When I know more I'll tell you-"

From that we moved onto the real reason for Terry's visit. He wanted to set up a network that would bring the group together again, reassemble it in another guise. He was prepared to take some central role in coordinating things but he felt that we needed to have some cohesion or the time would slip by and no real move forward would be made. Talking was not the same as doing. In the end he said that Uma was the one woman who could be there for the men and all their wives and partners when they needed an ear. She seemed surprised to think anyone would imagine she could be of help but I detected that his comment pleased her. There were bright spots dancing on her pale cheeks and she looked rather bashful, staring over at Jack who smiled benignly on her.

"Me? You sure? Women usually don't much like me."

"Try harder. Mostly they actually do, Tink. But you keep them at arms' length. The men all adore you. And not for the reasons you presume-" He was probably right but the casual use of the name Tink unsettled me. She would always have a special place in his heart and it was clearly mutual. This was something I would just have to accept.

So some strategies were discussed and it was decided that the core group - that which included Dino, Maximus and Heather, Arthur and Angharad, Stephen and the four of us - should take it upon themselves to offer their support to the others as they orientated themselves away from the former security blanket of sex cultdom to a future when they had to integrate into the real world.

It wasn't all serious business though. There was a lot of chat about the past, warm reminiscences about the good times, and some of the crazy larks they had been involved in. Terry mentioned the recent TOL stuff and how he and Maximus managed to work together. Apparently, Maximus did everything he possibly could to wind Terry up and Terry reciprocated with his own brand of irritation. I had noticed this many times at the office. Leaving a meeting with Terry, Maximus would always have a triumphant half smile on his face and Terry would invariably be tightlipped. I had always sensed there was something below the surface there. But I doubt Maximus always won. You should see some of the motley crews that Terry has put Maximus on, knowing full well that he would have nothing in common with any of them.

Jack filled us in about Stephen and his home in Cadiz - and the rather lovely Spanish woman who had moved in with him. Everyone was delighted about that although Jack seemed amazed that any woman would find Stephen attractive much less want to live with him. Uma just snorted and told Jack he ought to look in the mirror sometime - and occasionally listen to the drivel that came out of his mouth.

The adventures of Jack and Uma during their summer in the Mediterranean were also hilarious. Terry found the idea of Uma actually crewing a yacht hysterically amusing for some reason. She was indignant. "I got my sailing certificates! Level 3! I am now a qualified mariner!"

Jack raised his eyes but held his tongue for once. I doubt whether he regarded her as a master mariner yet a while. That brought us to the subject of Jack's forthcoming voyage.

"What exactly is it all about?" Terry asked, but there was something in his tone that made me think he was leading to something.

"It is part educational, part exploration, part scientific study. It appears that the modern age thinks it challenging to sail in a tall ship round the world and discover things that men have known for centuries. The key appears to be that a video is made and thus the deed is somehow validated."

"But, it is dangerous, surely?" Terry asked. "I mean, the sea is still the sea and a sailing ship is vulnerable."

"To be sure. But with the addition of the latest navigational and communication equipment, any emergency is reduced to an inconvenience. If it comes to the worst, we would be winched off in no time. No one is actually risking their lives-"

"-Barring accident." Terry reminded him.

"Certainly. Some ninny can still fall overboard or tumble off the rigging,' Jack answered as if such things were a nuisance and fully deserved by the victim.

"Where did you get the crew? What are their qualifications?" I could sense Terry was moving in for some kill here but I hadn't got a clue as to what it was.

Jack hunched his shoulders. "Some are sailors with a fair amount of experience on rigged ships. All have had to go through some level of training. No one on board is without some expertise on yachts at least. There are scientists, camera men, cooks, a few doctors, a team of young people specially settled for their athletic and intellectual skills, a communication expert, navigational technicians-"

"All men?" Uma and I exchanged a glance. I began to see where he was leading.

"No. Some are women. That's how they do it these days. They will insist on women being put on a par with men. I was shouted down when I raised an objection. But it was said that if men and women wanted to become intimate during the expedition, then it was their right. Women aboard were not to be seen as a temptation to men per se. Just wait until we're three months into a long voyage and they'll be eyeing each other up like dogs in season, make no mistake-" At that we all suppressed smiles. "Of course, some of them are married couples. It was felt that it was inhumane to prevent a man - or woman - from bringing their partner if they wished, so a role was found for them on the team in a few cases where the partner had relevant skills-"

Uma sat up at that. Terry smiled smugly. "What is the minimum sailing qualification required for a crew member, Jack?"

"Level 3 sailing-" Then it dawned on him and he stopped mid- sentence. "Good God! By George! I had never thought of that before! I need an assistant. They said I needed some sort of secretary to take care of records and communications - apparently I am regarded as incapable of keeping my own log these days - you could do that, Uma. And be paid a decent salary for the work. We could be together. Share my cabin."

She seemed lost for words for a moment. "But, wouldn't you worry about me? I wouldn't want to force you into this if it was going to inhibit your command and I know how you feel about women aboard-"

"-Tosh! If every man Jack can have his bed warmed at night then I see no reason to deny myself. I will have to put up with a gaggle of silly females who have no place at sea as it is. Uma would be a breath of fresh air in comparison to some of those harridans-"

"Jack, when you give a compliment, you sure know how to qualify it, don't you?" Terry grinned. Uma just giggled as if this sort of comment no longer had the power to affect her, merely running off her back.

"That's settled then," he insisted. "I'll contact them tomorrow and say position filled."

"And if they don't approve?" Uma asked, still appearing almost unable to believe that Jack was actually contemplating taking her with him.

"Damn well have no choice. They daren't cross me. I'm in charge and they already know that I will not take to sea unless I am entirely satisfied with everything. I made that quite clear."

"So, it's a simple as that?" she asked him, stunned. "I'm going with you! We don't have to be alone?"

Jack took her hand and raised it to his lips. "If it is your desire. It surely would be mine. I simply cannot imagine why I did not think of it myself. Thorne, you are a man of vision. I owe you much!"

"It's my job. To find ways forward. Compromises. My pleasure." He raised his glass and we all drank to the voyage and our own personal futures.

"Terry!" Uma looked across, eyes shining, aware that without him this would probably never have happened..

He nodded. "I know. Have fun. Don't fall overboard. And watch the luggage. Jack will only throw it over if they need to lighten the load a few tons-"

"Luggage?" Jack exclaimed. "Goddamn you if you try that one on me, madam. One small case - and no shoes with heels." He stopped. "Well, perhaps one pair. For the captain's amusement. In the cabin. On quiet nights-" He laughed heartily at his remark and Uma swatted his arm for it.

Uma tried a little bit of fishing about what our future plans were but, as you can imagine, Terry deviously sidestepping each attempt as deftly as a swordsman parrying a blow. I felt rather smug at his refusal to divulge any private details but still had a momentary panic that perhaps he had actually  no real long term plans for us. The old insecurity was showing again. I struggled against it but there was always the overriding fear that a woman like me could never hope to hold a man like him in the end. Just enjoy it while you can, Cass, I told myself.

The meal over, we strolled along the cold windswept sea front back to the car. Terry and I trailed behind Jack and Uma. I watched them wrapped up in each other, Jack's burly arm slung around her tiny shoulders and her arm firmly round his waist. He had her snuggled inside his jacket. The wind was whipping his golden hair about. They looked like the epitome of love and togetherness.

Terry must have caught my look as he walked by my side, holding my hand. He pulled on it and spun me against him. "What you looking at? The lovebirds?" He grinned and kissed me before I could respond. Drawing back, he whispered in my ear. "Reckon they'll be breeding soon. Got that look about them, haven't they?"

I nodded. "Wonder what we look like to them? The metrosexual couple? The image of modern relationships? Great sex, demanding jobs, jet set lives. Everything airbrushed with a cosmetically perfect glow - but pretty bloodless underneath?"

He stopped and contemplated his feet, his hand letting mine go and joining his other, thrust into his trouser pockets. "That how you feel? That how I make you feel?"

I had hurt him. It was the last thing I had wanted to do. "No, it's not how you make me feel. You make me feel like he makes her feel. But-" I wasn't sure how to continue.

"-I'm not a man like Jack. Can't wear my heart on my sleeve. Doesn't mean my heart isn't just as true, though."

He sort of shrugged and kept on walking. I ran slightly to match his longer stride. I could see he was dejected but it was too close to the car for me to try and redress my stupid comment. Not as true? Terry's poor damaged heart was the truest heart there was and I had just reopened one of its wounds. It was me who was the heartless one.

Terry drove and I sat in the passenger seat staring ahead and feeling like the pits, not aided by the sound on the couple in the back clearly up to no good in  rather obvious stage whispers and repressed giggles. Several times I glanced over at Terry but his face was set. It was hard to know if he was angry or upset. He had disappeared into his head. His eyes were the giveaway usually but I couldn't see them at that angle.

Back at the house, Jack asked us if we wanted a nightcap. I thought Terry just might for a reason to avoid being alone with me, but surprisingly he said no, he was tired and we would see them in the morning. Taking my hand and bidding them goodnight he almost pushed me up the narrow stairs to the upper floor, set in the eaves of the house.

I could hear the sweet tones of a violin rising from the lounge below. How exquisite! Jack was playing Uma a beautiful piece of music before they went to bed. It was sad and haunting. I don't know enough about classical music to identify it but it added to the way I felt that I had let Terry down. It made me feel so very worthless of his love and that this was the origin of Terry's tragedy. He never meets women who are good enough for him.

"You want to use the bathroom first?" I asked him shyly. He just gave me a look and then pulled me in with him, divesting his clothes carelessly.

"Let's take a shower." He was naked almost before I could draw breath, leaning into the cubicle to switch on the jets. I could not help but lust after his strong naked back view.

"They will know!" I protested feebly.

He turned round. "You think they're the slightest bit interested in what we're doing? That's your trouble, Paula. You're always looking at us from the outside. Start looking from the inside for once. I don't give a flying fuck for what other people make of us as a couple! I suspect most think I'm a lucky bastard to have a woman like you but that's just from my perception. Are you coming for a shower or not?"

He walked in and left the door open. I stripped, slipped in and put my head against his chest and my arms around his waist. "I love you. I can't believe you love me. That's all. It's too perfect. Things never go right for me. Ever."

"I know the feeling. So does everyone. Until they meet the one who's going to make it right. Paula, love, it's up to us to make sure it does work this time. There are only two people who count in this relationship. You and me. I'm being honest with you. I want you. I need you. I love you. What more can I say to show you that I care?"

I just clung onto him and wept as the water washed us both clean of all the things that had been in the way between us. This trip had been important. He had been so right. Until I got Uma and the ghosts of his past out of my head, it was me who was holding us back.

Not Terry.

Never Terry.

Looks like the pair of us just got what we wanted at last.

Miracles can happen....