To complete the image he had acquired a cautious tattoo on his ankle, a non-committal yin-and-yang that he would probably regret back in London. But that was fine. In London he would wear socks.

Sobered by the cold shower, he returned to the tiny room and dug deep in his rucksack to find something to wear for the Dutch medical students, smelling each item of clothing until they lay in a damp, ripe pile on the worn raffia rug. He settled on the least offensive item, a vintage  American  short-sleeved  shirt,  and  pulled  on  some  jeans,  cut  off  at  the  calves  and worn with no underwear, so that he felt bold and daredevil. An adventurer, a pioneer

And then he saw the letter. Six blue sheets densely written on both sides. He stared at it as if an intruder had left it behind, and with his new sobriety  came the  first twinge of doubt. Picking  it  up  gingerly,  he  glanced  at  a  page  at  random and  immediately  looked  away,  his mouth  puckered  tight.  All  those  capitals  and  exclamation  marks  and  awful  jokes.  He  had called her ‗sexy‘, he had used the word ‗discersion‘ which wasn‘t even a proper word. He sounded like some poetry-reading sixth-former, not a pioneer, an adventurer with a shaved head  and  a  tattoo  and  no  underpants  beneath  his  jeans.  I  will  find  you,  I’ve  been  thinking about you, Dex and Em, Em and Dex  –  what was he thinking? What had seemed urgent and touching  an  hour  ago  now  seemed  mawkish  and  gauche  and  sometimes  frankly  deceitful; there had been no praying mantis on the wall, he hadn‘t been listening to her compilation tape as he wrote, had lost his cassette player in Goa. Clearly the letter would change everything, and  weren‘t  things  fine  just  as  they  were?  Did  he  really  want  Emma  with  him  in  India, laughing  at  his  tattoo,  making  smart  remarks?  Would  he  have  to  kiss  her  at  the  airport? Would they have to share a bed? Did he really want to see her that much?

Yes, he decided, he did.  Because for all its obvious idiocy, there was a sincere affection, more than affection, in what he had written and he would definitely post it that night. If she over-reacted, he could always say he was drunk. That much at least was true.

Without further hesitation he packed the letter into an airmail envelope and slipped it into his copy of Howards End, next to Emma‘s handwritten dedication. Then he headed off to the bar to meet his new Dutch friends.