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‘Chocolate?’ he asked the girl.

‘Yes, great.’

While David trotted off, she sat down, pulled her knees up, and then said: ‘I’m Laura.’

Peter looked at her for a long time without saying anything. ‘Peter,’ he said. ‘I’m Peter. Her eyes rested on him longer than any of us, but that was the same with all girls.

‘Peter, you beauty, Peter, you beauty!’ cried the Tour de France commentator on the radio. Peter Winnen had won the stage.

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I was immediately obsessed with Laura van Bemmel. Of course it wasn’t the first time I had been in love; I had been infatuated with a French student teacher of 23, a young neighbour in my street who always came cycling past in tight jeans, a checkout girl in the supermarket, and three or so girls from the class above ours. They were easily interchangeable crushes that appeared as fast as they evaporated again, driven by hormones and a longing for the unknown, with anyone as a guide. But with Laura it was different. For the first time I experienced love as a form of madness. I discovered primeval desire and recognized an almost irrepressible urge in myself. I also knew immediately that it was dangerous, and felt intuitively that it could destroy you.