We first meet in October 1981. A student disco. Jill and I are both slightly drunk on cheap beer. Both dressed in wayward approximations of the latest New Romantic look. Spandau Ballet’s Chant No 1 plays in the background as we make our introductions. Jill’s a confident and focused design student at the polytechnic. I’m shambling my way through a literature degree at the university.

In the weeks that follow, it’s soon clear that we’re an odd, half-suited couple. Compatible physically, but too different in temperament to really gel. And, it doesn’t help too much that we’re both in relationships with other people. She with a solid, respectable mechanical engineer. Me with a Sylvia Plath-obsessed linguist from the Wirral.

Our relationship falters on into 1982. Then — without too much sadness on either side — it ends. The years go by. Jill becomes a successful fashion buyer for a high street store and later sets up her own business. I drift through several careers before finally, very late in the day, training as a lawyer.

All the usual grown-up things happen; marriage, houses, children. As we’re both now in London, we keep in touch rather erratically. Charting the progress of each other’s lives with Christmas cards and the occasional drink after work. Slowly, without either of us intending it, the meetings stop. The messages in our Christmas cards are replaced by round-robin letters and family photos. More years evaporate.

All of a sudden it’s late 2006. A mobile phone I’ve not used for months contains a voicemail from Jill. There’s something in her voice that’s at once different and distantly familiar. You’ll guess part of the rest. The drinks at the Wolseley that turn into dinner, the kiss in the cold night air on Piccadilly and, a little later, the biggest cliché of all, the fabulous sex.

Less predictably, more than two years on, we’re still together. Does it matter that we’re both still in relationships with other people? I don’t think so . . .

Do you have an affair to remember? E-mail your 500-word story to loveaffair@thetimes.co.uk

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