I picked myself up off the floor, responding to the sudden discomfort in Daphne's eyes. Much as I loved fooling about with her, the last thing I ever wanted to do was make her feel uncomfortable. We settled back down and finished our drinks, and then Daphne told me she was getting tired. I made a meaningless observation about it having been a long day.

And so we came to bedtime.

Maggie was sleeping like a baby on the bed in the back, wrapped in an unzipped sleeping bag. That left the pull-down bed and the double, formed by cleverly spinning the table and then placing stored cushions on top. As the double was a lot closer to the back, it seemed sensible for Daphne to take that one, and for me to settle in the pull-down, which had its own little privacy curtain.

We took turns in the bathroom, or the sarcophagus, as I liked to think of it, then said a stilted goodnight. For a fleeting second I thought about leaning in and brushing her lips with mine, but I thought better of it and just climbed up into the fold-down cot, whisking the curtain into place. I heard rustling from outside and my hormones immediately demanded I peek through the gap in the curtains to see how far Daphne was intending to strip off. I'm glad to say that my gentlemanly side won out and I gave the goddess her privacy. Half-lying awkwardly in a space which was hardly bigger than my body, I began to undress.

The overshirt wasn't too difficult, though I knew my elbow was occasionally flapping the curtain up and down. Goodness only knows what it looked like from Daphne's side. Once I'd managed that, I unclasped the jeans and then started to wriggle out of them. This was much more difficult. I braced my feet on the ceiling and tried to pull them over my hips as I lifted my pelvis, but that didn't work, so I tried turning over on to my belly and then lifting myself on to my knees. I thought I heard Daphne giggle at one point, when my right foot penetrated the curtain's enclosure and I swore quietly.

A few moments later, I tumbled out.

What happened was, I'd got the jeans down as far as mid-thigh, which made moving my legs kind of difficult. As I continued to pull at the denims, becoming more and more frustrated with their inflexibility, my leg slipped off the edge of the bed, flailed for a moment in thin air and then dragged the rest of me out after it.

"Oof!" I said, as I landed with a thump on the floor. A man can't be expected to exercise wit and panache when having the wind knocked out of him.

"Niles! Are you all right?" Daphne whispered as loudly as she dared, with Maggie asleep not two metres away. Oblivious, at least for the moment, to the fact that she was clad only in T-shirt, underpants and woolly socks, she leapt out of bed and stepped forward to help me to my feet. I noted her raising an eyebrow at my own underwear and resisted the urge to clamp both hands conspicuously in front of my groin.

"Not easy to take jeans off ... in an enclosed space ..." I muttered, as I stood up straight and stretched my bruised body. By then, our state of undress couldn't be ignored any longer and I turned away, reaching to hoist my jeans back up again.

"Oh for god's sake you two, get a room!" came a sleep-addled voice from behind us. I turned round long enough to look through the open doorway into the rear cabin, but Maggie had already shifted position and fallen back to sleep.

Daphne giggled then, and I found I had to join in. Because it was funny.

"Niles," she said, and I heard footsteps moving away behind me.

"Yes?" I answered too quickly, still with my back to her.

"Take your trousers off and then go to bed. I'm not peeking." I heard rustling as she got into her bed, and when I looked back round, I saw she'd turned on her side away from me. Hurriedly, I shed all my clothes except my boxer shorts and then, with a grunt, I hauled myself back into the bed. I'd packed pyjamas, of course, but decided that I could rough it, for one night at least.

"Goodnight, Daphne," I said, sticking my head out of the curtains for one last look at her before I fell asleep. I wondered whether that would help me dream about her. I hoped it would.

She turned around and smiled at the disembodied sight I made. "Goodnight, Niles," she replied, and then reached for the light switch and cast the motor home into darkness. I settled back in the bed, my mouth silently repeating the phrase.

'Goodnight Niles.'

I hoped it wasn't the last time I'd hear her say those words, before the lights went out.