Hurting Enough and Losing Touch

From Vikram Seth's An Equal Music (I.11):

When I was being considered for the Maggiore Quartet, Helen asked me how Julia was. They knew each other because our trio and their quartet—both recently formed—had met at the summer programmes in Banff in the Canadian Rockies.
    I said that we'd lost touch.
    "Oh, what a pity," said Helen, "And how's Maria? Marvellous cellist! I thought the three of you played awfully well together. You belonged together."
    "Maria's fine, I think. She's still in Vienna."
    "I do feel it's a pity when one loses touch with friends," babbled Helen sympathetically. "I had a school-friend once. He was in the class above me. I adored him. He wanted to be, of all things, a dentist. . .  Oh, it's not a sensitive subject, is it?"
    "No, not at all. But perhaps we should get on with the rehearsal. I've got to be somewhere at five-thirty."
    "Of course. You told me that you were in a hurry, and here I am, nattering on. Silly me."
    To lose touch — an hearing and smell and taste and sight. Not a week passes when I don't think of her. This after ten years, too persistent a trace in the memory.

Día de lluvia 35 años después