Winterson’s last call to Pat Kavanagh

Jeanette Winterson (pictured), the author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, has revealed how she made contact with her former lover Pat Kavanagh, the literary agent, shortly before Kavanagh died last week from a brain tumour. After being told Kavanagh was ill by Ruth Rendell, Winterson called the hospital were she was being treated and made a plan to visit her. She told the Sunday Times: "Pat was very pleased when I called her – of course she was; it was a frightening situation.

"We did agree that I would come to see her. But sometimes fate overtakes you, so it was very sad and very quick. There was no romantic hand-clasping or trysts . . . just a very nice, gentle conversation on the telephone and it ended well."

Their brief affair 20 years ago, which Winterson later made public while promoting one of her novels, is said to have come close to ending Kavanagh's marriage to the writer Julian Barnes, who was apparently furious that Winterson had "outed" his wife. However, he is thought to have been reconciled to a reunion between the two women.

A source said: "Although they split all those years ago, the sub-plot is that Pat never fell out of love with her [Winterson] – I think they both stayed in love. When Pat knew she was approaching the end, it was Jeanette she had to see."

The affair between the two women started in the 1980s when Kavanagh was acting as Winterson's agent. Kavanagh, who married Barnes in 1979, reportedly moved out of the marital home to live temporarily with her lover and even darned Winterson's woolly socks. The relationship ended in 1989 and was made public three years later when Winterson – who by then had ditched the services of an agent – briefly talked about it in a newspaper interview to promote her novel Written on the Body.

Of Kavanagh’s sudden death last week, Winterson said: "Everyone thought she was going to have an operation [to remove the tumour] and that didn't happen. And that's why [her death] was painful for everyone, because a lot of people weren't able to say goodbye."