I glimpsed Thom in the lounge, bent over a joystick, but followed his mother into the kitchen. Without speaking she reached for a cupboard, changed her mind, then filled the kettle instead. On top of the million little details I was processing, I wondered if she were reaching for alcohol in that cupboard and sensed, in the calm of her negation, that she had decided to make me suffer for any pleasure I might find here. To make matters worse, I felt it necessary to maintain my demented persona and only felt able to do that by saying nothing. She turned towards me and I wished myself to hell and back. However, instead of folding her arms she let them fall to her side, relaxed. Clearly, she had no more idea what to do or say than me and, seeing that, I rolled up my sleeves and sat myself at the kitchen table.

Do you remember Versailles?

I asked, as if the unresolved memory of a holiday in France had stopped me moving on with life.

You really do want sex, don't you?

Yes, I only suggest a little historical foreplay...

And felt a certain pity for myself, aware that my unbidden memory of Versailles was important and worthy of discussion and, quite suddenly, it then became a fleeting symbol of our disharmony, containing all the ambiguities within. I was desperate to speak of this as X arched her back as she sat opposite, showing well preserved breasts plus a hollow of shadow to her buttocks. And it was another fleeting symbol, too, that I did not speak of what I wanted, and of X that she would not relax to allow the past in. It was all happening all over again. We would not be having sex. These few minutes had exhausted us both so we sat there, calm and ironic, ready now to talk of Thom, the week ahead, the future. We were good people, done with anger, making the best of it. Sure we were. For ourselves, and him. And so we waited for Thom to come bounding into the kitchen, each second of silence like a pinprick on my palm.