Kindly, Helen.

She came with tea. Clearly, she thinks I am disturbed by her revelation and I am happy to play along, the better to hide my own affairs. And yet, in ministering to me like this, as if I were a child requiring appeasement in the light of his slutty mother's explosive, menopausal sexuality, I felt a coldness that jarred me into facing her, and in facing her, into speaking.

Thank you, I boomed.

Are you well? She recoiled.

We stared and, for a second, were both locked into that ancient, demonic battle for sexual imperative. Oh how did that happen, Helen? Kindly Helen. How did it happen? Eventually we looked away, fell into our bodies, and returned to matters of tea, tea and biscuits.