I was in a mournful mood and, rather pathetically, reading St. John of the Cross, when Gareth knocked. I had no desire for either good or bad news so I held my breath and said nothing. He didn't try the door and, always seeking rejection, I soon heard him walk away. Soon after that, to confuse him further, I made a racket as I left for lunch. Aside from a brief urge to throw my pork pie at the head of a deathly teenager, there was no reason to expect the surge of lust that overcame me in the queue at the cashpoint. If not for the efficiency of the machine, my behaviour may have turned criminal. But how ungainly, the way my femme snatched her money. Surely that, the discourteous consummation, would have put me off? I sat on a bench and tried to summon a little mentalese. Plainly, my relationship with Helen, while containing tenderness, is almost exclusively physical and yet I have grown so accustomed to liasons of this nature I sometimes forget that verbal intimacy is even an option. Inevitably, the silence is filled with something, usually my horrors. So, clearly, just because Helen and I don't talk much, it doesn't mean she is dying. And so, having confirmed the value of logic, I swept back into the house, ready to see my very famous client.