‘Not a row,’ she replied. ‘Ben doesn’t do rows. He just goes quiet, doesn’t look me in the eye.’

What she said was all remarkably familiar. It’d been just the same when Oliver descended into a black mood.

‘And now I’m down here,’ she went on, ‘I sort of don’t know why I’ve come.’

‘To see Ben, presumably.’

‘Only if he wants to see me.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ve tried everything since we last spoke.’

‘Which was when?’

‘Saturday lunchtime.’ I comforted myself that that was only two days ago. ‘He’d agreed to meet up again.’

‘You hadn’t seen each other for a while?’

‘Ben said he needs space.’ That dreaded word. ‘And, OK, because we’re on different campuses, at different universities, it’s easy enough to give each other space. But since then, each time I’ve tried to contact him, he’s shut down on me. Won’t answer his phone, won’t reply to texts or email. He’s cutting me off.’

She suddenly looked at me, with an expression of something like horror. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you. It feels like a total betrayal of Ben.’

‘It would only be a betrayal,’ I said, ‘if one of us was trying to do him harm. And neither of us is. We both have the same thing at heart – Ben’s welfare. His happiness.’

‘Hm,’ she said. ‘Yes. I have a bit more at heart too, though.’

I was puzzled. I didn’t know what she meant.

‘Listen, Ellen,’ she said. ‘OK for me to call you Ellen?’

‘Of course.’

‘What I mean is, Ellen, that yes, I care about Ben’s welfare. But I also care about my welfare.’

‘So you should.’ I wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

‘The fact is, I love Ben …’ That was good to hear, though I was waiting for the ‘but’. It came. ‘But I find being with him sometimes can … I don’t know … mess with my head.’

Now I could see where this was going. It was dispiritingly familiar.

‘We have some great times together. Everything works.’ She coloured, so I knew she meant the sex, but that wasn’t the kind of thing you said to your boyfriend’s mother. ‘And nobody’s ever made me laugh as much as Ben has.’ I had used exactly the same words about Oliver.

‘But’ – I knew she was going to use the word again – ‘then there are these times when he … just isn’t there. I don’t know where he goes’ – I knew she wasn’t talking about a physical absence – ‘but it’s not a good place and, even if I could go there with him, I wouldn’t want to.’

‘No,’ I agreed.

‘And I’ve been with Ben long enough,’ she went on, ‘to know that he does come out of that place. Eventually. It may take a long time, but he does come out. But while he’s down, while he’s in there, I feel terrible and I feel it’s my fault.’

I had been in exactly the situation she was describing, but not for long. When I first saw Oliver depressed, I had blamed myself, thought I was doing something wrong, thought that it was me who was bringing him down. I hadn’t spent time with anyone who behaved like that before. But then, after a while, I rationalized that he was a man suffering from an illness called depression. If I wanted to spend time with him, I’d just have to take on board that that was a part of the man I loved.