His chairman agreed to it. There was a hint of scorn in the man’s smile, he thought. But he was allowed to work at home and sometimes, for four or five days at a stretch, although he talked to people on the phone, he saw no one at all but his wife. She was, he found, as perfect a secretary as a wife. There was scarcely anything for him to do. She composed his press releases for him, wrote his letters without his having to dictate them, answered the phone with efficiency and charm, arranged his appointments. And she waited on him unflaggingly when work was done. No meals on trays for them. Every lunchtime and every evening the dining table was exquisitely laid, and if it occurred to him that in the past two years only six other people had handled this glass, this cutlery, these luxurious appointments, he didn’t say so.

His depression wouldn’t go away, even though he had tranquillizers now as well as sleeping pills. They never spoke of her suicide attempts, but he often thought of them and wondered if he had somehow been infected by this tendency of hers. When, before settling down for the night, he dropped one pill from the bottle into the palm of his hand, the temptation to let them all trickle out, to swallow them all down with a draught of fresh cold water, was sometimes great. He didn’t know why, for he had everything a man could want, a perfect marriage, a beautiful house, a good job, excellent physical health and no ties or restrictions.

As Lydia had pointed out, ‘Children would have been such a tie, darling,’ or, when he suggested they might buy a dog, ‘Pets are an awful tie, and they ruin one’s home.’ He agreed that this home and these comforts were what he had always wanted. Yet, as he approached forty, he began having bad dreams, and the dreams were of prisons.

One day he said to her, ‘I can understand now why you tried to kill yourself. I mean, I can understand that anyone might want to.’

‘I think we understand each other perfectly in every way,’ she said. ‘But don’t let’s talk about it. I’ll never attempt it again.’

‘And I’m not the suicidal type, am I?’

‘You?’ She wasn’t alarmed, she didn’t take him seriously, never thought of him at all as a person except in relation to herself. At once he reproached himself. Lydia? Lydia, who had given over her whole life to him, who put his every need and wish before her own? ‘You wouldn’t have any reason to,’ she said gaily. ‘You know you’re loved. Besides, I should rescue you in time, just like you rescued me.’

His company had expanded and they were planning to open an office in Melbourne. After he had denied hotly that his wife was an invalid, that there was ‘some little trouble’ with his wife, the chairman offered him the chance of going to Australia for three months to get the new branch on its feet. Again he didn’t hesitate. He accepted. The firm would, of course, pay for his trip. He was working out, as he entered his house, how much Lydia’s air fare to Melbourne, her board in an hotel, her expenses, would amount to. Suicidal thoughts retreated. He could do it, he could just do it. Three months away, he thought, in a new country, meeting new people, and at the end of it, praise for his work and maybe an increase in salary.