This horrible end hadn’t always been inevitable. There had been plenty of moments along the way at which anyone would have looked in at James’s life from the outside and said: yes, this guy is doing well. Is set up nicely. He thought back to that first Christmas living with Michaela, the place done out in an incredible number of lights because Michaela turned out to be one of these people who treated Christmas as if it only came round once every hundred years. In fact James had made a joke to that effect, sweating through his shirt as they wrestled the Christmas tree through a hallway which was already a festive Aladdin’s cave: reindeer antlers on the coat hooks, a plastic Santa hiding like a mugger behind the bathroom door. ‘You do … er, you do realize,’ he panted, ‘by the time we’ve got all this down, it will be Christmas all over again?’

‘Perfect,’ said Michaela, ‘we’ll just leave it up, then.’

James laughed out loud; he knew she was only three-quarters joking. He’d heard about people having ‘infectious energy’, but never lived it until now: never before felt that energy flow out of somebody into him. It was just easier to do everything when she was there. He could run further than he thought. He found he was fully awake, anticipating the day, as soon as he opened his eyes. Every appointment, every future prospect was rosier in the mind if he pictured it with Michaela there. It seemed too good to be true that she should get the same daily boost out of being with him. But for that longish period he’d started to believe that things could, indeed, be as good as you wanted them to be.

‘We’ll end up being those people who act like it’s Christmas every day,’ he said, kissing her on top of her head. ‘We’ll be on a documentary on Channel Five.’

‘Please,’ said Michaela. ‘Channel Four at least. Ideally I’d hold out for Theroux. Here, these are going under the tree. Three for you, one –’ she tapped a little tissue-paper parcel – ‘for your phone.’

‘For my phone?’

‘It’s an umbrella. The slightest bit of water. I stole it from an Eighties cocktail night.’

‘Don’t you ever wish I was funny, like you?’ asked James that evening. ‘Or just – you know, just, er. Be the person at the party who is actually funny?’

‘You’re funny! That story you told at Karl’s party …’