‘So all I have to do now,’ I said, ‘is make the move.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘You’re killing this stone dead,’ she said.

But she did not get up from the ledge. She did not leave my side. She allowed the silence to swell and fill out again. Now birdsong taunted from the direction of Bishop Lucey Park. What if I left it to her to make the move? Procreation would end and the world would stop spinning.

The birdsong rose up now and strung its notes along the rooftops and linked them in a jagged line, the rise and fall of the steeples and chimneys was as though a musical notation. There was dead quiet from the flat inside. The last awake, we had the morning to ourselves.

‘I really like you,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ she said.

‘I mean really really.’

So very hard to put the words out but they were on the air and at their work now. I turned to look at her and she turned but to look away. I saw that a flush had risen to her cheek. The perfect knit of her collarbone as it turned, and flawless brown from a good June the smooth curve of the shoulder. Like rounded stone made smooth by water. It was as if my words had just flown up into the white sky above and softly imploded there, as if an answer was not needed.

‘Okay,’ I said.

This meant everything. All of summer would be coloured by this. She did not seem to breathe then. I kept my eyes fixed on her, as she looked anywhere but at me, and I counted the seconds away as she did not turn to face me.

In my evil dreams I had seen myself approach her with lascivious intent – with a cold thin cruel sexual mouth just parted slight-ways – and I went deep then to find a way to make this suave magic come real. Still, something in her presence unmanned me; perhaps it was the sense that I was aiming too high. She was really quite beautiful.

‘Turn to me,’ I said.

She laughed but it was only a tiny laugh and it had the trace of shock in it – I was forceful now out of nowhere.

And she turned to me.

I leaned in without pause – I did not allow the words to jumble up in my head and forbid me – and I placed my lips on hers.

She responded well enough – the opening of the lips was made, our jawbones worked slowly and devoutly, but … we did not ascend to the heavens; the kiss did not take.

After I don’t know how long – maybe half a minute, maybe a little more – she placed very lightly on my chest the tips of her fingers and the tiny pressure she applied there told me it was over, already, the pressure was of a fuse that fed directly from her heart. Gently so with her fingertips she pushed me back to break the kiss.