He listens to her. He doesn’t mind listening to her. Indeed, the angrier she gets, the more peaceful he feels. Something very beautiful is happening. Whatever she is saying – and the words are as meaningful as bright washes of colour – it is taking him to an extraordinary place in his head. It feels as if the external world has dissolved and everything that is him, the conscious thinking centre of him, is floating deep inside his own mind, bathed in a warm white light. The more she speaks, the more beautiful the sensation. Now she is shouting, and even though he must hold the receiver slightly away from his ear, because of the jarring sensation on his eardrum, she invokes in him such a powerful sense of peace, such a beautiful nothing, that he hopes she might go on swearing at him forever, for he has never, even after sex, felt so deliciously satiated…

And then she is gone, the line buzzing. The intensity subsides. It is followed by a pulsing afterglow which he imagines might be guilt, or some other muffled emotion, failing to assert itself.

He replaces the receiver and tips back in his chair, overcome by the experience. He is still not quite in his own body, and observes himself breathing. There is something about phone conversations with Gabrielle Salmon that are always – always! – like sex. Now he supposes there will be no more of them. Yet he wonders if he might find a way to experience that sensation again. It is hard to provoke Jules. The things that would make another woman angry tend to make her quiet. But there is a whole world of people out there who might shout at him, given the opportunity. People right on the edge of themselves, ready to explode at an aggravating stranger. But you told her you’d wean yourself off, cut down the dose.

Yes, if you lie to her, and she finds out, maybe she’ll be angry.

For some reason he can’t understand, he is getting an erection.

Julesh! he calls. It was so spontaneous, he is shocked at the sound of her name on the air. But her footsteps are coming up the stairs. She pushes the door open.

What is it? she asks. Are you all right?

Now, of course, he doesn’t know how to broach it.

I’ve been finking, he says, dumbed by the deadness of his tongue. I dough gno if I can come off fer Anersheen.

He notices how different she looks, standing there in the doorway. She doesn’t look like his wife. She is lit from within.

Ish that a gnew top? he asks.

No, she says, and something in her reply washes him blank again. He wishes he knew what it was. You’re going to stay on it, then? she asks.

He struggles to recapture the thread of his thought.

The Anesthine, she says. You’re going to stay on it?