Not any more. A bite of toast. Two dark purple globes kamikaze to the plate. She chews, swallows. I know, it must seem strange. Six months ago I wouldn’t have believed it myself. I mean, I can still see him swinging there. It just doesn’t have any feelings attached to it any more. The memory is further away, fuzzy, black and white, like an old film of something that was never anything to do with me. She scoops the two escaped blackcurrants back onto the toast and chomps off another corner.

You were the one who found him?

Chew, swallow, slurp of tea.

Yup. Bad planning, eh? I guess he didn’t think through to the discovery, and who would be traumatized. I suppose if you’re about to do yourself in, you’re not rational.

Logan butters his own toast with the care and precision of a carpet layer. Each thin curl of butter unrolled into its place and pressed down.

So what happened? he asks. What did you do?

Went into shock, she says. Closed down. For about twenty years, if I’m honest.

It seems to Logan she is always honest.

And it affected you how?

Nightmares. Flashbacks. An intense interest in neurology and the afterlife. She pops a final piece of toast into her mouth like a full stop. Then remembers something else, and says, toastily, Oh, and a massive, massive fear of abandonment. Which made me rubbish in relationships. She swallows, licks her fingers and grins.

And now?

All gone! she says cheerily, mimicking the tone of a mother to her toddler after the last spoonful of puréed fruit. Logan isn’t sure if she means the toast, the fear, or the relationships.

All gone because of…

She fills the gap left for her answer with a dipped head, raised eyebrows, widened ‘you know’ eyes.

The process? he ventures.

Dr Salmon leaps up. Shall I make more tea?

Logan nods and reaches for the Duerr’s thin-sliced marmalade he had to fetch, separately, from the cupboard. He has been eating the same marmalade for twenty-three years. Astonishing how his wife failed to put out the marmalade, but furnished the table with a bowl of sugar lumps, which he bought by mistake six months ago from the village shop.

So how is that possible? he asks.

Distracted by tea-making, What?

That this process of yours could just— Not understanding what it’s done, he isn’t sure how to finish.

I don’t know, she says. But I intend to spend the next few years finding out.

Logan spreads the marmalade squarely, to the border of the crusts, no further.

Did you try talk therapy of any kind?

She laughs. Oh yes, I’ve had plenty of abominably expensive chats. Sorry, it’s your business, isn’t it? She returns to the table with the chrome globe, full and hot, pours both of them a fresh cup.