Her words did not register until I had returned to the kitchen to make myself a pot of tea. I sat down suddenly, the packet of Earl Grey dropping from my hand to the floor.

It still hurt; and the only reason for it not hurting more was not that I was living with Norah, but that I was for the time being, alone. I tried to think of the three children Norah would have; I could not see their faces but for a moment had a clear picture of us both in a great bustle of happiness with voices floating in from a large garden. A large house, I thought, holding on to the picture, a large house in the country; an old house. Like the one in Pudney Lane, a house in which there’d be room to breathe. Remembering the house in Pudney Lane, I remem­bered Barbara.

If the definition of an enemy was someone who by their very existence caused one grief and humiliation, then she was my enemy. But I could not think of her otherwise than with love; it was too late to break the habit.

I picked up the packet of tea. Filling the kettle, I gave way to love, I let myself remember her, I let myself be, wearing as I was the fuzzy dressing-gown, the warm giant. It was as if the flat were illumined, it was as if, ugly as it was, nothing in it had been chosen by a stranger. And as I drank the tea with its familiar aro­matic taste – oranges, lemons, spices, smoke – the sensation of her actual physical presence became more and more real. She was next door, sleeping late with her panda or her poodle; I would finish my cup of tea and set out her breakfast. Cornflakes, cheese, orange juice; and there was a jar of strawberry flavoured yoghurt in the refrigerator. And after breakfast I’d take her to the Zoo. She’d never been to a zoo, though she knew most of the animals.

I took my cup of tea into the living annexe. There was no one there; I had known there would be no one there. And now I was alone in a furnished flat in Earl’s Court with a yellow mist licking the dirty windows. The divan bed was unmade, the faded green carpet and the cracked grey lino were unswept; but even when the bed was made, even when the floor was swept, the room would be no different. And the dust would settle again, and the fawn three piece suite would grow a little mangier, the floorboards would creak a little louder, the patch of damp over the pelmet would grow larger; and no one would care because no one lived here and no one had ever lived here.