He had his first bout of serious depression and anxiety after they had been together for only six months, Clarissa was able to help him through that. They had been together for twelve months when they went to the registry office, with Amy as the witness, and got married, not bothering to tell his mother – she was living in her own oblivion in Birmingham – but telling his father, who was living in his own private hell in Los Angeles. A hell that at that time Ever was unaware of in its full context, thinking his father was painting and still able to live off the amount, he had understood to be substantial, which had been paid for his catalogue of work by the art collector Ingmar Lorken.

But he had sensed a break in the man: broken by Lorken.

Something that had gone from him; his need to tell Ever the details of his days had gone. The closeness was breaking apart. More crumbling.

*

Clarissa’s parents had come down from Liverpool for the wedding. They were as fun and charming and easy-going as always and they expected nothing from life. Ever was a little jealous of the bond that Clarissa had with her parents; the pride that they showed in her achievements. They seemed to be just happy, as everything that happened they took with gratitude, turned the bad around into good, one way or another.

That was something else Ever envied; he felt a stranger wherever he was: home was a place he had never had the comfort of recognising.

He reflected, looking along the perfect line of cypress trees, that it was because he never told anyone about his actions or his thoughts, mostly because he felt they were his business, but partly because he was genuinely ashamed. He felt that this contributed to the lack, of whatever it was in his relationship, but it was a lack, because he could never truly be known for who he really was. After all, he didn’t know who to present as himself.

Who was he?

In a way Clarissa really had married an ethereal alien being.

That made him smile.

He lived a series of secrets.

He even lied to his therapist and found out early on that he could really say anything he wanted; the therapist, when he suggested to her that he could just talk rubbish, said that they were trained to see through that, but he knew she wasn’t. He could project a mood or a state that she would entirely believe, not that it was helping him, but he liked the idea of being able to manipulate people who thought they were manipulating him. Cleverer than him: like his wife.

Ever was convinced he would be the one to struggle first in both his job and his marriage; his increasing bouts of depression made both become harder and he developed a disenchantment.