They went to eat Indian at the Malabar restaurant at the back of the now closed Coronet Cinema in Notting Hill. That was their first official, evening date. He smiled recalling that they ate so much food and drank so much beer he had to take a piss twice on the walk back to Oxford Gardens where she lived; then Clarissa was also forced to piss. So by the time they reached her flat the intimacy barrier already seemed to be broken. Her flatmate was away and they stayed in bed the whole of the next day, being a Sunday; the physical attraction that they had both felt proved to be unquenchable. They made love and never left each other’s arms for twenty-four hours. She had no embarrassment or shyness about her body, about the pleasure it gave and could receive. And he felt, he remembered, a little embarrassment at first about this physical freedom.

She had a degree in psychology, from Birmingham University, and was now finishing a PhD in addiction counselling. She always talked freely about her previous sexual encounters, something he didn’t want to hear, and her first love, a musician, a classical musician: a violinist and, more stuff he never wanted to hear about, the violinist’s deterioration through addiction. Heroin. So it appeared obvious as to why she pursued the line of work she was in.

The woman had now moved on to a cream that took away dark circles under the eyes, and he could see the difference immediately as they just banged a load more light on her when the cream had been applied. She looked like a blank. No lines, just a couple of eyes that could barely stay open through the glare of light, staring out of a bright, white face.

Clarissa never wore make-up, she was from Liverpool with a strong and determined accent. Kirkby, to be exact, which she always described as a shithole that every year got shittier. That’s town planning for you.

The woman’s neck, however, looked no different, even with the searchlight on her face. He was now looking at her, feeling annoyed, and wondered if anyone else was watching this.

Their parents never met, because of his mother’s complete obliviousness to any world, thought or emotion that wasn’t about her, and his father was living in Los Angeles, and, Ever thought at the time, doing fine: painting. No, please don’t go there, don’t punish me with that guilt pain as well…

He was talking to his grey cells, which rarely listened to his instructions, which was why he was trying to occupy half of them with face-tightening creams, and now, lo and behold, the application of a mascara that must have some special quality, but he didn’t know what, he couldn’t hear anything.