And what I replied, because I was Barney and not that other person, was ‘It is, it is.’

‘I can tell you it’s not true if you want me to.’

‘Tell me it’s not true.’

‘It’s not –’

‘Stop!’

‘All right, then I can tell you that it is –’

‘Don’t tell me!’

‘Barney,’ said Sharon, taking her breast back and swinging out of bed, though she could very nearly have done that in the opposite order, ‘I’m going downstairs to make myself a cup of tea. I’d appreciate it if you could be asleep when I get back.’

‘While you’re down there I’d like a strawberry milkshake,’ I called after her, but she’d gone.

She returned in half an hour to find the bedroom lights off and me flat on my pillow once more, snoring lightly. She pottered about for a few minutes in the blackness, performing as by instinct her necessary bedtime tasks. Then she sighed and crept noiselessly under the blankets, where I was waiting for her. It wasn’t an attack. I wasn’t brutal. I simply nosed towards her, mole-small, mole-blind, and burrowed into her dark and secret places.

‘Pretend it’s him,’ I whispered into them. ‘Pretend I’m him.’

‘Barney!’

‘I’m not Barney, Sharon, I’m Fitz.’

‘Barney, stop that!’

‘Call me Fitz, Sharon.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Of course you can. Say, “Fitz darling!”’

Sharon took a deep breath. Whatever else she could or couldn’t say, she couldn’t say her mother hadn’t warned her. Unequivocally. At all times, Sharon, I promise you, and from all angles and for no reason. So Sharon said ‘Fitz darling,’ as if it were one word.

Which wasn’t good enough for me. ‘Jesus, Sharon,’ I complained, ‘could you put a bit of feeling into it!’

‘Fitzdarling,’ she said again.

‘No, no. Look, it’s not the name of an Irish settlement in the Australian outback. You’re supposed to be addressing someone. Intimately.’

‘I can’t believe this. I’m being given drama and elocution lessons in my own bed at two o’clock in the morning. Barney, I’m tired.’

‘Just try it one more time.’

‘Fitz darling. Oh, Fitz darling!’

‘That’s much better. Now say, “Fuck me, Fitz!”’

‘Barney, no!’

‘Say it, Sharon.’

‘Barney, why do you want this?’

I was very still. Whyever I wanted this, it wasn’t for the exercise. And anyway, what did my wants have to do with anything? ‘It’s not me that wants it, Sharon,’ I reproved her. ‘It’s you. You know you do.’

She could easily see where that was going to lead her. She swallowed hard. ‘Fuck me, Fitz,’ she said at last, for decency’s sake.

[4]

But she lacked conviction. As an invitation it sounded about as enticing as ‘Kiss me Hardy’.

Chapter V

CHAPTER V

[1]