We weren’t all that hungry but I made us toasted sandwiches and while we ate them, I talked through what I had seen of the accident, how I felt, wanting to replay the incident the way people do, as if to get the story straight, cement it into anecdote. Matthew indulged me, nodding and adding the odd phrase, but I sensed his heart wasn’t in it. Perhaps he thought I was milking it a bit. It was pretty minor, after all, in comparison with what happened in his world. Nobody had died; Mum and I were okay; the other driver had severe whiplash and his car was a write-off. The fate of Matty’s car was yet to be decided.

We took a glass of wine each over to the sofa and, while he slumped down and picked up the television remote, I went back to the kitchen to make tea to go with the wine. By the time I returned, Matty was asleep with a slight frown on his face, lying backwards at an awkward angle, one leg hanging off the sofa, foot on the floor. His glass of wine was on the floor and I went over, picked it up and put it on a coaster on the coffee table. I sat down in the armchair opposite and watched him sleep. As I did, I felt I was seeing his job in A & E through fresh eyes, the adrenaline of it, and I saw how it must be when that drained away later, when his blood quietened again. As I sat there, on that armchair, while an antiques show played in the background with the sound off, I resolved to be more understanding.

Was it really a desire for understanding on my part – or the less noble thought that came out of that afternoon’s small incident: if something happens, this man can look after me? How deep that goes in our DNA, how seductive it is – is there a woman alive who hasn’t known since she was a small girl that there are things and people out there that can hurt her? The thought of handing over responsibility for our personal safety – isn’t it just so hard, in our tired and teary moments, not to want that? We all get exhausted, from time to time, men and women both, we all have our moments of weakness – and don’t men have their own equivalent, like the moment when Matty had laid his head on my shoulder as I let us into the building after our night at Spaghettini? What was that, if not a desire to abdicate, momentarily at least?