‘Go on,’ he said, ‘you’re mine, remember, do as you’re told.’ He pushed me gently onto my back and began to place my limbs, straightening my legs and tucking my arms in to either side of my torso. No sooner had he arranged me than a convulsion of laughter welled up in me and I snorted and suddenly he was laughing too, and I creased out of the position he had placed me in so carefully and rolled on my side and he shoved at me and said, ‘Fuck’s sake, Cupcake, you make a useless corpse! So much for doing as you’re told!’

‘Oi!’ I said, and rolled on top of him.

And we had sex, normally then, just a man and a woman in their thirties making love, taking it in turns to come, holding each other afterwards, and as we held each other I thought, thank God. And then I thought, I mustn’t get paranoid just because of the phone stuff and the checking up on me. Isn’t it quite sweet, really, that he cares? I mustn’t get paranoid about everything.

14

It was a Sunday, roast lunch at my parents’ house – on my own; Matty was doing an A & E shift at the hospital and had left the flat before dawn. My parents and I had spent most of the meal discussing his new role in the Fracture Clinic and what was the next step for him, whether he might continue in orthopaedics or move over to anaesthesia. My parents loved Matty’s job, of course, and I had wondered, more than once, if there was an element of them feeling that having a doctor for a son-in-law would come in handy as they aged. Matty was the hard-working, middle-class boy they had always dreamed of for me. His father was also a doctor. His mother threw pots and was a part-time magistrate. There was a sister at the BBC. He had even grown up in Surrey. What more could they have wanted?

I had yet to meet Matty’s parents – our cohabitation was still relatively recent, after all. I was wondering whether we would go down to Surrey over Christmas but that would all depend on Matty’s work commitments.