I’d sat on the bed trying to focus on Jekyll and Hyde, getting into it before throwing it down at turns, then searching through Sarah’s bags and drawers to see if there was something else, anything else, I could learn about her.

Rummaging, riffling – a text from Josh: Brother, how are you? Mel’s just dumped me

Oh no. I should reply, would do it later.

Had Sarah written any love letters? Her latest dream journal, the one the kids had got her. The last dream, recorded a week earlier: I’m on a boat. A sea creature swims up beneath me, its head emerging from the … The one before that: I’m doing the can-can. People are holding up score cards. Girl (younger me?) smiling in the audience, applauding. I can do this!!! The one before that … I’d lost my patience, put the journal back, heard Sarah and Zac laughing in the living room, sat on the bed with my back against the wall, closed my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, tried to meditate.

Ommm. The air flowing in and out of my nostrils. I had to stop trying to project-manage my relationships. My itchy hands, forget them, keep your fingers in your ears. You control nothing, mate, not even your panic. Ommm. Your sadness. There’s nothing in your mind but peace, love and …

Sarah – there she was, weightless, wavy, a spectre. Do you still love me, Chris? Even after all of this hurt? This confusion? Yeah, I do, I said, my lips not moving. I just want you to want me like you used to, that’s all.

Biddy, fluttering, just as ghostly. Do you love me, Chris? Yes, I love you, unholy likeness of Biddy. Of course I do. You mean the world to me. My father was gone before I knew it, my mother before I wanted it, my wife whenever she feels like it.

The kids and Biddy were my anchor loves; the others were disinterested or dead. But not Sarah, not really – she still loved me, wanted me, in her own way, a pretty weird way, but she loved me, that’s how it felt.

Zac had told me she’d dreamt of me dying in a kitchen accident and felt terrible but also relieved. He’d begged me not to say anything.

Sarah – her spectre was retreating. Don’t go, Sarah, I –

Laughter from the living room.

I’d bashed my nuts climbing out of the bedroom window, walked around the park kicking stones and snapping branches, feigned happiness when I got the kids from school. Knowing that the day, my day to myself, had been sabotaged. Knowing that tomorrow was Biddy’s turn, her pound of flesh.

My brain and mouth had largely quit, with only vital services still operating. The food arrived – Oh, look at that, one taco for me, four for Sarah, her red wine, my glass of tap water.