Two hours passed. At last, I said, “Now I really must get going. I should let you get on.”

“What about you?” she said. She was shaking her head. “I feel as though I’m coming round from a dream. What have we been doing together?”

I went over to the table on which sat a stereo system and a pile of CDs.

“Can I play a tune?”

She said, “Oh, tell me, why did you ask me all those questions?”

“Did they bother you?”

“No, the opposite. They stimulated me … they made me think …”

“I’m interested in the past. I am thinking of becoming a medieval historian.”

“Oh. Very good.” She added, “But what you asked was personal, not historical. You are a curious young man, indeed.”

“Something happened to me,” I said. “I was changed by something. I …”

She waited for me to continue, but I stopped myself. Sometimes there’s nothing worse than a secret, sometimes there’s nothing worse than the truth.

She said, “What happened?”

“No. My girlfriend is waiting for me down the street.”

I put on my wife’s favorite record. I kissed her hands and felt her body against mine as we danced. I knew where to put my hands. In my mind, her shape fitted mine. I didn’t want it to end. Her face was eternity enough for me. Her lips brushed mine and her breath went into my body. For a second, I kissed her. Her eyes followed mine, but I could not look at her. If I was surprised by the seducibility of my wife, I was also shocked by how forgettable, or how disposable, I seemed to be. For years, as children, our parents have us believe they could not live without us. This necessity, however, never applies in the same way again, though perhaps we cannot stop looking for it.

At the door, my wife said, “Will you come for tea again?”

“I know where you are,” I replied. “I don’t see why not.”

“We could go to an exhibition.”

“Yes.”

I said goodbye and reluctantly left my own house. Margot had placed a bag of rubbish outside the front door, ready to be taken to the dustbins. I was annoyed my boy hadn’t done it; he must have had his hands full, carrying my laptop.

I took the rubbish around to the side of the house. From where I stood, through a hole in the fence, I could see the street. There was a car double-parked on the other side of the road, with two men in it. It was a narrow street and irritable drivers were backed up behind the car. Why didn’t they move on? Because the men in the car were watching the house.