I was thinking of this and watching the television at the same time, trying to warn myself about the loss that I had already accepted, when David returned. I had been expecting him to come back. I used to think he had real rage in him, but after a year or two I found that he did not rage, he sulked. Although enjoyment might keep him out all night, hunger, annoyance or misery always drove him home. He came in now, his head down and his hands in his jacket pockets, that sombre, jutting look on his features: a look I had seen so often, on the screen, in publicity photographs, and across the breakfast table, a look that used to fill me with delightful terror, to make my knees weak and the hair bristle on my scalp, and that now merely wearily braced me to hours of saddened combat. He sat down on the Chesterfield without taking off his jacket: it was a cold night. I did not speak, though I looked at him and nodded my head as a concession to his appearance. I was not going to be the one to speak first; I hoped that he might be overcome with penitence, and that he would immediately recant his sentence on the next year of my life.

We sat there for two minutes or so in silence: I had reverted my gaze to the television and to my book, and he was staring gloomily at the carpet. As he continued not to speak, I wondered if he was noticing the patch where Flora had spilled her cocoa earlier in the day; I did not think so, it was I that noticed such things. And when he did finally break our quiet interlocking, I realized that the carpet was far from his thoughts, as indeed was the subject that he broached.

“What are we going to have for supper then?” he said.

“Whatever you like,” I said.

“Does that mean you haven’t got anything?” he said, and without waiting for a reply he went on: “And for God’s sake, switch the fire on, it’s freezing in here. Why you have to sit in the cold all night I can’t imagine.”

I bent down and switched on the electric fire. “I’m used to the cold,” I said smugly, to annoy. I am always vaunting over everyone, particularly over Dave, with his rugged pretensions, my capacity for endurance. I then continued, “You can have what you like for supper, eggs and bacon, chops, spaghetti, sausages. You can have whatever you want. Just tell me what you want and I’ll go and do it.”

“I know you don’t want to go,” he said. “You’re watching that programme, aren’t you?”

“Not really,” I said. “Only because it happens to be on. Just tell me what you want and I’ll go and cook it for you.”