An endless list with virtually no achievement potential. That thought made me smile. No time for smiling, I said to myself. Get out of this place as quickly as possible. But try and walk with decorum. Footsteps approached me.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What’s the rush?’

‘You?’

‘Sure is.’ He opened his arms for me, but I swerved to the right and managed to open the door of my office before he touched me. I pulled him inside.

‘We must never do that again,’ he said. Then he kissed me.

‘What?’ I asked, when I had disentangled myself and picked all my papers up from the floor.

‘Leave each other.’

‘I didn’t leave you. You abandoned me.’

‘Yes.’

‘For ten days. No word.’

‘Yes. Forgive me.’

He pulled me so hard against him that I could barely breathe.

‘Forgive me.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Forgive me.’

I shook my head.

‘Darling, I told you I would be away for a week.’

‘No word.’

‘I couldn’t. I promise you. She was like a bird of prey, watching me all the time. I am a coward, I know I am. Forgive me for my cowardice at least.’

‘Spend tonight with me.’

He let go of me and took a couple of steps towards the window. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more …’

Then why not? I thought in my head. Why fucking not?

‘Yes. I’ll do that.’ He turned and threw his arms around me again and we danced a little dance. ‘Yes. I’ll have to run now though. I’ll be back in about an hour. I really will.’ He kissed the side of my neck and was away out the door before I could say a word.

Gioir.

I find I get so tired when I write about him. The truth makes my hands heavy.

I ask myself why I still see our meetings touched by this heightened light, like the sun in the street earlier, making plain ordinary objects – houses, trees, motor cars – seem unearthly for a few moments, only for a few moments, and then reality asserts itself again. I know that when I come to write this book, breathe life into my notes, that I will have to address the realities of my relationship with James. I cannot believe that I cut myself off wantonly from life and lived for week after week in this bamboozlement of romantic love.

I must stop writing gioir, for a start.

Anyway it was pissing rain when I got out into the street, big drops that burst when they hit you and seemed to bounce up from the pavement, so that you were being attacked by water from all directions. I ran and skidded and had to wait impatiently at each red light, so by the time I reached the safety of my own front door I was drenched. I had bought neither flowers nor food and I had a slight nagging pain near the base of my back. I opened the glass door to the garden and let the fresh damp air clear out the stuffiness. I put clean sheets on the bed and tidied up the bathroom and then stepped into the shower and let the hot water run at full force down over my head and shoulders, beating away anxiety.