I rise and leave her, knowing it’ll be ten minutes before she’ll move. But when I come back from the bathroom she’s standing there in her winter nightie. Her hair is still in waves, but they’re all in the wrong place, as if she’s wearing a wig and it’s slipped. There’s a big patch of mottled red on her chest where the cotton has made its imprint.

On our wedding night she wore a very different nightie. It was all layers of stuff, a bit see-through, short, well above her knees. But it hung there as if it wasn’t on her body at all, as if she’d just stepped into a tepee made of nylon. ‘What’s that you’re wearing,’ I said, smiling, wishing I could see more of her lovely curves. At the power station Christmas parties I knew the other men were watching her, their eyes following her movements; some of them even looked slightly scared if she spoke to them, I noticed that. They would lean towards her to catch her voice. They patted other women on the hips, shouted things out as they passed, but with Kathryn it wasn’t like that. Even her hair seemed curvy to me, and her eyelashes, the way they swept up off her cheeks just as women’s eyelashes are supposed to. I never saw any other girl with eyelashes like Kathryn’s, except at the pictures. On our wedding night she touched a layer of nylon and gave me a twirl. ‘It’s a powder blue negligee,’ she said. ‘Can’t you tell?’ And she lifted up the hem and laughed.

I reach out and hold her elbow for a moment, but she doesn’t make a sound; she just stands there, waiting for me to let go. I release her and she walks past me, out of the door. Then I hear water running in the bathroom.

When she comes back her face looks a little pinker so I ask her, ‘What’ll you wear?’

She looks up at me with clouded eyes. I lean forward and press my forehead to hers. The tip of her nose is cold against my cheek.

‘What’ll you wear, Kathryn?’

‘Anything. Anything.’ She lets her weight fall against me.

I sit her down on the bed. ‘Right then, let’s have a look.’ I go through her whole rail, my fingers trailing over dresses, skirts, blouses, and there’s nothing black. I pull out every drawer and pick through the folded corners of her knitwear, and there’s nothing black. Plenty of brown, and quite a bit of blue, but no black. I think it best not to say anything. Instead I select a dark brown pleated skirt and a navy blue jumper.

‘This is nice,’ I say, laying it all out on the bed beside her. She stares at the skirt but doesn’t move.

‘Come on, Kathryn. Let’s get that nightie off.’

I wait a few moments, in case she stirs.

She lets me hook the hem of the nightie round my fingers and lift it up to her thighs, and when I say, ‘Lift your bottom up for me,’ she does so. She sits there naked on the bed, her arms clutched round her waist. The skin on her forearms hangs. In the half-light of the bedroom I can see the curves are still there; a little wilted, but still there.