That had been on December the twenty-eighth. Now it was the twenty-first of February. Nothing had changed how he wanted it to change, though he could not say it hadn’t changed at all. She wouldn’t talk about it. She seemed to want to claim that she had nothing to say; but the problem was itself evidence of a powerful and complicated inner life, one on which he had little purchase, but which he could not help suspecting was somehow within reach. She teased him with it: teased him with the evidence and never the explanation. Of course she said things – she knew she couldn’t get away with saying nothing – but what she said was always beside the point. She would tell him she didn’t not want sex, she just didn’t want it as often as him. She would say that sex was very mental for her, which meant that when she was deep in her research she had no resources to spare. She would say it was emotional, too. If she and David were not communicating well, if she didn’t feel close to him, then it became impossible for her to venture safely into those turbulent affective waters.

During such exchanges, he felt bound to point out to her that if they were not communicating well it was because Claire was refusing to engage in communication. She was talking calmly, even plausibly, and to an outsider this would all sound reasonable, but not to David. He knew, with absolute certainty, that what she was saying was a dodge, and he felt insulted, and told her so. How could she present this stuff about sex being mental and emotional as if she were unusual in that – as if sex were not mental and emotional for him? Did she think he was a robot? A dog?

At some point during this conversation, she would have begun to cry. Her cheeks wet, almost chafed-looking, she would tell him that the birth control pills and the antidepressants she was taking had suppressed her libido and made her breasts sore and caused her to gain weight (not true, in David’s eyes), which made her body feel alien to her, and exacerbated the anxiety she already felt about her nakedness. And, she would add, there was also the basic problem of the flat being cold and damp. She knew he didn’t think it was important, but it was to her. No matter how long the storage heaters had been running, as soon as her skin was exposed to the air it broke out in goosebumps that rendered her unable to appreciate other sensations. All she wanted was to dress herself again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she would weep. ‘I’m not giving you what you want. My body just won’t co-operate.’