‘“You’re not happy either,” he said. Of course I wasn’t happy. Who is, Dr. R? But we keep the peace, don’t we? We don’t say it. We struggle on with the hope that one day we might wake up and be happy. I had got so used to my own unhappiness, I had accepted it. I was doing what I could to tolerate it: I was taking my pills, I was trying to organize help for my parents, I loved my children, I opened a nice bottle of wine in the evenings, Ness and I went on long walks in the park, I looked for respite where I could. And look at me! There I was, sitting in my giant comfortable bed in my beautiful house, with two healthy children downstairs – what right did I have to be unhappy?

‘“You’re wrong,” I said to him, “I am happy.” I was in denial. I watched him as he got up to shut the bedroom door, running a hand through his messy thick hair. His naked body in all its slackening middle-aged glory was as familiar to me as my own – more so; I could see the back of his, knew every angle. He put on his shabby blue dressing gown and sat down at the end of the bed facing me, his balls resting snugly on the duvet like one of those peculiar hairless cats.

‘“We’re just like everyone else, Karl,” I said. “Well, I don’t want to be like everyone else,” he said, reaching out to take my hand in his, squeezing it. I felt my heart contract with alarm; I had no idea where this was going. He was looking pained, anxious, as if this wasn’t easy for him to say, but he’d clearly been thinking about it for some time. This was prepared, this little speech. “You and I, I feel like we’re not living any more, we’re just existing . . .” He paused to let me take this in. “Don’t you miss . . . passion in your life?”

‘Well, I did miss passion, Dr. Robinson. I did indeed. But I was willing to sacrifice it for security. Just like you do, just like most of us do. But I thought I understood these worrisome words, what he was trying to tell me was that we had once been free spirits. And somehow we had caged ourselves. “You’re an artist, Con!” he said.’