‘Right,’ I say, not wanting to upset him. He can be very volatile. I am the adult where the children are concerned, obviously. And I must behave like the adult and take their anger on the chin. I know I’ve been an embarrassment to them. It’s the most horrible thing in the world hearing how your own kids hate you; it’s like trying to digest razor blades.

‘I don’t know if I’m going to come again either,’ he says. I am very surprised to hear him say this. Despite everything, he is fiercely loyal. I worry that something is seriously wrong, something that he isn’t telling me. I get up and cross the room to join him. His eyes flick from my hair to my throat to my eyes. He looks at my eyes, not in them.

I stop just in front of him. He’s welled up. ‘Why?’ he says. His voice is so weak, his energy so drained, I feel for him, although I am deeply bored by the crying. He has never understood how his own self-pity shrivels mine. I don’t really know what to do, how to help him, but I make an effort. I put my arms around him. He flinches a little, and then slumps a touch. He lets me hold him. He really does smell good.

‘I wish I’d never met you,’ he says. ‘I wish I’d never laid eyes on you.’

I’m aware that this doesn’t sound romantic but in its own way, it is. He is telling me how entirely we know each other. You only ever get to really know your partner when you’re splitting up from them. Rage is good; it’s necessary for the wrenching apart and there can be no separation without blood spilt, without pain – we both know this. Only then do you see the person in their entirety. Desperation, fear: they make us strange and ugly. We have seen each other’s ugliness but look! He is still here with me! You know, if you’re even remotely kind, you can end up right back where you started: liking this person a lot.

Karl is a kind man. Despite everything, he is a good man. I hold his hand and squeeze his fingers.

‘I brought you some things,’ he says eventually, unlinking his fingers from mine, getting busy, rifling through a paper bag. He pulls out a Twix and a pile of books and some crap magazines. He always buys me crap magazines. I have never been a reader of them but he has always bought them for me. It used to be a joke and then it became a habit. There are no jokes now.