‘Michael, listen to me. You are throwing something away here. Have you any idea how much upset you’re causing, to both of us?’

He nearly said it.

He nearly said, ‘But I just can’t talk to you. What I have to say isn’t worth saying, but I still can’t say it – and I do want to be with you, sometimes. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, when I ache – but that isn’t a good enough reason, Amy. I can’t talk to you!’

He had one hand over his face.

He held the phone away, and the voice became a furious buzzing that he knew he had to endure until she grew tired, or realised there was no reaction to be had. The assault would be over, probably soon: Amy needed to savage him, and Michael would sit there in silence, offering a handful of safe and meaningless words. The apparatus of lies was collapsing, and they were free of one another. They were both happier, ultimately, and definitely less doomed.

‘I just can’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes. So terribly, terribly sorry.’

That had triggered more scorn and more rage. Eventually, Amy used up her fuel and the anger faded to tired, bitter contempt. Michael had listened, thinking how simple it was to move to the next phase of the relationship: total separation and wounded silence. That was what he’d been longing for, perhaps: silence was what he most wanted – and solitude of course.

But he had made love to her.

On every occasion he had done so with his eyes closed, and he knew what he’d been doing: he’d been trying to imagine she was someone else, which was the most appalling admission and it made him go cold to think of it. He wondered whom she had been imagining, for the idea of her finding him attractive or desirable in any erotic sense seemed ludicrous. They had met at an amateur choir, and held each other out of fear – two ugly, lonely people. Surely they’d both had their eyes closed, terrified that not making love would be an admission that something was fundamentally wrong. That was what normal people did, after all: they went to bed and fucked, and that was the playground word. It still swung like an axe: ‘Fuck me. Fuck you, you worthless fucker.’

‘Hey, Michael?’

‘What?’

‘Fuck off.’

He was clenching his teeth, and there was yet another announcement, breaking in and scattering his thoughts. It was a woman’s voice this time, and she was talking to him, slowly, word by careful word as if he was a child of five.

‘Report anything suspicious…’

He would, of course – why wouldn’t he?