“I needed a lift home from Central London late at night. He told me to get a cab—he couldn’t be bothered to get dressed and come out. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t afford a cab, but he’d always been happy to give me lifts before. I thought, ‘So, that’s it, then. You care about me less tonight than you did last time I needed a ride home. The golden age is over.’ And, frankly, who wants to bother with the dull beige age, which is where all marriages can’t help ending up, however hard they try.”

“But . . . Damon Blundy attacked you week after week, in his column,” said Simon. “Didn’t that hurt?”

“Ah.” Paula closed her eyes for a few seconds. “Yes, it did. But you see, with Damon things moved in the opposite direction, the best direction, always. He hurt me first, before he knew me. Then he met me and fell in love with me and . . . well, to use my colors metaphor again, it went from black to gold. For him, it was like that too—I loathed him and then I forgave him: black to gold. And so . . . we did it over and over again: savaged each other publicly, as hurtfully as we could, then made up for it later in private. When the person you love cures the pain they caused by being as loving as they were hateful, it’s an incredible high. The love wouldn’t be anywhere near as powerful if it weren’t the longed-for antidote to the hate. Like having a can of Coke after a long and thirsty game of tennis. Tastes better than any other can of Coke you’ve ever had. Marriage, by contrast, is like starting with a fizzy can of Coke and waiting around while it gets flatter and flatter.”

Simon nodded. Romantic sadism. An intimate, intense agony that only the loved one could take away. Ought he to worry about how easily he understood it, how little Paula’s explanation fazed him?

“So what were the criteria?” he asked. “For . . . spouses?”

“Oh yes, the good-deed part of our plan,” said Paula.

Good deed? Simon waited. It struck him as unlikely that Paula and Damon Blundy’s conspiracy would have an altruistic strand to it, but he decided to keep an open mind.