As I was about to close the door, a shadow came towards me. It was Elgin. I didn’t want to invite him in but he was menacing in an unlikely jovial way. My neck prickled like an animal’s. I thought for Louise’s sake I must get it over with.

I gave him a drink and he talked aimlessly until I could bear it no longer. I asked him what he wanted. Was it about the divorce? ‘In a way,’ he said smiling. ‘I think there’s something you should know. Something Louise won’t have told you.’

‘Louise tells me everything,’ I said coldly. ‘As I do her.’

‘Very touching,’ he said watching the ice in his Scotch. ‘Then you won’t be surprised to hear she’s got cancer?’

Two hundred miles from the surface of the earth there is no gravity. The laws of motion are suspended. You could turn somersaults slowly slowly, weight into weightlessness, nowhere to fall. As you lay on your back paddling in space you might notice your feet had fled your head. You are stretching slowly slowly, getting longer, your joints are slipping away from their usual places. There is no connection between your shoulder and your arm. You will break up bone by bone, fractured from who you are, you are drifting away now, the centre cannot hold.

Where am I? There is nothing here I recognise. This isn’t the world I know, the little ship I’ve trimmed and rigged. What is this slow-motion space, my arm moving up and down up and down like a parody of Mussolini? Who is this man with the revolving eyes, his mouth opening like a gas chamber, his words acrid, vile, in my throat and nostrils? The room stinks. The air is bad. He’s poisoning me and I can’t get away. My feet don’t obey me. Where is the familiar ballast of my life? I am fighting helplessly without hope. I grapple but my body slithers away. I want to brace myself against something solid but there’s nothing solid here.

The facts Elgin. The facts.

Leukaemia.

Since when?

About two years.

She’s not ill.

Not yet.

What kind of leukaemia?

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

She looks well.

The patient may have no symptoms for some time.

She’s well.

I took a blood count after her first miscarriage.

Her first?

She was badly anaemic.

I don’t understand.

It’s rare.

She’s not ill.

Her lymph nodes are now enlarged.

Will she die?

They’re rubbery but painless.

Will she die?

Her spleen isn’t enlarged at all. That’s good.

Will she die?

She has too many white T-cells.

Will she die?

That depends.

On what?

On you.

You mean I can look after her?

I mean I can.

Elgin left and I sat under the Christmas tree watching the swinging angels and the barleysugar candles. His plan was simple: if Louise came back to him he would give her the care money can’t buy. She would go with him to Switzerland and have access to the very latest medico-technology. As a patient, no matter how rich, she would not be able to do that. As Elgin’s wife she would.