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I offered to go right back and expunge all—or all unfavourable—mentions of him. He looked sceptical. I said it would be a distortion, but that I’d do it if it was necessary. I also offered not to mention him any more, except procedurally. I said it was the first time I’d had to make a decision betw…

The nakedness of strangers. Every time I go to the Korean Bathhouse I feel more free. I can gaze at the perfect, and differently perfect, bodies of very young women without envy. May as well envy a tree, or a rock, in its perfect ‘thing itself’-ness. And the older bodies flabby or scrawny—marked …

Everything fine in our bodies, but no emotional contact. No eye contact, no sound, not a word spoken. He turned his head sideways on the pillow so as not to look at me. In a small rush of courage I took hold of his chin and gently turned his head towards me: ‘Hello? Are you there?’ He opened his ey…

I stayed a night with friends at Mona Vale. V wouldn’t come. Ashamed to be sleepless, to be in this much pain. And yet this is life. The toughness of life. People’s utter, bottomless selfishness. This is what people do. The fact that I’ve been faithful to V for ten years has no weight, in the big s…

The morning after the Frenchwoman’s visit, as we walked, he took up his railing against ‘self-obsessed people’. His particular bugbear is people who never ask him questions. I asked him whether he’d always found himself surrounded by such people, or if it was a recent development. ‘Oh, there’ve alw…