‘This is too hard,’ she says, wav­ing her hands in a way that sug­gests she’s given up. ‘We can’t talk with­out hurt­ing each other. It doesn’t work.’

‘We can agree on that,’ I say. ‘Good­bye, Jen.’ I walk away and, af­ter a few paces, turn back. ‘I can’t even look at the sea any more be­cause it re­minds me of you.’

‘If you can’t look at the sea that’s YOUR FAULT, ANDY,’ she shouts. Passers-by look at her, sur­prised to see some­one so well-put-to­gether bel­low­ing some­thing so de­mented in the mid­dle of the day. ‘Not mine. YOURS. YOU need to go fix your re­la­tion­ship with the sea, NOT ME.’ She turns and walks away.

‘YOU’VE RU­INED THE SEA,’ I shout be­fore I turn and walk the other way.

She al­ways was melo­dra­matic.