I get home from work late afternoon, loaded with food for tonight’s dinner, and find a note from V. He’s down in the park having a coffee with X the painter, do I want to come down? I conquer a surge of female martyrdom—How hard I work! How much money I spend! How little thanks I get! I get a grip, put on a record and set about cooking the meal. By the time he comes in I’m cheerful. He reminds me of a short trip we’ve been planning to the Flinders Ranges. His tone is so reluctant that I say, to let him off the hook, ‘You don’t feel like going, any more?’ ‘Aw, it’ll be all right, I s’pose.’ Does it come from his family, this tendency to take all the joy out of something in advance? Or is he just being ‘level’? Is it the weary struggle of writing his novel? Or is it me? Am I a bore? Am I distracted? What am I doing wrong?