Kneeing impedimenta into the kitchen. Rachel and I were met by Norman and Jenny. They had taken up formal positions before the window; each held a bottle of champagne, and a third stood by on the coffee-table, surrounded by half a dozen Guinnesses for Norman to dilute his with. I was embarrassed to find how much this moved me. But what I felt even more strongly - looking at Rachel's smiles, her adult handbag and dinky suitcases - was a sense of her independence and separateness. Rachel had her own identity, you see - here saluted by Jenny and Norm - her own belongings and her own autonomy. She wasn't just a sum total of my obsessions; she simply chose to be with me.