That’s why I can’t endure pleasantness. It seems warm and accepting and sincere, but it isn’t at all, it’s absolutely thin – you come to the sheer edge of it very quickly, and there’s nothing then, you’re on your own.

Is he surprised I haven’t replied and three months have passed, or is that what he wanted? Perhaps it is better like this, but at the same time it changes everything that went before and confirms a great deal that I had suspected all along.

why have I changed my mind all of a sudden? Why do I want to give it back now? Is it just that I want to throw something back at him because I’m upset and angry? Am I upset and angry? I am intensely indignant.

Which is all quite peculiar really, since I don’t believe in God, I’ve never believed in God – though actually it occurred to me very recently that perhaps I do believe in God, I just don’t realise it. That would be just like me. Assuming the swagger of an atheist when all along, all along, my very soul is devoted to a higher and indifferent

He was curious about my friends, but had no interest in spending time with me in the company of other people, in case those interactions interfered with how he saw me – ‘I’m the only one who sees you correctly,’ he’d say, which I didn’t quite accept though I didn’t say so. It sounds alarming, narcissistic, controlling, but at the same time isn’t

Sometimes I think about Xavier. There was a time when I wanted him to kiss me, very much. There was a time when I got lost in kissing him for whole afternoons. But not any longer. And I suppose truth be told that is why he was so unkind about my book and why I haven’t heard from him since. He might be old, and he really is very old now, but that

A peculiar intimation came to me in the early days and I understood and accepted that I will be beside him when he dies. It seems that a witness is needed for the event and that witness is me. That is something, a sacrosanct role, which has been assigned to me, whether I like it or not.

I made sure that I always had at least one of his voice messages saved. He could die just like that at any moment.

He’ll like that, I thought, while I was getting ready. He likes to see women dressed up, he’ll be in his element. Not that he’ll look at them very much. Just a glance probably, to register the effort that’s been put in and the overall effect. That will be quite sufficient. Too much scrutiny might spoil the illusion of sophistication and Xavier