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pretended to get something from my trouser pocket. She was watching me, I think, and was a little perplexed, but I made a decent stab of an excuse and told her I was just making sure my pager was turned off - this happened some years ago; I was quite ahead of my time then, and collected all the latest gadgetry - and I didn’t want us to be disturbed. I lifted the trousers carefully, then put them down three times. At that time, I did everything in threes. Today it’s fives, which is a bit of a chore because everything takes longer, but what can you do? I felt quite relieved I’d got away with it and made generous strokes of her legs which put a smile back on her face, although it was a drunken smile and not the prettiest I’ve seen. She gave up on Proust, then - though not the way I had - and let me have her way with her. I was hard, I remember, but couldn’t get my trousers out of my head. Had I really aligned them in the right way? As I kissed her cheeks, I glanced over and found I hadn’t. The trousers were not equidistant from the edges of the stool at all. I closed my eyes but the voice in my head - my visitor’s voice - was strident and insistent. The more I tried to ignore it, the more my performance suffered, until my lips could barely press against her flesh. She sensed things were wrong and opened her eyes - she was building up quite a head of steam, you see; I’m not a good lover, I never have been, but I’ve always been good with my hands.
    ‘Why have you stopped?’
    I paused. ‘I’m getting my second wind.’
    I hadn’t intended it to be funny.
    ‘You’re a strange boy, aren’t you?’
    I’m not sure she was being altogether unkind or patronising; she just didn’t understand. I smiled at her and asked her to roll over. There was a twinkle in her drunken eye then that reminded me of smutty, seaside picture postcards. It seemed so inappropriate to a woman of her age and position, and yet summed her up better than anything I could think of. Sex is ridiculous when you’re young and beautiful - and how many of us can say we are or were? When you’re older, it’s a farce. Get it over and be done with. She presented her dimpled cheeks and put her head on the pillow and waited. And waited. I seized my chance. I slipped off the edge of the bed and lifted the trousers up, then put them down three times.
    When I turned, she was looking at me, and the twinkle had gone. I think she felt more sad than angry or humiliated. I doubt it quite lived up to her expectations - that is, if she had any in the first place. She put her clothes back on and went. I remember looking out of the window afterwards and being not too unhappy with myself. You see, with all that talk of Proust and the possibility of sex, my other visitor had gone with her.
    They came back, of course - they always come back - but it’s nothing I can’t handle. That is, if you consider turning things on and off five times a night, and checking and rechecking things you’d already checked five times, with another five times of checking, as nothing? Or adjusting your clothes in the wardrobe every night - with me in the wardrobe - or getting the angle of cushions on your sofa just right, or putting your toiletries on the bathroom cabinet in a prescribed order, or going back to check the door of your apartment is locked every time you go out.
    The only time they never appeared was when my little girl was with me. She banished them as I banished her night fears, telling her I didn’t think there were such things as ghosts and ghouls and goblins and, if there were - I couldn’t tell her categorically; that would have been a lie - they couldn’t get her in the flat. She took my mind off them, gave me back a semblance of a life. I miss her terribly.
    The night she disappeared, when everyone had gone, they came back with a vengeance. The WPC had left me with my ex-wife; she probably thought it was going to be one of those moments. My ex-wife sat on