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wary with one another, and make only tentative and polite conversation; however, I enjoy sitting beside her on a bench in the sun, outside the teahouse, while her eight-year-old plays football. He is a hurt, suspicious boy with hair down to his shoulders, which he refuses to have cut. He likes to fight with bigger children and she does not know what to do with him. Without him, perhaps, she would have got away.
    At the moment I have few friends and welcome her company. The phone rings constantly but I rarely go out and never invite anyone round, having become almost phobic where other people are concerned. What I imagine about others I cannot say, but the human mind is rarely clear in itssight. Perhaps I feel depleted, having just played the lead in a film.
    During the day I record radio plays and audio books. I like learning to use my voice as an instrument. Probably I spend too much time alone, thinking I can give myself everything. My doctor, with whom I drink, is fatuously keen on pills and cheerfulness. He says if I cannot be happy with what I have, I never will be. He would deny the useful facts of human conflict, and wants me to take antidepressants, as if I would rather be paralysed than know my terrible selves.
    Having wondered for months why I was waking up every morning feeling sad, I have started therapy. I am aware, partly from my relationship with Florence, that that which cannot be said is the most dangerous concealment. I am only beginning to understand psychoanalytic theory, yet am inspired by the idea that we do not live on a fine point of consciousness but exist in all areas of our being simultaneously, particularly the dreaming. Until I started lying down in Dr Wallace’s room, I had never had such extended conversations about the deepest personal matters. To myself I call analysis – two people talking – ‘the apogee of civilisation’. Lying in bed I have begun to go over my affair with Florence. These are more like waking dreams – Coleridge’s ‘flights of lawless speculation’ – than considered reflections, as if I am setting myself a subject for the night. Everything returns at this thoughtful age, particularly childhood.
    One afternoon in the autumn, after we have met four or fivetimes, it is wet, and Florence and I sit at a table inside the damp teahouse. The only other customers are an elderly couple. Florence’s son sits on the floor drawing.
    ‘Can’t we get a beer?’ Florence says.
    ‘They don’t sell it here.’
    ‘What a damned country.’
    ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’
    She says, ‘Can you be bothered?’
    ‘Nope.’
    Earlier I notice the smell of alcohol on her. It is a retreat I recognise; I have started to drink with more purpose myself.
    While I am at the counter fetching the tea, I see Florence holding the menu at arm’s length; then she brings it closer to her face and moves it away again, seeking the range at which it will be readable. Earlier I noticed a spectacle case in the top of her bag, but had not realised they were reading glasses.
    When I sit down, Florence says, ‘Last night Archie and I went to see your new film. It was discomfiting to sit there looking at you with him.’
    ‘Did Archie remember me?’
    ‘At the end I asked him. He remembered the weekend. He said you had more substance to you than most actors. You helped him.’
    ‘I hope not.’
    ‘I don’t know what you two talked about that night, but a few months after your conversation Archie left his job and went into publishing. He accepted a salary cut, but he wasdetermined to find work that didn’t depress him. Oddly, he turned out to be very good at it. He’s doing well. Like you.’
    ‘Me? But that is only because of you.’ I want to give her credit for teaching me something about self-belief and self-determination. ‘Without you I wouldn’t have got off to a good start …’
    My thanks make her uncomfortable, as if I am reminding her of a capacity she does not want to