Believe me, if I was not me, and I had not been living it from day to day, our situation would have beggared even my belief long before now.

How is it possible for two such people to live next door to each other for thirty years without once in that time catching a single glimpse of each another? But only now, jolted by illness, does thirty years seem, well, bizarre. I’m not, by the way, using the words ‘next door’ metaphorically, the way, for example, a politician refers to a neighbouring state. No, no, suburbia, detached certainly, but the house next door, on the same road, a hedge, high, mind you, and a ditch, and trees and fences, driveways, that sort of thing. To be clear, we live a hedge-width apart. By ‘two such people’ I mean two who had once been everything to each other.

Then again, perhaps there is some immutable universal law governing such matters, one that states that all who seek sight of a former lover will, simply by their seeking, be denied, whereas those who seek no such sight will see such a lover with sickening regularity.  Nevertheless, while I grant that it is entirely possible for you to see me whether I see you or not, and grant also that you can do so without me knowing it, I think it, given the proximity of our two properties, more unlikely than not.