Clare tilted her head and a large, hooped earring fell out of her hair and dangled on her shoulder. ‘That sounds to me like the start of a much longer conversation.’

‘Yes, maybe.’ He looked at his watch. It was 8:52. He didn’t want to be late. ‘I wondered if you’d like to borrow any more books?’ he said.

She smiled then. ‘Yes. I’d like that.’

Benjamin Tate was sitting on the only chair in the room. The two identical cushions had been thrown off at various times long before then. He could only see one from where he sat. It was slumped against the wall. It had a rip in it through which a plume of padding bulged. He surveyed the room, the smashed television, the marks on the wall where various cups and bowls, some empty, some not, had shattered, the corner of the carpet that had been curiously ripped from its staples.

So much chaos. So much chaos and disorder it was actually astonishing. How had he managed it, he of all people? He looked down at his tummy, patted it. The patting became harder until he was rapping it with a closed hand. Hello in there? Nothing to say for yourself? The little tyrant had been mysteriously absent all these days. He’d waited for him to emerge from under his bridge, fists clenched and cheeks all aflush, he’d willed it even, the confrontation that would inevitably occur, he thought somehow it would be cathartic, defining even, but there had been no sign of him. He leaned across towards the table with the vague notion of pulling it over. His fingers brushed the wood but couldn’t gain sufficient purchase and he sunk back into the cushions, disinclined to stand up. His poor mother. His poor dear dead mother. He started to chuckle. She would have been aghast at the state of this, she who had always been so house-proud, so fond of tidying up and putting away. His chuckle became a laugh. He was struck by the sound of it, fascinated almost, it was so strange to him. Abruptly he stopped. He looked at the door. Clare would come through it at any moment.

‘Come on,’ he said, banging his fist into the arm of the chair, ‘hurry up.’

He’d been sitting there for three hours when finally he heard the stairs creaking. He jumped up and rushed across the room, swinging the door open before she even had a chance to knock.

‘Hello,’ he said, beckoning her in eagerly. ‘You’re here. Come in, come in.’

‘Good Lord. What’s come over you?’ She had come straight from the café and was still wearing her black trousers and the blouse with her name badge pinned to it. ‘Why are you grinning like that?’

She walked past him and then stopped. He wasn’t sure why he wanted her to see his flat this way. There had been so much time, that day, the previous day, the days before that, to clean up, but he had deliberately not cleaned up. It was a challenge, or a confession, or both.

‘Are you surprised?’ he asked.

She put her hands on her hips but didn’t answer him for a moment. Eventually she turned around. ‘I am actually,’ she said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before.’

In the kitchen everything seemed to crowd in on him. It had been constricting lately, he was sure of it. Surely he’d not managed in here for twenty years. He thought of all the thousands of meals he’d prepared. Friday was pasta night. A cupboard swung out at him and he punched it away roughly, making it slap loudly against its frame. Where were all the cups? He looked at the sink, full of a grey liquid. He dipped his hand into it. It was cold and as he rummaged about soft things floated against his arm. Eventually he hooked two cups and dried them hastily on his shirt. There was a teaspoon on the floor and he plucked it stickily away from the tiles.

‘The milk is off,’ he said when he returned. ‘It’s black tea.’

She was perched on the edge of the chair. He noticed then a trail of something down its back. Whatever it was had crusted over and had lumps in it. He tried to recall what they might be, how they had got there. He wondered vaguely if some of it had transferred to his clothes in the hours he’d been seated there.

‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ she said.

He put the two cups on the table. Ah, there was the second cushion, cowering between its legs. He kicked it idly.

‘You weren’t going to come back, were you?’ he asked.

‘Honestly? No.’

‘That’s fine. Just as well I came to the café, then.’

She held open her hand. In her palm were a dozen or so staples that she’d pulled out of the floorboards.

‘Why did you come back?’ she asked. She stood up then and walked the few paces to the television set, carefully retrieving the hardback book that protruded out of it. More glass crumbled to the carpet. ‘To give me this?’

She handed the book to him and he took it automatically without looking at it. It was heavier than he remembered. It had seemed as nothing when he’d snatched it off the shelf and hurled it at the hunchback’s smirking face.

‘I’ve been so angry,’ he suddenly said, surprising himself.

She took the book from him and slid it back into its final resting place. ‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.’

‘What?’ For a moment he didn’t understand. Oh, the canal. She meant the canal. It seemed so remote now, so frivolous. Don’t flatter yourself, he thought nastily, before checking himself. Referred anger. Don’t blame her. ‘No, that was my fault. I didn’t mean that.’

‘Oh.’ She seemed for a fraction of a second almost affronted. Her fringe fell into her eyes and she brushed it away with that same delicate finger. ‘What then? Has something else happened?’

All at once he realised what all this was about, why she had come, not just that day, but in the first place. The realisation made him gasp. He’d never spoken of it, the thing that had happened, he didn’t know how to.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘something else did happen.’

Her face changed. She’d not been expecting that and sat back down now. The staples were still in her palm and she tipped them casually onto the floor between her feet then folded her hands in her lap. She looked up at him. ‘Go on then.’

He felt suddenly light-headed and reached for the table to steady himself. The old tree was there, just in front of him. He could see its face again, a kind face, grave but kind. It was willing him on.

‘There was a girl,’ he managed.

‘Yes, there usually is.’

He shook his head. Not like that. He hadn’t meant it like that.

‘What was her name?’ Clare asked.

He looked beyond the tree at the sky that was still blue and flat and far away. What was her name? When did he first discover it? Who had told it to him? He’d read it many times, on hospital forms, in newspapers, but he was sure someone had told him it before then. What if he’d never known it, would it have been easier, more impersonal? What was her name? Such a simple question. But she had no idea what she asked of him. He thought suddenly he would be sick. His tummy spat something up and it singed the back of his throat. He closed his eyes. Her name was… Her name was… Just like that. He knew her name. Why could he not speak it, even silently?

‘Her name was Madeline,’ he said. Oh, so close. Next time. Hands that had been gripping the table’s edge relaxed and released it. He noticed his knuckle was bleeding where he’d punched the cupboard.

‘Pretty name.’

‘She’d have hated you.’

‘Oh. That’s nice.’

‘She wasn’t nice.’

Poor Madeline. Ever the distraction. He’d used her then. He used her now. ‘Daddy’s little princess.’ That’s what she’d have said about Clare. He could hear her saying it, spitting out the words with such malice. He remembered once how she had grown sullen one afternoon when they’d been paging through a magazine together. He’d commented casually about an actress he’d liked. She’d said nothing for a long time before suddenly snatching the magazine out of his hand, ripping out the offending page and then, quite impressively, eating it right there in front of him. With her mouth still clogged and chewing she said something about faces – or faeces – nothing surprised him.

‘She wouldn’t have hated you really,’ he said. ‘She’d have been jealous of you. It would have just looked like hate.’

‘Why jealous?’

He ignored her. It was irrelevant. She asked him something else and he ignored that too. It was all irrelevant. It was just stalling. Be brave. The tree was still watching him, waiting.

‘Forget Madeline,’ he blurted. ‘It’s not about her.’

Clare stood up, took a tentative step towards him. Glass crunched beneath her shoes and she hesitated. ‘Who is it about then?’ she asked.

He was on the road. He was on the roundabout, swinging round it. He was going too fast. But had he been going too fast? He never knew. They had been so desolate, her parents, when he had stumbled upon them at the graveside. They were his burden too. Huge tears suddenly. He turned away, seeking solace, but it was just a tree now. He crunched his lids together. There was a hand on his shoulder. It squeezed lightly then withdrew.

‘When you’re ready,’ Clare said, ‘you tell me.’