Boilers

She phoned me the other night. We hadn't spoken for three weeks, because I've been waiting for the transition from thinking about not phoning her to not thinking about phoning her. It seems it may be a long way off yet.

She asked "are you happy?", which was an unusual question given the conversational context (Crufts or walking or something). Despite immediately answering yes it was a question that made me wonder for a good few days after the call.

If she's anything like me then she wanted two contradictory answers - I want to know that:

• she's happy, because I want everyone to be happy


• she's having the hardest time of her life, spending evenings crying floods of tears into a sodden pool in front of the TV and spending nights thrashing in a comfortless bed, staring with unseeing eyes at the darkness of the ceiling and falling endlessly into the darkness of her soul.

So I phoned her back and told her that was my interpretation of her question and that my answer was

• I'm doing alright without her thanks very much


• I miss her and think about her a lot

I find it all a bit bizarre that I can hold two contrasting views of how I feel (and I how I hope she feels) and even when I express them within three seconds of each other (or write them on the same page) my brain doesn't collapse and leave me lying on the floor controlled entirely by my reflex actions.

Which is a relief.