I’ve just been up to have another look at the diary — he wrote ‘I don’t like sleeping with her’ in the week that he didn’t come downstairs. Since then, he’s been making love as a man does when he’s attracted to a woman. I don’t understand it, I don’t understand anything.

Yesterday I forced myself to challenge him: ‘Are you ill, and if so in what way?’ He said, and I’d almost expected this: ‘How do you know?’ I even laughed. He said, carefully: ‘I think if you’re in trouble you should put it under your belt and not afflict other people with it.’ He said this seriously, the responsible man. I said: ‘But in fact you’re doing just that. What’s wrong?’ I feel as if I were caught in a sort of psychological fog. He said seriously: ‘I was hoping that I didn’t put it on you.’ ‘I’m not complaining,’ I said. ‘But I think that it’s no good locking things up, you should get them into the open.’

He said, suddenly abrasive and hostile: ‘You sound like a bloody psycho-analyst.’

I was thinking how, in any conversation, he can be five or six different people; I even waited for the responsible person to come back. He did, and said: ‘I’m not in any too good a shape, that’s true. I’m sorry if it’s shown. I’ll try to do better.’ I said: ‘It’s not a question of doing better.’

He turned the conversation determinedly; there was a hunted, wounded look on his face, he was a man defending himself.

I rang up Dr Paynter, and I said I wanted to know what was wrong with someone who had no sense of time, and seemed to be several different people. He replied: ‘I don’t diagnose over telephones.’ I said ‘Oh come off it.’ He said: ‘My dear Anna, I think you’d better make an appointment.’ ‘It’s not for me,’ I said, ‘it’s a friend,’ but there was a silence. Then he said: ‘Please don’t be alarmed, you’d be surprised how many charming people are walking our streets, the mere ghosts of themselves. Do make an appointment.’ ‘What’s the cause of it?’ ‘Well, I’d say, hazarding a guess, and not saying a word too much, it’s all due to the times we live in.’ ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘And no appointment?’ ‘No.’ ‘That’s very bad, Anna, that’s spiritual pride, if you’re several different people whose bootstraps are you going to pull yourself up on?’ ‘I’ll convey your message to the right quarter,’ I said.

I went to Saul and said: ‘I’ve telephoned my doctor and he thinks I’m ill, I told him I had a friend — you see?’ Saul looked sharp and hunted, but he grinned. ‘He says I should make an appointment, but that I shouldn’t be in any way alarmed at being several different people at once with no sense of time.’

‘Is that how I strike you?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Thanks. I expect he’s right, at that.’