It was a quarter to ten by the time I got back to Patrick’s.

My holiday plans, astonishingly, had met with Katrina’s complete approval. She hadn’t even done her usual thing of adding, ‘Yes, but it would be even better if you … ’ There had been a point where I wondered if she was doing it just to be nice, because I was obviously going a bit nuts. But she kept saying things like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe you found this! You’ve got to take lots of pictures of him bungee jumping.’ And, ‘Imagine his face when you tell him about the skydiving! It’s going to be brilliant.’

Anyone watching us at the pub might have thought that we were two friends who actually really quite liked each other.

Still mulling this over, I let myself in quietly. The flat was dark from outside and I wondered if Patrick was having an early night as part of his intensive training. I dropped my bag on the floor in the hall and pushed at the living-room door, thinking as I did so that it was nice of him to have left a light on for me.

And then I saw him. He was sitting at a table laid with two places, a candle flickering between them. As I closed the door behind me, he stood up. The candle was burnt halfway down to the base.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

I stared at him.

‘I was an idiot. You’re right. This job of yours is only for six months, and I have been behaving like a child. I should be proud that you’re doing something so worthwhile, and taking it all so seriously. I was just a bit … thrown. So I’m sorry. Really.’

He held out a hand. I took it.

‘It’s good that you’re trying to help him. It’s admirable.’

‘Thank you.’ I squeezed his hand.

When he spoke again, it was after a short breath, as if he had successfully managed some pre-rehearsed speech. ‘I’ve made supper. I’m afraid it’s salad again.’ He reached past me into the fridge, and pulled out two plates. ‘I promise we’ll go somewhere for a blowout meal once the Viking is over. Or maybe once I’m on to carb loading. I just … ’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘I guess I haven’t been able to think about much else lately. I guess that’s been part of the problem. And you’re right. There’s no reason you should follow me about. It’s my thing. You have every right to work instead.’

‘Patrick … ’ I said.

‘I don’t want to argue with you, Lou. Forgive me?’

His eyes were anxious and he smelt of cologne. Those two facts descended upon me slowly like a weight.

‘Sit down, anyway,’ he said. ‘Let’s eat, and then … I don’t know. Enjoy ourselves. Talk about something else. Not running.’ He forced a laugh.

I sat down and looked at the table.

Then I smiled. ‘This is really nice,’ I said.

Patrick really could do 101 things with turkey breast.

We ate the green salad, the pasta salad and seafood salad and an exotic fruit salad that he had prepared for pudding, and I drank wine while he stuck to mineral water. It took us a while, but we did begin to relax. There, in front of me, was a Patrick I hadn’t seen for some time. He was funny, attentive. He policed himself rigidly so that he didn’t say anything about running or marathons, and laughed whenever he caught the conversation veering in that direction. I felt his feet meet mine under the table and our legs entwine, and slowly I felt something that had felt tight and uncomfortable begin to ease in my chest.

My sister was right. My life had become strange and disconnected from everyone I knew – Will’s plight and his secrets had swamped me. I had to make sure that I didn’t lose sight of the rest of me.

I began to feel guilty about the conversation I had had earlier with my sister. Patrick wouldn’t let me get up, not even to help him clear the dishes. At a quarter past eleven he rose and moved the plates and bowls to the kitchenette and began to load the dishwasher. I sat, listening to him as he talked to me through the little doorway. I was rubbing at the point where my neck met my shoulder, trying to release some of the knots that seemed to be firmly embedded there. I closed my eyes, trying to relax into it, so that it was a few minutes before I realized the conversation had stopped.

I opened my eyes. Patrick was standing in the doorway, holding my holiday folder. He held up several pieces of paper. ‘What’s all this?’

‘It’s … the trip. The one I told you about.’

I watched him flick through the paperwork I had shown my sister, taking in the itinerary, the pictures, the Californian beach.

‘I thought … ’ His voice, when it emerged, sounded strangely strangled. ‘I thought you were talking about Lourdes.’

‘What?’

‘Or … I don’t know … Stoke Mandeville … or somewhere. I thought, when you said you couldn’t come because you had to help him, it was actual work. Physio, or faith healing, or something. This looks like … ’ He shook his head disbelievingly. ‘This looks like the holiday of a lifetime.’

‘Well … it kind of is. But not for me. For him.’

Patrick grimaced. ‘No … ’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You wouldn’t enjoy this at all. Hot tubs under the stars, swimming with dolphins … Oh, look, “five-star luxury” and “twenty-four-hour room service”.’ He looked up at me. ‘This isn’t a work trip. This is a bloody honeymoon.’

‘That’s not fair!’

‘But this is? You … you really expect me to just sit here while you swan off with another man on a holiday like this?’

‘His carer is coming too.’

‘Oh. Oh yes, Nathan. That makes it all right, then.’

‘Patrick, come on – it’s complicated.’

‘So explain it to me.’ He thrust the papers towards me. ‘Explain this to me, Lou. Explain it in a way that I can possibly understand.’

‘It matters to me that Will wants to live, that he sees good things in his future.’

‘And those good things would include you?’

‘That’s not fair. Look, have I ever asked you to stop doing the job you love?’

‘My job doesn’t involve hot tubs with strange men.’

‘Well, I don’t mind if it does. You can have hot tubs with strange men! As often as you like! There!’ I tried to smile, hoping he would too.

But he wasn’t having any of it. ‘How would you feel, Lou? How would you feel if I said I was going on some keep-fit convention with – I don’t know – Leanne from the Terrors because she needed cheering up?’

‘Cheering up?’ I thought of Leanne, with her flicky blonde hair and her perfect legs, and I wondered absently why he had thought of her name first.

‘And then how would you feel if I said she and I were going to eat out together all the time, and maybe sit in a hot tub or go on days out together. In some destination six thousand miles away, just because she had been a bit down. That really wouldn’t bother you?’

‘He’s not “a bit down”, Pat. He wants to kill himself. He wants to take himself off to Dignitas, and end his own bloody life.’ I could hear my blood thumping in my ears. ‘And you can’t turn it around like this. You were the one who called Will a cripple. You were the one who made out he couldn’t possibly be a threat to you. “The perfect boss,” you said. Someone not even worth worrying about.’

He put the folder back down on the worktop.

‘Well, Lou … I’m worrying now.’