It took a long time. I had to keep going back over my story, filling in the little details, wondering what to include. He didn’t say much, just nodded, or asked me to repeat a few things. He didn’t touch me; he reached out a couple of times but his hands never quite connected with mine. But he scarcely took his eyes from my face. He had never paid such... such ferocious attention to me, not even at the start of our relationship.

Eventually, I stopped speaking. I felt limp, wrung out; leached of colour. I was spent. That summed it up for me; spent. I had nothing left in me.

After I finished speaking, we sat in silence. Matt had turned his face away again and stared into space. Then he got up. He moved like a man much older than his years.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “And I know this is normally something you’d say - but I need a drink.”

I didn’t watch him moving about the kitchen. I let my eyes go soft and unfocused, and stared into the middle distance. I listened to my heartbeat and my breathing. I’m still alive, I thought. Despite everything. I’m still here.

He came back and stood looking over me again, a brandy glass in his hand. “Have you told anyone else about this?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Seriously Maudie – you’re really sure? You haven’t told Margaret? Or Becca?”

“No.”

Matt leant forward and put his free hand under my chin, tipping my face up towards him. His eyes searched my face.

“Are you certain?” he said.

I shook my head, dislodging his fingers. “Yes.”

He left me again and walked into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. I didn’t blame him. I was just grateful he was still here. I leaned my aching head against the back of the sofa and closed my eyes.

After a while, I was again aware of Matt’s presence. I opened my eyes to find him holding out a bottle of my pills, and in the other hand, a brimming glass of brandy.

“Here darling,” he said, “drink this.”

I realised he still had his gloves on from when he’d come in from outside. He must have been shocked to forget to take them off – Matt never did silly things like that. I took both things from him. It was odd, but for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like drinking. I felt oddly calm, peaceful even. Whatever had festered inside me for so long had been lanced, the poison drained away. Despite my aching head, and my injuries, I felt cleansed.

“Go on,” said Matt, “Drink it up.”

I took a sip.

“Ugh,” I said, almost gagging. “It tastes foul.”

Matt sat down next to me again, rather gingerly.

“Well, it’s supposed to. Spirits aren’t supposed to taste nice.”

I took another sip and grimaced.

“I’ll have it later,” I said, and put the glass down on the floor.

Matt looked annoyed.

“You’ve had a shock,” he said. “Drink it.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You don’t want a drink? You don’t? That must be a first.”

I felt a sob start to come up through my chest. “I’m sorry, Matt, but I just don’t want it.”

“Well, at least take your pills, then.”

I stared down at the little brown bottle in my hands. “These are sleeping pills.”

“I know,” said Matt. “I think you need a rest.”

I fumbled with the cap of the bottle. My hands felt weak as water. Eventually I managed to open it and took out one of the little white capsules.

“You’ll need more than that,” said Matt.

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He smiled, a gentle, sorrowing smile. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the opaque lenses of his glasses. I thought for a second of reaching out and removing them from his face. My hand reached out to do so, but I stopped it. “I’m sorry, Matt,” I said.

He shook his head, still with the same smile on his face. “Don’t you think this has gone on long enough, Maudie?”

“What do you mean? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before–”

He shook his head. Then he must have read my mind. He reached up and took off his glasses, folding them and putting them down on the side table. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I whispered. I felt a coldness creeping through me. “What do you mean you can’t do this anymore?”

He looked away from me. He had his hands folded on his lap, as if he were in church, his head tilted to one side, as if listening to a far-off sermon.

“It’s the end of the road, Maudie,” he said. “I’ve had enough.”

“Oh–” I said, but that was all I could say without my voice breaking.

He looked back at me then. “I can’t take it any longer.” Unmasked by glass, his eyes were beautiful. I couldn’t look away from them.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

He leant forward and put a gloved finger to my cheek. I felt the cold leather pass over my lips and move up to my hairline, tracing the ridge of my scar.

“Take them all,” said Matt, very softly.

I stared at him. I put my hand up to touch my mouth, to touch the place his finger had traced.

“What?”

He smiled at me. “Take them all, Maudie. Stop fighting it. Can’t you see this is a sign?”

I drew back. Again, I had the weird feeling, as if I were dreaming awake. I put a hand out to touch him but he drew back.

“What?” I said, again.

There was a creak of floorboards that made me look over at the door. There was no light in the hallway. From the darkness, into the dim light of the living room, came a tall, thin figure. She coalesced out of the inky air, as if her components parts were drawing themselves together. Her black coat moved around her like mist. I shrank back in my seat with a terrified moan. Not here, not in my house, my one refuge... I could feel myself gasping in air, anything to get my frozen body to start working again.

“No,” I said. “You don’t exist. You’re not really here.”

Jessica moved forward slowly, one step into the room, another step. Her face was pale. I could hear my high, terrified breathing. It was the only sound in the room. “I don’t believe in you,” I said. “You don’t exist.”

Matt looked at me. Then he turned his head to look in the direction I was staring.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

There was a moment’s silence. I turned my head towards him, creakily, moving like an old woman. I couldn’t think of how to answer him.

He said it again. “What are you doing here? I told you never to come here.”

“I–” I said, with no knowledge of what I was going to say. Then I realised he wasn’t talking to me.

Jessica moved another step forward. Her face was chalky-pale, her eyes black-shadowed. She wasn’t looking at me either. She was looking at Matt.

“I know,” she said.

It was like watching a play in a foreign language. Like listening to music underwater. I could feel myself screwing up my face and shaking my head, as if to clear my ears.

“I told you never to come here,” Matt said, again. Jessica stopped moving towards him. She hadn’t looked at me once.

I took in a gasp of air. “What’s going on? Matt – Matt – can you see her?”

He ignored me. He wasn’t looking at me either. I had a sudden, terrifying thought; Jessica and I had swapped places, perhaps even bodies – she was the one everyone could see and hear and speak to, while I had become the ghost. I grabbed at my own arms, pinching the gooseflesh.

“Matt, Matt, can you see me? Can you hear me? Tell me I’m the one you see, I am, I’m the one you see – don’t tell me it’s her, tell me you can’t see her–”

He got up from the sofa and looked at me. At last he looked at me. Something strange was happening to his face. It was lightening, gradually, undergoing a subtle transformation. He looked like himself, but different, somehow; as if he were gradually shedding a mask, or gaining one, revealing a face that looked almost the same.

“Would you, for once, just shut up?” he said. “Every time I think you can’t say something stupider than before, you continue to surprise me.”