The True Sentence

I told him on the second of August, on a Sunday, in the afternoon, with the windows open and somebody’s barbecue going in the garden two doors down.

I had rehearsed four openings. I used none of them.

He was at the table with the laptop, doing the tax thing he does in August, and I came in and sat down opposite him and said, “Can you shut that.”

He shut it.

And I said the sentence I had found at four in the morning, the only one that was true and the only one I’d have accepted from anybody else:

“I’ve been gone for about two years, and I let you think I wasn’t.”

Martin didn’t say anything.

“There’s a man at work,” I said. “His name’s Daniel Sowande, he’s the architect on Ivyholt. Two weeks ago, at the Baths, I kissed him. It lasted about ten seconds and…