Isolation

Everyone was gone when I got up. The house dead.

Claire rang and asked if she could come up and see me which she did mid-afternoon, staying until teatime. She smelled of soap and looked very pretty. She talked about teaching, which she enjoys, and ‘A’ levels and suddenly she seems very sensible and adult and I found myself wondering how I would have to be to win her.

God, how I hated myself then, for her visit brought back echoes of the past, all my croaky, dull-voiced monotony. She's going out tonight with her boyfriend, while I rot here in isolation and cemetery silence.

My position is thrown into awful clarity. Sometimes I feel so depressed.