But when I got home that afternoon, the key wasn't there, so I took out my phone and called her.

"Hi, " I said when she answered. "I'm outside the apartment."

"OK, '" she said.

"The key's not here."

She hesitated for a moment. "Sure it is, " she said. "I left it there this morning."

"Well it's not there now. You must have put it in the wrong box."

"Then I guess you'll have to wait for other people to come home and see is it in their postboxes, won't you?"

"Oh for Christ's sake, " I said and then she hung up on me. It sounded like she'd slammed the phone down hard. There was an argument later and maybe I said some things I shouldn't have, but she said things I didn't know she felt. It made me wonder.

A few nights later she was lying in bed reading The Mists of Avalon, and she didn't look at me when I turned off the light in the hallway and came into the room. She didn't say anything either. We were at a difficult moment. She was wearing pyjamas to bed which she only did when she meant hands off.

That afternoon at work, I had considered for a moment what my life would be like without her in it and I was torn between feeling a little sick and imagining all the things I could do if I was free of her. There was a lot of love there, I knew that, but most of the time she made me feel utterly worthless.

I sat cross-legged on the bedspread and she put her book down and stared at me.

"What?" she asked.

"I got you something, " I said, laying the small box on the bed between us. I looked across at her hopefully, smiling, wishing she'd just reach across and take my hand, stroke my leg, pull the duvet up a little to let me in, something, anything to make me feel loved.

She stared at the box.

"For Christ's sake, " she said. "It's not a fucking ring, is it?"

And of course it wasn't a ring; of course it was an extra key. Of course I'd cut an extra key and put it in a box as a present, to make things right, to make a joke of it. To pretend the argument had never happened. To make sure it never happened again.

It's a silly thing, but nothing was ever the same between us after she said that.