“Chemistry is an overused word. I prefer ‘fit’, that indefinable sensation when a man takes your arm as you move through a door, or leans into you to light your cigarette. (I gave up smoking for Cary and sometimes I still miss it.) Fit is an understanding between bodies: that you’ve been designed the same way, that you speak each other’s language, and fluently. It’s all about physical compatibility and has nothing to do with whether you’ll last or even have anything to talk about afterwards; fit is no relation to the brain, and only a distant cousin of the heart.”

“That’s the thing about falling. It doesn’t go on indefinitely, and it rarely ends well . . . plunge, plummet, pain. Even if you get straight back up, even when you regain your footing, after the fall nothing is ever quite the same.”

“At first I enjoyed it. A fall is a surrender; you can’t help it, you didn’t plan it. Maybe you could have been more careful, but it’s too late for that now—you might as well enjoy the swoop and the speed, the unnerving sensation of having your feet higher than your head.”

“The thing is, I fell in love with Luke, not Cary. Fell for the sheen and the sweat, the adrenalin of the hunt. Faltered, reeled, collapsed. There was no falling with Cary. Loving him was gradual and logical, inevitable as the path of a glacier. But Luke was a thunderclap, appearing out of a clear blue sky, soaking me to my skin, then moving on leaving everything looking different. And post-Luke nothing was the same.”

“I’m not proud of any of this, truly I’m not. Looking back I can’t believe how I acted, how each deceit flowed so seamlessly from another. My only excuse is that I was addicted, and like any addict all I could think about was my next hit. Hurting Cary didn’t seem of any consequence, neglecting Sarah or my work was unimportant. All that mattered was Luke and the singing in my veins whenever we were together.”

“There’s an old joke about a man who buys a cookbook for his wife and a negligee for his mistress. Somehow, though, the two parcels get mixed up and he fears that all will be lost. But on the contrary both women are delighted: the wife thrilled to be viewed in a sexual manner after years of domestic tedium, the mistress overjoyed that her lover considers her as more than just a body. I imagined the scenario as I trudged my way through Myer and David Jones. Should I look for lingerie for Cress, reassure her that despite all the hiccups of the past few months I still loved and wanted her? I thought I did, but a leopard-print G-string didn’t seem the right way to express that.”

“Maybe a better illustration would be a migraine. One moment you’re well, the next you’re in so much pain you can’t open your eyes. Everything is changed. Nothing exists except the throb and fret between your temples, though underneath it all you’re still perfectly healthy.”