She wants me to take real photos again. But she wants me to take only beautiful pictures. The sun burnishing the wind-bent grass on a Wiltshire hillside. Her own face. On those nights when we first went to bed together it was as though there were certain things which, in spite of herself, she had to broach. As if there were ghosts she thought she could quickly exorcise, but she found them more stubborn than she supposed. When you are sixty-four you cannot pretend that you have no past. She would kiss the scar on my cheek, cautiously at first and then lingeringly, running her lip, the tip of her tongue along it, as she had found some new, unexpected erogenous zone. She would say: ‘Tell me about…’ and ‘What was it like…’ And even: ‘Did you ever – just a little bit – enjoy it?’ Then she asked (ten years ago she was only thirteen): ‘And why did you stop?’raham