Seeing him again had been a gut punch.

Stop saying hurt.’ She turned on him; the wounded animal finally breaking free. ‘You fall over on the pavement, that hurts; you stub your toe, that hurts; you trap your finger in a car door, shit, that hurts. You did not hurt me. James. It was like you took a razor and pressed down hard in the tenderest place.

Talking to you is like talking to someone I’ve never met before. When did you become so competitive? When did you decide that you needed to win all of the time?’He stopped dead in the promenade and grabbed her hand, turning her to face him.He caught her by surprise. She leant her neck backwards slightly in defence.‘When I lost you.

James looked at the people around his table. He stared at each one of them as though he were looking at a magic-eye puzzle and he could see all of the different pieces and the colours but not beyond what was on the surface, and the more he tried, the depth, the revealing images, were kept away from him.

From personal adversity comes great art