We were single, at twenty-nine and thirty-one, each burdened only by a dangerous idea or two about our own strengths and weakness. Pretending to be spring chickens with soft shiny new feathers well preened. But both of us stood on the lip of the downslide of a body’s beauty. Losing the firmness of young skin, gaining the sparkling silver of perspective and trying to learn a wry but light humour for steering the slope ahead. We pretended.

At 40, it’s getting harder to pretend. Maybe that lighthearted dark humour has grown, though, within us both, alongside that buoyant sense of joy at the reality of our life, together.