“I’m an open book.” Not sure I’ve ever said that. I like to think of myself as an honest person and even an open person but not predictable. Of course everyone’s predictable to a degree. Give me a choice of four meals and I’ll almost definitely go for the Indian. Ask me what kind of film I’d like to watch and it’ll likely be science fiction. When we know enough things like this about a person we could be forgiven if we thought we knew them. One thing I remember F. saying during the early days—in fact the early months—of our relationship was how I constantly managed to surprise her and it was true; every day it seemed I would reveal something or other—or usually something or nothing—new about myself and she was delighted by this. But she didn’t know me. There was stuff we never talked about or I’d tried and given it up as a bad job. Poetry was one such topic. She knew I wrote poetry and she read whatever I showed her for as long as I could be bothered showing her but she really had no idea how important it was to me. How do you explain to someone who isn’t a writer the need to write?