He'd started to observe that more and more events in his life were taking on the quality of failed landmarks in time. He could hold the present in the centre of his attention and sense its illumination, but in spite of this it retained a slippery quality, something that didn't change no matter what freight it was to deliver to one of his tellings. The way that these occasions seemed to already be over before they'd started lent them a melancholy but also a comforting greyness. It was, he used to say, like no longer being in love.