In the morning I said 'Do you want to come to the garden centre?' She said 'Are you going now?' I said I could wait if she wanted to come. So I waited. We'd never grown anything before. We spoke in the car. She said Charles Dickens had invented Christmas, I said it was rubbish, then we didn't speak. At home we ask each other if we want tea, or who should cook tonight. She says 'I want to watch Whitechapel.' I say 'I'm going to do some work.' Or she sits at the computer in the corner, her back in the room, …