I try out different ways of living in silence. First: drowning it out with radio dramas, or playing true crime Netflix shows on my laptop, but I sense the quiet of the flat beneath the ominous sound effects and the voiceovers. It is like sweeping dust under a rug: the silence is still there, lurking. Next I try to expand it, dragging my feet across the floorboards to make a louder shuffle than is necessary. Coughing, clearing my throat as though about to make a speech. And then, with increasing frequency, what happens is that I sing. I sing whatever I can think of, though I can never think of much more than the opening lines of things: nursery rhymes, silly childhood ditties, national anthems (British, American, and my favourite, French). The dog watches me sceptically, cocking his head to one side, half-whining and then, without warning, urinating in the middle of the floor of what is going to be my study, which is absolutely not the kind of startling thing I'd wanted him to do.

Row, row, row your boat, I sing, as I mop and disinfect, Gently down the stream.