'I don't know. Maybe I'm not very good at it; love.' The conclusion. A touch of sincerity, a smattering of confession, a hint of self-knowledge, a sprinkling of bravado. 'I mean, what if I don't even know what love is?' he said. 'What if compared to most people I'm an emotional idiot? I feel like I ought to love her, you know, unconditionally even, for the sake of the boy, but I can't. I did try. But I'm not sure I can carry on without love, to be honest with you.' He was drunk. He was saying too much and for his own sake. It was like ... when you lie down and your stomach sends fluid upwards and you're swallowing like a dog, saying to yourself, oh no I don't want to vomit. He'd been though it before, this routine, about love and his quest for it; it was stale.