He did not crouch down in front of me with his hands on my knees and his face arranged into sympathy, which is what people do, and which puts you in the position of having to perform your own grief for an audience of one.

He turned round, and he sat down on the floor beside me with his back against the side of the bath, facing the same way I was facing, so that we were both looking at the door.

And then he put his shoulder against my shoulder.

Not his arm around me.

His shoulder against mine, the whole length of the upper arm, so that there was a line of warmth down one side of me and I did not have to look at anybody or be looked at by anybody or say one single word.

He did not tell me it would be fine.