We don't have a study, we don't have a lot of things

a) sometimes it's too hot to work
b) sometimes it's too noisy to work
c) sometimes you're too tired to work
d) sometimes it's too early to work
e) sometimes you're too hungry to work
f) sometimes it's Sunday
g) There was a girl in my bathroom, it was morning and she was called Harriet. She was slim and smart, she was younger than me and she was very pretty. I could hear her brushing her teeth in the bathroom with, I guess with either with mine or with my wife's toothbrush and also through the door, from where it was open a crack, I could see the length of her leg and her little shorts and where she was bent over so slightly that it made her behind point out that little bit that'll drive me, I think probably the most, crazy.

I don't need to say about everything.

My wife still wasn't due back from being away, who I loved, but this still wasn't the first time I had done this or similar.

She came back into the room now, Harriet, and her hair was tied back and she said something like I should go but it was more of a question than saying she should go. Her hair, tied back at the back of her head was a little shiny, from where the water she had washed her face with had made her hair wet too, but only a little. I patted the bed next to me where I was sitting and she came over and sat down.

She was just so pretty.

I wanted to say good things to her; when you really feel next to someone, but sorry for them, and guilty about why you feel sorry for them, and also a little guilty for feeling the sympathy too maybe, and that it's impossible to say these good things so you try to just hold them instead and to push out all of your caring out of your body into theirs, and hope that that's what it feels like for them: like being cared for. I think I remember thinking that she might have cried then because I remember it made me a bit damp, holding her, but she had just washed her face too; I don't know which one it was.

She didn't go just then. She stayed until the afternoon. We drank coffee together downstairs in kitchen. She drank coffee which I found endearing because I like these things in people. Some people who, say for example, smoke, will say -Hey! Don't smoke, trust me. Instead I'll more likely say -Have a smoke; let's smoke together, or -Smoking helps you lose weight. I like smoking together with people. Mostly when I smoke alone I don't finish my cigarettes, unless I'm drunk. I don't drink alone.

We didn't eat though, even though we were hungry from exercising, and her lipstick left a red mark on the coffee cup. I remember that because when my wife came home with the boys, (they'd gone to Cornwall, but I stayed in London because I had things to do with my agent) when they came home from their trip away, the cups were still out and about and she asked who'd been round. I lied, although I don't remember what, it was probably that my agent came round to the house that day instead of me go to her.

When she came home, she looked quite good, she was tanned from being in Cornwall and it reminded a little of when we met. That was such a long time ago, even then, but seemed short ago, too. The boys looked great. They were tanned too and their hair was sun-bleached lighter. I was glad I would never see Harriet again, although as it turned out I did see her again, once. My wife's name was Wanda. She was heavier than when we met, that was the biggest difference.

She normally didn't smoke, but she'd missed me, she said, and I'd missed her too. That night, we lay together, post coital, and lit cigarettes. It was pitch black but you could see where to light the things from the light of the matches. Then when they were lit all you could see were the red tips. She was talking to me and would have been telling me about her holiday, but all I remember is how her voice was there and the cigarettes. The voice was strange and a little foreign, like lots of things are in the dark. But the way her cigarette moved; really fast and jittering - you didn't expect it. Just this little glowing dot darting about; it made me feel odd about the whole situation. My cigarette even more so though. Like something attached to you but that shouldn't be, or isn't, and it's like watching a projection of something. When it's in your mouth is the strangest though, because you can feel it in your mouth, the cigarette, and you can see the end of it too, but there's nothing in between the two things. It's hard to make sense of.

I don't remember what we did with the cigarettes after we'd smoked them because there wouldn't have been an ashtray in the room, and I don't remember which of us fell asleep first either.
h) sometimes you're too bitter to work
i) sometimes it's too late to work
j) sometimes you're too lonely to work