On her calculator she added up the amount he’d have to pay me by law and then added an amount for compensation. It seemed like a fabulous sum, more than I’d ever earned in a whole year. She dictated the text of a letter for me to write. I asked if we couldn’t change the accusation of sexual harassment in the heading to something less serious. She said that from now on I should get used to the idea that he was my enemy, and that he’d deny everything anyway.

“I went to the post office alone. I stood in the queue and felt a foreboding that I was about to set in motion something that would have irreparable consequences, that the letter had a hidden destructive power. I’d never felt like this before, as if I was about to fire a gun. I knew that one way or another I’d be doing him harm, and not just financially. I nearly turned round and came home. I think if I’d waited a day I’d never have sent the letter. But I’d come that far and I still felt humiliated. It seemed unfair that I’d lost my job, when I’d always behaved impeccably with him. In a way it seemed right that he should pay.”

“So you posted the letter.”

“Yes.”

She stared blankly into space again. After the first sip of coffee she’d put the cup down. She asked if she could smoke. I brought an ashtray from the kitchen and waited for her to go on, but the cigarette only seemed to take her further inside herself, to an obscure corner of her memory.

“You sent the letter…then what happened?”

“He didn’t answer that first letter. I received a receipt: he’d got the letter, he’d read it, but he hadn’t replied. After almost a month my mother phoned the solicitor. “Much better for us,” the woman said. “Either he hasn’t taken us seriously, or he’s been very poorly advised.” Again, I had a sense of foreboding. I’d worked for him for almost a year. You asked me once what he was like.