"I mentioned a television documentary Julie and I had watched at Gilly's house and that Jill remarked on how his Park Street flat was filled with women's cosmetics and perfume bottles in the bathroom. "What?" Michael exclaimed. Sometimes I thought the word was not a sign of deafness but of stalling. Jill had suggested Michael had quite a full love life before she met him. "Did she?" Michael asked mildly. "So what I want to know," I said raising my voice, "did you get around or did you go out and get that stuff to impress her." Julie tittered. "I don't know where it came from," he said in that sort of comic-evasive tone he was good at slipping into. Julie brought up Gilly's comment on the draining board in Michael's flat. "What's that?" he asked. Julie suggested he had selective hearing and could even hear what others said quietly when he wanted to. "What's that? Say it again," he said, with a straight face."