The argument had been going on for several hours. They strode around the apartment, cutting corners and avoiding an inevitable touching of hips or feet in the corridor. They were like hot flies. The bathroom door had fallen, a dead cadet, during a previous pinching evening last July, which meant that Ellis had been holding her bladder tight since the morning. Tom was inclined to burst out of the bedroom and walk past the door while she reached for the toilet roll. Later that evening she arranged herself in the bath so that the tops of breasts floated through the soap and let her arms drop down by the sides of the tub. She gazed down the corridor, her eyes outlined in black and her expression one of total boredom. Ellis relieved herself in the water and waited until she was cold for Tom to come out of the bedroom.