The Dog who Came in from the Cold Chapter 6: All Those Germs

• Listen to Andrew Sachs read this chapter

• Read chapter five

The issue for Caroline was not just a simple choice between Man A and Man B, a choice with which some women might very much have liked to be faced; her choice went beyond that to embrace a third possibility, namely: neither.

“I just don't know what to do,” she confided in her mother when she returned to Cheltenham for a weekend with her parents. “ There are these two men, you see, and I really don't know which one to choose. But maybe I shouldn't choose either.”

Caroline's mother had always felt rather irritated by her daughter's indecision in these matters. Her philosophy was uncomplicated: find a man, satisfy yourself as to his suitability, and solvency, of course, and then, if everything was in order, proceed with all dispatch to tie him down. It was a clear programme, and one which many of Jane Austen's heroines would have recognised as being highly practical, and indeed the only thing to do.

The option of choosing to remain by oneself was not one which her mother's friends would have entertained at all seriously; for most of them there had never been any question but that one should get married if one possibly could. They appreciated, of course, that life did not always work out as one wished, but single women, they felt, were single for a reason. This could be demographic, as when there were simply not enough young men to go round, or it could be a concomitant other misfortune, of looks, perhaps, or attitude. Some women, it had to be accepted, were just too mousy to attract a flicker of interest from men, even from men who were themselves on the shelf, or virtually there - men with pebble-lensed spectacles and sloping shoulders; slightly seedy army officers of questionable tastes; dusty accountants with possessive mothers. Such men were hopeless, it was generally accepted, although there were always women - noble women - who looked beyond these drawbacks, took these men on, and thought of England when necessary. Did such women, Caroline wondered, sometimes utter in medio rerum the word England? It would be cause for disappointment for the men, she imagined; but better, of course, than the uttering of the name of another man, a known cause of matrimonial discord.

Her mother's generation had simply not understood that women might choose to remain by themselves because they thought the single life better. Of course in their day it was not better - at least not for women, whose career choices were still so unfairly limited by the dominance of men. Caroline, however, belonged to a generation for which there were all sorts of interesting jobs available to women, and indeed many of these jobs were now increasingly a female preserve. Medicine, for instance, was a fallen citadel - so much so that soon the majority of doctors would be women. The law was a harder nut to crack, but cracked it would duly be, as would the worlds of finance, aviation, broadcasting, and so on. Soon there would be no place for men in any of these callings, although there would always be secretarial positions, of course.

So deciding that she did not need a man was a real option. And yet, and yet … The problem was that in spite of the persuasive voices claiming that men were not necessary, she still had the feeling that men were really rather nice, and that by and large most women were happier if they had a man to come home to, or a man to come home to them. It sounded tremendously old-fashioned, but it was true. Her mother, of course, would have been unsurprised by this proposition, but for Caroline it ran counter to the received wisdom to which she had been exposed ever since she first started her studies at university; a received wisdom which stressed independence and liberation from the shackles of heterosexual domesticity. Caroline found herself reaching a conclusion that was the polar opposite of all that: most women needed men, and most men needed women.

If she fell within the majority - and she thought she did - then it precluded the single state - the third option she had identified - and meant that she came back to the choice between A (James) and B (Tim Something, the photographer). Tim Something was very attractive - suave, and handsome - of course, but in James's favour there was, first and foremost, the fact that he was easy company. Like an old pair of sandals or a battered straw hat, or even a comfortable domestic cat. None of these analogies would have flattered him, and yet Caroline thought that they were undoubtedly apt.

She and James could talk together for hours about the most mundane of subjects; and if conversation failed they could contentedly sit in silence in each other's company. They could telephone one another - as they often did - even if there was really nothing to say beyond a comment on the state of the weather. James had once telephoned Caroline to tell her that it was raining, and she, on looking out of the window, had confirmed that indeed it was true. To have such a pointless conversation with another and nevertheless feel that it was worthwhile showed a level of communication and empathy quite strong enough to sustain years and years of being together. Caroline knew that, and realised that James would be an easy and reassuring partner.

And yet there remained one misgiving, and it was a major one: James had rarely touched her, and when he had done so it had been in a gentle and slightly detached way - the lightest of touches to the elbow, for example, or to the forearm, both of which parts of the anatomy have their uses, but were not, she felt, exactly erogenous.

Nor had James ever kissed her, except lightly on the cheek, in greeting or farewell, and he had always kept his lips firmly together when bestowing these chaste kisses.

“Your kisses are very light,” she had playfully remarked after one such exchange. “And they're always on the cheek.”

James had looked at her in surprise. “But where else would one kiss?”

She stared at him. “Well, sometimes people kiss one another on the lips,” she said. “Haven't you seen that? In films?”

James frowned. “Of course. But I've always regarded that as being a little bit … well, a little bit unhygienic. Like taking communion from the common chalice. All those germs swimming around in the communion wine. Same thing with mouths.”

Caroline sighed. “We all have germs, James,” she said. “And it does no harm to share them from time to time - especially with people you really like.”

“Oh,” said James. “To boost one's immune system?”

• Get Twitter updates

• Join the Facebook page

• Illustrations by Iain McIntosh