I am currently writing a novel - this is a conclusive moment in it. I thought I'd submit this to see if you like it. If it's hated, I might well scrap it. Therefore, any critiques, long and short, detailed and vague, would be immensely helpful. Thanks.

You know, it is possible to love someone so much that you destroy yourself in the process. You have only to read ‘Wuthering Heights’ to know that.

I wouldn’t expect you to understand, my little love. You’re so young and you’re so inexperienced. You were probably still wearing mittens and playing with small kittens when I was sick with love.

I was young but I was mature. I saw her across a Budapest town square and I knew I loved her. There I was in my starchy attire, with my glasses pushed high up my nose and a satchel weighing down on my shoulder – the Cambridge graduate, always – and she was dressed in a flimsy, linen thing, all swaying, feathering black hair. There I was, hot under my collar and so alive. Before, I had found a love for books, old and dusty, forgotten books, and for years I had sat in the library reading alone, so content with other people’s feelings, but when I saw her I was shaken out of that collegiate attitude.

I cannot tell you how exactly, but seeing her completed me. I was a man. Still shy and reserved and self-important, but I could feel the blood in my veins and the sting of my eyes as they strained to keep sight of her. My clothes were suddenly itchy, burdening.

I know you will resent me, my little lamb, but you must know. For too long have I sat beside you on that beach and listened to you plan out our life together. Your voice, it flits about, all anxious and excited in one, and it hurts me to the core to see such spirit wasted on a drab like me. There is so much for you to know.

I loved her so much it tormented me. We were in a love affair by the turn of the week and she consumed me. When we were parted, I longed for her. When we were together, I dreaded the inevitable separation. And thus I implored her to marry me.

She was born to be a wife, born to be a mother. Yes, Sybil, I had a son. Rosa gave me a bright-eyed, pink-cheeked son – Robert – and he was us united into one. He had her hair, her confidence and ability of judgement, and my brains. He liked the sea. ‘The sea, the sea. I want the sea,’ he’d murmur. He wanted it, it must be his possession, and we gave in. I hated it – the salt strung my skin till it was pink, but he splashed in it and was swimming by three years. He was full of freedom, like his mother. They would go in together, free like small fish that had been released from a glass bowl and into the ocean. I sat on the shingles with my binoculars, still the quaint, uptight little Englishman, but I did not mind.

Sybil, now I must confess my most painful memories. For long they have sat enclosed in a jar of denial. But you have forced it from me, yet I do not blame you – you are only goodness, innocent lamb.

Robert loved Horse Mead most of all. He ran across the shingles and into that cave – yes, that very cave – and played the explorer. He was a pirate sometimes, and at other times, a fugitive from a horrific war. For a boy of six, he had such imagination. Rosa could only laugh and laugh in delight; I would watch with pride.

But Horse Mead’s waters were laden with strong undercurrents. I did not know it – sometimes it crashed about but at other times it was calm and idyllic. ‘I’ll swim now,’ my boy said. ‘Watch me swim.’ I told him not to go too far, not to do anything silly. He gave me a look as though I had patronised him and then he was off.

He waved, he grinned. We kept hearing ‘Watch this! Watch this!’

He look so long, he kept doing the same old tricks – jumping, twisting, handstands and long-distances. I turned to Rosa; she was watching him. She again enchanted me. I told her I loved her, that I loved our life together. She turned to me. I’ll never forget what she said. ‘I love you, too. You’ll suffocate me with your “I love yous” one day. I will resent you for them soon enough.’

‘Never,’ I whispered. Then I had kissed her ear and heard her fruitful chuckle. ‘Never resent me, Rosa.’

‘Never,’ she had agreed.

But Robert was far-gone now. He was in the distance. A slight struggle had begun – he had noticed how far out he was. I stood, Rosa leaped up. ‘Robert!’ I bellowed, my voice just anguish. Rosa had flung herself forwards and charged towards the water. My brain – my apparently scholarly brain – racked itself for what to do.

I came in after her, after my Rosa with her mermaid-hair. She was so far off. I could not see Robert anymore, and the waves were coming hard and fast and stinging my eyes into a half-blindness. ‘Robert! Robert!’ I shouted, but later I realised it had morphed into ‘Rosa’. I was shrieking in time, and then something snapped in me. It was all clear.

I had lost my wife and my child.

Gone, into that ocean. Far away. And I was still holding the fish bowl.

I held the letter in my hand. Aunt Susanna was snoring beside me. She did not see or hear me when I hunched forward, as if to vomit, and barked out uncontrollable sobs. Oh, how he had deceived me. But still how I loved him. And he would never have me – no, he was destroyed. If he were to have me, as his wife, he would resent me. He would see me as a replacement. I was lost; I was caught between two minds.

My aunt did know that the ink on the paper ran and smudged with my tears. No – she was too busy being fat and idle and hopeless. My face fell against my two childish knees. I was too broken to consider things lucidly. That would take years. I only wanted my Markus back. It was only later, much later, that I realised I had never truly had him to begin with.