America is such a nation of suppressed emotion, and when you arrive in L. A. , you can smell the fear. It's the most alien country I've ever been to.
One minute you're closer to someone than anyone in the whole world, next minute they need only to say the words 'time apart', 'serious talk' or 'maybe you. . . ' and you're never going to see them again and will have to spend the next six months having imaginary conversations in which they beg to come back, and bursting into tears at the sight of their toothbrush.