“I’d love it,” she said, “if we were always as happy as we are now.”

“We will be,” he said.

She stood. “I’ll go and get some groceries. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Meet me here”, he said, ordering another pint.

“Stay sober for me,” she said and kissed him. “I can’t wait to get home.”

“Please be here,” she said.

Half an hour passed, then an hour. He stood at the door and looked up and down the street, but she could not be seen. He walked the town, returned and sat there in the empty bar. The panic attack came again. She had deserted him. He was overcome with nausea. He tried to see himself reaching the bar but felt it was an impossible task. Though he was going forwards some irreversible backward pull was gaining on him. His body felt like a worm, bloated below the neck. He heard the hard snip of an insect buzzing round his ear. He tried to detect the insect but just as he thought he had trapped the sound it began somewhere else. He scratched his wrists. He followed the hopper for ages because its sound felt like a stitch in the heart.

He sat on drinking by himself waiting for her to appear. The waiting seemed to go forever. His thoughts seemed loud as screams. Then he went to the other end of the town and found her sitting drinking in the small hotel with men he didn’t know.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he hissed.

“Oh God,” she said, “I forgot all about the time.”

“I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“I got held up here.”

“You got held up drinking. Why didn’t you just lift the phone and ring?” he persisted angrily.

“I didn’t think of it.”

“Who is this?” asked one of the men.

“This,” said Catherine biting her lip, “is my friend.”

“Oh.” He looked at Jack and smiled sarcastically. “So this is him.”

“Who is this bollacks?” asked Jack.

“Could you leave her alone?” said the man.

“Jack, this is the director of that film. Peter. I was just explaining to him what happened to me.”

“C’mon, let’s go,” muttered Jack.

“In a minute,” said Catherine with charm, “this is the man who wrote the play I told you about.”

“Congratulations,” Peter said.

She introduced him to the others. Which one of them is the fucker? he thought.

“Can we go?” he asked her again.

“Jack, please!”

“This is the exact moment,” he said, “when we should be elsewhere.”

“In a few minutes, all right?”

“I’ll have a brandy,” he demanded, and sat apart from them.