The night goes on and I keep drinking, beer that I find in the fridge, beer that I find behind a sack of potatoes in a kitchen press. The wine that Dean ignored earlier on looks fair game to me and I go in search of a corkscrew. Jenny advises me that it’s kind of rude to drink it, after all we have brought it as a present. I tell her to shut her mouth. I’m not sure how many, but certainly a few people in the kitchen hear me when I say it and they look over as much as to say that my behaviour isn’t on. I want very much to know in this instance what drives one person to judge another person. I am only telling Jenny what I believe to be true which is this, that I am going to open this bottle of wine and that Dean will not notice.

The warm buzz of the party is beginning to wear off a bit. Jenny’s words have pissed me off and the wine seems astringent on my tongue after all the beer. I fear that it may give me heartburn and a grievous headache in the morning but seeing as I’ve opened it I have no option but to keep drinking. I’m getting hungry as well and the only food I can find is a couple of cold-wrinkled cocktail sausages on a greasy baking tray in the kitchen. They’re tasty enough but I need more. Dean and his girlfriend are dancing in the kitchen and the music is becoming louder and Jenny mentions Caroline the babysitter and that we have to consider getting back to her.

I feel condemned. To be told in not so many words by your wife that it is in fact time for you to go home is difficult to hear, not to mind digest. The reality of the situation, however, is that she is correct and ultimately if we do not get our arses out of here soon, we are going to have to fork out a small fortune to the babysitter.

On the way home in the taxi, I finger Jenny. I don’t imagine that the taxi driver sees me. He takes his money from my hands with no complaints.

I pay Caroline, rounding it down to thirty euro. It’s half two in the morning. She leaves the house quickly, I don’t offer to walk her home.

Jenny is already in bed when I go upstairs. I start to pull at her, the way I see it, this might be the perfect end to a great night. I think about what I have done to her drawing, I think about admitting it, think of her looking at me, I think of her fears. I don’t feel a great physical reciprocation from my Jenny but in truth that lack of enthusiasm has never strictly bothered me before as such.