I sat on a bed, too weary to think. David took off my shoes and socks. He held my feet in his hands. They were white and wet as fish.

“Can you find somewhere to charge my phone?”

“Sure.”

I watched the torchlight bobbing away across the vast hall. When he came back, David switched off the torch and sat on the bed next to mine. He was eating the paprika crisps, rustling and crunching in the darkness.

“Hey. Hey. I want some.”

“You’re too tired to eat, Andy.”

“I’m not!”

David got up and shuffled round to the other side of the bed. I felt the mattress give as he lay down. The crisps were in the middle and we reached for them in turn.

“I lost my nerve,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Like that day I couldn’t get up on the roof. But with everything.” It was true. Not only in work and relationships, but in all matters, I played it safe—but the consequence was not a feeling of safety. I thought of the episodes, the panicked hours in front of the screen with the curtains drawn and door bolted, and I saw in my mind’s eye a fly trapped in a jam jar. And then, I remembered how it had felt, with David, waist-deep in the floodwaters, the sensation of lightness and freedom.

After a while David said, “Once, when I was about eight, we took the ferry to France and then we drove to Spain. It was the one time I ever remember my parents taking a risk, venturing into the unknown. God knows what inspired them. We had everything in the car including the kitchen sink, but Dad had underestimated the distances. I don’t think he even knew there were mountains in Spain. We drove and drove and drove. My mother went to sleep in the back and I was allowed to sit up front. We ended up driving over the Pyrenees. I’d never seen mountains and they went up and up, like something out of a fairy tale. It felt like it was just the two of us, alone in the whole world.

“It was summer, but at some point it started snowing. These fat flakes falling in the darkness. I tried to stay awake. I wanted to be awake when the snow stopped falling. Other people want families or houses, maybe I do too. Not having to worry about money, now that’s a thing. You know that. All the other things I wanted, glory and success, the kind of success that means you can say fuck you to everyone. I’ve given up on it. I kept on, but that wasn’t it anymore. That’s not what I am after; I’m holding out for that very tiny moment. The moment when the snowing stops.”

When he spoke again, his voice was lower so I had to lean in to hear him.