‘Don’t take any notice of me,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m just feeling a bit down, that’s all. I’ll be okay. I’ll get up in a minute and have a shower and get dressed, only there’s no hurry, I don’t have to go anywhere in particular. I don’t have to go out to North Road any more, did I tell you? Not today or tomorrow or the day after that, either. I got kicked off their rotten useless program…’

‘Yes, you told me. Here, Angie, have some coffee.’

She drank half a cup, then huddled back against the bedhead, the tears drying on her face and her eyelids drooping then snapping open again. She plucked at the sheet, making a little hole in a patch of frayed threads. Seymour began to talk, not wanting her to fall back into that wild place where she’d been in her sleep. He told her about Thelma’s sprained shoulder and the movies they’d watched and how tedious the past days had been.

‘So that’s why I couldn’t come over to visit,’ he finished, feeling guilty, even though it hadn’t been his fault. She’d looked so white after that day at the races, so tired. He should have nagged a bit more and somehow prevented her from going out again that night. Maybe then she wouldn’t be in this state, wouldn’t be so…peculiar. He made a grab for the ashtray and just managed to stop ash from spilling all over the blanket. Everything she did seemed uncoordinated, even her languid responses to his chatter didn’t somehow mesh. He wished she’d wake up properly, then they could go out somewhere, out into the clear morning which sparkled like wine held in a glass up to the sun. But she just continued to sit there, hunched up, gazing at the hole she was making in the sheet.

‘Angie, are you listening to me?’ he demanded, exasperated, and she finally made an effort and dragged her gaze upwards.

‘So,’ she said. ‘You had a good day at the races yesterday? Really did you enjoy it, or were you only pretending?’

‘It wasn’t yesterday we went to the races, Angie. It was Wednesday, don’t you remember? Yesterday I couldn’t come over, or the day before that. Thelma was at home. I haven’t been over for…’

‘This place is past a joke,’ she said fretfully. ‘In ten minutes I’m going to get up and springclean, wash the curtains, vacuum everything. It is a mess, isn’t it?’

‘Well, I guess you could say that. Ash all over the place doesn’t help, either. You aren’t going to have another cigarette, are you? Come on, you just put one out.’