He hated the effort he made to look as if he hadn’t been stood up. The mock-purposeful way he carried himself towards the pub on the corner, as if he’d merely been informed of a change of venue. He hated the way his shirt was sticking and his thighs complained as they rubbed together. Why would you want to go on a date with me, he asked an invisible audience. There was a thin, petty rain which seemed in keeping with the non-event of the night, of James in general. Not a big angry storm, just this. Just this – effing – stupid, embarrassing thing.

In the pub he asked for another whisky – a double – and then, because he was sick of the paint-stripper taste in his throat, red wine.

‘What kind, mate?’ asked the woman, who was tending the bar on her own and seemed stressed out that he was asking for anything at all.

‘Any kind,’ he said, and she shook her head a little and gave him the house.

During his second wine he gave in to temptation and – since Carly still hadn’t made contact at all – looked her up on Facebook. There were numerous references to a night away with ‘the girls’. The last of them had come only an hour ago, illustrated by a GIF of a woman, in an old-fashioned bathing hat, swan-diving into what appeared to be a hot tub of champagne. He closed the window and checked the date. Was it a simple case of crossed wires? No, they’d confirmed it several times. It was incomprehensible. When he scrolled down the page a little way, he came across a photo taken the past week: Carly, the hair now more pink than red, beaming, her arm around a man who looked like an underwear model.

It was incomprehensible. The word came into James’s head again on the bus home. He’d had far more to drink than he was used to, and the alcohol was like paraffin. What the hell is the matter with me? How could he be so out of touch with everything, with everyone, that this could happen? He trudged along the street with the station at his back, where the commuter had shouted at him. It was just one indignity after another. And there was nobody to tell him he wasn’t at fault. It engulfed him completely.

I’ll make you proud, Dad, he’d muttered, as the curtain was closed around his father’s coffin. I’ll do something good. And now look at him, a fat wreck, in a terrible job, just back from being dumped without even meeting the other person, stinking of booze even though he didn’t really drink, no meaningful friendships remaining even though he’d never consciously done anything to end them. And Steffi was in the kitchen.

‘What’s wrong?’ she’d asked, looking up from her phone. ‘Is something wrong?’