She hands him a lighter and he flicks it gratefully, leaning his head back with the release of smoke. She takes the leather pouch from him and rolls one of her own, and their smoke mingles in the damp air. On the concourse, people hurry over concrete, which is rain-slicked now, carrying their bags and their books. “Have you eaten?” he says.

“No.”

“There’s a pub somewhere around here. Does . . . tapas or something.”

Something about the way he says “tapas” makes her smile.

He looks disoriented as they cross the road, and she has to fight the urge to put a hand onto his arm and steer him through the traffic to safety.

“It’s around here somewhere,” he says, leading her through the redbrick flats that lie to the south of the Euston Road, along a wide Georgian terrace to a dark-looking corner pub. “I think this is it. It’ll do, anyway.” He holds the door open for her. “Drink? I’m going to have a pint. And a whiskey. You want a whiskey?”

There is no mention of food. She looks at the clock above the bar—2:45.

“Sure,” she says. “Why not.”

She finds them a table in the corner of the bar, tucked away from the window. He comes back with two pints of Guinness and two glasses of whiskey. “Your health.” He gulps the whiskey down, chases it with a healthy swig of Guinness. Then, as though he notices her presence properly for the first time, “How was your day?” he says.

“Awful.”

He nods grimly.

“You?” she says.

“You don’t want to know.” He lifts his head to her, and she sees his despair. “It didn’t work. The IVF. The last go.”

She is not surprised. She wishes she were but she is not.

“I’m lost,” he says. “We’re lost. In all of it.” He looks away to where rain has begun to dapple the window, and downs the rest of his Guinness in three open-throated gulps. “I’m going to get another drink. You want one? Another whiskey?”

“Sure.”

She fiddles with her phone when he has gone. Turns it on. Turns it off again. It is strange, she thinks, that Hannah has said nothing to her of this news. She finishes her whiskey. Sips her pint.

There are two more pints of Guinness when he returns, and two whiskeys. “I’ll drink it, if you can’t.” He gives a small smile as he slides them over the table towards her. “So go on, why was your day so bad? Hannah says you’re in a play.”

She wants to tell him that it doesn’t matter. That she doesn’t want to talk about herself. “Yes,” she says. “I am.”

“Something Russian?”

She nods. “Uncle Vanya. Chekhov.”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s OK.”

He leans forward. “OK? That doesn’t sound too good.”