They eat. Safa and Harry making conversation that Ben hears but doesn’t take in. He eats his steak and salad. He drinks the water then sits waiting quietly. Steph was having an affair. He would never have got married anyway. It doesn’t matter that he is dead because she was fucking someone else. He died. He is dead. He misses his life and his fiancée even though she was about to tell him it was over.

‘Ben?’

‘Huh?’

‘You coming for a shower? Shit, I mean going for a shower. Not coming as in coming with me . . . I didn’t mean that . . . I didn’t mean coming . . . fuck it. I meant are you going for a shower?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ He gets up as she lifts her hands at Harry, who shakes his head and sighs. He showers. He dresses in the grey tracksuit and heads back to his austere sterile room with the single metal bed and the glaring light.

‘Come for a beer.’ She leans round his door to see him sitting on the edge of his bed.

‘Nah, I’m going to—’

‘Fuck that,’ she says, venturing into his room. ‘Come on . . . you promised . . .’

‘I just—’

‘Nope. With me. Come on. Just one.’ She takes his wrist and laughs as she pulls him up on to his feet. ‘Watch the sunset. Have a beer. It’s like our Friday night so . . . actually, I wonder what day it is here. Do you know what day it is?’

‘Er, no . . . listen, I just want to . . .’

‘Fuck that. Fuck off. Get fucked and just have a fucking beer,’ she says, still holding his wrist.

He smiles at her profanity and the way she says it. She smiles back, seeing the spark come into his eyes.

They head back outside to three chairs set side by side. Bottles of beer in a cooler box on the gun table. Harry already with a beer in one hand, a cigarette curling smoke in the other and his long legs stretched out, barefooted in the warm evening air.

‘Beer,’ she says, handing Ben a bottle.

Ben sits and doesn’t notice that he’s the only one in the grey tracksuit. Safa wears loose linen trousers and a white sleeveless top. Harry in the jeans and T-shirt he wore in Rio.

‘I was just asking Ben what day it is,’ Safa says, taking a beer and sitting down.

Harry sips from his bottle and thinks for a second, ‘No idea,’ he says after that whole second’s worth of deep contemplation.

Ben drinks his beer but doesn’t taste it. He doesn’t even register what beer it is. He doesn’t think to register what type of beer it is. His mind is not here in this place.

‘I’ll, er . . .’ He stands up and places the empty bottle on the table. ‘I’ll turn in . . .’

‘Ah, have another one,’ Harry says.