‘The molecules in ethanol,’ he said, his own cheeks glowing pink, ‘are small enough to pass into the gaps between brain cells. In the brain –’ here he paused to suppress a belch – ‘the alcohol binds to glutamate, a neurotransmitter which excites neurons. This is why alcohol makes a person slower to respond to stimuli.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said. He had ignored my request for a cosmopolitan and ordered me a martini. I bit into the olive and instantly regretted it.

‘Then there’s gamma-aminobutyric acid,’ he added, pronouncing the words carefully. ‘It’s not the ethanol itself that affects you, it’s what it binds itself to.’ He took my hand. ‘That’s what slows you down. That’s what makes you susceptible.’

He was smiling at me, impressed with himself.

‘I’m feeling pretty susceptible,’ I said.

‘Well then, let’s get you home.’

What I remember most about that first encounter is the furiousness of it, Pete’s teeth against my teeth, my clumsy hands on his buttons. That, and I remember lying there when his head vanished beneath the covers, wondering why his perfectly competent efforts were achieving so little. I remember thinking, Glutamate, glutamate, glutamate, and considering whether this might be the agent responsible.

When I woke up, I saw things more plainly. We were in a room that was nearly empty. I realised I had spent the night on an air mattress.

I turned over to see that Pete was awake, squinting at his phone.

‘Is this an air mattress?’

If he flushed, his tan made it too hard to tell.

‘It’s a DreamWell,’ he said. I could see the place between his pectorals where the skin puckered against the sternum and was again impressed by the effort it represented. ‘They’re the best on the market. It has plush-coil technology and an internal high-capacity pump.’

It turned out he’d been engaged until recently – the demise of this engagement some weeks earlier was behind his uncharacteristic visit to a bar. He told me her name was Megan Donaghue, but I never saw that name written down. Sometimes, even now, I will still while away twenty minutes googling the seemingly endless variants: Megan, Meghan, Meaghan, Donohue, Donaghue, Donoghue. At any rate, Megan/Meghan/Meaghan took everything, at Pete’s insistence, including the bed. He wanted a fresh start, he said. He didn’t want anything that reminded him of his past.

‘I don’t like the thought of it,’ he told me one day when he was vacuuming the curtains. ‘Just say you forget it’s there – some photo or card or whatever – then wham, one day when you’re not ready, there it is, staring you right in the face.’ He shook his head.

I found out later that he’d scattered his parents’ ashes, against their will, for the same reason. He was determined to be haunted by nothing.