Because he feels that I have let him down.

Because I have let him down.

I don’t know when I fell asleep but I wake up slumped in the chair with dribble on my shoulder. The ward is dark and quiet, apart from the whirr and click of ventilators, the odd moan and groan and snore, the sounds of the nurses’ feet pacing purposefully up and down.

Jonathan is still unconscious, still on the ventilator.

I thought I would have been chucked out hours ago, but maybe they don’t have such things as visiting hours any more. I don’t know. Maybe when a patient is dying …

‘Should I stay?’ I ask the night sister.

‘Only if you want to.’

‘Is he going to die?’

She smiles, and takes my hand. ‘No, darling, he’s not going to die. Not this time.’

I finally start crying and she takes me into the corridor and gives me a cup of tea and stays with me till I’ve drunk it and calmed down.

‘Is he your boyfriend, darling?’

‘What? Oh God, no. But he’s my …’ I’m going to say ‘best friend’ but I suddenly have to take a big gulp of air, as if I’m trying to cure hiccups.

‘You go home, my love,’ says the night sister. ‘He’ll still be here tomorrow.’

‘P-promise?’

‘Oh, I promise,’ she says, and gives me a hug.

I get a series of night buses home and I feel calmer and better than I’ve felt for weeks.

Stuart is in the living room with another guy, someone I recognise from the clubs or from Hadley’s or somewhere. They’re smoking a joint and I’ve obviously interrupted them in the middle of something. Stuart’s shirt is untucked, his trousers undone, his feet bare. They look at me as if I’m in the way.

I open the window to let the smoke out. I tidy away glasses and a plate that has been used as an ashtray. It’s the last piece of a little dinner service my mum gave me when I went up to college, the idea being that I should always be able to entertain friends. I don’t think this is what she had in mind. A joint has been left burning on the rim, and it’s marked the little floral design. I throw the plate like a frisbee, aiming it directly at Stuart’s head. It glances off and hits the wall and smashes into a hundred pieces. Stuart’s bleeding.

He says nothing, picks up his jacket, puts on his shoes, takes his trick and leaves.

I take a Valium, and later on another Valium, but I stop at two because I don’t want to end up in the bed next to Jonathan.

I wake up late and call the office while my voice is still woozy from the pills. I try to explain to Anna that my friend is in hospital and I’m in a bad way but she just says ‘Get here as soon as you can’ in a very odd way, even though she’s met Jonathan loads of times and always used to get on with him.