It doesn’t come. She just says, ‘Sort yourself out, Rob,’ and goes home. Gone are the days of quick drinks after work that go on for hours, of shared confidences and smutty jokes and giving nicknames to our co-workers.

I go to the gym. At least here I can forget about my problems, and work some of the toxins out of my system. And I see Andy so I get my steroids as well. Then I have a sunbed, because it’s good for the acne on my back. When I come out my skin feels tight. I rub a lot of moisturiser into my face until it’s shiny. I check myself out in the mirror, and I’m still looking good. Then I put my shirt on – the shirt that Simon gave me – and I feel bad about being so rude to him. That makes me cross, and now I feel angry with him. I guess you could say that I’m experiencing mood swings.

I need a night in, if only to be able to say that I’m not out every single night of the week, and so I go home via the supermarket and make myself a healthy dinner of stir-fried chicken breasts, broccoli and carrots. I drink two pints of water and watch a DVD. The phone doesn’t ring. Stuart hasn’t been in touch all day. I think we must have ended the weekend with a row but I don’t remember it, and I doubt he does either. I half think of calling Jonathan just to see if he’s still alive, but then I remember that I vowed that he would have to make the first move.

There’s so much noise coming from downstairs that I’m having difficulty concentrating on the TV. Since Michael moved out, the new people have been causing a great deal of nuisance around the place. They play loud music all the time, they hang out on the balcony smoking and talking, or rather shouting, in incredibly loud voices, and they seem to work very strange shifts because there are doors slamming and feet pounding up and down the stairwell at all hours of the day and night. The smell of their cooking seems to come up through my floorboards. They haven’t introduced themselves, and when I pass them they look straight through me. I don’t know if this is an African thing, or a homophobia thing, or just that they’re bloody rude, and I’m trying to work myself up to a confrontation that will seem neither hostile nor racist. I’m cross with Michael for selling the flat to people like this, and then I realise that I sound exactly like our neighbours at home, who complained when an Asian family moved into the street.

I’ve got three boxes of Michael’s stuff cluttering up my bedroom, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it, it’s probably a load of kitsch ornaments and tasteful coffee table books of male nude photography, which really ought to be chucked. He wasn’t very coherent when I last saw him, on the day he was moving out, and didn’t make any arrangements about collecting them. Nor did he mention them in the card he sent from his new address, to which I remember I haven’t replied, as he has neither email nor mobile, and I haven’t got writing paper or stamps.