He raised his eyebrows.

“I’ll be careful about calling in sick,” I said.

“No, you’ll be all right,” said Earl. Then he added, “So long as you don’t take the piss.”

We were by the sink, making coffees. Looking for a sponge to wipe the grubby mugs, I saw maggots at the drain. Earl called over the shift leader. She wore her fine black hair in plaited buns that she shook hopelessly. “I keep telling the management.”

Earl filled a quarter of his coffee mug from a clear bottle with a Cyrillic label. “Vodka. Want some?”

“Vodka and coffee?” I said.

“You don’t have to have the coffee,” he said, smiling.

“Maybe later,” I said.

“Won’t be a later,” he said.

After I’d stirred the coffees, Earl introduced me to Lizard, a guy in a leather jacket worn scaly at the seams, and then to Coño, the nightshift dog. Lizard told me Coño was actually Earl’s.

“Nice name,” I said, patting her. “I haven’t heard it before.”

Earl and Lizard doubled up laughing. “You’ve not been to Spain?”

“Not yet,” I said.

They cracked up again.

“It’s ‘cunt’ in Spanish,” said Lizard.

“Hey, hey,” said Earl. “It’s not the same thing, it’s the language of love.”

“Thought that was Italian,” I said, and they stared at me like I was a square peg.

A woman with breath to rival Earl’s put her arm across my shoulders. Her hair was bottle mahogany-red with a short pull of gray at the roots. It gave off an oily scent overlaid by a cloyingly sweet perfume. Her green eyes were clumpily mascaraed and shattered by red veins.

“Ignore them, babes,” she said. “I’m Sherry. Let’s hand out the coffees.”

I don’t remember much else from the night other than an overall impression that I’d gone too far, I’d made a mistake. I’d traipsed after Sabine as if she were the Pied Piper. And where was she now? As for me, I seemed to be alone in a land of losers, wasters, and misfits.

9

Night after night there was no Sabine.

At the end of another day’s struggle to sleep, I’d set off from my houseshare in the dark. Slamming the front door shut, I’d sense my cohabitants’ collective flinch. Disregarding it, I’d head down lonely streets past glowing windows. At the station I’d cross over to the empty inbound platform. I’d get a train that was harshly lit, though scarcely a quarter full.