There’s a dawn glow cupping the clouds by the time I get home. I feel like crap and probably look like week-old crap. The last thing I need is my upstairs neighbour Mrs Delano going off on an abuse bender, not to mention the fact that Mike Madden could have cottoned on to my being a fly in his ointment by now.

So with all this in mind, I use my army stealth training to creep into the apartment. There could be a cell of jittery terrorists holed up on the second floor and they wouldn’t hear Company Sergeant Daniel McEvoy slipping down the hallway to his own door.

Which is open. The busted triple-bar lock lying shamefaced on the floor.

I forget all about operation under the radar when I see the whirlwind that has rolled through my apartment.

‘Christ Almighty!’ I shout, wading through the detritus that was my life. I used to do that metaphorically with Simon; now I’m doing it for real. It’s just as painful and I don’t feel better with every step.

The place has been wrecked. Destroyed. I’ve seen bomb sites with less shredding. They pulled down the wallpaper, disembowelled the sofa, dismantled the appliances. My fridge is lying on its side, leaking mayo; looks like a dying robot. The AC unit is in pieces on the table; reminds me of a mechanic’s course I took once. Pictures on the floor. A Jack Yeats West of Ireland print I carried in a tube from Dublin, slashed for malice.

I walk around flapping my arms, kicking through the debris. Where do you start? How can you fix this?

Then Mrs Delano pipes up. She was waiting for me to come home, I’m sure of it. Probably been up all night injecting her eyeballs with caffeine. I know that sounds crazy, but when you live underneath crazy, some of it drips downwards.

‘Kee-rist almighty,’ she calls, voice wafting through the light fixture. ‘Kee-rist fucking almighty.’

I am absolutely not in the mood for this lady right now. The best tack, I know, is not to rise to the bait, because if I react she wins, and we could be at this all morning and at the end of it my stuff is still trashed.

‘You down there, Irish? Can’t you keep your monkey friends under control?’

Monkey friends? Screw it. Zeb, Barrett and sweet Connie. I need to loosen the valve, let off some steam. So I throw my head back and roar like Tarzan.

‘Shut the hell up, you crazy bat.’

She comes back with ‘Hell is shut for crazy bats.’

‘Shut up,’ I shout, and I can feel my tendons stretch. ‘Or I swear to Christ I will come up there and wring your neck.’

‘No Christ in this neck of the woods.’