Losing my job was one thing. I doubted my ability to get another, certainly in the brief window before financial disaster. The Need would thicken to fill every crack of every day, to fill every part of life, and that would be the end. But that was just a technicality. Losing the respect and friendship of Eddie, who was friends with everyone and supported everyone, Eddie who would do anything for his staff: that was so much worse. It was that that marked me as impossible to save – as unfit for saving.

Back at my desk, I checked emails for some kind of signal from Pierce, from Quin, from De Chauncey or his PR, from anyone. But there was nothing. What would they say, anyway? What was I expecting, or hoping for? What was the best case, now?

I looked at Tamesis. There were notifications, which I had assumed were the long tail of Wednesday morning’s surge. And mostly they were, but for two: an event invitation, and confirmation of my RSVP.

I hadn’t RSVPed to anything. But there it was, Tamesis had marked me as definitely attending an event this afternoon.

The Directors of Harbinger Homes and Wolfe / De Chauncey cordially invite you to celebrate the final phase of …

TEN

I bought a can-crusher. I think that was an important step.

Elise was unhappy about the cans. The empty cans, specifically. I did not keep large supplies of lager in the fridge, I bought the cans in fours, always trying to camouflage them with other, necessary purchases. I became very conscientious about doing the household shop. I went to the little Tesco three or four times a week. But although I would meet immediate needs, I would never pre-empt future shortages. I might remember that we were on the last dregs of Fairy Liquid just as I stepped out of the front door, and yet choose not to buy any, so as to have another reason to go out in a day or two. Lots of little trips, that was the trick. I don’t know how much I thought of it as a ‘trick’, or thought about how the run of my life was beginning to bend around the cans in the fridge. Not thinking ahead was my way of thinking ahead.

Every time I went out, I bought four cans. Not too many – nothing to suggest that I had a problem. When I couldn’t reasonably go to Tesco, I’d go to the little convenience store on the corner and get a couple of cans. Maybe a stick of gum or a Lion bar as well.