I returned to the bedroom and dressed, the Dave question festering away. But there was no time to really dwell on it. If I left right away, I could make the meeting, maybe only snipping the opening pleasantries. I could at least plead my case. There must be a path to redemption, or Eddie and Polly would not have strung me along so far. But what could I say?

Having spent so long in dread, and with so little achieved, I was oddly calm. No more could be done. There were no escape routes, it was all out of my hands. I wondered how many of the aberrations of the past week – the lingering smoke, the gathering cockatoos – might be manifestations of stress, rather than drink, brought on by my desperate efforts to stave off the inevitable, and my growing knowledge of the futility of those efforts. This morning, the fever had broken. All I had to do was turn up, and let events play out.

I unlocked the front door and pulled on it, expecting it to open, but it did not. It stayed firmly in its frame. I pulled again, with more force, and it did not move – not even the slightest flexing of the wood or shift on the hinges. It was like pulling on a doorknob bolted to a brick wall.

The door was secured by a deadlock and a Yale latch. I checked the deadlock – there have been times I have been so wasted that I forgot to lock it, and then the next morning absent-mindedly locked it while meaning to open it. But it was unlocked, I was sure, and as a test I locked it, watching the bar slide across through the tiny gap between door and jamb, then unlocked it again. And the same with the Yale lock – when I turned the knob, the latch retracted, I could see it.

I braced my right foot against the doorframe, took the little metal handle of the Yale lock in both hands, and pulled as hard as I could. At the very least I should have been able to feel the door bend or strain, but it might as well have been stone.

Fingers aching, I let go, and stood staring at the door, as if it might at any moment reveal its secret, or simply spring open under my gaze.

Time ticked by.

‘This is stupid,’ I said aloud, and resumed trying to yank the door open, again pulling with my foot braced against the frame, then trying a quick succession of short, sharp pulls, as if that might dislodge whatever force was holding the door in place. All I gained was angry red welts on my fingers. Once again I found myself standing and staring at the white-painted wood, breathless with frustration, aware of a rising billow of impotent rage. I had a vital meeting to get to, and I was being thwarted by my own front door. There was an odour, too, a harsh, burning odour, like hot dust in the air …