Again, she said nothing, and he pulled her dress over her head. She wasn’t looking at him, reached around behind herself to undo her bra, and he brought his face down to her breasts, appreciating them close up. They had always been small; she looked much younger than she was there, in the half-dark, in nothing but her knickers and a pair of cowboy boots.

‘God, you’re beautiful, you’re so fucking beautiful.’

No response, so he pushed her down flat onto the mattress, positioned himself on top of her, held her legs open and scooped her knickers to the side. Red hair, bright even in the gloom. He breathed her in, put his face right there, his mouth.

‘Let me worship you tonight,’ he told her, just trying to alleviate the sadness. Tonight, he thought, she needed to feel wanted. And he could provide. When he finally got inside her, he groaned, loud. How long since he’d had sex? His last relationship – if you could call those three months of awkwardness with Louise a relationship – had ended well over a year ago.

‘Fifteen years in the making!’ he said, smiling down at her.

‘Sssh,’ she told him.

Afterwards he brought her wine and crisps from the kitchen, and they consumed them together under the sheets, in companionable silence. He stroked her arm.

‘Dunno about you, but I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.’

She sipped. ‘It was nice.’

‘How would you feel if I held you tonight?’

‘Yeah, OK.’

He kept the warmth of her close to him, skin on skin, lining her. She was angular, bony even, and he was aware that the slump of his beer belly was pushing at her back, tried sucking it in till he was sure she was asleep.

Clio Campbell, in his bed.

He woke first, spent a little bit of time just looking at her, thankful for once that his cheap curtains let in too much daylight. Freckles on her cheekbones, delicate blue veins under that thin milky skin, wrinkles at her eyes and deep lines pulling her mouth into a frown. Well, she was still younger than him, he reminded himself, and definitely in better shape. Her eyes opened.

‘Hello there, sleepy.’ He smiled at her.

‘Hi, Neil. Morning. Time is it?’ She didn’t take even a second to come to; he wondered briefly if she’d maybe been awake for a while.

‘Almost eight. Go back to sleep if you want. I could make you some breakfast? Seeing as I worked later yesterday I can take a bit of TOIL this morning.’

‘No, I should go. Need to – shit, we’re in Glasgow, aren’t we? I’m going to have to go. My bus leaves from Edinburgh. Where’s your bathroom?’