Irene went into her cabin and shut the door. She stood for a few minutes, listening to the sounds next door, Luke’s muttered goodnight, Mickey’s drawled response. Footsteps and a door opening, closing. The clink of a bottle’s neck against glass. You imagine something so hard it almost becomes real. She had spent the day letting herself melt into the warmth of Luke’s body, feeling his mouth against hers and his fingers touching her, opening her up. In her mind, she had been an anonymous body arching in the darkness, pale skin glimmering like a fish under water, a stranger and free from herself at last.

She rubbed at the creased silk of her dress, listened to the rustle of the trees on the towpath. She could feel, behind her eyes and in the Velcro scratchiness of her throat, that she was tired. If she lay down now, sleep would swamp desire. That would be the end of it all.

She straightened her shoulders and opened the door again. She could hear Katherine coughing in the cabin next door.

Mickey was slumped on the sofa. His eyes were closed, though his fist was still curled around an empty tumbler on the table. Irene walked softly across the floor, her bare feet sticking on the plastic. She raised a hand to tap on Luke’s door.

‘Where going?’

Mickey’s red eyes stared out of his slack face. She stared back.

‘Where do you think I’m going?’ she said.

‘Gonna fuck Luke?’

‘Yes.’

He stood up and lurched towards her, grabbing her by the shoulder and wrenching her round to face him. All his features seemed to have slipped.

‘Stop it,’ she said.

‘Bitch,’ he hissed between his strong white teeth. ‘You bitch.’ He shook her so her head wobbled and pain sloshed behind her eyes.

‘Let go.’

Luke’s door opened and suddenly there were three of them wedged in the small space between the cabins, and the air was thick with the sound of breathing. Irene felt as if she was trapped in some strange dream – a fatuous comedy, a surreal disaster. Then Luke pushed Mickey backwards, so that he stumbled and had to stop himself from falling.

‘Get your hands off her.’

‘I’m not the one who’s got his greedy, grubby hands on her,’ said Mickey, staggering forward like a punch-drunk boxer. ‘Thief!’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Irene. ‘This is mad.’

But even as she spoke, Mickey was flailing a fist towards Luke, and following after it so his whole body swung wildly. In a weird slow motion Irene saw Luke jerk back, hands coming up to his face, and at the same time saw Mickey toppling sideways and down, carried by the momentum of his cartoonishly mis-thrown punch. Behind her, Neil was saying, ‘What the fuck …?’ and behind him, out of their cabin, Lorrie’s voice came plaintive and befuddled: ‘What on earth’s going on, Neil?’