J Spooky bloody place. Desolate. Raining. Not as spooky as him – Whale Man. Adrift out the window

S I’m still here, aren’t I?

J (In body) He’s left me struggling to get a telephone connection between my brain and my emotions. They’re engaged but not to each other

S I don’t know how to spell it out to Jessie but – the line’s gone dead

J Eat kebabs in roadside caffs, mostly. Sleep in workmen’s hostels with no locks, no curtains, no sheets, no showers, no toilet paper, but lots of detailed evidence of previous occupants

S We’re ‘hoping’ there are boats from Kuwait to India rather than Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan …

J … because that writer Salman Rushdie has this fatwa against him from the Ayatollah Khomeini, and what with all the diplomatic souring it means Iran’s off limits to us Brits. Ha, ha. That rhymes. (Least something does)

S Now you care to mention it, Jessie, are we a rhyming couplet or a series of fake haikus? I mean, to be more explicit, are we a comma or a full stop?

J He turns to me, and, for the first time since he came back from his mind-screwing trip to Istanbul, a sixty-watt light bulb’s switched on in his eyes. Why are you bringing this up in the middle of nowhere? Why does it have to be either/or? What about a hyphen or a semicolon? Chill out, will you?

S It may not be the most appropriate time to discuss this, but it’s only because I didn’t have the vocabulary before today. I had a rhinoceros lodged in my throat. Look, let’s be honest with ourselves, Jessie. It’s a full stop, isn’t it?

J You wait until we’re on our way to Iraq before throwing this at me! I know only two things, Stanley-Boy: your mental health is becoming a great big question mark and your personality is still nothing more than a blank sheet of A4 typing paper. Yes, I tried to splash it with some design and colour. Yes, I admit it, I failed, miserably

S Of course you’re so perfect, aren’t you, St Jessie? You know the answer to everything, while all I’m good for is benefiting from your vast experience. Your opinion is my opinion because I have none of my own. Well, you listen to this: I am so much more than your all-encompassing ‘we’. And you, Jessie O’Donnell, as I have discovered, are not much more than a series of bold exclamation marks. To be blunt, to be really, really blunt, God knows what I’m still doing with you – because I, for one, do not

J Get out of my car, I growl, braking, pushing him out before he’s aware that’s what I’m doing. Then I drive off. Full stop. Exclamation mark (emboldened)