"Andy is a wee bawbag and we're going home. Taxi. Right now." She's leaning on me, swaying slightly.

"Mo? What's wrong?"

"Later." She draws a deep, shuddering breath. "Right now, let's go home."

"Can you walk?" She nods. "Okay, we'll get a taxi." It'll be about twenty quid: I can't afford to make a habit of it. But scratch worrying about money for the time being. If she feels too crap to face the tube . . .

We ride home in silence, wincing in synchrony as we bump over speed pillows and sway through chicanes and suffer all the other traffic-annoying measures that slow down ambulances and cost lives and triple the price of a simple taxi ride. I pay the driver and hold the door open for her and then we're inside our front hall again, the door shut behind us, and she slumps against the wall as if she's just run a marathon. "Coffee, tea, or something stronger?" I ask.

"Coffee." She pauses. "With something stronger." After a moment she levers herself up and shuffles into the living room, then collapses on the overstuffed sofa we inherited from her sister Liz when she emigrated.

I hurry back into the kitchen and refill the caff, then add a generous shot of cooking whisky to her mug. When I get back to the living room she's still on the sofa, her violin case sitting on the pile of magazines on the coffee table. She seems to be shaking at first, in silent laughter: then I realize she's crying.

I put the coffee mugs on the table and sit down next to her. After a moment she shuffles round and I pull her against my shoulder, so that her tears trickle down the base of my neck.

Mo cries helplessly, almost silently, pausing every few seconds to take a little hiccuping gasp of air. She's so quiet—almost as if she's afraid to make a sound. I hold her gently, and murmur inanities over the top of her head, stroking her shoulders. I'm angry at my own helplessness: I've seen her upset before, but never anything like this—

"What happened?" I ask, eventually, after the shudders give way to an occasional twitch.

"You don't need to know." She sniffles. "God, I'm a mess. Fetch the tissues?" We disentangle and I go in search of something for her to wipe her nose on. When I get back she's sitting up, clutching her coffee mug and staring at the brick-surround fireplace we've been meaning to get rid of ever since we moved in, with eyes like wrecking balls.

I put the tissues in front of her on the table. She ignores them. "Was it wet?" I ask.