Louise’s ex-crush had messaged her. He hoped she was well. She’d deactivated Facebook again, had her locks changed and quit her pottery lessons. He was married with three kids but she just got a vibe.

There had been an earthquake off Sumatra—nothing major, it had barely made the news—and Glenn was on edge. ‘It’s not the earthquakes we have to worry about, though,’ he said. ‘It’s the underwater volcanoes.’

Abraham just watched us, didn’t say anything. Sometimes it felt like he was about to, but then Geoff or Carlos or Louise cut him off and he stopped, sat back.

I was getting worse.

I was trying not to think about Tom. It had been a week, and I’d spent most of it trying not to think about him. Working and drinking and not sleeping, and trying not to think about him.

Every night as I lay in bed, I felt his fingers in my hair, pulling, heard him sigh as he leaned in to me. Tasted him. It had been a week, and I’d smoked a hundred cigarettes and stayed after work for drinks every night and brushed my teeth twice a day but when I bit my lip I could still taste him.

I’d been right to stop it. Careful. But the memory made me feel awkward, sticky.

He hadn’t been into Sawyer’s. Every night from about nine I started looking up whenever the door opened, but it was never him. Every night as I slid into the bench next to Nic or Holly for beers, I checked my phone, thought about messaging him to ask where he was, to say hi, to apologise.

I was trying so hard not to think about him. Failing.

‘You okay, Caitlin?’ Geoff asked, his eyebrows up.

I avoided his gaze; he looked too eager for a story. ‘Yeah,’ I said, looking at the lino on the floor. ‘Just a bit tired.’

At least that part was true.

Afterwards, I walked home, more slowly than usual. It was early but it was cold and everyone was hibernating.

At Cleveland Street, I stopped on the railway bridge, leaned over the railing to watch the trains, to roll myself another cigarette. I wasn’t ready to go home, but I was too tired to walk. It was quiet enough that I could hear the leaves rustling in the shrunken street trees, the faint sound of eighties pop music from an apartment somewhere nearby, a motorbike on a side street. And then footsteps. Slow, deliberate footsteps. And whistling.