It was, I believe, this acute lack of human contact that precipitated one of the most shameful episodes of my life. One night after work I took my dad’s car keys from the wooden rack in the kitchen and went for a drive. It was late on a Saturday. To ensure that I would not be around when my dad was at home I had asked specifically for the weekend shifts, which unfortunately finished several hours earlier than their weekday counterparts. The streets were full of young men and women drinking and clubbing. Most of the bars and pubs had large crowds spilling out of their doors, hanging into the street like bellies over tight waistlines. I was filled with a mixture of envy and disgust. I desperately wanted to talk to someone, but everyone I saw in the convivial summer darkness looked somehow grotesque. I drove over Wandsworth Bridge, and up the Wandsworth Bridge Road into Fulham, not thinking about where I was going. I don’t know when I decided to do what I did, I hope the decision was never consciously made, but I stopped off at the cashpoint at the garage on the King’s Road and withdrew two hundred pounds, about forty hours’ worth of video-shop time. After three-quarters of an hour behind the wheel I found myself in Shoreditch. I parked the car.

‘Hey, all right, James,’ the friendly Irish bouncer said to me on my way in, ‘we’ve missed you.’ The taste of familiarity revived me for a moment, but his next question ran me through. ‘Where’s yer pal?’

‘You tell me, Justin,’ I said to him with a queasy smile.

‘Ah, he’ll find his way back,’ Justin said. ‘Misha’s on tonight, do you want her sent upstairs?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Our credit was perfect, and they didn’t ask me to pay anything up front. I walked up the first flight of stairs. There was a group of drunk men with their ties loosened in the shower room, watching a wet girl I didn’t recognize with stocky legs gyrating in the perspex box, and they cheered, ‘Get in, son!’ as Justin showed me through the door to the private area upstairs. I thought, I’m not like them.

‘Quieten down, you lot, or I’ll belt the lot of yer,’ Justin said. He had an amiable way of making threats that came from the mixture of a good nature and a fearsome reputation. Justin could afford to be affable when he threatened, because everybody seemed to know that if they stepped out of line the promised damage would magically materialize.

I waited for Misha in our private room. Her eyes lit up when she came in. Obviously Justin had not told her who had requested the pleasure of her company, knowing she enjoyed our time together and keen to give her a lift. It was exquisite, watching the pre-prepared smile of seduction transform into one of genuine joy. She ran over and hugged me, and kissed me on the cheek. She had been dancing downstairs, and she was cool but sweaty and was wearing nothing but a black thong. She treated her nakedness with professional indifference – no need to pretend to be sexual around a friend. The feel of her body pressing against mine made me happy for the first time in weeks. Her neat shoulder blades were slippery with perspiration. I leant my head into hers and took a deep breath from her bottle-blonde hair. I could have drawn her from memory, had done once or twice, but she looked fresh in the flesh. I had forgotten how her broad smile disclosed too many of her uneven white teeth, a chink in her prettiness that made me want to protect her from the world, to cover the gap in her armour where insults might get in.