She was not still and compliant, as I had feared, but grotesquely animated, which was somehow worse. It was over quickly. Afterwards, she got up and went through to the adjoining bathroom, and did not come back out. I waited for her, even knocked on the door, but the only reply was the sound of running water.

Downstairs I went to the desk to pay. I knew the woman working behind the till, and she gave me a friendly smile. I couldn’t remember how much Misha had said that full sex would cost.

The girl said, ‘Sixty for the naughty modelling is it, James?’ The details of our arrangement had become well known around the club. It had required the negotiation of a new tariff with the manager, and had been much discussed as the other girls had been curious and Misha proud. I thought now of how they would punish her for her pride, for her faith in human nature.

‘More than sixty,’ I managed.

‘Did you have a few drinks?’ she asked. ‘You tell me what you had, I’ll tell you what it cost.’

‘No drinks.’

‘Well, what then?’ she said in a friendly tone, and a second later understanding illuminated her features with surprise.

I threw the two hundred down on the desk and ran out of the doors. Justin shouted, ‘Bye, pal, don’t leave it so long.’ I made it around the corner and slowed to a walk. When I got back to my father’s Volvo I sat behind the wheel and stared into the halogen glow of the streetlights, feeling nothing.

16

WE WAITED HALF an hour for the bus. My elation seeped away from me as we sat stranded on the highway. I had no change, so Jessica bought my ticket. We had been sitting in the cold for so long that her fingers fumbled the coins as she took them out of her pocket, spilling a couple of them on to the floor. The driver looked into the distance, and sighed with infinite patience as we both stooped to pick them up, bumping into each other in the process. No one else on the bus seemed to notice. They had no time for other people’s lives. There were only a couple of other passengers, a washed-out white junkie with dreadlocks and a patterned hoodie, an old woman and a couple of uniformed security guards coming back from a night shift. No one spoke. I remembered a story I had read the previous week, about a man being fatally stabbed on the night bus for taking issue with a drunk throwing food at his girlfriend. The story recalled the real function of night in the city, to demonize strangers. We were all exiles from the daytime, but we were united in mistrust. I led Jessica up to the upper deck and sat on the orange seats nearest the front window. The heaters were on, and the glass was fogged up. We took the places either side of the aisle, as my legs were too long to fit comfortably in a single seat. We were alone on the top deck, which made my heart beat more easily. When we pulled away from the stop the bare branches of the trees clawed the roof, as if trying to get in. There were no other cars on the road. The bus bore the human driftwood of the city back into the centre like a midnight tide.