‘And after that?’

‘I’m not really thinking that far ahead. Something will come up. I’m going to be doing a bit more fighting. Do you remember that man we met in Vagabond? The friend of Augustus White? He’s found me one or two matches in London.’

‘Where will that be, Francis?’

He shrugged. ‘He said it’s mostly in private places.’

‘Private like pubs or what?’

‘Just private.’

He kept folding his clothes and piling them up on the bed. I wanted to catch his wrist to make him stop and look at me.

‘How was your summer?’ he asked.

Shame made my cheeks burn as I said, ‘It was OK. I didn’t do much.’

‘Oh, you should have come out to Monaco. I’d have asked you if I’d known you were free.’

‘That was silly,’ I said.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were around?’

‘I didn’t have your number, remember?’

‘Oh well. Next year.’

‘Yes.’

After that I made my excuses and walked back to my own room. I lay in my bed, racked with alternating currents of rage and concern.

The next few weeks were mostly taken up with a kind of mutual illusion, the maintenance of which was exhausting. The purpose of the game was to pretend that Francis was fine, and that we were having fun in his company. Jessica and I formed the supporting cast; Francis was the star. Lisa was not much in evidence, citing a major business deal in London as the reason for her absence. Looking back, I saw how neatly she managed the task of distancing herself from us. It was a difficult part for me to play, but made easier by the fact that I genuinely could not believe or understand how much Francis had changed in such a short period. Even when he was forced to tell us the truth several weeks later, even with this key I still could not quite unlock the mysteries of his transformation. He was fighting on the weekends down in London, and though he would come back with money he would spend it compulsively during the week. He returned from these weekends in the city with bruises and cuts, and would not let us come down to see him box. It was not just his face and body, but his knuckles that were bloody, and Jessica told me she feared he was being paid to fight without gloves. During the week we spent every day together as before, we went out and partied, took drugs and drank, but there was no pleasure in it any more. The evenings began to follow a set course: we would meet at about six for cocktails in the Vaults or Browns, and Francis would be in a good humour, already slightly slurring his words. Listening to him tell his jokes was like listening to a man with a stutter give a speech. Even the parts that were fluent and funny were marred by an excruciating anticipation of the next blunder. We would then move on to a bar or a club, where Francis would try to pick up girls. Sometimes he would succeed, as he was still possessed of his beauty and the rubble of his charm, and sometimes he would be too offensive or visibly drunk. I would sit with Jessica, watching him with other women. She would sip her drink in silence. She mourned their chaste companionship like a stillbirth, deeply and with a sense that she had no right. The more she suffered, the more attractive she became to me. I found myself at the end of the night lying in my bed, raiding the store of images of her naked body I had from the night at the hotel, the neat white scar on her belly, her little white teeth sinking into my shoulder as I pushed inside her and Francis held her legs open. I would masturbate thinking of her voice telling us to come.