Jessica smiled at the old reference, or maybe at my support, and I thought she was about to cry. The whisky had made her maudlin. She was prone to sudden shifts of mood, as girls are who have drunk too much. She wrapped her arms around me, putting them under mine so that my own arms encircled her shoulder blades. I tried to remind myself that weakness was a weapon in her hands. I had seen her weep at ticket inspectors, but I held her anyway. I realized we had both been waiting for this, the moment we broke the barrier of physical contact, and I was relieved that it had happened naturally. Alcohol and cigarettes were on her breath, and her hair smelt of synthetic fruit. I watched myself being embraced over her shoulder in the black mirror of the windowpane. We hung, the two of us hugging, in the freezing darkness suspended over the empty square. I told her it was too cold for her to go out with her suit jacket and coat, and she silently acquiesced. I turned away when she changed into her jeans, but again I saw her shadow unclothed for a moment in the glass. I asked her if she had anything more suitable in her bag, and she shook her head. I lent her an old jumper, a huge rough woollen thing with sleeves that hung down past the end of her fingertips. She put her coat on over the top. I found her a tartan scarf from the hall, and she let me wrap it around her throat, taking the ends away from me to tuck them down the front of her coat. I poured some of the whisky into a silver bottle for the trip. It was a silver hip flask with my father’s initials engraved on the front. They were the same as mine: J.W. We prepared slowly, unhurriedly, and dressing took on a ritual significance. I took off my black shoes and put on boots. I left my suit jacket and tie on my bed and put on a sweatshirt under my overcoat. Jessica went to her bag for a pair of trainers. She grabbed a handful of change from her purse and shoved it into her pocket. I felt better protected going into the London night in clothes that looked inexpensive. It was not the idea of looking like I might have money that worried me, it was looking lucky that attracted trouble. On our way out I double-locked the flat, something I never remembered to do. When we came out of the front door I felt like a bird emerging from the safety of an egg. It was one-thirty, and there was no one sober left on the streets. The gutter outside my house was filled with half-eaten kebabs and styrofoam cartons of chips. The queue for the trance club stretched around the corner despite the cold. We didn’t speak as we waited for a cab, but Jessica held my hand like a child waiting to cross the road. Her breath hung in the air.