I try to get to sleep, but I keep on playing the evening over in my mind, wondering if I could have done anything different. The curtains are too thin, so the lights of the city below cast shadows on the walls. I get up and try to pull them together, but they’ve not been fixed to the curtain rod properly, so that just produces a gap at each end. Eventually I give up, and settle down on my back.

I try to concentrate on the lights playing on the ceiling from passing traffic, hoping my eyes might eventually tire of them and that I’ll nod off that way. I try to imagine what the people driving those cars and lorries could be doing in the middle of the night. Shift workers, delivering food and newspapers, I suppose. But I’m still no nearer getting to sleep, and my mouth and throat feel dry and itchy. I can feel a coughing fit about to come on – so I get up to get myself a glass of water.

I’ve only just settled down again when I hear his door click open.

My shuffling around must have disturbed him.

‘Everything OK, Lotti?’ he whispers, as though not wanting to wake me if I’m really asleep.

I snort a bit, a kind of half snore, pretending I’ve been asleep. I don’t want him to blame me for waking him, thanks to my night-time marauding.

‘Sorry, did I wake you, Arnie? I sometimes have these bad dreams,’ I lie. ‘You know, from the night of the terror bombing.’ I don’t know why I say that – perhaps I’m just looking for his sympathy.

‘Oh no,’ he says, full of concern. ‘I know what you mean. I still often dream of meeting Fred as a young man, believing in my head his death was all a mistake, and then I wake up. And realise he is really dead. It’s a horrible feeling.’

Now I’m the one who feels bad. I draw back the blankets, showing him my half-naked body in flickering light from the street below. ‘Do you want to come for a little cuddle?’ I say.

‘I’d better not, Lotti. Just as long as you’re all right. I hope you get back to sleep OK. Good night.’

I let the covers fall back, feeling my face burn from the shame and rejection.

‘Good night, Arnold,’ I reply. Even I’m slightly shocked by the cold, slightly menacing tone of my voice.

*

I still struggle to get to sleep, although I’ve probably dozed a little. But from the sound of his snores through the closed door, I can hear that Arnie is well away.