Jonathan turned to him and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Nathan, I thought like you when I was your age. But the things you believe when you’re young and in love, they’re romantic. Like, if you were going to be a real feminist, perhaps your songs should be more about how your girlfriend sleeps around all the time and you don’t mind, because you know it’s what she wants and needs – and deserves! – and you know you personally can’t satisfy her on your own.’

‘Wow.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Nathan.’

‘It’s quite a good idea for a song, though,’ said Nathan.

‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘Don’t listen to Jonathan. He doesn’t know anything about love.’

‘Fuck you,’ said Jonathan.

‘Fuck you. And don’t fucking joke about Monica, all right? No wonder your wife threw you out.’

‘Don’t take out your failures on me,’ said Jonathan, calmly, looking away from me. Mary was looking at me with an expression that wasn’t quite pity, or without tenderness.

‘I’m going to go and get some beers,’ I said. I didn’t want any beers but I headed out down the fire escape and bought some from the corner shop. When I came back in I didn’t open one but just walked straight up to my room and lay on my bed.

I woke up alone. From the window came the rolling traffic of Kingsland Road, a car horn, a muffled shout. It was half one in the morning. There might have been somewhere still open where I could have gone to have a conversation with a stranger, to buy a beer and perhaps get offered a bit of something and an invite to carry on drinking back at someone else’s, the opportunity to wake up next to whoever this was. This had once felt like research, like a cartography project, a search for something that I would only recognise when I saw it. I wanted to be in constant motion, constant communication, until I received my vision. Or perhaps I just meant person. Somewhere close by there was someone I would love even more than Monica.