When she reached Michael’s flat, the curtains on the first-floor window were open, the room filled with warm light. She parked beside his car and checked her face before getting out. He was leaning against the doorframe. She liked how the gravel slowed her as she walked towards him, the flounce of her dress at her knees. That he was watching her. She mounted the wide steps two at a time and inhaled deeply to settle herself. He pulled her inside and shut the door with his foot. His eyes were glassy. It’s yourself, he said, kissing her full on the mouth. You look good. It’s the dress you wore in the Lyric.

He was wearing a black polo neck under a houndstooth sports jacket. So do you, she said. Like a Malone Road James Bond. Or your man from the Milk Tray ad.

I’m not familiar with the work. Do you want a nightcap? he said, kissing her again. It was like drinking whiskey.

No. It’s a day of fasting and abstinence.

Oh dear. I’ve been doing neither. Cup of tea? His mouth was still on hers.

No.

She felt his lips open into a smile.

There was a lamp on in his bedroom, a dowdy beige one with a tasselled shade. Large, dreary pieces of Victorian furniture. Books, newspapers, an ashtray on a nightstand. The air was faintly savoury. She took her coat off and laid it on an overstuffed chair upholstered in salmon-coloured velvet. When she turned back he was crouching at her feet. A paisley sleeve was protruding from under a pillow on the bed. If she hadn’t come he’d be changing into his pyjamas. But she had, and he was unzipping her boots.

She woke with her nose in the hot, scalliony hair of his armpit, his hand splayed on her hip. She lifted it off gently and slipped out of his bed, lifting her dress from the floor and pulling it over her head.

The bathroom had black and white tiles set like bricks. She put paper in the toilet to deaden the splash of her piss and sat on the seat. A Mabel Lucie Attwell rhyme was nailed to the back of the door. His toiletries were spartan. Shaving cream in a pot beside a stubby brush, anti-dandruff shampoo, a bar of lemon soap. A single toothbrush in a beaker. The mirror over the basin gave up horrors: cheekbones peppered with granules of mascara, a scuffed chin, hair so charged with static it looked like she had rubbed it with a balloon. She washed her hands and held them to her nose. They smelled of him.