As I was collecting the order, Spike pushed past me.

‘Where you from, mate?’

‘Kabul, sir.’

‘Come via Kabul tonight, did you?’

‘Excuse me, sir?’

‘You speak English, mate?’

‘Leave him, Spike,’ I said. ‘Let’s just eat.’

Tara and Ginger were laying the table when we went back inside. Ginger red-eyed, Tara rubbing her back. We began unpacking our Malvinas Hermanos dinner and Spike exploded.

‘They forgot my empanadas! You can’t have an Argie without empanadas!’

Tara laughed. ‘God, Spike, you were still putting tomato ketchup on your pasta when we first met you! And now you’re having a nervous breakdown about your missing empanadas!’

The air seemed to go out of him.

‘I know I’m a peasant, Tara. You don’t have to remind me.’

‘Oh, come on! You’re not a peasant. It’s just – God, give them a call and tell them there’s something missing from the order!’

‘That doesn’t work! That never works! Because it takes another hour to get here again!’ He shook his head, ripping open the Malvinas Hermanos containers. ‘I know you’ve had a hard time with your dad and all, but I’m entitled to complain when Osama bin Laden makes me wait all night for my dinner.’

‘Park the casual racism, Spike, I don’t want it in my home,’ Tara said. She began transferring the food to plates. ‘But you’re right, of course. What’s happening to my dad is just like your missing empanadas. I feel your pain.’

His face clouded.

‘Oh fuck off, Tara.’

I took a step towards him.

‘Hey, Spike, not cool, mate.’

‘Look, mate,’ he said. ‘Just because she walks all over you doesn’t mean she can do the same to everyone else.’

And then he shoved me. Hard. In the chest. In my home. Pushing me back in my own house because my wife had insulted him, or he had insulted her, or because we had all drunk too much Shiraz. Or all of the above.

I grabbed him clumsily by the neck of his T-shirt and before I knew what was happening he had me in a headlock, staring at the ground, my glasses hanging onto my face by one ear.

The women were shouting.

Spike whispered in my ear as my glasses dropped to the floor.

‘We both know I could have you on toast,’ he said. ‘Are you going to stop now?’

I grunted an assent and he let me go.

Then I threw a wild punch at his head.

He pulled away but my sloppy fist connected above his ear and sent a surge of pain down my arm.

And the evening went downhill from there.

TARA

‘Forgive me,’ Ginger said on our doorstep.

On the street Spike was standing by the back door of a black cab. Christian and Spike were embracing. They appeared to be drunkenly telling each other, ‘I love you, mate,’ over and over again.

The old shaven-headed taxi driver stared straight ahead, nodding along to a Mozart piano sonata on Classic FM, this not being the first time he had seen drunken men declare their undying love. Christian appeared to be in some pain with his right hand.