‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it’s the anniversary of?’ he says, though he must be slurring his speech pretty badly because she asks him to repeat it three times. Best try something more straightforward. ‘My wife had an accident exactly one year ago today,’ he says. Barbara gives a nervous smile and starts to look around as if regretting sitting down. Dealing with drunks is part of the job but this one is plainly weird, out celebrating some accident, then whining on incoherently and at great length about some driver not looking where he was going, a court case that she can’t understand and can’t be bothered to understand.

‘Do you want me to dance for you?’ she says, if only to change the subject.

‘What?’ He falls towards her. ‘What did you say?’ His breath is rank and his spit flecks her skin.

‘I said do you want me to dance for you, cheer you up a bit? You look like you might need cheering up.’

‘Not now. Later maybe,’ he says, slapping his hand on her knee now, which is as hard and unyielding as a banister. He is speaking again, not normal speech but a tangle of unconnected mawkish, sour remarks that he has made before — only thirty-eight years old we were trying for a baby the driver walked away scot-free wonder what that bastard’s doing right this minute taking away my best friend hope he suffers only thirty-eight where’s the justice what about me what am I meant to do now Barbara tell me what am I supposed to do now? He comes to a sudden halt.

Barbara’s head is lowered and she’s staring at her hands, which she holds devoutly in her lap as if in prayer and for a moment he thinks he has moved her with his story, this beautiful stranger, touched her deeply in some way. Perhaps she’s praying for him, perhaps she’s even crying — he has made this poor girl cry and he feels a deep affection for this Barbara. He puts his hand over hers in gratitude, and realises that she is texting. While he has been talking about Emma, she has had her mobile phone in her lap and is writing a text. He feels a sudden flush of rage and revulsion.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks, voice trembling.

‘ What?’

He is shouting now. ‘I said what the fuck are you doing?’ He swipes wildly at her hands, sending the phone skittering across the floor. ‘I was talking to you!’ he shouts, but she is shouting back now, calling him a nutter, a loony, then beckoning to the bouncer. It’s the same immense goateed man who had been so friendly at the door, but now he just puts his massive arm around Dexter’s shoulders, the other round his waist, scooping him up like a child and carrying him across the room. Heads turn, amused, as Dexter bawls over his shoulder, you stupid, stupid cow, you don’t understand, and he catches one last glance of Barbara, both middle fingers raised and jabbing upwards, laughing at him. The fire exit is kicked open and he is out once again on the street.

‘My credit card! You’ve got my fucking credit card!’ he shouts, but like everyone else the bouncer just laughs at him, and pulls the fire exit closed.

Enraged now, Dexter steps straight off the pavement and waves his arms at the many black cabs that head westward, but none of them will stop for him, not while he’s staggering in the road like this. He takes a deep breath, steps back onto the pavement, leans against a wall and checks his pockets. His wallet has gone, and so have his keys, to his flat and his car. Whoever’s got the keys and wallet will have his address too, it’s on his driving licence, he’ll have to have the locks changed, and Sylvie’s meant to be coming round at lunch time. She’s bringing Jasmine. He kicks at the wall, rests his head against the bricks, checks his pockets again, finds a balled-up twenty-pound note in his trouser pocket, damp from his own urine. Twenty quid is enough to get him safely home. He can wake up the neighbours, get the spare key, sleep it off.

But twenty quid is also enough to get him into town, with change for another drink or two. Home or oblivion? Forcing himself to stand straight, he hails a cab and sends it into Soho.

Through a plain red door in an alley off Berwick Street he finds an illicit underground dive that he used to go to ten, fifteen years ago as a very last resort. It’s a grubby windowless room, dark and dense with smoke and people drinking from cans of Red Stripe. He crosses to the formica table that doubles as a bar, using the crowd for support, but then discovers that he has no cash, has given the last of it to the taxi-driver, lost the change. He’ll have to do what he always used to do when he had lost all his money, pick up the nearest drink and neck it. He walks back into the room, ignoring the abuse of the people he stumbles into, grabs what looks like a forgotten can and drains what’s left, then boldly takes another and jams himself in a corner, sweating, his head against a loudspeaker, his eyes closed, the drink running down his chin and onto his shirt and suddenly there’s a hand against his chest pushing him back into the corner and someone wants to know what the fuckhe thinks he’s playing at, nicking people’s drinks. He opens his eyes: the man before him is old, red-eyed, squat like a toad.

‘Actually, I think you’ll find it’s mine,’ says Dexter, then sniggers at how unconvincing the lie is. The man snarls, bares his yellow teeth and shows his fist, and Dexter realises what he wants: he wants the man to hit him. ‘Get your hands off me, you ugly old cunt,’ he slurs, and then there’s a blur and a noise like static, and he is lying on the floor with his hands to his face as the man kicks at his stomach and stamps on his back with his heel. Dexter tastes the foul carpet as the kicks come down, and then suddenly he is floating, face down, six men lifting him by the legs and arms, like at school when it was his birthday and all his mates threw him in the pool and he is whooping and laughing as they carry him along the corridor through a restaurant kitchen and out into the alley where he is bowled into a huddle of plastic bins. Still laughing he rolls off onto the hard, filthy ground and feels the blood in his mouth, the hot iron taste of it, and he thinks, well, it’s what she would have wanted. This is what she would have wanted.

15th July 2005

Hello there, Dexter!

I hope you don’t mind me writing. It’s a weird thing to do, isn’t it, writing a letter in these days of t’internet! but it felt more appropriate. I wanted to sit down and do something to mark the day, and this seemed like the best thing.

So how are you? And how are you keeping? We spoke briefly at the memorial service, but I did not want to intrude as it was clear how tough that day was for you. Brutal, wasn’t it? Like you, I’m sure, I have been thinking of Emma all day. I’m always finding myself thinking of her, but today is especially tough and I know you must find it tough too, but I wanted to drop you a line with my thoughts for what they are worth (i.e. not very much!!!!). Here goes then.

When Emma left me all those years ago, I thought my life would go to bits, and it did too for a couple of years. To be honest, I think I went a bit nuts. But then I met this girl in a shop where I was working and for our first date I took her to see me do some stand-up comedy. Afterwards she said please not to take this the wrong way but that I was a very, very bad comedian and that the best thing I could do was give it up and be myself instead. That moment was the moment that I fell in love with her and now we have been married for four years and have three amazing kids (one of each! Ha ha). We live in the teeming metropolis that is Taunton to be near my parents (i.e. free baby-sitting!!!). I work in a big insurance office now, working in the customer enquiries department. No doubt this will sound a bit dullsville to you, but I am good at it and we have a really good laugh. All things considered I am really happy. Our kids are a boy and two girls. I know you have a kid too. Knackering, isn’t it?!!!