*

The bar was insanely busy and horrifically loud, thanks to a polished wood interior and little in the way of soft furnishings to absorb the clamour of three hundred-plus binge-drinkers (this close to Christmas, every night in Central London was a Friday). Owing to that early-morning train to Edinburgh, I’d promised Clare I’d go easy on the booze, but somewhere around the fifth drink I lost sight of that.

Gretchen, having banned partners, brought along a colleague killing time before a date, a girl in her mid-twenties whose degree of attractiveness was wildly out of step with her self-importance; she presented herself as a celebrity graciously taking questions from a roomful of eager press. Within an hour, Gretchen had sloped off, followed by Kit, and Steve had been waylaid by a colleague he hadn’t expected to run into, so I was saddled with the girl – what was her name? Maybe Yaya or Yoyo, some nickname she thought cute enough to foist on strangers. She made no effort to hide her lack of interest in a senior citizen like me and the dynamic of interviewer/interviewee continued. (‘When did we lose the art of conversation?’ I asked Clare once. ‘When Instagram told ordinary people their lives were extraordinary,’ she said, and I wasn’t unkind enough to cite Hayter Armstrong’s social media, which dangled the prize of star-worthy homes several times a day, like we all had an equal chance of winning.)

‘Sending Yoyo to sleep, are you?’ Kit said, when he and Gretchen finally reappeared. His expression was full of arrogance and I snapped.

‘Fuck you, Kit.’

‘Nice,’ Yoyo said, and at last she peeled away to share details of living her best life with her unfortunate date.

To celebrate our liberation, I bought tequila shots, spending a good twenty minutes waiting to be served before rejoining the others and crashing the tray down with a drunken flourish. ‘Christmas! Season of goodwill to all men – or so all men hope!’

‘You won’t find that on any Christmas card,’ Steve said.

*

We left it late to catch the last boat eastbound, the four of us racing through the streets to Blackfriars Pier, cheering as the lit boat emerged under the railway bridge and skimmed towards us. In the sleek glass swathe of train station above, there was the fleeting, hideous illusion of impending collision as two trains crossed, before dark figures began mobbing the open doors. As we reached the onboard bar for more drinks we were still panting and wheezing, joking about heart attacks. There was another group, tourists or students, I judged, fanned across a couple of rows at the front of the cabin.

‘Who the hell was Little Miss Self-absorbed, Gretch?’

‘She’s the insufferable assistant who just joined the team,’ Steve said. ‘Don’t you listen to anything, Jamie?’

We were still competing to make the most lacerating denunciation of our gatecrasher, when Gretchen began shrieking that she’d almost forgotten, she had presents for us, and she was fishing from her shoulder bag three flat items wrapped in gold paper. They were Mr Men books: Mr Grumble for Steve, Mr Fussy for me, Mr Wrong for Kit.

Hardly the most flattering trio, but Steve and I took ours in good spirit, unlike Kit, who reacted sulkily, barely saying goodbye to Gretchen when she left at Surrey Quays. Even in my own state of intoxication, I could tell he was the most wasted of the lot of us. I don’t actually remember seeing Steve leave the boat a few minutes later, but he must have, along with the other party, because the next time I noticed Kit and I were alone on an empty boat, torn gift-wrap on the seats beside us. He flicked Mr Wrong to the floor, muttering into the neck of his beer.

‘Why did you do that? What’s going on with you and Gretchen?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’ His tone was antagonistic, making me prickle with annoyance. He was so fucking childish.

‘Nothing Melia needs to know about, I hope?’

‘Piss off.’ For a few seconds there was just the thrum of the engines, the strains of the Christmas soundtrack over the PA, and then he said, ‘I read something interesting the other day: people who accuse others of playing away are almost always the ones doing it. And here you are, accusing me.’ Thanks to the alcohol, his glare was more glazed than provocative, but there was no mistaking the tightness in his upper body, the tensing of his fists. ‘You can stop faking, all right, Jamie. I’ve seen the way you look at her.’

‘What are you talking about, look at who?’ Our raised voices filled the cabin and I was sentient enough to wonder what the crew thought. I had a sharp picture of how we must appear: the feral two, the last to leave.

Kit tipped the beer to his mouth and, on discovering it empty, picked up Gretchen’s half-finished bottle and drank that instead. ‘You must know by now she’s a total slut, yeah? You said it yourself tonight: goodwill to all men – that’s Melia.’

I hit him then, causing him to drop the bottle, which rolled away, pumping foam onto the floor. Even mid-grapple, I registered the dynamic as warped, the lover defending the wife’s honour to the husband. As the boat lurched in a sudden swell, we continued to trade slurs.

‘You think you’re so clever, but you haven’t got a clue in your posh bubble on Prospect Square,’ he sneered. ‘I know the kind of people you wouldn’t even know existed. They’re animals. You’d be shitting yourself if they so much as looked at you.’

Though I was taller and broader than him, he was becoming hard to contain, headbutting me freely, bruising me with the sharp pinch of his fingers. Seeing a crew member approach, I called out, ‘Excuse me? This man is bothering me!’

‘“Bothering” you? Why d’you always have to sound like such a twat?’ Kit said through clenched teeth.

‘Let’s break this up, please,’ we were told by the crew, and a second member of staff – the barman – helped prise us apart and keep us on opposite sides of the cabin. ‘Gentlemen!’ he cried, and the word caused a disorientating flashback to the horror of the Tube tunnel incident, a slicing sense of self-loathing I had not felt since.

‘Of course, sorry,’ I said, and when we docked at St Mary’s, it was clear that I was to be allowed to disembark ahead of Kit. It pleased me that though I’d struck him first, he was the one being restrained, singled out as the agitator.

I could still hear him on the jetty behind me: ‘You’ll wish you never met me, mate!’

‘Took the words out of my mouth,’ I growled. ‘Mate.’

‘Just you wait, Jamie! I fucking mean it!’

I staggered onto the street. Cold and rage blocked my ears so my footsteps vibrated through my body, a monster’s stomping. I didn’t look to see if he was following. Mariners was still open, music and overloud voices pouring through the doors into the night. Smokers stood in a cluster in the alley, kicking their heels, restless in the cold, and I wished I could join them to scrounge a fag and draw the delicious toxins into my lungs. I longed to phone Melia, to see her, to take all the reassurance and calm I needed from her voice, her touch. Instead, as I reached the house, I texted him:

Just YOU wait.

Not waiting for a reply, already regretting my own message, I left my phone on the hall table to run out of charge. Upstairs, Clare had had an early night and was not overjoyed to be roused by the clatter I made hunting for paracetamol in the cabinet in the en suite. She reminded me of our horrifically early start, but I was in no mood for a teacher’s telling off.