else in their house, they had to have it. I love when people are unexpected.”
“We’ll have to celebrate tomorrow. I’ll bring prosecco.”
“Yes! Bring the one we had last time, the—” A yawn caught her off guard. “Sorry, it’s not the company! I’m just—”
“It’s late. You shouldn’t have waited up for me.”
“I don’t mind. I like saying good night.”
“Me too. Now go to sleep. I love you.”
“I love you too. Night-night.” She blew me a kiss.
“Night-night.”
For some reason this is the mistake—hardly a mistake, really, what’s wrong with having a few pints on a Friday night after a stressful week, what’s wrong with wanting the girl you love to think the best of you?—this is the choice to which I return over and over, picking at it compulsively as if I could somehow peel it off and throw it away: one less shot of whiskey with the lads, one less pint, a sandwich at my desk as I rejigged the exhibition program, and I would have been sober enough that I would have trusted myself to go over to Melissa’s. I’ve thought about that might-have-been night so much that I know every moment of it: spinning her off her feet in a hug when she opened her door, Congratulations! I knew you’d do it!; the soft breathing curl of her in bed, her hair tickling my chin; lazy Saturday brunch in our favorite café, walk by the canal to see the swans, Melissa swinging our clasped hands. I miss it as ferociously as if it were something real and solid and irreplaceable that I somehow managed to mislay and could somehow, if only I knew the trick, salvage and keep safe.
“You didn’t hang up.”
“Neither did you.”
“Night-night. Sleep tight.”
“Safe home. Night-night.” Kisses, more kisses.
Baggot Street was silent and near-deserted, long rows of massive Georgian houses, the fabulous wrought-iron whorls of old streetlamps. Smooth tickticktick of bicycle wheels coming up behind me and a tall guy in a trilby skimmed past, sitting very erect with his arms folded neatly across his chest. Two people kissing in a doorway, fall of smooth green hair, ruffle of lilac. I must have picked up Indian food somewhere although I can’t imagine where, because the air around me was rich with coriander and fennel, making my mouth water. The street felt warm and strange and very wide, full of some odd coded enchantment. An old man in beard and flat cap doing a shuffling half-dance to himself, fingers spread, among the great trees in the center divider. A girl across the street walking fast, black coat swirling around her ankles, head down over the phone that shone blue-white in her hand like a fairy-tale jewel. Delicate dusty fanlights, golden glow in a tiny high window. Dark water under the canal bridge, glitter and rush.
I must have made it home without incident—although how do I know, how do I know what was going on just beyond the corner of my eye, who might have been watching from the doorways, what might have detached itself from a shadow to pad soft-footed behind me? But at any rate I must have made it home without anything happening that set off warning bells. I must have eaten my Indian food and maybe watched something on Netflix (although wouldn’t I have been too drunk to bother following a plotline?), or maybe played some Xbox (although that seems unlikely; after the last few days I was sick to death of my Xbox). I must have forgotten to turn on the alarm—in spite of being on the ground floor, I only bothered with it about half the time; the kitchen window was a little loose and if the wind was in the wrong direction it rattled and set the alarm shrieking hysterically, and it wasn’t like I lived in some crime-ridden urban jungle. And at some point I must have changed into my pajamas and gone to bed, and fallen drunkenly and contentedly asleep.
* * *
Something woke me. At first I wasn’t sure what; I had a clear memory of a sound, a neat crack, but I couldn’t tell whether it had been inside my dream (tall black guy with dreadlocks and a surfboard, laughing, refusing to tell me something I needed to know) or outside. The room was dark, only the faintest streetlamp glow outlining the curtains. I lay still, the last of the dream still cobwebbing my mind, and listened.
Nothing. And then: a drawer sliding open or closed, just on the