Friday night, and all my friends out in town, getting drunk and flirting and shouting and dancing… Waving at strangers and bent double laughing, knees squeezed together in delicious hysterical agony, at the lad who’s tried to jump over a bin in the Market Square and landed flat on his face… Walking from one bar to the other holding each other up, trying to pretend we’re less drunk than we actually are, although we’re more drunk than we were in the last place because of the cold, the fresh air… Having serious discussions in toilet cubicles, holding your friend who’s crying because she thinks he doesn’t like her any more and anyway he’s such a twat, he doesn’t deserve you… Repairing make-up again, crowded round the neon-lit mirror, the floor skiddy with water from the sinks, at least one of them always full and blocked with tissue… At the end of the evening holding back someone’s hair, probably Claire, she’s such a lightweight, at least she made it into the loos this time, while later some poor girl nobody recognises sits barefoot on the steps outside, legs splayed at odd angles, mascara-streaks down her sorrowful cheeks, her shoes on their sides next to her, her bag hanging round her neck… Walking home together arm in arm because there’s no money left for a cab, too late, too early, if it wasn’t winter it would be light by now, not feeling the cold because we’re so full of vodka and friendship and love for each other and anyone else who’ll stand still long enough…

I wasn’t out tonight, though, I was at home with Lee. He turned up at my house at seven, with three carrier bags and a tagine. He shut me out of my kitchen and I sat watching television, hugging my knees and drinking the frosty-cold white wine he brought with him, listening to him singing along to the radio, lots of banging of cupboard doors and rattling of pans.

He’d told me he wasn’t working again until Tuesday. I thought of the long weekend stretching ahead of us like a beautiful promise, all the places we could go together, falling asleep with him, waking up with him still there, and shivered with delight.

Every so often the kitchen door opened and he emerged with something else for the table – cutlery, bread, some small pots of something unidentified with spoons sticking out of them.

‘Anything I can do?’

‘Sit there and look beautiful.’

I thought about the girls. They’d gone to the opening night of the Red Divine, a nightclub in a converted chapel. It had finally managed to open despite complaints from former worshippers, who failed to see that if they’d not stopped attending services the chapel would still be a thriving Christian oasis in the seething heathen mass of the town centre, instead of a state-of-the-art club with three bars, leather seating and a VIP area. They’d wanted to call it Angels and Demons but that part at least had been vetoed by the licensing department at the council. There was one bonus, though: the local newspaper said that all the people who’d put in a complaint had received VIP tickets to the opening night.

I was dying to see the inside of it. Next weekend?

The kitchen door opened again, a rush of warm air and the sound of voices on the radio against sizzling, the smell of something spicy and meaty and delicious.

He didn’t even look flushed, just cool and completely in control, humming to himself as he put out some serving spoons  and arranged the placemats in preparation for something hot in the middle of the table.

‘Sure I can’t help?’

He came over to me and bent to kiss me. I snaked my arm around his neck to pull him closer, but he untangled himself. ‘Don’t distract me, I’m nearly done.’

I went back to the television with a smile on my face. My mouth was watering.