‘Handsome’, stupid word, and think ‘might this be it? The elusive thing?’Blackbirds sing outside and the Sunlight warms the curtains . . .

Once more she shuddered, as if peeking beneath a bandage, and snapped the notebook shut. Good God, the elusive thing‘. She had reached a turning point. She no longer believed that a situation could be made better by writing a poem about it.

Putting the notebook away, she reached for yesterday‘s Sunday Mirror  instead and began to eat the nachos, the elusive nachos, surprised all over again at how very comforting very bad food can be.

Ian was in the doorway. That guy‘s here again.‘

What guy?‘

Your friend, the handsome one. He‘s got some girl with him.‘ And immediately Emma knew which guy Ian was talking about.

She watched them from the kitchen, nose pressed against the greasy glass of the circular window as they slumped insolently in a central booth, sipping gaudy drinks and laughing at the  menu.  The  girl  was  long  and  slim  with  pale  skin,  black  eye  make-up  and  black,  black hair, cut short and expensively asymmetrical, her long legs in sheer black leggings and highankled  boots.  Both  a  little  drunk,  they  were  behaving  in  that  self-consciously  wild  and reckless  way  that  people  slip  into  when  they  know  they‘re  being  watched:  pop-video behaviour,  and  Emma  thought  how  satisfying  it  would  be  to  stride  out  onto  the  restaurant floor and cosh them both with tightly packed burritos-of-the-day.

Two big hands draped on her shoulders. Schhhhhwing,‘ said Ian, resting his chin on her head. Who is she?‘

No idea.‘ Emma rubbed at the mark her nose had made on the window. I lose track.‘

She‘s a new one then.‘

Dexter has a very short attention span. Like a baby. Or a monkey. You need to dangle something shiny in front of him.‘ That‘s what this girl is, she thought: something shiny.

So do you think it‘s true what they say? About girls liking bastards.‘

He‘s not a bastard. He‘s an idiot.‘

Do girls like idiots then?‘

Dexter  had  stuck  his  cocktail  umbrella  behind  his  ear  now,  the  girl  collapsing  into enchanted laughter at the genius of it.