pretended to sip from the bottle and passed it to him.
He glugged down the wine and started to sing a familiar
song, footnoting his own singing. ‘In this bit the lighting changes.’
The melody turned into a wail and his voice broke. ‘He’s homesick,
you can hear he’s bloodshot, everything turns to red.’
We finished the bottle and set off to get more. When I was
buying kebabs, he ran back to the shop to get some beers. He stayed
on the other side of the glass, staring, as they were preparing my order.
When he tried to come in, the manager threw him out for
drinking his beer.
‘I’m not going to eat that,’ he said when I got out.
‘Don’t worry, they’re for me,’ I said.
We walked home through the park from which all light had
been drained. The bird was silent.
By the time we got back to the flat he was looking into the
void, so I left him leaning against the coat hooks when I got out
of my shoes. The actress had switched off the lights and gone out
with her soldier. As I half carried the composer to bed through
the dark corridor I banged his head against the wall. Through his
haze, he mumbled me to stop but I didn’t think he’d remember it
the next day.
I lay next to him. He was clearly ill at ease; his head lolled
from side to side and my arm was trapped under him. His unsteady,
raspy breathing seemed to tense his body with each draw.
I reached for his phone from the bedside table and went
through his texts. It was a routine of mine. I used to choose a
favourite from the new ones. This time it was one he’d sent to his
friend a week ago. ‘We’re having a heart to heart, again’ it read. He >