And what did I do? I ran. I got the fuck out of there, still clutching the carrier bag containing Siobhan’s old clothes. It was only when I got home that I realised that I must have dropped the piece of paper that said ‘I love you’.

But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened today.

It was only mid-morning when I got back here, and I hung around the house all day, fretting about what Siobhan would think when she saw the demolition job that car had done on her front wall. It would probably lessen the thrill of seeing her new designer gear. And what about the cat? Had it been hurt?

I had this awful flashback to that time when I was a kid. Annette had a new hamster, called Chips. I loved that hamster, wishing I was allowed one, but I wasn’t allowed to play with him. One day, everyone went out, leaving me alone in the house, and I rushed upstairs to get Chips out of his cage. He ran up and down my arm a few times, then I got bored and went to put him back. But the cage had a spring-door – and as I was putting Chips through the gap, I let go of the door and it snapped shut on his leg. He froze, I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Chips was lying completely still in my palm, this grimace on his little face, his teeth sticking out.

I put him back in the cage and hoped that maybe he would recover. I sat by the cage all day, talking to him, pleading with him to get up and start walking round the cage, maybe run on his wheel. But he didn’t. He just lay there giving me reproachful looks.

Mum’s reaction when she got home and they saw him…

All I can say is, thank God he lived, even if he did limp for a long time. I don’t know what she would have done if he’d actually died. And that’s how I felt this afternoon, worrying about Siobhan’s cat. Because if Siobhan thought I’d hurt her cat, it would be all over between us. And he was a nice cat too. Much nicer than a lot of the people I know.

By teatime I’d worked myself into such a frenzy of anxiety that I had to get out of the house. Si and Nat had come home and they kept asking me to ‘sit still for God’s sake’. And maybe because it was a habit I’d developed over the last couple of days, I made my way towards the George V. I could do with a drink even if Kathy wasn’t there. I wasn’t thinking clearly at all: I didn’t know what I would do if I saw Kathy. But walking to the pub I was reminded of how sickening it had been to see her and Siobhan chatting like bosom buddies. If only she would disappear, leave the class and never come back. Thinking about it made my stomach hurt.

When I got to the pub it was half-empty. Ten seconds later, so was my first glass of beer. I sat and drank and smoked while the pub began to fill up around me, growing steadily noisier, the tables around me becoming occupied as people stopped off for a swift half after work. For many of them, that swift half became a slow whole, the alcohol deadening the disappointments of another day in the office. I almost pitied them. How they would envy my freedom.

I was lighting my dozenth cigarette of the evening when I heard a female voice. ‘Alex?’

I looked up and saw Kathy. She wore a puzzled expression.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I often drink here,’ I said.

‘I’ve never seen you here before.’

‘I usually come during the day. And I haven’t been for a while.’

She narrowed her eyes and studied me for a moment. She looked around, probably trying to see if there were any other tables free. There weren’t.

‘Do you mind if I join you?’

I told her of course not and she went off to the bar to buy herself a drink. I was feeling much calmer now, the booze washing through me, tranquillizing me. Kathy came back to the table and sat down and said, ‘This is becoming a habit – drinking here with people from my writing class.’ Then a worried look crossed her face, just for a split-second. Maybe Siobhan had told her about the lie she told me about socialising with people from the class. She didn’t say any more about it.

For the first hour or so we talked about the class, about the other students. Kathy did a great impression of Brian. I found myself really enjoying the conversation, mainly because it gave me plenty of opportunities to say Siobhan’s name. I noticed that whenever Siobhan’s name was mentioned, Kathy got this look in her eye. But it didn’t stop me from enjoying myself. I almost forgot that I wasn’t supposed to like this woman: that she was my rival. She was funny and very intelligent. I knew how much Siobhan liked Kathy’s writing, and that irritated me, but then Kathy bought more drinks, and after we’d finished those I bought another round and by then I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy. I even felt a bit sentimental, as if I was mourning something that hadn’t actually happened yet. It was a strange feeling.

Then, after I’d mentioned Siobhan for the twentieth time, Kathy said, ‘You like her don’t you?’

‘Eh?’

‘You fancy Siobhan , don’t you? Come on, you talk about her non-stop. Siobhan this, Siobhan that.’ She laughed throatily. ‘If I didn’t like her myself I’d be thoroughly bored.’

‘You like her?’ I said.

‘Don’t sound so worried. I don’t mean I like her in that way – just as a mate. I’ve got a feeling Siobhan and I are going to be really good friends.’

That worried me enough, but then she said, ‘Siobhan told me you asked her out for a drink.’

I gulped. ‘Did she say anything else about me?’

‘No, not really. She didn’t slag you off, if that’s what you’re worrying about. Actually, I don’t know if we should be talking about this.’

And then it all came pouring out. I couldn’t stop myself. It’s one thing being able to write down how I feel about Siobhan, but I suddenly had an unstoppable urge to talk about it, to tell someone else. I told Kathy that I thought I had fallen in love with our teacher, that I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and that I wanted to tell her how I felt but that I was scared of rejection. I even told her about sending her the card and ordering the underwear for her. Kathy just sat there and listened to me, her eyebrows raised.

Suddenly, I felt ill. I told Kathy I needed the loo and went off in search of it. In the gents, I locked myself in a cubicle and was immediately sick into the toilet. And as I wiped my mouth with a piece of shiny toilet paper, my mind cleared. Oh fuck, I thought. What have I done? Kathy’s going to tell Siobhan – she’ll probably put her own slant on it as well. She might make me sound like some obsessive nut. And they’ll talk about what I was doing in the George V in the first place. God. I sat on the toilet and put my head in my hands. Why was I such a moron? I had wanted to talk to Kathy, get to know her, find out how I could remove her from the scene in the same way I got rid of that twattish bloke, Phil. And I’d made a hash of it.

Shit.

I came out of the cubicle and splashed my face with cold water at the sink. I looked at myself in the mirror. What a state. I desperately wanted to go home, to crawl into bed and hide from the world. But I couldn’t. I had to undo the damage I’d done.

I went back to the table. Kathy was smoking one of my fags.

‘Hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I always crave ciggies when I’ve had a few. But I was just waiting to say goodbye. I ought to get home. My head’s spinning.’

Home. So she could phone Siobhan, tell her what I’d said, twist it into lies.

‘Whereabouts do you live?’ I asked.

She told me she lived just across the road, in a block of flats.

‘Do you really have to go?’ I said. ‘I was enjoying myself.’

She looked at her watch, then at her empty glass One thing I’d figured out over the last couple of hours: Kathy had a thirst on her. ‘Well… I guess I could be persuaded to stay for one more. But you’ll have to pay. I’ve got no more cash on me.’

I took out my wallet and looked inside it. There was a ten pound note tucked inside, but Kathy couldn’t see it from where she was sitting. ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Neither have I.’