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sure I never will be. It’s not something I want.
    Everything was fine before. Before the accident. The bloody miracle. Now he keeps saying how lucky we are and how nothing should be taken for granted and how we need to appreciate everything we have and . . . Christ, it’s enough to drive me to drink only I’m practically most of the way there already.
    This evening takes the biscuit. Takes the biscuits, in fact. The lemon and ginger biscuits that Thomas has baked. From scratch. He has to buy most of the ingredients because there’s never any call for flour or baking powder or what have you in my apartment. He buys some weighing scales too. And a spatula and a mixing bowl. He doesn’t have to get a rolling pin. I have an empty wine bottle he can use.
    I say, ‘I thought we were going out?’ when I come down from my office. I’d said I was writing but what I was really doing was playing Angry Birds on the iPad.
    Thomas says, ‘We’re staying in!’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because we’re celebrating.’
    ‘What are we celebrating?’
    ‘The day we met.’
    ‘It’s not the anniversary. Is it?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then why are we celebrating it?’
    Thomas hands me a glass of champagne. ‘It’s the only excuse I could come up with for drinking bubbly on a week night.’
    I nod because that’s fair enough. We clink. Thomas says, ‘To Aer Lingus. Where romance takes off.’ And then he laughs because he happens to think that’s pretty funny.
    I only noticed Thomas after the pilot made the announcement. Something about the discovery of a ‘suspicious package’ in a cubicle of the mens’ toilets in Terminal Two. I was in the aisle seat. I always pick an aisle seat so I can get in and out without having to talk to anybody.
    We were sitting on the runway at Dublin airport. I lifted my head and looked out of the window for the first time since I’d boarded at Heathrow, and that’s when I saw him. In the window seat. I don’t know how I’d missed him before. The height of him. The top of his head nearly brushing against the call button. He was wearing a well-cut suit that suggested a banker or a broker but there were spatters of muck at the ends of the trousers. His tie had been yanked away from his neck, like it had been choking him. It was a sombre navy with tiny pink sheep dotted up and down it. His smile was superfluous, I felt, given our situation. His hair was long, curly ropes of grey, all different lengths, as if it had been cut with shears by someone who may not have been a qualified hairdresser. He had a thick fringe that fell to curious grey eyes. His face wasn’t just weather-beaten. It was much worse than that. It looked like it had been attacked by a gale-force wind. He had one of those ‘Irish’ noses: long and narrow. He had one of those ‘full’ mouths: wide and fleshy. The Farmers Journal was stuffed into his laptop bag and he was holding a copy of Dirty Little Secret , which happens to be the first of the Declan Darker books. A dart of something like electricity shot through me. I didn’t know why. I had seen lots of people reading my books over the years.
    That’s when he looked up and caught me staring. He smiled. He said, ‘Are you going to finish that?’ His voice was unexpected. The tone of it. It made me think about Wispa bars, for some reason.
    He nodded at the remains of the sandwich I had ordered from the steward earlier.
    I shook my head.
    ‘Would you mind if I have it? It’s just . . . they’ve stopped serving here and it’s past teatime and I’m maddened with the hunger. I had dinner at one o’clock.’
    I looked at my watch. It was thirteen minutes past five in the evening.
    He said, ‘I’m sorry. I wouldn’t normally ask but there’s no telling when we’ll get off this bird, with the situation inside.’ He nodded towards the terminal building.
    I handed him the box. I said, ‘It’s not very fresh but . . .’
    The remains of the sandwich were gone in two bites. He