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that?”
    â€œIt’s quieter there. Do you have any dope?”
    â€œJust this.” I showed her the remains of the cannabis. “I don’t have any cigarettes or papers though.”
    â€œThat doesn’t matter.” She peeled away the cellophane and nibbled at a corner. “You can just eat it. It’s almost nice.”
    â€œAlmost?” I smiled and bit into the gritty cube. “Will it have the same effect?”
    â€œWe’ll know the answer soon enough. Did Harry sell you this?”
    â€œYou know him?”
    â€œIf you’ve not paid, offer him half of whatever he asks.”
    â€œWhat if he doesn’t like that?”
    She looked me up and down. “You’re bigger than him.”
    â€œHe has friends though.”
    â€œSo pull a knife.” She mimed the action of drawing a blade from its sheath and lunging with it. “Straight into his gut and his friends will run for the hills.” She saw the look on my face and burst out laughing, hiding her mouth behind the palm of her hand. I grabbed both her arms and pulled her towards me, waiting until she was ready for our next kiss.
    â€œKeep your eyes open this time,” I said in a whisper. “I want to see whatever’s in them …”
    For the next week, whenever I walked out of Shakespeare and Company, she was waiting. In deference to the dress she always wore, I’d stopped changing my own clothes, even though Mike had complained, wrinkling his nose as he made show of sniffing my shoulder.
    â€œMate, when was the last time you saw the inside of a shower?”
    But Alice didn’t seem to mind. We would buy a plastic bottle of the cheapest wine and head for the river or the Louvre or the Arc de Triomphe, laughing at the tourists as they posed for their little photos. On one occasion, we indulged in a five-liter cubitainer of red, sharing it with the tramps who congregated near one of the bridges, until a fight broke out and the arrival of the gendarmes sent us scurrying. I had stopped shaving, and Alice would run her hands down my cheeks and across my chin, calling me her “bit of rough.” There was a folded letter in my pocket from my father. I hadn’t opened it, and hadn’t troubled to call Charlotte. Theirs was another world entirely. I could feel myself changing, growing. When Harry grabbed me one night outside the restaurant to remind me of the money I owed, I laid him out with a single punch, after which I had to keep my distance from the restaurant. Not that this mattered—Alice never ate a thing, and that seemed to suit both of us. With money from the bookshop till, I bought us a few grams of cocaine from an African dealer, which killed any appetite remaining. And when Mike nagged me for missing a shift which he had been obliged to cover, I gave as good as I got, until he backed away, hands held in front of him, fear in his eyes at my clenched fists and gritted teeth.
    Oh, yes, I was changing.
    I’d been back to Benjamin Turk’s apartment, but its door remained locked and unanswered. Alice had advised a shoulder-charge, which had left me with nothing other than a large bruise and a slight deflation of ego.
    â€œI could scale the front wall, window to window,” I’d muttered over more pavement wine, receiving an indulgent smile and a hug.
    â€œHe’s often gone for a few days,” she’d sympathized. “He’ll be back soon enough.”
    And then she’d kissed me.
    There hadn’t been any sex as yet, which suited both of us. We were happy to wait for the right moment, the most intense moment. Hugs and kisses, the holding of hands, fingers stroking an arm, cheek or the nape of the neck. She seemed to have no other friends, or none she wouldn’t give up in order to spend time with me, and I felt the same. I wasn’t about to share what we had with Mike or anyone else. Every moment I could, I spent with her.
    Until