Ray visits his university friends Emily and Charlie and is given an unusual and demeaning task. Charlie pleads with him to hang about with Emily while he’s away for a few days, convinced that the marriage depends on Emily comparing the hapless Ray unfavourably to her partner.
“It wasn’t a particularly fierce action: I didn’t even tear the page. I’d simply closed my fist on it in a single motion, and the next second I was in control again but of course by then, it was too late.”
Published in Nocturnes, Faber & Faber, 2009
A Personal Anthology 