Free Goodnight Steve McQueen by Louise Wener

gangs of hairy men in their best white shirts chasing hopelessly after them.
    There’s a full moon. It’s warm and muggy and close and some of the nearby restaurants have spread their tables out on to the street: a few stragglers are drinking liqueurs and pretending to be continental while the waiters pace about in circles wondering if they’re ever going to leave.
    “I’ve been sick,” she says matter-of factly
    “Thought you might have,” I say, sitting down next to her.
    “I think I’d like to go home now.”
    “No problem,” I say. Till nip back inside and tell everyone that you’re not feeling well.”
    “You ruined my night,” she says, stubbing her cigarette out on the kerb.
    “I know. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”
    “So where were you, then?” she says, trying to meet my gaze. “Coz, you know, even you couldn’t make mowing a lawn take that long.”
    “I went into town,” I say. “I wanted to buy you a leaving present but it all took much longer than it should have on account of the Ant and Dec question, and then Sheila turned out to live in the Amazonian rain forest and then she wanted to show me her photos of Antwerp and then ..
    .”
    “You’re a very weird person,” she says, softening slightly. “You’re a very weird person, Danny McQueen.”
    And then she throws up again, spilling her multicoloured guts all over the parched summer pavement and clearing the last stragglers away from their tables. The waiters are grateful. And I lift her up, hail us a taxi and carry her back home to bed.
    Alison has gone without me. The reason I know she’s gone without me is because she’s left me a note.
    Dear Danny, it says, I’ve gone without you. You looked so peaceful I didn’t want to wake you up. I’ll call as soon as I get in. Love you lots Al x.
    Well, that’s a lie for a start. I never look peaceful when I’m asleep. I honk and fidget and dribble and snore and I quite often get woken up in the middle of the night by Alison digging me in the ribs and telling me to shut the hell up. I wanted to go with her. It was going to be great. I was going to wave at her from the platform like Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter. I was going to kiss her on the forehead and wish her luck and she was going to cry her eyes out and tell me how much she was going to miss me. I was going to buy myself a stale chicken tikka baguette and wait around with her bags while she went to look at lacy pants in Knicker Box.
    Alison loves shopping at departure points. Airports are her all-time favourite, but I know she’ll be indulging in some quality retail activity at the Eurostar terminal. I can see her now: nipping into Smith’s for a copy of Hello! (she only reads Hello! when she thinks no one will see her), ordering a cappuccino from Costa Coffee, popping into Body Shop for kumquat-flavoured toiletries and wandering into Knicker Box to eye up the rails of skimpy underwear.
    Under normal circumstances I might spend some quality time imagining Alison in skimpy underwear at this point, but I’m not really in the mood. Why didn’t she bother to wake
    me up? We agreed last night that I’d drive her to Waterloo. It’s not like I can’t get up early when I have to, it’s not like I have to stay in bed all morning, it’s just that I tend to go to bed late. It’s just that daytime telly doesn’t really kick in until after the Jerry Springer show comes on. Not unless you count the Columbo reruns on BBC Choice. I love Columbo reruns, I love how everyone thinks Columbo is a complete numbskull when actually he’s a super-cunning detective genius.
    I look at Alison’s note again. There’s a clear subtext hidden between the lines. She may still love me but she’s definitely beginning to lose respect for me.
    The living room is a mess; pieces of crumpled wrapping paper all over the floor and yesterday’s food spread out across the dinner table in a deep greasy pile: the MS ready meal that we were too hung