Typical of a Saturday it’s quiet all day then overrun from four o’clock onwards. The Saturday night wig-out, Gus calls it, when all the clubbers, pubbers and hot-daters look into the mirror and don’t like what they see on top of the head staring back at them. My own head is overdue for a trim, but I don’t plan on doing anything more exciting that a fifteen-hundred-piece forest tonight, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.
‘Don’t seem yourself,’ says Gus.
‘I’m fine. Tired.’
Gus shrugs. If you say so.
‘How’s the er . . .?’ He raises his eyebrows, to indicate, I assume, my romantic involvement.
I shake my head.
Gus pats me on the shoulder. ‘Shit, man.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Plenty more whatsists in the whatsit,’ he says. ‘Knowhadimean.’
‘I know what you mean.’
My phone pings in my pocket. Again. It’s being pinging so often it sounds like a ship’s radar.
Ping.
Gus waggles a finger in his ear. ‘Either I’ve got tinnitus, or someone’s trying to get hold of someone.’