What I need now is someone who knows me and doesn't have any oversized emotional baggage attached. Eliza.

'Hey mate, how you doing?'�
'Hey'� I'm gooood,'� she always drew out those middle vowels when said 'good'. 'How are you?'�
'I'm OK. You busy this evening? Fancy a drink?'�
There was the slightest pause. Lize ' rhymes with lies ' is quick enough to pick up on things which aren't said.
'Well, I got some marking to do but that's'� yeah, I'd really like that. Sure, what time? Is 7.30 OK?'�
An hour. 'Perfect. In the Duke?'�
'Yeah, perfect. OK Mike. See you there. Be good to catch up.'�
'OK mate, see you there. Bye.'�

I take off the nice shirt and swap it for a scruffier long-sleeved t-shirt, think about having a sandwich. But the stress has knotted my gut up. Hunger but no desire to eat, so I have another beer instead.

I flop onto the sofa and skip through TV channels. War somewhere. Court case somewhere else. Tony Blair everywhere, trying to explain. Ex-footballers braying at lame jokes. Bart Simpson arguing with Lisa. Nothing to hold my attention. Fuck it. Off to the pub.

The Duke of Somerset is a middling-old pub, tucked away off Wellington Street. It employs a man with learning difficulties to collect glasses, and one of the barmaids looks vaguely like Scarlet Johansson. Another of the barmaids is almost unnervingly attentive, gazing at you as you order. She has very large breasts.

It's Scarlet serving when I get there. We exchange the small talk all semi-regulars exchange with a barmaid they fancy. She's nice enough about it, and smiles at a lame joke. Hell, she maybe even thinks I'm not the worst bloke to look at her arse when she turns to ring up the order on the till. It's a nice arse.

I'm just finishing my first pint when Eliza arrives and she gives me a big hug as only she can.

'Another one?'� She asks pointing at the drink.
'Yeah, go on then.'� She grins and heads over to the bar.

I met Eliza Lucy Heneghan at a party three days before Manny left me. We sat down, started talking about music and ended the night with her teaching me salsa steps. We toyed with the idea of becoming a couple, but realised friendship was the better option. She'd held my arm and wept with me at my father's funeral, talked me through the post-Sasha wilderness. I'd been her confidante when she went through a sexual harassment case, comforted her when one of her students died of cancer.
Up at the bar she looks fragile, her tight blonde curls cropped close to her head and slight frame almost childlike. But she's tough in her own way, and strong enough to be her own woman, despite the efforts of at least two men to change her. They were discarded.

She arrives back at our table and we raise our glasses.

'Cheers.'�
'Cheers.'�
'So, how you doing?'�
'I'm OK. I, uh, got some pretty big news today.'�
'What's up?'� She takes a sip but never stops looking at me. She knows me well enough to know it must be bad.
'Manny. She's, uh'� she's dead.'�
Some sentences command a silence. It's a full 30 seconds before Lize can move her lips.
'Jesus. How? When?'�
'Yesterday. Childbirth.'�
'Oh, Jesus.'�
'Yeah.'�
'What are you gonna'� are you going to the funeral?'�
'I dunno yet. Part of me says yes, part says no. It could get a bit weird.'�
'Yeah, it's been so long. Was she with'�?'� She doesn't need to name him. She'd heard that story often enough to know the damage it had caused.
'Yeah.'�
'Shiiit.'�
'Yeah,'� I reply, raising my eyebrows and looking her right in the eye. 'How the hell do I deal with that?'�
'Do you want to go?'�
'Yeah. I mean, I should. But'� it's digging shit up already. Stuff that should be buried.'�
Lize gives me a long look, but fails to let me off the hook by saying anything.
'Mate, you know life is pretty good at the moment. There's been some shit in the last few years and this is'� I dunno'� shaking some memories loose. And not just about Manny.'�
'That's shock. It's going to happen. Don't be afraid of feeling like crap.'�
Lize does eye contact bloody well and right now I'm skewered.
'I dunno, mate. I dunno.'�
Another silence. We both drink.
'I still think about her, you know? Every now and again. Wonder how she is, what she's doing. Think about calling sometimes. Never did. Never called her.'�
'You'd both moved on. She wouldn't have expected you to.'�
'Yeah. Yeah, I know. Thing is'� I'd kind of forgiven her for what she did. And I never told her that. Never can now.'�
I look up at Lize and she looks at me, knowing what those words mean. And I know I'm going back.
We talk on or, at least, she lets me talk. About Manny. About the things I remember: Walking in the hills, dancing at a charity ball, drinking champagne in front of an open fire, watching hedgehogs fight, and a dozen other memories.
We talk on and on. After the first pint, Lize fetches from the bar two glasses and a bottle of the house white.
By the time we start on the third bottle, she says, slighted slurred: 'I'd come to the funeral with you, mate, but I have exams to watch over on Monday.'�
I nod, suppress a drunken yawn. ''S OK mate. Think I need to do this one on my own.'�

By the time we get back to my place we're roaring drunk and emotional. Lize lives further away and would get a cab but plainly can't be bothered. As she has done innumerable times, she pulls out the folding sofa, and we almost comically fumble with some sheets and a spare duvet.

'Night Lize. Thanks. As always.'�
She's almost zonked out, but still manages: 'No worries. It's what we do.'�
I collapse into my own bed. I'm asleep in minutes and I do not dream.

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