DRUG ADDICTION IS 98 per cent hunger, 2 per cent feast; you get accustomed to bad news. But I had no inkling when I picked up the phone on that grim afternoon that what Anna told me would propel us even deeper into the shit. I listened and hung up. The day took on a dreamlike quality, faintly absurd, dark at the edges.

My girlfriend, Tess, was sitting at the kitchen table when I went back in. She was like one of Schiele’s women – all elbows and eyes and hunger. ‘Who was that?’ she asked. ‘You look terrible.’