I’m arriving to work later and later each day. Nobody cares to mention anything about it anymore. I do have a kind of freedom as far as time-keeping is concerned; so long as I get something done it doesn’t seem to matter all that much. I arrive at a quarter to one today and then I go to lunch at one.

   I meet an ex-flatmate at the Greek restaurant across the road. Roper looks rougher than usual. This can only mean that he’s back on with his on/off girlfriend, Gussie, who he hates. I don’t care about her either way if I think about it, although her eyebrows do tend to follow you around the room.

   “You remember that Al Capone costume I gave you,” says Roper.

   “No,” I say.

   “Well I need it back. It’s not actually mine, you see.”

   “Why would you ever give me an Al Capone costume?” I ask. Maybe to some people I look fancy dress deficient.

   “Lee Bevan wants it back,” continues Roper.

   “Who’s Lee Bevan?”

   “He’s a punk. A real nasty punk. Works in the warehouse of the firm I used to work for. He lent me the Al Capone costume for a New Year’s once. I never returned it. Now he wants it.”

   “And I suppose if he doesn’t get it, then you’re going to get it?”

   “Exactly,” says Roper. He sweats so much it goes in my drink.

   “Well, I don’t have it, Roper,” I say. “Sorry.”

   Roper looks devastated, “Are you sure?”

   “Quite sure.”

   “Pinstripe two-piece with elasticated trousers?”

   “Nope.”

   “Plastic hat….?” he mimes putting on the plastic hat to see if it jogs my memory. Right now I feel like jogging back to work.

    “You must have lent it to someone else,” I say, trying to bring this conversation to a conclusion, “I have never gone anywhere dressed as Al Capone. I went to a seventies theme night dressed as John Lennon once, though.”

   “I’m a dead man,” groans Roper.

   “Come on,” I say, “over a stupid costume?”

   “I screwed his mother on the weekend too.”

   “You’re on your own on this one,” I say. I stand up to leave and as I’m walking towards the door I suddenly get this vague recollection of using some stripey cloth to scoop vomit into a hat while squatting naked from the waist down in a bathroom in South London.