A blood pact with drunken thumbs.

Nadia and I went to lunch together at Basaltica, a beautiful cafe in the middle of the forest about Bigsplat - hedges of bay and lavendar, stonework, bare floors, uncluttered walls. It's gorgeous and they make a decent coffee - which is more than can be said for any other establishment anywhere near BigSplat. I wish they'd change their menu more frequently, and it frustrates me that they ruin good food by using familiar grocery items - like (I swear!) Kraft cheese spread and that nasty Trident sweet chilli sauce.

A few nights ago, I woke up in fear, deep in the conviction that the last ten years of our life were just a dream and that we were actually still in Cardwell, trying to save Hinchinbrook. This isn't the first time I've woken with this fear. It's often that time in my life that I fear is the moment of departure from ordinary chronology, but other times have featured too. Perhaps I'm sleeping on a train, or a plane, leaving or arriving. Thailand, Germany, Sweden, Hometown, Sydney. On that bus I once took from London to Newcastle Upon Tyne, the time I let an awkward young man hold my hand the whole way. Sometimes my whole marriage to Gray doesn't feel real. Sometimes I'm so calmly certain - I'm dreaming, someone of us will say to me, in a matter of fact voice. Any moment we're going to wake up, in linen sheets, in China.

I tried to explain some of this to Nadia, and failed, but it didn't seem to matter in the least. There's almost too much goodwill between us, and no urgency to anything. Sometimes I fear that I've exhausted my heart's capacity. Friends are such a terrible burden. We always end up loving them too much and being miserable when things go wrong for them, as they inevitably do.

Drinking my excellent soy latte, smiling at Nadia, I felt reserved and a little wary. Do we have to share each other's deepest fears and secrets? Isn't there a way to be friends without that agonising process, without becoming false? Perhaps I feel less urgent about it because we are no longer seeking to be understood, forgiven, redeemed. We don't regret the friends we made while we were in such spectacular despair, but we don't have it in us to do it again.

And, these days, we have all the understanding we need at Zaphod's Other Head.