‘I can dance. Look. Watch. You see? I’ve got moves. I’ve got shapes. I’m a motion wizard.’

‘You can stop now because you have proved your point.’

‘Thank you. I think you are younger than me.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-five.’

‘Wait, what? Thirty-five? I was thinking more like thirty-one or two.’

I don’t know whether the music actually stops or just feels like it stops and suddenly there are two other people in the conversation. She’s thirty-five? Fucking hell!

‘Oh no,’ Konrad says. ‘Really? No way. I never would have said that.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Oh no no no no no.’

‘What?’

‘You have to go home.’

‘Why?’

‘Do you have a husband? Partner? Kids?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want them?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You have to go home. You can’t be doing this.’

‘You can’t send me home!’

Konrad looks at me like he is truly sorry for me. I say: ‘Look, buster, you are the one who is almost completely bald. So. Who needs to go home? Not me. I think the bald person. Who votes for the bald person going home before me? Let’s have a referendum on this.’

Everyone is looking at me, a little sadly.

Konrad is almost my age. Is this why he gravitated to me? I don’t know whether he is bald by nature or design. It’s not the kind of thing you can ask on a first meeting. It bothers me every time I look at Prince William, the recession of his hair to almost nothing, because I do view him as a contemporary for some reason. When Prince William is fully bald I will know that I have to stop going out, for good. But then – where is my own body and hair going? We’ve lost touch. It’s doing its own thing, that’s for sure. It has plans.

Nicolette comes over. ‘What’s going on? Are you okay?’ She bats everyone away. ‘She’s had a tough day.’

I suddenly feel very weary – very weary indeed.

‘Let me get you another drink,’ Nicolette says.

‘You know what, I don’t think I can.’

‘Don’t let them send you home!’

‘No, it’s not that – it’s just … I am all asunder, Nicolette.’ I think of the sofa, and the faces of the people in the TV drama I’m watching, those friends waiting for me on Netflix. I think of a sandwich. I am shamefully, helplessly allured. ‘Is it terrible that I would rather go home right now, Nicolette?’

‘No. I mean, that’s okay, if it’s what you really want.’