I’d done it once with Art. Towards the end-end. Sent him a shopping list and put ‘chicken breaths’ instead of ‘breasts’ and considered changing it but then left it there because I thought we could both use the laugh.

GOOGLE ME

Nicolette stamps up the stairs and into my room. She’s wearing a sweatshirt that says KILL ALL PODCASTS on it in arching capitals, like the logo of a university.

‘Nice room,’ she says. ‘This is a different one though, right?’

‘Yes, I moved rooms since last time.’

She takes off her shoes and gets into bed beside me. She unpacks the burgers from the paper bag and throws me a few. I unwrap one and shove it into my mouth. ‘Obviously, this is just a brief hiatus from my veganism.’ I recall the time I caught a vegan friend tucking into a dish of sweet and sour pork in Chinatown. Oh! I said. A meat tourist! Genial, you know. She never returned my texts after that.

‘Just happen,’ says Nicolette, chowing down. ‘Just allow yourself to be happening. Stop pre-defining yourself.’

I polish off all three burgers then light up a cigarette. We are side by side in bed, the ashtray between us.

‘Do you think I’m unmaternal, Nicolette?’

‘I think that question is unmaternal, that’s what I think.’

‘You’re so right.’

‘Thank you. I accept the compliment.’

‘You have ketchup on your chin.’

‘See?! You are so maternal right now.’

‘Let me wipe it off for you.’

‘More than my own mother ever did.’

My mother shouts up from downstairs. ‘Do you girls need anything?’

‘No thank you!’ we shout back.

‘She’s just trying to get in on it,’ I say. ‘She’ll be up in a minute with an extravagant drink.’

Nicolette sucks her fingertips and bats a crumb off her phone screen. ‘So what’s she like, his new girlfriend?’

‘She’s my ideal woman.’

‘Fuck.’

I show her some photos of Suzy Brambles.

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘I see your predicament. They look like a cool couple.’

‘What? Why? Because they’re both wearing black?’

‘I like her hair. I’m only being honest.’

I puff on my cigarette. Nicolette pulls out her vape.

‘My love life’s just as disastrous, if that’s any consolation.’

‘It is.’

She sucks hard on her vape and releases a sweet guff of applemint. ‘Last week I went on a date with a man who started off by showing me the floor plans of a flat he was buying. Started off. Most boring date ever. I was like, how do we climax? With your ISA statements? When I said I was leaving early, he said, What makes you so great? I said, Google me.’

‘You actually said “Google me”?’

‘I did.’

My mother comes in with a jug of lemonade on a tray.

‘What’s this?’

‘Homemade. I found a recipe online. It’s very good.’

She pours two glasses.