I look to the sky. ‘That’s your job.’

She makes a firm mouth and bows her head low, like a scolded dog. She used to do this. Martyrdom, I believe they call it.

‘I have my reasons,’ she says. ‘I have a right to still want things for myself, Jenny. I wasn’t thinking of you.’

‘Evidently. All of it is you. I cannot shed you. My work patterns. My love patterns. Good god.’ I look at her, into her big blue bloodshot eyes. ‘You’re scared.’

She doesn’t argue.

‘Did you approach him, or did he approach you?’

‘He said he was looking for models for a new project. I put myself forward and he said yes instantly. He was worried about what you’d think, but I said I’d tell you.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

‘I told you a million times in my head, but I kept putting it off. I even wrote you an email that I didn’t send. Texts I didn’t send. Ridiculous, really! I just got so anxious about it and then it was the day of the shoot and you were off to work and – well, here we are.’

‘Why did you come? To London?’

‘Same reason you always came. To take the taste away.’

I light up another cigarette.

‘Can I have one?’

I light one for her, too. She smokes it with her fingers curled, like an amateur.

The day is fading. The last bands of sun sneak across the square.

She says: ‘I suppose part of me was, on some deep unknown level, hanging on to the idea that you might come home.’

‘What? You turned my room into an en-suite! You threw away all my schoolwork!’

‘I suppose I was trying to look like I’d moved on, you know, to not seem bothered. I think it still hurts that living with me isn’t an appealing prospect for you.’

‘There is no one I want to live with right now, Mum. And I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

She sighs. ‘That’s always been my problem. I knew the kind of man I wanted to die with, but I could never find the one I wanted to live with.’

CHIEF EMOTIONS

So I have a confession to make

You posed naked for Art, too

No, worse: I’m following your mum’s new crush

OH ARE YOU INDEED

Yes

(I am too)

Hhaaha

He’s SUCH A NAUSE

SUCH a nause

He calls himself the CEO, that’s ‘Chief Emotions Officer’, of motivational site Becoming Who You Are

CHIEF EMOTIONS OFFICER

Did you see what he posted this morning? He posted a picture of a zebra in sunglasses with the caption ‘Are you a baller or a bailer?’

He tweets fifty times a day

My intelligence wants to take out a restraining order on him. When I read his dross I feel physically assaulted

Is this actually his job???