‘Still, you never forget when someone has done something for you; you do right by them, don’t you? Forever.’

‘Hm.’

‘There’s a bottle of Amaretto in my suitcase.’

‘I don’t have more than two drinks per night. For my sleep hygiene.’

‘Sleep hygiene? Makes me think of sheep dips.’

‘My phone tracks my sleep and I’ve been coming in short lately.’

‘They’re all trying to be our friends now, the phones, aren’t they, like the banks. The sleep tracking. The health data. That’s how they get us sucked in and make us need them so they can make us miserable again.’ She chugs her drink.

‘Know what I heard? If you have more than two drinks then your body has to spend more time breaking down the alcohol than looking after you.’

‘You know what I heard? If you have more than 3.5 units of alcohol per week, you are 85 per cent more likely to be judged by society.’

HOW I MET KELLY

I was coming home from a press screening. It was rush hour (it was always rush hour). My cab driver was nice, and Magic FM was playing ‘If You Leave Me Now’ by Chicago. I’d made my excuses for the afterparty, but I was dreading getting home, really – to another lounge full of flatmates. I was sick of all the flatmates by then; round after round, their demands and needs and petty thievery. I couldn’t wait to be alone with my imagination. I was so depressed at the prospect of going home that evening I’d taken a £40 cab to cheer myself up. It was only half working. I was mostly thinking, I could have put this in my savings, and been an inch closer.

The weirdest thing was, a black balloon bounced across the road in front of the cab about five minutes before, and the driver swerved and we both said Oh! and I suppose it made us both pay attention a bit more, that standard portent of doom. I certainly had my eyes on the road. We drove on another few minutes and that’s when I saw him: a tiny kid, toddling across the grass verge at the side of the carriageway, heading for the road.

‘STOP THE CAB!’ I yelled, surprised at the sound of my own authority.

The driver stopped. ‘I see him!’ the driver said.

‘I’m going!’ I shouted, flinging open the door. ‘Call the police!’

I still don’t know where this person in me came from.