My mobile rang. ‘Hello?’ I swerved dangerously near the parked car on my left. ‘Hello?’ I repeated irritably. ‘Who’s there?’

No one spoke, but this time I swore I could hear someone breathing. With a howl of frustration, I threw the phone onto the floor, where its fluorescent face winked up at me mercilessly all the way home.

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

The morning of Bel’s great party, I found Joseph Blake sulking on the office fire-escape. It was a cold sunny day, the sky as clear and bright as a Hockney print, the air fifteen storeys above the Waterloo streets far fresher than the fumes below. I’d sneaked out to have a cigarette, savouring every guilty drag as I contemplated how desperately I didn’t want to go tonight, when I heard a stifled noise.

‘Hello?’ I called quietly up the stairs. No response. ‘Who’s that? Are you okay?’

A minute later, Joseph’s blotchy red face peered down. ‘Oh,’ he said ungraciously. ‘It’s you.’

‘It certainly was the last time I looked,’ I agreed mildly. ‘Cigarette?’ I offered.

He stood and slunk down the stairs towards me, shaking his head at the packet, his blond hair flopping across his eyes. ‘No. I don’t.’

‘No, well, I shouldn’t. But we’ve all got to have a vice or two. Otherwise life’d be awfully dull, don’t you think?’

He shrugged uncommunicatively, bashing a suede brothel-creeper against the metal step.

‘So, d’you want to talk about it?’

He shrugged and bashed again. I felt my skin prickle with irritation. I took another drag of my cigarette. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, Joseph, I can’t help.’

He hesitated for a moment, looking out across the rooftops. Two young men smoked out of a window in the building opposite; one waving cheekily when he saw me glancing over. I waved back. Finally, Joseph muttered, ‘It’s them.’

He flopped his hair toward the office behind us, towards the girls scattered round the open-plan room. I glanced back at them. From outside they looked like an advert for a young fashion house, miniskirted, skinny-jeaned, Ugg boots and stilettos thrust up on desks, expensive messy hair skewered with biros, scribbling furiously and tapping fruity-coloured nails impatiently as they waited for answers from the prey pinioned on the other end of the phone lines. Sometimes the noise inside was so intense, so deafening as they pleaded and persuaded and hammered their keyboards frantically, that you’d have to step out for a moment to literally hear yourself think.

‘They don’t like me.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ But inwardly I sighed. Actually I was sure it was.

‘They never ask me to have lunch.’

‘They just need to get used to you. You should invite yourself along.’

‘They don’t talk to me if I do.’

‘Well, talk to them.’