‘No,’ says Scott. ‘I don’t want to share her with anyone, let alone a heterosexual!’ They carry on in this fashion, teasing her and so taking care of her. Maisie says the same things about dating. Becky is thirty-three now. That’s a third of a life, Maisie tells her, with the blissful entitlement of someone who believes anyone she loves will live a hundred years or more.

Does Becky want another child? And someone to have that child with?

Not yet. She doesn’t think so.

Not yet – her watchwords of the last few months. Her mantra. A ‘no’ withheld or postponed. A possibility untested and untaken, but not yet refused.

Becky steps into the cinema foyer. It is an elegant old art deco picture house that smells of filter coffee and musty frayed velvet. She has timed her arrival so that there will be very little hanging around in a lit theatre; in fact, the adverts are already playing.

She buys popcorn and a bottle of Diet Coke. Why not? She has taken a day off work for this, one of her precious ‘annual leave entitlements’. Why not enjoy it? She reconsiders and buys a shiny plastic bag of chocolates as well. Because God knows she is about to need them. Isn’t she?

She picks a seat off to the side and towards the back. It’s midweek, in the middle of the day, and the auditorium is nearly empty, just three other people, all alone, sitting beneath the dancing projector beam. Despite everything, Becky feels a little kick of magic. She loves the smell of the place, the darkness, the way everyone is turned in the same direction. The scale of the pictures. How the sound is loud enough to vibrate in you.

Becky takes out her phone to turn it onto airplane mode. There is a message for her, confirming her meeting for later in the afternoon. Her stomach tightens. She realizes that she is biting her fingernails again. She taps in a quick reply, confirming.

They are to meet on a bench on the north side of the garden in Arlington Square. It’s a school day and they’ll have the place to themselves.

Becky looks up as the official certification card is shown. Medea, rated 15. Becky wonders if they went back and forth to get it there, if anyone ever actually walks out at the warning of strong language and violence, and if she should do it now. But then the film begins.

As the opening titles play, there is the sting, no less keen for its anticipation, of seeing the name of her director – no, not her director, simply the director – float into view.

A film by Sharon McManus.

Everything inside her feels it is flapping and fluttering like a pigeon being chased by a stamping foot. She eats four chocolates in a row, as if they will give her ballast.