It’s the journalist from yesterday, Alex. His eyes are a little glazed, and he leans in, enough for her to smell spirits on his breath. ‘So this friend who recommended, whatever, the galleries here,’ he says. ‘What was he? Like a special friend?’

It takes her a few moments to connect with what he’s asking and then she remembers: Scott and the Bonnard Museum. Scott had complained on his Instagram feed that there weren’t enough Bonnards in the Bonnard Museum. He’d wanted to see his favourite painting, Nude In The Bath, which wasn’t there, was never going to be there, actually; something he’d have known if, like Becky, he had bothered to look it up. Becky had stared at the digital image of Nude In The Bath for an age. A body in the bath, stretched out for all to see. A woman’s body, looking like a corpse. His comments had seemed so mocking and victorious; as if, despite everything, he could still take what he wanted from a woman, ogle and gaze and leer at her body like he fucking owned her, like she existed just to sate one of his many appetites. Becky had slammed her fist so hard on the sideboard that it bruised the soft fleshy bit of her hand, tenderized it like one of Scott’s stupid fucking steaks.

Alex leans in again then, suddenly and close, in a way that she had not been expecting.

And she flinches, like he has hit her.

He collects his drink from the bar top behind her and then makes a show of creating a wide berth between them. She can see that he is hurt, because his eyes seem to turn to stone, a dark offence, like she has accused him of something terrible.

‘I …’ There aren’t words to explain her reaction so instead she turns and pushes her way toward the outside. Her foot catches on someone’s bag strap and she falls to the ground.

The flesh on her upper arm is gathered and pinched and she panics at this sense of being held and caught like a fish on a line, and she tries to shake it off by punching her arm outward in a well-mastered jab. It looks like she is defending herself from something. She looks up at the person holding her and it is Alex, surrounded by a sea of shiny, painted, concerned faces.

‘It’s OK, God, I’m just trying to help you up,’ he says.