“I’m not a very good drinker.” Tupper spun the sweating glass of gin round and round on the shiny wooden bar top. “I’ve always been so thin. I get very drunk. And then I vomit.”

Roy jolted out of his reverie. He slid the gin away and grabbed a pint glass. “Why don’t you drink Guinness then?” He found the tap and filled the glass. “It’s got a lot less alcohol than other beers and it’s filling, like eating a slice of cake.”

Tupper took a sip from the dark, foamy pint. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s possible this won’t make me sick.”

Roy topped off his own pint. Tupper Paulsen was already beginning to wear on him. He was like an insane person who’d only just been let out. “Working on anything new?”

Tupper got out his phone. Roy sat down on the stool next to him and peered over his shoulder.

“This is the Flounder. It’s a very thin mattress that feels very thick. This one’s the Artichoke Heart. It’s a fancy artichoke-shaped bowl with a tiny heart-shaped bowl inside it. Oh, and here’s the Hedgehog. It started out as a vibrating tool to itch your itches and remove dead skin and blackheads, but it’s waterproof, so it can also be used in the bath or as a sex toy.”

“Naughty,” Roy said, shocked.

None of Tupper Paulsen’s ideas sounded very good. But then again, neither did a book about a teenage girl in a hurricane in the Bahamas with a backpack full of gold who… Could she somehow wind up on Mars? There were meant to be people there eventually. Newscasters were always banging on about it on the BBC. Maybe his book could be set in the future. The first Martian settlement, with volunteers of all ages. People on Earth were watching, feeling hopeful and skeptical. And the absurd thing—the Roy Clarke does Battlestar Galactica of it—could be that life on Mars wasn’t much different from life on Earth. Basically all anyone ever thought about was food, sex, and going to the toilet.

Roy put down his pint. “Let me ask you this. How far do you take an idea before you decide it’s utter shit, or too difficult, or just plain not going to pan out or whatever?”

Tupper took several gulps of Guinness. “I finish everything. You should see my warehouse sometime. I have at least one version of every idea I’ve ever had.”

Roy imagined an airplane hangar full of rubber cows that shot wine out of their udders and battery-operated kittens with massaging paws. “Fantastic. I’d love to have a look.”

They sipped their beers.