The artwork had moved by the time James took up his last job, at King’s Cross; it hung in the Gents’ in the Great Northern Hotel bar, adjacent to the station. James went into this bar sometimes to use the toilet during his lunch break, trying to put off going back into the building until the last second. His colleagues all seemed to have existing loyalties and friendships. There was a WhatsApp group which he couldn’t join, as he’d got rid of all the apps like that; they went bowling together, that sort of thing. Waqar, his supervisor, only ever seemed to talk about two, unrelated subjects: his view that people were underestimating the importance of sex robots, and the ‘chunk of change’ that his flat in Watford was going to earn him. In the final few weeks, James had also started going for a drink in the bar, on his own, after his shift finished: normally a double whisky, which had a short-lived dulling effect on his brain. The winter darkness would wrap its glove around the building and James would look at the business mates in their overcoats, drinking in tight little knots; the couples going by outside, with a sense of purpose and anticipation that had left his own life. He would think about the fact that he didn’t belong here in any sense, and yet was sheltering here because he didn’t want to go home either, back to the dripping shower and the silence. He could feel the weight of these places pressing in on him, crushing him like an insect.

And now the YOU CAN CHANGE IT art – hanging next to one of those Andy Warhol four-way portraits – had a mocking quality. Because he had changed it. Found Michaela, sorted his weight out, got a job that made him feel busy and valuable. He’d prided himself, in a quiet way, on those changes, on the progress of his life towards the point where he was seemingly winning. Yet all of it had changed back, and he felt like a fool for believing in what he’d had before. None of it had been real.