There were footsteps on the path.

Phillip was wearing one of her old hoodies and a beaten-up pair of trainers she’d never seen before. No glasses. A pair of khaki shorts she’d also never seen before. She looked at him and laughed, without being able to help herself. The taste of sick was in the back of her mouth.

‘How did you find me?’

‘How do you think I found you?’ Phillip was guiding her up, slowly, and she felt herself leaning into him. Her head felt too light. She was tired.

‘You followed me?’

‘Yes, but it was not fun. As you know, I’m not good at running. And I’m not good at it, especially, at seven thirty in the morning. It’s lucky you kept stopping.’

Michaela laughed out loud this time. The thought of him tailing her doggedly, stopping each time she stopped to check her phone, like the Pink Panther or something.

‘You were right to go. I was being absolutely a penis. I’m sorry.’

‘I was being an absolute penis,’ Michaela said.

‘What?’

‘It sounds better like that,’ she said. ‘It’s weird if you say “absolutely” in the middle of the … anyway.’

‘I was being an absolute penis,’ Phillip said, thoughtfully, auditioning it. ‘OK. Why don’t you ever correct me?’

‘I don’t know. Because I feel like you know everything.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ said Phillip, ‘I just talk like I know.’

She felt his hands on her clammy back, through the sweaty T-shirt.

‘I’m all shitty,’ she said. ‘I’ve been sick.’

‘Yeah.’ Phillip’s arm was around her waist. He slipped the hoodie off his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘We need to get you some water and also you need to keep warm.’

‘Don’t you want to wear it?’

‘Scheiß drauf,’ muttered Phillip as his glasses fell out of the pocket, onto the path. The two of them looked down at the glasses lying there.

‘I would get those,’ she said, ‘but I-I still sort of feel …’

‘Yes, it should be me who picks the glasses up,’ Phillip agreed, ‘but the only problem with this is, I also cannot be bothered to do it.’

They laughed, the two of them together, and she touched his cheek, and for a moment none of the past eight hours needed to have happened.

‘My God,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe we – we haven’t been to bed.’

‘As soon as you left the flat I stopped being an idiot and have gone onto Facebook and tried to help. I’ve got five people to do the re-tweets already, like big people, big names, and here’s the serious news: you know Ai Weiwei? The artist. At Christmas you laughed because someone sent round the picture of …’