Karen led her into a little sitting room crowded with books. They were on the shelves and on the tables, but also on the floor beside the armchair. The room was quite dim apart from the pool of light around the armchair and the glow of an electric fire, which lit up some black and orange logs with the brazen fraudulence of what would have been kitsch, if the rest of the room hadn’t pointed towards austerity and indifference. In the first awkward minutes Karen poured some tea and Olivia turned down a biscuit. Once Karen was sitting in the armchair, a tortoiseshell cat jumped into her lap and she began to stroke it with an emphatic haste that seemed to have more to do with her own state of mind than any needs the cat might have.

‘There was an unframed photo lying flat on one of the lower bookshelves,’ Olivia told Francis. ‘It looked to me like a younger Karen holding a baby in her arms. Is that burning?’ she interrupted herself.

‘Oh, fuck,’ said Francis, jumping over her. ‘I was too caught up in your story. Tell me what happened over dinner,’ he said, opening the smoking oven and salvaging the unusually crispy potatoes and chicken.

She did tell him the rest of the story over dinner and felt even closer to him than before. They stayed close for the next three days until they were forced apart that morning. Soon, mercifully, they would be back together.

As she approached Noble Rot, Olivia could see through the big glass windows that Francis had already arrived and that Lucy was there also, but at a separate table. It was strange to see two people she knew so intimately sitting in the same room, alone and unknown to each other, waiting for her arrival to create a new compound, like a clear liquid suddenly swirling with colour as a third solution is poured into it. At least, she hoped that’s what would happen. Francis got up while she was still outside, as if he had already seen her, or sensed her in some other way, although he had been reading when she first spotted him. He opened the door for her and kissed her hello. Lucy was slower to notice her arrival, but soon came over and gave Olivia a big reunion hug. After Olivia had introduced her friends to each other, they were all led to a table at the far end of the restaurant, where Lucy sat down in the corner with her back to the wall, facing Olivia and Francis.

‘I love this restaurant,’ said Olivia, leaning gently against Francis, ‘but I thought you said Hunter’s flat was in St James’s.’

‘It is,’ said Lucy, ‘but I had to go to the Neurology Hospital in Queen Square.’

‘Oh, no, are you okay?’ said Olivia.